Shando’s best friend since fourth grade came to visit us from Washington DC. We were honored to have him as Shando’s best man. He was an amazing guest. We dragged him to Point Isabel. You can faintly see the Golden Gate Bridge behind Shando and him. He’s also featured in a lot of wedding photos. This was actually my first time meeting him, although met a huge number of his extended family when we would visit Shando and his hometown in Bucyrus, Ohio.
Donita and I have been friends since at least 1984!
Shando didn’t get to his 25th year HS reunion in Bucyrus, Ohio, this year, but he did join me at my 30th Reunion in Fremont. My high school was technically in Union City. It was a lot of fun and I got to reconnect with a lot of people I hadn’t really been in touch with for a long time. I also got to show off Alex because she happened to stop by toward the end after she attended a conference nearby in Silicon Valley.
My good friend Jim Purpura visited again in March from New York (it was actually Easter Weekend) when he was in town for work. We had brunch at Cafe Flore.
Visited my gay dad friends of many years, Mike and Todd, at their new place near Santa Cruz, where we had taken our kids to play on the beach years ago. It’s a lovely area and the weather was just perfect. Great company, great food, and great conversation were also at hand. We stopped by the visitor’s center where they had a new aquarium on display. The S.S. Palo Alto was also a topic of discussion. The cement-based ship was brought from Oakland and sunk to become a night club and swimming pool for years until a series of storms eventually turned it into a new ecosystem for the birds and marine life.
We only stopped by for a little while, but it was nice to see a bunch of people we hadn’t seen in a while. The Yorkie shown is NOT ours, but rather one of a friend of ours who I’ve known for years. I was glad to get the picture with the Hillary placard. I have one with Obama from eight years ago! The corndog prop I’m holding is known as a “porndog,” in case you’re wondering. I’m vegetarian, but it was a prop that my friend John had many of his friends hold. I don’t know if he even ate it afterwards!
While waiting to catch the ferry to Alcatraz we had breakfast and took some pictures and video.
Had a nice, short evening with friends Mike (dinner at Harvey’s) and Starbears with Mike and Ric. I stopped by 440, but the headed back to the East Bay. Nice guy on BART with a T-mobile Android system phone asked me about my Droid. Happy that there is very little chance of rain tomorrow.