As a belated anniversary present to ourselves, Jen and I spent a couple days last week in Solvang, CA. We stayed at the Kronborg Inn, which turned out to be a pretty nice place.

Kronborg Inn sign, with requisite windmill feature.

Jen, sitting at the table on our hotel room’s balcony.
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Jen and I had lunch today at Muzio’s Grocery & Deli in downtown San Luis Obispo. This is the first time we’ve been to Muzio’s, and it didn’t even dawn on me until after we got home that the business we visited had recently moved. Muzio’s used to be on Monterey Street, but it is now located in the new Wineman building on Higuera Street. (We mistakenly believed it to be a brand new business.)

Muzio’s has a kind of rustic decor, with comfortable seating inside, as well as some patio dining tables out front. The deli lists its sandwich offerings on a series of blackboards behind the counter.

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On Friday, Jen and I bused up to the North County for the 2010 California Mid State Fair. We mostly walked around and looked at the different exhibits that were on display.

These bears greet you at the main entrance to the fairgrounds.

The first building we walked through was a craft building that included handmade stuff as well as baked goods. I think this cake is pretty cool.

This one is pretty cool, too.
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We went to a show last night here in San Luis. Our friend Erk gave us a tip that Australian band Tamarama would be in town. So, once again we found ourselves drawn to a concert based on the bill’s opening act. Which is too bad for us, as openers always have the shortest sets.
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We’ve been asked (and by asked, I mean told) by new owners here at the park to make some minor improvements to our home. One of the things we were asked (told) to do was to give the place a good cleaning around the outside. We did have a power washing done a couple years ago, but we hired someone to do that. This time, the management here loaned us their power washer. We hadn’t ever used a power washer before, so it was a learning experience.

The power washer, wrapped in its attached hose and power cord.
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Last night, while I was playing World of Warcraft, I wanted something to listen to other than the game’s built-in music. I was pretty much caught up on podcasts, and just wasn’t all that interested in anything else in my iTunes music library. I clicked over to the Radio tab in iTunes, opened the Hard Rock/Metal directory and clicked on Big R Radio 80′s Metal FM. I’ve been a fan of this type of music since I was a kid. I don’t hear ir that often these days, so it was nice to get a refresher course via this Internet stream. I was able to identify pretty much every artist straight away. A couple dozen songs went by before 80′s Metal FM stumped me (was never much of a Kingdome Come fan, anyway). It’s likely that, if a band’s video aired on “Headbangers Ball” between 1988 and 1993, I owned that band’s album(s). While listening to 80′s Metal FM last night, three tracks really jumped out at me.
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Over the last few years, I’ve gone through several desk chairs. The first one came with me from Illinois. I think it got damaged while in storage, as it didn’t last long after we moved in to our current place. (The main post in the chair’s base actually bent itself into an angle. I took some photos and blogged about it on my old blog at the time. Unfortunately, none of that is still online.) When I replaced it, I bought a relatively cheap chair from Staples, and that chair was a pre-assembled floor model. That was good, because I didn’t have to put it together. But I think it had experienced its fair share of ware at the store before I brought it home. It too didn’t last long, as a couple of the wheel housings broke and couldn’t be repaired.
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Yesterday, Jen and I went to the Central Coast Renaissance Faire. Here’s some pictures (and a short video).

Spotted horse, with handler.

Deluxe knight gear.
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Today is mine and Jen’s sixth wedding anniversary. We had originally planned to celebrate by spending the night at the famous Madonna Inn. But we canceled those plans because Jen’s still recovering from sinusitis. Instead, we kept it simple. We ordered out for some dinner from California Pizza Kitchen and enjoyed that dinner while watching the movie Crazy Heart, which is actually a pretty good movie.

And the day’s not even over yet. I suspect that we’ll also spend some time later playing World of Warcraft. Yep, exciting stuff.

It dawns on me now that, in its own way, this is actually a pretty good way to honor the memory of the day we got married. Replace California Pizza Kitchen with Olive Garden and switch out watching a movie with playing a round of mini-golf, and you’ve pretty much got it.

We have made plans to take a trip down to Solvang and Santa Ynez next month, since we didn’t make it to Madonna Inn today. I’ll post more about that later.

Anyway, it’s been a good, fun day. Now, on to Azeroth!

Yesterday was my 34th birthday. It wasn’t really an exciting day, I guess. But it was still a good one.

I went for a walk in the morning. Made it out before the marine layer burned away. Managed to enjoy some of that clean ocean air before it was gone for the day.

In the afternoon, I ordered a pizza (and a salad!) from Woodstocks Pizza. Woodstocks is probably my favorite pizza place here in San Luis Obispo. It was a fine birthday lunch.

A little later on, Jen and I produced one of the funnest (and funniest, at least to me) podcasts we’ve ever done. Immediately after that, we split a piece of German chocolate birthday cake (my favorite!). The cake was actually baked for me by my employer. Here’s a picture of the whole cake before it was sliced up:

The cake was amazing. (We brought home one piece from the office and shared it. The rest was left at the office for my coworkers to enjoy.)

Jen’s been sick with sinusitis (she went to the doctor today and got some antibiotics) so she wasn’t up for doing much. Too bad, ’cause we had planned on going out for karaoke. Instead, we just finished out the evening playing World of Warcraft. Which is just fine by me.

A birthday balloon, also provided by my employer.