Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

The Art & Wine Festival comes to town once or twice a year. And it doesn't just come to our town; it comes to several towns in the area. So if we miss it in Sunnyvale, we can catch it in Mountain View. Or Santa Clara. Or Fremont. Or Los Altos.

Last year and this year we've gone to see the Los Altos show. It's similar to the others; there are one or two organizations that run all the shows, and many of the vendors sign up for multiple shows as it's a significant part of their business. Los Altos tends to be a little higher end than the other shows, befitting the city's elevated real estate prices and snooty attitude. But what also sets Los Altos apart for us is that Hawk is now one of the artists at the Art & Wine Festival.



Hawk has been selling some of her jewelry creations through an established rock shop downtown. This year the shop owner invited her to be an "artist in residence" during the art show. Woohoo!

Hawk was at the store/show all day Saturday and will be again all day today, Sunday. Unfortunately she made now sales Saturday. The shop owner was surprised it was a weak day for her whole shop. There were plenty of visitors looking, but nobody was buying.

I don't think it was just the shop that was seeing slow sales. I spent an hour walking around all the booths in the afternoon, and other than the booze stands and the places selling ice cream, I didn't see anyone transacting much business. Oh, the streets were plenty crowded with festival-goers. But festival-goers were in look-but-don't-buy mode.

I've seen an increasing number of news articles over the past few months about Tesla owners having regrets. In addition to the concerns about build quality, safety, and full-auto driving that have always been there— though curiously not if you get your news from X/Twitter— owners are selling or disavowing their purchases due to Elon Musk's politics. "I bought this before I knew how awful Elon is," bumper stickers were reported. I'd never seen one myself, though.... Until tonight.



This car was parked next to us at a local Costco.

There are a lot of Teslas out here. Drive down a residential avenue in Palo Alto and you'll see one parked in front of every second house.

Some people ask why there'd be so many Teslas in the left-leaning Bay Area. For one, Tesla is a hometown company. Its design HQ is/was in Palo Alto, and its first manufacturing plant is across the bay in Fremont. Two, Tesla wasn't always tied up with politics. Musk only started becoming a MAGA advocate, out loud anyway, 5 years ago.

Who remembers Marie Callender's? Okay, probably few people outside of California. They're a restaurant chain and a brand of ready-made frozen pies you can buy at the supermarket.

The restaurant chain has gone through ups and downs— but mostly downs— over the years. They were more common in California in the 1980s and '90s as an American variety menu restaurant whose specialty was a large selection of pies available for dessert. The chain went through a series of purchases and stumbled badly after its co-founder passed away. Today there are only 27 Marie Callender's restaurants left, per their website. Their map shows they've mostly in California, and mostly in Southern California at that. There are two in Las Vegas, one in Salt Lake City, and one near Boise. And of the merely two located in Northern California, one's right here in Sunnyvale.



Why the little history lesson on a little-known restaurant chain? Well, we decided to eat there for the first time in... years. It was a partly a matter of my sort-of New Year's resolution last year to try some new restaurants in the area— or old ones we hadn't been to in a long time. This definitely counts as the latter. I think Hawk ate at the local Marie's a few years ago, but for me it's been probably 20 years.

We did used to eat at Marie Callender's more often. ...Not weekly, or even monthly, but definitely more often than once in 20 years. The chain was one of many at the time in the category of variety-menu American food. In addition to Marie's there were Lyons, and Carrows, and bears Baker's Square. Now they're all gone. Though other chains in the once-crowded space, Denny's and Hobee's, are still around. It was partly because there were so many chains in the category that we didn't dine at any one all that frequently. Plus, middle-American wasn't a cuisine we cared to eat more than maybe once a month, and even then only for variety when we were tired of Mexican, Italian, Indian, Chinese, Greek, and so many other categories we're rich with here in Silicon Valley.

So anyway, we decided on a visit to the local Marie Callender's for old times' sake. And because we were curious about this restaurant, in our town, being one of the few survivors.

Stepping into the restaurant was like entering a museum from the 1940s. The place was decked out in dark wood, highly waxed, with dim lighting. The wood floor creaked gently underfoot as we crossed the large foyer. Marie Callender's always made its niche within its crowded restaurant category with old-timey decor and a more upscale character than its competitors. But here what was once an artificial old-timey look now looked... genuinely old. Like nothing had changed for 40 years. Walking to our seat was like walking through a museum that serves food.



Little has changed about Marie Callender's menu, either. It looks similar to what I remember from 25 years ago— not that I remember it all that well. It does seem to have shrunk over time, though. That's understandable as a result of all the times it was bought and sold and the constant pressure from new owners to find ways to reduce costs. Luckily I was in the mood for a classic Marie Callender's dish, a meatloaf sandwich.

At least one thing changed from 25 years ago. Beer. Note that glass behind my plate and the bottle of beer in the upper right hand corner. Marie's offers a choice of about a dozen beers now! Serving beer was once considered antithetical to the family-friendly image chains in the category anchored by Denny's strove to maintain. As that category withered the chains decided they'd have to broaden their offerings in various ways to survive. So now there's bottled beer.

How was the food? Well, that meatloaf sandwich was the main thing, and it was... barely edible. The meat tasted like low quality ground beef, possibly with too much filler. It was also dry, like it had been left sitting under a warming lamp all day.

I was really disappointed by that, though at the same time not too surprised. I mean, Marie Callender's did used to be better. I know that because I know the kind of food I enjoyed eating when I moved to California in the 1990s, and I know it was better that this. This restaurant was never great; but it was at least fair. Now it's not even that.

Food at family-oriented restaurants that were once a mainstay of dining almost all seems to suck today. It's the end result of too many years of cost reduction in search of greater profits. The problem is, when they reduce the cost too much the product starts to suck, and once the food isn't that great anymore customers will go elsewhere. Witness why so many chains in this once booming category have disappeared over the past 25 years and even the survivors have only a fraction of the locations they once had.

There's been a discussion on an email group in my neighborhood about hiring a contractor to replace windows and sliding glass doors. One neighbor, "Chu", asked for recommendations. A few businesses were suggested, including one that my spouse and I hired years ago for some window repairs. We didn't give this recommendation, though we do consider the contractor an knowledgeable and fair professional. Many people in our neighborhood have hired them for window repairs, as they've been in business in our community for decades.

Chu wrote back to the group that the contractor had come through with a $33k bid that she thought was too high. Moreover, they didn't itemize the cost proposal to identify specific materials and units of labor.  At first the amount of $33k struck me as large, too— our bill for window repairs years ago was more like $1,000— but then I saw Chu's description of the work she wants done. She's asking for 13 windows and 2 sliding glass doors to be replaced. ...Not just repaired, like fixing a pane of glass (which is what we did year ago) but replacing the whole window/door 15x.

A few of our neighbors pointed out that, yes, this project will be costly. The contractor has to cut into the exterior wall in numerous places, remove the old windows/doors, set the new casements in, then not only patch them up to the interior walls but seal them to the exterior, redoing the stucco and exterior paint.

Chu is upset that the contractor didn't provide a price breakdown and hasn't responded to her request to provide one.

I gotta say at this point, I understand where the contractor is coming from in kind of ghosting her request. For one, quotes can take time to prepare. I know in my company, there's a process around it. And when a prospective customer starts requesting multiple quotes, it triggers concern that the customer is aggressively looking for ways to argue for discounts and/or shrink the size of their order but still get the favorably unit pricing entailed in a bigger order.

Also, in any business situation, you've got to understand the market dynamic. Are the vendors hurting for work, or are they all booked up? If the vendors have staff idling for lack of work, they'll respond quickly to inquiries (they're not busy with other projects!) and they'll lead with discounts or offer them quickly to secure a deal. OTOH, when there's more demand than supply, the vendors hold the cards. They don't need to return calls lickedy-split. They don't need to write multiple quotes for choosy buyers or entertain bargain-seekers.

I believe that right now, in terms of home renovations contracting, we are facing an under-supply relative to demand. There are only so many contractors, especially good contractors. And a lot of people want to hire them. In this area there's almost always a supply-demand imbalance for skilled contractors that favors the contractors. It's a high-cost-of-living area, and people want home improvements. In addition, with home sales slow because of high interest rates the past few years, more people are paying to renovate where they live instead of moving.

I absolutely don't fault Chu for wanting to shop for 1-2 competing offers. She absolutely should. But given the first company she called is well reputed and known to be fair, I wouldn't be surprised if the other offers either come in higher or would entail cutting corners that spell trouble a few years down the road. (If you cheap out on exterior sealing you get leaks, with inside-the-wall damage!) I hope she sees that quality work isn't always compatible with getting the lowest price, and that contractors who are busy because they're good aren't going to bargain down their price.

We tried a new restaurant the other night, Red Pepper Grill over in Los Altos, ~5 miles away. Part of my impetus to try it was trying something new. It's over a year now since my 2023 new-year resolution to try new restaurants. We wound up not really trying all that many new restaurants in the area last year so I consider the resolution still in play for this year.

The other part of my impetus was that I had a credit card incentive for the restaurant. Yeah, I've often got multiple plates spinning at the same time. 😅



The credit card incentive was this thing from Chase called Chase Merchant Offers. Each of my Chase cards has a list of about 100 offers from various companies for extra points or cash back on qualifying purchases. Most of them are from merchants I'd ordinarily never buy from, and trifling incentives like "Spent at least $200 at this mail-order clothing shop, get $20 back" are not enough to get me to try them. Several are from restaurants. At any one time there are usually a few from restaurants I'd consider eating at. Red Pepper Grill is a Mexican restaurant, and Hawk and I like Mexican, so we decided a few days ago we'd give them a try.

We rolled up to the restaurant early into dinner hour on a Thurdsay evening. The patio was filled with a birthday party group. Indoors there were plenty of seats available. It was just as well the patio was full as the weather outside wasn't nice enough to be enjoyable. And the party being outside left things quieter inside.



I ordered enchiladas Suizas (photo above), a dish with two chicken enchiladas covered with tomatillo sauce and cheese. Hawk ordered Monterey enchiladas, which were basically the same thing but with cheese filling instead of chicken. I wish I'd known what she was going to order before I made up my mind; I'd have tried something with a different sauce so we could get a broader taste for the menu between the two of us.

The tomatillo sauce was strongly flavored. That was a bit surprising because usually tomatillo sauce has a subtle flavor. The strong flavor paired well with the chicken in my enchiladas but overpowered the cheese filling in Hawk's entree.

The rice was meh, just standard Mexican-style Spanish rice. In other words, filler. The beans were subpar. They were too chunky to be refried beans yet too smooth to pass as whole beans. And the bits of cheddar cheese melted over them only amplified their inadequacy.

Service was spotty. There were 3 people working front-of-house but really only 1 was a full-time server. The others seemed to be managers who occasionally pitched in to help with serving the big party outside but would then melt away to do something manager-y. Assuming the birthday party was booked in advance they should have had more service staff working. Oh, and there were 2-3 hangers-on in the dining room who were family or friends of the owner. They kind of helped out a bit with the party but also created distractions for the employees who were working. One of them was visibly inebriated and creeping on women in the restaurant. Mr. Creepy offered to pay my bill when I humored him with a bit of conversation... then left before paying— either my bill or his own. 😨 The manager came over to me later an apologized, explaining that he told him to leave.

Would we go back? No.

For me the kiss of death for Red Pepper Grill was the cost. Two entrees, a mocktail, and a Coke, plus tax and tip, ran over $80. Our favorite Mexican restaurants in the area run $10 cheaper for the same size order with much better food.

The news yesterday and this morning has been full of stories about violent weather around California. California's a big place, though. What happens hundreds of miles away may be totally different here. Heck, with the state's extreme differences in geography and weather patterns, what happens even 10 miles away may be totally different here. That's certainly the case with Sunday's violent weather. It was relatively calm here in my town and in my neighborhood.

Yes, we got a lot of rain. Earlier in the week we had an "atmospheric river" storm, and this weekend we had another one even bigger. From what I can tell Southern California got even more rain than Northern California did. That's kind of typical in this El Niño winter. The niño pattern means wetter weather than normal in the south, drier in the north. Southern California is definitely on the wetter side of that pattern; Northern California is around where the dividing line falls (it depends on the jet stream) so our weather may bring bits of each.

Flooding? Not here. A bit factor in flooding is how well the local runoff systems can handle it. We don't live near a river or creek prone to flooding, so there's been no flooding near our house. We don't live in a canyon or near a hillside, so there's been no mudslide here. Also no floods or washouts of the kind that can form in these areas.

We also don't live in an area prone to high wind, so we've been spared the brunt of winds elsewhere that have knocked trees and other things causing damage. We do have a few small branches down in our neighborhood. The gardeners can clean those up this week. Our biggest damage locally is a 30' long or so section of wood fence that the winds blew down. We'll have to get someone out to clean up the debris then, when things dry out, replace the section of fence. Our property management company will help coordinate that.

Update: followup blog with pictures of downed fence and a downed tree.

I've written a few times about my next-door neighbor whom police found dead in his house two weeks ago. One question we wondered about then and since is How long was he dead 15 feet away from us? Saturday night I chatted with two of his relatives who'd flown in for the weekend to start piecing things together after the loss.

• There won't be a memorial service. The deceased shared his wishes to be cremated, which his surviving family will do once authorities release the body.


• Cause of death is currently listed as 'undetermined'. Authorities are still doing tests.


• There is very little family. The deceased had no spouse or partner and no children. His parents are both deceased. He had two sisters, both married, one of whom is deceased.


• The deceased was 54— I think. His sister mentioned various ages, 54, 56, and 58, in our conversation. It wasn't clear which of those ages pertained to whom. With respect for her state of mind I didn't press the issue.


• The deceased may have been dead for up to 3 weeks before being discovered by authorities. Data showed he connected to a website on Dec. 22, but texts or other social media she sent to him on Dec. 25 were left unread.

It's eerie to consider that our neighbor was dead in his house for likely 3 weeks before being discovered.

I was all set to post a blog this evening about how I've spent a quiet three-day weekend around home. I may still post that blog tomorrow morning... but it will be changed to how I had a mostly quiet three-day weekend at home. The quietude was broken this evening when there came a knock at our door. It was about 5:30pm.

As I turned on the hall light and headed downstairs to the foyer I noticed through the windows in the door that it looked like a police officer was outside. I could see a navy blue uniform shirt and an insignia patch of some kind on her right shoulder. "Huh," I thought, "I wonder why the police are visiting?"

Police Action

As I opened the door I saw it was indeed a police officer. She was in a full tactical vest. As she addressed me I noticed that there were actually several police officers, similar attired, in the pipestem lane in front of our townhouse.

"We're conducting a wellness check on your neighbor," she explained, nodding her head in the direction of my reclusive neighbor, Stig. "When's the last time you've seen him?"

"Gosh," I stumbled, "It's been at least a week— no, at least two. No, wait, maybe longer."

The officer explained that they were preparing to break the door to gain entry and asked if I, or anyone I knew, had a key. I explained that Stig is very reclusive guy with few or no friends in the neighborhood. He makes no effort to talk to anybody and actively takes steps to avoid even brief social encounters such as chatting with people at the mailboxes or as he's entering or exiting his garage.

Ladder Time

The officers— who numbered 4 or 5, and had several police cars parked around our building— were discussing different ways of gaining access to Stig's house. I offered my ladder to help them peer through windows. The spryest of the officers— one who splits duty between police and fire departments so has lots of experience climbing ladders— used mine to peer in windows over the back patio. "Between the front door and the back windows I've gained a visual across almost the entire lower floors, and there's no sign of the subject," he told his colleagues where I could overhear.

Next I suggested they could climb to the kitchen balcony. The door there might be unlocked, I noted. My ladder wasn't tall enough for that climb, so I texted my other neighbor, Mark, who has a taller ladder. It's 16'. "That's a nice ladder," the ablest officer chuckled as we walked it out of Mark's garage.

We set up the ladder and, after some adjustment, the officer climbed right up it and over the balcony railing. The other officers watched in awe. I guess they haven't served rotations in the fire department yet.

Officer Big tried the balcony door. It was locked. But he shined his light through the balcony door and the bathroom window. "I see a body on the stairs," he said in so many words.

The Body

The police shifted modes. They were again discussing how to force entry into the house but now they needed permission from a supervisor. I'm not certain what's the difference in the rules of engagement. I gather if it looked like my neighbor might be alive and injured, they'd force their way in pronto to deliver aid. But their visual determination from the window was that he was already dead. Like, rigor mortis dead. ☠️

When permission came through they broke in through the garage. The door into the main house from the garage was slightly ajar. When they pushed on it there was the clanking of a lot of bottles and physical resistance. Apparently Stig had bags or boxes of bottles piled up against the door. That is both familiar— I still remember years ago when a cleaning crew removed dozens of heavy-duty trash bags of bottles from his house— and strange. Stig used that door to/from his garage daily. Why would he have it partially blocked? BTW, it's only a small coincidence that when those cleaners were carting bag after bag after bag out of his house years ago my first thought then was that he died. 😵

So, anyway, there was a dead guy in the condo next door. We don't know how long he's been there. The last time we saw him alive was Dec. 11. So for all we know he could have been there up to 5 weeks.

Later in the evening the coroner came to check the scene. An undertaker removed the body.

I don't have any info right now about how long the guy had been dead or who his next of kin are. Somebody called in the wellness check... though that could have been the guy's boss at work. Nobody here in the neighborhood knows anything about him except that he's unsociable and hates kids (he has an offensive term for children he apperntly thinks thought was hilarious). I'm not prying. I figure I'll check to see if there's a notice in the paper or talk to a police officer if there's any followup.

Sunday we got out and about despite my quip that it was our 7th weekend in a row at home. Of course we didn't go far; we stayed right here in Sunnyvale and hiked the Sunnyvale Baylands Park. It was beautiful weather, too; an unseasonably warm 72° or so in the early afternoon.

Sunnyvale Baylands Park is part of a series of public lands that trace around the edges of the San Francisco Bay. While we only visit this park once or maybe twice a year we're out here in this neck of the woods— er, bay— fairly frequently. Other parks that connect together in an arc around the south end of the bay are Byxbee Park in Palo Alto, where we enjoyed wildflowers this past May; the Stevens Creek trail in Mountain View, which we last visited in February; the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge which we last visited a few months ago but found closed (we did hike it in January, though); and the Alviso Marina County Park we hiked instead of Don Edwards and marveled at the wildly colored salt ponds.

Well, what's here in Sunnyvale Baylands?



Honestly not much to start. The trail out toward the bay starts on paved access road paralleling State Highway 237. While 6 lanes of cars rush past on the other side of the sound wall it looks and feels almost like another planet here. Partly that's because this seasonal wetland (see pic above) looks more like a semi-desert. That wildflower bush in the foreground that looks red and blooming in the picture actually looked brown and charred in person!

The reason it's so dry out here in this wetlands, aka marsh, is that it's well out of season right now. The last significant rain was over 6 months ago. The next rainy season is about to begin. This spot will look different in a month or two.



Ah, here's a scene that looks a bit more like a wetlands. The difference is this pond (in the midground in the pic above) is fed by a creek flowing out from San Jose. Thus there's water in the pond and green rushes growing along the creek in the foreground. BTW while the creek and pond in this photo are in Sunnyvale, the buildings just beyond it are over the border in San Jose. And the mountains beyond them are above Fremont. Mission Peak is the high point there.



Here in the South Bay there are literally hundreds of miles of levees around creeks and enclosing ponds and salt ponds. The ponds are great habitat for waterfowl. We see tons of ducks, geese, and cormorants out here. We saw a heron or two, as well, plus a few red-tail hawks.

We didn't hike all of those 200-ish miles of levees, only about 5 miles round trip. We looped around the far side of a Sunnyvale athletic park where kids were playing little league baseball and then back through Sunnyvale Baylands Park.



The last leg of our hike took us past this dried-out pond, even drier than the one we started next to. This one's so dry it looks like it could be desert, with a broad swath of sand and minerals exposed.

"I should go back to ShaKa Brewing soon," I've been saying for a year now. "Maybe this Friday." Well, Friday finally came yesterday. I put a stake in the ground when I texted a friend, "I'm heading over around 4:45/5pm". Surprisingly he offered to meet me there! (Surprising because he has standing commitments on Friday evenings.) Once it was a date I couldn't back out of going by forgetting about the time, deciding I was too tired, etc... like I've procrastinated numerous times over the past year.



Since our first visit a year ago— which I realized was actually 14 months ago when I looked up this link— ShaKa has grown. Oh, they're still in the same light-industrial alley show in the photo above, but they've moved a few doors down the row. Their new space is nearly 4x the size of the old one. They have a bunch of casual seating inside, though with this week's warm weather the ideal place to sit was outside, in the shade, with a gentle breeze making the 80°-ish temperature more pleasant.

ShaKa has grown their portfolio of beers. Last time I enjoyed the Riley Red and Sunnyvale Lager. This time they had at least 4 others in addition. I started with a glass of Gemini, a summer ale with mild fruit flavors and a hint of sourness. It seemed like great choice for sipping outside on a warm afternoon.

Co-owner Shawn, the "Sha" of ShaKa Brewing, came by to chat with us. We asked him about what style of beer Gemini is. He explained that it's not a sour beer because they don't use any bacteria in it to produce the sour flavors. That's what distinguishes sours from other beers. He calls Gemini a "tart" rather than a sour because it gets its mildly sour, gently fruity flavors all from carefully chosen hops and yeast. He agreed that it was crafted specifically as a great sipper on a warm afternoon, much like certain styles of white wine— which is exactly what I was thinking about as I drank it.

For my second round I tried a glass of Gaia Scotch Ale. Going in this beer was my #1 choice as I like darker ales, but I tried the Gemini Summer Ale first because it's better to try lighter flavored drinks first. The heavier ones kind of crush the palate and make it harder to enjoy the lighter ones. And, oh boy, was Gaia heavy.

Gaia has all the flavors you expect in a Scotch Ale. It's dark, rich, and mildly sweet with notes of toffee. It's also higher strength, at 7.2% ABV. Overall it's just too much for me, kind of like the other Scotch Ale I've tried in my long-running beer tasting project, Kilt Lifter— except even more so. As I remarked to my companion, it's not a beer I'd kick out of bed, I just wouldn't order a second one.

Speaking of second one, two was enough for me on Friday afternoon. Both beers were on the high side of alcoholic content: Gemini at 6.2% and Gaia at a whopping 7.5%. If they were lighter, like around 4.5%, I might have sat to enjoy a third. Instead I grabbed a 4-pack of cans to take home to enjoy over the coming week. I bought 2 cans of Gemini, 1 each of the Riley Red and Sunnyvale Lager I liked last time, and none of the Gaia.

Update, Jul 27: ShaKa Brewing made the (local) news! Mountain View Voice article, 27 Jul 2023. The article talks about how the co-founders Shawn and Karl got together to create ShaKa Brewing, how they survived starting days before the Pandemic kicked in, and how they've grown recently.