Personal Journal The Loma Prieta Earthquake I had been through many earthquakes in my 40 years in California . Most of the time, the shakes come one after another, like waves, each one increasing in severity. By the time you are ready to become truly alarmed it is all over. Not this time. The waves kept coming. More... Lunch at the French Laundry If you were to try to recall the best meals you have ever had in your life, odds are most of them would be dinners. Lunches probably would not make it to your top ten. Well, let me tell you, a lunch Judy and I had today at the French Laundry in Yountville, just 20 minutes north of Napa , would be on the top of our list of best meals ever. More... Gino & Carlo We would often make Gino & Carlo the last stop of a night on the town in North Beach . We loved it for its total lack of pretension, and its Picon Punches. It had a long wooden bar, lots of stools, only two cocktail tables, and two half-sized, quarter-fed, pool tables. No locals ever sat at the cocktail tables. Besides the start and finish of the A to Z bar tour, it was the "office" for Charles McCabe, a Chronicle columnist only slightly less famous than Herb Caen. More... Fall Napa Valley Register, Sept 20, 2004 Light marks the change of seasons in California . As the sun lowers in the sky the colors of the hills change. The vibrant greens and golds of summer are muted. The tropical haze that hangs in the Napa Valley much of the summer seems to drop lower, hugging the ground as it begins to morph into winter's tulle fog. More... A Wedding In Bulgaria Mark Mancini, Judy's youngest son, married the lithe and beautiful Anuchka Dimitrova Iordanova, who we call Anna, in Varna, Bulgaria, on September 16, 2005, on the coast of the Black Sea. Anna and Mark have been a couple for five years, ever since they met in Phoenix, and she has become one of the most beloved members of our extended family. She is chamring, happy, lovely, loving, and bright. More...