Cal Park Hill

On the morning of the May 18^th this year I wrote this I thought I was late but made it to meet Shaun at Café Muse just fine.  I had been under the impression that the race would get in my way.  I wrote later that the first leg of the trip took one hour.  We left on 8th and went to Lake.  Then we climbed up to Lincoln and then over to the bridge.  After crossing we took the ramp and stopped to rest in Sausalito.

We rode to the plant at Sycamore and then went on to Blythdale.  Then we went to Lomita and passed the freeway to Weadowsweet.  I went fast there.  We went through Corte Madera and Shaun said the bridge needed a 45 degree angle.  We passed the split there and at Larkspur he remembered the Doherty intersection.  A BMW followed us in the left turn lane at College of Marin and we took Kent to Ross.  We looked at the Seminary and later took Center and ended up at the park in Fairfax to have a snack around 12.

I had to stop to catch my breath a little later and we passed a cute girl that we caught up with her but she went up Laurel.  At road’s end we continued up Cascade Canyon and had to walk when it was steep.  We took a shortcut and that made it easier.  We passed the turn for Blue Ridge and had to walk a lot.  We went right again and again near the top.  We found a nice spot for a campsite there.

We established that this was in fact Toyon and then returned quickly to Fairfax.  Then we got lost looking at backstreets and took Center back to San Anselmo where I had coffee.  We rang our bells at people.  We walked through a park and then took a frontage route to San Rafael.  We took Sir Francis to 4th street and after passing through the town we went to Anderson and rode through the train tunnel which I photographed.  There was a car inside.  At the ferry a lot of disembarking teens had clearly come back from the bay to breakers.  We had time so went to the brewery and I had a beer.  Back at the terminal we boarded and Shaun disappeared until the boat left.  I had a beer.  At Embarcadero I dumped the bike and said bye to Shaun.

The L had trouble at 34th so I went alone into Sunset bl.  I walked home and dad indicated that he would save me a bite to eat.  I read the paper before typing this up.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.

Behavioral Economics to Embarcadero

On the morning of 042714 I took a half hour to prepare for my ride downtown.  I had maps and other things as I rode my Surly through the park to Mojo which didn’t open until moments after I arrived at 8.  I got word from my friend moments into my paper and coffee that he was waiting at Embarcadero Station.

I got my Specialized out of the bike station there for him and rode up Sutter to climbed Polk Street.  We endured some irate motorists on our way through Marina District.  We went to the Presidio and I took a photo of Yoda.  We rode slow and talked about girls and how cute Polk can be.  That was when we investigated the new infrastructure along Doyle drive.  I photographed the end of the path on Lincoln.  Below there I knew that there had been some paths planned but was not certain what until I saw that it was between Lincoln and Doyle and connected to Cowles.

Form there we took Storey and went under the Toll Plaza.  We looked at where the goes below the Golden Gate Bridge.  There is a little bit of work going on there.  From there we climbed up on to the bridge and halfway we passed a lot of cyclists.  On the other side we descended to Fort Baker and subsequently climbed to Alexander and East Avenue.  Then we raced to Bridgeway.

We discussed Twitter and cycling activism in Silicon Valley at Starbucks in Sausalito as well as and the mass production of automobiles and bicycles.  From there we took Bridgeway and rode to the Saratoga Mill Valley sewage plant.  At the Blithdale crossing we got split up because the light and the intersection isn’t very well organized.  Then we rode to Lomita Street.  We had been talking about television up to this point.  We climbed to Meadowsweet and I got ahead of him on the way to Corte Madera where we got on the old rail trail until Larkspur where we ate at a taqueria.

We talked about a lot of stuff, like nuclear power, utilities and mining.  We rode to the slough and came back to the Larkspur overpasses.  I took a lot of photos while he explained behavioral economics.  We had been talking about progressivism and environmentalism.

We went and got on the ferry.  The conversation wound down at this point and when arrived at the ferry building we got the bikes and got off.  I was tired as we walked to the station and dropped my bikes off.  We did a high five and boarded different trains.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.

Memories: the long view

I have been clearing out the cobwebs and found these posts.  I wanted to share them with you.  They have been weighing me down for about a month—since when I decided to publish them.  Admittedly, there are a few from the last two months that are not in there but you have to leave something for the audience to come back to right?

In October of last year I attended a friend’s wedding.  I dressed in a really cool outfit with a top hat and everything.  However, everyone else was dressed in more contemporary attire.  About a month later, in early November, I had an in person interview at Google.  It was a memorable experience. I didn’t get the job but I had inkling that this would be the case.

In the ensuing weeks I reflected upon my trip to the South Bay and realized that getting from one side to the other of Highway 101 is not easy and this was essentially the event that initiated my newest pastime—photographing Hightway 101.  This is where I was in my life as I entered the holiday season—unemployed but active and alive.  I really enjoyed this period in my life actually.  Around Christmas Kathryn went away to Portland and needed me to take care of her cat.

Incidentally, Kathryn has a lot of active friends and we had multiple opportunities to meet them over the coming months.  For instance we attended Bike Party on numerous occasions.  We had the opportunity in January to visit the Ruby Room one time with some new and old friends.

At that point I had gotten back into gear with my life and had another set of job interviews.  This time I had a phone interview at Stanford University.  This was a pleasant surprise since I had only assumed I wouldn’t even be given a chance.  Meanwhile, I settled into the normal life that I have had since returning to the Bay Area.  I tend to watch a lot of stuff from Le Video.

That was around when I got hired at my present job.  I made some observations on my first day of work.  I also finished my Thesis and on the trip when I submitted it spent some time with close friends in Long Beach at a cool bar.  After that I settled into life as an employee (and recent graduate).  In this recent post I went for coffee at Shinola’s showroom.

This is series chronicles my life at regular intervals. This Memo series is meant to be a retrospective of what I have written and experienced. In each of these posts I use my notes in conjunction with memory, mementos and souvenirs to create a snap shot of my life.

The Sewer Ride

On May tenth I woke up knowing that the Sewer Ride would be difficult.  I was pleasantly surprised when, on the way to the start of the ride at Daly City BART, I met one of the ride participants.  At the station the ride organizers were ready to go with a group of 50 or so.  There was a couple with a baby in a trailer, some people from Bike Party, a bike ambassador and even an old coworker.  He was leading a “goat trail ride” which was supposed to be a bit more difficult that than the easy ride up Guadalupe Canyon.

Of course there were also a lot of people I didn’t know.  Two guys had horns and there were two others that were musicians, including one person with a saw!  I liked that everyone in the goat trail ride showed so much character with their musical instruments and outfits as we climbed Crocker Street into the Southern Hills.  We got back together at Old Guadalupe Canyon Bl and continued to the Picnic site.  I noted that the parents with a baby trailer had bravely climbed up Crocker with us.

At the picnic site we found the easy riders and I got to know the musicians at their table.  Then John Seagrave the organizer and a retiree from DPW explained the storage/transport boxes, which catch the city’s run off.  There were a lot of questions.  We then left on a loop ride around the top of the mountain.  I met the woman who made all of John’s maps and at an overlook we observed a recently “daylighted” creek with a lot of potential.  While our guides did point out one riparian area below us, I noted that the creek could also be extended through a city park and even the Cow Palace’s parking lots.

We circled back at the picnic site and split up for another goat ride to Carter Street along the edge of Guadalupe Canyon Bl which everyone else used as the easy ride.  I noted that I would have had an easier time with this part on my mountain bike.  We descended into Visitation Valley and on to Little Hollywood where I managed to get a photo of the old railroad UC near there.  I had to enter a gravel yard filled with Heavy equipment.

We met at the storage/transport boxes near Candlestick Point and John made a presentation.  The group was so big that I was constantly meeting new people and the Musicians introduced me to some new people.  We rode then to HP and looked at Yosemite Slough and I talked to some new people about the area on the way.  We headed to 3^rd where we encountered a lot of dangerous traffic on Palou and later on 3^rd a minivan threatened the family and their trailer.

We ended up at a reusable-stuff/junkyard place where they had barrels of “beach glass” and an art show curated by the Sewer Ride’s organizers.  I liked the variety of conceptualizations from WoodenBikes.  This was when the musicians started playing.  The musical “sawyer” found a cache of saws to play—she seemed really excited about them.  We drank beer and when I went looking for more water one of the musicians drunkenly said, “you can drink water later!”

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.