Saket Vora

San Francisco. A city with hills, steep roads, crooked streets. One day someone thought, “wouldn’t it be fun to ride a big wheel (tricycle) down one of these?” Yes, yes it would. And being San Francisco, you have to have wacky costumes. And lots of friends. And hold it on Easter Sunday. And thus: Bring Your Own Big Wheel 2011!

The 11th annual race was held last Saturday in the Potrero neighborhood. They used to do it on the famous Lombard St., until the neighborhood complained. They’ve found a good home in Potrero. This year, some colleagues of mine were getting a group together for it, and they had an awesome group costume idea — Tetris blocks! They made the blocks the day before, each of them taking a different piece. Chrissy, of course, picks the one hardest to make. Haha.

The results were spectacular.

I headed over to the venue after having lunch at Catherine’s place, where I showed her how to use Final Cut Pro, and I arrived just as they finished their first run. They looked awesome. I heard a lot of people say they were most impressed with the Tetris blocks.

photo by Bhautik Joshi

Everyone was having a blast. I grabbed the green square and did a run myself — I looked ridiculous with my long legs, but it was fun. There people lined up all along the course and tons of cameras were clicking away. Paul snagged one of me, for proof that I actually did it :)

Here’s a shot Chrissy’s friend Gurpreet shot of Elmo!

photo by Gurpreet

The next picture is San Francisco. Older professorial guy with a Herringbone blazer over a snug black tee and jeans? Check. 20-something dude in a hot pink tracksuit with bunny ears right next to him? Check.

What a cool event, and something I can appreciate too. It all started by a guy (Jon Brumit) who wanted to do something fun, and just made it happen. No entry fees, no corporate sponsorships, just someone who wanted to have a good time and invite a bunch of people to join in.

After the race we headed down to the Mission for a snack at Philz (another well-known SF coffee house), and as we’re sitting outside  the cafe in the early evening sun, Jason from work walks by us. Jason doesn’t live anywhere near the Mission, and didn’t even know about BYOBW. So it’s quite something that we just happened to cross paths. And I randomly saw James at BYOBW, Sean’s friend that I recently met. Just a few more ways that this place doesn’t seem so big anymore.

After my now-routine long run through Golden Gate Park on Saturday morning, I headed down to the South Bay. My intention was to do some shopping to prep for the wedding I’m attending next week, but that ended up not happening. Chrissy was going to a shooting range in the foothills behind Cupertino to shoot trap, and she let me tag along. I’d always been curious about it, and have never shot a real firearm in my life before. As I learned from Chrissy (and later Jordan too), there are different ways one can shoot at clay pigeons. ‘Shooting trap’ is where the clays originate from the same location (a small shed in front of you) and go in different directions away from you. ‘Shooting skeet’ consists of a high tower and a low tower on opposite ends of your field of view, and the clays can come from either of them or both and move across your view. ‘Shooting clays’ has you moving to different stations, where there is a lot of variety in how and where the clays fly.

Chrissy has a 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun (doesn’t have a name yet!), which for trap she shoots one round at a time. There were five stations set in an arc, with the clay launcher shed in front. The first person will yell “pull!” and fire at a clay. Then the second person, then the third until everyone has fired a round. You get five rounds per station, before rotating to the next. That way the angles are a bit different. Chrissy went first, then me. Since I was a total newbie, Chrissy stood by me for the first round, giving me some tips. I hit 12 clays out of a possible 25. She shot again, and in my second round I did worse, hit 11. But, I’ve been told by experts (i.e., Jordan and Chrissy) that it is quite respectable for having never shot a gun before. So maybe there is hope for me in the zombie apocalypse.

I swung by Paul’s house to help out a bit in preparing for the following day’s festivities (more on that later), then headed up towards Oakland for Brock and Heather’s housewarming party. Yes — the one and only Brock Winstead. My Google Reader community knows what I mean, hehe. They moved into their very own house in Emeryville (border of Oakland and Berkeley), and like me moving to Noe Valley they also have friends in the neighborhood.

The house was just lovely — with respect to decorating they have done ten times more in 1 month than I have done in 1 year. It looked like they’d been living there for years. So tastefully done! Heather baked some terrific bread (the no-knead recipe!), served with dippables like a white bean puree and chive butter. An eye opening pro-tip that I’ve been allowed to steal: sliced oranges slightly dusted with cinnamon. Like whoa. Seriously do it. Brock was mixing drinks for people, and there was merry all around.

Some familiar faces were there — Tim and John — but it was fun to talk to many of Brock and Heather’s classmates and colleagues from their time in grad school at Berkeley (where they studied city planning) and the nonprofit world.

And, in homage to our heavily interwebs centric relationship, I give you a picture of a cat.

Last Friday I was treated to an amazing experience, courtesy of Lost in the Trees, the indie/folk/baroque band from Chapel Hill, NC that released their first full album last year and received lots of blog love from NPR Music. They were playing a show at the Hemlock Tavern, a small venue behind a bar on Polk St. This was the band that Dustin discovered at a concert last year, and it quickly grew esteem amongst some of our friends. This time around, we brought numbers: Dustin, Sean, Joey, Christophe, Chris, Patrick, Rishabh, Chrissy, and me.

We ended up splitting up for dinner after work on Friday; Chrissy and I grabbed a burrito in the Mission before heading north to Polk St. We had about half an hour to kill before the show, and just as we got our drinks I ran into Ari Picker, the lead singer and artist behind the band. Wished him luck for the show, told him how we brought a whole lot of folks, and that I was from Raleigh.

The show’s opener was a singer-songwriter named Sean Rowe. His songs were quite good — nice percussive notes on the body of the guitar, and some songs in particular showed great guitar work. His voice reminded me a lot of Tom Berninger from The National, but Joey said it also reminded him of the Pixies.

Lost in the Trees played a set that drew from their album All Alone in an Empty House and their recent EP, Time Taunts Me. Somehow, they all fit on the small stage — guitar, drums, two cellists, a violinists, a french horn / accordion player, and an electric guitar / tuba / xylophone player. The venue is quite intimate, maybe only 80 to 100 people in a long, narrow room.

One thing that will strike you about their music is how much emotion there is. Many songs deal with sorrow, yearning, longing, and loss. Ari wears this emotion on his sleeve, at one point resting on knees with his eyes closed while the strings carried the melody forward.

The highlight of the night came at the end. The band was battling sound troubles throughout the set — monitor levels not high enough, reverb through the mics, etc. After hinting at it during the show, for the encore Ari stepped off the stage and headed to the center of the small room. The rest of the band followed, and we all made space for them and their instruments. There, in the darkness save for the backlight from a few phones, we were treated to an acoustic set right amongst us. It was amazing.

I could only muster this photo from my phone, but it was really dark in there. The guy in front me held up the xylophone for one song. They called Sean Rowe to join them for one of Sean’s songs that the band had been learning (never before played in public). And at the end, Ari led the crowd to do the backing vocals, telling us that we’re going to overpower the noise from the bar.

I was really pleased to hear that Chrissy, Rishabh, Patrick, and Chris all really enjoyed the show too, even though they hadn’t heard much (or none at all) of the band beforehand. It’s an interesting mix…folk, Americana, indie, with a heavy dose of baroque classical influence. We hung around afterward, and the band members came out to meet the crowd. Almost all of us ended up buying merch, and Ari signed out limited edition tour posters. This is what I love about seeing small, up and coming bands in venues like this.

Definitely looking forward to their next album and their next visit to San Francisco. Triangle folks — Lost in the Trees will be playing at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro on Friday, May 13th!

This is happening. I’ve been running more and more lately as a way of getting into better shape, and so far I’ve been able to do a ~5 mile run at about a 9:15min/mi pace. When I spoke to my friend Win about running — he really got into it after graduating from undergrad — he said I should sign up for a race and use that as a motivator. So here I am, kicking around an idea for an ambitious goal when Mary mentions the Big Sur Half Marathon, which takes place on November 20th. Whoa. That sounds just crazy enough to be doable. And what a venue!

credit bigsurhalfmarathon.org

So this is happening. And what’s ever better is that my close friends Win and Greg are gonna come out west to join me for it. They said they’d do it too if I signed up, and peer pressure is a powerful thing. Mary and Matt too! :)

So mark your calendars and lace up your shoes. It’s on!

Last weekend gave us Bay Area residents some nice weather up in the City, and we made the most of it. On Saturday, Nishu invited me to come along to a rooftop barbecue of some friends of hers, Christine and Lloyd. Christine was an intern with Nishu at Apple and is also fulltime there now, and Lloyd was been engaged in some terrific social enterprise work, especially down in Argentina where he lived for five years. And throwing a proper barbecue is something one learns how to do quite well after living in Argentina for five years.

The apartment, right on the border of Noe Valley and the Mission, was bright and airy, and the rooftop deck lent panoramic views of the entire City. And there was a hottub!

A really intriguing crowd — several Stanford MBA students who graduated in 2009 as well, a handful of other Apple folks, nonprofit and education policy people. It was nice to exercise a different part of my brain!

I learned from Lloyd an interesting new trick for the grill — cut a bellpepper in half so it makes a little cup, roast it on low heat for a bit to get it going, then crack an egg in it. The egg will poach right there as the pepper roasts. I’d rub the pepper in some flavored oil, then add some herbs and cheese (shredded gruyere perhaps?) to the egg before serving.

On Sunday morning, Patrick and I went for a run through Golden Gate Park, this time adding to the distance by running all the way to the ocean and then up the whole west edge of the park before cutting back in towards the middle. We did a solid 4.5mi run. This, of course, was to earn our treat for the rest of the day — a leisurely barbecuing, grilling, and brewing beer at Sean, Joey, Dino, and Christophe’s house (that’s a mouthful to say, so it’ll be ’4404x24th’ hereafter. hrm, that isn’t any better).

Sean’s table arrived a couple of days earlier, a long custom one made of reclaimed lumber with steel supports. The nicest part was that he got benches instead of chairs, so it’s cozy and very welcoming for large groups. Their apartment is filling out — got some living room furniture, deck furniture, and of course the grill.

Sean was brewing a kolsch style beer this afternoon; his friend James — who has been brewing his own beer for a long time — brought over a large pot for the boil. The two of them and Kyle (worked with Sean as an intern in iPod new tech, at Apple currently too) minded the various brewing steps throughout the afternoon.

At the end of the day, they had ready to cellar for a few weeks; the gravity was a bit high for a kolsch apparently but all signs so far are pointing to a stellar brew. I was enjoying one of their home brews, which was a Belgian-style dubbel (?), not really show. The beercap had a pitchfork on it. Sean and Joey also had a really nice imperial extra stout too.

There was plenty of food, all homemade. Dino had fajitas going, Patrick and I brought a greek salad, Christophe with fresh asparagus and French-style mayonnaise and mustard dipping sauce, Kyle and Krista with authentic Texas-style queso con carne, Chad with a great guacamole and sweet potato fries, Rishabh with paneer tikka skewers, Gregg with eastern Carolina style slaw, James with bacon mac ‘n’ cheese. I’m probably forgetting a few people too.

And of course, lots and lots of meat.

At the end Chrissy unveiled her homemade, unbelievably delicious, fruit/cake bars topped with sliced almonds.

More photos here. A huge tip of the hat to Sean, Christophe, Dino, and Joey for hosting such a great event. A slow-paced, relaxing afternoon with plenty of great food, great beer, great people, and great conversations. Can’t ask for much more than that.

This past Saturday night, I saw my first show of the San Francisco Symphony at the beautiful Davies Auditorium, on Van Ness right in front of City Hall. I went with Patrick, who is certainly making the most of his time out here in the Bay Area before returning to Raleigh to finish school, and Chrissy. It was a chance for us to dress up, which was nice too. A big hat tip goes to Rishabh, who told us about a ticket deal the day before during lunch. We met for dinner at Max’s a few blocks from the theater.

First up was a performance of Henri Dutilleux’s cello concerto Tout un monde lointain, a piece which often had the the featured guest cello soloist pitted against the rest of the audience. It felt modern and a little abstract to me, but it was nice to see the cellist furiously play a riff, then to see all the instruments of the orchestra rise up in the ready position and fire back a response.

The second piece was more recognizable to our amateur classical enthusiast ears: Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. Patrick played the bassoon in band and there is a famous bassoon solo part of the piece, especially in the famous 4th movement of March to the Scaffold. Chrissy has been playing the flute for many many years all the way through college and was very competitive — so good, in fact, that if it wasn’t for engineering she would have gone to music school instead.

The show was really great — I really must come to the symphony more. The night was still young when we left, so we headed to Range, a highly acclaimed cocktail bar in the Mission, and talked the night away.

Last Thursday I did a concert doubleheader — Freelance Whales @ the Great American Music Hall then Delorean @ Slim’s. A few months back I saw the Freelance Whales show pop up and bought tickets for it — I’d miss them twice before in San Francisco. Very soon after, I see a Delorean show appear….on the very same night. Delorean in concert is so incredibly fun, how could I pass that up? The Freewhales Whales were going on as the second of three acts, and their show was starting an hour earlier than the Delorean show, in which they were headlining. So technically, there would be enough time to make it to Slim’s (~15 minutes away) after Freelance Whales finished their set and before Delorean took the stage. I punched my ticket.

I wasn’t the only crazy one, for John, Troy, and Joey jumped in on the idea too. Steve wanted to make it also, but he was stuck out of town on business. Chrissy joined in for Freelance Whales, but not Delorean (she saw them last fall with me and Jared). We grabbed dinner at a Thai restaurant around the corner from the GAMH, and timed our entrance perfectly.

photo by Human Fiction

photo by Natalye

I was impressed — they have a really tight live show. Their album Weathervanes can be pretty mellow at times, but they gave new life to the songs on-stage, adding new dimensions and textures to them. It would have been boring if they just replicated the sound off their album, but they didn’t disappoint. The whole band jumps in for the harmonies, and are switching instruments around throughout the show. The guitarist in particular was intriguing — he played electric guitar, bass, guitar with e-bow, electric mandolin, and xylophone.

After the set we bought some merch (Joey pulled a wildcard and bought a Foals t-shirt, even though we weren’t sticking around to hear them and I don’t think he’s even heard them either). We bid adieu to Chrissy and bounced. John had his car nearby, so we piled in; parking was pretty easy a couple blocks away. About 50 yards from the car, I freeze and ask John to unlock it before sprinting back to drop my jacket off in the car. I had been to Slim’s before to see Two Door Cinema Club (who, in fact, were also playing a show in San Francisco this night). Wasn’t too crowded, and I spotted Jess — slipped my mind she was coming. She had a few people along too, like Kimmie (sp?) who works with her at Arup. Delorean took the stage at eleven and we got up real close.

I had told our group in particular to watch the keyboardist Unai Lazcano — he’s one of my favorite live performers because he gets so into the moment — boogying around, bobbing his head eyes half closed, feet constantly moving, rocking the keyboard dangerously until it almost tips over. You can’t help but grin when you see it. The show was great, the band playing through several songs continuously before slowing it down and building the rhythm up again. Three songs in, Troy leans over and says “I suddenly realize why you had this panicked look on your face before sprinting back to the car to leave your jacket” — it gets really warm when everyone is dancing around.

What a fun night!

Last Wednesday I saw Lord Huron again at Bottom of the Hill. This was the band that John and I discovered when they opened for Tennis a couple of months back, and to support them I wanted to go back and see them even if it was unlikely they’d have new material ready.

Bottom of the Hill has a penchant for cranking up the volume, even for bands that don’t really need it. This time I was sporting a pair of Etymotic ER-20 earplugs, which are designed to provide sound isolation while still preserving the clarity and full range of music. Joseph highly recommended these and wears them to all the shows he goes to. Sure enough, I saw the person next to me holding their ears two songs in.

The show was good, they asked the crowd to indulge them for a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska that they had been playing the night before. After the show I headed to the back merch table where I met Ben, the band’s front man. He actually recognized me from last time, which was kinda cool. They had run out of EPs on CD, but I did pick up a 12″ vinyl record of the Mighty EP for Joseph — he handed me some money earlier that day to spend at the show to support the artist too.

They’ll be back in San Francisco for the Outside Lands music festival in August.

Last Monday I got to meet Dr. Randy Woodson, the recently (as of a year ago) selected chancellor of my alma mater, NC State. My friend Brent tipped Amit and I off to a Bay Area visit by the chancellor a few months back, and then both Brent and Amit did a terrific job at driving up interest. We had a pretty good turnout at the San Francisco event, held at the swanky One Market Place restaurant on the Embarcadero in front of the Ferry Building. The crowd skewed heavily towards the younger alums, with many of the folks I recognized still in grad school at Stanford and Cal. It was really nice to see some of the folks I haven’t seen in a while, like Tyler and Matthew, Paul Mobley, Tim Goodson, and Jason. Paul and Yuri – who I met at a Bay Area Wolfpack football gathering last season, were also there and they are a lot of fun. Mary had come up from the peninsula as well to join Matt , who is working up in the City now. Melih swung by home and put on his NC State before joining the crowd, heh.

I thought Dr. Woodson was pretty cool — very personable and had an ease about him while interacting with students that I never felt J.LO had. He worked the room, talking to everyone. We discussed the coaching search, the new basketball coach Gottfried, and how the construction on campus was progressing with Tally, the Atrium, the new Hunt Library, etc. I asked him what his top three goals were after he got to NC State from Purdue and assessed the situation. He said: a) grow the endowment, which is much lower than that of other comparable schools, b) slow enrollment and c) improve the state of NC State athletics. He also said again when he addressed the whole group assembled there, that while we need to work hard and getting the school’s name known, he needs to work at improving the value of our degree. Woodson knows the impact of a strong and winning athletic program. He likes our Athletic Director’s tenacity.

I left the event feeling pretty optimistic. It was a lot of fun to catch up with people too. I hadn’t eaten much before arriving and so Melih and I walked and talked our way to Union Square and found a late night yet surprisingly good Thai place. I love the conservations I have with him.

The morning after the Stanford spring game, I joined another one of Patrick’s culinary outings for brunch, this time to Ti Couz, a lovely French cafe at 16th and Mission, across from the Monk’s Kettle. Patrick had heard this place was rumored to close down, and wanted to enjoy its food at least one last time. Ti Couz specializes in authentic Breton styled crepes, both sweet and savory. They also have three special ciders on tap.

The group was large, with a few familiar faces with Tim, his girlfriend Cat, and our friend Catherine. It was great to see Catherine on the mend (her foot cast, which she named Guillermo, is coming off soon). We also found a time next weekend to finally make good on my promise to show her how to edit videos with Final Cut.

The food was incredible. Patrick and Catherine raved about the mushroom sauce, so I got a savory crepe with chanterelles and mozzarella cheese, made with buckwheat and salted butter. It was the best crepe I’ve had in years, certainly in America.

Our ringleader Patrick, with the longest bill he’s ever seen at one of his gatherings:

Afterward some of us went to the Monk’s Kettle for an afternoon drink, where I had an unusual Belgian style witbier made with some of the juice from a pinot noir — they called it a Red & White. Strolled around downtown a bit, tried to do some shopping but didn’t like anything. For dinner I ended up walking a few blocks from the house a Thai restaurant in Noe. Still looking for a solid option in the neighborhood.

Last Saturday afternoon, I headed up to Kezar Stadium on the southeast corner of Golden Gate Park for the annual Cardinal and White spring scrimmage game of the Stanford football team. No idea why they play in San Francisco instead of Palo Alto, but hey — a free game in the park on a nice sunny day — no complaints here.

The infamous and lovable Stanford band was even out in full force:

I was joined by Nader (who, despite coming up on 101 from Sunnyvale, somehow ended up clear on the other side of the park…) and John, who brought along his friends Alice and Melissa.

The game was actually one of the five spring scrimmages being televised on ESPN3, but it was amusing how the QBs were pretty much offlimits (a two-hand touch got you a ‘sack’). Yet the recap boasted how smooth QB Andrew Luck was in the scrimmage. Got some shots of the game, but Nader brought out his super zoom lens and binoculars. The field binoculars were a real surprise to me — its depth of field or something literally made the game look like it was in HD when you look through it. Hard to explain…

After the game we walked around the park a bit, enjoying the day. Stopped at Cha Cha Cha for some sangria and tapas too, where one of Nader’s former colleagues Mark joined us.

After making our way back to the stadiu , John gave Alice and Melissa a ride back; Nader, Mark and I walked through the park before hitting up an Irish pub right of Lincoln. As you can probably tell, it was a really lazy, relaxing day.

Typhoon is a band I learned about from scanning the headlines over at Paste Magazine’s website. Their description of this band’s latest EP warranted further exploration:

Music critics throw around adjectives like “orchestral” and “expansive” all the time these days. But here’s a band that actually deserves such labels. Portland’s Typhoon is an indie rock geek’s dream: a dynamic 12-piece with a seemingly unending reservoir of energy, emotive vocals, arpeggiated guitars, horns, multiple drum kits, strings—there are so many sonic details crammed into the five tracks on A New Kind of House, the band’s second official release, that you might need two pairs of headphones to properly connect the dots.

I was pretty impressed — several longform and thoughtful songwriting, varied song structures, and nice instrumentation. They’ll be playing at a few festivals in the coming months, and hopefully do a wider tour as well.

Here are two songs that I especially liked:

Typhoon – Summer Home from A New Kind of House

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Typhoon – Belly of the Cavern from Hunger and Thirst

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Lyrics to Belly of the Cavern:

I was lost out in the mountains
and I had run out of provisions
I had one drop left in my deer-skin
and I had come to my last decision.

Should I lie down
or should I be laid down
I had set out in the first place
from what I gathered from rumored hearsay
I heard of treasure in a high cave
on the northern slopes of the coast range
so I climbed up
but I didn’t know how to climb down

I wandered through the foliage
I came across my own tracks
and i became discouraged
until at long last i found a cavern
I crawled inside and I lit my lantern
and it was all there
just like they told me it would be there

I was lost out in the mountains
I had no water nor food to eat
so i drank the soil from a golden chalice
I gritted precious stones between my teeth
and I regretted my lonesome palace
should have never listened to others tales
all I had left was a priceless ballast
to hold me down from the howling gales.

In my mouth there burned a fire
I was dying of a long long draught
but then a voice whistled across the mouth of my cavern
and it said to me it said that without a doubt
you will settle by the water before this is over.

All my life I’ve spent wasting time,
wasting my time just to forget again
but I don’t mind
I’ll take my medicine and I will be fine.

Two weekends ago I organized a group hike to the Sunol Regional Wilderness, located in the East bay nestled between San Jose and Livermore. In contrast to the previous week’s hike to Cataract Falls, this was more wide open country hiking. I hadn’t really explored this part of the Bay before.

The turnout was nice and diverse, in terms of networks, not race! Hehe. The cast of characters: Tim [Havoc/NC State/Park]; Sean, Rishabh, Dustin, Nishu [Apple]; and Mike, Karla, our friend Cynthia, and Cynthia’s labmate Andrew. Patrick was going to join us too because the lack of cell phone reception at the park totally borked our plans to sync up and we ended up missing each other. Sorry Patrick! My car from Noe gathered at the charming Noe Valley Bakery for a snack, picked up picnic stuff at the grocery store, then headed out. We started hiking in the late morning, and it was a beautiful day.

This was hill country, and our destination was the rocky outcropping on top of the hill. Meadows, cows in the distance, etc.

While we were at the top, Dustin spotted a deer blitzing across the meadow incredibly fast. Then it started to actually scale the really steep hill/cliff towards us! I can’t describe just how fast this deer was booking it. We made our way along the ridge, stopping for a picnic halfway through. The setting reminded me a bit of the music video for M83′s We Own the Sky. The thermals were supposed to be good for raptors, and I did manage to capture one as it flew by.

Finally we snaked our way down the hill and followed a thinly shaded creek back to the beginning of the trailhead. Overall a relaxing, sunny, hike.