Wine Country

brilliant to lose one of your shoes in the boiling water...

Part of Mt. St. Helena in the background




The old geyser on our way - according to the people there, there are only two other geysers like this globally that can be called 'Good Old Faithful' and that regularly (i.e., every 40 minutes) spits out boiling water. The other two places are Yellowstone National Park and somewhere in New Zealand

The two of us at John and Doug's house, just before we took off for Mt. St. Helena


J wineries on our way back - here we were back in November 2006 when our moms were visiting

Town square of Healdsburg




On our way to Healdsburg, CA

Lots of wineries enroute..






The guide told us that Korbel was the official 'champagne' in New York at the millenium.



The little train station that was used to transport sprarkling wine (methode de champagnoise) back to Santa Rosa/San Francisco.

Korbel - we have been here before with Frank's friends Brendan and Linda, but this time we had the time not just to do some tasting but we were able to do the tour.

The River - a real tourist attraction, particularly in the summer! Our first stop during our bike trip: Korbel winery.


John and Doug, our hosts at Russian River. They own a beautiful house up the hill near the River.

Memorial Day weekend was the time Minke and I went up to Russian River to see John and Doug, two friends of ours who have a house near Guerneville (wine country). As usual, we took a lot of suff with us; bikes for biking at Russian River, hiking material for our hike on Mt. St. Helena.

Bay to Breakers 2008

And this is San Francisco so even the homeless people joined!! (some were fake, some were real).

Nemo and Co.


One walking banana..


Minke and mom are making friends already!! It really was a shame we didn't have more time - Brian and Rachel already invited us to join them in their run: pushing a handmade ship - the very one that spilled oil in the Bay last year!!



Those who know San Francisco, know Bay to Breakers. It is a 7 mile run from the Bay on the East side of the city to the breakers (Ocean Beach) on the West side of town. Only a relatively small percentage actually runs; the rest dresses up funny. We couldn't participate this year, but we did have some time to check some people out. Here are some pics of some of them...

Graduation Day!!

Pool party at Rohnert PArk, CA (in the vicinity of Santa Rosa, CA) on Sunday hosted by Donata - here's the Santa Rosa gang (i.e., USF campus at Santa Rosa students) and me.

Brian's brother cutting the cake..



Brunch/Dinner party at Brian's!!

The church on campus where the ceremony took place.

After the ceremony we had a reception.





I'm in front, followed by my cohort mates and good friends Brian and Paul.







On May 17, 2008 I (Frank) officially graduated. Officially in the sense that I still need to write my thesis-like paper and case analysis at the end of July. Furthermore, I still need to attend summer classes. However, all 'new' classes I have finished and the commencement ceremony was on this date already.