Gaia Community: Joshua's Blog

Graphs added to Empg

http://joshua.gaia.com — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:54:01 GMT

I've added some basic graphs to my SMS Mileage Tracker.

A friend's mileage, he has more entries than I do.

Track your mileage via text messages

http://joshua.gaia.com — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:18:34 GMT

One of my personal projects in the last few months has been creating a new website to "scratch my own itch." I drive a relatively fuel-efficient car, a 2001 Honday Civic. I've got friends who drive cars, both greener and not so much, which tell them what their gas mileage is. But Bob, my car's name, doesn't do that. There are gadgets I could buy to do it, and of course I could just keep a notebook in my car and jot down the numbers, but I write websites and gosh darnit, this called for one.

If I had had an iPhone, I could have used a number of different web or twitter based sites. But my phone, like my car, is rather basic. I wanted to be able to send in my odometer reading, and how much gas I bought, and have it tell me what my mileage was for that tank, and what my average is for all my fill-ups. Luckily there are a few sites that make it pretty easy to receive text messages into a web application.

So after one night's work to get the basics going, and about a month of tweaking and testing with friends, I'm pretty happy with the first version of my SMS mileage tracker. All you need to do is, the next time you fill up your tank, send a text message to 41411 with the word "EMPG" at the start, followed by your odometer reading, and then the number of gallons of gas you bought. It'll reply with your mileage and store each fill-up in a database so your average can be calculated for future fill-ups.

Tags: green, car, sms

Gmail rules!

http://joshua.gaia.com — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:50:48 GMT

I've been using Gmail a bit for years. I've used it for two accounts. One I use for registering with sites like *cough*MySpace*cough*, which I don't need immediate emails from, and for a few mailing lists. The other account is a dump space for all email going to me at my primary personal email address. I have every message sent to me also directed there so I have a "permenant" archive in case I ever delete a message by mistake. I also BCC every message I send with that account. But overall I haven't used that Gmail account very much over the years. Weeks can go by without me going in there. That all changed recently when Gaia moved our email over to Google Apps.

Google, bless them, provides some terrific tools for sites like Gaia.com that need email and want to do neat stuff with it. We're getting ready to offer email accounts to our Plus members and I've been tasked with integrating that so a Gaia+ member can create an email address @gaia.com from within our site. That's not really the point of this post though. Since we want to let you use Gmail for @gaia.com addresses, we're obliged to use it too. Some people access it in different ways, but most of us are now using the Gmail web interface for email.

Let me tell you, it's a whole different world when you're using Gmail all day every day than if you're using it once a week. I've learned the keyboard shortcuts so I can navigate my messages without using the mouse. I've setup filters and labels to help me access my most frequently needed messages. And I've learned to not worry about the rest and just search for what I need when I need it. Wonderful! I'm strongly tempted to switch my personal email over to Google Apps at this point. The only reason I haven't is that it's kind of annoying to me to have that many Gmail windows open at once :-)

I think our members will really like the Gaia email accounts we'll be offering via Google Apps. Another very good reason to become a Gaia+ member!

Tags: email, gaia+

Happy Darwin Day!

http://joshua.gaia.com — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 14:38:10 GMT

Here's to Charles Darwin! Nearly two hundred laps around the Sun since his birth and his theory of evolution by natural selection is still fundimentally sound. His work brought modern biology to life and offered the first rational explaination of how all life and its wonderful diversity came be.

Tags: charles darwin, science, evolution

Allow myself to introduce...myself.

http://joshua.gaia.com — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:09:43 GMT

Name and Title.

Joshua Warchol, Code Poet, at your service.

What's your role at Gaia Community?

I'm part of our amazing team of geeks that have built Gaia.com. I've been working on this site full-time since February of 2006. Wow, has it been two full years already?!

What do you most enjoy doing (or what are your greatest passions)?

Wow, hard question. My passions can follow a winding path sometimes. A common thread is creativity. I love to create things, be they digital like software and websites, or physical like doing home improvement projects. Another thread is compassion for our fellow creatures. I eat a vegan diet and share my home with rescued animals. I support farm animal sanctuaries and I try to spread the word about why what (or who) we eat matters.

What's your favorite thing about our community?

I love how alive the community feels. Every new discussion, blog post or photo is a peek into the lives of the amazing people from all over. And while most of the action happens on the web, it still manages to feel like a true community, bound together by common values and aspirations.

What do you love about working here?

My team is great. Truly exceptional people who I learn from every day. I enjoy the flexible and supportive work environment, and the opportunity to bring my own unique traits to the

Meet the rest of the Gaia Team

Tags: Gaia Community, Team

How It All Ends

http://joshua.gaia.com — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:59:11 GMT

I've been watching the video below, as well as all the "expansion pack" videos that go along with it. I really like this guy! He reminds me of my high school physics teacher, and he keeps the right perspective on science, critical thinking and risk management. And I like the name he gives to national-scale project needed, the "Manpollo Project." :-)

How It All Ends

Tags: science, global climate change, global warming, manpollo, funny hats

Choo Choo - Rails 2.0 Ships!

http://joshua.gaia.com — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:33:13 GMT

http://weblog.rubyonrails.com/2007/12/7/rails-2-0-it-s-done

Congrats to the Rails core team and all the contributors for releasing Rails 2.0! We're not going to be able to upgrade here at Zaadz any time soon, but for new applications and future development I'm sure we'll be using these new goodies.

Tags: Rails, Programming

Breaking News: The Entire Internet has Crashed

http://joshua.gaia.com — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:28:57 GMT

OMG! All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash!!!

What's funny is that Wallingford, Connecticut is the town that I live in! Thanks Onion, you made my day.

Tags: internet

Behind The Mustache

http://joshua.gaia.com — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:48:08 GMT

A new investigation into the practices of the dairy industry by Farm Sanctuary. Please watch it, and try to open your heart to the terrible wrong that's being committed when a mother's baby , and that baby's milk, is stolen so it can be sold.

Behind The Mustache

Tags: vegan, milk, farm sanctuary

Honeymoon Day 10 - KÀRÀZY

http://joshua.gaia.com — Fri, 04 May 2007 07:45:46 GMT

First off, KÀ is incredible. I'll return to that topic in a bit, trust me.

Today started off with a bit of pampering at the salon/spa here in Circus Circus. It's not much to talk about, compared to the posh offerings at other resorts, but it's certainly located close by ;-) That was quite a treat, something I'd like to spend more time doing next time we're traveling. After that we drove over to the Hilton to check out Star Trek: The Experience. In my youth I was quite a trekkie. My mom used to buy me stuff off of QVC whenever they had a star trek special. Thanks mom, for putting up with all that! Star Trek: The Experience was fun for both of us. We didn't spend much time exploring the "meusem", but we did both of the attractions and I had a pint of Romulan Ale at Quark's Bar. Fat Penguin got in on some photos. From the Hilton we took the Las Vegas Monorail all the way down the strip to the MGM Grand, and walked from there across the Strip to New York New York, which has the biggest coaster on the strip: Manhattan Express. The trains on this one were well themed as taxi cabs and the ride was ok overall. It wasn't very smooth for a steel coaster, and the ride operators weren't pleasant... though maybe that's part of the NYNY theming ;-)

Up next was M&M World, a multi-level retail monument to small candy covered chocolates. I had hoped to get some dark chocolate M&Ms, but alas they weren't vegan either. Tracy really enjoyed the store and picked up a bunch of little M&M figures to decorate her office with. And Fat Penguin got in some photos, of course.

After taking the monorail back to the Hilton we returned to Circus Circus for some dinner and to change before returning to the MGM Grand for our Cirque du Soleil show. We decided to try the buffet here and compare it to the one we had at the Wynn yesterday. Ugg, you really do get what you pay for, even when you're dealing with the limited vegetarian options in Vegas. The Circus Buffet is crap. It's cheap though.

Once we drove back to the MGM Grand we picked up our tickets to KÀ and headed over to the Rouge Lounge for some drinks. Expensive, but tasty. The staff was pretty attentive and it was a perfect spot to do some people watching. After that we still had more time to kill so I showed Tracy how to play video poker. We won often enough to play for well over half and hour on $5, can't complain about that, even arcade video games would have cost more.

So, KÀ. OMZ it's great. I've never seen anything so amazing with my own two eyes. The "floating" platforms that make up the performance area are emense and the action and acrobatics are so saweeeeet. Our seats were very far back but we still had a great view and I enjoyed being able to catch all the action easily in view, since the performers work from the sides as well at times. The story was simple and easy to follow, and there were lots of funny moments to break up the stuntwork. Our seats had individual speakers in them and the surround sound effect worked quite well. I can't recommend the show enough, it's wetted our appitite for more Cirque acts. Ringling can bite me, this is the kind of circus everyone should go to.

Tags: honeymoon, las vegas

Honeymoon Day 9 - Vegas Rides

http://joshua.gaia.com — Thu, 03 May 2007 06:53:05 GMT

We started the day off with Ronald's Doughnuts, a nearly famous spot in Las Vegas for vegans, with two-thirds of their offerings being vegan. We couldn't gorge ourselves as I've read some accounts of people doing, and had a small, but sweet, breakfast before our first big day of exploring. We started off by going to the Stratosphere and buying passes to go up it's 900 foot tower to enjoy the three thrill rides on top.

The weather was perfect and the only line we had was for the security checkpoint at the bottom of the tower. The first was Big Shot, a launch tower right at the tip top. It was a very cool experience to blast up into the air and feel yourself falling weightless for a breif moment. After Big Shot, we went on X-Scream, a strange little car-on-a-moving-slide thingy where you sit down then slide off of the edge of the tower, stopping abruptly at the end of the slide rail. It's quite an intense experience, and the ride repeats that with little variations a few times before you end up secured back in the loading deck. Tracy & I don't usually have any problems with the heights of rides, but this thing gave us a heart twitter. Finally we boarded Insanity, a set of swings that rotate on an arm that swings the whole lot out over the edge of the tower. We felt much more secure on this one, but got quite dizzy from the spinning. The view couldn't be beat though, and it's the longest ride of the three.

After going down the tower we headed over to Sahara to take a trip on Speed: The Ride, a launch coaster that loops and twists right along The Strip. We were both impressed with how fast the ride was and how tight into the hotel structure and the street it seemed. It was over pretty quick though.

Tracy had a craving for lunch so we asked Miss Garmin where we could find some japanese food and she directed us to Sushi Factory. Not an especially vegetarian place, but it's usually a pretty safe bet to go with veggie sushi anywhere. The motto on the menu was "We serve fresh dead fish".... seriously. The food was fine and we headed back to Circus Circus to rest a bit before exploring the attached Adventuredome amusement center. I've been to it before when I was in Vegas with Adam. He'll be pleased to know that our favorite soccer shoot-out table-based paddle game is still there. Tracy and I played a couple of games. She picked it up quickly and our second game was a good match that I barely won.

After playing some games we headed off to get a taxi over to the Wynn resort where we were scheduled to see Monty Python's Spamalot, a popular musical we had heard good things about. After picking up out tickets we went over to the buffet to get some dinner. Now, a vegan at a Las Vegas buffet, as you can imagine, has about as much luck as a someone playing craps while drunk. But we both were able to find dishes that worked for us and we ended up quite full, if a bit lighter in the wallet than we should have been for what we ate.

The show itself was awesome. Our seats were cheap and not great, but the whole theater had good views and we really enjoyed the humor, music and production value. Tracy was cracking up at many points! Spamalot is well worth catching in Vegas, on Broadway or if the touring company comes nearby.

Tomorrow we're doing a little spa action in the morning, then going to ride the coaster at New York New York, and doing the Star Trek Experience *cough*geeks*cough* Then later in the evening we're seeing the Cirque du Soleil's KÀ at MGM Grand. Should be quite a night!

Tags: honeymoon, las vegas

Honeymoon Day 8 - Las Vegas

http://joshua.gaia.com — Wed, 02 May 2007 07:25:22 GMT

I've never seen as much nothing as we did today driving out to Las Vegas from Los Angeles. Now, of course there are places in the world, in this country even, with much more nothing, but I'm just talking about my personal experience here. But after a few hours of driving through nothing, interupted only by occational Starbucks / Factory Outlet Oasises, we reached Primm Valley, the first set of casinos on the way to vegas and home of Desperado, a very large steel coaster... which is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. DAMMIT! What is it with my luck and closed coasters on this trip. Luckily it's only about 45 minutes from Vegas so we'll go back there when it is open. After saying a mighty "Pssha!" and giving Buffalo Bill "the hand", we were back on I-15 heading up to Sin City.

For the rest of the week we're staying at Circus Circus, the cheapest hotel on the strip, give or take. We wanted to have cash to spend enjoying shows and rides, since we're not spending much time in the room. I was here in 2001 for CES with "my friend Adam", so it's quite familiar. Some things have changed, mostly restaurants getting renamed. Adam will be disappointed to hear that The Pink Pony is no more, replaced by casinoCAFE. Sorry bud.

After checking in and doing a bit of planning, we headed west from The Strip to track down the only vegan restaurant in the city, Go Raw Cafe. Not as "strictly vegan" as I'd assumed, since they sell honey and bee pollen, but in a city where "Prime Rib Buffet" is king, that can slide. Tracy & I were both very happy with our food, and we splurged to support a good business. We opted for their samplers so we could try out more options. I got the Mexicali Sampler and Tracy got the Italian Sampler. Both were quite good and very filling. We also got some of their "toast", a smoothy for me and a freshly opened young coconut for Tracy. We even picked up some desert to bring back with us, though even now we're not hungry enough to eat them, hours later.

After dropping off our stuff in the room we went off to check out the Midway Arcade at Circus Circus, as well as the performers "under the big top." Once we were out of quarters we wandered outside and walked down to Treasure Island and then back on the opposite side of The Strip. It's quite a walk so I'm glad we did it during the night. It's still warm out even late. Tomorrow night we're going to see Spamalot at the Wynn, and we'll hit a couple of the rides nearby during the day.

Photos of our trip so far can be found here. I also updated my stats at Coaster Counter, I've now been on 84 different coasters. Closing in on the 100 mark!

Tags: honeymoon, las vegas

Wedding Photos Preview

http://joshua.gaia.com — Tue, 01 May 2007 17:02:28 GMT

Pete, our wedding photographer, sent us a few preview images. He took over 1100 images! And we get them all, negatives and raw digitals (he uses both types of cameras). He's even getting the negatives scanned for us. Great photographer, too bad he doesn't have a website for me to link to :-( Anyhow, Peter Black's Wedding Bells Photography rocks.

Tags: wedding

Honeymoon Day 7 - Magic Mountain

http://joshua.gaia.com — Tue, 01 May 2007 05:19:21 GMT

Evil Day Star!

Well, I guess since it powers effectively all life on earth it's probably not all bad, but damn the sun was hot today in Valencia! Tracy & I spent most of today at Six Flags Magic Mountain, our first serious coaster park of the trip. Wow, it was well worth the wait. While I still count Cedar Point in Ohio as my #1 park, Magic Mountain is excellent and I wouldn't recommend going to the mid-west if you don't have to.

The photo above is of a coaster called just "X", a unique train design where a third rail's position in relation to the main track causes the seats to rotate along a unique axis and creates an experience not yet offered anywhere else.

We're so tired at truckin' around the park all day in the sun. And who would have thought a park with "mountain" in its name would be so full of hills?!? But we're also really glad we went. The park is very well kept and the coasters are top notch. Pretty much every style of coaster is available there, all in one place. Besides the coasters, we also paid a little extra so we could go on a 150-foot high "Dive Devil" free-fall swing. Tracy got to pull the cord on that one and send us dropping and swinging at 60mph! Fun!

Food options were a bit limited, but we did enjoy some vegetable sushi near the end of our day. We drank what seemed like gallons of water too, trying to keep comfortable and hydrated.

Speaking of drinking lots of water, we had dinner with Mr. Johnson himself tonight :-) This was Tracy's first time to meet Brian and she was such a sweetheart for letting us geek out a little bit about work over dinner. The food tonight was at Native Foods and it was outstanding. Please please please please open a Native Foods in Connecticut (Wallingford would be great :-) ). Tracy had the "California French Dip" sandwich, and I had the "Chicken Run Ranch Burger. Both sandwiches were terrific, really really good.

Brian walked us over to Whole Foods so we could pick up some snackage for the road trip to Vegas tomorrow. Should be fun.

Tags: honeymoon, zaadz, california

Honeymoon Day 6 - Zaadz Crew

http://joshua.gaia.com — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 07:18:35 GMT

So today was our "free" day, no parks or traveling to do. It was also the day we'd hoped to catch up with as many of my Zaadz coworkers (and friends of Zaadz) as possible. And we were quite successful. We met up with David, Kelly, Obi and Beth over the course of the day. We started with lunch at Hugo's Restaurant. Following David's recommendation I ordered a "Very Green Casserole", boy doesn't that sound good, but it was! Tracy ordered some Samosa Quesadillas, and everyone knows how she loves them samosas. I thought maybe it wouldn't work as a quesadilla, but it was indeed quite tasty. Mmm. We're eating so well!

After lunch we went to a nearby starbucks and met up with Obi. We chatted for some time and did a bit of "people watching" as West Hollywood is known for. Then we headed over to Beth's house for some relaxing before dinner and a movie. Her son Ben was a bundle of energy and we had fun shooting some hoops with him. David was especially adept at keeping Ben on his toes.

David Hiding

After B-Ball we had some light snacks and Ben went off to bed. David put in an order for pick-up at Sante's La Brea and I went with him to pick it up while the girls checked out what was available on the cable box. We returned with some great smelling food and watched Stranger than Fiction. Good flick, a bit different role than for Will Ferrell. Funny since we'd just seen Blades of Glory back home!

A quick drive "home" and we're off to bed so that we can get up bright and early for our big day at Six Flags Magic Mountain. It's go time for the coaster lovers!

Tags: honeymoon, zaadz, california

Honeymoon Day 5 - Knott's Berry Farm

http://joshua.gaia.com — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 06:41:40 GMT

Finally hit the roller coasters today! Tracy & I headed off across greater Los Angeles with our trusty Miss Garmin and her boyfriend Fat Penguin. Both did a great job and we had no problem getting to Knott's Berry Farm. The park was pretty busy, but not too bad. We've been to parks that were insanely packed and because of that we've got a perspective that lets us endure the lines and waiting cheerfully :-)

We road a bunch of coasters and I think the favorite for both of us was Silver Bullet, a steel hanging coaster with a nice hammerhead turn and an intense high-G spiral near the end. I also went on Xcellerator and that was good too, but after seeing Top Thrill Dragster and Kingda Ka, it's hard to get too excited over this smaller, lightish red, launch coaster.

After KBR we headed off for a short drive in pursuit for the mythical "Sonic Drive-In". See, we see these commercials on TV in Connecticut, but the nearest Sonic is over 150 miles away. As a joke I ordered Sonic gift cards online and gave them to some friends, knowing that the fact they couldn't actually USE them would drive them nuts! That's just the kind of friend I am :-) Needless to say, vegan options at Sonic aren't extensive. We opted for the Tator Tots and some drinks.

After that we had Miss Garmin guide us all the way from Anaheim to West Hollywood so we could check out Real Food Daily, an all vegan restaurant I'd heard great things about from my Zaadz co-workers. Wow, what a treat! Tracy and I were both very happy with our food and the service. I had some great tacos, and she had Salisbury Seitan. Somehow we even manged to get down a brownie for dessert. Yummy! We could go back for every meal we've got left to have in LA and we'd never try everything. Highly recommended.

To end our day out we decided to drive around a bit. We drove down Rodeo Drive (meh) and then drove to see the Hollywood Walk of Fame (meh), then drove back to our hotel in Hacienda Heights. It was a pleasant evening and it was fun to explore a bit, even if the landmarks so far were a bit underwhelming.

No luck connecting with any of the Zaadz crew down here so far. Hopefully we'll get together tomorrow. We've got no park plans until Monday when we head north a bit to go to the famous Six Flags Magic Mountain!

Tags: vegan, california, rfd, tots

Honeymoon Day 4 - Los Angeles Traffic

http://joshua.gaia.com — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 04:25:11 GMT

We left Pismo Beach in the morning and continued down the coast with Fat Penguin and Miss Garmen in tow. Unfortunately Miss Garmen doesn't know how to follow a given highway... she just wants to get us to our final destination quickly. So no "just follow California Rt 1 please" for her. After a bit of driving we made it to Santa Barbara and decided to find a place to stop for lunch. Thanks to Google and my "zaadz mobile office" (aka crackberry) we found Sojourner Cafe and enjoyed nice little lunch and good service. I had a yummy tempeh ruben and tracy had a "ginger buddha salad" that she liked and I finished.

And that ended the fun part of our trip today :-) Soon after we got back on the road we tried to follow Rt 1 more and ended up getting into the worst traffic of our lives. Who knows, it's probably not even bad by LA standards. But for us, after two days of driving around we were both cramped up and eager to get to our hotel and relax. No pictures today, but we'll keep updating as we do our Southern California stuff. Tomorrow we go to Knott's Berry Farm!

Tags: honeymoon, california

Honeymoon Day 3 - Pacific Coast Highway

http://joshua.gaia.com — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 06:01:13 GMT

Since we weren't going to be doing any parks in the San Francisco area, we decided to leave for LA a day early and do the trip at a slower pace over two days of travel. Today was the first day. We drove north out of Oakland and around the bay so that we could come back down over the Golden Gate Bridge and through San Francisco on our way out of town. We picked up California Route 1 and headed south for a long, but very cool day of driving.

This state has such an interesting coast, I can't even grasp how varied it is, or how dramatic the vistas are. You've got to see it to believe it. But if a picture might work, check out my updated Flickr with our latest photos here. Many of them feature our buddy Fat Penguin and there's a shot of him with his girlfriend Miss Garmin too.

The two best parts of the drive were the twisting, winding, curving, cliff-hugging roads of Big Sur and the Elephant Seal Beach. Tracy was absolutely crazy about the seals!

Tonight we're resting in Pismo Beach and had dinner at the Big Sky Cafe in San Luis Obispo. Really good food and exceptional service. Mmmm.

Tomorrow we hit the road again and go the rest of the way down to Los Angeles. Should be a good day!

Tags: honeymoon, california

Honeymoon Day 2 - San Francisco

http://joshua.gaia.com — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:06:32 GMT

Our second day in California was quite fun, though we've had a major change in plans. Turns out not one, but both, of the local amusement parks are closed during the week at this point in the season :-( So no roller coasters for us yet. Silly me, I assumed that since it's California and warm out that they'd be open.

I was a little bit concerned though because we purchased season passes for Six Flags and they needed to be picked up at the guest services counter of the specific park we selected (In this case Six Flags Discovery Kingdom). I contacted Discovery Kingdom via their website and asked if I could come pick up the season pass outside of park hours, or pick them up at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Los Angeles, our next stop. Well, I was very surprised when the next morning I got call from the park's General Manager himself telling me that I wouldn't have any problem picking them up in LA and promising to contact the GM there to make sure of it. Excellent service Six Flags! I only wish I could have ridden your coasters. Next time!

So instead of doing coasters we've opted to get out of San Fran a day early (today) and do the drive down the Pacific Coast Highway in two days instead of one. That should be nice. It gives us much more time to stop and enjoy ourselves. David was very helpful in suggesting places to stay, but given our very short notice I couldn't get us into any place in Big Sur like he advised. We'll be staying in Pismo Beach tonight, so it's still a long drive.

The highlight of day two was definitely meeting Siona for the first time! I've worked with Siona for what seems like a year and we've never met before. Tracy & I went down to Palo Alto to have lunch with Siona. It was terrific and we talked about the local area and about work... but in more of a water cooler fashion than a meeting ;-)

And last night we treated ourselves to an absolutely amazing dinner at the famous (to vegans at least) Millenium Restaurant. O-M-Z was it good! I started off with a strawberry enfused mojito and we were given some fried oyster mushrooms that could have passed as actual oysters in any clam shack back home. Then we decided to go with the five course Chef's Tasting Dinner. Our first course was a strawberry salad with delicious candied pecans. Mmmm. The next was a mexican torte with carmelized plantains and black beans layered with whole wheat tortillas. Following that we got into our two sample sized entrees, Stuffed Truffled Roulade. This was stuffed with french lentils and chanterelles, black truffle butter, smoked pimenton cream, roasted maitake & exotic mushrooms, sautéed broccoli di Cicco with currants & pine nuts, and accented with mushroom syrup. The next was Artichoke Al Cartoccio, a mix of roasted fennel, garlic, spicy seitan sausage, served over a barley-leek-chard risotto. To top everything off, dessert was a sampler of outstanding sweet treats: Whiskey Chocolate Tiramisu, Chocolate Almond Midnight, Lavender Scented Meyer Lemon Shortcake, and a lovely chocolate truffle to close the meal.

We had tea and coffee and waddled out of the Hotel California where Millenium is located. I couldn't recommend this restaurant highly enough. But it's extremely expensive, so come prepared to eat away your paycheck :-)

OH! And we went to see Hot Fuzz today at the Grand Lake Theater. Woot! This movie rocked. Go see it! We both enjoyed Shaun of the Dead, the previous film by the same team, and I think Hot Fuzz was even more enjoyable. Props to the Grand Lake theater for being cool, showing the film in an egyptian themed auditorium, and having free popcorn!

Tags: vegan, honeymoon, san francisco

Honeymoon Day 1 - Farm Sanctuary

http://joshua.gaia.com — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 06:11:28 GMT

Our first full day in California is over. We're safely tucked into bed at the Courtyard in downtown Oakland. Farm Sanctuary's Orland shelter is outstanding and we received a great tour by Zaadzster and Farmy Carolyn. The drive up and back was very scenic, in that country sort of way. The geology here is quite different than back in New England. Thanks to our somewhat helpful guide, who we refer to as Ms. Garmin, we made it through the maze of highways without much trouble.

You can follow our progress in this Zaadz blog and on my Flickr page here.

Once we checked into the hotel and got settled we headed off for San Francisco to get some vegan food. Dinner tonight was at Herbivore, an all vegan restaurant in the Mission District. The food was good, though both of us got adventurous and were glad to have gotten more than one thing. Dessert was vegan ice cream which Herbivore gets from a local place called MaggieMudd.

Tags: honeymoon, vegan