Mans Best Friend

Outer San Francisco with MT and Tutuli

The Ultimate Rejection

Making my calls in order to drum up sales - that's what us sales professionals do. Called a woman from a theatre organization in San Francisco yesterday and she cut straight to the chase asking me:

Her: "Are you selling advertising?"

Me: "Absolutely"

Her: "Well, we're definitely not interested"

Me: "What if I could show you how cost-effective it really is and..."

Her: "Not even if you're giving us money and a Panda"

Me: "OK... Thanks for your time and take care."

(Alt Me: "How 'bout a drink of water and a moist TOWELETTE!")

People Sleeping Outside - UC Berkeley

Walking down Bancroft in Berkeley finishing up my third week in the trenches in the war on personal poverty - working it real hard in the real word. I passed this guy thinking 'take a picture' which I would normally do. Doubling back, I was conscious of not being constantly armed with my camera anymore and missing all these great shots every day. To see San Francisco from foreign eyes for the first time. Fantastic. To see people sleeping in the street is not.

Street - San Francisco's Mission District

Cal Santos' BIG Night Out in the Dub C

Tales from the Burbs

Lafayette, CA - An affluent suburban community like many others throughout the United States.
It's really home away from home but where is home really - where I was born, different places where I grew up, the city where I've lived the most or the place that calls out louder than all others? Or, the place where I'm staying right now thanks to my new roommates Deborah and Shea and calling home? It's good to be back in the San Francisco Bay Area with my extended community of friends, which more than any other place, now feels like home.

- Where did all of my free time go? Working full-time for someone else - Mon-Fri for more than 8 hours a day - is something I'm not accustomed to and now that the newness has worn off the harsh reality is slowly sinking in.
- It's amazing at how quickly South America suddenly seems so far away again.
- I missed summer, leaving Argentina at the end of a cold winter and then travelling for a month in torrential rains in Costa Rica and now returning to a beautiful and mild California fall, transitioning slowly back into winter.
- Ever notice that there is no term in English for people from the United States or US citizens? Like if you're from England you're English or if you're from Argentina you're Argentine. We just say "I'm American," which simply means I'm from the American continent or I'm North American, from the north part of the American continent. In Spanish, we call ourselves 'Estado Unidense' which literally means a US Citizen. But when out of the country and asked where I'm from, I just say California, never the United States. It's good to be Californian.
- People watch a lot of TV, everywhere in the world. But most of that TV comes from California
- I saw an unruly BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) passenger attack two other passengers. Just as the moment of truth had arrived and I was getting up to enact all of my Mixed Martial Arts training the attacker fell back into his alcohol induced stupor and I called the incident into the train operator. After assisting the local police in ID'ing the suspect and making the arrest I walked home in the dark crisp cool air reflecting on the potentially serious incident.