Wednesday, August 28, 2002
Moving Moving Moving
Boy am I tired! I’ve been trying to pack a little bit each night. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to work too well. I either totally spaz and become a packing machine, or I totally slack off – like I did tonight.
A couple of days ago, I couldn’t sleep, so I packed some books (usually the first thing packed because it’s easiest) and then frantically made up a spreadsheet to predict whether or not all of my stuff would fit in the trailer I’m renting. I came up with a 70% load factor, which I guess is pretty tight.
M&S have agreed to store some of my stuff, as have P&J. My job is just to get it all the heck out of here. I can and will do this. Heck, I have all of next week to finish up and do the move-out cleaning. I suspect I may have a landlord/deposit sort of problem. Evidently most CA landlords build in a certain amount of the deposit that they can steal, counting on people who are moving away not to sue. My comment, just try me!
I’m pretty psyched about the Europe thing. Tentative plans are to take side trips from Berlin to Dresden (if they’ve cleaned up the mud) and maybe pop into Poland to see Auschwitz. Another weekend possibility is to do the night train (or cheap flight) to Cologne. After classes are over, I think I’ll visit Prague, Vienna, Saltzburg and Munich. And then back to Frankfurt for the trip home. I’ll just have to play it by ear. Imagine, seven weeks in Europe is seeming too short!
1:50 AM
Monday, August 26, 2002
Some Lego Fun
A Lego Bible. Just a little scary.
Lego Death. The name says it all!
A Separate Travel Blog
I decided to separate the tourist stuff from the deep thinking (yeah! right!) stuff, so you can follow my travels on my new Geschwister site, Larry in Germany.
6:14 PM
Friday, August 23, 2002
Did I say Munich? I meant Berlin
Well, it looks like I'll be in Berlin instead of Munich. No biggie - it turns out that Oktoberfest is in September anyway. (Something to do with the Julian calendar, I think.)
So, I'll get to check out the famous Berlin schnause instead of the wacky Bavarians running around in Trachtenmode, a.k.a. traditional clothes. Dang - I think I could pull off wearing lederhosen!
1:25 AM
Thursday, August 22, 2002
Steak Frites
Not exactly on the diet – but then again, since when am I actually on an diet? I picked up David at his office, which is conveniently located near one of the most durable traffic jams in San Francisco – Columbus at Kearney, coming up on Broadway Street. Yup, Broadway STREET. Kinda like having a Street Rd. Which I’m sure exists somewhere.
I stopped on Pacific, just before the maelstrom and sat at a hydrant with my hazards flashing. A homeless guy wandered up and told me that the folks in the parking space behind me were leaving – and then guided me into the space. I offered him a buck, which he declined. As I sat waiting for David to appear, I watched the same guy guide several other people into and out of parking spots. He must be the mayor of the block.
David emerged from his office – and promptly called me on my cell phone asking where I was parked. Poor guy is totally stressed out – he really hasn’t caught too many breaks since we graduated from B-school. But, through it all, he remains the really together person I’ve come to appreciate.
So, what’s for dinner? Since I refused to turn onto Columbus and its eternal traffic jam, I drove straight across on Pacific – nearly grazing pedestrians trying to cross in front of me from both directions – and into Chinatown. No fish smell today! We debate the various food options available, and settle on Thai in David’s neighborhood – Potrero Hill.
Potrero is one of my favorite places in the city. It’s got killer hills, nice weather and great vistas at almost every corner. It was discovered during the Gold Rush of the ‘90s, so it’s been yuppified – but what hasn’t been. We park on one of those hills and hike up towards the Thai place, when David suggests a little French bistro sort of place that opened where a really terrific breakfast place had been. (They were priced out of their space – too bad, it was a great place to eat.)
We went into the bistro, Chez Maman - Mom’s House and grabbed one of the two tables. Otherwise it’s counter service. Dave’s suggestion, the steak with a pepper cream sauce and fries. A version of Steak Frites. Tasty. Tender steak – perfect fries with a nifty little dose of herbs. And a nice house red. Only $22 each, with tax and tip. More than I’m normally willing to spend for a weekday dinner, but this was worth it.
We had dispensed with most of the serious talk in the car, so we talked about my upcoming trip, and about the stream of gorgeous women who had suddenly appeared at the restaurant. David has grown into a fairly effective sales guy – there must be a way we can work together someday.
After dinner, it was off to Farley’s, one of my favorite coffee places in SF. David passed on a coffee, but I had an au lait. The woman behind the counter was wearing a hand-written tag proclaiming that it was her birthday. Happy Birthday.
While I was getting a coffee, David wandered over to chat with a guy who was typing away on an iBook. I wandered over to offer my $0.02 in favor of wireless networking. As we strolled out, a guy sitting outside was enjoying a cigar. I should have asked him what it was, as it smelled like quality. I dropped Dave off at his car (complex SF parking rules at work), lit up my own stogie and drove home, sipping on my coffee.
3:07 AM
Wednesday, August 21, 2002
An E-mail That Made My Day!
A dialogue between a good friend and his almost 6 year old daughter...
Larry,
Last night G--- said that when she grows up she's moving to California, because she likes you.
I told her in a serious voice, "do you know that we will probably never visit Uncle Larry in California ever again?" (Yes, I know, I'm terrible.) When she asked why, after a dramatic pause I explained that you're moving. J--- commented that you'll probably end up living in New Jersey.
So G--- changed her mind. She said when she grows up she's going to move to New Jersey.
-P---
1:02 PM
California Cuisine - New York Eats
“What should I eat?” That was about all the thinking I was capable of at the time. I got up and looked in the fridge. Some frozen veggie-burgers and a couple of soy dogs were all that were there to greet me. The cabinets – pasta, rice, lots of starch. And some canned beans.
I thought about ordering a pizza, but there’s darn little pizza in California that’s worth eating (life’s too short to eat bad pizza), and what is worth eating tends to be on the pricey side. Twenty bucks plus tax and tip for a pie – not really. And I didn’t want to eat out either, too much trouble.
So I put on some water for instant miso soup. Very Japanese – two packets, one dehydrated scallions, seaweed and such, the other miso paste and dashi. How bad can a world that has really tasty instant miso soup be?
I went into the living room and turned on the TV. Nothing was on, of course. I just wanted the warm sounds of American culture to wash through the room. Back in the kitchen, I got down a mug from a company I used to work for, squirted in the miso packets and poured in the boiling water. Not too much – just enough to make the soup at the right intensity – about six ounces. Too much and the broth is dull, too little and the saltiness is overwhelming. I especially like the way that the seaweed swells up from a little wrinkled pellet into a flat, gelatinous sheet – kind of like those inflatable sponges that they used to sell. Fun food.
While the soup was cooling a bit, I decided to make some rice. I poured a cup of Calrose rice into the rice-maker’s cookpot and began to rinse it. I really love the sound and feel of washing rice – the little pellets swirling around in the starchy water, and then the challenge of draining without losing a single precious grain, repeated until the water runs clear. And then into the cooker with just the right amount of water. I sometimes call my rice machine the “Morimotomat” for Masaharu Morimoto, who uses a larger version of the same rice cooker on Iron Chef. How did I ever live without a rice machine?
Next, I put on some water to boil. I had decided to heat up a packet of prepared, high-tech, vacuum-sealed, boil-in-bag Indian food. Probably chana masala – chick pea curry. Then, thinking that the water would boil long before the rice was done, I turned off the burner and went into the living room to eat my soup and channel surf.
First, I went to the cartoon channel, hoping to find Sheep in the Big City, or Dexter’s Laboratory, or some such. No luck though, just Scooby Doo. Not that there’s anything wrong with Scooby, if you’re pre-pubescent that is. Looking at it with adult eyes, I find myself revisiting the various deconstructions of the show that are so ubiquitous that nobody even knows if they thought of them themselves before they heard them from someone else. For instance, just how do Shaggy and Scooby wind up with the munchies all the time? And is Velma closeted? And what’s up with Fred and Daphne? Do they actually do anything, or is their role to bring inherited wealth to fund the travels and travails of the Mystery Machine?
Next, the food channel. Maybe they would be showing something interesting, not just Emeril, loading everything up with booze and butter. Or some stupid lifestyle program. I don’t want to see resorts dishing up luxurious dishes on tropical isles, I just want to see chefs explore an ingredient, or build a coherent menu. Good Eats is probably the best program they run. In fact, it’s probably too good to survive because it explores food chemistry, as well as provides recipes. This way you can know just why you can’t overheat yogurt sauces without curdling them, while you can safely boil cream sauces all day long. Oops, there’s Emeril, bamming away. Time to surf on.
I got up to turn on the water for the Indian food, and turned on my computer, so I could surf the web while channel surfing. In the New York Times, nothing was too interesting, just the Bushies acting belligerent again. I decided not to read the story – part of my news holiday. If the story is likely to make me angry, I just ignore it and hope that the American people wake up to how they’re being hoodwinked. Besides, I’m fortunate enough that I’m not overly impacted by the bad stuff. I’m too old to be drafted, too educated to have to take a grunt job where a primary qualification is drug-free urine, and I am never going to live anywhere where instant miso soup would seem really bizarre. And if something really bad happens, I can rely on the laws of probability that say I’m most likely not going to be wherever the people are dying from a bombing, or from nerve gas, or from anthrax or smallpox.
Of course, I can also rely on the small world effect to bring the disaster of the moment close to home. There was a recent study debunking the six degrees of separation theory, but the finding was merely that the typical working stiff was likely to have many more degrees of separation than wealthier, more educated types. So, I’m still in the target demographic for the six-degrees thing. I think back on last year, and the terrorist attack on New York. (As a New Yorker, I think that Washington has disaster envy and overplays the importance of the attack on the Pentagon, which was a tragedy, certainly, but the Pentagon is a military target, and the people who work there have implicitly accepted the increased risk.)
I know a woman who, at the last minute, cancelled her trip on one of the hijacked planes. I know another, a friend from junior high, who worked on the 70th floor of the north tower of the WTC – she and her whole department escaped. I have another friend who works across the street from the WTC who stayed home to take her son to his first day of pre-school. And another friend who was supposed to be there the next day to drop off a proposal at the Port Authority. And another who works nearby but was on vacation with his wife and new daughter. And a fraternity brother and former co-worker who wasn’t there at the time, on the 105th floor of the south tower, because he was on disability with leukemia. He died a few weeks after the attack, and I miss him greatly. I was amazed and relieved to discover that no one I knew was killed that morning, but I also felt somehow guilty that I was in Boston that morning, and living in California. Not home, in New York, as I feel I should have been.
It’s funny how these thoughts can bubble to the surface, unresolved. Feelings of sadness, loss, grief, anger, guilt. The knowledge that, if I ever have children, they will not be able to ride those fast elevators to the top of the world, where a sweeping vista of the great machine that houses, feeds, employs, educates and loves, yes loves the millions who scurry through its streets and parks, its bridges and tunnels, who meet, and love and hate, and grow together and grow apart in its sheltering arms, awaited the tourist and the native alike. The city and its suburbs are still there. Whether or not they are stronger for the experience remains to be seen. The one thing I know is that I need to be there, at least for a while.
And, I’m sure I can buy my favorite instant miso soup there, too.
11:44 AM
Wednesday, August 14, 2002
Some Big News
I sent the following note to a number of my friends, some of whom I haven't spoken to in a while. I received nothing but supportive replies :-)
I'm really looking forward to spending some time with my friends, and to enjoying a "differenlty stressed" lifestyle for a while.
Hello Friends,
I hope this finds all of you well and happy. If news hasn’t reached you yet, major changes are afoot for me. After three years in California, I’ve decided to return to the East Coast.
I will be leaving Rational Software before the end of the month (my decision, not theirs), packing up my things, simplifying my life, shedding unused and unneeded stuff and driving cross-country. Once I’m back east, I’ll be couch-surfing for about two weeks and then taking off for seven weeks in Europe.
For most of October, I’ll be taking a four-week German class at the Goethe Institute in Munich, (Oktoberfest - can’t beat that with a stick) at the end of which I hope to be able to take and pass the “Zertifikat Deutsch” exam - demonstrating basic proficiency in German. Then I’ll have about two and a half weeks to travel around Germany (and maybe some other countries) to both test my language skills and to generally have a good time.
After two months of (hopefully not) extravagant spending, I’ll return to the US to continue my job search, which is currently oscillating between IT, another Business/Marketing Strategy sort of position, and simple opportunistic job fishing. I’d like to end up somewhere between Boston and Baltimore, with a tighter focus on, gulp, opportunities in and around New Jersey. (Although I'd also consider Raleigh-Durham, NC.) So, if you know of anything interesting, be sure to let me know.
I’ll also be looking for relatively inexpensive, low commitment digs until I figure out where I’m going to be, so keep me in mind if anything (sublets, shares, etc) pops up. I’ll most likely be sending out updates from time to time, and can always be reached at lsbrennan@excite.com (unless they go out of business - then try lsbrennan@yahoo.com). My current cell phone, xxx-xxx-xxxx, should work until I leave for Germany. I’ll try to work out some sort of voice mail solution before I take off, but that’s still up in the air.
Be well.
Best,
Larry
9:16 PM
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