Dave’s blog

On Sunday Dori and I returned from our 9 days in California. It was an excellent trip, and I hope you’ll find my little write up to be a pleasant read…

We started off with a JetBlue flight out of JFK, to Burbank, early on the morning of the 19th. All was well, except for the little note about the headwinds we were facing (reportedly near 150mph). As a result, our nonstop flight had to refuel in Denver, then de-ice. The headwinds plus the stop added about 3-4 hours to the flight, putting it near 10 hours. We went to Hawaii in that much time! Once we finally arrived, we were fairly frazzled and not well equiped to deal with traffic on the 405. Decidedly, this part of the trip was not fun.

We were staying at the Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica. After a nice long shower to restore ourselves to a human state we ventured out around the town for dinner. In almost never rains in Santa Monica, but as luck would have it there was a fine mist in the air and a lot of cloud cover when we arrived. Nevertheless, New Yorkers aren’t detered by a few drops, so we walked around in search of a place to eat. Fortunately we weren’t dying of hunger, so we were able to enjoy a nice walk on the pier. The pier was lovely at night, and the rain meant that we were almost the only ones out there (except for a pair making out). At the end of the pier the view looking back at the shoreline was fantastic, with lights arcing out in both directions.

We ended up eating at the Mexican place at the end of the pier. It was empty, the food was decent, and it was fairly cheap. Despite my expectations that it would be the single most touristy place in the city, it proved to be a lot better than that. I wouldn’t go back, since it wasn’t especially amazing, but you know, not nearly as bad as I expected!

After dinner we went in the arcade closer to the base of the pier, and played ski-ball, air hockey, and one or two other things. Once again the rain kept the place empty, so there were no roving packs of teenagers to be in the way. I don’t think Dori and I had ever been to an arcade together, so we had a really great time.

The next morning the weather got much better, so after breakfast (at Barney’s Beanery), we headed down to the beach for a walk. We sat for a while, and I attempted to take a panoramic of the water / pier / beach with Dori’s camera. The photo ended up coming out pretty good, except for the water, which tore badly at the seams due to the waves failing to match up. Lesson learned - take panoramas of things that ain’t moving!

After breakfast we checked out of the hotel and started up the Pacific Coast Highway for a scenic ride to Malibu, where we were to meet Dori’s cousin Rachel for lunch at The Sunset Restaurant. Situated right on Zuma Beach, it really is a fantastic spot for watching … the sunset. Massively surprising, I know. The food was great too! Visiting with Rachel was really nice, and we enjoyed the time. Afterwards we got back in the car and made the rest of the (mostly) scenic trip up to Santa Barbara where we met David at his aunt’s house.

Santa Barbara, and in particular the “town” of Montecito is quite an impressive place. I say “town” because I learned that California has all sorts of wacky notions about incorporated versus unincorporated villages, of which Montecito could be, if it had more government than an aesthetics board. Oh well, I suppose its not really that odd.

Anyway, the area is pretty damn magnificent. The median home price is somewhere in the 1.7M area, and boasts residents such as Oprah. Damn. Gardens, fine landscaping, beautiful hand-laid stone walls, mountain & water views, fancy cars, and well cared-for homes were the norm in this part of town. That said, much of the area near where we stayed was more subdued and much less flashy. The neighborhood looks like what you’d design if you said to someone “make a tasteful, quiet place to live where people will be comfortable.” I was very impressed.

The home of David’s aunt dated from the 1920’s, with much of the original red shingle roof still intact (thankfully for them, since those aesbestos tiles require permits and crap to touch). The single element that stood out for Dori and me was her garden. It was the nicest garden I think I’ve ever been in, sporting a huge variety of items. I only recall a partial list: orange, peach, lemon, lime, avocado, tangerine, and pomegranite trees, a rose bush, an artichoke plant, parsimons, a pumpkin patch, and strawberries. I’m not sure if my corner food emporium has all that. Granted, not all of it was in-season while we were there, but numerous items were. I’ve never had fruit so fresh - I literally walked out back one morning, picked an orange off the tree, and ate it while I was still outside. Another morning, we picked oranges and made fresh juice.

I have a new respect for gardening.

We had mostly good weather while in Santa Barbara, so we spent some time seeing the beach and the town during the day. David was an excellent tour guide, filling in all sorts of odd facts about the town and the local government. We also visited Isla Vista, which is home to UCSB, and had lunch while watching the stream of bike traffic on the main drag. Between classes, I felt like I was in China.

We made the trip up from SB to San Jose along 101. Along the way we made a planned stop in Atascadero to hit the In-N-OUT Burger. Considering myself something of a dwindling fast-food connoisseur, I’d been meaning to try it and was determined after 4 trips to California that I’d make it happen this time. I did like the burger I got, but wasn’t completely floored (I think it was built up too much in my mind). That said, it was probably the best fast food I ever had.

After a little while longer in the car, we arrived at David’s apartment in San Jose. This was the first time we saw David’s place, and it was really nice. His living room is very spacious, and the fireplace is a great bonus. In warmer weather the terrace is nice too, though I’m not sure if he can have a barbeque out there (legally at least). After the apartment tour, David showed us around his office, which was pretty cool. It still had a strong dot-com feel, accentuated by the lack of cubicles and the game room. Smaller parts of the office showed that this was a serious enterprise, particularly the UI testing room and the recording studio. It’s a lot nicer than the MLB office!

That evening we met up with David’s father and Stephanie at his dining club for a drink. The club sports a beautiful view of the city, from the 9th or so floor of the building. Sadly we didn’t get to sample the food, since there was an event going on, but David’s father graciously took us to chinese nearby. The next day David dropped us off at the Oakland airport on Wednesday where we picked up our 2nd rental car, and left quickly to return to work. We made a short trip over to Berkeley and meandered around for much of the rest of the day.

For me the next few days were comprised of the MoveOn retreat. I’m not much used to day-long meetings, so I won’t attempt to regurgitate any of the contents of them, but suffice to say I was pleasantly surprised at the fact that I was able to follow things, despite not really consuming much news or being too knowledgable about politics.

The best part of the retreat was definitely getting to actually meet all the people I had been working with over IM and on the phone. Now I can actually picture the person and hear their voice, and I can get a better sense of the way a person talks, which helps to prevent me from reading between the lines of an IM.

Outside of the retreat, there’s an exciting story that happened to Dori. She had applied to several graduate programs for a Masters in Public Health - one of them Berkeley. On the first day I was doing retreat stuff, she visited the office of the program and asked for some more information. She was interested in perhaps meeting with a faculty member or sitting in on a class, but apparently the woman behind the counter thought she meant information on her application. She opens a drawer, pulls out a file, reads a little bit, then finally looks up and says flatly “I’m sorry, you were denied.” Dori was stunned, rightly so, and departed the office without saying much more than “Oh, that’s not exactly what I meant.”

I found out later in the day, when she joined me at the group dinner that night. Naturally she was pretty bummed all day, but we both had a nice time. Being around a large group of new, really nice people can help.

The next morning when checking her email, Dori got wind of another school that had reached a decision. The email said simply “A decision has been reached, please log in to check your status.” So with much excitement, she logs in and less than 24 hours after being rejected from Berkeley, finds out that she was accepted at Harvard! Well, then fuck Berkeley!

All in all, it was a really great trip. I got back feeling a little tired, but with a well rested soul. I also had become quite desensitized to the rough edges of my apartment - most notably the traffic noise. Moving to Boston is definitely looking good!

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 2nd, 2006 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.