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Daly City Party Playhouse

You’ll notice Daly City keeps popping up in my blog. That’s because I consider it the San Francisco Annex. If you want a nice chain store like Home Depot, Target or Walmart you have to go outside SF and that usually means the peninsula or in this case, Daly City. Today was another one of those, “What to we do with our daughter?” kind of days. We decided to go the Party Playhouse with a friend of our daughter’s so they could have fun together.

First off, this place is AWESOME! I think I’m saying that because they encourage the parents to explore the large structure with their kids. For $6 you get an hour, but they don’t have party playhouse police coming to tell you that you have to leave or pay up again after an hour. There’s lots to climb around in as the structure from my estimate is about 40′ long by 20′ wide by 20′ high.

20′ high? Who’d let their kid climb to that kind of height? Well, that’s where this was very well thought out. If your kid falls inside they have at most 1.5′ to fall and it’s all padded. REALLY padded. There’s ball pits, big balls, things that swing into you ropes to crawl across the padded rooms and slides, slides, slides. It has just about everything a kid could want and if they get tired inside they have a few games like skee-ball and cars and trucks to ride for the smaller ones. For older kids they have an arcade that’s open on weekends. Out in front there are comfy couches for the adults to sit and watch or read one of the numerous magazines or newspapers they have. There’s also an adult getaway room with a pool table, foosball and Tulley’s coffee available. All in all it was a blast.

Now that our daughter has used up her energy we had to feed her and so we took a trip to In-N-Out burger with a stop by [mappress mapid=”12″]Krispy Kreme for some doughnuts to take home. What I always love about Krispy Kreme is when you order a dozen doughnuts they always ask, “For here or to go?” I don’t know about you, but I have never sat down and eaten a dozen doughnuts at one time, but thanks for asking. While this wasn’t the healthiest trip out for us I’m sure my daughter has burned off all the calories she got from the 100% trans-fat free junk food she had for lunch.

Total cost for 3 people: Just over $20. Yet another deal. Check out the party playhouse even if you have to borrow someone’s kid to go there.

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Christmas Day: The Insanity Ends!

Ah, it’s finally over. I think the reason everyone is happy on Christmas Day is because the insanity that has led up to it is finally over. I was in a Safeway yesterday and was pushed out of the way by the woman who actually yelled to her friend, “This is what I love about San Francisco, everyone stands around blocking the aisles and talking!” Which she did while blocking me and talking to her friend. In the afternoon I took my daughter to the California Academy of Sciences which you can see pictures of in the photo galleries. There was a couple standing holding hands at arms length that I couldn’t go around so I said, “excuse me” FOUR TIMES. I was ignore until I decided to change my phrasing, “If you don’t let me pass I’m coming through you!” “Oh, I’m sorry.” I’m sorry? That line implies we heard you the first four times, but were just ignoring you.

Well, I can put that all behind me now. The crazy shoppers will be gone I suppose until the after Christmas sales start, but that will be only short lived. I didn’t get my wife anything for Christmas except for giving her more time away from having to deal with our daughter which is a delight when you kind of have to work 24/7 on a job that you don’t get paid for. I rewarded myself with a bottle of Knob Creek bourbon and prime rib which we’ll get another dinner out of tonight.

I don’t understand the craziness anymore before Christmas what with everyone being able to purchase presents online without  having to bash it out at a store full of monkeys on meth. Hell, I pulled out my iPhone and ordered a few things from Amazon without having the leave the living room and I got them at a great deal with free shipping and no tax and they arrived on time. So next year, don’t slug it out with people at the stores. Hug your postal worker or UPS delivery guy instead. It’ll make you more sane.

Here’s a few pics of Christmas morning for you at our house.

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Christmas Eve: The Way It Used To Be

I woke up this morning and was gifted with a few minutes to lay in bed and let my mind wander. I went back in time to when I was a kid and remembered how Christmas Eve used to go. It usually started around 4:30 in the afternoon. There would be a knock at the door and it would be one of our neighbors with a bottle of booze who dropped by to spread some Christmas cheer.

My Mom would usually start early on December 23th putting together appetizers because she was always known as the one in the neighborhood who could cook. The neighbors would come in and have a few drinks eat a few appetizers and then stagger off to the next house. This would continue until around 8 o’clock when my Dad would have to be propped up at the table to eat and my Mom who was smart enough to switch from gin and tonics to just tonic after the first 3 or 4 could put the meal together.

Back in those times if the cops pulled you over and asked if you’d been drinking you could say “yes, but I’ve only had a couple of drinks” which really meant 8-10 and they’d wave you on or tell you to go straight home. We knew all our neighbors back then so we had lots of knocks at the door and I think our liquor cabinet was stocked for the rest of the year. I was probably one of the few 10 year olds who could bartend and every one thought it was cute. I liked it because one year someone grabbed a brandy snifter and put a $5 bill in it which was my first tip jar.

The next morning was a little rougher for all except myself. My Grandmother was built of steel so she could pound back 4 Manhattans and wake up and wash all the dishes from the night before. Ah, the good ole days. My family never had to go a wandering so to speak on Christmas as it always came to us.

Well, times have changed and I doubt we’ll have any knocking on our door as the only people we know in the same neighborhood now are our new neighbors next door that we might have a drink with or at least say Merry Christmas to and our other neighbors who are Orthodox Jews and Hanukah’s over so they don’t really care. The only tradition left is that I like to crack a bottle of good scotch or small batch bourbon like Knob Creek, but I won’t be swilling them back until I can’t remember what I did tonight. I’ll leave those days to my parents who are gone now, but I’ll definitely raise a glass to their memory.

So to all my friends, be nice to your liver over the holidays and be healthy so we can do it again next year!

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The Doelger Center

Since our daughter has two weeks off from pre-school we have to find something to do with her so she doesn’t build up enough energy to explode. So this morning we decided to take her to the California Academy of Sciences. Unfortunately we left a little before noon and the garage was full which means that the Academy would be full as well. Since our little one doesn’t like big crowds too much we made a change in plans.

Now normally I try to focus on San Francisco, but the Doelger Center is almost San Francisco because it’s right over the boarder into Daly City right before you get the Westlake. The Doelger Center is open on Wednesdays from 12pm-2pm and Fridays from 10am-2pm, but this was the last day it would be open before the end of the year.

If you have kids, this is a great place. For only $4 you can stay as long as you like. They have a bouncy house which for the $4 is worth it alone, but they also have lots of other soft play mats and climbing structures for the kids to play with as well as tricycles, slides, hula hoops and a few other things. While the bouncy house is always there some of the slides and climbing structures change depending on whims of the two guys from Daly City Park and Rec who run the place, but they always do a good job.

On my first outing here I was a little horrified to see regulation basketballs for the kids to play with [recommended ages are 5 and under] and then I picked one up and realized it was half flat. All the balls aren’t fully inflated. So I had to do a test. I had the friend I had taken my daughter with hit me in the face with the ball. It hurt, sort of, but I’ve been hit in the head with a fully inflated basketball and that hurt worse.

[mappress mapid=”14″]What I really like about this place is that it encourages the kids to think about how to play. They can use all the “stuff” to create their own play space instead of here’s your playground and this is how you’re supposed to play. One day I had about 6 kids laying down on a giant parachute as I pulled them around the gym. Luckily there was another Dad who helped out and took over for me so we could switch off without having a heart attack. You have your regular groups of Moms there and they all are very friendly and don’t seem to mind if your kids “interact” [that’s the term I like to use for crashing into each other]. They understand that kids are going to be kids. My daughter reached into one woman’s bag of tortilla chips from Chipotle one day to help herself and she laughed it off.

One of the fun things too about the Doelger Center is that around Halloween and Christmas they do a little extra. Halloween has a costumed parade of all the kids and ends with a bag of candy for each of them. Christmas, and this was my first experience of it here, they had a Santa giving out toys to all the kids. I did notice a bit of an Irish brogue as he talked and realized that he was probably a friend of the “Irish Mom’s Club” which is a group of Irish women who tend to sit together and talk while their kids wreak havoc on the place. I tried to keep our daughter away from Santa figuring that he only had enough toys for the kids in that group, but one of the Mom’s told me that they had enough presents for all the kids. Good thinking. You wouldn’t want to have your kid meet Santa only to be told he forgot her present.

Afterwards our daughter decided it was time to visit Chipotle for lunch. We drove down the block to Westlake and split a steak burrito bowl and chips and guacamole between the three of us [after all the burrito bowl gives you more than half your days calories]. Total cost for this outing? under $15. Now that’s a deal to take advantage of.

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The Holiday House

I’ve written about this couple before. Every holiday that you can imagine they decorate their house for the holiday. I had noticed that while he had put out everything for this Christmas the lights weren’t on at night. I happened to noticed that he had lights on tonight so I had to rush down and take some pictures.

For those who remember my last attempt at night photography of their house around Halloween, the pictures didn’t do it much justice, but luckily my iPhone has a new HDR [High Dynamic Range] added to the camera so you can take low light figures without too much graininess.

As I was taking the pictures the man of the house happened to walk out and tell me to take lots of pictures now because he was turning the lights off soon. I mentioned that I hadn’t seen the lights on since he put everything up and he mentioned an unfortunately loss in his family. For this, I told him I was very sorry because I pointed out to him all the cars and people that his house attracts and the smiles on all the peoples faces when they come by his house. He smiled and laughed a little bit hopefully to help him forget of his recent loss.

I didn’t get to talk to him more, but I’d really like to. Just to find out why he feels it necessary to light up his house for every occasion you could think of. He did mention he was having a few electrical problems which he still needed to fix which explained why the last side of the house wasn’t lit up, but as soon as he figures it out I’ll add some more pictures to the album. I might even offer to give him a hand if he’ll accept it.

If you want to see this place it’s at 34th and Quintara in the Sunset district and if you’re lucky his wife will be by the front door handing out candy canes to all the kids who come by. They also run a holiday boutique out of their garage on the weekends this time of year just so you know. Maybe not this year, but usually they do.

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Chick-N-Coop

OMG! Chick-N-Coop is one place that just screams Sunset district. It’s been around for ages and you can tell by looking at the outside. It’s run by a Greek family and when you walk in you’re greeted by a large burly man with a loud laugh who takes your order.

So what do you get to order? Food, basic food. Roast beef, meatloaf, 1/2 chicken, pork chops, lamb. It’s all basic food and a HUGE amount of it. We got the roast beef that came with mashed potatoes and gravy and a side salad. We get it to go because unless you’re an NFL linebacker or professional food eating contestant, you won’t finish it.

There are two types of people you typically see here: Cops from the Taraval police station and elderly people. I can understand why both go there. The police need a big hearty meal and the elderly don’t, but they can have food for three days on what they give you. We typically split a roast beef order and get dinner and lunch out of it for around $13.

[mappress mapid=”16″]So what’s the food like? It’s good, not 3 star Michelin good, but it’s good food that fills you up, doesn’t suck and you’ll get at least another meal out of it if you’re like most people. They’re located at 1055 Taraval street just down from 19th avenue and they’re cash only so keep that in mind. There’s a Bank of America down the street if you need to grab some cash.

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Stay off the roads today!

I read something yesterday that I found a bit disturbing. Today, December 15th has the highest amount of car accidents. They can’t tell us why, but statistics have shown over the years that today is the worst day to drive.

This doesn’t really have any connection with San Francisco except that there are cars here, but I’m just saying. Today may not be the best day to be a gamblin’ man.

When I was 16 I was riding my skateboard in the Richmond district and made the mistake of riding down a driveway between two vans. Not the best idea, but I was 16 at the time. Out of the blue right there is a cadillac. Reacting I jumped which probably saved my life. I guess all those action movies taught me something. When you’re going to get hit by a car, jump. It worked. Well, except for my head going straight into the windshield and my foot being caught on the hood ornament that dislocated my hip and then when I fell off the car it popped back in. It took over 100 stitches to get my forehead stuck back onto my skull.

Let me tell you though. It only hurt for a few minutes and then the endorphins kicked in. They didn’t even give me any anesthetic when they put the stitches in because they knew the shock had me covered. I didn’t have to spend any time in the hospital, but it did compress a disk in my spine that causes me pain today. We didn’t think about those things 34 years ago. So I’m just letting you know that if you can today keep away from the car. If you can’t then at least try and not drive too much.

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Musee Mechanique

In my last post I talked about the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. Well, there’s a kind of cooler, in a different way place just across the street that you’d miss if you weren’t looking for it. This is the Musee Mechanique. It is an odd mix of things that used to underneath the Cliff House before it’s remodeling so the Musee moved down to Pier 45 at the wharf.

Oh, did I mention it’s free to get in? What the Musee Mechanique is, is a collection of old sideshow arcade entertainment products mixed in with todays regular video arcade games with a few pinball machines mixed in. Most of these will cost you about 50¢ each, but you’ll find that people don’t mind letting you look when they drop a couple of quarters in a machine.

[mappress mapid=”17″]Some of these date back to the 1915 Pan-Pacific exposition and the owner, Ed Zelinsky has been working hard to keep these all running in tip top condition. I couldn’t find an opening date, but it looks like Ed probably opened the place in 1946. The one thing I didn’t get a picture of was the history Laffing Sal of the old Playland at the beach. She’s a big fat creepy kind of clown who has a maniacal laugh and she’s still right inside the front door just like she was at the Cliff House.

So below is a gallery of some of the pics I was able to get the other day. All the old photo galleries are under the photo gallery tab at the top of the page.

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Wax Museum @ Fisherman’s Wharf

Normally, I like to be really proud of the things in San Francisco. This is one of the times I’m not sure what to say. I love wax museums, but after visiting Madame Tussaud’s in London and Las Vegas all others pale by comparison. That being said, this is still a kind of fun place to go. I love the wharf for it’s kitschiness. There’s lots of schlock for sale and every other shop on Jefferson Street sells either candy, t-shirts, cameras or antiques. I don’t understand the antiques part, but in between these little oddities there’s a bit of fun.

Today, thanks to SFKids.org, we got a free pass for the family to the Wax Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. What totally surprised me was that while it had been awhile since I’d been there it seemed much smaller than it used to be. Thomas Lee Fong purchased the property in 1962 and opened the wax museum in 1963. It wasn’t much, just the wax figures against black backgrounds. The place kept growing over the years and there was a big ruckus in the 80’s when they made a likeness of Michael Jackson who came out for the unveiling event. I remember Michael was jumping around on top of the cars parked next to the museum and it was all caught on tape for the home audiences to gawk in shock at.

In 2000 they did a complete remodel and now the entire ground floor is the wax museum. It used to occupy all four floors, but now it’s only one floor and that somehow makes it bigger. They have done some decent work in setting up the dioramas with the wax figures, but other than that the likenesses aren’t exactly top shelf. Our daughter enjoyed the whole show of walking around and looking at people who aren’t moving. I’m sure if they had a wax Elmo she would have exploded, but they didn’t. I do remember the Chamber of Horrors being a lot more gruesome than it is today. During the remodel they moved all the Chamber of Horrors stuff down the street to have a cavalcade of the grotesque for the tourists. We’re talking a rack that you could twist the wheels and listen to the wax “victim” scream in agony or the Iron Maiden complete with a body dripping blood as well a quite a few impalings. You don’t have to worry about that anymore. Just remember that we walked slowly and took lots of pictures [encouraged by the owners], but I think we did the entire museum in under 15 minutes.

The SFKids.org website was a great resource for us here as if we had to pay it would have cost us over $50 total for the museum, parking and lunch. In the end we got away with only having to spend about $20. Check out the gallery below, but be warned it’s very dark inside so the photos are a little blurry and grainy.

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La Boulange in Cole Valley

While I tend to like French food, its not something I seek out on a daily basis. My friend Clint who’s running off to Costa Rica decided we should get together for lunch before he left and he suggested La Boulange on Cole. I have to say that when I walked it I looked at the menu for about 30 seconds and my eyes were drawn to the display case.

This place was filled with sweet and savory delights that I didn’t expect. I’ve been to French restaurants before and they’ve been of two types. 1. Crappy food in great sauces and 2. Plain simple food. This was #2 with a bit of the saucy flair added. As I was browsing the display case I noticed the croque monsieur which is sort a French way of saying ham and cheese sandwich.  That’s simplifying things a bit, but essentially it’s a ham and cheese sandwich on white bread with a little bit of bechamel sauce instead of mayonaise [which was originally called sauce lyonnaise in French] then they take it one step further and add more cheese on top and broil it until the cheese melts.

Croque Monsieur at La Boulange

While my arteries hurt while eating it I opted for the side green salad with a balsamic vinagrette. Not exactly the most French, but I’ll give them some slack as everyone had lots of piercing and tattoos here. On my first bite I just felt my eyes roll back in my head. This was awesome food and the sandwich, salad and a soda cost me less than $10. For the quality of the food, I have to say the price didn’t hurt and I wasn’t hungry after I finished. As a matter of fact I didn’t have that after Thanksgiving feeling where I wanted to lay down and have a nap.

My friend Clint did one of the cheapest things I could think of at the time, but understood why afterwards. They have a dessert section and he purchased ONE cookie. The cookie was the size of an oreo at best and was coated in the creamy fondant like coating. He broke it in half and handed me a piece. As we walked out the door I popped it into my mouth and after swallowing it two words burst out of my mouth…”OH SHIT!” This was one of the best tasting cookies I think I’ve ever had.

[mappress mapid=”19″]I want to take my wife back now so she can give it a try. She tends to be a bit selective on foods, but I know there’ll be something here she’ll like. Next time we’ll have to try the chocolate ganache dessert.