San Francisco Saturday and Sundry Other Activities
This will probably be pretty repetitive to those of you who read mrsmalkav's journal. And probably much less entertaining. I'd skip it if I were you, unless I was bored and had some time on my hands. ;-)
Last Wednesday after work, at Jason F.'s suggestion, he, Lisa, Robin, Matthias, and I (all ICSI networking people) met up for pizza and beer at Jupiter. Initially the conversation was dominated by shop talk. Lisa and I participated for a while, then got bored and talked among ourselves. We then made a successful, concerted effort to shift the conversation to more friendly and fun topics, such as decapitations via kite-sailing lines. After the other guys left, Lisa and I stuck around for a while and had an awesome conversation.
Thursday, several ICSI people, including Lisa and I, met up at the Triple Rock restaurant/brewery for beer. I was underwhelmed by the beer, which I think was a pale ale, but the conversation was fun, and not shop-talky at all. There was one guy there who had gloves on his hands because he was recovering from frostbite. He said he should make a full recovery, but that he couldn't feel or move most of his fingers at all, and this is several days after climbing way too high while hang-gliding. Yikes! Afterward, we met redstickman, an old friend of Lisa's, and the three of us went back to the apartment to hang out and have some delicious sake that he brought back from his recent visit to Japan.
Friday, Lisa and I went from work directly to dinner. We planned on Ethiopian food at the Blue Nile, but it was closed, apparently for good. We wandered around for a while, and eventually settled on Trattoria Siciliana on College, which was fairly fancy and absolutely delicious. After that, we hopped across the street to catch an 8:55 showing of "V for Vendetta". I was floored with how good that was! Wowness. Oh yeah, and on the way from ICSI to food, we saw the fattest squirrel ever on the Berkeley campus. The sucker could barely even run! I guess there aren't any cats or dogs on the Berkeley campus...
Saturday, Lisa and I walked over to the Berkeley farmer's market. There were many tasty things there, both plain and exotic. I bought some yummy cherries, and, later on, a cookie. I tasted rose petal jam, a variety of breads and cheeses, and some spicy tofu. Then we walked back to the apartment and over to Oakland so Lisa could visit an open house. Unfortunately, we walked all the way there (1.4 miles from the apartment) to find a note on the door that said "sorry, we found a tenant last night". Then we walked to the Ashby BART (Bay ARea Transit) station. After meandering through a flea market and passing by a dozen men on drums, bongos, and various other percussive instruments, we hopped on the BART and went under the bay to San Francisco.
In SF, I was immediately amazed at the tall, tall buildings. We wandered around, eventually entering Chinatown, where Lisa got a sandwich and I got some dim-sum (for the whopping price of $2.25!). Chinatown was crazy. There were people everywhere, clogging the sidewalks and clamoring for produce in the open-air markets. We actually went in a couple markets. There were dried whole fishes, shark fins, seahorses, deer "whip" (i.e. penis), deer nose, et cetera. At one market, the old man behind the counter--who didn't speak a lick of English, apparently--made suggestive motions to me and pointed at Lisa. I think he was trying to sell me an aphrodisiac!
On the edge of Chinatown, we found (well, Lisa found--I would have been permalost if not for her navigating prowess) the Cable Car Museum. That was so cool! I learned that the cable cars are totally unpowered (gripping onto the underground cable makes them move), why the rear pulley is on a track (the cables stretch up to 100 feet in their lifetimes), and that the cable car operators must exert 327 pounds of force to fully grip the cable. I also bought a shot glass there, to add to my growing collection. While shopping for a shot glass, I discovered that "the crookedest street" was something of a landmark in SF, so we decided to see that too. On the way, we got to ride on the sideboard of a cable car. Yay! Eventually we caught a bus to the Bart station, and a Bart to Daly City, where we walked to a Trader Joe's and met Michael, a.k.a. redstickman.
Michael drove us to the party, which was the reason we were in SF on that particular day in the first place. Jack, an old friend of Lisa's, turned 50. The party was actually in the warehouse of a microbrewery, and the beer was yummy and free--w00t! There were so many cool people there, including a manager at Google, the dudes behind "Trance Tuesday", one of the top podcasts in the world (and which I actually listen to), and many other awesome people. I also got to hear Michael's prowess as a DJ. He's good! Many thanks to Lisa for inviting me along!
Thankfully the Bart was running all night that night because the Bay Bridge was closed for construction. We eventually got home around 4am, and walked even more from the Bart station near ICSI to home. All in all, we easily walked 10 miles Saturday. We also got a bit sunburned. So worth it!
Sunday, after sleeping in pretty late, we met Jason S. at the Ikea furniture store in Oakland. After arriving in Santa Clara the previous day, he had a rental car at his disposal. I had never been in an Ikea, and I was duly impressed with the flowing layout, demonstration rooms complete with price tag, and unsupervised ability to sit on any chair or lie on any bed there. Afterwards, we went to Zachary's for some awesome stuffed pizza. I think Jason was duly impressed.
OK, I'm done! What a weekend! Phew!
Last Wednesday after work, at Jason F.'s suggestion, he, Lisa, Robin, Matthias, and I (all ICSI networking people) met up for pizza and beer at Jupiter. Initially the conversation was dominated by shop talk. Lisa and I participated for a while, then got bored and talked among ourselves. We then made a successful, concerted effort to shift the conversation to more friendly and fun topics, such as decapitations via kite-sailing lines. After the other guys left, Lisa and I stuck around for a while and had an awesome conversation.
Thursday, several ICSI people, including Lisa and I, met up at the Triple Rock restaurant/brewery for beer. I was underwhelmed by the beer, which I think was a pale ale, but the conversation was fun, and not shop-talky at all. There was one guy there who had gloves on his hands because he was recovering from frostbite. He said he should make a full recovery, but that he couldn't feel or move most of his fingers at all, and this is several days after climbing way too high while hang-gliding. Yikes! Afterward, we met redstickman, an old friend of Lisa's, and the three of us went back to the apartment to hang out and have some delicious sake that he brought back from his recent visit to Japan.
Friday, Lisa and I went from work directly to dinner. We planned on Ethiopian food at the Blue Nile, but it was closed, apparently for good. We wandered around for a while, and eventually settled on Trattoria Siciliana on College, which was fairly fancy and absolutely delicious. After that, we hopped across the street to catch an 8:55 showing of "V for Vendetta". I was floored with how good that was! Wowness. Oh yeah, and on the way from ICSI to food, we saw the fattest squirrel ever on the Berkeley campus. The sucker could barely even run! I guess there aren't any cats or dogs on the Berkeley campus...
Saturday, Lisa and I walked over to the Berkeley farmer's market. There were many tasty things there, both plain and exotic. I bought some yummy cherries, and, later on, a cookie. I tasted rose petal jam, a variety of breads and cheeses, and some spicy tofu. Then we walked back to the apartment and over to Oakland so Lisa could visit an open house. Unfortunately, we walked all the way there (1.4 miles from the apartment) to find a note on the door that said "sorry, we found a tenant last night". Then we walked to the Ashby BART (Bay ARea Transit) station. After meandering through a flea market and passing by a dozen men on drums, bongos, and various other percussive instruments, we hopped on the BART and went under the bay to San Francisco.
In SF, I was immediately amazed at the tall, tall buildings. We wandered around, eventually entering Chinatown, where Lisa got a sandwich and I got some dim-sum (for the whopping price of $2.25!). Chinatown was crazy. There were people everywhere, clogging the sidewalks and clamoring for produce in the open-air markets. We actually went in a couple markets. There were dried whole fishes, shark fins, seahorses, deer "whip" (i.e. penis), deer nose, et cetera. At one market, the old man behind the counter--who didn't speak a lick of English, apparently--made suggestive motions to me and pointed at Lisa. I think he was trying to sell me an aphrodisiac!
On the edge of Chinatown, we found (well, Lisa found--I would have been permalost if not for her navigating prowess) the Cable Car Museum. That was so cool! I learned that the cable cars are totally unpowered (gripping onto the underground cable makes them move), why the rear pulley is on a track (the cables stretch up to 100 feet in their lifetimes), and that the cable car operators must exert 327 pounds of force to fully grip the cable. I also bought a shot glass there, to add to my growing collection. While shopping for a shot glass, I discovered that "the crookedest street" was something of a landmark in SF, so we decided to see that too. On the way, we got to ride on the sideboard of a cable car. Yay! Eventually we caught a bus to the Bart station, and a Bart to Daly City, where we walked to a Trader Joe's and met Michael, a.k.a. redstickman.
Michael drove us to the party, which was the reason we were in SF on that particular day in the first place. Jack, an old friend of Lisa's, turned 50. The party was actually in the warehouse of a microbrewery, and the beer was yummy and free--w00t! There were so many cool people there, including a manager at Google, the dudes behind "Trance Tuesday", one of the top podcasts in the world (and which I actually listen to), and many other awesome people. I also got to hear Michael's prowess as a DJ. He's good! Many thanks to Lisa for inviting me along!
Thankfully the Bart was running all night that night because the Bay Bridge was closed for construction. We eventually got home around 4am, and walked even more from the Bart station near ICSI to home. All in all, we easily walked 10 miles Saturday. We also got a bit sunburned. So worth it!
Sunday, after sleeping in pretty late, we met Jason S. at the Ikea furniture store in Oakland. After arriving in Santa Clara the previous day, he had a rental car at his disposal. I had never been in an Ikea, and I was duly impressed with the flowing layout, demonstration rooms complete with price tag, and unsupervised ability to sit on any chair or lie on any bed there. Afterwards, we went to Zachary's for some awesome stuffed pizza. I think Jason was duly impressed.
OK, I'm done! What a weekend! Phew!