Love of Za

This is heaven, if anyone's been wondering what it looks like.

It's a pizza with sausage, onions and green and red bell peppers from Za, located at 1919 Hyde in San Francisco. Za's fabulous. Tho better known here at 1363 for its Potesto -- that's a pizza with pesto, whole cloves of garlic and, yes, potatoes -- it never seems to disappoint with its other offerings.

Paired with a Rolling Rock -- brewed in Latrobe, Pa., mind you -- it's the perfect antidote to packing boredom on a Monday evening.

Media Mondays

Good news today for young people -- and women -- who work in or consume print media. The New York Times business section fronts a David Carr column on the 25-year-old who bought the New York Observer last week. Carr's column, which finds -- shocking! -- that a youngster can have not only wealth but also manners, smarts and, dare I say, a sophistication about the world, is accompanied by this piece on Jared Kushner's plans for the paper.

Kushner gets my gold star of the day, for this quote:

“Age is a convenient barometer of what a person is capable of, but it is only one,” he said.

On its inside pages, the NYT biz section includes two articles with bits on women's magazines getting serious on content. Personally, I'd have combined them. But I'm mostly just happy to see there still are editors who don't buy into the "youth want only fluff" theory that prevails over many media companies today.

Saturday errands

Vivek and I took this pic at the Apple Store in Union Square yesterday, with the iSight photo on the new MacBook, but couldn't send it, since Apple's blocked just about everything except apple.com on its demo laptops. So I snapped a photo of the photo.

Plan is to order a MacBook later today. The hp and Dell models are cheaper, but I'm so tired of Windows. MacBook it shall be.

Texas wants (to give) you (a job) anyway

After many months of trepidation -- truly -- I got a job! I'm going to be working at the Beaumont Enterprise, located here. The paper has a circulation of about 56,000 daily and 65,000 Sundays, if this site about my current job is to be believed. (If you bounce around on that site, by the way, you'll find a not-so-fab mug of me and a cheesy quote.)

Beaumont is a city of about 112,000 people, according to U.S. Census estimates. Median household income (median being the figure in the middle if you line them all up end to end, for those who haven't had stats in a while) is $32,559, which is about 22 percent lower than the median U.S. income of $41,994. It's a cost of living radically different from San Francisco, where the median income, $55,221, is about 31 percent higher than the U.S. median.

The town is 46.4 percent white, 45.8 percent black and, rather obviously, less than 4 percent of any other one race. In the 2004 presidential election, 48.4 of voters in Jefferson County -- that's where Beaumont is -- cast ballots for President George W. Bush, and 51.3 percent cast ballots for Al Gore. Among the 53,000-odd straight ticket voters, 31 percent chose the Republican Party; 68 percent chose the Democrats. The Convention & Visitors Bureau is here.

It's home of the Spindletop gusher, Lamar University and, odd as it may seem, my favorite martini bar, easys -- which also, it turns out, has a kickin' Web site.

I start Oct. 3. Between here and there lie more San Francisco outings, a trip to India and yet another wedding for a good friend from Waynesboro, Pa. Stay tuned.

Coldest winter

It's cliche, but it's true: summer in San Francisco feels more like winter anywhere else. And after a fantastic heat wave, the real July weather has returned. In fact, I was going to spend part of my weekend here, swimming and sunning, but it looks like it might be too cold. Boo.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Take One

These are most of the usual suspects. That's Abhinav, Anshul, Vivek, Alison and, of course, me down in front. I took this pic at sunset on a cliff above Rodeo Beach in Marin County in June -- a beautiful evening, followed by biryani and pecan pie at 1363. Yum.

ALSO -- Happy 21st Birthday to my brother, Kevin! Don't party too much.

Welcome!

To a blog, at long last, that I plan to update. Frequently. Check back for more in the next few days. I should have big news tomorrow and then updates in the days after.