We had a splendid weekend. Numerous social events and gorgeous weather made it one to remember.

It started on Saturday afternoon when we hit Miss Monica Tirado’s backyard BBQ. Delicious burgers, cold beer, and the usual cast of characters. Then the wife and I went home to get cleaned up before heading over to the city for dinner with Mike and Hilda. They were in town over the weekend and treated us to a lovely dining experience at Roy’s, which is an Asian fusion/Hawaiian restaurant. We ate like pigs and came home happy.

Then Sunday we drove down to Alameda for Phil and Lisa’s BBQ challenge—with a little soccer thrown in for good measure. Phil picked up ribs, brisket and sides from two competing BBQ joints (Everett & Jones and Great American BBQ), then it was up to the diners to deem one the winner. But really, the freeloaders were the winners, because it was all good. My fav was the GA brisket. Just right.

Jason and Lauren Snell also joined the fun with their two young’uns, Jamie and Julian. Yes, those kids are a couple darlings. Phil had the biggest game yet from the Euro 2008 tournament on his DVR: Germany v. Poland. We watched as the Germans rode roughshod over their poor, economically challenged neighbors to the east. In a hard bit of irony, it was one of Germany’s two Polish-born strikers who scored both goals.

But the most entertaining moment of the afternoon came from Julian Snell. He and Jamie had been cavorting pretty well, keeping themselves occupied and climbing around on the adults every once in a while. Then Julian goes over to the couch where Ann is sitting next to his mother. He tells Ann to ‘watch this’ and proceeds to drop the F-bomb.

WTF in extended form.

So, a somewhat-embarrassed and clearly upset Lauren proceeds to haul her little boy off to the bedroom for a little time in the penalty box. I think she dished out a little discipline on the way. After it was all over we had a good laugh. But when it happened, we were all a little too shocked to know exactly how we should react.

The Snells handled it well. But really, what can you do?

Came back from vacation and began my new role as Sr. Web Producer for Macworld, with expanding duties involving PC World. It will eventually become a bit of a departure from my original job as Online Managing Editor in that I’ll have less responsibility for daily editorial production and focus instead on project management. That’s good, because the print-to-web stuff is by far the most tedious item on my agenda.

For those of you who don’t know, Macworld is actually owned by PC World. We share all resources - HR, tech development, design, biz dev, circulation, etc. … hell, we even share the same floor. But we maintain separate editorial and sales teams. Actually, we shared the circulation department up until last week, when the entire department was laid off and all seven jobs were outsourced. But that’s a whole ‘nother blog post.

I managed the Macworld redesign in close cooperation with the shared development and design teams. They’re a bright bunch and did a great job for us. And Macworld being the smaller of the two publications, we served as a bit of a guinea pig for our new designer, Jason Brightman. We adopted a new, fairly simple information architecture and fired it off. We’re still tweaking it, but we’re confident it will work.

PC World went through a redesign a couple years ago and they’re still trying to get it ironed out. Now the management team wants to try the Macworld plan with PC World. The problem is that PCW has a much more detailed production process (some folks would use more colorful language). We’ll pretty much have to take a complete look at some processes, and see where we can gain some efficiency. Total management speak, I know.

So a new phase begins with my career in San Francisco and I’m pretty excited about it.

Today we’re going to see Newcastle take on Chelsea at St. James Park. Ann and I took the official stadium tour yesterday and it was fantastic. Our tour guide - Sue - claimed she bleeds black & white, and I certainly believe her.

The tour included the entire stadium. We saw every level. We started in a luxury box, proceeded up to the cheap seats, strolled through the very cool children’s zone and the banquet areas. Then we hit the director’s suites and headed down to the pitch. We concluded with the stroll through the locker room and media area. Pics are on my Flickr page.
We’re very lucky that it will be a meaningful game. Not so much for Newcastle, because they can’t really go anywhere in the standings since the season will end next weekend. But the Blues entered the weekend tied with Manchester Utd. atop the Premiere League. And Man U put the hurt on West Ham on Saturday, so Chelsea must win to stay in the race. I’m sure the local boys would love to knock those rich London jerks out of the running.

Overall, we’re having a great time in Newcastle. It’s got a lively bar scene and we’re having no trouble finding things to do. Should be a great day for football.

On Tuesday Ann and I had a great day packed with activity. First we met up with the old Macworld UK editor - David Fanning - who I’ve kept in touch with over the years. He now has his own PR outfit and works in a quaint office space near Borough Market.
He bought us a fine lunch and we enjoyed a pint at supposedly the oldest pub in England - the George Inn. It certainly looked like an ancient pub, with old sagging beams across the front. It’s now owned by the National Trust so at least it’s cared for properly. Dickens and Shakespeare are both known to have imbibed there.

After saying farewell to Mr. Fanning we jumped on the tube and made the quick hop over to the Tower of London. I’ve never been there before and I’m glad we made the stop. I always imagined it was just a big dungeon used to house torture chambers, but it’s actually a long-standing royal palace. Torture just happened there in the normal course of things.

Anyway, we jumped into a guided tour by one the costumed yeoman. He took the large group around pointing out the history and highlights. Well worth the price of admission. And of course, no trip to the Tower would be complete without a walk through the the hall containing the crown jewels. Pretty gaudy, I have to say.

Then we went off to the new offices of Macworld UK up near St. Pancras/King’s Cross station. Our good friends Mark, Karen and Rosie - all IDG employees in one form or another - wanted to take us for a drink. So we kindly accepted and headed off with those three and another IDGer, James.

We wound up staying at the Somerstown Coffee House most of the night and even enjoyed a delicious meal there. Karen is currently under medication, so she wasn’t able to tip a proper class with the group. But she’s already planning another outing for Friday, when she’ll be able to demonstrate her alcohol-fueled skills.

So after a long day, numerous pints of Bombardier and Strongbow, a couple meals and too many stories to count, Ann and I headed back to our hotel in the London County Hall for some well-deserved rest.

Today’s we’re planning an easy afternoon, then off to see Mama Mia at the Prince of Wales Theatre at 7 p.m. Wish me luck.

Woke up at 3 a.m. on my first full day in London and couldn’t go back to sleep. I thought I’d done everything right, but to no avail. So be it.

That means I was out on the street as the sun came up here in Westminster. Our hotel is right across the river from parliament, and London is quite a bustling town on an early Monday morning. I strolled over toward Victoria Station and had a lovely tea and croissant. Then I tried out my snazzy London Travelcard on the return trip via Tube.
The weather has cleared and it’s actually sunny. Once Ann finally wakes up we’ll head off for a full English breakfast.

Tonight I’ll try to get back on my regular sleep schedule. Wish me luck!