Welcome to 'Sun Valley'

I'm definitely sending this photo off to the Blog of Unnecessary Quotation Marks (I saw this ad in the Chronicle real-estate section this weekend). I mean, sure — Ketchum, Idaho, is only a couple miles from Sun Valley, but still...



Even so, fake Sun Valley is far less egregious than a condo development in Vallejo called "Belvedere." That one is almost criminally confusing when you come across its ads in the real-estate section.

For those outside the Bay Area, Belvedere is one of the most affluent parts of Marin County; so by extension, the nation. Vallejo is, well...not so affluent. (I don't want to sell it short, though, since it is the home of E-40.)

And Belevedere (Vallejo) does have a pretty amazing website. Here's a sample photo.



Fish doing pilates while they spit in fountains. Nice!

Permanently Scarred?

Now I'm wondering if our month of homelessness took its toll on Elliot.



He is obsessed with this cardboard box, which he calls his "house."



I did read that the small-house movement is very popular in Berkeley right now.

'No Baby in Dere'

Elliot has been struggling with the fact that his mom is hugely pregnant and unable to do a lot of the fun stuff she used to. In fact, she can barely pick him up.

Elliot, and the Belly.

So the mantle has fallen to me to play horsie and all his other favorite roughhousing games. Whenever I try to beg off, he'll point to my belly and say, "No baby in dere."

This has become his way of saying, "No excuses. Let's do this."

Even if it's just a matter of picking him up, Elliot no longer says, "Up." It's now: "No baby in dere." It took me a while to figure out this command.

He's an odd little guy.

UPDATE: I'm actually hoping I can popularize this phrase among adults.

Next time you're shooting hoops and someone calls a foul, just say, "No baby in dere!"

iTunes Billboards I'd Like to See

It's been almost two months since Apple released the Beatles' catalog on iTunes. And yet, the billboards announcing this fact still dominate Bay Area roadways. If you drive from SFO to Berkeley, you'll see at least six of them.



I enjoy the minimalist design of the ads, but enough already. Aren't there some other artists on iTunes that Apple could promote?

So in the hopes that Apple will share the love, here are my mock-ups for iTunes billboards I'd like to see.











As always, my consulting services are offered free of charge.

Coming Soon...Maybe

Kelly's due date isn't until Jan. 17, but the doctor said the baby will be early. Apparently Kelly is more than 80 percent effaced. (I don't know what that means, but it could just as easily describe my social status.)

The doctor made this assessment last Wednesday, and even predicted that our daughter could be a "New Year's baby."

Well, that didn't happen. And since we failed to get the 2010 tax benefit or the prizes associated with having the first baby of 2011 (there are prizes, right?), I no longer have a financial interest in her arriving early. So I hope she can hold out a bit longer.

Despite us living in Berkeley now, the baby will be delivered at CPMC hospital in San Francisco (the same place as Elliot). We were a little too late in the process to switch hospitals, and plus I don't want my daughter to suffer the indignity of being born in the East Bay.

Of course, this raises some logistical issues. For instance, what if I'm at work when it happens? Would I take BART home, only to come back over with Kelly? It seems to make more sense for her to just take a taxi. But that pretty much guarantees there's a traffic jam and she'll have to deliver the baby on the Bay Bridge, assisted only by a kindly Bangladeshi immigrant.

Are there prizes for that?

Then and Now: I Had It Then, You Have It Now

Remember my post in November, "Jerry Brown Time Machine: Then and Now"?

Well, the Chronicle did the exact same thing in today's paper ("Then and now: A look at Jerry Brown and California").

I suppose it wasn't an amazingly insightful idea, and I don't think they copied BuboBlog.

But if they are coming here for inspiration, I hope to see upcoming Chronicle features on owl tree toppers, the graffiti box and whether sideways licenses are more gangsta.

What People Name Their Kids in Berkeley

One pleasant surprise upon moving to Berkeley: Our neighborhood is awash in toddlers.

Including us, four families have moved to this block in the past year — all with children age 3 or under. And another recent arrival is pregnant. That means Elliot is going to have lots of playmates. (It also means we're gentrifying and/or ruining the neighborhood, which used to be older, more African-American and working-class.)*

For me, it's fascinating to discover what people name their kids. And since we're only days away from having to choose a new name ourselves, I love to gather data.

Here are the names of the toddlers we've encountered in the neighborhood:
Orlando
Oren
Zoe
Olive
Banneker
Harlow

No Jacobs! In fact, other than Zoe, none of the names ranks higher than 400th nationally. (The Olivia variant of Olive, though, is very popular — No. 3 in the U.S. and No. 1 in the U.K.)

I'd also say Elliot is a pretty good fit for this name environment (maybe a bit less eccentric than some, but it still feels Berkeley-ish).

Incidentally, the Bay Area's first baby of 2011 was born at Berkeley's Alta Bates hospital. Her name? Azaria.

*It's worth noting that we helped wreck our last neighborhood, which not too long ago was almost exclusively gay, male and childless.