Archive for category Out and About
Labor Day Weekend Recap
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Out and About on September 7, 2010
Friday:
- Extended bike ride through some areas of the Vasona trail I had not scoped out before
- Dinner at B & Vine to commence the unwinding process; a nice bottle of Malbec and a lot of bruscetta. Given its affordability and food/wine selection, its a local winner. Just watch out for nights where they don’t have the jazz trio, as they allow some guy who looks like a cross between W.C. Fields and a Furby to sing very badly arranged cover tunes.
Saturday:
- Finally saw the Expendables. Good, insane, action-movie fun. No complex plots and subtexts…just a lot of dudes punching, shooting and blowing things up while evading swarms of bullets, other explosions, and buildings falling over (mostly from explosions). Highlights include Mickey Rourke being himself, and any scene that Terry Crews does or says anything.
- Picked up the Bill Bruford autobiography I had been wanting to read for a while. So far, it is a really enjoyable read.
- Dinner at Contigo, which included some of the best porcine edibles ever, a bottle of Los Bermejos from the Canary Islands, and Blue Bottle coffee ice cream.
Sunday:
- Went biking around urban areas, tried to by an Evo 4G (out of stock), picked up some wearables at the local mall (life is too short to look shabby) and some taiyaki at Sweet Breams (life is too short to eat badly). Of note, the proprietor of SB now has a Kozik toy in the store that she has named Poirot. I find this amusing, and wonder how many people grok the reference…when I ask her she says “so far, you’re it.”
- Dinner at Zucca in Mountain View. Lots of fish going on (mostly salmon and mussels). Male host was exceptionally lame (weird, curt fellow with a penchant for mumbling while surly). His female following act was much better; cordial, pleasant, and good pronunciation skills.
Monday:
- Swam.
- Read.
- Lounged.
- Did not labor. At all. Whatsoever.
Outside Lands
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Out and About, Pop Culture, Sounds on August 15, 2010
Day One
- Missed watching The Pimps of Joytime (even though I wore pants most suited to such an occasion) and only heard the last moments of Gogol Bordello (but those moments were very full of win mind you).
- Lunch was from Farmer Brown’s Little Skillet: fried chicken, waffle, red velvet cupcake. Not very healthy, but that is not what you at that for.
- A mint mojito iced coffee from Philz. I do not usually do coffee any way beyond plain black, but this was a pleasant departure.
- Dessert came in the form of a bittersweet chocolate number from Three Twins Ice Cream.
- The Rebirth Brass Band was quite impressive, including a cover of LeVert’s Casanova that goes well beyond the arrangement limitations of the original. The growth of a kind of regional sub-genre in New Orleans that merges second line jazzy brass with hip-hop and soul inflections is something anyone can enjoy casually, and for more studied ears brings new things with additional listens. Not sure if I like these guys as much as Youngblood Brass, but they are pretty close.
- Big surprise discovery for me was Beats Antique; part burlesque/belly dancing sideshow, part electronica meets middle-eastern expedition (think electric oud, clarient and accordion in the lineup), part percussive dance party, all awesome.
- Dinner was some “Argentinian BBQ” from Primo’s Parilla, and it was mad good. This was followed by more coffee -this time plain black, this time from Sabores del Sur.
- Wolfmother was ok, but oddly reminded me of Billy Squier live a lot, but when they did a cover of Riders on the Storm by The Doors they really came alive.
- Tokyo Police Club surprised me; they are still a tad dull in terms of stage presence but they sound much better live than they do on record.
- Bassnectar; not a lot to see, but you can certainly feel the vibe (mostly from the low end) they bring to an event. I love dirty, skeezy synth bass and monolithic breakbeats, and they provided an ample amount of both.
- Thanks to my buddy Vishal for the ride back into town and for hanging out during part of the Cat Power and The Strokes gigs.
- Outside the venue were scads of very haggard hippy wannabes selling “Ganja Candies” and the like. These people look less likely to “Make Love Not War” and more like “Make Scam, And Run”. Smelly little patchouli punks.
Day Two
- Only stayed a few hours; both K and I were pretty tired from yesterday I suppose, and just didn’t have the gusto for a full second day of OL.
- Al Green was a bit of a disappointment, with the venue just not suited to the kind of soul revue he does best. Singing tunes like Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman wasn’t what we came for either. When he did sing though, it is safe to say that the Reverend still has chops and knows how to take the stage.
- Chromeo was excellent. Pat Gemayel’s use of the talkbox may put him as the only true sonic heir to Roger Troutman (and I am not saying that casually).
- Phoenix sounded quite good, as did Garage a Trois (the latter of which really comes off as some strain of Zappa meets the MC5 meets Ornette Coleman on major psychoactive drugs) which I kind of ex[pected. The surprises were how engaging The Temper Trap were and Janelle Monae wasn't (she also was annoyingly late). Amusingly, the very diva-esque Monae was later spotted in full regalia roving past us on the back of a dusty golf cart. It was an interesting juxtapositioning of random with WTF.
- Tacos from El Huarache Loco, jambalaya from Anchor & Hope, and more Philz coffee. All good, son.
- Sadly, I left the storage card for my camera back home, and have no images from the second day. Ah well...
DevArt 10th Bash
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Out and About, Pop Culture, Visual Arts on August 10, 2010
The Missus and I left for Los Angeles late Friday evening and arrived at our hotel room sometime just before 3AM. Sleep came quickly, and morning involved a slow start and meandering pace up through lunch.
Speaking of lunch; to the woman who was our waitress…your perfunctory service suited our needs, but whatever weird eyeliner you had made you look like a heroin-addicted raccoon. Stop that.
Arriving at the House of Blues shortly after opening we were greeted secondly by my old boss, Danie, but first by Llamas. Not Lorenzo…just llamas. Two of them.
To be honest, I was much happier to be greeted by Danie, but the llamas were ok too. Got nothing against llamas, but Danie is a lot more likable, and she doesn’t spit arbitrarily.
While there were several panels, the one that I thought was the most significant was the public debut of Muro. A month ago I was at the DA HQ and got a sneak-peek at it with Angelo and Zack and I was floored. That being said, the polish and final additions they put in that months time were notable, and the final product is -and I am not prone to saying things like this often- something that changes the landscape not just a bit.
Seeing Stanley Lau do a quick demo with it also made me want to pull out my Pepper developmental sketches and complete at least one of them, maybe via Muro.
Most of the Bash was spent just catching up with old friends, and making new ones. I had not seen Danie or Richard or Bryan in ages (at the DevArt Summit at the Palladium in 2005), and I finally got to meet Keir and Stykera (who I now know is a fellow fan of Andy Patridge).
We ate “dinner” (read: bar food) with Spot, Penguino and Silvein, and cruised the floor running into ever more interesting folks (which admitedly is kind of expected and part of the reason you go in the first place). Also, nice to meet y’all (Mel, Rin, and anyone I may be missing).
The entire House of Blues was under DA control, and it was laid out with art and tools to make art (as it should be), with print galleries, Muro-stations (including a few using the Wacom Cintiqs) and an arts & crafts room. Of note, the third floor VIP Lounge is an amazing place with really cool crown moulding and stained glass. This was a great venue to have this kind of party in.
It was an incredibly well planned and executed little soiree. Kudos to everyone involved and my own thanks to everyone who attended. I still feel like DA is a real “social network” of people with a core set of interests (instead of just an aggregation of stuff), and I still feel like it has much more to offer than any of the comparable options available.
Looking forward to the eleventeenth bash.
Of note; spent the taxi ride home talking with the cabby (Armenian apparently) who really hated Turks and felt compelled to tell me about it in lurid detail. There was also something about St. Sargis, Kurds, and the beauty of the Russian language. I was not inebriated, however he may have been.
Also of note -and I wish I took a picture of it- was a huge sign on the freeway with a phone number and the words “I NEED DIRT“. Now realize this was in an agricultural area. There is lots of dirt there. I am wondering if the fellow with the sign just expects some random dude to call him and exclaim “NOW do I have some plenty heapin’ good dirt for ya!” or maybe “Sir, I do believe I may be -as a classy purveyor of fine soil products- be able to provision you with the dirt you seek.” but the sign was very LOL. Seriously, how do you arrive at the point in your life where you need to announce that, with your phone number attached, on a large sign at the shoulder of a major traffic artery.
Random Bits for 2010-08-09
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Out and About on August 10, 2010
Dinner and a local jazz trio at the CODA supperclub (they took my request for some Headhunters), a bird caught during the morning commute, and one of my more recent works printed door-size.
@Barefoot Coffee Bar this Month
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Out and About, Pop Culture, Visual Arts, linkedin on August 5, 2010
While I have been suffering some logistical snafus all around, I managed to get part of a display up at Barefoot this evening.
I’ll be showing all of August, and I may rotate some pieces out midstream (I will definitely be adding some more in later next week), with most of the work being more recent items, as well as some developmental sketches.
Marks against Public Transportation #7834756
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Out and About on August 2, 2010
I am normally a big advocate of trains/public transport, but…new (old) rule: do NOT make eye contact with weirdo smelly felon transients on the lightrail (this means you, colleague who broke aforementioned rule when I was standing next to you in a VTA Lightrail car); the last thing I want on my morning commute is some guy that smells like Satan peed on him rambling to us about his prior convictions, dodging bail, ranting about Police all being on meth, and bragging about a squeeze toy he’s been carrying around named “Pierre”.
Works in Progress
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Out and About, Visual Arts on July 19, 2010
So, I have my slot for next month at Barefoot, and want a lot of new stuff to be there; trying to finish as many random things that have been floating for week and months (and in a few cases years) in the next two weeks.
Inception
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Film, Out and About, Pop Culture on July 18, 2010
10 observations about Inception
1. It isn’t as original and groundbreaking and cerebral as Bladerunner, as jarringly flashy as The Matrix, or as epic as almost any Kurosawa film, but it borrows all the right elements from all of those and gives us what is possibly the most intriguing film of the decade.
2. The casting of this film is the best outsized cast since Soderberg made the Ocean’s franchise work magic. DiCaprio may be the leading man, but it’s the net chemistry of this ensemble that makes the film work so well. Some are obvious; Ken Watanabe commands attention in any scene he is in, and Tom Hardy is a complete scene stealer, and even smaller roles -Pete Postelwaite stands out- are properly defined and portrayed. But Ellen Page is a great foil as a female who is talented and intelligent but not set into the Angelina Jolie uber-babe or the totally helpless naif, and Cillian Murphy as the neutral hue of eveyone’s interest were unexpected yet exactly appropriate. Even Tom Berenger, whose presence was a total surprise, was suited to his part.
3. Moving from #2, Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are bound for great things. Those guys are serious contenders for being new iterations of of Pitt, DiCaprio or Ledger.
4. The literal tone of the film; I rarely see films with subdued color palettes look right. The Book of Eli and Children of Men were rare examples used correctly in a dry, bleak way. Inception does the opposite and makes every scene seem both crystalline in its clarity yet very lush. This is a truly beautiful film without just being insane eye candy.
5. It isn’t complex for it’s own sake and it doesn’t insult the viewers intelligence. That is an amazing feat by itself.
6. It is the first film that makes me want to go back to the theater and see it again right away. That is rare. Part of that has to do with the possibility that I could reinterpret different parts of the film differently even though I’ve seen it already.
7. The film was way too overhyped. That is not to say this isn’t an epic, amazing film, but that what it was portrayed to be was a standard no one could meet (or arguably should meet). A film cannot be so many things to so many people without suffering depth or breadth. Instead we get a compacting of what is generally accepted working for major blockbusters and wrapped in layers of interesting stuff. Some of it is quite inventive and the film should stand by its own defined territory.
8. Michael Caine, even if he only speaks a handful of lines, is a pimp. The man can do no wrong.
9. I like that the use of CGI was kept to a minimum, and when it was used, it was seamless. It felt so natural in the way it helped the viewer suspend disbelief that my normal habit of pondering all the ‘faults’ I was actually fully immersed in the alternate realities director Christopher Nolan constructs and reshapes almost arbitrarily.
10. Inception does not need a sequel, but it deserves follow ups in more films that try to do something other than bombard the senses with expensive retinal amphetamines or dull the senses with rehashing old franchises or making insipid rom-coms or anything with Dane Cook (who frankly should never be allowed in front of a camera or microphone ever again).
Ways to Self-Amuse (at the expense of others)
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Out and About on July 9, 2010
Most of you know I have a bit of a wicked streak in me, whether its for humorous or more sinister ends. This was a little of both.
I am tired, just finished the first part of my commute by bike across the Vasona trail and on lightrail. I am standing next to three seated youths (I’m guess maybe just shy of legal drinking age) blathering very loudly about ways to fornicate repeatedly by “dime a dozen chicks” at Chico State. They ramble about:
1. how to mix remnants of various colognes into one mega-aphrodesiac scent that anything with a vagina is powerless against.
2. how British accents help you “get laid”
Of course they are saying this all loudly in a mostly full car of people, and at one point they decide to try this little technique on a woman who comes into the tram on the next stop. They get about 45 seconds into their pitch when she asks “Are you really from Eng-land?” and this is when I cannot compel myself to stay quiet.
I know two things about most Americans and The Queens English; they ape the English accent really badly (mixing usually some bad movie villain stammer with a little arbitrary cockney for pointlessness), and that they otherwise can’t tell between any British accent from any other British accent from a slap upside their dome most days. The presumption seems to be that even though in the US has many regional variants , that no other place would.
While I am not great at it, I -after years of knowing quite a few folks from the island across the Atlantic, and an occasional business trip- can ape a decent generic London-ese (minus the aforementioned Guy Ritchie film cockney…well, maybe a little, because using the word “sum-fing” is just fun). At the very least I can maintain the same inflections consistently long enough to convincingly befuddle.
So anyway, as soon as she is giving a look of scrutiny I swoop in with an ever so deadpan delivery and go
Ya know, while the effert is admirable, I don’t think you’d fool anyone. You seem a bit naff actuelly
This of course, brings the entire car to a flat silence. I smirk, one of the guys tries to stay cool and goes “You really from England?” and I maintain the farce for another full two minutes, talking about how the inflection of British English is nowhere near the over-emphatic theatrics they were, etc. etc.
It was an Oscar performance I tell you. Anthony Hopkins does not have a damn thing on me. I got off at the next stop and proceeded to laugh uncontrollably for a few seconds before one of the other folks who got off at the same stop realized I what I pulled and congratulated me on my social engineering.
Ah…easy entertainment at the expense of dum-dums.
A Stone on the Corner
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Out and About, Pop Culture, Sounds on July 8, 2010
Halfway down the first leg of my commute on the Vasona trail last week, I burst my back tire and had to hoof it to the Lightrail station. But before I got there, I sidetracked on a whim to On The Corner Records, where they had stacks of vinyl and cd’s from a purging at college radio station KSCU (Santa Clara University).
As I filleted through the selections, I noticed the person the proprietor was having a conversation with sounded very familiar. So familiar I felt compelled to wedge into the exchange and “ask a stupid question”…was he who I thought he sounded like?
It was, in fact, exactly who I thought it was…Greg Stone.
Yes, Greg Stone, of Stone Trek, was hanging out at On The Corner. Stone Trek was the radio show I listened to uninterrupted the longest; from about the age of 12 to my early 20s, I gorged once a week on a buffet of prog and jazz-fusion, which included my first exposure to bands like Giraffe, Marillion, King Crimson, Gamelon and Allan Holdsworth. Greg seemed to know everyone in those scenes and could get them to visit and/or play unreleased or bootleg material regularly. Somewhere I still have a live version of Giraffe’s This Warm Night on a TDK cassette that I consider a personal favorite, recorded off his radio show, as well as bootleg GTR, and other esoterica.
We ended up talking for the better part of an hour about his salad days at KOME, the more recent run at KFOX (abruptly brought to a close for reasons that make no sense, since he was #1 in his time slot for rock stations in the area) and about random bands like Pete Bardens, Genesis, and Kevin Gilbert.
It was one of those really strange moments when someone you listened to religiously on the radio -no face to the voice for all those years- all of a sudden materializes in a rather startling way. In a cool way actually, but nonetheless totally randomly.
Travelogue: San Andreas & Sawyer Camp Trails
Posted by zeruch in Out and About on July 6, 2010
The holiday weekend was extended into Tuesday, and the Missus and I hoofed it up the San Andreas and Sawyer Camp Trails the past few days, as well as some streetside dining at a local Shawerma & Falafel joint.
During the Sawyer walk we encountered several deer (and as you can see above, got quite close to one pair), one rather large garter snake (if you look real hard in one of the images, you can spot it) numerous blue birds with black mohawk -like tufts (don’t know the species) and a few scuttling lizards. We passed by the dam, but didn’t go far enough to see the big Jepson Laurel.
La Folie
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Out and About on July 4, 2010
La Folie is Roland Passot’s labor of love in the Russian Hill district of SF; Passot is the founder of the Left Bank, and his attention to quality is well known. So we’ll divide this into two sections; the food, and the service.
The food:
There were no bad courses, and standouts for me were day boat scallops with a slab of bacon and the trio of rabbit (loin, leg and rack). Everything was prepared really well, nothing was too dry or too smothered. The amuse bouche of a duck egg and the segue palette cleansing item with strawberry granite were perfect for the pacing of the meal.
The service:
I have rarely been so irritated by service at a high end establishment as I was at La Folie. I have spent far more on meals than what I spent there, but I was still spending a significant chunk of change and have a requisite set of expectations. The hostess seemed nonplussed by our presence, and seated a different set of people who arrived after us, before us. While a bit off-putting, that really wasn’t an issue, but it set a basis of for the waitress, whose combination of condescension and smarm was almost tip-killing by the end of the three hours.
Yes, I am well aware of what Kobe Wagyu is, and Black Truffles, and all the other aspects of the menu that were obvious but that you seemed to assume we were too ignorant to appreciate. To that, explaining it to us in a tone like a grammar schoolmarm was exactly the wrong way to go about it, which was compounded by a voice that was both far too loud and oddly shrill and humorless.
You truly are a disservice to the food, unlike Mr. Passot himself, who came out at the end of the night and went by a sampling of the tables -including ours- to thank us for coming and hoping we enjoyed the meal (we did enjoy…the meal).
Los Angeles
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Out and About on June 15, 2010
…was a place I just breezed through. And by breezed I mean I spent effectively a day and a half there, and a day and a half getting to and from there by train (11 hours each way) via the Pacific Coast Starlight.
Stayed at the O Hotel in LA, buzzed over to the DA HQ in Hollywood to see what the latest is (10th anniversary is coming up), and took my goddaughter to dinner at the Lazy Ox.
Weekend Travelogue 2010-06-06
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Out and About, linkedin on June 7, 2010
Saturday was a brief meet up with Angelo & Sasha from DA, which is always pretty interesting (the DA folks are almost inevitably up to interesting things), and then a serious plundering at FLAX with the missus. I picked up numerous pens, brushes, some acrylic paint/ink, two mid-sized hardbound sketchbooks, a 6B grade graphite pencil (how often do you see those), and a pen by Koh-i-noor whose color was labelled as “Gangrene Green”. Lunch was next door at DeLessio, which has some great casual dining. Really funky, busy interior and a patio area.
Sunday started off great; The Missus and I met with the Flemmings for brunch at the Village Pub in Woodside, where I had the greatest breakfast chow in memory (Meyer Lemon and Ricotta Soufflé Pancakes and some maple pecan syrup). After that there was some cruising around the Skyline area; it never ceases to amaze me how just under the nose of the masses tumbling up and down the industrial/urban chute that is the 101, is a tucked away semi-rural universe of scenic vistas and trails and things to do that don’t involve surgically attaching a Blackberry to your thumbs or updating a microblogging feed about the dangers of losing your weekend to off-hour demands from the office.
Which reminds me, Sunday started great, and then proceeded to get really not-so-great. A fire caused a 70 minute power outage near my office, which in turn caused klaxons to go off and I had to assemble my little elite team on their weekend (and mine) to help make sure things don’t go thud for too long. It took hours to run checks and fix a few problems that cropped up. Good going folks, you were solid as always.
subZERO Festival
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Out and About, Pop Culture, Sounds, Visual Arts on June 5, 2010
Yesterday was the 3rd annual SubZERO Festival. It was also Drawing Day 2010. I scribbled with a brush-tip pen in a small sketchbook while commuting up in the morning, and on the way to downtown SJ.
Ate at Eulipia and reminisced about the remains of what once was 10 feet above me (the Ajax Lounge). Eulipia still has a passable, but largely staid menu at this point. What it does have is location and aesthetics, as I ate street/patio-side and watched some of the live music, a fashion show and various species of pop culture casualties stroll on by.
I ran into Avery of Corpus Callosum (he was hauling a rather large bass drum, pictured below) and he told me that besides their stage gig they were also doing music for a puppet show. Bear in mind, I’ve seen ‘puppet shows’ done by CC and its associates, and they are quite impressive in style and substance, but any puppet show involving a 12 foot puppet robot operated by three people with teeth made of knives is worth seeking out.
Stopped in the Anno Domini Gallery, which is now my favorite spot down in SOFA these days; they had some great stuff overall (I had never heard of Dimitri Drjuchin before, but I am happy I know of his work now), but of particular interest was a show of Bob Dylan inspired material done by the uber-alpha illustrator Barron Storey.
It was the closest to the days of the old SOFA Street Fair that I had seen in that area since the days of the first SOFA Street Fairs (read: before it turned into a pay-at-the-gate for a lite, sanitized version of what it started as).
I wish I had taken more photos, but the camera battery went kaputski.
Memorial Day Weekend
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Out and About on June 1, 2010
Friday evening got things started with a business meading at Rabbit’s Foot Meadery with the proprietors of Tiki Twins Entertainment, who happen to be former clients of mine when they were in two of the best unsigned bands in the South Bay (Sandbox, later Drivin’ Like Buddha) and I was doing promo images, concert photography and even worked the lights at a few Cactus Club gigs in the booth with soundman John “Wedge” Branon (who later went to work with the Deftones, Slayer, Jane’s Addiction and a ton of others; he could make any band sound really good in that dive). If all consulting gigs were as casual and unforced as this, I’d freelance more often.
The rest of the weekend was spent pretty much painting (including trying to turn a bunch of old bottles and cookie tins into objets d’arte, one of which is pictured above), reading and generally honing my not-being-a-workaholic lounge skills.
Once again, I cannot speak highly enough about the Old Port Lobster Shack (naked lobster roll + clam chowder = infinite cooked sealife win).
And I found a better alternative route to the bike portion of the commute: pedaling down and through the Vasona trail instead of traversing regular street traffic lunacy. Makes for the right start to the day. The mouse pictured above was cruising towards my bike (which was next to an empty soda cup) at the Mountain View train station, which was next to an open field.
Futbol Fever
Posted by zeruch in Aesthetics, Observations, Out and About, Pop Culture, Visual Arts on June 1, 2010
Baker & Banker
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Out and About on June 1, 2010
Ate here last month. Nice vibe at the location formerly occupied by Quince. Worth the visit for the fish alone.
Out & About 2010-05-27
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Out and About on May 31, 2010
Well, my little experiment to try train + bicycle instead of car to commute seems to be working so far. My first day was random in that it also had weird flash rain bursts going on, which I managed to avoid. I did stop by Luke’s Local at one of the CalTrain stops and picked up some coffee (Blue Bottle no less) and some produce for breakfast.
Lunch was at Chacho’s Taqueria with Brother Watusi #2 where we noted the fine decor (that would be the image with the framed picture of Cheech & Chong placed next to a surfboard with a painted lady with a sombrero…stay classy).
Dinner was Macaroni Grill. I don’t go to places like this a lot (the food is kind of ‘meh’), but everytime I do, I go nuts with the table cloth; for whatever reason, this place puts crayons on each table and the waitstaff introduce themselves by writing their names on the paper table cover. Instead, I drew a dude with an afro stating my opinion of the meal.
Seal Point & Bay Trail
Posted by zeruch in Out and About on May 23, 2010
Went up to Seal Point for a short jaunt after work Thursday and to a stretch of the Foster City Bay Trail (south of the SM Bridge) this afternoon. The latter was the first time I had traveled that way in daylight, as I only go there with the missus for dinner to a Thai place tucked down that way.
Neat little spots. Seal Point was overcast, the Bay Trail was windy. Both were still beautiful. Of note, in the pictures with the berms that look like sand, its actually very small sea shell fragments, which made for a surprisingly good walking/running surface.
Absinthe and the slightly surreal encounter
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Out and About on May 10, 2010
The missus went for a girls night out in the city and I missed a friends birthday bash at DNA (long story) but we did have a room at the Hotel Kabuki and since I was in the city I didn’t want to just hole up in the room.
I went out kind of on a lark for dinner solo at Absinthe in Hayes Valley.
The taxi ride was interesting; I got an Eritrean emigre and we spoke about the ethnological makeup of the capital of Asmara. The accent of someone of Tigryinan stock sounds similar to Amharic (which seeing as they are regionally contiguous and both of the semitic language family is not all that surprising, but still something that struck me).
These are the kinds of observations I make during geopolitical discussions with cab drivers on random Saturday nights — nonstop excitement rules my world.
So I get to Absinthe and tuck into a nook with seating for one, as I got a table from a last minute cancellation.
They have the single best clam chowder I have ever had, which is no small feat. They also have a mean mussel & clam (yes, I was in a seafood mood) stew that followed nicely. They have a Tcho pot de creme and since I was there, I decided I would have a cocktail with the restaurants namesake in it, called a Sazerac (which is apparently the oldest known cocktail invented in the US and originates in antebellum New Orleans).
Service is good there, quality of food consistent with at least the items I picked up, and the vibe and decor perfect for a night out solo or with a crowd.
The ’surreal encounter’ was midway through the meal having one of the waitstaff cruise by that I recognized. Kristin, who long served me gallons of black coffee and Morrocan tea at Los Osos Cafe years ago was there. It’s just one of those very weird events to see someone you have only been acquainted with but recognized readily at what is otherwise a totally random and unpredictable juncture. She is just as energetic and affable as before, and helped to convince me on the chowder. Good call.
Out and About: The Loop of the Dish
Posted by zeruch in Observations, Out and About on May 7, 2010
On my second time at the Stanford Dish I did the full 3+ mile loop. I caught some decent pictures, but none of the ones I tried taking of the now abundant birds turned out (including the very large raptor that at one point dove into some thick brush and I suspect raptorized some small woodland creatures face).
I also got a decent shot of the sun lining up behind the main radio telemetry dish.
It was a good after-work thing to do.
Travelogue: Kaffeehaus and a Small Squamate
Posted by zeruch in Out and About on May 4, 2010
So today was…lively. The morning had me do a slight detour to the kind-of new European style cafe called Kaffeehaus (on 3rd in San Mateo) where I had a very good black coffee next to a large boar head (see pictured), and the only other highlight was a staredown between myself and a small but rather unimpressed squamate -scaled lizard for the reptile classification disinclined- which is also pictured here. So without further ado, here are the pictures:
Forget Ozzy… (or Tony Stark)
Posted by zeruch in Out and About, Pop Culture on May 4, 2010
…THIS is Ironman.
On the Way to Discovery Bay…
Posted by zeruch in Out and About on May 2, 2010
…we have the Altamont Pass wind power installation by Lawrence Livermore National Labs. The clusters of turbines, moving in near unison are almost hypnotic.
Its like something out of a Storm Thorgeson album cover concept.
Edgewood Preserve
Posted by zeruch in Out and About on May 2, 2010
Back at Edgewood, this time from the opposite side of Highway 280, where I started going up a fire road and down the main trail line. Short, but fun. Probably the most lush stretch of the trail system I’ve seen thus far.
Lots of birds, lots of jackrabbits…couldn’t get a shot of any of them. I did get a nice close up of a lizard…because it was dead (which I realized after I took the shot and realized I wasn’t simply too ninja for it to notice).
Crystal Springs
Posted by zeruch in Out and About on April 23, 2010
Left the office at a reasonable hour, and caught a short walkabout on the Crystal Springs trail, heading up towards 92.
There are lot’s of birds making noise, but not many in view. There was one small hare that kept bolting each time I tried to snap a picture of it, which after several minutes of attempts resulted in me giving up and moseying along. My aged camera (an otherwise very trusty Olympus Stylus Verve) is ill suited to the task anyway.
Weekend Walkabout: Vasona
Posted by zeruch in Out and About on April 18, 2010
Initially, the Missus and I intended to go to the trails at Sierra Azul, but got bad directions from the Googles (instead of the actual trail entrance, we got ones for the Mid-Peninsula Open Space Trust offices), and opted to head south to Vasona.
It was a nice day.
