mccullochblog

Munk rifles through trash; city folks bemused

One of the rather impressive benefits afforded to Emma by her new employer is a private campsite called Little Basin. Being home-owning types now (and therefore alert to bargains), the opportunity to spend a three-day weekend taking advantage of a free campsite nestled amongst Giant Redwoods was too good to resist.

I'm glad to say a splendid time was had by all despite the four of us (we were joined by friends Jodi and Gary) encountering some distinctly disturbing events. First off, things went a little bit 'Blair Witch' when we managed to get completely lost in the forest while following a two-mile (1.5hr) loop trail. After clambering across the same river twice and then spotting the notoriously nasty 'Poison Oak' growing by said river we elected to cut our losses, retrace our steps and head for home.

Then, when we returned from our adventurous hike, we found the trash from the previous night's stupendous fire-side dinner had been spread all around our campsite by a rogish chipmunk.

As if that wasn't enough excitment for four city types, we were then awakened in the middle of Saturday night by a man screaming for help at the top of his lungs because he'd almost killed one of his daughters by leaving a propane gas lamp burning in his kids' cabin. The flame had apparently gone out, leaving propane to suffocate the cabin's occupants. Thankfully, he'd discovered the situation just in the nick of time.

"She was gone," a clearly hungover man told me in the shower block the next morning. "I gave her mouth-to-mouth."

Apparently, he'd only learnt how to do so last week as part of the induction process for his new job in security. I'm curious whether it was the technique or the likely stench of booze from her saviour that brough the little girl back. In any case...the boy done well.

After all that excitement, you can probably well imagine that we turned to booze (and wine and art) for solace across at the Boulder Creek Art and Wine Festival. If you ever wondered what the Wild West was like when it was still wild...well, get on down to Boulder Creek some time. Yee-haw!

Oh, and by the way, the picture is of Gary, who rather impressively brough a remote control gas burner on the trip...

Elvis Lives! (in San Francisco)

The 7 mile Bay-to-Breakers walk across the city is one of San Francisco's great events. This year 45,000 people dressed as Elvises, vikings, 70s tennis stars, Star Wars characters, smurfs, cowboys, pirates and pool attendants for the charity event. Some of them even walked the seven mile course naked! Emma and I were among them (not naked, but dressed as email spam) as were several of my co-workers. Just take a look at this video to get a sense of the insane day we've had. Download BaytoBreakers06.wmv

Great Moments in (Football) History

Inspired by the agony of watching Liverpool steal the FA Cup from West Ham last weekend and by the anticipation of the fast-approaching World Cup, I decided to push Emma's patience to the limit by spending much of the past week considering my Top 10 Greatest Soccer Moments.

Clearly, this is one of my finest-ever self-indulgent posts, but of course - lucky you! - you can post your own responses below. In fact, I encourage you to do so! Anyway, here's the list:

1. Arsenal 0-2 Liverpool, Highbury, 1982. My first match. Dad took me up to London aged 10 and cleverly used me to negotiate for tickets with a tout while he lurked nearby. Once obtained, Dad celebrated with a pint while I sat outside the pub with all the other kids. Of course, I remember absolutely nothing about the game, except that Kenny Dalglish was playing for Liverpool, who became champions that year.

2. Tottenham 0-0 Feyenoord, Cup Winners Cup Quarter Final, White Hart Lane, 1992. I persuaded my university house-mate Michelle to come with me to experience my first European night of glory. John de Wolf (the wolfman) marked England's golden boy Gary Lineker out of the match completely and Michelle forced me to hide my Feyenoord scarf under my coat for fear that both of us would be pummelled to death by disappointed North Londoners. Luckily, we escaped unharmed.

3. Man Utd 2-1 Bayern Munich, Champions League Final, Barcelona, 1999. "Well, we may as well go to the stadium and sample the atmosphere" were pretty much the last words out of my mouth (we were on holiday in Spain) before a corporate ticket holder stepped out in front of Poddy and I and waved some spare tickets in the air. 16,000 pesetas and twenty minutes later, we were inside the Nou Camp for one of the most memorable finals in years as Teddy Sherringham and Ole Gunner Solskjaer stole the cup from Bayern in injury time. I stil remember calling Dad and shouting "Guess where we are?". He was watching on telly at the time.

4. Holland 0-0 Sweden (Holland won on penalties), European Championship Quarter Final, Faro, Portugal, 2004.  The highlight of this game until extra-time was the searing heat of the Algarve and the incredible enthusiasm of the Dutch orange people (me included, of course.) Then Freddy Ljunberg hit a post, the ref blew his whistle and Edwin van der Saar saved two penalties to put Holland into the semis. I went mental. Emma and Poddy tolerated my four-hour long celebrations (the time it took to drive back to Lisbon that night). In fact, they may have also been wearing orange. 

5. Arsenal 2-1 Sheffield Wednesday, FA Cup Final (Replay) 1993. This was my first FA Cup Final since Ron started working for Arsenal. We managed to get tickets for the replay at the last minute and I was SO excited. I'll never forget that (Emma's fave) Chris Waddle had scored a screamer for Wednesday that looked to have won them the cup (my first FA Cup final) before Ian Wright equalised and then Andy Linighan (a lesser member of Arsenal's famed defence of the 90s) nodded in a winner in extra time for Arsenal. I could have sworn that in the celebrations that followed Tony Adams dropped Andy Linighan off his shoulders, breaking his arm in the process...but the Internet doesn't seem to remember that.

6. Hearts 4-2 Slavia Prague, UEFA Cup 1st Round, 2nd Leg. Tyncastle, Edinburgh, 1992. My dad's from Edinburgh (and therefore so am I) and nothing made me prouder than going to Tynecastle with him and his friend John to watch the Jam Tarts in Europe. Football truly came home that night and I'll never forget the moment Glyn Snodin fired in a free kick from what seemed like 50 yards in the last minute to send Hearts into the next round. Apparently, many life-long Hearts fans consider that one of their finest memories. All I remember is that even my Dad went mad as twenty thousand Hearts fans whirled their maroon and white scarves around their heads in celebration. Brilliant!

7. Dover 3-2 Cheltenham, FA Trophy, Semi-Final, 1992. When you support a crap team, the greatest memories can be tragic defeats. 14 years ago, Dover were one goal from Wembley: the home of English football; the greatest stadium in the land. Dover's Crabble ground was packed with 4,000 supporters (trust me, it was packed) and I'd driven down from London on a Tuesday evening for the game. We even had a first division referee officiating the game, it was THAT important. Sadly, we didn't have a Glyn Snodin that night to score the fourth. I remember driving home in tears. We've never come that close again.

8. Sheffield Wednesday 4-2 Hartlepool, League One Play-Off Final, Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, 2005. Wednesday are really Emma's team, but I can't deny that we say them play two of the most fantastic matches in last year's league one play-offs. I'd almost go so far as to say I enjoyed the semi-final win over Brentford more as Emma and I had only managed to get tickets about 2 minutes before kick-off, predictably from a scouse ticket tout. But our day out in Cardiff was brilliant, not least because Wednesday were 1-0 up, then 2-1 down before finally clawing their way back to a win. There's no victory like a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat.

9. England 2-0 Scotland, UEFA European Championships, 1st Round, Wembley, 1996. As a half-Scottish, Dutchman, it pained me to watch the old enemy triumph over Bonnie Scotland when Scotland had been within a missed Gary McAllister penalty of at least getting a draw. But in a flash Gazza received a long ball upfield, brilliantly flicked the ball over his marking defender and scored what most critics agree was a 'wonder goal', possibly the best ever at Wembley. It still smarts, but leaving it off the list would be like not saying you were at the 66 World Cup Final because you don't like it when England play in red.

10. Italy 1-2 Croatia, World Cup, Ibaraki, Japan 2002. What more do you need to know? I was at the World Cup!! And I'll be there again in 2010. Just you wait.

10(b). Portugal 2-2 England, (England lost on penalties) UEFA European Championships, Semi-final, Lisbon, 2004. I'll never forget the incredible noise and masses of people and cars that poured onto Lisbon's streets immediately after this game. However, I'll also certainly never forget Rooney's injury, England's collapse, Campbell's disallowed goal and then the inevitable, agonizing, excruciating penalty shoot-out. It was without a doubt the highest drama I've experiened in any game I've attended (and that includes the Dutch game just a day earlier). Sadly, as I said earlier, when you support a crap team, the greatest memories can be tragic defeats. Sorry Em!

OK, your turn...

Is there an otolaryngologist in the house?

In the big scheme of things, my scrape with death today wasn't quite as dramatic as, say, the time I fell into a watery ditch in Holland wearing Wellington boots aged about five, but it was nevertheless quite a drama.

The day had begun quite marvellously. My U.S. colleagues had seen fit to award me a prize for being a jolly good employee (no, it wasn't employee of the month!), which was great, and all-in-all everything was marvelous until lunch when one of said colleagues suggested trying a Japanese place she likes to frequent.

One mouthful of unagi maki later and I was choking violently in reaction to a nasty eel bone getting stuck in the back of my throat. One rapid taxi transit later and I was in ER being fed anti-spasm medication (that helped me stop wanting to vomit) prior to a neck x-ray which revealed...nothing.

At this point, the ER wanted to send me home. "B****cks", said I, "I've got a sharp fish bone in my throat, even if you can't see on an x-ray. "OK," they said, "we'll discharge you and make you walk ten blocks across town to see a otolaryngologist".

One more hour later and Dr Clifford Chew revealed that the only way he was going to  ascertain whether I had a fish bone lodged in my throat (NO-ONE believed me!) was to stick a cable camera up my nose and then into the back of my throat through my nasal cavity. "Fantastic," I said, considering that this sounded physically impossible, "go for it."

But, you know what, with the help of a little nasal anaesthetic and by shoving a pair of pliers the size of an obstetrician's forceps down my throat (while I held my own tongue with two pieces of gauze), Dr Chew finally extracted the offending 15mm long piece of fish bone.

I was, as you might imagine, relieved.

Curiously, upon returning to the office after my ordeal (I KNOW, I should have gone home) I received a warm round of applause and welcome back, not - apparently - because of my near death experience, but because we've just won a fantastic new client account! I guess it was just destined to be one of those days.

Ten Hours in an Office Block with Wings

Despite the distrurbing experience I'm about to describe, I would concede that there's usually something very cool about the science-versus-nature feat that is a Boeing 747 taking off.

I would even add that in the past I've enjoyed thundering down a runway inside one of these curvy office-blocks-with-wings, but you know, at some point, you have to say: "that's an old plane, and I'd rather not fly on an old plane."

I'm hard pushed to say exactly how old the 747 was that I flew on coming back from my brother's bachelor weekend yesterday (United's website doesn't tell me), but let's just say the interior was more reminiscent of a 1970s cross-channel ferry than a 21st century flying machine.

I mean, can you even remember the last time you boarded a plane that had a pull-down projector screen at the front? And has anyone under the age of 30 even ever seen one of those huge red/green/blue light projectors?

Ah well...I suppose it got me home and in retrospect it was nowhere near as scary as an internal Air Mexicana flight I once took on an ancient McDonnell Douglas DC-10, nor for that matter, the Aero Continente flight I took in Peru on a thirty-year-old Boeing 727 about five years ago.

All of which reminds me, I must put some oil on my bike chain in the morning.

What's that you say? Talk about the bachelor weekend? Are you crazy? This is a public forum, you know.

Odd.

I've lived here for almost five years now and I've never quite understood the very odd phenomenon that is the combination of coffee shops and laptops in San Francisco.

To be more precise, I've never understood why seemingly balanced, normal-looking people choose to sit in coffee shops surfing the Web or checking email when they could be out walking, running or watching a movie. I mean, if they're really so lonely that they can think of nothing better to do, why would you want to advertise the fact by sitting in the window of Starbucks?

And if they're willing to go and sit by themselves in Starbucks for hours on end BECAUSE you're sad and lonely, you'd think they'd also have the courage to perhaps leave their laptop behind once in a while and - shock - actually talk to the other sad souls in Starbucks in the hope that some day you might not be a sad soul anymore - but a joined soul!

Don't get my wrong, I know I'm a laptop-addicted geek too, but at least I geek in the privacy of my own home!

Anyway, I open this one up to you, my readers. What possible explanation can there be for this strange phenomenon. Are these people sad or socially confident? Are they disconnected - or all secretly IMing each other in the cafe? What's going on?