Symphony

My first weekend back in SF after my trip to Indy was jam-packed. I had a date with the symphony Saturday night. I had to go early to catch the box office open, so I had time to kill in Civic Center. So, I killed time the only way I know how: eating & taking pictures. It was freezing so I stepped into Herbst Theater and read about the history of how the War Memorial Plaza came to be and saw photos of the UN charter that was signed on the stage. Learned a little bit about my new home, so that was cool. Since I never cut corners on my self-dates, I treated myself to a double cheeseburger & butterfinger pie at BK. I go on the best dates.

Since I was still early, I arrived in time to catch the “Off the Podium” talk before the performance. The speaker played snippets of the compositions we’d hear and told us things to listen for. Sadly, I haven’t retained any of those insights, other than something about Schumann repeating himself in slight variations. The evening’s symphony performance was centered around Schumann’s Piano concerto, featuring soloist Hélène Grimaud. She was incredible, no doubt, but I was most excited by the closing piece of the night, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. I wonder if there’s a Russian composer I don’t love, because I fell in love with his work immediately, which reminds me, I need to buy some recordings. So amazing.

Pixar Exhibit

The next afternoon I hit the road for the Oakland Museum. It was the very last day of the Pixar exhibit, so it was packed. It was definitely worth the trip. It was a gorgeous day and that area is beautiful. The exhibit had concept art, production storyboards, and color boards for all of Pixar’s features. The highlight was the Toy Story 3 zoetrope. This is the only video I found that shows the spinning prior to turning on the strobe lights. It was all incredibly interesting though…looking at early character designs of Woody & Buzz and noting how they were styled in such a different direction than where the film ended up.

Since I was there, I walked around the history of California exhibit. Honestly, I only looked at the SF-focused exhibits, including newspaper clips & artifacts from the earthquake. They also had one of those old photo flippers which are my favorite. I love looking at old photos and trying to imagine what it would be like to see all the buildings in SF just vanish and go back to the green hills. I also came across this interesting tidbit (pardon the crap iPhone quality). It put my drive from Indy to SF in a different perspective. It stretched to five days only because we stopped to enjoy the scenery along the way.

I meandered around more and found a Rothko which was exciting. I ended up out in the garden and savored the gorgeous weather.

MLK weekend

Prior to the weekend, I came home to an old Weicker trunk set out on the street in front of my place. I lugged it inside and up the stairs to my place, where it’s going to sit until I have time to get an estimate on fixing it up. Could be a fun project when I have the time!

Friday was full of disaster. I was 3 blocks from work, stopped at a light, and when I went to pedal forward, my back tire wouldn’t move. I did a hopeful bounce to the side and hoped no cars were in the turn lane. I had to roll my bike the rest of the way to work holding up the back tire. I made Jeremiah analyze it for me. Turns out my back wheel had rotated a bit. He popped it back in place, but it died again as soon as I tried to ride home. I was forced to face my fear of the bus bike rack. The driver was patient, thankfully, because I struggled. Sports Basement was able to fix her up for me in time for work next week. I was so sad, I didn’t have a camera with me, because it was so clear and there was a gorgeous reflection of Golden Gate in the marshes at Crissy Field.

Saturday was full of therapy. I emptied out my closet and reorganized it and my whole apartment. My closet is so uncluttered now. It’s wonderful. Later that night, I crashed a birthday party with Tim & Emily’s group. I got my first taste of Little Star Pizza and got to know some cool people. I didn’t get home until 4 AM. That was full of bad ideas, so Sunday was full of nothing.

For Monday, Kali & I planned a trip up to Marin. We finally tackled the Cateract Falls hike I’d been procrastinating for years. Her friend Cecilia & little puggle joined us last minute, which was a nice addition. It was so foggy, but as we climbed up the Panoramic Highway, we were in blue skies and the fog was just a distant sea behind us. We pulled over at a viewpoint when we saw Sutro Tower & the north tower of Golden Gate Bridge seemingly resting on top of the clouds. I took a great photo of this view, but my card was corrupted, so this over-exposed initial test shot, which I have severely cropped and poorly adjusted, is all that survived. (Faint vertical line, top center is Sutro. Golden Gate is to the left in the hills.)

The hike was gorgeous. It had rained recently so the water was really gushing. If I go back, I’ll lug the tripod, though, because there was so much foliage, it was impossible to get enough light. It wasn’t a hard hike, per se, but climbing up & then back down slippery rocks & mud has its challenges. Walking sticks would be a good call. We started down by Alpine Dam and worked our way up to the Laurel Dell picnic area. We stopped for lunch there and marveled at a very muddy, curly-haired dog running loose with a family chasing after him, shouting his name. We could hear the calls before we saw the dog. It was hilarious except that the dog was getting up in every other dog’s business.

It was a gorgeous hike, though, and if you can make it on a weekday, you’ll thank yourself. It was serene.

All the Waterfall photos (that survived card corruption)

When I got home, Sports Basement called about my bike being done. I did the 30-minute walk there, and it was sort of scary. In stark contrast to the clear night of my last trip there, it was dense fog. I put my bike blinker on my bag because I feared people would run or bike over me on the trail. Crissy Field at night has to be one of the best places in the city which lets you feel completely alone, to an almost eerie level.

Noir & Random

I found out that my desk neighbor has a connection to Dunstan at 1976design.com, who was my total geek hero back in the day. He inspired me to build my blog. Well, as I described my fascination with him, I was judged heavily by all the non-development people around me. By the end of the conversation, we’d created a Weekly Dork Board and I think I started with +12. Finally, a game I can win.

Friday I got my first flat, as if we were keeping up the tradition of Friday bike problems. Ryan had to get a passport photo taken, so we walked together for lunch errands. Apparently boys were checking me out while carrying my bike wheel hehe. Since Supercuts was right next to the passport place, we both stopped in for haircuts. It was a pretty awesome lunch hour. We sat in chairs next to each other and chatted while getting our awesomely cheap cuts. It was a great break in the day, and I was in such good spirits that I had to tackle this FB quest going around when I got back.

1 - Go to wikipedia and hit random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. 2 - Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. ...The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. 3 - Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”. Third picture no matter what will be your album cover. 4 - Use photoshop or similar program to put it all together.

My result was so awesome, I need to keep it forever.

Saturday, I went with Tim & Emily to the Noir City Film Festival. We saw “Strangers in the Night” and “Gaslight”. They were both great! Afterward, we went to Chow for dinner. We sat out on the heated patio and the food was great. I was starting to feel a bit off, though. And sure enough, this would be the last time I’d leave my apartment for awhile. I spent the rest of January hiding in my apartment as I battled certain death, missing an entire week of work. At least I had so much fun the first part of the month to tie me over. Though, I had to skip on plans with Matt & Amy to see another noir flick which was described as “freudian”. Sad I missed that.