Picnicking in Davis
Another year, another picnic day in Davis. This time, it so happened that the weather was wonderful. Many of us participated in the parade, and those who didn’t enjoyed it from the side. There was one small hitch, the parade was quite late and took too long. We ended up missing most of the things we wanted to see, but that’s a lesson from which we’ll learn in preparation next year. I will say that even with missing so many events, it was still a blast. Once the evening hit, we started seeing people get thrown into the drunk tank and getting arrested downtown. An interesting site, but not something I’d look to to be involved with in any way.
The big day! On Monday, my paper was finally due, and thus John would actually take a look at it and give me some advice. I woke up and got ready for the gym, but read some comments from John and Shubho before leaving. I felt like crap after racquetball, not sure why. I came home and worked until 2215, and I managed to do laundry while at it. Once my paper was finally submitted, I went over to Shakeh’s. She ate dinner, then we went to Ben & Jerrys for frozen yogurt. After we got done, I dropped her off, went home, and did nothing for the first time in ages.
Racquetball on Tuesday was fine. Tennis, not so much. Don’t even ask about frisbee, it was wiiiiiiiiiiiiindy. I talked with Martyn at the MU for a bit, then went to Cafe Mediterannee for lunch with Shakeh. Come early afternoon, Martyn and I headed to SF after a car wash and fill-up on petrol. A good seventy-five minutes later, we parked near the Fillmore, then proceeded to walk to find a Moroccan place that turned out to be Ethiopian. Luckily for me I’d never had either and was excited to try both. The food turned out to be really, really good. I found it similar to Middle-Eastern food, but the bread, called injera, was different. In my mind, if one took a crepe recipe, added water to increase the sponginess, then made the sheets much thicker, injera would be the result. Oh, did I mention no utensils? After a spectacular dinner, we walked back to the Fillmore. The two opening bands were 12 Stones and Red. Neither of which I’d ever heard before. I didn’t pay any attention to 12 Stones. Red was alright, but they seemed confused about their identity. I equate them to a metal band doing a power ballad. They had the potential, but there were times when they tried to switch genres and it just didn’t work. Of course, the band of the hour was 3 Doors Down. They were spectular in quality live. Their stage show was nothing special, and they didn’t work up the crowd (not that they needed to). I think I heard every song I hoped for, and of course a few extras they threw in there. Martyn and I took an excessive amount of time because we were making out in the car I-80 was closed right before the bridge. It took us half an hour to go half a mile, thanks to traffic. I dropped him off at 0045, then got home after saying a brief goodnight to Shakeh at 0100. A long day ahead of me…
On Wednesday I climbed up the ladder in racquetball, but was feeling really weak come time for the tennis class. I think it was from the cold I had. I sat for the last ten or fifteen minutes because I just couldn’t do anything after that. I started doing forward rolls in tumbling now, my arm seemed to be okay. I found out quickly I still couldn’t do anything else though, not even a cartwheel. I ate at the MU with Shakeh for lunch, then went to a meeting with John to talk about research ideas. Immediately after that I went to the group meeting, then headed back to my place. I scrubbed the yellow pages for some apartment listings, then went to Fuzio for dinner with Shakeh. After dinner, we went to see Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. The movie was very good. It actually felt like a movie from the forties at first, which was a bit weird I must admit. Once the movie was over, I dropped Shakeh off and went right to sleep. Man was I tired.
I finally had a good day in tennis again on Thursday. After trying one out, I’m thinking of switching to a non-oversized racquet. Racquetball also went well, as did frisbee. I got called “the buff guy” in frisbee. Shakeh was sick with a fever so I went over and tended to her while working and calling apartments. I picked up Chipotle for dinner. Shakeh was feeling better by that time. Around 1915, I went to our first outdoor football match. I actually scored! Yes, that is more an indication of the other team than me.
I had a dentist appointment early on Friday. Afterwards, I scampied over to Jamba Juice, then headed to the Bay Area with Falcon. We looked around at places for a bit, then headed to Google to have lunch with Chrisco. After lunch, we checked out the rest of the places we had in mind at Mountain View, then began the two and a half hour trek to Davis (stupid freaking traffic). When I got back, I joined Shakeh at the F Street theatres and we went to see The Forbidden Kingdom. I must say, that even in Davis, I had never seen such a high ratio of Asian people to non Asian people. After the movie, we went over to Pluto’s for dinner. I was really surprised at the number of people there. They must have all just exited the movies.
Saturday was Picnic Day! We had to get up at 0615 so Shakeh could make it to SISS on time. Of course, even when we woke up that early, she still got there ten minutes late. Once there though, we helped blow up balloons. After an hour, we headed to the parade grounds and had some fun with flags for quite some time. The parade was delayed almost an hour, so we ended up not getting started until 1100. Once it got started though, it was a lof fun. The walking took about an hour and a half. After we finished at 3rd and A, we met up with everyone and grabbed some food at the quad. Sean and Ciderman stopped by for a few minutes, but then went to sushi with Verena and Lee. After eating, a bunch of went to the Pavilion for the dachsund races, then saw Martin Yan (can cook) at the food sciences building. We were going to stay and get free ice cream, but there was a huge line. Instead, we headed to the Micro-mouse competition. Unfortunately, and this would be a common theme, we got there at 1430 and it closed at 1400. We made our way to the liquid-nitrogen ice cream, but we were again too late. So next we tried to get into the laser maze. However, it was already 1500, there was a long line, and it closed at 1600. We didn’t think we would get in, so we just left. Shakeh and I headed to get funnel cake while everyone else wandered off to go watch the dog-and-frisbee tricks. Once Shakeh and I had our wonderful funnel cake, we met up with everyone and headed to the battle of the bands. We stayed there until 1745 or so, then went home and dropped off the bikes. Right after that we met up with Sean and Ciderman at Sophia’s. The place was totally packed though, so we went to Chipotle instead. Javi and Gina joined us not long after that. Once we finished dinner, we went to get gelato at Ice Krimski Cafe, then Shakeh and I headed home and passed out immediately. I think we fell asleep before 2100.
Sundary morning we got up and headed to Napa Valley right away. Our first stop was the Mondavi winery and their tour. After that, we went to Rubicon. Shakeh really liked the grounds and the museum they had there. The wine was getting to Shakeh, so we went to the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone. The food was superb as usual. Once we were done there, we hit up Beringer. We skipped the regular tasting room and went to the reserve-wine tasting room. We actually were able to try a few for free. The sauvignon blanc was really good, but we ended up skipping it. After Beringer, we went to Louis Martini. There was some crazy Japanese guy that was talking to Shakeh and trying to hit on her. The workers there were obviously annoyed, and they all breathed a sigh of relief when he left. Once we were done there, we headed to the V Sattui winery. We actually didn’t try any wine there, we instead just got a bunch of cheese and crackers. It’d been almost a year and a half since I’d had Piave, and I was excited to get to eat it again. Our last stop was at Rutherford Grove. We were going to go to Beaulieu, but we both just wanted to go home. For dinner, we went to Thai Nakorn and then saw Smart People at G street. It was really good! I liked it a lot, especially the character played by Thomas Hayden Church.
