When I first arrived in the Bay Area, almost twenty years ago, it was a very different place than it is now. Before the last cycle of housing bust and boom. Before the .com thing. Before espresso was known, even expected. Some things remain the same: the wonder of the fog and Golden Gate Park, the disgrace that is central Market Street.

I, of course, am different too. I’m now married, with children. That’s a bit of a challenge, given that we have the smallest percentage of children of any American urban center, just 14.5 per cent. (Even a retirement mecca, Palm Beach, FL, has 19 per cent. My birthplace, New York City, has 24 per cent.)

So where am I going with all this? Well, this is my first post at metroblogging SF. The things I’ll blog about, in advance and as after-action reports, are generally family sorts of things, although singles are certainly welcome. My wife and I believe in saavy urban kids, not the Chucky Cheese sort of kids. Our kids are veterans of Burning Man, order the sorts of foods we didn’t know about until our twenties, and enjoy the heck out of our city.

This past weekend we participated in Pride Week. We often walk in the parade, listen to the concerts in the Castro, and enjoy the costumes of our neighbors and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Two years ago we came across volunteers taking down the one-acre pink triangle that’s placed atop Twin Peaks on Pink Saturday. The heavy winds made it hard to keep the tarps down, and the kids got to sit on the tarps; glorified weights. This year we got ‘em up early and helped drive foot-long spikes through the tarps. The kids got exposed to volunteers, who in turn met kids with questions, and a great time was had by all. We do everyone a favor when we treat kids to our adult world.