Suisun Valley

I've been absent lately, thanks to a couple of things - first it was work, then it might have just been laziness, and last week it was a quite tragic event in my favorite roommate's life that called us both back to the midwest for a week. I also visited LA this weekend, cementing the idea that I can't ever live somewhere where I would need to own a car again, but that's scarcely the point.

A time before that, we traveled to the Suisun Valley to do a 20 mile bike loop and get my first exposure to wine country. A good friend with a wine blog asked me to guest write for her while she's on a cruise in Alaska, and this was my first idea. So, head on over to Michelle's blog to see my guest post for her, Visiting the Suisun Valley Wine Country. And I promise we'll all catch up soon.

Ha!

So, I'm involved in the 48 Hour Film Festival here this weekend... which means you, my dear readers, may have seen a super questionable title on this here blog sometime in the past 24 hours because we needed a blog window to shoot and the title needed to not be "New to the Bay". And then we ran to film another scene, which meant I totally forgot to change it back, and I just realized 14 hours later that I had done something really stupid. My apologies to any readers whose sensibilities might have been offended. :)

Also, this is a shameless plug to come see our film on June 15th at the Roxie. And while you're at it, come see all of them. They might be awful, but it might also be a lot of fun.

Love for Zipcar.

My mother asked me a few months ago what I wanted for my birthday. I'm not very good with "stuff" - I live and work in a studio apartment with another person, and we have very little furniture in it, so finding a place to keep new things is tricky. I also don't really need anything - I've lived here for nine months with the things I have now, and I can't really come up with a tangible thing that would make my life better or easier.

What I did know is that I wanted to go somewhere. I wanted to do something. While I like to preach about how great riding bikes is, and I go on and on about how fabulous the public transportation options are around here, it's not always easy to do the things I want to do. We don't keep food in the house because we can only transport what our shoulder bags can carry. (I know racks and panniers are an option, but I'm already on a 40 pound, 30 year old bike. There's only so much extra weight I'm into right now.) The Roommate has family up north that we don't see very often because the bus + bike combo to their place would literally take us three hours one way, which is not ideal for a Saturday day trip.

Perhaps the solution is obvious to the rest of you, but it took a little while to become obvious to me: I wanted a Zipcar membership.

Zipcar, for anyone not living in a major city, is a car sharing program. You get a membership, and it gives you access to cars at hundreds of locations for an hourly or day rate. Want to go to the grocery store but can't buy more than you can carry? Get a Zipcar for an hour. Day trips up to see the family? Cars start at $69 for the day. And while that's a little hefty for a rental car, it requires zero advance planning. I can get a car in fifteen minutes. And my closest Enterprise lot closes at 1:00 on Saturdays and isn't open on Sunday, so a Saturday day trip would actually be a two day rental.

Plus, Zipcar pays for your gas and insurance. I don't have my own car insurance - since I don't have my own car - so this is an extra charge that traditional rental car companies have to charge me. I'm also still under 25 for a few months, and Zipcar only requires you be 21+.

I've rented from them three times now, and every experience has been great. I've had to call them for various reasons - a check engine light was on, someone forgot their jacket in my car, etc. - and they're always quick to answer and very helpful. A phone call with the press of one button extends your reservation another 30 minutes, which is helpful for the hourly rentals when your trip hits an unexpected snag.

I pay for their yearly membership rather than a monthly thing, because I just don't drive very much. It's worth $50 a year to me to have the convenience of a car whenever I want it. Carless members of large cities, I can't speak highly enough about them. Check them out at Zipcar.com.

Left Coast Smoke.

I was born in Kansas City. For the first eighteen years of my life, my blood was part barbecue sauce. I just can't get enough of it. Sure, I'm partial to my hometown's style, but since I've left, I'll eat just about any of it. Memphis, Carolina, Dallas - bring it all on. Barbecue transplants can't be so picky.

I was sitting inside Shotwell's, my regularly mentioned favorite bar, when one of the bartenders, Dean, mentioned that he was thinking about starting a food cart. Barbecue, he says. Pulled pork sandwiches to start, with slaw and a couple of different sauces.

I became entirely too excited. Way, way too excited. The barbecue options - good, solid sandwiches with pulled, well-smoked meat, drenched in sauce - are few and far between in my neck of the woods. There are a couple of restaurants on Mission that call themselves barbecue, and I certainly mean no offense to their establishments, but they haven't been what I was looking for. I wanted barbecue, and Dean was offering me my chance.

I was worried that we wouldn't end up seeing the fruits of this labor any time soon, but sure enough, I got to be a taste tester the very next Sunday. I fell in love and couldn't get the sandwich out of my head.

They've got a sort of floating campground setup. A crockpot to keep previously-smoked meat warm, and then they heat it up for you, along with lightly toasting the buns, on their electric griddle. There's a tomato-based spicy sauce and a mustard-based milder sauce that's more Carolina style.

They're frequenting bars in the Mission on a fairly regular schedule. I know they're at Shotwell's on Mondays (6-8), and I've heard rumors of them showing up at The Knockout and 500 Club. Stop by and introduce yourself. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. A sandwich with a generous portion of meat, your choice of sauce and a side of slaw will run you $6. You can track them on twitter at @leftcoastsmoke. Good guys, good food. And my answer to beer+barbecue in the Mission.

Edited to add: I ran into Dean and John last night. They're at The Knockout on Thursdays.

Learning.

Despite living here for nine months as of today, there's still a lot of room to learn things about this city.

Such as, and I am not kidding you, I did not know Muni trains ran underground. There is a good reason for this, I suppose - I ride a bike, and I rarely take public transportation since the collar bone healed up many months ago. I take the BART if I have to meet someone at the airport. That's about it. Also, you can't take bikes on the Muni trains, which is the only other reason I ever consider public transportation - aiding me and the bike in getting somewhere difficult.

But this weekend, I was going to meet a friend who lives in the Sunset, in the part of the Sunset that isn't easy for me to get to. Possible, sure, but we were going to have a few drinks at her house and I really didn't feel like planning to do all that 1 a.m. riding in a neighborhood I'm unfamiliar with was a good idea. Lucky for me, the L runs right down Taraval, a block or two off of her street. So, sure enough, I walk up to Market & Church (a much more pleasant walk than I had imagined; riding a bike has completely distorted my sense of distance and time between places), and I look for the L... which I think should run above ground, because that's where I see the J run, and therefore that's where trains run.

That's not where trains run.

Enter me, looking like an idiot, finally figuring out where I needed to go. Nine months of living here, with a stop one mile from my house, I had no idea that Muni ran underground. I guess there's still time to learn new things.

Other things I've learned recently - my constant whining about wanting more diners (read as: places to give me toast and eggs) close by has been answered by deciding to walk to the Castro. We were seeing Up on Sunday afternoon, and I'll be damned if there weren't three diners on the same block. Toast, eggs, ham, potatoes. These are the things I want on my Sunday, every Sunday. A walk past Dolores Park, up 18th, to have breakfast and catch a matinee at a really beautiful theater.

And, an unrelated note - Left Coast Barbecue, a new traveling food truck very near and dear to my barbecue-covered heart, is now at Shotwell's every Monday night from 6-8, serving up sandwiches that will make you think about them for days to come. Stop by and support the guys - they make a very good product and they're very excited to share it with people.

Just kidding.

You remember that routine? The settling in? Life becoming normal and scheduled?

I was just playing. Apparently.

Thirteen days ago, on a Monday, I was talking about how much I loved my office to someone who came over for our weekly poker game. Tuesday, I sent him a photo of our sound stage so he could see how great my office was. Wednesday, I bought my $159 Caltrain pass for the next month. Friday morning, I walked in, finished the project I was working on, and quit my job. 

The reasons are not terribly important, but the situation came down to the fact that I wasn't doing what I was hired to do. I was being asked to do all sorts of new things, and I kind of liked them, but then I started missing deadlines and not turning out great work because, well, I didn't know what I was doing. My 90-day review, the big one where the probation period ends and the health insurance and paperwork begins, was in three days. It was time to get out.

And, I loved freelancing. I had such a perfect relationship with a couple of companies, and I ditched that lifestyle because I needed the security of a salaried job since my student loans were about to kick in. I didn't have the confidence I needed as a freelancer, so I gave into an opportunity I wasn't really sure I wanted in the first place. 

I texted - yes, texted - a former freelance employer from the train home. He asked if I could come back to work on Tuesday of the next week. Freelancing career, re-established. I'm very lucky to be able to do something like that. 

Lesson learned. Do not take jobs you're hesitant about. The universe has a way of fixing itself. So, uh, if you need a 3D/motion graphics freelancer, hit a girl up. I'm committed to the freelance lifestyle by now. I just missed it too much, and learned my lesson the hard way about getting rid of it. I've got a few things in the works, but it's slow going for now. One thing is sure, though: I haven't been this excited about the future since getting to San Francisco. Six months have made me smarter and better at what I do, and that's really exciting at this point in my career. 

Also, I don't have to get up at 7 to take a train to Mountain View anymore, and that greatly improves my quality of life. If I mention in the future that I want to work outside of the city again, someone should remind me of this post.

Settling in.

This blog has gotten a little neglected, and I've been trying to figure out the reasons. I have lots of things to talk about. I have ample time to write. But everything I consider writing feels like it belongs somewhere else, so my personal tumblr has been getting more use than this guy. 

The reason is simple: San Francisco, I think I finally get you.

In eight days, I will celebrate my six month anniversary of moving here. It's a little presumptuous to say that I think I belong here, or that I have seen everything the city has to offer - all of that is far from it. I still sort of feel like an outsider. I still have a hard time figuring out things to do when people come to visit me. But the things that once baffled me no longer do. I'm settling into a routine and I'll be damned if I'm not almost convinced that I might be here this time next year. 

I became a huge advocate for cycling. I continued to get healthy. I broke a collar bone. I found a favorite taqueria. I found a favorite bar. (Multiple candidates were considered on both fronts.) I know my neighborhood. I found my park. (It wasn't hard to find.) I got a job in Silicon Valley and learned how to bitch about the train. (This is a throwback from the NYC days, just slight adapted.) I learned how to circumvent the hills I couldn't climb and learned how to climb the ones that I originally couldn't.

San Francisco, you're all right. I get a little nervous when The Roommate starts talking about being here forever and ever, because I don't think I necessarily will be. You are a good fit for me right now, though, and I'm starting to get you figured out. 

My life is pretty routine. I wake up and jump on one of two bikes, depending on if I want a slow and easy cruise or if I'm willing to suck up the road jitters of aluminum in exchange for the ridiculous amount of speed that my real road bike allows me. I take either the 7:59 or 8:59 bullet train from 4th and King to Mountain View. I work at my motion graphics job, I have lunch on Castro Street, I burn down Villa in the afternoon to try and make my 5:37 train. (I get there at 5:32 and pray to God that I'm overestimating the number of cyclists waiting in front of me, more accurately.) I get off at 4th and meet The Roommate. We'll probably stop at Safeway before departing so we can get groceries for dinner. We'll ride back to the mission; I'll get pissed off on 9th street because someone honked at me. We might just go straight home. We might stop at Inner Mission to have a beer (or three) and a game of pool (or ten). Eventually we'll be home, and we'll make dinner, and then maybe we'll just stay in or maybe we'll go to Make Out Room (if it's a Tuesday) or maybe we'll go to any one of the handful of dive bars that we love because we can play pool or cards without anyone hassling us. The next day we'll wake up and do it all over again. 

None of this makes for a particularly amazing blog, however. I can't believe I've been here six months. In some ways it feels like I've been here forever, but it mostly feels like I just got here. I don't know when that new city smell wears off, but I still regularly find myself using "I'm not from here" as an excuse. I still don't feel like I've committed to being here - it feels like I could get up and leave at any time - but I certainly don't have any actual plans to go, and I can't figure out somewhere else I'd rather be, so I guess that's something. It's been an interesting ride so far. Here's to the next six months.