Pic that makes me homesick

Got a pic taken from Sausalito Yacht Club this morning (you can see San Francisco in the distance) after a phone call from Jason who is checking on our house while the winter tenants are abroad. Sarah is in Seattle and I am in Stockholm. I am looking so forward to leave for my hometown next month!!

Happy Easter Holidays!

Happy Easter Holidays ya'll! Sarah called me last night and yapped about a property in Berkeley that caught her attention. Usually she doesn't wince when East Bay comes up but this one is different. It's a beautiful 1925 house in Claremont for $1.8M. Open House on Easter Sunday. She said she would probably go there and have a peek.

Photos: Liz Rusby

Anchor tenant renames Transbay Tower

Transbay Tower, the huge new skyscraper slated for a 2017 completion is about to be renamed after the main tenant Salesforce, a cloud computing company which has landed a deal to lease half the building. "Salesforce Tower" will be the new name. Hm... I can almost hear the tax breaks kicking in, making this deal possible...

Everyone needs 12gb of frame buffer :-)

I have always been a PC gamer. Not that consoles aren't good enough. I think games ought to be played in a nice chair on a 60 inch TV screen - not leaned forward over a keyboard. But I like good visuals and to be able to tweak stuff, visuals as well as UI and configuration files. And now Nvidia has announced its latest $3000 monster GPU: Titan Z. Do I have to get it? I don't think so, but part of me wants to say: Does the sun rise in the east?

Going to Amsterdam

Going to meet up with Sarah in Amsterdam for the last time before I go to San Francisco again in May. The new enlarged Terminal 2 at Arlanda Airport is looking good.

Worse than NYC

San Francisco is ranked in at the 3rd most congested major metropolitan area in North America. Does not come as a surprise. I love The City but the traffic is murderous.

Photo: Justin Sullivan

East bay

"Berkeley? Claremont Hills?" said Sarah yesterday on the phone when I talked to her from a gray and boring Swedish late winter weather and she from a soaking wet, just as gray but so much warmer San Francisco weather. "I don't think so but I'll check it out if you want!"

Yes, it's another property on display. But this time on the "wrong" side of the bay (Sarah's words) but with a heck of a nicer price tag. You can check it out HERE.

Photo: Liz Rusby

Noe Valley

Sarah is going to an open house in Noe Valley today. She went to a rather nice piece of property last year in Noe Valley and it's a neighborhood we both like. This time around is a big one, asking price is $3.795 million which is probably $750.000 more than what we can get for our house in Sausalito. I'm half a world away and can't join - but I can gawk at some of the pics ;-)

You can see the whole property right HERE.

The empty beauty of a lone city

Imagine the city you love - without all the people you love and everyone you know. What would be left? When I saw this video for the first time I almost wept. It's so beautiful. I know every nook and cranny of my hometown - but it felt soo wrong. A city is nothing without its people.

When light is dying

They say you can never have too many zombies. I think you can. But I'm cautiously optimistic about Techlands upcoming Dying Light. Especially when they present it like this, their latest trailer on their multiplatform title:

Let it rain, let it rain...

Finally the end of the 3-year drought? The Bay Area will be pounded with storm after storm this weekend. Sarah told me on the phone the grass and the flowers in our backyard are getting greener by the minute :-)

Photo: Justin Sullivan

California "winter"

While a big chunk of the US is freezing its butt off California has summer. It's mid January and the Bay Area is expecting record highs in almost all spots around San Francisco. The average is 13 to 16 degrees warmer than usual. Damn do I miss my hometown!

Merry X-mas!

Merry X-mas everyone! Hope everything is well with you and that Santa's being nice to you and all :-)

I'm in Sweden at the moment and there's no X-mas feeling at all, with the temps in the mid 40s this very X-mas Eve. But I don't mind. Winter is not my plate, as you know ;-)

Gearing up for Xmas

SantaCon 2013 kicked off yesterday in San Francisco. But to be honest this pic by Michael Short should be considered typical of SF anytime of the year. Everything is there. Such a great shot.

Photo: Michael Short

"Happy Thanksgiving"

Stewie on a landline yesterday: "So you guys think Brian is gone? Just you wait and see. Oh, by the way: Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your stupid turkey. Me, on the other hand, am gonna set things straight!"

The wizard of id resigns

John Carmack leaves id. Not really a game designer but hell of an engineer, he can fuse software and hardware like no one else. What will he do now? Keep on with the Oculus Rift project, presumably.

The One and Only (?) is out

On Friday the 22nd, the Xbox One was launched in the US. Microsoft reports of more than 60 million zombies killed in Dead Rising 3 on this very first day alone. What a crazy and understandable way to start the Holiday season, guys ;-)

Photo: Gerardo Mora

Our special blend

Gas prices are in general 40 cents higher per gallon in California than in the rest of the US. Everyone from out of state who comes to the Golden State usually wonders why. Well, it's because California has a high gas tax and - this is not so widely known - it's own special fuel blend to fight air pollution. There are only a few selected refineries that can produce it and this "blends in" in the equation. You can read more about it here.

Photo: The Chronicle. Pay cash and you get a discount!

Going to Amsterdam

Going to Amsterdam over the weekend to meet Sarah. She has flown in from Cairo and we are taking our chance to meet of course :-)

From phone

West coast in my heart

In the Stockholm subway Scandinavian Airlines are advertising for their newly opened destination San Francisco. I feel homesick to the bones when I see it. Especially now when it's freezing cold and the friggin dark season is here.

From phone