Nothing To Do in San Francisco: Fishing and Reminiscing

I fished this afternoon in SF Bay with Greg and Roe and Greg's dog Chach.

Yes, that is Alcatraz in the background.

We caught a bunch of rock cod. Ready to BBQ again!

I am still doing the NYT Crossword (100 day streak!) and spelling bee every day

Listening to music right now. Bakersfield Beats on Sirius. Greg Dutch turned me on to the Ken Burns Country Music documentary. Loved it.

Music makes me so damn happy. I think I learned this behavior from my dad. Does anyone out there remember the old days after dinner with Al? When he got out his old records and a glass of single malt scotch. I learned a lot about the history of Al's tastes in the documentary. Jimmy Rodgers, Hank Williams. Al was passionate about music.

I had a love hate relationship with work. How comfortable I was in my office. Talking to clients and everyone. It was like I was the king of the world. So confident. I loved my clients. I think they loved me back. They knew I would take care of them to the best of my ability.

The hate part was stress. I worked so hard and held myself to a very high standard. I spent many a sleepless night worrying about how I would resolve an issue in a particular client's case. It almost always worked out in the end. But, I could never let myself rest until I had figured everything out and done my best. I miss the office; not the stress.

I’m trying hard to bring that confident feeling and my office energy to the rest of my life – outside the office.

I can't stop thinking about my dad. I learned my office behavior from him when I worked in his office. I still remember his office in Hayward decorated with chicken house wood from Petaluma. It even had a chicken house door. In the early 80s he sat and smoked a big cigar in his office every afternoon. I expect he had had a drink over lunch at "The Ranch". His client's loved him. Everybody loved Al.

I developed a great ability to communicate clearly and honestly what I thought to my clients. Another thing I will try to apply to the rest of my life, including this blog.

I talked to Beth about this. She pointed out, correctly, that I am better at expressing my thoughts than my feelings. We are not big sharers of feelings in my family. There is a lot of love but it is not overtly expressed.

I almost forgot it is Halloween. Me and Al