2355 Telegraph Ave Berkeley, CA 94704-1615 (510) 704-4000

Well, I’m here today for my first official day of grad-studentness (for real, this time). Morning was your fairly standard miscellaneous information dispersal exercise: get this account here, that one there, here’s how to get paid, here’s how to register, whatever. After it let out I hit “The Missing Link” bicycle coop for more grocery-toting equipment–hopefully it will be put to good use. Then I set out to find what would be notch 2/100 in my Berkeley eatery belt. I was going to go to Intermezzo Cafe (as suggested by Nicole), but it was swamped for lunch with a line out the door, and I realized I’d been there before with Leslie and Clare. So I hit up a self professed “Health Food Fast Food” place also on Telegraph called “Smart Alec’s.” I got the basil chicken burger combo, which consisted of basil spiced baked chicken, basil mayo, tomato, lettuce, and red onions (I skipped those). It was middling… everything was fresh, but kind of bland and not really remarkable. The fries that came with it were the best part of the meal. “Air baked,” whatever that means, but presumably it would mean that no boiling in oil was involved. The little paper tray liner claimed that someone had voted them Berkeley’s best fries–I don’t think I’d go that far. Maybe the best “air-baked” fries. Anyway, you couldn’t argue with the price: under $6 for the entire combo (sandwich, fries, drink), and that wasn’t the cheapest there. I did walk away with a full stomach but I didn’t feel gross like I’d had a load of fast food, so they did at least succeed there. I’ll keep it in mind for times I’m in the area and short on cash.

I took the train up to Berkeley yesterday to reconnoiter the climbing and yoga situations, to look for a credit union, to try to get cheap BART tickets, and generally to get the hell out of the house.

I was at least partially successful. Since I planned to do so much, and I needed to get from one side of Berkeley (campus) to the other (climbing/yoga), I was heavily laden. Honestly, I looked mostly like a Sherpa: big backpack with yoga mat threaded through, bike, helmet, and all, trying to look nonchalant on the train, exuding I-do-this-everyday vibes.

In truth, having all that stuff was a royal pain. One of the first things I did when I got to campus was find a bike shop (co-op, actually, employee-owned, as they were eager to tell me) and buy some bungee cords so I could strap the mat to the cargo rack. I also picked up a nifty bolt-on (read: marginally more difficult to steal), collapsible metal basket that I hope to use on our bike shopping trips. I then found the Berkeley credit union, called “C.U.B.S.,” (I’ll leave the acronym as an exercise for the reader). It was actually very sketchy; kind of a hole-in-the-wall in Sproul Plaza, which is a kind of on-campus strip mall integrated into libraries and stuff. Think the UT west mall with restaurants and pushy special interest groups, and you’ll get the general idea. In any case, I wasn’t very impressed with the place (the credit union, that is), and I’m seriously considering just signing up with Washington Mutual because their ATMs seem to be ubiquitous nationwide and they have sophisticated online stuff. As it stands, I’ve still just got all my money at the UT credit union, which proves how much it really doesn’t matter where your bank is physically located these days.

My plan was to then go to the Cal ID card office to get my “class pass,” a very weak nickname for the pass that gets you free on all the campus buses and also a lot of other bay area buses, mostly in SF. This plan was stymied by a quarter-mile-long line of freshman waiting to get their IDs. I was then stymied by another line at the post office trying to mail off my watch to get repaired. At this point I’d had enough of downtown, and started biking in the direction of the Ashby warehouse district where reside Berkeley Ironworks and 7th Heaven Yoga. I went ahead and signed up for a monthly membership at the climbing gym ($60/mo, ouch). It’s a great gym, but it’s out of the way and not cheap. I hope that I find some climbing partners soon to help motivate me and/or drive me there. It took about 15-20mins by bike to get there from campus. In any case, I climbed, mostly alone (sniff), but it felt good.

At 6 I went to the yoga place for a mediocre class called “Ashtanga Vinyasa.” It was supposed to be for advanced students, but it still wasn’t real ashtanga. I think what I’m going to have to do is buckle down and just do it by myself. The simple truth is I can do it by myself and I should, rather than letting time, distance, and expense be an excuse for not doing it at all. Our deck and the Berkeley rec centers have all the equipment I need: wood floors.

The evening was rounded out by a nerve-wracking ride up Ashby to the BART station in near darkness, the hour on the train, and more scary biking in the dark (need a decent light, I know). I got in about nine, ate, then collapsed in bed. A bit too much exertion for an everyday routine. Just maybe.

---

Comments

nicole — 2004-08-22 19:00:12

check out mechanic’s bank in berkeley. i think it’s pretty good and small.

bryan — 2004-08-22 19:32:19

thanks, i will… you’re a fountain of useful berkeley info!

This week, I told my manager at Apple that I’m going to Berkeley in the fall. It was sort of the last step in the process that started on a monday morning last August when I told the nice people at UW I wasn’t going to be going to school there and I drove to SF bay. I looked for a job, I applied to schools. I got both.

Classes don’t start until September, but my last day at Apple will be 23 July–our lease is up on the 31st and we’re moving out to Fremont for the next year or so. Fremont has it’s ups and downs. We’ll be close to George, who’s here for the summer, but further from Jeff in Palo Alto. Also, it’s likely that Fremont is even more of a suburban wasteland than Santa Clara. But it is relatively close to San Jose and has a BART station. Just 50 short minutes to Berkeley.

I feel a sort of immense relief at heading back to school. Partly because school is so familiar to me, and partly because it makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something. I know I’ve been making money for this past year, but it’s also felt like my life is on pause. Not that I have some ultimate goal for my life. Maybe it’s just soothing to be earning merit badges again.

Anyway… the self-imposed prohibition on Berkeley posts is hereby lifted. Expect to hear plenty about it in the coming months.

---

Comments

clare — 2004-06-15 07:14:02

three cheers for berkeley – just wait for me, my dearest, and i promise i will return to you!

bryan — 2004-06-17 10:45:53

we’ll leave a joint lit for you.

I found this while wandering the Internet and suddenly remembered three years of my life I spent trying to learn Latin:

Macdonaldus Senex fundum habuit. E-I-E-I-O. Et in hot fundo nonnullas boves domesticas habuitt. E-I-E-O. Cum moo moo hic, et cum moo moo ibi. Hic una moo, ibi una moo, ubique una moo moo. Macdonaldus Senex fundum habuit. E-I-E-I-O

What a great language, eh?

---

Comments

george — 2003-12-10 13:07:45

your mom.

emily — 2005-02-16 18:54:02

oh my god. that is genius. it’s great. kudos to old macdonaldus and to latin!

Well, as my first official act as a grad student in graphics, I’m at SIGGRAPH in San Diego. One of the nice benefits of the conference is the free wireless everwhere, so as I type this I’m sitting in the keynote presentation. It’s being given by an astrophysicist who is talking about visualizing the form of the universe or some such thing. Very heady stuff.

Despite the ultra technical stuff (new Isotropic surface techniques with NURBS, anyone?), they also have a little theater set up where you can just sit and watch cartoons if you get burned out. I’ve already logged some time there. I’ll try to get some pictures taken, but they have this big problem with taking pictures of pretty things that other people made and want to sell, so I may not have much luck.