The Bar César tapas place has a new location on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland. I finally got over there to check it out: very nice! They’ve got a whole wall of goodies, including these paella pans of various sizes.
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Archive for February, 2007
New César on Piedmont February 26th, 2007
Road Trip: a Sketching Workshop February 21st, 2007
Pasadena Street Corner
Classes and workshops solely focused on sketching are rare, but I love to take them when they pop up. Over time I have managed to take quite a few. Some are great, some are terrible, most are in between. However, the right class at the right time is a great boost to my motivation and resolve.
Last October I was lucky enough to take a wonderful workshop towards the “great” end of the scale, a three day intensive called Road Trip! Travel Sketching for Designers, taught by Richard Scott. The photo of me sketching over on the right was taken by Richard during that class.
Here are more sketches and a full report.
The next Road Trip class is a streamlined two day version in San Francisco this June. The workshop is not cheap, but I found it rich and inspiring: well worth it for me.
Huntington Library Botanical Gardens
A word about other classes that are less than ideal; I often find that something important comes out of them too. I may meet someone interesting, get turned on to a new book to tool, or just get more focused on what I really do want to be doing.
Related Post: “Road Trip!” Workshop: a Review
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Berkeley Sunset February 16th, 2007
We have been having near perfect weather for several days: kind of creepy in February! I’ve been indoors at work though and haven’t gotten to enjoy it yet. Hopefully it will hold through the weekend.
The sunset tonight was spectacular.
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USS Vodka February 15th, 2007
We recently spent an interesting day in Alameda, California with friends. Alameda, an island in the San Francisco Bay, was dominated by the Alameda Naval Air Station until 1997. It is now becoming a zone for light industry, but it still looks quite “base-y”. We started our day by touring the WWII aircraft carrier USS Hornet. I’m not a big fan of creations built for warfare, but what was achieved using only slide rules is indeed impressive.
We then went to the Hangar One vodka distillery, housed in an old aircraft hangar on the base. They “hand craft” vodka in large copper pots and have a tasting room with an incredible view out over the old runways (now closed as a wildlife refuge) to the bay and San Francisco beyond. We arrived just in time to taste the spirits and watch a hazy sunset.
Hangar One makes fruit flavored vodkas by infusing them with actual fruit (as opposed to flavorings, natural or otherwise).
My favorite is Buddha’s Hand; a lemony vodka with complex, delightful flavors in each sip. It’s made with a rather bizarre looking citrus fruit called “Buddha’s Hand”, which looks sort of like a bunch of carrots with lemon skin on them.
We finished our day with sushi then hot fudge sundaes: perfect!
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