Passport to Whine Country

My local SF friend M says to go North into wine country as often as possible while I'm in San Francisco, and so over the weekend my friend K and I did just that. On the recommendation of some good friends, we decided to skip Napa and Sonoma in favor of the Dry Creek Valley. We were assured by all that we Simply Couldn't Go Wrong. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? So off we went.

We first squeezed in a hike to Lake Sonoma. Here's K and the lovely aforementioned lake. Pretty, no?


It was hot and dry, and these little lizards seemed to love it. And some of them weren't so little.


After working up a good thirst, we were ready to hit some wineries. But when we got to our first one, were were in for a surprise. The parking lot was overflowing, there were tipsy people everywhere and guys directing traffic ... it was total mayhem. We got to the registration desk (huh?) and were asked to show our "passports". Blank stares. The registrar explained: this was Passport to Dry Creek Valley weekend. One passport would get us into private parties at all the wineries in the valley all weekend long ... but we needed a passport. No passport, no entry, no way, no how. And the passports were $120 each. Ouch. No, thank you!

Instead, we drove to Healdsburg, CA and decided to sample beers at the Bear Republic Brewery.


They make some interesting beers at Bear Republic, and we tried them all. Or I did. I was perfectly content. Then K drove me home. <hic>

Hey, hey baby, we've gotta get out of L.A.

Over the past weekend, I took a side trip down to L.A. to meet up with my old college friend D and to check out the Coachella Music and Arts Festival. An oldster like me, D is now a husband, father, and generally responsible grown-up, but he escapes regularly for adventures like this one, and that makes me happy.

Here are some pics I grabbed during our long weekend in the Southern California desert.


D, pleased as punch in his floppy hat. He needed it -- it was hot. Damn hot.


Fleet Foxes' bassist, Christian Wargo.


My Bloody Valentine. I was only ~20 people back! They blew my mind, and nearly my eardrums.


Porl Thompson, guitarist for The Cure. He's like Uncle Fester, if Uncle Fester rawked. I wish this pic were in sharper focus! Darn.

Here, in order, are the bands I saw:

Friday, April 17
- Molotov
- The Black Keys
- Franz Ferdinand
- Leonard Cohen
- Morrissey
- Paul McCartney

Saturday, April 18
- TheNewNo2, Dhani Harrison's band (son of George, yes that George Harrison)
- Superchunk
- Calexico
- Fleet Foxes
- Band of Horses
- The Chemical Brothers

Sunday, April 19
- Vivian Girls
- Okkervile River
- Peter, Bjorn and John
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- My Bloody Valentine
- The Cure

Paul McCartney played for over 3 hours, and dipped deep into his catalog of Beatles, Wings and solo material. Impressive. Leonard Cohen had the best moment of the whole festival, nearly moving me to tears with his "Hallelujah". The Cure rocked hard and looong. So long, in fact, they blew past the midnight curfiew and had their mic and lights cut in the middle of their encore. They kept right on playing, and the crowd filled in the vocals for Robert Smith. Truly unforgettable.

But far and away the best set, and the one I was most anticipating, was My Bloody Valentine. (If you don't know them, give "Loveless" a listen. Keep listening.) Poor Kevin Shields pulled a Brian Wilson and went a little funny after releasing "Loveless" in 1991, and My Bloody Valentine hasn't performed much since. This marks their return, and they just blew me away. They were thunderously, ear-splittingly loud and their ephemeral, droning, dissonant music translated perfectly into the open-air venue. I envy my Seattle friends who get to see them perform a full set next week.

If you're in Seattle, or can get to Seattle easily on Monday April 27th, go check them out. Really. Bring ear plugs.

Self-Reliance(?)

(Warning: boring post ahead having to do with the minutia of being a nomad.)

I'm still getting the hang of the homeless thing, and at this early stage even the little victories give me a thrill. Simple, mundane things like filing paperwork become challenges when you don't have a fixed address or even a printer.

Case in point: a letter from my insurance company arrived for me at my forwarding address in Seattle. I had my mail forwarding service open and scan it for me. (Have I mentioned how great I think EarthClassMail is?) The next day, I download the letter as a PDF file and see it's a form I need to fill out and mail in. Grrr. OK, I copy the PDF file to a thumb drive and take it around the corner to a file and print shop where I print it out. I also pick up an envelope and a stamp. Form filled, envelope addressed, stamped and mailed, mission accomplished.

Another point: yesterday I wanted to visit my old friend KC in Oakland. No car? No problem. BART gets me where I need to go. San Francisco is a fine place to live if you don't own a car; there's no shortage of public transit options.

All this leads me to wonder if I am more or less self-reliant now than I was before. Although I'm free to go where I please and do what I want, I am heavily reliant on local infrastructure for meeting my needs. If I had a printer, a fax machine, and a car, I could just do this stuff for myself, dammit.

I wonder what mail forwarding solution Caine from Kung Fu used.

Angel Island and Telecommuting CouchSurfers

(I write this in Cafe International on Haight St., while a jazz band warms up in the back.)

Cafe Telecommute

I've mentioned CouchSurfing here a few times before. On Friday, I attended my first local CS event: a group telecommute session at a coffee shop.

Cafe culture and the abundance of free wifi hotspots make working from the road a breeze. And -- I won't kid you -- I haven't often missed office politics and the drama of in-the-flesh coworkers and back-stabbing ladder-climbers. But a group telecommute session at a cafe neatly fills a social niche that I wouldn't get otherwise: a chance to meet other professionals and share experiences. At Friday's Cafe Telecommute, I met the organizer JC and chatted with her about why she started these weekly meet-ups. She said, "I'd been telecommuting from cafes for a while, and one day I looked around and saw all these people like me -- working one per table. And I thought, 'We should all be sitting together and getting to know each other.'" Not a bad thought! So now on Friday's, I can mix my work up with a little chit-chat with the local CS riff-raff. Good deal.

Angel Island

I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful weekend, so my friend K and I hopped a ferry to Angel Island, the largest island in San Francisco Bay, for a day of hiking and spectacular views. From the top (~790 ft), we got a very impressive 360 degree view of the Bay, the city, the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, Alcatraz, and hundreds of sailboats, ferries, kayakers, jetskiers, kite-surfers, and one or two seals, all enjoying a warm, sunny day on the Bay.



Here's a shot of K and me at the top of Angel Island. I'm looking a bit squinty. Maybe my Seattle eyes haven't yet adjusted to the California sun. I'm not complaining.

(The jazz band is really ripping now. Time to turn off the computer and soak up some some of Kerouac's Frisco.)

Hang Drums, Dive Bars and the Solution to the Energy Crisis

Musings

Scientists have been telling us for years that fusion reactors will solve all our energy problems with clean, renewable energy. The problem with these reactors is that they take more energy to operate than they produce. You're not going to solve the world's problems with a reactor like that. Some fine day, all that will change -- so they say.

Money

My travels have suffered from a similar problem. It's taken more money to operate than I've been pulling in -- until now. Yesterday I passed an important fiscal milestone: the Peripatetic Programmer is now a self-sustaining enterprise. As a practical matter, I'm getting paid via direct deposit, so I don't have to sully myself with physical checks, deposits slips or other squalid details of the physical world. When I get paid, the money just shows up in my bank account. Digital banking is a real boon for the digital nomad.

Music

Another first yesterday: I hit the downtown SF club scene with a couple of friends. First, Southern Indian at the very upscale Dosa, pricey, but delicious. Then, we knocked around various clubs and bars downtown until we landed at Harlot to see Manu Delgado and their absolutely amazing Hang drum player. You have to see this video to understand how devastatingly cool Manu Delgado is.

Manu Delgado plays on April 8, 2009

Mental Health

As a beer lover, I am always on the lookout for a dive bar with a good selection. On the recommendation of a few friends (thanks SL!), I hit Toronado on Haight St., and my San Francisco experience is now complete. My friend S and I sat at the bar and sampled beers I'd never heard of and got chatted up by the friendly locals. And April is Belgian beer month! Fabulous. I anticipate that some (most? all?) of my recent paycheck will be going directly into Toronado's tills.

Fun and Sun

As you can see, I'm adjusting to my new life here in San Francisco. The weather is cooperating. It's hard to miss Seattle when I can goof around in Golden Gate Park like that. W00t!

Lessee ... I had a good cuppa at Blue Bottle Coffee, bread dumplings like my Oma used to make at Suppenkuche, and French pastries at Cafe Tartine. Yum. (Thanks, M and S!) I happened across a parade in honor of César Chávez. It was a mixed bag featuring Native American dance and pimped out low riders. Mmm-kay. There was a free concert in GG Park today, too. IIRC, the last time I was in SF I kept tripping over random events and festivities. I love it.

I'm also learning my way around the inter-Webs to connect with other like-minded travellers and telecommuters. Check this out! It's a weekly San Francisco meet-up of telecommuting CouchSurfers. Every week, they pick a different cafe, show up, plug in, and get some work done. Then they go out for dinner. Fabulous. Hopefully, I can grow my network of traveling friends and have people to visit in far off places.

Made It

I have to make this quick, but ... I HAVE ARRIVED. My train left cold, rainy, gray Seattle at 10am yesterday, and I pulled into sunny, warm(-ish) Emeryville roughly 24 hours later. I took the bus over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, the J Church muni to Noe Valley to meet up with my old college buddy M, breakfast at Chloe's Cafe (outside! in the sun! in a T-shirt, thankyouverymuch!), and then off to Hayes Valley to meet B, my new roommate, and check out my new digs. The Ritz it ain't, but it'll do. Now to log some billable hours, explore my new 'hood, and then meet up again with M and S, an old Seattle friend, before turning in.

Walking around San Francisco with my worldly belongings on my back, I've never felt so free. Tired. Happy. Whee!