overt.org

2498 Telegraph Ave Berkeley, CA 94704 510-548-8885

Yesterday, after my IT orientation, George drove up to Berkeley to have lunch. We walked down telegraph again, and this time chose our lunch spot based on a recommendation from someone that George accosted on the street. The place is called “Ann’s Kitchen,” and it looks like it’s been there for a while. It’s a breakfast-all-day+sandwiches kind of place, which usually suits me pretty well, and we were told it was cheap, which is always something I’m in the mood for. I decided not to get breakfast, but instead a BBQ sliced beef sandwich with home fries and lemonade to drink. The sandwich was pretty tasty–much better than what I had at Smart Alec’s. There were no apologies at this place for grease, or pretentions of health food. The sandwich was big, but not filling (for a Bryan). The home fries were everything they should have been, which is to say fried and covered in oil. Yum.

The best part of the meal, though, was the lemonade. I’m an amateur lemonade aficionado, and I like to boast that at the least I can tell if lemonade came from a powder or frozen concentrate. This stuff, though, was clearly the real deal. Lemons, crushed into water, with assloads of sugar poured in. Magnolia Cafe in Austin also has good lemonade like this, but they serve it without sugar, so you have to sit there for five minutes dissolving about a cup of sugar into your glass to reach the diabetic-shock-inducing level required for truly good lemonade. Not at this place. The stuff came sour enough to make even George wince a bit and sweet enough to register on my jaded scale. I’d go back just for another glass.

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.

Friday night kicked some ass. Leslie and I cooked up artichoke and mushroom lasagna to feed a cadre of teachers who graced us with their presence. Beer from several Asian countries was consumed, as well as tangerine fuzzy navels and plenty of strawberries, angel food cake, and whipped not-cream (though none of the latter by me, thank you). I eventually banished myself upstairs to remove the male element, though no doubt the fun continued.

Saturday night also had its intrigue. We went over to have dinner at Phil’s place. He had mentioned he’d also invited “a friend from UT,” and when we arrived, there was none other than George, arrived back early from his NYC escapades. A pleasant surprise. We enjoyed ginger sesame chicken, then definitely did not spend a couple of hours dance-dance-revolting. After that we caravaned back up to Fremont to get dressed for a traditional Saturday-midnight showing of RHPS in Oakland. It was fun… lots of effort on the part of the actors, with complete costumes, props, scene changes. Miles ahead of what I saw the last time I went in high school. We also met two friends of George from Livermore - Laura and Stefani. Didn’t get to talk much to Laura, but I did have a brief talk with Stefani, who’s an int’l relations and philosophy major at nearby Mills College. We even bought (or, I should say, George bought) little rocky supply bags to throw shit at appropriate moments. Alas, they have apparently phased out rice and now only blow bubbles for the wedding.

And this is officially my last day of vacation. Leslie was up and out of bed and off to school in a frighteningly familiar manner this morning, and tomorrow I go up to Berkeley and they tell me how to be a grad student. We’ll see how that goes.

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Comments

nicole — 2004-08-23 20:15:01

hey- i went to mills! how long has she been there? (it’s a REALLY small school)

Johanna — 2004-08-23 22:39:27

Thanks for a lovely evening. Too bad I had your helping of trans-fat filled non-cream. No doubt you will live .3 seconds longer than I will.

bryan — 2004-08-24 14:33:09

Nicole - I think last year was her first, but she did some work before so she’s graduating this coming spring. Peanut - I will spend that third of a second gloating over your early demise.

Ali — 2004-08-24 15:04:24

www.phdcomics.com It’s not exactly the most warm and fuzzy look at the phd process, but one year in it’s frighteningly true.

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.

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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!

We got back on Sunday from Texas. I’d tell you all the stuff we did, but Cameron already wrote a great description. The only parts not included are the excellent dinner we had in Dallas the night we arrived to celebrate Susan’s birthday at a place called Iris, and some modest ranch-type work that we accomplished on Friday (fixing lights, planting gardens, driving tractors, waterskiing, the usual).

So now I’ve entered my last week of this odd year that started last August. The year without a plan (well, there were plans, but the were all just theoretical. Almost unbelievably, everything went off without a hitch. I found a job, a great one, at Apple. It only took a couple of months. I reapplied to grad schools, and actually got in this time, to Stanford and Berkeley, the place I wanted to go to all along. It’s almost like the entire net effect of the year was to transpose me from being about to start my Ph.D. in Seattle to me being about to start my Ph.D. here.

In any case, in less than a week I’ll start classes again. I wonder how different it will feel, how much the same. It’s an adventure but also a relief… new place, new people, but also going back to the life of a student, even if it is a student with a long commute for this year.

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Comments

leslie — 2004-08-18 15:14:02

I sense the debate that went into the word “Susan.” ;)

cameron — 2004-08-18 21:14:15

heehee