Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Lately we've been dining out at California Pizza Kitchen as part of our regular rotation. It's kind of a blast from the past for us as I don't think we ate at a CPK together for 20 years. It used to be a thing we did on the regular, especially when we lived in Los Angeles (the chain's home) 20+ years ago. But then through a combination of moving back to Silicon Valley, where there wasn't a CPK close to us, and the chain itself seeming to shrink the number of restaurants, and... oh, yeah... the fact that Hawk seldom wants to eat pizza, we didn't set foot inside a CPK for years.

A few years ago a new CPK opened up just off Lawrence Expressway, a few miles away from our home. For a while we never went because, again, pizza wasn't an "us" thing. But then I got Hawk to humor me once or twice when I had a jones for it. She grinned and bore it through eating pizza a few times. By the third time or so she decided, "Screw their pizza, I'm getting a salad"... and a wonderful thing happened. She found their salads are really good!

That put CPK back into the mix. Now it's a sit-down restaurant not too far from home that we can both agree upon because there are things on the menu we both definitely like. But what really got it into part of our regular rotation was the Costco connection.

The Costco connection? Is that like The French Connection? Yes, it is! And it's even better because it's pizza (and salad), not heroin, and you don't have to survive an epic car chase through the streets of Manhattan to get it.

The connection is that Costco sells CPK gift cards, 2 x $50, for $80. That knocks up to 20% off the cost of dining at CPK. Together with the menu having dishes we both genuinely enjoy, the 20% discount has made CPK one of our regular haunts again.

Oh, and why did I mention the CPK is just off Lawrence Expwy? It's because the Costco is on Lawrence, too. In fact it's just 1/2 mile from the restaurant. One evening a few weeks ago we drove to Costco, bought 4 of these gift cards (two packs of two), and promptly drove straight over to CPK to use one for our dinner. 🤣

So now not only is dining at CPK part of our regular rotation, but so is buying their gift cards when we shop at Costco.

After my head surgery yesterday (it was a quick, outpatient thing) we decided, "Let's go shopping!" We were in Almaden, just around the corner from (a) a TJ Maxx/HomeGoods Hawk really likes to shop at because it's a two-story store, and (b) a Costco that's slightly larger than the two near us and thus often has a few things, especially in the frozen food section, the others don't. We shopped at both. We might also have added (c) the Total Wine on the other side of Hwy 85, but I'd already slipped in a trip to another TW on Sunday and now have plenty of booze.

One thing I picked up at Costco was a tray of nigiri sushi



I've been curious to try Costco sushi for a while. This is the first time I spotted trays that were all nigiri— as opposed to trays that were mostly rolls made with lots of mayo. Plus, this was ideal timing: I was getting hungry for lunch, I figured I was going to run out of energy and/or want to stay home because of pain soon, and so why not treat myself a little. Nevermind that I'd read recently that Costco sushi is bland; I find those crowd-sources articles on what's hit or miss at Costco to be quite hit-or-miss themselves. The cuts of fish looked generous so I sprung for the $22 tray.

So, how was it? Well, that article that called it a miss was, in fact, a hit. Much like the crowd sourced review said, the rice was flavorless and squishy. ("Squishy" matters because the enjoyment of sushi is about texture as well as flavor. This rice tasted, and felt, like it's not even sushi rice.) The fish was similarly bland.

I'm not sure that freshness, or more specifically the lack thereof, was the issue. The sushi I bought was marked as having been prepared that morning. That's one of the things that gave me hope the article I read recently was inaccurate. Alas, having been freshly prepared was no indicator of fresh flavor. I got nowhere near $22 of enjoyment from my purchase.

One of the benefits to Costco Executive Member status Costco rolled out earlier this year is letting Executive members start shopping an hour early. When I wrote about whether Executive membership has been worth it (spoiler: arguably it isn't) a few days ago I mentioned that I've thought several times about hitting up Costco early in the morning for Executive Hour but never actually did it. I always figured, "Nah, I'll just take it easy at home this morning and brave the madding crowds of the hoi polloi later in the day." 🤣 Well, today I finally shopped Executive Hour.



I was up early anyway today because I had an early work meeting on my day off. That's right— not only did I work on my first true day of vacation but it was an early morning meeting! After that I went out to the clinic for a blood draw, then when I came home I had a quick breakfast while Hawk jumped in the car with me to go shopping. At Costco.

We arrived at the Mountain View Costco around 9:15am. Normal opening hour on weekdays is 10am. For Executive members like us, the store's open at 9. And as we pulled into the parking lot, hoping to find a nice, close parking space instead of the usual automotive mob scene, we found... the parking lot mobbed just as much as 1pm on a Saturday.

"Wow, everyone in Mountain View must be an Executive member," I quipped. "And when everyone is Executive—"

"—Nobody is Executive," Hawk finished the line for me. 🤣

So, yeah, that Executive member perk is close to worthless, at least here in the Bay Area.

It was a pleasant weekend... which I am only writing about just now, at 8pm on Monday evening, because today has been such a whirlwind of starting a new workweek that a blog I thought I might write at 8am I couldn't even start until now. 😰 But this young week's busy-ness is a topic for another day. Right now I just want to wind down a recount a quietly enjoyable weekend.

Hawk and I had no big plans this weekend. That's partly a consequence of her having limited mobility as she works to recover from foot surgery 3 weeks earlier. She tries to push her boundaries every day. Though every day those boundaries reassert themselves.by pushing back. After a few hours out she needs to nap for a few hours at home.

Saturday we went out for lunch together then visited a friend who was hosting a games day at his house. We gamed until about dinner time, playing a few different games each. some_other_dave was there— it's like he'd come from Hawaii just to play games every day— as was a newcomer to our group. "Ronald" was conspicuously younger than everyone else, an obvious and lone younger Millennial among a crowd of Gen Xers through young Boomers. It reminded me to ponder why our group is so sorted by age when we don't take any action or have any reason to filter people by age. (Other than "Are you mature enough to play a serious or semi-serious tabletop game?" Some parents bring their older teen children, for example.)

Sunday we went out together again. Again we started with lunch out. After that we went shopping. I made a quick run at Total Wine for a few more bottles of wines I'd really enjoyed recently. Then Hawk did a bit of clothes shopping at TJ Maxx for dresses or large skirts that fit with her surgical boot. Finally we shopped at Costco, which had been the impetus for the whole trip. And the specific impetus at Costco was a Lego set... a Lego set of 6 gems on a display stand! I bought it for Hawk as an early Hanukkah gift.

Just the walking around at Costco pushed Hawk's boundaries— according to her step counter it's easy to walk a mile in that store— but she still had energy to suggest we invite friends over to play cards on Sunday evening. We discussed going out for dinner together but then Hawk got the idea to volunteer me to cook dinner for everyone instead. 😅 I don't really mind; I moderately enjoy cooking and hosting, and we had the makings on hand, having just shopped at Costco.

Cards with friends was fun. Hawk's long day caught up with her, though, and she was fading badly after two matches of Spades. She retired upstairs as I wound things down with our friends Jeremy and Aliza. And by "wound down" I mean Jeremy and I split another round of beer before calling it a night.

Canada travelog #6
Toronto, ON · Sun, 24 Aug 2025. 11:30am.

"My mom wants to stop by a Costco before she leaves Canada," Hawk mentioned at sometime during the past 24 hours. That's all I needed to hear. Since then I've been trying to organize exactly when our Costco trip will be! 🤣

It's not that I'm some die-hard Costco shopper. It's not even that there's a particular thing I'm looking to buy at Costco— unlike for MIL, who wants to stock up on two of her over-the-counter (OTC) medicines there because they're apparently way cheaper in Canada than the US. Yes, the meme from years ago about US senior citizens buying their pills in Canada because they're cheaper is real. And while the current US presidential administration tells you, correctly, that the price disparity exists because of corporate greed, that same current US presidential administration is also all about deregulation. Deregulation because "government regulation is crippling American businesses". Well, it's literally government regulation that checks corporate greed in other countries and makes medicines cheaper virtually everywhere else in the world other than the US. 🙄

Anyway, I was talking about why I wanted to go to Costco. Two things. One, I'm just curious about seeing Costco in other countries. Two, I really wanted a slice of pizza this morning after an unfulfilling breakfast. 🤣



While Hawk and her mom split off to find and buy armloads of eye drops of something like that, I hit up the food court. Well, I tried to hit up the food court. My first attempt was 🙅 Access Denied 🙅... because I tried paying with a Visa card.

While Costco in the US takes only Visa, Costco in Canada takes only MasterCard! It turns out they do accept the US co-branded Costco Visa, but I didn't have that card on me. And when I went back out to the car to grab another credit card I wasn't sure about that so I grabbed a MasterCard just to make sure.

Another difference is the $1.50 hot dog combo. Yeah, sharp-eyed Costco loyalists will have noticed that already in the photo above. It's the same as the US, but also different. The long vaunted $1.50 hotdog and soda combo is actually cheaper in Canada.... It's cheaper because $1.50 here is 1.50 CAD, which at current exchange rates is $1.08 in USD. Canadians get cheaper pills and hotdog combos!

Would you buy a beer that's basically labeled "Beer"? And is a store brand beer? Well, what if I told you the store brand is Kirkland, the label used by Costco?

It's well known among Costco members that Costco branded products, those solder under the Kirkland store-brand name, compare favorably with leading name-brand products. Often they're actually made by one of the name-brand manufacturers. Usually it's a mystery who that is, and often it's the subject of speculation. In the alcohol department, for example, it's long been rumored that Kirkland French Vodka is made alongside France's highly regarded Grey Goose. It turns out that's not true, though it is true that the two vodkas taste very similar. Now enter a beer, Costco Lager. Except there's no mystery or pseudonym for the maker. It says right on the box: Deschutes.



I'm not normally a fan of Helles Lager, or light lager, this style of beer. But knowing that it's made by Deschutes Brewery, a well respected Oregon microbrewery whose products I've generally enjoyed, made it interesting. And the Costco pricing, almost half off what it costs to buy Deschutes under its own name, made it worth a leap.

So, after that lead-up, how does it taste? Sigh. If only the pitch matched the wind-up.

Light lager is basically the style that all American piss-water macrobrews are. Y'know, the beers that smell vaguely like day-old puke... and only taste slightly better. See also: I Drank Shit Beer and I Liked It. Kinda. 😂

Let me be clear, though: Kirkland Lager is not shit beer. It does not smell like puke, day-old or fresh. It doesn't taste like piss. It smells and tastes like... nothing, actually. It's kind of like DAB Export Lager, except where DAB tasted like "beige" or maybe "off-white", if Kirkland-by-Deschutes were a paint color it would be clear-coat. 😳

This beer just isn't enjoyable. It doesn't taste like anything. I'd rather relax with a Caffeine-free Coke Zero.

When I write about using credit cards to earn miles/points with airlines and hotel s, aka What's in YOUR wallet?, I always compare the value I get from points cards to what I could earn from a no-annual fee, 2% cash-back card. That's not just a theoretical comparison. I actually own— and use— a no-fee, 2% cash-back card. In fact I have two of them. They've just hit a pair of anniversaries, so let's check what they've been worth.

Citibank DoubleCash

The Citibank DoubleCash card is the oldest in my credit card portfolio. I've had it, and the the predecessor I converted it from, for over 10 years now. Citi DC, as I call it for short, comes with a fairly simple proposition: it pays 1% on purchases charged plus another 1% on balances are paid. The dividend earned can be taken in the form of a bank transfer or applied as a statement to help pay off the balance. Though if you choose the latter method you loose out on the second 1% of that amount, so it nets out as 1.98%.

Over the past 12 months this card has actually paid me more than 2%. That's because Citibank has this thing called Merchant Offers. They're little bonuses for spending with particular merchants, co-sponsored by the businesses. I've netted about $36 with these. It's not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but earning little bits extra on stuff I'd generally buy anyway is a fun little activity to pursue.

Fidelity Rewards Visa

My other 2% card is the Fidelity Rewards Visa. I added this card 5 years ago after I already had the Citi DoubleCash card. At the time it offered slightly better redemption terms; Fidelity would auto-deposit cashback to my Fidelity account every time the cashback balance passed $25. Citi made me wait 'til $50 for a check. Citi's now better with no minimum for a transfer, but I continue to use the Fidelity card way more because the auto-deposit to my Fidelity account is so convenient. That's a big part of why I've cycled over $22,000 of charges through it in the past 12 months, versus less than $500 on the Citi DC.

There are more reasons that just auto-redemption for why the Fidelity card is one of my top cards by usage. One not to be overlooked is that because it is a Visa I can use it at Costco. 😅 We spend at least a few thousand a year at Costco. In addition Fidelity, like Citi, has offered spending incentives on their card. Unlike Citi they're not "Get 5% back on spending $20 at Merchant X" offers but "Spend at least $X,000 in the next 2 months for 20% more points." I've hit those for about $50 over the past 12 months. Again, that's not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but it's a nice little bonus, in cash, for changing anything to this card.

When I was shopping at Costco two weeks ago I did a quick cruise of the booze aisle. Mostly I was walking down the hard liquor aisle to look at beer after turning the corner and come back up the beer aisle, but then at the bottom of the liquor aisle my eye was drawn to a colorful, bespoke bottle. Piñaq liquor.



Piñaq's label advertises that it's from Holland and is made with French cognac, passion fruit, and vodka. Oddly there's no mention of pineapple— odd since the bottle is very clearly shaped like a pineapple and the name is highly suggestive of pineapple (at least in Spanish, where piña is literally pineapple).

It wasn't until yesterday, on July 4th, when I finally opened the bottle. We had friends over and spent the afternoon at the pool. I cracked open the bottle for an apéritif as we dried off back at the house and discussed dinner plans.



Another nifty thing about this fancy bottle is that the bespoke top doubles as a stand. The cap with the pineapple leaves screws off the top and screws on to threads at the base of the bottle. It then turns the bottle into a nice display piece. (It's also easy to put the cap back on top to close up the bottle when you're done display it.)



As the liquor is a pre-mixed cocktail, and a fairly strong one at 17% ABV, I poured two shots over over a handful of ice in each glass. I drank one while our two adult guests split the other. Earlier in the afternoon we had discussed how we're all becoming alcohol lightweights as we get older. 🤣 ...Though the point of a liquor like this is to enjoy the flavor, not get soused.

The color of the liquor, as you can see in the photo above, is bright yellow. It looks artificial and is a bit of a turn-off, though it is at least somewhat the color of passion fruit juice. As for the flavor? It's pretty darn good. It's a sweet liqueur, sweet in a fruity way. The passion fruit flavor is good without being overpowering. Though to stretch out the enjoyment of the drink— without getting soused by filling the glass with liquor— one of my friends suggested filling the glass with a mixer like club soda or even Sprite. I tried another glass after dinner mixed with Sprite, and it was surprisingly good.

Would I buy it again? I'm not sure. I do enjoy the taste, but the price— even at Costco pricing— strikes me as a bit pricey for a pre-mixed cocktail drink. Overall I think I prefer Don Q passion fruit rum, which I bought home (along with 7 other bottles) from Puerto Rico 8 years ago. That was less than half the price... though that was 8 years ago... and I haven't seen Don Q passion fruit rum sold anywhere in the Western US. So maybe I will buy more of this Holland liqueur.

New Zealand Travelog #40
Auckland, NZ - Sun, 21 Apr 2024, 6pm

A few weeks ago, before we started our trip to New Zealand, I wondered, Are there Costcos in New Zealand? It's not that I'm trying to make a thing of visiting a Costco in every country I travel to but that it'd make a difference in how we packed. There are few things which, if we could have counted on buying them at Costco, we wouldn't have had to pack them. And also I am kind of checking out Costcos in foreign countries I visit. 😂

The good news was there's a Costco is in New Zealand! The bad news was it's a Costco, as in just one in the whole country, and it's in Auckland— which would be at the very end of our trip, not the beginning when it'd make a difference to packing. Thus I wrote it off as a thing to do.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to Omeru Falls today. On the drive north we passed a Costco. The Costco in New Zealand. "Let's stop by on our way home if we take the same route back," Hawk and I agreed.



From the outside this Costco looks positively huge. It's a multi-storey building with a parking garage and offices. I figure the offices are for the company's presence in New Zealand. They likely manage all their imports, inventory, advertising, and staffing there. Once inside it turns out the store's not any bigger than normal for a US Costco... though there is a trick people-mover ramp from the parking garage above the store down to the retail level.

As with our visit to one of Australia's Costcos in December the most impressive thing was how at least half the stock in the store is the same as in the US. Here, 4337 miles away from the nearest US location. (I know the exact straight-line distance because the Costco app helpfully tells me that that's the nearest store, in Kona, Hawaii. Obviously the US-centric app is missing the few stores in Australia as well as the one here in New Zealand... though it does show one store in western China "Opening May 1".



We walked more than half the aisles at Costco, mostly just window-shopping for cultural comparison. Indeed there are a number of things unique items we'd be willing try if we were starting our trip here, not going home tomorrow. One thing I did consider, momentarily, buying here to pack on the plane is a bulk box of TimTams. They're a delicious snack cookie popular in Australia and New Zealand. I've enjoyed them on my trips here, and while I wouldn't mind having some to take home, that's not the reason I thought about buying this box.... It's that while I merely like them, some people in the US loooove them and are willing to pay quite dearly for anyone who brings them over. 🤣



The other thing I was curious about are the offerings at the food court. There's a fair degree of worldwide standardization here, though some things are different— including the prices, marked in local currency. One thing that gives some US Costco loyalists a heart attack is seeing that hotdog-and-pepsi combo in the center of the menu board for $1.99. In the US it's $1.49, has been $1.49 for a long time, and touches off a wave of panic that even impacts their stock price whenever it's rumored that it might increase.

One obvious tell this menu board is foreign and is not some inflationary test-marketing experiment in the US is that the hot dog is advertised as "ALL PORK". In the US it's all beef, and that's part of the brand identity. (There was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, some that persists to this day, when Costco changed from Hebrew National Kosher hotdogs to Kirkland brand non-Kosher.)

Among other differences on the menu are french fries— which, oddly, Costco NZ calls french fries rather than "chips"— and a meat pizza with barbecue sauce.

Do these things sell well in New Zealand? If crowds are any indication, the answer is "Hell yes!" The food court area was mobbed.

Well, well, well, my iPhone news reader app is once again watching what I'm reading and trying to give me just more of the same. After I clicked on, I dunno, maybe two articles about Costco in the past week, now it's showing me "Costco" as a news topic:



There are seven articles, all about Costco— and all indeed with similar file photos atop the stories— under this news heading, with the option (via tapping "...") to fetch more.

And no, Costco doesn't replace Pizza. My newsreader still shows me "Pizza" as a news topic from that time 4 years ago when I read a few articles on pizza in the same week. 🙄