Most excellent bike ride

Today I went on a big bike ride in Marin County with my coworker Mike.  It was an amazing ride and took about 4.5-5 hours.  We did a ride called the Alpine Dam Loop.  We rode through San Anselmo, Fairfax, then through the redwoods to Alpine Dam, up a sizable mountain, along the ridge that overlooks the Pacific Ocean on one side and Marin County on the other side.  I'll let the photos paint the picture.

Song for a Sunday Afternoon

On a beautiful, sunny Sunday in SF, a good song to chill out to...

Neighborhood Tour

Last Sunday was a beautiful day, so I decided to walk around my neighborhood (and apartment) and take some video.  My friend Rhianon took some video of her life in Bentonville, Arkansas, and I was inspired to do the same thing.

My apologies that the video is shaky at the beginning, but it gets better.  It's a simple video... not much but my walking around my neighborhood and narrating a bit.

Video 1: My apartment, Duboce park, and Market Street

Video 2: Haight street, and the first part of Alamo Square

Video 3: The rest of Alamo Square

All three videos combined are about 20 minutes.  Enjoy!

P.S. Realization of the day: I am addicted to the Downton Abbey TV series on PBS (much like I am addicted to Game of Thrones on HBO).

Disconnecting experiment, part 1

To put the principle of disconnecting (that I talked about in a previous blog post) into action, at 11am this morning I turned off my cell phone, packed some reading materials (Wall Street Journal, a book on education reform, and the Atlantic Monthly), and rode my bike through Golden Gate park to Ocean Beach.  I could have taken the N Judah light rail (called the "Muni" in San Francisco) straight to the same spot, but decided that a bike would give me extra mobility once down there.  A recent edition of Sunset Magazine (a magazine about things to do west of the Rockies) had a 2-page article on the coffee houses and restaurants in Ocean Beach, so I put the article in my pocket and headed down to the ocean.

(It was in the high 60's today, sunny, and with a fairly warm breeze.  This made it a given that I would spend a good portion of the day outside).

So, I read the WSJ for the first hour while sitting on a bench near the beach, then rode a few blocks over to the heart of Ocean Beach.  The neighborhood feels like a surf community - much quieter than places like Huntington Beach or Santa Monica, and probably more like Santa Cruz (these are my only points of comparison re: beach towns).  There were a few choice coffee shops/brunch places.  I walked into a shop called the General Store (I think) - a low-key, design-esque shop with some coffee table books, a few t-shirts, etc.  Anyway, the most well known restaurant had an hour-long wait, so I biked a few more blocks to a bakery and had a curried chicken salad sandwich, with a biscuit as the bread.  I continued reading there while getting some sun, went back to the beach for a few minutes, then took the 71 bus straight back to Lower Haight (didn't feel like riding and wanted to keep reading my book on the bus).  

I lasted about five hours without my iPhone, and it felt... good.  During my experiment, the thought that my cell phone was turned off popped into my mind every once in a while, but I brushed the temptation aside.  I'm glad I did.

Ocean Beach, looking north

Back yard of the "General Store"

This is what many of the houses in Ocean Beach/Outer Sunset look like

Where I ate lunch: the Devil's Teeth Baking Company

Sitting on a sand dune before heading home

When San Francisco is Wrong

I woke up this morning, read a book in bed, made breakfast, and ate while listening to some bluegrass (I usually listen to "back porch music" on Sunday evenings - tradition that I've created for myself in the past few years).  Sounds like a pretty good Sunday morning, right?  Well, it's been nice, but it's not the same.

Sunday mornings outside of the South just don't seem right.  I want to listen to bluegrass in the region where bluegrass is authentic.  I want to sit down with the Birmingham News and read about all our corrupt politicians.  I want to sit at the kitchen table and just... be there and stare out the window at the bird feeder and our cat lurking nearby.  I don't really want to go to church, but I want the option.  I want to go to a diner and be surrounded by old people.  On Sunday mornings I also want space - parks, roads, and back yards that the South provides in abundance.

Of course, I could recreate most of these things in California.  However, the memories of these things are too tightly linked to the feeling of being home - whether in Birmingham, Memphis, Newbern, or Durham.  The closest Cracker Barrel is in Arizona.  Ahem - this aint right.

Good thing about Durham

Good Durham, Good Durham. Last Friday I chilled at a sweet apartment owned my a married couple... friends of mine. They pay $1300 for two big rooms, sweet dining room and kitchen, and a killer backyard. Highly decorated in a quiet neighborhood. Contrast to

- San Francisco paying 900 a month (rent controlled) my own room, kitchen, sweet back porch, kickass location. Good value.

- DC in Kalorama. $1450/month for a 575ft^2 studio in a really nice building in Kalorama. Phenomenal neighborhood, but probably too much for what I need.

Tonight - went to a free show at the Duke Coffee House on East Campus. Very college-y. Very lively rock and roll with some college kids and blacklights. Loved it. Reminded me of crappy bars in Memphis with really good music. Also reminded me of the weather - nighttime in the South is sublime with the window down and the humidity gone. Just quiet outside, driving my trusty old acura from the coffee house back home to station nine. This feels right, and I could do this forever. This feels like home? Hold on, now. Maybe it does. Slow down and come back home to Durham? Yikes don't know what to think about that. It feels good, though, and I think I could make this work. Less stress. Community. The same people. Yeah.

Great weekend

This weekend was one of the few when I had no plans. It turns out that - without plans - I did more things this weekend than just about any other.

Friday night I watched the totally awesome movie Hot Tub Time Machine (this follows last week's viewing of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle). Excellent, stupid flick.

On Saturday I went with my friend Geetha to the de young museum and the exhibit "Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musee D'Orsay." Turns out that the event was sold out, but a couple women walked up to us and offered to sell us their tickets since their husbands couldn't find parking. Too bad. We took the tickets.

The D'Orsay is being renovated, so they're shipping all of their masterpieces to museums around the world. I've always been partial to the impressionists (there is an impressionist wing at the National Gallery of Art in DC - one of my favorites), but didn't really understand the context leading up to the impressionist movement. This exhibit brought it together for me. I bought a print of Gustave Caillebotte's The Floor Scrapers.

Afterward, we tried to check off a few restaurants on my friend Meryl's "must eats in SF" list (Meryl was a gourmet chef in SF before coming to Duke). We tackled the Arizmendi Bakery Cooperative (decent pizza and coffee cake) and Chinatown's Fortune Cookie Factory (a soup nazi-like experience where you have to pay 50 cents to take a picture and they start bugging you to buy something if you stand idle for more than 30 seconds). You can see them making the cookies right in front of you. A machine churns out a pliable cookie dough, which a woman grabs along with the fortune, and she molds the fortune cookie into its typical shape in about 1 second using some tool. I got four fortunes in one cookie - the process isn't perfect.

I had planned on going to my friend Paul's birthday party and was about to head back to my apartment, but we decided to keep up the culinary expedition. I had heard about a place called Pirate Cat Radio Cafe, where they serve a maple bacon fat latte. We walked in and didn't really know what to think - there was a 3-piece band (shaggy homeless looking dudes) tuning up. I walked up to the bar not really knowing what to ask and then blurted "we're here for the bacon fat coffee." Given that there were only 2 available seats in the 6-seat cafe (the others being taken by the band), we heeded the barista's request to "take a seat anywhere you like."

It turns out that maple bacon fat lattes are delicious, and actually have little bits of bacon fat floating on top. The "cafe" doubles as a pirate radio station, complete with a recording booth. The band started playing, which was being recorded for a podcast (if you download the podcast I'm sure you can catch the cappuccino machine in the background). We sat there for the Hypnotist Collectors' 6-song set. While leaving, the lead singer - our boy Augustus, gave us an EP and invited us to their show at the Crescent Hotel later that night. "We'll see you there."

... note the fortune.

After some tacos at Taqueria El Buen Sabor and seeing a mock protest (a guy turning 40 gathered his friends, created a bunch of posters, and led the "protesters" with a megaphone... going from bar to bar), we joined up with my Fuqua friend Jim Wilson and took a cab down to the show. It was like we walked into an alternate hipster dimension. Half the crowd was wearing fedoras (which are, if you don't know, the totally cool new trend). The place reminded me of Eighteenth Street Lounge in DC, but more secret. It's on the second floor (bar area and separate room for the band) of a very unassuming boutique hotel. I kind of felt like George (of Seinfeld) when he stumbles on the supermodel secret hideaway. It felt like another dimension of coolness. The cool thing is that it wasn't pretentious at all - just a bunch of people looking good and drinking ironic PBR.

Digression: fedoras. The NY Times's man on the street did this short video on the trend. I'm on a mission to find my own, though I'm pretty sure I'll look ridiculous.

My friend Gerardo showed up (not the Rico Suave Gerardo), and we headed to the Make Out Room back in the Mission to meet up with Paul, Jason, Stacey, Eric - my Education Pioneers crew. It was really cool to see all of my different circles come together - Geetha, Jim (Fuqua), Gerardo (random friend), and Ed Pioneers. Very fun time. Night.

On Sunday we went on a free walking tour of the Castro neighborhood, which is the famous gay neighborhood in SF (think Harvey Milk). Interesting stuff, and I learned the difference between Victorian and Edwardian, and Queen Anne architecture.

Afterward we walked around the Mission, checked out some street murals, and walked into a Levi's Workshop. Possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen. Basically you can use screen printing, type setting, and other "design" tools... for free. They have artists in residence giving instruction and have events just about every night. It's a DIY/hipster paradise. I signed up to come back next Sunday and make my own type-set posters.

almost done....

Then went to some vintage clothing shops and stocked up on polyester - for future Halloweens. Then came back home, did laundry, and had an amazing takout meal from Dosa (south Indian food... like an Indian crepe).

Great weekend indeed.

I am a singer songwriter

Loyal readers of bookishdave, the past three weeks have been action packed, and I have many thoughts to share (mostly on what it's like to work in the central office at SFUSD) in the next few blog posts. My hiatus from blogging coincided with many good times in San Francisco, which I'll tell you about soon. For now...

My roommate in SF is learning to play the guitar. Last week I picked up his guitar and started playing the few songs I remembered (standards from Ben Harper, Allman Brothers, and a little Yellow Ledbetter), and it felt right. I hadn't touched a guitar in about two years until last week. Note to self: rock out more.

Balsamic vinegar

I went to a dinner tonight where we had to make a dish that had balsamic vinegar in it. I made a cabbage something. Observations from the night...

Differences between SF and DC and other cities. Y0u can identify the cities by what their excesses are. NYC=money. DC=power. SF=creativity. I buy this categorization, but only to a certain extent. There are all types in all places. I did have a couple conversations tonight about what types of people fit where, and what's normal to those people. I've never really considered what effect my background (growing up in the deep south) had on me, but I'm sure it's had some effect on my perceptions of difference, and my judgments. For example, tonight I took notice of everyone's visual appearance. In Alabama, these people would not fit in (or at the very least be mainstream). Here, the weirdos and iconoclasts are more of the norm. I admit, I'm partially in awe of this diversity, but part of me thinks "are these my people?" It is cool, though, to consider the diversity of tonight's crowd: totally euro french guy with long hair who is starting an online platform for anyone who wants to create a virtual school, info database guy who I had a "conversation" with for an hour and literally didn't say a word, the host for the night who, after dinner, gave a dramatic reading of a William Wordsworth poem for everyone from his iPhone while standing on a chair, the blogger, the biochem PhD student, the Norwegian guy, etc. Then me. As interesting as these people are, I'll put my story up against any of theirs.

Other observations:

• Because I live in SF, apparently I need to get a quarter-length peacoat thing. It's what everyone wears.
• Everyone here seems to be "starting something." Its really remarkable how these people all have taken their (seemingly) original ideas and "started something." I can't tell how much of this is BS, though.
• Meeting people at a party, and then saying goodbye forever is an awkward position to be in. Tonight at the dinner, I liked a few of the people I talked to and could easily
• The database guy asked everyone who he met, "what are you passionate about?" But he asked it in a non-pretentious way. I liked that.

My fellowship thus far

I'm four days into my fellowship with Education Pioneers, and it's going well so far. On Monday we had our first of six workshops, where all 45 of the Bay Area fellows get together for a day full of training on education issues, guest speakers, and networking with each other.

By and large, my cohort is talented, driven, and are genuinely nice and interesting people. The cohort is intentionally diverse, and I can already tell that I'm going to learn a lot from those with education and policy backgrounds. The most obvious characteristic that distinguishes this group is a sense of mission. I applied to Ed Pioneers because I wanted to be part of something greater than myself. I had a notion that work would be more intrinsically satisfying if I believed in the merit of results. At CEB, I admittedly became disconnected from the mission of the organization. I worked hard because of high personal standards and because I respected my colleagues and didn't want to let them down, but I did not feel driven by a bigger purpose. At SFUSD this summer, I hope I will feel connected to a bigger purpose.

What I did not anticipate happening this summer was that the people around me (i.e. my cohort and coworkers) would be as supportive as they have been thus far. What I mean by that is that we're all working toward the same mission. Especially in business school, it is sometimes difficult to buck the trend and search for nonprofit/do-gooder internships. At Fuqua, I'm very lucky to be around people who at the very least respect my motivations to go into public service. This summer I believe I'll feel even more supported - to have a cohort of 45 people who "get it" is massively important, and makes it "ok" that I've chosen this path.

Side story: I remember talking to a University of Chicago (business school) alumni who had been in the Peace Corps. In the first week of school, he told one of his classmates of his Peace Corps past, and the classmate deadpanned, "why would you do Peace Corps? What's your return on investment?" Hard as it is to believe this story, I heard the exact same thing happened to another student considering Chicago. Needless to say, I'm very glad I didn't end up at Chicago.

Another side story: I was talking with a Harvard Business School graduate who works in the social sector, and he said that after graduation a lot of his HBS "friends" showed their true colors. Essentially, some became assholes. During school they played the game of being nice, but after graduation their true colors sprang forth. I believe that HBS is a bit more well-rounded that U of Chicago, but again - I'm glad I don't go there. Dealing with those types simply isn't worth my time.

I've been working at the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) for three days now. I ride by bike to work (about 8 minutes). It must be said - the weather here makes a difference. Basically I don't sweat when I walk outside. During lunch today I walked over to a square in front of City Hall (2 blocks away), where they had set up a jumbotron for the Mexico-France game. I stood out there for about an hour and didn't get hot at all. Perfect weather.

Anyway, my goal for the next week is to get up to speed. My title is "Performance Management Analyst" and my project is around using metrics/data to evaluate school performance. The goal is to give the Assistant Superintendents (who manage the principals) a dashboard of metrics that help them allocate resources to schools that need it. For example, if a school is lagging in their math scores, an Assistant Superintendent needs to (a) know that it's happening, and (b) react by (perhaps) sending a math coach to that school to help out. The bigger theory is called "inquiry based learning", where data informs plans, which informs actions, which informs more data. The process is iterative and keeps going and going. SFUSD is only beginning to use data to make decisions (vs. principals making gut decisions), but there's a decent amount of momentum to start building a data culture in the district.

The office I'm in is the SFUSD central office. 3-story building. Quiet. Probably about 100 people that work here. My boss has cautioned me to not expect things to happen too quickly here. At CEB, I was used to moving very quickly on projects, but things simply don't happen at that pace here. SFUSD is a very consensus-driven culture, and there is an unspoken rule that to make a change, you need to get everyone's buy-in. The other factor (as far as I can tell in my 3 days here) is that resources are very limited. For example, my project would not get done unless I was here to do it - nobody else has the bandwidth. The work-life balance is good here. People work hard, but they also leave the office before 6 (mostly). Everyone is kind - it feels like a family around here.

Love this place

Here's a rundown of my first few days in San Francisco.

Wednesday - My street (Valencia) is filled with coffee shops and bookstores, so I walked about 30 seconds from my apartment to get some breakfast at a cafe. A girl came up to me and asked if I knew of a supermarket in the area, which of course I didn't. We started talking and it turns out that she's one of the other 45 Education Pioneers in SF this summer, and her roommate is also. We started talking about bikes, I noted that I was looking for one, and she said the guy who sublet his apartment to her left four bikes, and I could take my pick. Just like that, I had a bike and a few new friends.

Later that day I went to a year-end meeting/celebration for SFUSD and talked to my new boss and another Pioneer who I'll be working with. He's a public policy student at Berkeley. The year-end celebration was more of a pep talk to get the administrators ready for the next year. California has had deep education budget cuts, and I sensed that morale is suffering (though the tone in the crowd was defiant and optimistic).

Spent the evening walking around the neighborhood and working on some COLE stuff for school.

Thursday - Woke up early to go to a mandatory school visit at a Coliseum College Prep Academy in Oakland (part of the small schools movement). I got a ride from another Ed Pioneer who is getting her PhD in education policy at Berkeley - another friend made. At the visit, 15 other Ed Pioneers and I met with the principal and some students. The other Pioneers are mostly from the Bay Area (Berkeley, Stanford students). They're generally younger than I am, but that's because there's a lot of public policy and law students in the program. The business school students are my age. Overall, the breakdown is: 30% b-school students, 25% policy students, 25% education students, and 15% law students.

My thoughts at the school visit were mainly around "do I fit better being in schools/closer to students, or should I be in the central office? What feels right?" This is going to be one of the big things for me to figure out this summer. My gut tells me that being closer to the classroom is where I need to be, but perhaps there's a middle ground.

My friend Jessie from Fuqua came up from Santa Cruz to stay the weekend. We went to a Fuqua alumni happy hour downtown. There's about 20 Fuquans in my class who are in the Bay Area this summer.

Friday - Woke up early to go see the Mexico-South Africa game. If I walk four blocks toward 24th street, I'm basically in Mexico. I had scouted out a bar to watch the game at, but it was too crowded - couldn't even get in the door. So I walked around the corner (following the crowd noise) to another bar. Jessie and I then went to another bar to watch the France - Uruguay game.

After a nap, I bought a new bike (I'm a sucker for new gear, but I wanted a fast bike that I can take around the city), rode around the city a bit, then later that night went to meet a new friend at a bar in Bernal Heights.

Saturday - Again, woke up early to watch soccer. Jessie and I walked a block to the Phoenix bar (Irish pub). We didn't have trouble getting a seat 2.5 hours before gametime, but it filled up quickly. We met up with a few people there (another friend from Fuqua and a group of guys I know through a friend of a friend). Afterward we went to a rooftop bar/restaurant, chilled, and then I napped.

Interpretation

I say all of this to point out that my life in SF thus far has been very unstructured, impromptu, and loose. Honestly, this makes me a bit uncomfortable. For the past 9 months at school, I've been moving very fast - always checking items off the to-do list, always planning, always running, always trying to "fit things into my schedule." In fact, this is the way that I've been for the past 5-6 years (probably longer). The b-school experience has been the most intense, though. Surprisingly, by working so hard in school, I've probably learned more about myself than I have learned about accounting, marketing, etc. I've learned how to manage my time and how to control stress (to a degree). Most of all, I've been forced to think about what I want my life to be like. Do I always want to be running 100 miles an hour? What effect will this have on my relationships? On my happiness? The fact that it makes me uncomfortable to be unscheduled - is this what I want to be like?

I feel like I'm beginning to answer these questions - confidently - for myself. Ironically, business school (and having to make tradeoffs between my personal vs. work lives) is what did it.

First thoughts on SF

I stepped out of SFO airport into a crisp evening and thought "THIS is why I came out here." A 15-minute Super Shuttle ride, and I was at my home for the next 3 months. I'll be living with a guy who works from home - nice guy from the Bay Area. I walked in and the place smelled like a taqueria. I thought, "this can't be happening - it even smells like Mexico/my favorite food." Turns out it was just the microwavable burrito that Mark had for dinner.

I'm living in a neighborhood called The Mission, and it's obvious to me that this is where I belong. The Mission (or from what I can tell after walking a few blocks tonight) is kind of like Adams Morgan in that it has a cool cultural vibe - within a couple blocks of me are indie bookstores, bike shops, taquerias, dive bars, foodie bars... you get the idea. Then there's the Mexico part. I thought that walking down Columbia in Adams Morgan was like stepping into El Salvador (and it kind of is), but walking down the street in the Mission is even more like a foreign country (Mexico, to be exact).

I haven't been as excited about a neighborhood in a long time - everything about this place fits with me. Here's what I had for dinner tonight. Many more tacos to come.