It as a very beautiful autumn in the Pacific NW. Due to unusually clear days and crisp nights the leaves on many of the deciduous trees turned a range of bright colors. I'd been hearing about this but since I'm living in San Francisco I had not seen it. Happily many of the trees were still very colorful when I was up over Thanksgiving weekend. So Kristin and I went for a hike from the Hoyt Arboretum to the Pittock Mansion to enjoy it.
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| Portland Thanksgiving 2011 |
For my first scouting trip I wanted to go to the valley. And since it was nearly November I figured it wouldn't be too crowded. Which turned out to be true. What I did not count on was how beautiful it would be in late autumn. It was breathtaking. I just felt better and better as I hiked up the valley and soaked in the views of Half Dome.
And the granite on the river bottom of the Merced River made the river just sparkle in the afternoon sunshine. I was enchanted.
I look forward to going back and doing longer hikes.
Here are a few photos from that weekend:
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| Yosemite October 2011 |
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakes_Estero
http://www.nps.gov/pore/planyourvisit/kayak.htm
Again I didn't take any pictures while paddling. Gotta get back in the habit of taking at least a few pictures while out.
After paddling I headed up to Nick's Cove on Tomales Bay for dinner. I had a very nice meal. Great local oysters and seafood with some nice California wines. I'll definitely go back.
I did take a few pictures there as the sun was going down.
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| Point Reyes Oct 2011 |
We've gone most years and this year I drove up to Cathlamet to again take part.
With all the time I spent at work at Microsoft and now moving to San Francisco, I have not gotten out kayaking alot in the past couple years, so I focused on classes to get me back in the saddle. Classes on fine-tuning one's forward stroke, rolling, etc. And these classes really helped. My roll feels effortless again. I just feel more efficient paddling again. And we had a great time hanging out with all of our kayaking friends.
I didn't get any pictures while out paddling, but I did take a few one evening when Andrew was playing cello.
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| LoCo2011 |
I was living in Seattle working for Microsoft but had become very unhappy in my job there. What I do best is apply machine learning techniques to big data tasks and that wasn't what I was doing at Microsoft. So it was time for a change. After talking with a number of companies I accepted an offer from Klout in San Francisco. I'd never lived in the Bay Area, which is actually fairly amazing given my field, so in many ways I was not surprised that I would finally be working there.
Here's a bit from the moving process...
Yes, I made it to San Francisco. This past month (May) has been whirlwind. I:
Whew. Yes, I am tired.
Short story: I love my work in San Francisco. I really like all the people I work with. I have no idea why anyone would choose to live in San Francisco -- This city is scary expensive. Oh, right – because the jobs are great here.
A cold and drizzly evening in Ballard just before I left. Fitting.
Sunday morning in the SoMa neighborhood of San Francisco:
My first trip across the Golden Gate Bridge.
After dropping off my kayak I got a few charts of the area and a tide book as initial essentials for paddling in that area. I then drove back to the city. I first went out the Pacific Ocean – it had been awhile since I’d been to the beach. It was a cold and drizzly afternoon. Again, fitting.
On Monday I started at Klout. My manager, introduced me to everyone and then with excitement pointed to the box holding my new computer – a brand new iMac. I paused for a second as I realized she expected me to set it up. Since they had already hired me, I figured that this would be a useful time to mention that I’d never used a Mac before. She assured me it would be easy. She gave me a few passwords for the network and such and just left me to it. Fortunately I had brought my HP laptop into work so I could open a web browser and search for hints on setting up a Mac. Turned out I didn’t need them. It really was easy. About the toughest part was finding the on/off switch hidden on the back of the thing. It just blends in with all of the rest of the brushed aluminum. When I turned it on it was one of those “Ohhh, Ahhh.” moments. The 27” display is just gorgeous. Easily the best I’ve ever used.
The first days went by very quickly learning a lot about Klout: its products, its goals, and all of the various engineering projects. And it was clear that during that first week it was expected that I’d take on and complete my first little project. Wow – they move fast. Back to a startup!
It felt great to be back digging into data, writing little programs to gather data and do statistics, etc. So I’m glad I’m working here. I just wish I could commute from Seattle.
San Francisco is breathtakingly expensive for housing. It really would have been almost cheaper to keep my house in Ballard, stay in a hotel near my office during the week, and fly home at the weekends.
There are lots of great areas in San Francisco for tourists – it is a vibrant and exciting city. But to live here? It is way too crowded, traffic is awful, and I feel claustrophobic much of the time. In most of the classic San Francisco neighborhoods like North Beach, Russian Hill and the Castro there is absolutely no gap between the houses. Would it have been too much to ask for the builders to put a little space between the houses?
Friends have mentioned to me that Seattle is also crowded with awful traffic. Yes, the fun touristy parts of town like Pike Place Market and Capital Hill are. But I didn’t live there. I lived in Ballard – the old Scandinavian fishing village with primarily Craftsman houses from the early 20th century. Houses with yards and garages and quiet streets. I certainly enjoy going to Pike Place Market and Capital Hill and enjoying the great restaurants there. I can and do enjoy the touristy aspects of Seattle. I just didn’t have to live it.
Now, there are neighborhoods with what I think of as a livable layout with houses that have yards and garages and basements. But I certainly can’t afford to live in any of them. Yes, I could get that if I moved way out into the suburbs, but we all remember how much I enjoyed my foray into suburban life in Kirkland. I found out I’m just not a suburban kind of guy.
As I looked for a new place to live I looked broadly. I really enjoy hanging out in neighborhoods like Castro and Russian Hill, and some of the apartments were beautiful Edwardian architecture. However, it would have been very expensive to get an apartment in those neighborhoods that would work for me.
There are a couple things about my Pacific NW life that turn out to be pretty expensive in San Francisco. In Seattle I had a house with a basement – full of my things. Yes, it would be a good idea to reduce the amount of stuff I have. But I certainly didn’t have time for that for this move. So I really couldn’t fit all my things into a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment. And renting a larger place becomes pretty expensive. I also really dislike Laundromats. I want the normal middle class thing of a washer/dryer in my home. As you might guess, a lot of older apartments in San Francisco don’t have that. The ones that have been renovated to have that are, well, more expensive. And parking. Many people in San Francisco don’t have cars. This is great, but since I’m new to the city I want to be able to get out and explore so I want to keep my car. And typically a parking space with an apartment in the city adds about $200/month to the rent. So for about $3000 - $4000/month I could get a nice place in some of the great San Francisco neighborhoods.
Not surprisingly, I did not do that. During this process friends reminded me that I was not looking for a place to live for the next couple decades. Just something for the next couple years.
There are a number of neighborhoods just a bit further out than the classic neighborhoods that have houses with garages, that are quieter, and that have a nice neighborhood feel. Neighborhoods like Bernal Heights, Glen Park, Sunset and Richmond. I looked in all of these neighborhoods. And I found a nice little house in Sunset. Take a look at these articles for a bit of info on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_District,_San_Francisco
http://www.sfgate.com/neighborhoods/sf/outersunset/
As the San Francisco Chronicle puts it, I’ve moved to Planet Eisenhower :)
It’s cheaper than the areas closer to my office because:
a) It’s not hip
b) It’s got the worst weather in the city. It’s very near the ocean so is often foggy.
c) There is no convenient driving route into downtown
d) It’s not hip
From sfgate:
WHAT'S IT LIKE?San Francisco's southwestern corner is often ignored in guidebooks to the city, partly due to distance from the city's historic center, partly from its relative newness and partly from a well-earned reputation as the place fog calls home. Nonetheless, there's a lot to explore in the area's three major neighborhoods: the Outer Sunset, Parkside and West Portal.
Welcome to Planet Eisenhower
Visitors to hilly West Portal may notice something odd: Mixed in with the modern stock brokerages, coffee stores and home-furnishings boutiques are an odd sampling of businesses that would fit nicely into a museum display about the Eisenhower administration: bars with those '50s rec-room fireplaces and diners with Korean War-era Formica countertops.
But it is nice and quiet and I feel relaxed there. I don’t have the crowded claustrophobic feel that I have in many parts of the city.
After I found the place I made arrangements with the movers to do the move and I flew back to Seattle to get my house in Ballard ready. Kristin was a huge help getting it all ready for the movers. I just get like a deer-in-the-headlights when it comes to moving.
It was a pretty sad time for us. I really like living in Ballard and though I’m thrilled about the new job, San Francisco is just too far from all of my friends. The move certainly was not Plan A. So in addition to organizing my house we also got out and enjoyed some of our favorite Ballard restaurants and made as much as we could out of those few days.
But by the time the movers arrived we were (pretty much) ready. They did a great job packing all of my things and moving them.
I flew back to San Francisco and the movers showed up and moved all of my things into my new house. I now have all of my furniture and a house full of boxes. It does feel great to be sleeping on my own bed.
Now that I am moved I won’t have to spend all of my weekends either looking for a place to live or getting ready to move. So now I can take time to get out and explore and sink into my new city. Don’t get me wrong – San Francisco’s got a lot of the kinds of things I like: great restaurants, great pubs, great architecture, interesting geography with all of the hills and water, a vibrant feel. It’s also a very liberal and fun city. It’s just too far from all of my friends and way too expensive.
But I’m gonna be here for at least a few years so I’m going to open this new chapter and start the adventures. I’ve already found a number of restaurants that I really like in the city. There are plenty of places that I’ve read about for years in Sunset magazines up and down the coast that I’d really like to visit that look beautiful in those magazine photos. We can do some great hiking in the Sierras. And both Kristin and I want to explore the wine country in Sonoma not far from here.
I plan to fly back to Portland once every month or two. But I certainly won’t be able to just hop in the car and be in Portland in a couple hours like it was when I lived in Seattle. So I’m trying various things to keep in touch with people. I'm using Facebook more and now Google+ and Foursquare. Feel free to follow my adventures here in Northern California!
