Newsletter - Xmas 200

This newsletter covers the first part of 2001, up to end of May.

It was released to an unsuspecting world on May 28th, 2001.

Latest gossip from San Francisco…

Realised it’s been almost 6 months since I last did a ‘newsletter’, so it’s probably time for another diatribe. Time still seems to fly by at an amazing pace here – it came as quite a shock in March when we got a note from our local rental agency telling us our first year’s lease on Cooke-Shuttleworth Towers here on Treasure Island was up, and asking us if we wanted to sign up for another year… well, we did, but were not a little concerned due to the ‘little local difficulty’ you may be aware of regarding stuff like the cost of electricity and gas… our rental agreement includes all services, so we were worried that the new rent would reflect the horror stories of 300% power bill increases that have been reported here over the last year.. Anyway, we got the papers to sign and the increase was…. only 2.9%!!! So we quickly signed, grinning, and managed to stifle our ‘Yeeee-hahs!’ till we got outside. Therefore we’ll be in the house here for at least another year – which is kind of a good thing, since we recently bit the bullet and ‘got a little man in’ (sorry, Terry) to sort out our back garden (or ‘yard’ as they say here). The rental agreement also covers maintenance of the front of the house and all other open/shared areas, but we’re supposed to look after the enclosed bit at the back, and we hadn’t touched it for a year. Those of you who know me well will understand this… I’m no gardener, and I’m proud to say that I still don’t know my Arisaema from my Elderberry.. but it was getting a bit embarrassing, even for me.

Anyway, we’re now proud owners of a bit of (very fast-growing) lawn, surrounded by a range of herbs, shrubs, trainee trees, vines, compost thingy, etc etc, all fed and watered daily by an automated sprinkler system. It already looks so much better, and by the summer it should be well bedded in and perfect for sitting out in (assuming the wind ever drops!).

The other thing we’ve done is signed up for a fast Internet link from the house, so by the time you read this we’ll be well and truly ‘wired’.. (or more accurately, ‘wirelessed’, as the easiest way to get fast access from the island is to use a wireless link – the island isn’t yet fully cabled for standard DSL). So who knows, maybe we’ll also get around to setting up a web site, and even having a live ‘YardCam’ so Terry the gardener can remotely see the fruits of his labours (literally in some cases).

Last bit of news on the home front is that our Fung is now most definitely Shwaying… we had a visit from a Feng Shui bloke who gave us lots of interesting comments and suggestions re the house, garden, etc. Apparently Michele’s bedroom has to be kept neat and tidy or we’ll all end up paupers… oh well… but seriously (folks), bullshit or not it was an interesting couple of hours, and whenever there’s an acceptable option re future decoration or placement, we’ll probably go with the recommendations on the grounds that it can’t hurt… I guess the real test is if you feel that it’s a happy, relaxing sort of place when you visit us. I’ll await feedback with interest.

So what else has been going on? On the music front we’ve been carefully selecting which gigs we go to see (from the huge choice available every week…). Some notables this time around – visiting Brits Richard Thompson, Joe Jackson, Bob Fox, Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham, and also Elton John who was touring with Billy Joel. Also been seeing local blues and folk bands at various pubs, clubs and festivals.. All very good, but a special mention for the Elton John/Billy Joel gig and also for Bob Fox. Definitely opposite ends of the scale, with Elton/Billy doing a big joint thing at Oakland Coliseum, and Bob getting over his jet lag by doing an intimate ‘house concert’ up in the Berkeley hills.. but both excellent entertainment. (Check out Bob’s latest CD ‘Dreams Never Leave You’ which has backing band who are basically Fairport Convention – you can download samples from his web-site www.bobfoxmusic.com ). We have tickets for Eric Clapton’s local gig in August, which should be good – I’ll finally get to see the guy play live.

Lynne is now settled into the local folk/Morris scene as a member of Berkeley Morris – we’re now in the (relatively short) dance season so most weekends there’s a dance-out at some local place. We’ve already returned to the Jack Russell microbrewery up in the Sierra Nevada foothills (scene of Lynne’s debut with the BerkMos) – we were there for Bonfire night, and 6 months to the day later we were there for a (slightly belated) MayDay bash, complete with maypole. I managed to miss the dancing at dawn this MayDay, though Lynne and the rest of the folks had a full day of dances starting around 5:00am at Inspiration Point up in the Berkeley hills. (And before you all assume I was still tucked up in bed, let me tell you that I was actually up at the same time, though many miles and 2 time zones further east in Kansas City). Highlight so far was the ‘Ale’ (or ‘weekend of dance’) hosted by Berkeley morris where about 20 dance sides from all along the US west coast converged on SF for a weekend… the weather was kind, and a jolly time was had by all.

Lynne’s also found that there’s a gap in the market here for an English-style ceilidh band – she’s in the middle of putting something together for the SF Free Folk Festival at the end of June, but I’m sure she has ideas beyond that… (and who knows, I may yet get a drumming gig!!). Of course, as always the difficult bit about getting a band together will be deciding on a name… we’re already thinking of ideas, (ideally something with relevance to San Francisco.. conjuring up images of the bridges, the bay, the fog, etc) and have come up with things like Fogwatch (the name of a meeting hall on Treasure Island) and Bridge the Gap (maybe if we get a sponsorship deal from the Gap clothing company??), but then things started getting silly.. how about ‘Bridge Players’, ‘Spanners in the works’ or ‘Bay City Strollers’?? (although ‘stroller’ is US-speak for ‘pushchair;, so this wouldn’t work too well). If we had a brass section we could be ‘Fog Horns’ I suppose… Lynne also tells me there’s a local Celtic folk/rock band called ‘Avalon Rising’… I said I thought ‘Avalon Lunchbreak’ would be better. In true Blue Peter fashion, if you have any suggestions, please send them in!

Also on the entertainment front, we went to see the local production of Stomp (the percussion/dance show which all started out in London and Brighton with a band called Pookiesnackenburger who I remember seeing many years ago…). This is now a fixture here in SF, having recently also celebrated their first year based in the city, and well worth seeing if ever you get chance. The occasion was Lynne’s birthday – and (using my natural cunning and secrecy skills to the limit) I’d managed to organize a surprise visit from eldest 2 daughters Jennie and Claire for the weekend. I thought that going to a loud raucous show would be a good way to make sure they didn’t succumb to jet lag on the Saturday night… and it seemed to work, with rave reviews from all.

Jennie also paid a (literally) flying visit to San Fran a couple of weeks ago… she’s now out in Australia with some pals on a 3-month back-packing trip, and broke the journey with a 5 hour layover in San Francisco airport. We all went down to meet up with her, have a bite and a chat. She was already pretty wrecked after an 11-hour flight, with another 13 hours to go, but it was good to see her. No doubt we’ll get longer to chat etc when she comes back in August – she plans to stay with us in SF for a couple of weeks then.

Michele, our resident ‘Lynne’s daughter’, has had a hectic time this year fitting in the academic stuff as well as her drama commitments. Her school has a very strong drama club, and Michele’s taken the opportunity to get involved in several plays, culminating last weekend in parts in 2 plays staged on the same day. We saw one of them, a very ambitious production of a comedy called ‘You can’t take it with you’, which was very well done.. we also had the pleasure of hosting (or more correctly, getting out of the way while Michele hosted) the cast party after the final performance here at the house. Just a few weeks left of term (with exams!) and then Michele will be headed back to UK for the summer, which I know she’s looking forward to.

We’ve had a few little party bashes here in the last few months.. a dinner party for my birthday, various gatherings with the Morris mob and visiting colleagues, and of course the local big KFOG KA-BOOM fireworks party. This is somewhat of an anniversary thing for me and Lynne – 2 years ago I was working out here in May, and Lynne came out to join me for a long weekend… it was then that we really first seriously thought about coming out here for a stint… and it coincided with the fireworks show. Next big gathering will probably be in October for Fleet Week, which has taken on the equivalent status here to the Molesey Regatta back in the UK – i.e. an excuse for inviting people over for a party (though it’s not quite as easy as it was with the rowers to hit the low-flying F-16s with popping champagne corks!)

Work-wise life has been busy for both Lynne and me… as well as ongoing support for some utilities she took over last year, Lynne has got involved in development of some of the new web-based support products for our managed service, so she’s (yet again!) having the wonderful experience adding new acronyms to her CV (or ‘resume’ as the say here) – which of course means learning lots of new ways of doing the same old things… (I can write Fortran in ANY language..)

My major project (which is based in Kansas City and accounted for around 50 flights last year!) has been going through the usual implementation trauma, but thankfully I haven’t needed to travel there as often as last year. We’re approaching final ‘handover’ phase now so there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I’m looking forward to getting out and doing more pre-sales work again… only done a couple of these things in the last 6 months due to the other commitments.

I almost got to speak at a conference in Palm Springs… but the plug got pulled at the last minute. However, we’d already planned for Lynne to fly out and join me there for the weekend, and tickets had been booked… so we thought ‘what the hell, let’s go for it anyway..’. So we did.. and it was a very strange weekend. You know I’ve always been an Oasis fan (geddit?), but this was a different kind of oasis – in fact even in my Egyptian and Moroccan travels I’ve never seen a real oasis like this. Especially since it’s now become a retirement resort for the rich and famous… at least Lynne and I felt the youngest we’ve felt in ages, compared to the rest of the locals. Having said all that, we had a good weekend – there’s interesting stuff to see there including 200 year old palm trees, lots of local native American history (that’s ‘red Indian’ in case you’re not fully up to speed with current US politically correct naming conventions). Also a revolving cable car ride to the snowbound top of a local mountain which overlooks the desert & town (which is pretty weird in itself, if you think about it..), as well as a zoo specializing in desert flora and fauna…Not to mention of course some good food (especially Mexican). To top it all, due to a last minute scheduling change our flights got upgraded to first class both there and back, and Lynne managed to wangle a free ticket which can be used anytime over the next year to any destination that (wait for it) Alaska Airlines fly to. (We’re thinking Mexico might be a good bet…but then again they also fly to Seattle and that’s a good place for a weekend, and they have lots of festivals up there!)

Although we’re feeling very settled here, we’re still continually amused by the differences in the ‘common language’ used by the US and UK. We’ve worked out that they call a frying pan a ‘skillet’ – but only after confusion over a new product being heavily advertised on TV, a sort of up-market burger designed to be fried.. these are called ‘Skillet Fillets’ – but apparently this is pronounced ‘Skill-it Fee-Lays’. Surely ‘Ski-Lay Fee-Lay’ would be better (and also a good name for a band, thinking about it..), or even ‘Skill-it Fill-it’.

We also got a giggle recently as we drove down Route 101 (and believe me, it’s rare to get a giggle on that stretch of road!). There are several chains of retail stores here ending with the word ‘Barn’ – e.g. Pottery Barn, Jewelry Barn, Shoe Barn, Drug Barn… so we were pleased to see a car dealership specializing in German cars and having the name ‘Autobahn’. Couldn’t work out if it was intentional or not, but funny all the same.

Think that’s covered most of the major stuff… needless to say we’re looking forward to being back in the UK and hopefully meeting up with most of you when we’re there in July/August. I’ll be sending out a ‘final’ itinerary closer to the time, but you’ll definitely be able to catch up with us at Warwick Folk Festival between July 27^th and 30^th…(see http://www.warwickfolkfestival.org.uk/ for details). I know several of you are already planning to be there too, so hopefully see you then – and I see from the web site that some ticket prices go up after June 15^th,so book early to avoid disappointment.

© Copyright Cooke-Shuttleworth Enterprises 2001


This newsletter covers the first part of 2001, up to end of May. It was released to an unsuspecting world on May 28th, 2001.		Latest gossip from San Francisco… Realised it’s been almost 6 months since I last did a ‘newsletter’, so it’s probably time for another diatribe. Time still seems to fly by at an amazing pace here – it came as quite a shock in March when we got a note from our local rental agency telling us our first year’s lease on Cooke-Shuttleworth Towers here on Treasure Island was up, and asking us if we wanted to sign up for another year… well, we did, but were not a little concerned due to the ‘little local difficulty’ you may be aware of regarding stuff like the cost of electricity and gas… our rental agreement includes all services, so we were worried that the new rent would reflect the horror stories of 300% power bill increases that have been reported here over the last year.. Anyway, we got the papers to sign and the increase was…. only 2.9%!!! So we quickly signed, grinning, and managed to stifle our ‘Yeeee-hahs!’ till we got outside. Therefore we’ll be in the house here for at least another year – which is kind of a good thing, since we recently bit the bullet and ‘got a little man in’ (sorry, Terry) to sort out our back garden (or ‘yard’ as they say here). The rental agreement also covers maintenance of the front of the house and all other open/shared areas, but we’re supposed to look after the enclosed bit at the back, and we hadn’t touched it for a year. Those of you who know me well will understand this… I’m no gardener, and I’m proud to say that I still don’t know my Arisaema from my Elderberry.. but it was getting a bit embarrassing, even for me. Anyway, we’re now proud owners of a bit of (very fast-growing) lawn, surrounded by a range of herbs, shrubs, trainee trees, vines, compost thingy, etc etc, all fed and watered daily by an automated sprinkler system. It already looks so much better, and by the summer it should be well bedded in and perfect for sitting out in (assuming the wind ever drops!). The other thing we’ve done is signed up for a fast Internet link from the house, so by the time you read this we’ll be well and truly ‘wired’.. (or more accurately, ‘wirelessed’, as the easiest way to get fast access from the island is to use a wireless link – the island isn’t yet fully cabled for standard DSL). So who knows, maybe we’ll also get around to setting up a web site, and even having a live ‘YardCam’ so Terry the gardener can remotely see the fruits of his labours (literally in some cases). Last bit of news on the home front is that our Fung is now most definitely Shwaying… we had a visit from a Feng Shui bloke who gave us lots of interesting comments and suggestions re the house, garden, etc. Apparently Michele’s bedroom has to be kept neat and tidy or we’ll all end up paupers… oh well… but seriously (folks), bullshit or not it was an interesting couple of hours, and whenever there’s an acceptable option re future decoration or placement, we’ll probably go with the recommendations on the grounds that it can’t hurt… I guess the real test is if you feel that it’s a happy, relaxing sort of place when you visit us. I’ll await feedback with interest. So what else has been going on? On the music front we’ve been carefully selecting which gigs we go to see (from the huge choice available every week…). Some notables this time around – visiting Brits Richard Thompson, Joe Jackson, Bob Fox, Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham, and also Elton John who was touring with Billy Joel. Also been seeing local blues and folk bands at various pubs, clubs and festivals.. All very good, but a special mention for the Elton John/Billy Joel gig and also for Bob Fox. Definitely opposite ends of the scale, with Elton/Billy doing a big joint thing at Oakland Coliseum, and Bob getting over his jet lag by doing an intimate ‘house concert’ up in the Berkeley hills.. but both excellent entertainment. (Check out Bob’s latest CD ‘Dreams Never Leave You’ which has backing band who are basically Fairport Convention – you can download samples from his web-site www.bobfoxmusic.com ). We have tickets for Eric Clapton’s local gig in August, which should be good – I’ll finally get to see the guy play live. Lynne is now settled into the local folk/Morris scene as a member of Berkeley Morris – we’re now in the (relatively short) dance season so most weekends there’s a dance-out at some local place. We’ve already returned to the Jack Russell microbrewery up in the Sierra Nevada foothills (scene of Lynne’s debut with the BerkMos) – we were there for Bonfire night, and 6 months to the day later we were there for a (slightly belated) MayDay bash, complete with maypole. I managed to miss the dancing at dawn this MayDay, though Lynne and the rest of the folks had a full day of dances starting around 5:00am at Inspiration Point up in the Berkeley hills. (And before you all assume I was still tucked up in bed, let me tell you that I was actually up at the same time, though many miles and 2 time zones further east in Kansas City). Highlight so far was the ‘Ale’ (or ‘weekend of dance’) hosted by Berkeley morris where about 20 dance sides from all along the US west coast converged on SF for a weekend… the weather was kind, and a jolly time was had by all. Lynne’s also found that there’s a gap in the market here for an English-style ceilidh band – she’s in the middle of putting something together for the SF Free Folk Festival at the end of June, but I’m sure she has ideas beyond that… (and who knows, I may yet get a drumming gig!!). Of course, as always the difficult bit about getting a band together will be deciding on a name… we’re already thinking of ideas, (ideally something with relevance to San Francisco.. conjuring up images of the bridges, the bay, the fog, etc) and have come up with things like Fogwatch (the name of a meeting hall on Treasure Island) and Bridge the Gap (maybe if we get a sponsorship deal from the Gap clothing company??), but then things started getting silly.. how about ‘Bridge Players’, ‘Spanners in the works’ or ‘Bay City Strollers’?? (although ‘stroller’ is US-speak for ‘pushchair;, so this wouldn’t work too well). If we had a brass section we could be ‘Fog Horns’ I suppose… Lynne also tells me there’s a local Celtic folk/rock band called ‘Avalon Rising’… I said I thought ‘Avalon Lunchbreak’ would be better. In true Blue Peter fashion, if you have any suggestions, please send them in! Also on the entertainment front, we went to see the local production of Stomp (the percussion/dance show which all started out in London and Brighton with a band called Pookiesnackenburger who I remember seeing many years ago…). This is now a fixture here in SF, having recently also celebrated their first year based in the city, and well worth seeing if ever you get chance. The occasion was Lynne’s birthday – and (using my natural cunning and secrecy skills to the limit) I’d managed to organize a surprise visit from eldest 2 daughters Jennie and Claire for the weekend. I thought that going to a loud raucous show would be a good way to make sure they didn’t succumb to jet lag on the Saturday night… and it seemed to work, with rave reviews from all. Jennie also paid a (literally) flying visit to San Fran a couple of weeks ago… she’s now out in Australia with some pals on a 3-month back-packing trip, and broke the journey with a 5 hour layover in San Francisco airport. We all went down to meet up with her, have a bite and a chat. She was already pretty wrecked after an 11-hour flight, with another 13 hours to go, but it was good to see her. No doubt we’ll get longer to chat etc when she comes back in August – she plans to stay with us in SF for a couple of weeks then. Michele, our resident ‘Lynne’s daughter’, has had a hectic time this year fitting in the academic stuff as well as her drama commitments. Her school has a very strong drama club, and Michele’s taken the opportunity to get involved in several plays, culminating last weekend in parts in 2 plays staged on the same day. We saw one of them, a very ambitious production of a comedy called ‘You can’t take it with you’, which was very well done.. we also had the pleasure of hosting (or more correctly, getting out of the way while Michele hosted) the cast party after the final performance here at the house. Just a few weeks left of term (with exams!) and then Michele will be headed back to UK for the summer, which I know she’s looking forward to. We’ve had a few little party bashes here in the last few months.. a dinner party for my birthday, various gatherings with the Morris mob and visiting colleagues, and of course the local big KFOG KA-BOOM fireworks party. This is somewhat of an anniversary thing for me and Lynne – 2 years ago I was working out here in May, and Lynne came out to join me for a long weekend… it was then that we really first seriously thought about coming out here for a stint… and it coincided with the fireworks show. Next big gathering will probably be in October for Fleet Week, which has taken on the equivalent status here to the Molesey Regatta back in the UK – i.e. an excuse for inviting people over for a party (though it’s not quite as easy as it was with the rowers to hit the low-flying F-16s with popping champagne corks!) Work-wise life has been busy for both Lynne and me… as well as ongoing support for some utilities she took over last year, Lynne has got involved in development of some of the new web-based support products for our managed service, so she’s (yet again!) having the wonderful experience adding new acronyms to her CV (or ‘resume’ as the say here) – which of course means learning lots of new ways of doing the same old things… (I can write Fortran in ANY language..) My major project (which is based in Kansas City and accounted for around 50 flights last year!) has been going through the usual implementation trauma, but thankfully I haven’t needed to travel there as often as last year. We’re approaching final ‘handover’ phase now so there’s light at the end of the tunnel. I’m looking forward to getting out and doing more pre-sales work again… only done a couple of these things in the last 6 months due to the other commitments. I almost got to speak at a conference in Palm Springs… but the plug got pulled at the last minute. However, we’d already planned for Lynne to fly out and join me there for the weekend, and tickets had been booked… so we thought ‘what the hell, let’s go for it anyway..’. So we did.. and it was a very strange weekend. You know I’ve always been an Oasis fan (geddit?), but this was a different kind of oasis – in fact even in my Egyptian and Moroccan travels I’ve never seen a real oasis like this. Especially since it’s now become a retirement resort for the rich and famous… at least Lynne and I felt the youngest we’ve felt in ages, compared to the rest of the locals. Having said all that, we had a good weekend – there’s interesting stuff to see there including 200 year old palm trees, lots of local native American history (that’s ‘red Indian’ in case you’re not fully up to speed with current US politically correct naming conventions). Also a revolving cable car ride to the snowbound top of a local mountain which overlooks the desert & town (which is pretty weird in itself, if you think about it..), as well as a zoo specializing in desert flora and fauna…Not to mention of course some good food (especially Mexican). To top it all, due to a last minute scheduling change our flights got upgraded to first class both there and back, and Lynne managed to wangle a free ticket which can be used anytime over the next year to any destination that (wait for it) Alaska Airlines fly to. (We’re thinking Mexico might be a good bet…but then again they also fly to Seattle and that’s a good place for a weekend, and they have lots of festivals up there!) Although we’re feeling very settled here, we’re still continually amused by the differences in the ‘common language’ used by the US and UK. We’ve worked out that they call a frying pan a ‘skillet’ – but only after confusion over a new product being heavily advertised on TV, a sort of up-market burger designed to be fried.. these are called ‘Skillet Fillets’ – but apparently this is pronounced ‘Skill-it Fee-Lays’. Surely ‘Ski-Lay Fee-Lay’ would be better (and also a good name for a band, thinking about it..), or even ‘Skill-it Fill-it’. We also got a giggle recently as we drove down Route 101 (and believe me, it’s rare to get a giggle on that stretch of road!). There are several chains of retail stores here ending with the word ‘Barn’ – e.g. Pottery Barn, Jewelry Barn, Shoe Barn, Drug Barn… so we were pleased to see a car dealership specializing in German cars and having the name ‘Autobahn’. Couldn’t work out if it was intentional or not, but funny all the same. Think that’s covered most of the major stuff… needless to say we’re looking forward to being back in the UK and hopefully meeting up with most of you when we’re there in July/August. I’ll be sending out a ‘final’ itinerary closer to the time, but you’ll definitely be able to catch up with us at Warwick Folk Festival between July 27^th and 30^th…(see http://www.warwickfolkfestival.org.uk/ for details). I know several of you are already planning to be there too, so hopefully see you then – and I see from the web site that some ticket prices go up after June 15^th,so book early to avoid disappointment. © Copyright Cooke-Shuttleworth Enterprises 2001