Berkeley revisited

Posted on June 9, 2012 by djnpub

Today I met up with Mike and Tina in Berkeley, who were visiting his parents in the bay area. Originally we planned to meet for lunch at Juan’s Place, where I haven’t been in about 20 years, but it wasn’t yet open. We ended up in the new shopping zone on 4th street and found a little cafe for lunch. Afterwards, we ventured up to campus to visit some of our old haunts. We managed to get into Etcheverry Hall and do a little exploring. Then we walked around campus. It was a perfect time since most of the students were gone and it was pretty vacant.

After that we went up and drove through Tilden park, going past some of our favorite picnicking spots of old. Finally, we took a ride on the steam trains, which was a nice relaxing end to a fun day.

Posted in Events | Tagged

The Tempest

Posted on June 7, 2012 by djnpub

Tonight I finally restarted my Shakespeare diet of the year with CalShakes production of The Tempest. Due to some sickness and travel, only two of us were there, Bill W and me. But it was a good start to the season.

The staging was nice, a basic shipwreck motif. The acting was good. Some of it dragged a bit, but there were a few particularly dramatic scenes that were well executed. An interesting twist was that the role of Prospero was played by the same actor that played the crusty mayor on Gilmore Girls. All in all an enjoyable evening, and a decent way to end my Shakespeare drought.

Posted in Events, Reviews | Tagged ,

Wine Fest

Posted on May 6, 2012 by djnpub

Livermore Valley Wine FestivalI walked to downtown to see the annual Wine Festival. They had closed off a good stretch of 1st street and some of the side streets as well. It was a nice event to kick off the summer season. There were lots of booths featuring the usual collections of artists and crafts as well as food and wine.

I opted not to buy into the wine sampling as it was a pretty warm day, and it probably would have been too much. But it was fun to see all the goings on, and listen to some of the bands. I ended up having dinner and eating outside where I could do some people watching. The renovated downtown is a nice place to hang out these days.

Posted in Events, Journal | Tagged

Ah, Bach

Posted on February 25, 2012 by djnpub

As Bob was out of town, I joined Blanca at a performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley. It was performed by the American Bach Soloists, a group emphasizing traditional instruments and interpretation of early baroque and classical music, and it was sung in German. The acoustics of the church were great. There was an orchestra and choir. It is a long piece, but it was very nice.

Prior to going to the church, we had dinner on College Ave at a nice Italian restaurant called Filippo’s. All in all, a very enjoyable evening.

Posted in Events | Tagged

Nikon School

Posted on February 11, 2012 by djnpub

When I bought my first good (manual) SLR camera back in college, it came with admission to Nikon School. At that time, I learned a lot of basic knowledge about photography that I continue to use till this day, and I was hugely inspired and motivated to go out and try to take lots of good pictures. Lo these many years later, and having been shooting my digital SLR for a few years now, I thought it would be worth while to go again and see what they have to say. The weekend classes were held at the Berkeley marina.

Today I took the first “basics” class. For the most part I didn’t learn a lot new, but it was good to reinforce some of my knowledge. It also confirmed that I wasn’t missing anything major with respect to operating my digital camera. Similarly to the last time I took this, they showed some very interesting photographs, and it again inspired me to go out and try to take some good pictures again. The course was taught by Reed Hoffman and Nick Didlick. Both were good photographers, but Didlick had some particularly great pictures. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s class.

Posted in Journal, Reviews | Tagged

January 1

Posted on January 1, 2012 by djnpub

Wow, it’s hard to believe it’s been 6 months since I left DC. I’ve been so busy at work it’s been a whirlwind … and I’ve only been on a plane once. Probably time to finish cleaning up the post-travel mess in the front room.

While I’m not much for new year’s resolutions, I definitely need to get things under control, and start having a little more fun.

Posted in Journal

Sick Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2011 by djnpub

I hope I’m not starting a new personal tradition. Like last year, I got nice and sick before Christmas. This year, I scheduled two weeks off from work — the first break I’d had since returning, and the first vacation time I’d had in a couple of years. The first day of the break started fine with my birthday, then the next day I started getting sick. I was in bed for five days before it started getting better. I was improving by Christmas, but not fully recovered. Any thoughts of traveling for the holidays were shot as I was pretty non-functional for a week. Bah-humbug. Hopefully next year will go better.

Posted in Journal

Sycamore Grove Park

Posted on December 11, 2011 by djnpub

After finally discovering the repositioned entrance that I’d lost, I took a little trip to Sycamore Grove Park. Unfortunately, I think I missed the full fall colors by about a month, and recent wind storms had taken away a lot of the leaves.

It gave me a nice chance to stretch my legs. Now that I know the layout, I’ll probably try to do the 5 mile loop at some point. Also, I did get a chance to play with some of the bracketing features of my camera that I haven’t fully explored, which may help in post-editing of some challenging exposure shots.

Posted in Journal | Tagged ,

Del Valle

Posted on October 23, 2011 by djnpub

It’s been a hectic few weeks at work, and as last week wound up a lot of things, I needed a little break. Today was a beautiful sunny warm fall day, so I decided to go up to Del Valle and take some pictures. It was nice to get away and get a little fresh air. There weren’t many people there despite the nice weather. I tried out some aspects of my camera that I hadn’t previously explored much, including panoramas and bracketed shots to try out blending for HDR images. If the weather holds, it’s probably worth trying for a picnic up there, just to get away and enjoy some restful peace.

Posted in Journal | Tagged ,

Wonderfully Taming the Shrew

Posted on September 29, 2011 by djnpub

Tonight I saw my last play of the CalShakes season (perhaps my last Shakespeare play of the year), The Taming of the Shrew. Always one of my favorites, this was a fantastic production. It was somewhat contemporized, but it came across very well. For example the nicer daughter Bianca was introduced as a leggy swim suited beauty contestant in high heels, and was pretty much played like an air-headed Barbie. The role of Petruchio, the wild husband, was played amazingly well. This finally relieved a bit of my Shakespeare withdrawal after leaving DC.

Jeff once again joined Bill, Andy and myself, but I think we’ve failed to convert him to higher culture. Rita never made it, which is too bad as this was a very enjoyable play. It’s the first time in a while I’m tempted to think about going back and seeing a production again.

Posted in Events, Reviews | Tagged ,