Saket Vora

Two weeks ago I went to see Jónsi perform at the Fox Theater with a cadre of friends. Jónsi is the lead singer of Sigur Rós, one of my favorite bands. He’s on tour to support his solo album Go, which I wrote about earlier this year. We made a stop at Tesla in Palo Alto to pick up Joey, and I got to ride a bright orange roadster over the Dumbarton Bridge to Oakland (thanks Joey!). It sounds like a spaceship! Dustin, Sean, Jared, and Shyam followed in another car, and my friend Nick met us at the Fox.

This was my first time at the Fox, and everything people told me about was true: it’s a beautiful venue and sounds terrific. The general admission area is even slightly terraced, so the folks in the back can still see the stage pretty well. It’s difficult to convey how excited I was to finally see Jónsi in concert. He played two shows in the Bay Area earlier this year, but I missed both due to work. I’d seen concert reviews saying it was like no other show they had been to….part concert, part performance art, part opera?

Photo by Benjamin Chun

Photo by Jared Hanson

How to describe it? Simply incredible. The sound flowed from atmospheric with soaring notes and rhythmic drumming, to intensely personal in which the entire theater was pin-drop silent — listening to Jónsi’s otherworldly voice. The visuals were breathtaking. The backdrop to the stage was a mural of a wintry forest, and over it animations and video were projected on it. The result was an astonishing experience, one where I felt simultaneous desires to close my eyes to feel the music and keep them wide open to take in the sights.

Photo by Gabe Lawrence

Photo by Aktiv I Oslo.no

All the songs were from the new album, and the concert flowed from song to song. Jónsi took a moment to thank the crowd about halfway through the set. We were all incredibly impressed with the percussionist Thorvaldur Thór Thorvaldsson — whether it was playing the marimba with cello bows or keeping the beat on the drumset.

Here’s a taste of the experience. The first song is Kolniður:

For the encore, Jónsi emerges wearing a tribal feather headdress and plays a new song called Sticks and Stones, which followed the same inspiration behind Go.

Photo by megathud

The finale of the concert, Grow till Tall, was simply spellbinding. I lack the words to describe the feeling…all I know is that our mouths dropped open, our eyes opened wide, and I was reminded what childlike wonder felt like. The song builds and builds as we are wrapped in a storm. Jónsi goes spastic, roving around the stage. Strobe lights flash like lightning, and the world starts to disintegrate around us. He shouts, as in defiance. The sound is all enveloping. With the video below, the closest thing you can do is put it up on a wall with a projector, turn out all the lights, and then turn up the volume to 11. (At least watch it in high definition)

As the band left the stage, I turn to my friends — we are speechless. The applause continues until the band comes back out for a bow, and the crowd finishes the night with a standing ovation that lasts for minutes. Here’s an attempt to describe it by Jonathan Pirro of Spinning Platters:

The final piece of the night, “Grow Till Tall”, however, was the defining moment that brought out the believers in those who had never seen Jónsi or Sigur Rós before, but had heard tell of the magnificence of their performances. As with many of their more enthralling compositions, the piece was a gentle, subtle crescendo, beginning from a haze of ambience and delicate notes and eventually growing to a thunderous, raging storm of violent drum blasts, soaring keys, roaring guitars, and above all the shrill, haunting siren calls that Jónsi bellowed into his microphone. The animation behind the band followed suit, going from a gentle breeze and lake to a small rainfall, and ascending into a monsoon-like storm as the strobes and stage lights exploded in time with the music. Only the band’s departure from the stage, followed by Jónsi hurling his microphone to the floor at the end of his insane thrashings around the stage, was the moment when the crowd realized that it was finally over, and the band’s reappearance for a final bow was greeted with an ecstasy of cheering that nearly matched the volume of their final notes.

Wow.

In yesterday’s New York Times, there is an article by Patricia Cohen about a new book written by Harvard historian James Kloppenberg about the formulation of President Obama’s ideas and what shapes his view of the world. Kloppenberg interviewed Obama’s professors, colleagues, read through everything Obama wrote with the Harvard Law Review. I too find this topic to be deeply interesting, admittedly because his ideas and view of the world are the reason that I supported him in 2008 and continue to support his presidency today, despite all that has happened. Some choice passages from the Times’ article:

To Mr. Kloppenberg the philosophy that has guided President Obama most consistently is pragmatism, a uniquely American system of thought developed at the end of the 19th century by William James, John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce. It is a philosophy that grew up after Darwin published his theory of evolution and the Civil War reached its bloody end. More and more people were coming to believe that chance rather than providence guided human affairs, and that dogged certainty led to violence.

Pragmatism maintains that people are constantly devising and updating ideas to navigate the world in which they live; it embraces open-minded experimentation and continuing debate. “It is a philosophy for skeptics, not true believers,” Mr. Kloppenberg said.

Cohen’s take on pragmatism is also why I take liberal positions on a large number of social and fiscal issues regarding government.

Taking his cue from Madison, Mr. Obama writes in his 2006 book “The Audacity of Hope” that the constitutional framework is “designed to force us into a conversation,” that it offers “a way by which we argue about our future.” This notion of a living document is directly at odds with the conception of Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court, who has spoken of “the good, old dead Constitution.”

The idea of debating about our future while drawing upon the guidance of bedrock principles is sound, just, and pragmatic to me. The conservative, originalist approach espoused by Scalia is not. Originalists look backward to the past, not forward.

Mr. Kloppenberg explained that he sees Mr. Obama as a kind of philosopher president, a rare breed that can be found only a handful of times in American history. “There’s John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Quincy Adams, then Abraham Lincoln and in the 20th century just Woodrow Wilson,” he said.

Ok, I just quoted that passage because it makes me feel good. ::fist pump:: I’m human, ok? Nonetheless, I look forward to checking out Kloppenberg’s book soon.

This year I made several trips to China for business — both with Dan and by myself — and we worked closely with our contract manufacturing firm. Many long days and nights were spent with their engineering team, getting all the issues ironed and out and ready to go. A few engineers had been stateside for a couple of weeks to help with post-launch activities, and I invited them over for dinner before they left to go back. They would go up to Napa during the day, then swing through the City on their way home.

Me, Freeman, Kevin, Jordan, Terry, and Dan

I was cooking by myself again for everyone, and made some Indian food this time. Wasn’t too courageous that night, I did my tried and true dishes of chana masala and aloo mutter. Dan picked up some naan that we warmed up on his way to the dinner. We had met up with them earlier in the week and I remembered Jordan said that he missed fried rice. So I got my wok out, and had him make us fried rice!

Hehe, it was really good — I admired its restraint. Troy came back home after spending much of the day working and got to meet them too. I bragged about how Troy had written a book on iPhone and iPad programming, and Troy was kind enough to sign some extra copies he’d gotten from the publisher!

Terry and Kevin are software engineers, so they swapped some pro-tips for sure. ;)

Before they headed down to Cupertino, we headed over to Chrissy and Dave’s place for their housewarming party. Chrissy and Dave have worked with them before, so familiar faces all around. I stayed at the housewarming for the rest of the night, which was a lot of fun — got to meet and chat with both new people and friends from Stanford and Apple. Went up to the roof to cool off, then the drizzling sent us back inside. And I have to say — the fresh paint on the walls looked quite sharp!

Remember the new band I found recently, Geographer? On Friday, October 15th I got to see them play at Bottom of the Hill, a small venue/bar in Potrero. John, his friend Veronica from work, and Veronica’s sister drove up from the South Bay and swung through Noe Valley, where Wendy and I hopped in their car. We drove north, over the hill dividing Noe and Castro, then up along Divisadero through the Haight before turning west towards the Richmond. Veronica wanted to have dinner at Q, a sort of American-comfort-food meets high class restaurant that was featured on a Food Network show. We put our name down at Q and B-Star (the sister restaurant to the widely famous Burma Superstar) and let the two waiting lists duel it out. Q won. The decor won me over, with it’s open kitchen, giant paper mache moon, intriguing wrought-iron sculptures on the wall (reminded me of Burning Man), and a box grater serving as a lampshade. The food was good among all of our dishes and we all left with good restaurant recommendation to share.

Dan made it to the venue ten minutes before us, having come from work. As Geographer was setting up, it was neat to see the electronic cello up close — you don’t see an instrument like that everyday.

Bottom of the Hill doesn’t have the greatest acoustics, and the sound guy seems to make up for it by jacking up the volume — not a good night to forget a set of earplugs. Still, it was a fun show — especially to see how the band tried to re-create the layering and mixing of the album in a live setting. We stayed after Geographer for the headliner of the night — a fellow local band called the Birds and the Batteries who were celebrating their first album release. It’s such a casual and low-key venue that they were actually standing in front of us in the audience for much of the first two shows. They popped confetti throughout their show. Good times, fun night.

And here’s some more Geographer — a really promising band that deserves to be heard more. Check out their album Innocent Ghosts and their recent EP, Animal Shapes!

Geographer – Paris

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Geographer – Rushing In, Rushing Out

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On the way back from Yosemite, Dustin wired in his iPod and the beats took us all the way home. I heard a lot of new stuff, and one of them really stuck. It’s a duo out of Canada (go figure) that puts together ambitious instrumental tracks in the vein of electronica, like a more diverse and expansive cousin of Ratatat. Thing is, they apparently shy away from the typical tools one uses in electronic music.

The band has a curiously profane name, Holy F@$% (edited here), one that both makes it memorable but simultaneously hinders it from getting clear publicity in radio and other venues. But maybe they want it like that. They have two albums out — Latin, which came out this past April and LP, released back in 2007.

Here are two songs for you. The first, Lovely Allen, actually reminds me faintly of Bittersweet Symphony and the latter, Latin America, is a good example of their sound too.

Holy F@$% – Lovely Allen

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Holy F@$% – Latin America

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I woke up early the day after the concert, and with my head still ringing put on some old clothes and made my way to Chrissy and Dave’s place in the Mission. Chrissy (the proud owner) had been wanting to re-paint much of her condo, and I had been egging her on for weeks to just do it herself and save the labor costs. Finally, she gave in and put on a painting party….with me and her roommate Dave as the only invitees, lol. Feeling responsible, I promised I’d come. Besides, this is what friends do.

She had done a nice job at prepping the day before, drop clothes and trim all taped up. I jacked in my iPod for tunes, and we set to work. Jared (what a champ!) dropped by before lunch, and Nader even popped in later in the afternoon. Dave and I had painted before but Chrissy hadn’t, so we were amused at her delight upon seeing how fast a roller can cover a wall. We made rather quick progress, though slowed a bit as Chrissy still debated what color of purple she wanted for the accent wall (her choices: Elephant or Wet Concrete….yeah). Finally, around 4pm I had to jet to prep for dinner that night. Still, it was fun.

It ended up just being me cooking at our house, and I decided to make spinach and mushroom lasagna. Not a difficult recipe, but as with many of my dishes there is a lot of time spent in prep, and I’m still poor at correctly estimating the time needed to prep.

In addition to cooking good food, Sunday night dinners are a chance to catch up with friends. That night my friend Andrew came over, and brought his new baby girl, Annika. Even though just four months, she got along so well with everyone — her big dark eyes taking it all in. I hadn’t seen Andrew in a long time, but he too lives nearby in Noe Valley.

We talked about how he was getting into writing and the challenges of the endeavor. He’s working on two stories now, which I look forward to reading when ready. Sean and Joey came back up to the City that night, and Jared too popped on over after finishing up at Chrissy’s place.

Joey demonstrates something with his iPhone…hopefully not how to properly hold the iPhone 4.

Oh hey, it’s a picture with me in it! One observation about the table I bought after moving in: despite appearing large when we first set it up, we have always had more than 4 people when we make dinner, so we’ve kept some odd tables around to stretch it out.

For dessert, Sean and Joey treated us all to homemade panna cotta, topped with a chocolate hazelnet ganache. It was delicious — wouldn’t have expected anything less from those two.

The evening was a real treat — I’m glad my friends got to meet Andrew and we spoke about our favorite pieces of literature, the writing process, music, and swapped recommendations.

The weekend after the Yosemite trip was a treat too. As Saturday afternoon waned on, I hopped on the BART to Berkeley and made my way over to Raleigh’s Bar on Telegraph Ave. 5pm was the kickoff for the #9 Stanford vs. #4 Oregon game, the big title matchup of the day, and what better place to watch than in the heart of Berkeley? Well, the Old Pro would have been more appropriate, but real treat of the night was the Arcade Fire concert happening at the Greek Theatre, set in the heart of Berkeley’s campus. Big hat tip to my buddy John for letting me claim his extra ticket.

I secured a table and more friends joined as the game progressed — Murder Bear, John, Ben, Kestrel, Joey, Sean. We quickly made enemies in the tavern as Stanford took a 21-3 lead at halftime, but were shaking our heads in admiration as Oregon came back relentlessly after being punched in the teeth. We left just as the 4th quarter got underway and made our way to the theater.

Readers might remember the last time I was at the Greek Theater — for a Sigur Rós show that was also the first time I met Joey. For this show, I had been revisiting Arcade Fire the past week and was pumped up for it. I’ve never seen Arcade Fire live before, but everyone that has had nothing but good things to say. It was also jam packed when we arrived, but we were able to make our way down into the pit and had a decent view of the stage.

The show was terrific. The set featured a billboard with video feeds projected on it. The band, as they are apt to do, hopped around the stage between songs, switching instruments. Will Butler — so full of energy! — meandered around the stage furiously beating a drum, at one point losing his stick and hitting the other percussionist right in the face. The crowd loved it. The band weaved a setlist that pulled from all three of their albums. It’s hard to pick highlights out of so many good songs, but No Cars Go, Month of May, and Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) which flowed right into Rebellion (Lies) were all great. The clip below is the start of Power Out, and we also learned that a dollar from every ticket sold is going to Partners in Health. The audio is sadly distorted, but it’s a great example of the visuals we got to see.

credit: warjianrumoelliu

And of course, the band closed with the ultimate festival closer: Wake Up. This one song is a big reason why I wanted to see Arcade Fire live. Thousands of people all singing together, knowing all the words. It’s just incredible.

credit: hongosanchome

If you get a chance to Arcade Fire live, don’t miss it!

One final random event of the night: Joey, Sean, Dave, and I walked up to the top of Greek Theater to take in the view. I approached a guy and asked him to take a picture of us. He looked at us a bit awkwardly, and took the photo. We hadn’t walked a dozen feet away when Joey calmly commented that the guy who took our photo is an actor on a TV show called ‘Party Down’…and that apparently in real life he’s just as awkward as he acts on the show. Hah.

Less than 24 hours after Sean and Joey’s dinner, and I’m on my way to Yosemite. Erturk had two nights of reserved in North Pines, a campground inside Yosemite Valley. He couldn’t make it, so Dustin and I jumped at the chance. By Wednesday we finalized our impromptu plans — Murder Bear would join us — and we’d leave Cupertino early on Friday to make it to Yosemite by the evening.

Dustin and I are slowed by rush hour traffic on the way out, and stop in Manteca to fill up on remaining groceries. We arrive after nightfall and setup our tent in the dark. There are campfires still crackling around us and the night is winding down. We lucked out with the campsite — two car spots, a wide flat expanse enough for 4-5 tents, and a creek running directly behind. Borrowing a hatchet from our neighbors, Dustin splits the wood I brought and gets a fire going. Just as the soup and veggie sausages are finished, Dave rolls up. Perfect timing! It’s past quiet hours, but we finish dinner and plan for tomorrow. That night I use my inflatable Thermarest sleeping pad, and affirm it’s one of the best gear purchases I’ve ever made.

The Yosemite Falls hike is our journey for Saturday, a nine mile roundtrip hike with a 3,000 ft elevation gain. Yosemite Falls is one of the top ten tallest waterfalls in the world, but this late in the season all the water has dried up.

The waterfall would be surging out of the view in the center-top of the photo

We start the hike at around 9:30pm, and make good progress. I happily use my latest outdoor gear purchase: a 2L Camel-bak, and in an hour the temperature on the trail gets quite high. The strenuous nature of the trail keeps it pretty sparse with other people, but those we meet are friendly. And very quickly, as we climb altitude, the views of the valley keep us going.

As the heat rises, we take more breaks. Dustin shows us something he discovered on one of his bike rides — vegetarian jerky. We all tried different flavors throughout the hike, and they were good! The trail turns from hewn granite to sand for a stretch, playing games on our ankles. We reach the first milestone and take in the view.

Onto the Upper Falls we hike. Countless switch backs later, we reach the ridge and see the dried streambed where water would be coursing through before it hurls itself over the cliff face.

Looking towards the starting point of the waterfall

Water has pooled up in massive holes carved into the granite…

which of course Dustin has to jump into. He’s good at ratcheting up the peer pressure, and Dave jumps in too. And after much more encouragement, so do I! There was even a girl from Italy who joined in after seeing Dustin and Dave do it.

Feeling refreshed, we set out for the ultimate destination of the hike — Yosemite Point, elevation 6,936ft. The hike from the falls takes us back into the mountain, then swings around and up. And as we come out of the tree cover, we are greeted with a spectacular view of Half Dome:

We continue along the ridge until I spot a rocky outcropping that juts out from the side of the mountain with a spot of shade. This is our view as we break open our packs for lunch:

Pretty epic. Two birds put on a show for us — soaring all around, catching updrafts, and even paying a visit right at our feet.

Recharged and refreshed, we finally turn to head down the mountain. It’s about 3pm, so we have still several hours until sunset. We make decent pace, but the hike does start to make itself felt in my muscles. That’s what I get for this being my first main physical exercise in several weeks! The light starts to improve for photos, and we’re treated to some great views of Half Dome.

As we enter the bottom third of the trail with the end in sight, we see other other hikes just on their way up, often without a pack and just a single bottle of water. Dustin turns around at us after they go past, eyes wide as saucers. I tell myself that surely they aren’t trying to make a push to the summit this late in the day, without enough water. But who knows.

We swing by the lodge on our way back to the campsite and pick up some firewood and a bottle of wine. Dustin, our fire master, gets the fire going quickly and we put water on the stove for pasta. I shuck ears of corn and tear open a new sachet of guacamole.

Dinner is good, and Dustin breaks out the Canadian version of s’mores for dessert. The day’s hike has me beat, and before the fire is almost dead I retire to the tent for some much needed zZz’s.

On Sunday we awake in a leisurely fashion. After breakfast, Dave heads out towards Fresno to see his parents. Dustin and I wrap up the campsite and make our way over to the Happy Isles trailhead. Our plan is to hike the Mist trail before heading back to the Bay Area. The Mist trail is one of Yosemite’s signature hikes, and takes you up through the Vernal and Nevada Falls. 7 mile roundtrip and a 1,900ft elevation gain to the top of Nevada Falls. It’s also the first part of the famous Half Dome Hike. The dual waterfalls make this the ‘Mist’ trail, however this late in the year the waterflow is very thin.

It was here that another one of Dustin’s observations holds true — in the beginning, easier parts of popular hikes, almost no one says “hi” or “hello” back to us as we greet them. In contrast, once we enter the more strenuous, less populous sections of the trail, practically everyone responds to our greeting. Interesting how that works. As the trail ascends towards Vernal Falls, there are endless steps and staircases cut into the granite. Perhaps it was because of being tired from yesterday’s hike, but these stairs were tough! Well worth the view though. We round a switchback and see the base of Nevada Falls through the trees. We leave the trail and start making our way over a tumble of boulders towards the base of the falls until we come across a large flat rock propped up near the pool where the water pours into it. It’s here that we break out our lunch.

All throughout lunch, Dustin eyes the waterfall pool with lust and so we make our way over the boulders down to the creekbed and up to where the pool is. The scene is serene.

We scout a different path and climb back over the boulders and break onto the trail again. We continue our climb upwards, until we reach a wide, flat expanse at the top of Nevada Falls and the large stream that feeds it.

Looking back towards the start of the trail

From the top looking down. See that small pool at the base of the waterfall, and the large rock near it? That’s where we had lunch.

From this point we see a sign towards Half Dome — another 4.5 miles. Oof, that’s a challenge. But it’s time for us to turn back. Despite the muscle confusion, we still make good time even with a stop to relax in the shade overlooking Vernal Falls.I snap a photo of the falls, and make a mental note of the location — when I do this hike again in the spring, I want to take a shot of the waterfall at the same spot. As we entered the last mile of the hike, we see people setting out (for the summit?!) with a single bottle of water, jeans, and no pack. I tell wide-eyed Dustin again that surely they don’t intend on summiting now.

We change out of our sweat-soaked shirts at the car and hit the road. The sun has started to set, lighting up the valley walls and giving the world a lovely orange purple hue. We try to see a glimpse of Tunnel View as we leave the valley, but realize that it’s probably on the other road out of Yosemite, not 120. It’s ok — next time.

We have been to Yosemite enough to anticipate each stage of the drive back — the windy drive through the forest, then down out of the hills through the S-turns into the plains with dotted trees, and straight west to Manteca. Our phones have died, and our search for a nice little restaurant in Manteca comes up short. In-N-Out suffices, made more palatable because of the hidden menu. We outside, away from the fluorescent lights and plastic booths. The air is warm, and we wonder why more nights in the City aren’t like this. Dustin takes over and the miles between us and home start to melt away. Traffic is light and we get back an hour before midnight. Trip complete.

I went over to Sean and Joey’s house for dinner two Thursday’s ago, where they host their own dinner gatherings. Of course, Sean and Joey are on the cutting edge of culinary experimentalism, so you’re always going to learn something new. They have built their own sous vide cooking apparatus with an Arduino for temperature control, a home-made smoker, brew their own beer, make their own sausages from scratch, etc. It’s quite remarkable. That night was gnocchi — of they potato and ricotti variety.

A bonus of this visit — a drive in a Tesla roadster! Joey took me out for a short drive around Sunnyvale, and immediately that car feels like no other car. First — it sits very low, and the suspension is super tight. And of course the silence…all you hear is a faint whine of the electric motor and the sound of the tires on asphalt. We turned onto an on-ramp and Joey gave me a taste of the acceleration potential of the roadster.

Like whoa. My body gets pushed back into the seat like I’ve been shoved backward, and by the time I realize what’s happened we’re already cruising above 50mph. Talk about zoom zoom! Very cool. :)

Rolling Stone magazine has published a long interview with President Obama, with reflections and perspectives on his first two year’s in office. I highlight this interview here on this blog because it served as a reminder of all the reasons I fully supported Barack Obama for the presidency, especially in light of his competition in 2008 – the McCain-Palin ticket and coming off eight disastrous years under George Bush.

Q: You’ve passed more progressive legislation than any president since Lyndon Johnson. Yet your base does not seem nearly as fired up as the opposition, and you don’t seem to be getting the credit for those legislative victories. There was talk that you were going to mobilize your grass-roots volunteers and use them to pressure Congress, but you decided for whatever reason not to involve the public directly and not to force a filibuster on issues like health care. What do you say to those people who have developed a sense of frustration — your base — who feel that you need to fight harder?

[It] has to do with — and I joke about it — that there’s a turn of mind among Democrats and progressives where a lot of times we see the glass as half-empty. It’s like, “Well, gosh, we’ve got this historic health care legislation that we’ve been trying to get for 100 years, but it didn’t have every bell and whistle that we wanted right now, so let’s focus on what we didn’t get instead of what we got.” That self-critical element of the progressive mind is probably a healthy thing, but it can also be debilitating.

When I talk to Democrats around the country, I tell them, “Guys, wake up here. We have accomplished an incredible amount in the most adverse circumstances imaginable.”

…

The Recovery Act alone represented the largest investment in research and development in our history, the largest investment in infrastructure since Dwight Eisenhower, the largest investment in education — and that was combined, by the way, with the kind of education reform that we hadn’t seen in this country in 30 years — and the largest investment in clean energy in our history.

You look at all this, and you say, “Folks, that’s what you elected me to do.” I keep in my pocket a checklist of the promises I made during the campaign, and here I am, halfway through my first term, and we’ve probably accomplished 70 percent of the things that we said we were going to do — and by the way, I’ve got two years left to finish the rest of the list, at minimum. So I think that it is very important for Democrats to take pride in what we’ve accomplished.

All that has taken place against a backdrop in which, because of the financial crisis, we’ve seen an increase in poverty, and an increase in unemployment, and people’s wages and incomes have stagnated. So it’s not surprising that a lot of folks out there don’t feel like these victories have had an impact. What is also true is our two biggest pieces of legislation, health care and financial regulatory reform, won’t take effect right away, so ordinary folks won’t see the impact of a lot of these things for another couple of years. It is very important for progressives to understand that just on the domestic side, we’ve accomplished a huge amount.

On decision making (emphasis mine):

One of the things that you realize when you’re in my seat is that, typically, the issues that come to my desk — there are no simple answers to them. Usually what I’m doing is operating on the basis of a bunch of probabilities: I’m looking at the best options available based on the fact that there are no easy choices. If there were easy choices, somebody else would have solved it, and it wouldn’t have come to my desk.

That’s true for financial regulatory reform, that’s true on Afghanistan, that’s true on how we deal with the terrorist threat. On all these issues, you’ve got a huge number of complex factors involved. When you’re sitting outside and watching, you think, “Well, that sounds simple,” and you can afford to operate on the basis of your ideological predispositions. What I’m trying to do — and certainly what we’ve tried to do in our economic team — is to keep a North Star out there: What are the core principles we’re abiding by? In the economic sphere, my core principle is that America works best when you’ve got a growing middle class, and you’ve got ladders so that people who aren’t yet in the middle class can aspire to the middle class, and if that broad base is rolling, then the country does well.

Can you imagine George Bush giving a nuanced answer like that?

On energy:

One of my top priorities next year is to have an energy policy that begins to address all facets of our overreliance on fossil fuels. We may end up having to do it in chunks, as opposed to some sort of comprehensive omnibus legislation. But we’re going to stay on this because it is good for our economy, it’s good for our national security, and, ultimately, it’s good for our environment.

Understand, though, that even in the absence of legislation, we took steps over the past two years that have made a significant difference. I will give you one example, and this is an example where sometimes I think the progressive community just pockets whatever we do, takes it for granted, and then asks, “Well, why didn’t you get this done?”

We instituted the first increase in fuel-efficiency standards in this country in 30 years. It used to be that California would have some very rigorous rule, and then other states would have much weaker ones. Now we’ve got one rule. Not only that, it used to be that trucks weren’t covered, and there were all kinds of loopholes — that’s how SUVs were out there getting eight miles a gallon. Now everybody’s regulated — not only cars, but trucks. We did this with the agreement of the auto industry, which had never agreed to it before, we did it with the auto workers, who had never agreed to it before. We are taking the equivalent of millions of cars off the road, when it comes to the amount of greenhouse gases that are produced.

Is it enough? Absolutely not. The progress that we’re making on renewable energy, the progress that we’re making on retrofitting buildings and making sure that we are reducing electricity use — all those things, cumulatively, if we stay on it over the next several years, will allow us to meet the target that I set, which would be around a 17 percent reduction in our greenhouse gases.

And of course, the most relevant line of the interview (emphasis mine):

Q: What music have you been listening to lately? What have you discovered, what speaks to you these days?
My iPod now has about 2,000 songs, and it is a source of great pleasure to me.

Two weeks ago, the Local Natives rocked the Fillmore in San Francisco. Last April, I raved about this band’s debut album, Gorilla Manor and was so glad they were coming back to a bigger venue in the City. This is also the band that Sachi and my parents saw at Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill!

I met up with Karla, Mike, Gloria, and Troy at a Korea restaurant just around the block from the theater, and Gloria told us about all the crazy happenings at Burning Man (she spent a week out in the desert there). We missed seeing much of the opener as we wandered around the theater looking at all the concert posters from years past. It’s a pretty cool historic venue.

Local Natives took the stage just past nine, and opened with Wide Eyes (a song Sachi loves now). One of the great things about Local Natives is that there really is no ‘lead’ singer per se — there are three main vocalists who trade off leading songs, but there’s a lot of harmonizing across many of their songs.

Another element that comes through live is the percussion. In addition to the drummer, there’s a second snare and cymbal setup next to the keyboardist. It definitely brings a new element to the songs. The band did a nice job at moving through their songs, with a slowed down version of Cubism Dream and inspired take on Shape Shifter.

And of course, Sun Hands served as their closer. Here’s a YouTube video I found on the YouTubes that captures the mood quite well:

What a terrific show.

A few weeks ago, Wake Forest of the ACC conference (the conference that my alma matter played in) came to Palo Alto to play Stanford. My friend John and I decided to organize a tailgate for the game and to our delight, it coincided nicely with a promotion that Stanford Athletics was running on Facebook. You see, the Stanford student body is small, and most aren’t big about football. Add to this the fact that the fall term hadn’t even started yet, plus the opponent being a small school from the east coast, and you have a recipe for a very empty stadium. So there was a promotion: if you ‘like’ Stanford Football on Facebook, you’d get a free ticket. Open to anyone. Sweet.

John secured a spot in the grove and Nevin, Rishabh, Chrissy, and I piled into Dave’s car and headed down from the City. We joined John’s crew of people and cracked open our beers. I embarked upon a ten avocado guacamole for the occasion, which turned out great. I’ve never made this much before!

More and more faces arrived as gametime neared. Mozzi and his friend Hillary. Eric and his buddy Jason, whom I met via Lux. Jared, Gregg, and Sarah. Amit. More of John’s friends. Towards the end, we had around thirty people! Fresh made burgers, veggie hot dogs, tacos, pasta salad, chips, cookies beer. A great tailgate all around.

Stanford Stadium was more full than I expected, but our big group was able to find a spot on the first deck, corner endzone.

The game ended up being a total blow out. Stanford was relentless in scoring, and had dropped 41 points on Wake by halftime. It’s a lot of fun to see your team romp through a hapless opponent, but a more close game would have been preferred.

The following day, I headed up to Golden Gate Park for Dan’s birthday party. To celebrate the occasion, he invited all of his friends to a game of sloshball. I’d never played it before, but it’s kickball with beer. Lots of beer. The rules of the game: everyone has to have a beer in their hand at all times. There is a keg (or a cooler) at 2nd base, and to advance to third you need to finish a new beer. You can have unlimited number of people at second base, but you need to finish a beer before you can advance. All disputes are settled by a drink off. What made this day really special was to see all the people who made it out.

photos by Micky Norum

So many familiar faces from work — Matt, Ken, Rishabh, Ady, Dave, Chrissy, Timm, Anthony, Carl, Neil, Steve, Dustin, Jared, Ady, etc — Wendy’s friends, Mike, Karla, Troy. Even Joseph, Heidi, and baby Henry came too! It was one of those days that really makes you feel fulfilled and settled in this new place that is becoming home…despite being three thousand miles away from the home you’ve known.

Happy Birthday, Dan. :)