Yo Yo Yobst !

Dad’s coaching belt

My dad rocks. He coached the Salisbury State Seagulls from 1972 – 1979 and I have his belt to prove it Good luck today dad!

Happy Birthday Baby Joep!

IMG_4433, originally uploaded by Joepiiiiieeee !!!!.

I have yet to meet my favorite Dutch baby. That’s what happens when he lives in Amsterdam. Happy birthday Joep! Can’t wait to meet you sometime before your second birthday.

Mother’s day isn’t always happy.

This post on postsecret is so sad. It makes me appreciate my Mum.

My Grandmother’s Scarf

My Grandmother, Anne Yobst, rocks. She married my Grandfather when I was 7. That wedding was the first time I *liked* boys instead of thinking they had cooties. I even wrote a paper about how grown up I was.

In a conservative Christian family, Anne and I began talking about books and eastern religion long ago. A retired librarian, she always sends me the best books, although Salt, A World History is admittedly tough to get through. Anne inspires me to read and write. Opening a letter from Anne is like reading a beautiful and thoughtfully composed chapter written especially for me. I can see what she writes about, hear her dog barking, and feel her frustrations sorting and trashing all the overly religious books donated to the Salvation Army.

A true giver, Anne knits sweaters and beanies for preemies. She uses a tennis ball for the heads. Can you imagine having a baby that small? Most people can’t and they certainly aren’t planning on it, so they are overjoyed to get Anne’s lovingly knit bundles of warmth. I asked Anne to knit me a scarf for xmas and she asked me to pick out the yarn.

For someone who doesn’t knit, a yarn store is terribly intimidating. I went to one downtown, talked to the women for awhile and decided there was nothing I liked and left with my tail between my legs. It was like going to the great mall of America and trying to find the perfect pair of earrings…except the earrings aren’t finished – they are just pieces of metal I have to imagine as finished products.

I finally got brave enough to visit another shop. I spent hours there asking questions of everyone that works there. Eventually I picked a soft and texturey pink silk and sent it to Anne.

Soon after I received one of Anne’s fabulous letters.

“Dear Dana,

I’m having a good time knitting. The yarn is sensuous feeling and very pleasant to work with. I’ve been knitting so long with thin thread – like baby yarn for the preemies, it feels wonderful to have luxuriant velevety yarn going through my fingers.” She then tells me about Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter, which I need to buy.

By the time I sent her the fourth ream of yarn she was waiting for it and I had a gorgeous scarf a few days later.

Thanks Anne! I love you.

yo yo yobst unites 2 brothers

On Dec 11th,2005, I posted a picture and video of my friend Juri Worms singing Baby Got Back.

About a week ago, I noticed that the search term ‘Juri Worms’ was bringing some traffic to my site. Juri is a charming guy with admirers so I wrote him to ask about new love interests that would be cyber stalking him. Juri, a non-geek, who does modeling, wrote me back asking me what the hell I was talking about.

A few days I approved the following comment in german and sent it to Juri. Juri is German.

Hi, Juri!
Ich bin`s Moritz, versucht Dich schon länger zufinden.
Jetzt hab Ich diese Seite beim googlen gefunden.Würd mich wahnisinnig freuen, wenn Du mich mal anrufst oder schreibst. Meine Handynummer ist xxxx oder email xxxx Meld dich bitte!!!!!!!!!

Juri wrote me back with good news.

“wow…do you know what you just did?
my long lost brother googled me and found me through you.
i have been trying to get in touch him him for years and all his contacts were bad.
now he found me.
you are amazing…..bringing familys together.
i will keep you updated..”

i was tickled to help. I didn’t even know Juri had a brotherr!

Yeah for Juri and his bro. Now, to work on Juri’s singing

Baby Joepiiiiieeee!!

Baby Joepiiiiieeee!! You are so cute! I can’t wait to come to Holland to meet you. I love this classic christmas card photo.

Goose Hunting on the Eastern Shore

While visiting my pops in Vienna, we ‘took a ride’ (that’s how you say you are going to go somewhere on the eastern shore). Everyone says “we could take a ride down there” or “did you ride over to see him”?. So we took a ride (in the pick up of course) to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. We took the back roads according to my dad, but I don’t think there are really any front roads. As we rode past farms and historical houses and new developments, dad commented on gingerbread on nicely restored houses, and the shame or Mr. smith selling his farm off to these 300 cookie cutter houses. On the eastern Shore of Maryland time has stood still for generations but now the retiring baby boomers are moving down from the city. They are driving people out of the homes and towns by paying 300k for a house appraised for 80k. They want the simple life, now that they have made money and lived in the rat race of freeway exits and traffic. But they bring it with them…as more and more baby boomers arrive, the traffic gets worse, the lines longer, and life gets urbanized. It hard to take all the urban out of someone. For ‘real’ eastern shoreman they take refuge in their old homes and the serenity of the Chesapeake bay, lamenting times when fish and oysters were plentiful and there was no ‘new mall’ or Wal-Mart. They don’t care that now you can shop 24 hours a day at the grocery store, they just want to live their life peacefully and wave with one finger to people on the road in their pick up truck.
But I digress; pops and I are in the truck heading towards Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. Dotted between the fields, woods, and houses are shanty towns of deer hunters. The shanty towns consist of run down shacks, mobile homes that lost their mobility long ago, and almost abandoned house. We saw a lone doe in a corn field and hoped she would remember where she was and what time of year it was before Saturday. Deer season in Maryland opened on Saturday after Thanksgiving in Maryland. I was open last week in West Virginia and Friday in Virginia. My brother followed the season and hit opening day in all three states, but he hasn’t killed one yet.

I did learn at the thanksgiving table that a 8 year old girl shot a black bear in western Maryland. There are also apparently take your kids hunting days. I thought they were kidding. Do people really teach their 8 year old to hunt, to kill for fun? If they are hungry and need the food, I can understand it, but they aren’t, they are children learning violence. It’s for sport. I guess some kids in the city teach their kids to shoot to protect themselves from rough neighborhoods or pre-empt the gangs.

So we enter Blackwater Refuge and see some ducks, and geese and herons. It’s serene and soothing to hear all the honking and wings fluttering. I like to watch them take off and try to get some good pictures and dad likes to watch them gracefully land. (insert photos)

I get some photos and then we head out of the refuge back towards town. There are ducks and geese all around just outside of the refuge and we see a big gaggle of geese coming to land in a field. I looked closer and see 20-30 geese in the field and said excitedly ‘ohh look the geese found their friends in the field. Look how many there are’. My dad turned a little too slowly to look at the geese. With a bit of sadness in his eyes he said ‘ those aren’t geese and that’s a blind’. As soon as he said it, shots rang out and three of the geese fell the field. The rest of the geese looked around confused for a second and aborted their landing and carried on in flight. A few geese seemed to hesitate and look back at their fallen friends but continued on. Wow, I have been in the city awhile…I’ve lost my eastern shore senses. I didn’t even notice the huge brush covered blind sitting amongst the ‘geese’ decoys in the field. The unsuspecting geese flew directly into the hunters trap. They practically landed on top of the blind.

My dad then shared with me his last goose hunting trip. He shot a goose and it fell. Another goose circled back and went to the fallen goose. It was not dead and managed to fly again and it was too far to be shot again. My dad watched the wounded goose and its mate fly away to a quieter place to die I’m sure. Geese mate for life. Every goose you kill leaves a lifelong partner behind. That the hesitation and circles backs you see hunting. The geese risk their lives to come try to help their partners, just like humans would. That was the last thing my dad shot.

Hunting was a traditional passed on from generation to generation in my family. It is glue that bonds men together. There used to be a blind at my grandparents house- 100 feet from the house but my granddad stopped hunting. The later my dad stopped hunting. Now my brother carries on the tradition. Even I, the SF hippie, went on family hunting trip as a kid. I have never actually shot something. In fact I wasn’t allowed to go hunting anymore after I tried to warn the rabbits we were hunting as a kid. PSSST, rabbit, go away I prompted. My brother hit me and that was my last hunting trip.

Leaving the Bubble

I spent Thanksgiving week in my hometown, Smallsbury, MD, and my dad’s town, Vienna, MD. Week? Yes, week. Working in the digital age, I can theoretically work from anywhere, so I decided to exercise that right. My dad has dial up and a slow like molasses PC….my mum has nothing. Luckily I have back up dial up on my lap top so I was able to dial in and use the 56K connection with my laptop. Dial up is pretty unbearable when you live in silicon valley and use high speed wireless everywhere. Anyway, I had to WebEx to run some demo’s during the vacation…which require DSL so I went to my dad’s girlfriend, Theresa’s, house to use her DSL. They fussed about in the house, cleaning and fixing things while is sat on the headset and computer detailing the value proposition and functionality of the web based CRM – ERP software I sell. Dad and Theresa gave me funny looks when they overheard my smidgens of tech talk and whispered pointing to my ear to see if I was still on the call.

When I hung up from the first demo, my dad was happy – OK your done…let’s go do something fun. Well…not exactly done…then I had to do all the legwork following the demo. He kept saying “I can’t believe how you spend so much time on the computer”. Well, Dad, I am not retired, and I actually make a living working with ‘the computer’ and the internet.

Sometimes we get all wrapped up in our microcosm of life, for me, the urban tech life of SF and for him, the tiny historical waterfront town of Vienna. We forget life exists outside of the bubble and it refreshing and humbling to leave the comfort zone for a few days. 10 days may be 7 or 8 too many…but at least I appreciate ‘my life’ that much more when I return to it.

My trip to Bonaire

After 4 years at Burning Man, I decided to take a different holiday and go to Bonaire. Where is Bonaire you ask? Good questions, it’s near Aruba, Venezuela, and is a part of the Dutch Antilles.

Planning a vacation with Dad was fairly challenging. He doesn’t have strong opinion on much but decided he wanted to go scuba diving. I am a HUGE scuba diving fan and pretty spoiled by gorgeous scenery. Consequently I needed a place with good diving that was not too far for him to travel to from the east coast. My favorite place, Asia, was out of the question. Dad also gets sea sick so that adds another challenge to diving.

Bonaire comes to the rescue. It has the best shore diving in the world. There are yellow markers all over the island so you just pull over, kit up, and dive in the 80 degree water. There are no currents and nothing dangerous. The reefs drop off slowly and bottom out at 50 meters with air-like visibility.

The diving was fabulous. Dad had troubles with buoyancy and equalizing but we got him all sorted out in the end. There were mostly Dutch folks there since they have 2 direct KLM flights a day and a few Americans.

It was so relaxing- we spent every night watching the sunset and woke up top our big breakfast buffet. We also went windsurfing, and checked out the cool salt mines and old slave houses for the salt mine.

I recommend Bonaire to divers of all skill levels. Its easy and interesting with lots of little things to find. Don’t expect any big life and you will be very pleased. Also the party side of things is pretty non-existent so eat well, go to bed early, and enjoy a real vacation from life and stress.

Fourth of July in Smalltown USA (Vienna, MD)

I live in San Francisco, arguably the most wonderfully diverse and marvelous city in the union (for those who include California in the union).

I’ve been in SF for 9 years but my roots are deeply planted in the eastern shore of Maryland – the Delmarva Peninsula. That’s the tiny spit of land between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean comprised of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia – hence the clever name the Delmarva Peninsula. The uniqueness of the Eastern Shore certainly deserves its own blog series but I’m too tired to write that now.

For the fourth of July, I visited my dad in a tiny town of Vienna, Md
Population: 282 folks in 2002; give or take 20 people for 2005.

My dad lives in this house which he lovingly restored by hand (he also did his website himself). Whenever I visit we spend most of our time on the screened in front porch eating waffles, drinking coffee, and talking about life, the weather and the ducks flying across the river.

On the fourth there was a buzz in the air and everyone was milling about at 9 am. People set up their lawn chairs on the edge of their yards for the best parade seat and teased and chatted with each other as they walked about preparing for the big parade. We sat on the porch and watched as the ambulance and fire truck sauntered down water street. “That must be it”, said my dad in his charmingly flat monotone eastern shore accent as two people on the amusement park people mover waved regally. False alarm, the real parade began in 20 minutes.

With more participants than spectators it began with the siren of the Vienna ambulance, (with folks in the back waving) then the Vienna volunteer fire trucks (complete with kids and fans on top) and the same two misplaced amusement park people movers. After the loud sirens and volunteer rescue section including an empty cooler with a sign asking for donation for a new fire truck, the ATV section began. All the redneck young and middle aged drove their 4, 3, and 2 wheelers and go carts in the parade. The camouflage looked a little out of place on the streets and the fearless kids wore no helmets or long pants. Next came the bicycles decorated with red, white, and blue. They were cute – quaint – what one would expect from a small town 4th of July parade.

The parade quickly came to an end and everyone walked to the town hall for free hot dogs. My dad, who hates any large social gatherings, opted to walk around town instead. We ended up at the town hall anyway (there are only 3 parallel roads so you can’t really miss it) and I delighted in cupcakes, rice crispy treats and patriotic ribboned pigtails. The town hall was abuzz with excitement from the parade. Family visits and the nice weather.

A few more good natured exchanges with people on their porches and Dad and I were back to our original viewing seats on the screened in porch talking about life. Life in Vienna and life in SF have one thing in common – community and a sense of belonging. I think that is one of the essential drivers of humanity – we need to belong to something – anything really. And sometimes we go overboard and decide everyone should belong to the same and then comes holy wars and genocide. I think one of the beauties of the world is belonging to many pockets of community and even on the fourth of July I could belong to my dad and his small town as well as represent the west side.