Saket Vora

Another year comes to a close. As evident in last year’s recap post, the key word of 2009 was transition. I finished my studies at Stanford and had to move to the professional world. I went from part-time contracting to a full time position at Apple. Mentally, I shifted from not knowing what the next six months were to hold to knowing that I would be in the Bay Area for at least the next several years.

Enter 2010. Looking back, 2010 was the year of settling into this current chapter of my life. Professionally, I finally experienced a full product development cycle, made trips to China (a first for me), shipped a product, and learned a tremendous amount. Personally, I greatly strengthened my relationships with my friends in the Bay Area, moved to San Francisco into a nice house which feels like home now, increased my understanding of the Bay Area and Northern California via trips, and as more pragmatic things got resolved I finally felt truly ready to adjust my personal priorities. Largely for my own sake of reflecting, here are some of the memorable moments from 2010, in rough chronological order:

- First Tahoe ski trip to Squaw Valley. Hadn’t skied in nearly five years, but enjoyed it. Later did another ski trip to Northstar and Heavenly (endured a eight hour trip with Stephanie and Dan to make it there). I feel good on blues and skiing become something I did because friends were doing it to something I actually enjoyed.
- My car getting totaled when an SUV driving recklessly ended up in my lane on the highway. Walked away without a scratch, lost a bit in the insurance back-and-forth, but ended up with a fun used car to drive.
- Relieving cabin fever with trips to Point Reyes with Troy and Karla, a first trip to Alcatraz Island with Nishu and her cousins, Armstrong Redwoods park with Nader, Meetup hike in Big Sur, a beach bonfire in Santa Cruz
- Finding a place in San Francisco between trips to China, moving in, having to furnish an empty house (it’s expensive!).
- Camping trip to Angels Camp with a big group of folks (where the phrase Murder Bear was coined), an impromptu trips to Castle Crags up north with Tim, John, and Dustin, and a serendipitous weekend trip to Yosemite with Dustin and Dave.
- Work getting insanely busy as the project entered extreme crunch mode. Felt really good though. Had a terrific time working with the shuffle team.
- Finally getting a digital SLR camera. Quality of photos ticks upward, and it gives me a fun new hobby to be creative with.
- Bay Area visits by Mike, Ben, Caitlin & Dale, Ian, the EEP group, Jordan Price and our trip to Napa
- Products getting shipped: the new iPod shuffle by Dan and I, Troy and Steve’s RunMonster app, Michael’s box.net iPad app, Troy’s book on iPhone/iPad programming, Flipboard’s epic launch.
- Stanford and NC State football games and tailgates
- Visiting Asheville for Melih and Micky’s beautiful wedding
- The wonderful Google Reader community, so many great articles and comments
- Cooking! The Sunday Night Dinner tradition, finally making my deconstructed s’mores which were received very well, and creating the Sunday Night Dinner tradition. Cooking is one of my favorite creative outlets.
- Concerts and music — listened to a lot of new music this year, with a big tip of my hat to friends like John, Joey, Joseph, and Jono (ok, that’s a surprising alliteration…) who introduced me to new bands all year. I had the good fortune of going to eight concerts this year
- Catching up with all my friends back home in NC, and meeting someone who I can’t wait to see more of next year.

Thanks everyone for a great 2010. You all make me feel like the luckiest person in the world. Happy New Year!

This one comes with a hat tip to Jono, Dan’s brother who I met when his family was visiting the City for Thanksgiving. He and I clicked when it came to music — he’s the only person I’ve met (besides John) who has heard of Delorean, but also likes them too! He even knew Gold Panda too. After perusing my music library, Jono recommended I check out Warpaint, an all-girl band out of LA. I gave them a listen, and it’s nice. Their down-tempo style reminds me of the xx, but there is an edgier tone and more melodies at play here. This past October they released their first full-length album, The Fool.

A great example is Undertow. I like it when the guitars kick in at the ~2:44 mark to kick the energy up.

Warpaint – Undertow

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Another highlight is Bees, in which shades of paranoia creep in, evoking the mood of Frou Frou’s Psychobabble.

Warpaint – Bees

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It looks they will be touring overseas for the first part of 2011, but keep and eye on this intriguing band.

Last Friday my good friend Ben arrived in San Francisco for the first time. His family would be getting together the following week to go on a hike down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and he swung by the Bay Area to visit some friends beforehand. Ben was one of the first people I met at NC State — during semi-finalist interviews for the Park — and we both did the same major for undergrad. One of his other really close friends is Amit, and Mary too was a Park in our same class. The only unfortunate part about his visit was that the weather was not playing nice — lots of rain expected throughout the weekend.

On Friday, he and Ben went around Stanford and they hit up Ike’s Place for lunch (mmmm). Mary and Mathew hosted us for dinner at their house in Menlo Park. She made some potato gnocchi and these cheddar and cranberry biscuit things — delicious as usual — and some pannacotta for dessert. On Saturday Ben and Amit came up to the City and we did brunch at Savor, a great brunch spot in Noe Valley. The rain was spotty, but we geared up and headed north across Golden Gate through a wall of fog to Muir Woods. It was great to see the journey for the first time through Ben’s eyes — to see the rugged hills, Bay harbors, and dark green valleys once again.

We did a 4.5 mile hike around Muir Woods, making it to the top of the Panorama Highway. I had never done this in the rain, but the woods took on a different character — the light was diffuse, the woods quiet.

It only started raining hard on the way back, then more as we made our way back to the City — the Marin Headlands would have to wait for another visit. We swung by the Palace of Fine Arts, then snaked our way down to Hayes Valley, to the Blue Bottle Coffee kiosk. For a coffee lover like Ben, a cup of Joe of the famous Blue Bottle Coffee was a must. And huzzah, it was confirmed good! We made a pit stop at the Whole Foods to get some ginger thins and a house red, and back at the house we warmed up with some authentically served glögg (Ben is half-Swedish). Glögg, a spiced mulled wine drink, is a staple of winter in Scandinavia. Served warm with raisins and sliced almonds, it evokes a lot of memories of the winter I spent in Sweden back in 2005.

We relaxed for a few hours, talking and taking the Apple TV for a spin with its YouTube feature. We cracked open several bottles of local San Francisco and northern California brews, including a magnum of Anchor Steam’s Christmas ale ($14  at Whole Foods here compared to $88 at a bar in Raleigh!).

At around 11p, we headed out to the Mission to one of my favorite burrito joint, El Farolito. Burritos in the Mission is a must-have for any San Francisco visitor. Being stuffed from earlier in the day, Ben opted for two tacos (for comparison with Dos Taquitos, a Raleigh favorite), and Amit and I got burritos. Later, we headed further north in the Mission for drinks, running into a classmate of Amit in the process.

Amit and Ben hit up SF MOMA in the morning, and I met up with them after dropping Troy off at SFO. We headed up to Fisherman’s Wharf, where Ben saw the seals and picked up some of the sourdough bread that the City is known for at Boudin’s. We made our way along the water to Ghirardelli’s Square, where we had the requisite ice cream sundae at the chocolatier’s cafe, then did a wine tasting at a wine store next door (a real trip to Napa would have to wait ’till next time). With the sun waning, I took them west to Golden Gate Bridge, and this time we got out and walked a bit onto it. Along the City side of the base, dozens of surfers were bobbing in the water seeking waves to catch.

Sutro Heights on the Pacific Ocean was the last stop before heading back down south. Darkness was falling as we walked out on the beach to meet the ocean. I had come to the same spot to shoot some pictures over Thanksgiving, but this time the waves were high and crashing, frothy white at the tips. Back in Noe, we acquired some fine cheese and enjoyed it while folks from Dan’s failed ski trip arrived for Sunday Night Dinner — John, Murder Bear, Dev, Wendy. Ben, Amit, and I left though — we had reservations at Dosa, one of the best restaurants in San Francisco. This place is always backed, and the south Indian go-to dish takes front and center. My friend Eric joined us. The food was simply outstanding — I got the chole batura, which is chana masala served with a gigantic puri. I can’t wait to go back! Ben was done though afterward….so stuffed.

He and Amit spent Monday down in Palo Alto — SRI International, Coupe Cafe, Fraiche yogurt — but came back up for dinner. I made reservations at another San Francisco favorite — Burma Superstar in the Richmond. Every person I’ve met in the City has heard of it (2,461 reviews on Yelp!). We got the famous tea leaf salad and three dishes — all were terrific. I never had Burmese food until I came here some months back, but it’s cool how the cuisine has found an individual voice, combining threads from Bengali and Indian cuisines to the west with the more Asian styles to its east and north. Who knew? We hit up one of my favorite bookstores — Green Apple – before leaving (snagged two copies of Dune this time). Before arriving home I took Ben up to Twin Peaks to see the view at night, but rain cut short the visit. Later that night, we popped out to the street every half hour to see the winter solstice lunar eclipse.

And with that, Ben’s whirlwind of a first visit to San Francisco was over. We stuffed him silly with many of the famous spots locals love, but there is still so much more out there. I think he’ll be back to visit soon. :) Thanks for coming out here, Ben! It was a great to spend time with you again.

In anticipation for Ben’s visit to SF, I was perusing upcoming concerts on Bandega when I stumbled across this instrumental guitar-drum duo out of Oakland by the name of Silian Rail. I took a listen to a few of their songs and liked what I heard — reminded me of a more nuanced, less bombastic Explosions in the Sky. But this band is really is their own thing. Robin Landy is on guitar with Eric Kuhn on drums.

A few interesting things caught my eye too — ‘Silian Rail’ is the name of the font used on Bates’ business card in the movie American Psycho. The duo liked the way it sounded. Also, they are both from Durham, NC — right nearby my home in North Carolina! From an interview they did with Signal and Noise:

The Raleigh-Durham tri­an­gle area where the two grew up has obvi­ously shaped them musi­cally and per­son­ally. A lush and fer­tile wilder­ness, a sup­port­ive arts com­mu­nity and a lot of all-ages shows make a strong cock­tail of early musi­cal prowess and enthu­si­asm. Not sur­pris­ingly though, Kuhn has a more glow­ing opin­ion of North Carolina and his time there.

“The area I grew up in is incred­i­bly warm, lov­ing, diverse, strange and rich with his­tory,” he says. “And I’ll also say hush pup­pies, fire­flies, thun­der­storms and brick. I cer­tainly miss it all the time.”

Landy misses cer­tain things (“The crick­ets, the moun­tains, the south­ern accents, etc.”) but is glad she got out when she did. “For me, it became way too small and claus­tro­pho­bic of a place and I needed to leave. It’s one of those places that if you let your­self, you could stay there for­ever, even if you are totally bored and uninspired.”

“Hush puppies, fireflies, thunderstorms, and brick.” Ah, home.

Silian Rail – Death Should Know Better

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Silian Rail – I Is Somebody Else

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They are playing tonight at the Hemlock Tavern, and also at Bottom of the Hill on January 7th.

How cool is this — Radiolab (one of my favorite podcasts) actually did a short segment about Buke and Gass back in April! I must have missed this podcast, but Jad interviews Arone and Aron about how they create their sound — and their custom, homemade instruments. Jad actually came across them while researching music for one of their earlier episodes, and although it wasn’t right for the episode, he couldn’t get the music out of his head.

I love when two different things I like intersect. Especially when they aren’t that well known!

Last Sunday was the second installment of pizza night at the SPH. From a culinary perspective, this was a challenge in throughput. The last time, we hand stretched each pie from a ball of dough, but with a single pizza peel it proved slow. This time, I put in four clay tiles into the oven, then spent nearly three hours hand rolling and stretching pizza crusts then par-baking them, a tip I learned from Mary. As confirmations came in throughout the day, I kept becoming worried I might run out of crusts, so I ended up making four batches of dough, each yielding three pizzas. I varied the recipe slightly each time, one batch even using whole wheat atta flour commonly used in making Indian roti.

Some newcomers this time too — my colleague and friend Rishabh (he was the lead system integrator for this year’s iPod Nano!), and my friend Nishu. So get this: she actually helped babysit me back in Charlotte after I was born, as our families were friends. Flash forward twenty years, and she’s living a quarter mile away from me and working at Apple. Small world! My friend Rob also came by — he’s the roommate (and another Apple person) of a undergrad friend (Eric, now at Google) of my friend Lux from Stanford.

I had left a few dough balls for people to make the pies fresh, and Rishabh and I did so to start off the night. As a quorum formed though, each person got a par-baked crust and went to town. Everyone brought various ingredients and we mixed and matched. Sliced giant portabella, green peppers, onion, artichoke hearts, fresh spinach, basil, pine nuts, and walnuts.

Sara also came by towards the end of dinner, in time for Dan’s showing of the original Tron movie. We had to prep for the new movie coming out, after all. She brought cacao and peppermint schnapps…a holiday drink for sure. I broke out our shaker and prepared a white Russian too.

I made another ‘white pizza’ which was a big hit — a sauce made of olive oil, minced garlic, and herbs, topped with artichoke hearts, pine nuts, and some of all types of cheese (mozzarella, fontina, goat, parmesan, asiago). And following Paula Dean’s principle of “I’m your chef, not your doctor”, give it a zigzag drizzle of some nice olive oil before sliding it into the oven. :)

Dan used his kettle corn machine to make some fresh popcorn, and we watched the film. It is rather impressive to see the effects, particular for a movie so old. The funniest part of the night was when the main character’s computer password is shown to be “reindoor flotilla” and I said “wow, now that sounds like a band’s name. Rishabh, you need a name for your band? There it is.” I pulled out the iPhone, and sure enough, Reindeer Flotilla IS a band’s name. Haha.

NPR Music is starting their 2010 recap of this year in music. I love exploring their list, sifting for gems that I missed during the year. Last year I discovered Fanfarlo this way, and they became a band that I just adored and wouldn’t stop talking about to people. And I tend to like NPR’s take on this year in music, because I actually see bands I listen to (as opposed to Billboard or Grammy Awards). Bob Boilen, host of All Songs Considered, came out with his top 9 albums list and gave lots of love to Sufjan (whose latest album I’m still chilly to), Jónsi (hooray!), and local North Carolina band Lost in the Trees, from Chapel Hill, NC.

One of the bands new to me was the curiously named Buke and Gass — which describes the two instruments this Brooklyn-duo plays. The lead vocalist, Arone Dyer, plays a modified baritone ukelele (a ‘buke’) and Aron Sanchez plays a handmade guitar/bass hybrid (a ‘gass’). They feed both through custom homemade amps, and Arone works a tamborine attached to her shoe via a bicycle toe clip mount while Aron handles a kick drum. A really intriguing setup, but one that makes you do a double take when you hear the sound they generate.  They released an LP this year called Riposte. Here’s a wonderful Tiny Desk concert they did at the NPR Music offices.

I love the way Arone interacts with the audience and her easy laugh. Really cute. They are extremely proficient musicians, and their songs have a kind of improvisational air to them — full of clamoring energy, time signature shifts, little one-off twirls and riffs,  striving beats and melodic phrases. Dyer’s voice is acrobatic, rapidly jumping octaves, switching between a staccato stanza (with unconventional lyrics, at that) to sustained notes. I’ve been on a pretty serious Röyksopp lately, so this is such a wonderful contrast to that sound.

They also sound great live. This is the album version of the leadoff song from the NPR video above.

Buke and Gass – Your Face Left Before You

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Just look at how this next song takes so many turns and directions. It’s cool to see a band exploring atypical song structures.

Buke and Gass – Medicina

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Last Saturday I hosted a sort of dinner + photography night. I ran into Karthik over Thanksgiving when Krupali was up here, and felt bad that I hadn’t invited him over yet. Then I ran into Mary and Matt and of course they hadn’t been over yet either (I know, for shame). Combined with the recent photo kick I was on during Thanksgiving and their affinity for photography too, I made that the theme and invited Melih and Micky, Gregg and Sarah, and my buddy John over too — all keen on photography.

I freestyled some enchiladas and Spanish rice (severely underestimated the enchilada size and ended up using four pans) and was about to start the guacamole (of course) when John arrived. Karthik was next, and I gave them the tour of the house. Pretty soon it was a full house! One fun part was that it was the first in-person meeting between Melih, Mary, and John — even though they’ve been conversing in our Google Reader community for the past several months (the thought on everyone’s minds: where is Brock Winstead?!). Melih finished off prepping the guacamole (it was delicious) and we sat to eat.

There was a good mix of experience around the table. Melih and John both shot for campus newspapers, and Gregg helped shoot weddings and had access to the impressive photo gear cage at RIT. I knew Karthik had been shooting for a while too for pleasure (doing wonders with the iPhone camera at that), and Mary even has a LensBaby! Sarah nearly stole the show with a retro Canon film camera SLR body from decades ago. Very cool.

After dinner, we gathered in the living room and took turns showing off a small portfolio of our photos on the TV. We talked about the background of the shot and why we liked it. Everyone was great about giving feedback, and it was terrific to see all the photos that were taken. It was really interesting to see the natural instincts and style of each person become evident — John has an amazing eye for color and patterns, Gregg can find the ‘shot’ even in the most typical of settings (and a penchant for grimy gears and old VW Bugs), and Karthik is really strong at capturing lighting and mood in his photos.

Mary brought this delicious chocolate cake with hazelnut ganache (if I remember correctly…) that met if not surpassed all the hype I was creating about Mary’s culinary mastery. Like there was any question. :) Oh yeah, and you know the tunnel view photo of Yosemite Valley that Mary took? I got it printed and framed with a custom matte, and I had Mary sign it! It now looks complete up on my wall.

Anyway, it was a super fun night, and it’s always such a pleasure to see so many new people meet for first time and yet get along really well. Minds were definitely inspired!