Warren's Place

Last Thursday was a glorious Day.

--Warren

In France?

No, it's actually in Carmel, CA. We were on one of our weekend getaways to Carmel. This is actually the side of a French restaurant/bakery in Carmel.

--Warren

Then Picture: at Lowell High School, 1975, Our Senior Year

Gail and I were high school sweethearts. We became "a couple" in our senior year. We were young and in love, meaning we loved each other, but I don't think we really knew what love really meant. We were typical teenagers, idealistic, but not really knowing where our lives would be heading. Were those really the "good old days" that everyone likes to refer to? I understand what that phrase means now. Yes, when we look back, they were fun times. It's great to be carefree, a little naive, and just living for the moment. This is something that goes away over time as we all deal with life's challenges and responsibilities, but hopefully it's something that all of us can rediscover before it's too late.

Now Picture: at Lowell High School, 2005, 30th Reunion Picnic

For the second picture, we looked for the same spot in the outer courtyard, next to the flagpole. The flagpole was removed a while ago when they rearranged the courtyard, so we just tried to do a similar pose on one of the benches.

Here we are, thirty years later, we will be married for 23 years in May 2006. a lot older, and hopefully a little wiser than we were. Wow! Thirty years worth of old friends, meeting new friends, traveling, careers, highs, lows, good times, bad times, world changes, and we're not done yet! It was quite a ride, but I think the best is truly yet to come.

As we inch toward the "new middle age" (50 years old), we are dealing with the typical problems for people in this category. Things like health problems, career burnout, aging parents, deaths of loved ones, and worrying about our retirement planning. Gail and I do not have children, otherwise, you can add "family growth issues" to the list.

We can only do our best to deal with life's little roadblocks, but I'm thankful that I am able to continue sharing my life's experiences with Gail.


--Warren

For years, I've been driving down Bush Street near Japantown in San Francisco watching this old church deteriorate. The old wooden facade was faded and crumbling. I thought for sure that the abandoned church was a candidate for a tear-down and replace job one of these days. I just found out that it's actually an old, abandoned synagogue from the 1890's.

Well, as it turned out, the old synagogue structure was saved from destruction, and converted into a senior citizen assisted-living facility. They tried to preserve as much of the old building as possible. These are pictures of the original main entrace to the church. It has been converted into a large picture window. I was walking by one day in the middle of a photo excursion when I noticed the reflection of the classic San Francisco Victorian homes across the street, framed by the old church doorway and columns.

You can read more about the synagogue's conversion in this ARTICLE. A museum also exhibited artifacts from time capsule that was put inside a cornerstone of the synagogue's foundation that was found during the renovation. You can view these on the museum's website.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

--Warren

To continue from the previous post, here's the view of SBC Park from our seats.

--Warren

This picture was from one of the last games of last season (2005).

The S.F. Giants lost yesterday's opening day game to the San Diego Padres in San Diego 6-1. Barry Bonds hit a ground-rule double in his first at-bat of the season. He was driven home by Lance Niekro's single for the only Giants score of the game.

Baseball season is always special to me because following the exploits of the Giants was one of the only activities that my dad was able (or wanted) to do, and share with me during the few years before he passed away. His memory, eyesight, and general health were failing, yet somehow he was able to talk about the Giants and he still remembered some of the players, and we were still able to talk baseball every day. When he could no longer see well enough to watch TV, he had his radio tuned in to the game instead.

Being at that game last season was a bittersweet moment for me since my dad was gone by then, and I thought about him when I was watching the game, and about how much he would have enjoyed being at SBC Park with us.

--Warren