This weekend we took a trip to the Marin Headlands, on the north side of the Golden Gate Bridge. The last time I was there was in May of 1999. I had a week off between quitting my job at NASA and starting my new one at Nuance, and my friend Ryan and I took a bike trip. We started at the Cliff House, biked past Robin Williams' house (allegedly), over the bridge, under 101, and over to the Marin Headlands.

This time Chris and I drove there and took a hike to see some of the old WW II bunkers. It was cold and rainy, so we ate a picnic lunch in the car before the hike. The bunkers are open, so you can climb down into them. Pretty cool.

I put photos up from the hike, plus a couple from the trip Ryan and I took. (As usual, if you want to see the captions, don't go into slide show mode.)

Well, I looked at this year's Oscar nominations for Best Picture, and as per usual I haven't seen any of them. Not because I don't want to--all of them except Munich are on my Netflix list. I think it's ridiculous that Best Picture nominations are almost always released at the very end of the year, meaning no one has time to see them in the theater in the year they're being nominated for. Let's look at the dates (for wide release, not just in NY etc):

• Brokeback Mountain - Dec 16
• Capote - October ??
• Crash - May 6th
• Good Night, and Good Luck - October ??
• Munich - January 6, 2006

Obviously, Crash is the notable exception. Has a movie ever won Best Picture that was released in the first six months of the year? If you release a movie in January are you basically saying, "Best Picture? No thanks." Hmmf.