Back at it Again

So thanks to facebook's memories function and Aunt Noelle's friendly reminder, I decided it would be cool to get back into using this blog as a means of sharing my life stuff with people I don't get to see regularly. This post will just be catching y'all up on what I'm doing these days.

I still work at Blue Bottle Coffee, as the lead barista at a busy cafe. I'm makin' coffee, teachin' other people how to make coffee, and trying to make coming to the cafe a good experience for people on both sides of the counter. Check out the store on instagram to see dozens of pictures of the cafe, plenty of them with me in them, taken by folks from all over the world. Scroll down a bit and there's a video of me pouring a capp and finishing with a winning smile.

Yizhen and I have been getting more into hiking and camping, trying to hit the trail every weekend and pitch a tent as often as we can. The redwood forests of the central and northern California coast are pretty magical places to be. Being surrounded by trees that were already huge when the first europeans arrived in north america, and will still be standing when my great grandchildren are zooming off to mars, is a pretty humbling and rejuvenating experience.

Right now I'm reading a few books. The first is a collection of three novellas by Jim Harrison, the dude who wrote Legends of the Fall. This book is called The Ancient Minstrel. Really good prose about country life and man living with nature type stuff. I'm also reading Learn Python the Hard Way by Zed Shaw and learning a little bit about computer programming.I read the Bible most days: today I'm contemplating 1 Thessalonians. Chapter 5 is full of thought provoking verses.

Musically, I've been really liking Malcolm Holcomb lately, he's a North Carolina songwriter who has a raspy Tom Waitsish voice and a cool percussive style of guitar playing. His album To Drink the Rain would appeal all all three of my readers, I think. I've also been listening to Grimes - Canadian, spastic, dreamy pop - and Mastadon - Atlanta, intricate heavy metal, cookie monster shouting.