Better Off Ted — cancelled after two seasons, it’s a show about a soulless company, a few nerds, an enjoyable boss, Lindsay from Arrested Development, and a good amount of ST. Episode 0104, Racial Sensitivity, can’t be missed, it’s one of the funniest episodes of of anything ever.

Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret — with G.O.B. and Tobias from Arrested Development, the show follows a hopeless Portlandian as he tries to sell Londoners a toxic-ish energy drink. I can describe the show in these words: painfully funny, with lots of peeing (on the show).

Sunday, I got to attend the USS San Francisco memorial service, which honored the men serving aboard the USS San Francisco, a heavy cruiser which served throughout WWII. After the event, I got a chance to meet Pearl Harbor survivor Joe Whitt, who graciously spent a few minutes with me talking about his experiences. With less than 7,500 Pearl Harbor survivors left, talking to Joe really was a treat.

Preceding the memorial service, I went for a little hike along the Land’s End trail, which follows San Francisco’s rocky Northwestern Shore. Sunday was a great day to be outside, and I got some great shots of the Golden Gate bridge along the way. After the service, I was craving a burrito and found a good one at Chino’s Taqueria in the Richmond (sidenote: I l-o-v-e San Francisco, if for nothing else you can find a great, great burrito in any neighborhood, at any time).

On Memorial Day itself, I went to the services at Golden Gate National Cemetery, where vets and distinguished guests (even a former presidential candidate) spoke on the value of honoring our veterans. Following the service, I walked around the cemetery, there were flags on all 100,000+ graves, and many had flowers too. Walking among the myriad tombstones of men who died way, way too young really brings home the sacrifice our veterans made for this country. Along my walk, I did find Chester Nimitz‘s grave (and those of his staff, (e.g. Spruance) which they all agreed to while living, cool) among other notables (and selected randoms, whom I tried to learn more about when I got home).

In all, a really great weekend. I do kick myself for having not had a chance to talk to more vets (esp. WWII) over the years, their bunch is really fading away quickly, and the stories they tell are all so extraordinary (along those same lines, I recently started reading The Good War — An Oral History of WWII, which I highly, highly, highly recommend for anyone wanting to hear their stories).

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CardioTrainer link, 860 calories burned!

Site note: For anyone looking for great hiking and a great farm experience, Hidden Villa in Los Altos, CA can’t be beat.

Fresh lemonade, 75 degrees, new tablet arriving in the mail. Reasons why I don’t have a case of the Mondays, yet…

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust–
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows–
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

-Robert Frost