At Home and Play

appreciate the great diversity found in the beautiful

San Francisco Bay Area. I am grateful to be able to

take advantage of many cultural, epicurian and

entertainment opportunities it has to offer.

I love music and the SF Bay Area offers a variety!

There is good jazz at Yoshi's and Kimballs,

rock and new music at many of the clubs

like Slim's in San Francisco.

I heard somewhere that the best restaurants in the

world are in the Bay area because the best chefs

in the world are here. I don't know if this is true,

but there certainly is a lot of good food here.

My favorite restaurant is Chez Panise in Berkeley.

I have not yet had a bad meal there.

Besides the restaurants, farmers'

markets with fresh fruits and vegetables of all

kinds are abundant. Bakeries with delicious

pastries and breads of all kinds can be found

everywhere. San Francisco is famous for sour dough

bread (which I love), but my favorite is Grace Bakery's Pugliese.


Our home is small, but it is very light with many

large windows. It has a lovely view of two bridges

and the cities of Oakland and San Francisco.

From our house, you can also see Candlestick Park

from a distance and the Oakland Stadium.

During the baseball and football season,

we occasionally get a fireworks display.

We don't live too far away from

University of California, Berkeley.

I live with my friend Lucia and a menagerie

of animals: Luke, a 12 year old cockapoo

(first "little" dog I've ever liked; the

one with the bone in his mouth)

Lucy a 12 year old black lab mix (a comedian);

Billy, almost three years old,

is a white and orange tabby

(Luke's playmate-they're about

the same size, check out the photos);

Patches (the oldest-she is 16 years old and

you wouldn't know it) who lives in the basement

and is a beautiful part Persian black and

white long hair; and lastly, we have an adopted

kitty left here by Pat when they moved. Rosie

Working around the house

Always the perfect outfit for every household chore.

My Daughter

Isabel Victoria Avila (Isa for short) is 25 years old

and graduated with a

She is currently working with young children as a teacher

at a day care center at a local grade school in Santa Cruz.

She is planning for her Masters program which

she intends to start in 1999.

She is an avid lover of music.

are among her favorite bands. If you are

interested in a paper she wrote -

Musical Inspiration and a Space and Time for Creation,

come back (additional text pages under construction).

She lives in a beautiful area of the Santa Cruz mountains,

Ben Lomond, by a creek. She has two cats, Wiley and Mogli.

You do have to take the infamous

Other Family

Lucia Capron and I share this home in Oakland.

She does most of the garden work and loves to putz.

We collaborate on projects, but mostly

we like having fun together.

We camp a lot.

Lucia is a writer at heart with a very vivid

imagination and a flair for words.

She is also a contributor to this page.

I guess good writing is an important asset

if one is an independent consultant in

marketing and communications, which she is.

Check out some of her writing.

She and her husband Julio have five

children and are proud granparents of three.

Other sisters are Consuelo (nicknamed Chelong)

and Marlene who live in the Philippines. Chelong

and her husband Joseton have

four children, Tinton, Jaime, Natalia and Ignacio,

I have a brother, Raphie,

who also lives in the Philippines.

He and his wife, Yayi, have a son Affa.

I have a large extended family

in the Bay Area which consists of many

friends and children.

If you have children, you may want

Also, the kids would like to share their

Click on the photo icon if