Smell ya later holidays

The implication of the headline would seem to be that we had a rotten holiday season. That would be false. We’ve had a great month of December and early part of January. We cruised down to Santa Cruz to cut down our tree, Tiff flew out to Baltimore for a college reunion, I’ve already chronicled Berka’s and my trip to the Raiders game, we spent Christmas in sunny San Diego with Tiff’s side of the family, spent New Year’s in San Francisco, watched Michigan win a BCS game, hiked up Mount Tam, ate some incredible food  and celebrated my birthday in the Grand Lakes district of Oakland. There has been, however, one literal and figurative stink permeating the past month. We have skunks, an incredible nightly annoyance that we have yet to solve. But I’ll get to them in a minute. First the happy side of the holidays.

Nothing says Christmas like a pretty lady wielding a large serrated knife. Tiff and I started a tradition of cutting down our tree the first year we moved here. And so, for the sixth straight year we made our way to the Santa Cruz mountains this past December. Tiff typically takes a largely ceremonial photo in front of our soon-to-be tree (see above) and afterward I do all the cutting (see below).

It’s also an excuse to drive down the coast, stare at the ocean and eat some seafood in Half Moon Bay.

I know next to nothing about Tiff’s trip to greater Baltimore (probably a good thing) aside from the fact that she and college friends Ashley, Kimi and Julie did it as a surprise for Julia, who just had her second. I also know that Julia’s first, pictured above, appears to be quite adorably putting on makeup with the other girls as they prepare to go out, and I know that Ashley drank breast milk. That’s pretty much all I needed to know.

As this was our first Christmas in our own house, I was fairly excited to put up lights. Our house being elevated from the street, I did not have to get up on the roof. I did, however, find a way to make the lights more difficult than they needed to be by vastly underestimating the amount I would need to wind around the length of the front porch and into our pine tree. This resulted in three separate trips to Walgreens and my buying out the store’s entire supply of discounted lights. No Clark Griswold, but it was a good start for the first year.

We spent four days, including Christmas, in wretched San Diego, where we somehow survived the 70-degree weather and spotless beaches. In between the revelry, presents and best fish tacos I’ve ever eaten, we stopped by the historic Hotel Del Coronado. Sixteen U.S. presidents, including our current chief, have slept under its iconic red dome in addition to patrons like Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin, Dr. Seuss and Marilyn Monroe, whose movie “Some Like it Hot” was shot there.

In other holiday miscellany:

I met co-worker Dan Jung and son Aaron for some serious Dim Sum down by the Emeryville waterfront. The food was excellent, though I learned it’s probably not a smart idea to encourage small children to treat chop sticks like drum sticks as they will do just that.

Holiday shopping in Union Square and overall tomfoolery.

More brilliant sunsets.

New Year’s Eve pub hopping through Chinatown on our way Cobb’s Comedy Club in North Beach. The Daily Show’s John Oliver rang in our New Year with a champagne toast and gave our abs a solid workout with some ridiculously funny stuff. I’m a big fan, and would highly recommend seeing him at some point.

We had a Sugar Bowl feast and Michigan made it extra sweet with an overtime victory over Virginia Tech.

The cat was of no help as I worked deep into the night for the BCS title game.

Our hike up Mount Tam.

And Tiff surprised me with a bar-hopping and food eating tour of Oakland that culminated with a movie at the classic Grand Lake theatre.

Which brings us to le skunk. My nemesis. For the better part of a month now we’ve been dealing with noises under the house. At first we tried to ignore them. “It’ll go away,” we said. Then they got louder and more frequent and went deeper into the night. Scratching, scraping, metal-pounding sounds. I wince just thinking about it. Nothing says a good night’s sleep like having multiple nocturnal animals tearing apart the inner guts of your house. That’s the worst part. Secondary to the sounds and home damage is the smell, which is substantial and daily. By absolute luck, I happened to find the vermin’s entrance one night as a very large skunk slipped past me into a very small hole by our outdoor water faucet. Over the next few days, we made several attempts to close off the hole.

The original hole. Note, I can barely fit my fist into the area around the downward pipe.

The first solution. Oh yeah, some fencing cut and molded around the pipes should keep them out, right? Well, sort of. I was able to mostly keep them out. But on the night of the national title game, a night that is fairly important as far as my job goes, a skunk wedged itself in between the house and fencing. This resulted in a horrific writhing and shaking sound that began to rattle all the pipes in the house. Not my favorite working conditions. So, in between posts, I had to free the skunk by smashing my fence from afar with a broom handle. After freeing the skunk, it slithered down below the house.

Solution two. Stuff a ton of bricks into the hole, then cover the hole with even more bricks. The first few variations of this failed, as somehow the skunk was able to move them out of the way. But finally, stacking them 3-feet high seemed to do the trick. Problem solved, right? Well, the skunks have not gotten back into that particular hole, but now they’ve began tunneling underneath our patio. Which has resulted in some areas collapsing and our side garden to be almost completely uprooted. So now, each night, armed with a broom and a headlamp, Tiff and I take turns watching the patio, sleeping at intervals of 30 minutes. It’s like having a stinky newborn, only there’s no upside and the skunks are not very cuddly.

In fact, not only is their spray and digging an annoyance, but they are one of the largest carriers of rabies. So that’s pretty sweet. At this point, I’ve kind of lost it when it comes to the skunks. I have zero care in regards to whether or not they spray me. Three or four times each night I come within two feet of them and would like nothing more than to squash them. I’ve tried peeing on the side of the house (marking my territory, not for kicks). We bought something called the “Yard Gard,” which emits high-frequency sounds specifically aimed at deterring skunks. There are buckets of ammonia on our patio and some kind of skunk-specific pepper.

And yet each night, usually between 4 and 6:30 a.m., I’ll make my rounds around the house and find yet another area of the patio has been completely uprooted — an area that was fine 30 minutes before — and at the end of the tunnel I’ll see the ugly beady eyes and bottle nose of le skunk. Stabbing them with the broom usually gets them to leave, and then you get to spend the next 45 minutes packing dirt back into the tunnel they’ve just dug before replacing the bricks. It’s pretty awesome.

You’re probably asking, “Why don’t you just call Animal Services and have them take care of it?” A good question. We did. The only way they will remove a skunk is if it clearly has rabies (if they’re walking around during the day is a sign of this) or if they are dead (one can only dream). Otherwise, they charge $150 per trap and then an additional $300 per skunk removed. Now, I’ve never seen more than two skunks at once. So that’s just $900 (seriously!!!!!!!!!!???), but I’ve been told that we are approaching skunk birthing season, at which point there could be as many as 16 skunks. In any event, that’s not happening.

Even as I type this post at 8:42 p.m. on Monday, I’ve had to run out onto the deck to chase them away. I’ve poured an incredible amount of skunk powder over their favorite digging spots and plan on shining bright lights at them. I’m hoping this will only last a few more nights before they decide I’m crazier than they are. If not, it’s time to buy a trap. And if that doesn’t work it’s time to pay the skunk piper.

Me and the worthless cat of ours camp out for skunks at 4 a.m.

In any event, I’ve managed to get them on video a few times (why, I’m not sure). The first video is the PG version.

And this, embodying the holiday spirit, is the R-rated version.

I’m beginning to feel a little like Carl Spackler. Looking forward to another good night.

Au revoir.

Honolulu blue against the black

At some point, likely after many adult beverages the night before, it seemed like a good idea. College buddy and ESPN colleague T.J. Berka and I were heading to the Raiders-Lions game with seats next to Oakland’s infamous “Black Hole” — and I was going to go dressed in the Honolulu blue of the Detroit Lions.

Raiders’ fans, in case you are living in a sports black hole of your own, are not known for being gracious hosts. And they’re a little bit nuts. Exhibit A is the guy in the Jason mask sitting next to Berka in the video above. The  guy showed up that way with his 6-year-old kid, and at some point his kid shouted something to the affect of “Nobody gets out of Oakland alive!”

Overall, I really don’t have a problem with Raider fans, in fact I embrace most enthusiastic fans. However, on a previous trip to see the silver and black, I witnessed a Chargers’ fan beaten to the ground in the men’s bathroom by at least five guys, who proceeded to kick and stomp on the dude until all he could do was whimper. It was that scene that began playing in my head on the train to the game as car after car began to fill with Raiders fans.

As it turns out, there was not much to fear — though if you’re considering doing this I would not advise sitting in the upper deck or in the Black Hole. I was called an asshole, I was told to fuck off, I heard plenty of “Fuck you Detroit!” I had several people tell me I was going to die, and maybe just as many say they were praying for my safety (and they appeared to be quite serious). But aside from a really drunk girl in my section punching me in the jaw — she meant it as a joke (I think) and got a little overzealous — there was no physical abuse. Of course, I did not use the bathroom at the Coliseum and and never did more than a mini fist pump, some abbreviated clapping and the occasional five to Berka when cheering for the Lions.

But the overall atmosphere the Raiders provide is like nothing I’ve experienced at a pro football game. It’s loud in there. Fans in our section did not sit down during play the entire game. And people are dressed to intimidate. I could be a Raiders fan if I had a larger Halloween wardrobe.

The result of the game didn’t hurt my opinion of the day either: Lions 28, Raiders 27. I can deal with a little verbal abuse for reasonably-priced tickets, two Megatron TDs right in front of me and witnessing the Lions achieve their first winning season since I was in college.

(The winning catch I couldn’t catch. That’s half of Megatron on the far left)

(What would have been an NFL-record 65-yard kick to win it for the Raiders)

Cheers

Beat Ohio

Some day ask Tiff how excited I was for Michigan’s game against Ohio the weekend following Thanksgiving of 2011. After a night out, with the bars closed and late-night pizza consumed, I was still bouncing off the walls of our small hotel room just across the street from my freshman dorm. Until well past 4 a.m. I paced around the room explaining to Tiff — who at some point fell asleep — how important this game was, often glancing out our window at the dimly lit Michigan Stadium in the distance. In watching a replay of the game in subsequent days I was struck by Chris Spielman’s cliched, but spot on description of The Game: It’s a season unto itself. I know lots of teams have lots of rivalries, but it really boils down to this as a fan of Michigan or Ohio: If you lose your final game in November — even if you won every other game that season — your season is a failure. You won’t find a fan of either school who will tell you otherwise, and if you do they’re just in denial. I worked myself into such a psychotic frenzy that Friday night, rambling for hours about the rivalry, that I felt as if I could have burst through that tunnel the next day. Turns out they didn’t need me.

Michigan 40, Ohio 34. This is the ugly face of pure joy. This was one of the great chapters in the 108-year history of The Game, and I am not a Michigan-Ohio novice. This was the 10th time I’ve seen the rivalry in person and the ninth time in Michigan Stadium. I’ve seen amazing plays from the likes of Desmond Howard, Charles Woodson, Tim Biakabutuka, Mercury Hayes, Chris Perry and Tom Brady. I’ve also seen Troy Smith and Terrelle Pryor. For seven straight years Michigan had lost to Ohio State. That’s seven consecutive failed seasons if you’re following along. And when your family treats Michigan football like  family, seven straight years stings pretty good. In the grand scheme of life, it’s certainly not a huge deal. But I’d liken it to getting on an airplane and really having to go to the bathroom, but not being able to get out of your seat for seven hours. You can try to repress the pain or think about something else, but it’s always there in the back of your mind and the seat of your pants.

Saturday’s win was as much about celebration as it was about relief. Seven years of losing is over. Seven hours on the plane is relieved. I’ve heard people ask, “How could  you rush the field after beating a team that finished 6-6?” I would have rushed the field if they were 0-12.

Some pics from the weekend, some courtesy of my brother and his telesopic lens:

Go Blue!

Feast Week

Borrowing a term from my employer, Thanksgiving week was, in fact, Feast Week. Not feast meal, or feast day, but Feast Week. I don’t think there was a moment from Sunday to Sunday in which my stomach wasn’t stretching under the weight of food. It began on Sunday in Las Vegas, where Tiff and I had a seven-hour layover on our way out to Michigan, which allowed  us to indulge on the humongous cheeseburgers and a tower of onion rings at Le Burger Brasserie — home of the $777 burger (we took a pass on that one). Nothing makes me happier than when a burger place can cook a perfect medium rare — and maybe I don’t go to a lot of fancy burger places but I find this result exceedingly rare — instead of burning the hell out of it. We also dropped a few bucks on the slot machines and at the sports book in between munching on oysters rockafeller at P.U.B., home of one of the best and most extensive beer lists I’ve ever seen.

Uh, Tiff took that picture.

Then it was off to Gaylord, where my mom had prepared no fewer than 75 cookies for our visit, and my brother and I tried our best to finish each one of them. Steaks on the grill, dinner at Sage, cold cut sandwiches piled knee high and a Thanksgiving dinner filled with every traditional favorite. All awesome. As was being back in Gaylord. The town still has some oddly charming features, but the best part is just being home. Conversation ranges from Michigan’s defensive line to local gossip to my mom’s extensive collection of video game T-shirts and back to Michigan football again. We spent turkey day laughing at the Lions, who nearly always let us down on this day, before heading to my grandmother’s house for a feast by the soon-to-be-frozen Otsego Lake.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I’m thankful to have spent it with my family. I’m also thankful for the endless entertainment my grandmother’s dog Mini provides.

The dog loves those greeting cards that play music, and by love, I mean she attacks with furry.

Fall miscellaneous

We had a busy finish to our fall with a week in Michigan, but before I get to that, I wanted to fill in the gaps a little. Not so much for all of you, but for us, because we’re the only people who will be re-reading this stuff five years from now (or even now). In fact, maybe now is as good a time as any to justify why we put so much of so much stuff on the web. No. 1, so our family (90 percent of our readers) and friends can see what we’re up to. But No. 2, and this plays no small part in the amount of stuff we put up, is that this is essentially a visual diary (with some words) to be revisited by us later in life. I swear, without this blog, I would probably forget my own name.

So what else were we up to at the tail end of this season? Aside from me making crazy faces. My brother stopped into S.F. for a few days while promoting the release of his new game and we met up in the city to watch the Lions crush Chris Hutchison’s Bears on MNF.

At long last we took the ferry over to Angel Island in the Bay, and hiked its five-mile perimeter. This has been something I’ve wanted to do since we moved to the Bay Area five and a half years ago, but just never got around to doing it. Now that our porch squarely faces the island, daily reminders pushed us to this park in early November. The place has served as an immigration center (nicknamed the Alice Island of the West), a place for POW’s during World War II and was once home to a Nike missle station. Now it’s just a drop-dead gorgeous way to get some exercise and a full 360 degree panorama of the Bay.

There was also a pretty cool blimp circling the area before heading off to the 49ers game.

Other random tomfoolery, including my inability to work my phone (above) during a hike.

I taught Alex to play one of the few instruments he doesn’t already know. We trekked into S.F. for his first Bay Area open mic, which he killed. When he makes it big, I’ll tell Behind the Music the story of this night.

Senior Year photos for the cat.

Caught a Cal hoops game.

Looked in on Fleet Week in S.F.

Walked around the Oakland hood in search of street art.

Tiff does her best shark in Tiburon.

Delicious southern grub at Brown Sugar Kitchen, for which we waited nearly two hours on a Sunday.

Tore our entire backyard apart in the hopes that we can plant some type of garden above the brick retaining wall.  We filled up three giant green barrels on the street plus nine recyclable bags.

And, of course, there’s a brilliant sunset each day. I post a lot of pictures like this, but it’s only about 1 percent of the photos I actually take from our porch.