A Nice Surprise-The Toy Boat Dessert Cafe

Like a lot of my adventures, they are not planned and this one was not. When I was at Green Apple Books, I needed to use the restroom and they did not have one. The guy at the counter pointed me to the Toy Boat Dessert Cafe and said use theirs. I went and told them that the Green Apple sent me and they pointed me that way. After I got done at Green Apple I went there for lunch and had a great time. It is like a sandwich/dessert shop and a vintage toy store. Super Cool:

Inside the door of the bathroom.

Got to love Pez

The inside of The Toy Boat

Got to love it

A vintage play nurse set from the 50's

Cookies

Homemade goodies

Their menu

Lunch-A grilled cheese with chips. It was good

Love the giant vintage 7up bottle

This place is so cool. It will be must for me.

Green Apple Books

The front of Green Apple Books

For a long time I have wanted to go to Green Apple Books in San Francisco. I just could not find the time to  head over there. Someone gave me a gift card for my birthday and I found the time to head over there and it was worth it. The place was too cool and it will become a regular on my book shopping trips;

Love this guy outside

Inside

Another view from inside

They have cool names for their rooms (above) and below

And the knowledge is also

Love these masks on the wall

A great place to sit and read

Books

Green Apple Books is a great place to find what you need. I will be back.

The Beat Museum Bookstore

The other day I was up in the North Beach section of San Francisco and headed over to the The Beat Museum. The Beat Museum is dedicated to the Beats which was a collection of artists, writers and thinkers that hung out in San Francisco in the late 50's. Some of the Beats were the poet Allen Ginsburg and writer Jack Kerouac. The Beat Museum has two parts: The Museum and the Book Store. I just went to the Book Store and have to go back to the Museum. The Book Store is really cool, they have a lot of cool stuff:

Inside the Beat Museum Book Store

A first edition copy of "Visions of Cody" by Jack Kerouac

The Evergreen Review-San Francisco Scene from 1957 includes Allen Ginsburg's "Howl"

From 1986-The Last of the Moccasins by Charles Plymell

From 1989-Sin for Breakfast by Mason Hoffenberg

From 1959-Protest-The Beat Generation and the Angry Young Men

Anybody who sells Grateful Dead books is tops is my book

And this is going to sound goofy-but they have a large collection of old Playboy mags for sale which I thought was a little cool. The Beats were about freedom of speech and Playboy is certainly that:

An old Playboy-Sorry I did not get the date of it

Part of the Playboy section

Loved this painting they had on the wall

The actual car used in "On the Road" which came out in Dec. 2012

If you have any counterculture in you and are in the North Beach section of San Francisco-Head over to the Beat Museum. You do not have pay for the museum as the bookstore part is super cool.

College Baseball: Cal vs. Michigan 2-17-13

After showing off Evans Diamond, here are some pics from the game:

Michigan's Evan Hill pitching

Andrew Knapp of Cal hitting a flyball

Jacob Cronenworth of Michigan coming back to the bench

Cal's Devon Rodriguez hitting a single

Michigan's Travis Maezes watching is ball hit off Haas Pavilion

The next couple pics are of Michigan's starting shortshop Dylan Delaney. I met his parents at the game as I was asking Michigan fans about their team. His parents were really nice folks and I hope that he has a nice season for Michigan:

Dylan Delaney taking a pitch

Dylan Delaney getting the bat on the ball

It was a great game as Cal won 2-1 in the bottom of night and I got to take home a piece of the game:

My ball that caught on a bounce

A Look at Evans Diamond-Home of Cal Baseball

The entrance to Evans Diamond-home of Cal baseball

The sign on the Jackie Jensen pressbox

Evans Diamond is one of my favorite places to watch a baseball game. It has great sight lines and no matter where you are sitting you have a great seat. It seats 2,500 The one bad thing that it is old-built in 1933 and is no longer deemed up to standards to hold NCAA Tournament games-such as 2011 when Cal had to host the Super Regional at Santa Clara. Help is on the way as lights will be installed and the first night game will be held March 28th of this year and will be able to host large TV crews so games can be televised from there. One strange thing about Evans is that its orientation has the catcher and batter facing southwest into the mid-afternoon sun, the usual orientation of a baseball diamond is east-southeast. Even though it is old, it is still a great place to watch a game and my favorite college baseball stadium:

A view of the field from behind home plate

From the third base line

The only scoreboard in right center-they will be getting a modern one by March 28th. The wall is the backside of Edwards Stadium-Home of Cal track and soccer

The view from the first base side

Another quirky thing about Evans Diamond is the big building along the third base side  is the back of Haas Pavilion -Home of Cal basketball and volleyball. A lot of foul balls hit off it.

Evans Diamond may not the be the most modern place to watch a college baseball game, but it is great. It takes you back in time before college sports became a staple on TV and money got in the way. It is a great way to spent a sun-splashed afternoon.

A Little Something for Presidents Day

A 2008 Obama button I own,. It was the only I could find. I have a lot of others from both parties in a box somewhere

Even though most people think of Presidents Day as honoring the combined birthday's of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln two of our greatest Presidents, I decided to take a different approach and honor all of the men that have been President. It is clearly one of the toughest jobs in the world and only 44 men over the last 230 years know what it is like.

Here are some of my favorite books that I own about the Presidents:

"The Day Lincoln Was Shot" by Jim Bishop was published in 1955 and it chronicles the last 24 hours of his life from 7:00am on Friday, April 14th 1865 until 7:22am on Saturday, April 15th. It follows and goes into detail the deadly chain on events of Lincoln's assassination. Really good read even if it is dated







Margaret Truman's great biography of her father Harry S. Truman.  I have always thought that Truman was a great President who did a lot for this country. A lot of people mis-understand Truman. He was a very honest man who was throw into a really tough situation after FDR died. As Vice-President he was not given much information by FDR and FDR's people and then boom he was President rubbing shoulders with Churchill, Stalin and helping to remake the World at the end of WWII. I think the thing I really admire about him is that he was earthy and straight-forward, something that is missing today.

"Ike's Bluff" by Evan Thomas is a new one in my library and it is a good one. It is about President Eisenhower and how he manged to keep the peace during the beginning of the Cold War when many of the Generals in the U.S.Army wanted to blow the Soviet Union off the map with a first strike. After reading this book, I learned a couple of things about Ike-that he was really smart and would have been a super poker player. He kept his cards close to his vest and thank god we had him for a President during the beginning of the Cold War.

"Campaigning for President" is a great book just to look at as it shows some of the different stuff that different people trying to achieve the office have used to sway voters. I like it because it is an easy fun book to look at and I like looking at the different ways that candidates have tried to sway voters throughout our history.

"Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents" by Cormac O'Brien

Above is my favorite about the Presidents it goes a little deeper than most books do and it tells us facts that they do not teach in school. Examples:

- That three of the first five presidents (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe) all died on July 4th.
-That John Quincy Adams swam nude in the Potomac River every day.
-That Martin Van Buren's cure for an upset stomach was a mixture of soot and charcoal mixed in water.
-That Queen Victoria called Millard Fillmore the handsomest she ever met.
-That James Buchanan would stop by Jacob Baer's distillery on way to church on Sunday and would pick up a ten-gallon cask of "Old J.B."
-That William Taft never wanted to be President. He got the job he really wanted after his Presidency- Chief Justice of the United States.

It goes on and on. It is a great book.

Enjoy the holiday and remember the 44 brave men who have been U.S. Presidents.

Valentine's Day Origins

One of the 130 Heart Sculptures in San Francisco. This one is located in Union Square.

 We think of Valentine's Day as sort of a Hallmark Holiday. Buying flowers, jewelry, candy, etc.

Bubbly for Valentine's Day

 But it does have interesting origins dating back to Roman times. I copied this from the web (I have read the same story on many different web sites and this was the most concise):

Valentine’s Day-It all started many centuries ago, during those times when being a Christian was against the law. One of the legends says that a Roman Emperor Claudius the Second had forbidden his men to marry. He wanted them to be heartless and fearless soldiers, free of wives and girlfriends. Claudius apparently decreed that no marriages should be celebrated and that all engagements be broken off immediately. But one of the Christian priests didn’t obey the Emperor’s edict. Like Father Lorenzo in Romeo and Juliet, this priest (whose name was Father Valentine) secretly performed marriages in and around the city of Rome. Found out not too long later, Valentine was imprisoned where he languished and died. Legend has it devoted friends buried him in the church of St. Praxedes on the fourteenth of February, 270 AD.Father Valentine was a kind and wise person who had a lot of friends. They begged the Emperor to free him and sent letters and flowers to jailed Valentine. Many experts think that these were the first letters and flowers sent on Valentine’s Day. Another story says that Valentine was an early Christian in the time when Rome was unfriendly to this upstart religion. For helping some Christian martyrs he was seized, dragged before the prefect of Rome and cast into jail. There he was said to have fallen in love with, and cured the keeper’s daughter, Julia, of blindness. When news of this miracle spread, Rome’s leaders gave orders that Valentine should be beheaded. The morning of the execution, he is said to have sent Julia a farewell message signed, “From your Valentine.”

So as you enjoy this day of love and everything always remember it was not a great day for Fr.Valentine in either legends.

Saw this is in a local Sunglass shop and thought it was interesting

It is in my house

Enjoy Valentine's Day-A day of peace and love.