I did look into composting the dog waste in the yard at one point, but almost none of the commercial composters work in clay soil, unfortunately, and since they also can’t be near edibles, it wasn’t so helpful.

found a nifty design for a solar powered self contained outhouse, which uses solar heat to raise the temp high enough to kill the bacteria etc.
http://www.longbrancheec.org/pubs/composting_toilet.html

then a very recent national geographic piece on SF trying to do special separation of dog waste to try methane production. quoted a stat of 3.8% of total? garbage in sf was dog poop. i could believe its high. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0321_060321_dog_power.html

is Waste Management doing any of this or just mixing it all up with some dirt that hasn’t been tested for anything, and reselling it?

-len

for some reason my dog loved it. got me thinking about all those dog people who throw their dog’s poop into the green recycling bins. then Waste Management composts it.

My understanding is that near impossible to quickly compost mamal poop safely because of high bacteria and protein levels. I’ll talk to Waste Management to get their explanation.

-len raphael
temescal

some people who prefer or have to stand etc. go for the 3 foot deep bed frames but just put inert stuff like gravel and weed fabric in the bottom half to take up space.

-len

The Terrace Room at the Lake Merritt Hotel was an absolutely beautiful location for our friends’ wedding. While at first I didn’t know how the “ceremony/reception in exact same space” situation would play out, the cocktail hour between the ceremony and full on reception held in the foyer area actually worked out really well.

The Rooftop deck at the Gaia Arts Center in Berkeley could have been an awesome location to utilize at another event I attended but instead it was kind of like an after thought – oh, cocktails are also up on the deck! Not sure if this was poor planning or the center’s way of doing things, but it felt underutilized when it was the best part of the whole location.

The Berkeley City Club’s menu left something to be desired when we first booked it for our wedding oh so long ago, but the location is absolutely stunning. Having a ceremony downstairs and then a reception upstairs would be a great way to break up the locations and give guests a “wow” space to soak up.

For smaller weddings both the Claremont Hotel and Preservation Hall put you in crap rooms that are ugly and not conducive to a romantic wedding environment. And by “smaller” I mean we had 80 guests and that’s what they wanted to do with us.

We ended up running off to Maui to get married, but we did have a party here in the Bay Area the following week to placate my mother in law. We looked high and low for cheap and nice because Maui is not cheap. In the end we went with Rockefeller Lodge in San Pablo. I know, San Pablo, right? My husband’s parents booked it for us – the first time I saw it was 1.5 months before the wedding and I wanted to cry driving up to it. Yes, you go through the ‘hood. Yes, it’s kind of out of the way. Yes the owner is kind of a crazy old bat (her daughter helps temper the crazy). But once you park and step through the gates, you’re transported to an adorable cottage that is smack dab in the middle of a redwood grove. San Pablo disappears and you may as well be up in Montclair, or even Lake Tahoe. The food was decent (we did buffet style) and cheap, which was fabulous. They also let us provide our own alcohol, which was great since we’re snobs about drinks. The tables & chairs needed to be updated (salmon & teal, anyone), but I believe that has since happened. All that said, the walls of windows, and the rock fireplace and Mexican tile floors created such a cozy and warm atmosphere on a rainy February day that in the end we were absolutely thrilled with our decision, especially since it was thousands of dollars cheaper than doing the same event up in Montclair.