jeremy l.'s Profile

I'm a parent at Presidio Knolls and recently joined the board, so as you can image, I'm a fan of the place.

I don't speak Chinese, and my wife speaks a little because she lived there for a couple of years as an adult, but she isn't fluent. However, my daughter speaks Chinese fluently (for a three year old!). When playing with her toys, she monologues to herself in Chinese as often as she does in English. She prefers to listen to and sing Chinese songs in the car and at home.

PKS isn't just about learning Chinese though. Ellie loves the school. The teachers in Ellie's classroom are kind and loving. She is always excited to get to school, and it can be hard to pry her away at the end of the day. She has really developed emotionally since she has been at the school. She is a lot more outgoing than she used to be, and has been starting to develop some real empathy for other kids. I don't know if that is just because she is getting older, or if it's a function of the Reggio Emilia inspired approach of PKS, but it is certainly consistent with the school's emphasis on developing "the whole child".

We wanted a program with both language immersion and a progressive "whole child" approach to education rather than the much more rigid, traditional education that we grew up with, with its singular focus on academics. PKS is the school that best fit our needs, and we're very happy that Ellie is here.

We are equally excited about the PKS expansion into an elementary school that is starting in 2012. PKS will accept kids in Kindergarten, First and Second Grade in 2012, and grow one grade level per year until it has a full K-8 program. I'm very happy that Ellie will be able to stay with this the PKS program throughout her elementary and middle school.

I hate putting together Ikea furniture. It usually leads to me being frustrated and angry as well as there being some error in the assembly. Now that doesn't happen anymore

We've had Oscar and Cindy put together maybe a half dozen Ikea and non-Ikea flat packed furniture and they have been terrific. They are fast, on time, polite, and really nice people. They are also very well priced.

This time Cindy and her dad not only put together the closet and drawers for us, but since the Ikea set didn't come with the right hardware to earthquake proof the closet, they went to the hardware store to get the right brackets to do it for us and came back later that afternoon.

I'd recommend them highly.

Saw someone mention this in my FB feed, and after checking Yelp reviews decided to check it out. It was a lot of fun! I like close up magic (and this is definitely close up - everyone was first or second row, and no more than 20 people in the whole audience) because sometimes you have some shot at figuring out how they do it. It's definitely not smoke and mirrors, it's sleight of hand and misdirection and general cleverness.

Three performers each put on a 30 minute show, so there is variety to it. My favorite was the "mind reading" which was quite remarkable, and no less so for the magician telling you that he did it through reading microexpressions.

A great date night

I just got back from my daughter's third birthday party where Tracy put on a fantastic show for the kids, and for the adults too. The kids were so engaged, from waving hello in the fashion of each animal (from snakes to bunnies to ducklings to frogs, 12-14 all told) to shouting out to Tracy to tell him that the iguana was climbing out of the box and onto his back! He was great at recognizing which kids wanted to engage with the animals and which did not. But the truth is that once one kid engages, the rest want to as well, even if it means having a snake draped around your neck! He kept 20 3 year olds delighted for a full 45 minutes.

I found Isla Studio through Living Social. I've had my dSLR for a couple of years, read a few books on photography, but really live in Auto mode. Mel's explanation made what I'd read seem much more accessible, and frankly more plausible for me to try being more mindful about aperture and shutter speed.

From previous reviews, it sounds like he used to take people for a walk to take some shots, and I think that would have been the one thing that would have made this class even better.

Ranee took me here for my birthday. Excellent food and service. I had three courses of pasta, and will do that again the next time i'm there.

We really wanted my daughter Ellie to learn Mandarin, but I don't speak Mandarin at all and although my wife speaks some, she isn't completely fluent. We researched several options and decided that Mandarin immersion daycare followed by Mandarin immersion K-8 would be the best way for her to become a fluent speaker.

Little Footprints was the best Mandarin immersion daycare option that we found. The teachers are loving and kind, but also well versed in current best practices in home daycare. Ellie is uncomfortable with strangers in general, but she had really formed a bond with Tong Laoshi and is very affectionate with her. She really loves going to Little Footprints.

Ellie has been attending Little Footprints since she was 10 months old (almost a year now). Although it is in Excelsior and we live in Jackson Square, we're happy to drive her there as she loves it and she is rapidly picking up Mandarin.

I didn't have the problems that the last reviewer had. Food came fast and service was good. Pretty much a standard ihop.

Had an early dinner here the Friday after Thanksgiving with my wife and her family. Her parents grew up in Thailand, so they are tough to please with Thai food. But this place was terrific.

It was a bit tricky to find because it's in a strip mall facing away from the road that the address points you to, so you have to double back around to the parallel street to find the parking lot. But it was worth it.

The Penang Crispy Duck Curry and the Lad Na were particularly awesome

Thanks Yelp. Without you I would never have tried a vegan Sri Lankan restaurant in Santa Cruz, and I would have been the lesser for it. Vegan isn't my thing. I like to eat dead animals. I don't think of Sri Lanka as home to one of the worlds great cuisines. But I trusted the Yelpers and they did not lead me astray.

We had one of the Roti options (there are several - I forget which one), the Sri Lankan Spring Rolls, a tofu and eggplant curry, spinach and cashew dumplings in spicy tomato sauce, and the days special, a log made of rice, grain and coconut steamed in a banana leaf and served with a mushroom and faux beef curry. They were all outstanding. My fear with vegan food is always that it will be bland, but these dishes were bursting with flavor. I basically ate myself into a stupor. The dumpling dish and the curry were especially delish.

The curries and the dumplings  were definitely spicy, which I view as a plus but my wife did not appreciate as much, so be warned.

I want to go back tomorrow. And probably the next day also.