I stopped by Subrosa last week while riding home from Berkeley, and I had a decent cup of coffee. This morning Anna was free for a few minutes before one of her meetings so we decided to pop back over to Subrosa for a more formal visit.

On my first visit the barista was attentive and cheerful. I asked about some of the features of the place — where did they get their counters, what kind of beans did they use, etc. — and she had some of the answers, but it didn’t seem as though she wanted to chat. This morning I think we met the owner. When I asked again about the counters she was able to give me a lot more detail, and she seemed enthusiastic about sharing. The decor of the room is delightful. Their counters are concrete with rice hulls, and the color beautifully complements the tones of steamed milk on a latte. The ceiling and the vertical surfaces of the counter are made from recycled hardwood flooring. Even the garbage receptacle on the customer side of the counter is clad in a beautiful wood case, again, made from recycled flooring. An antler chandelier hangs over the cash register. It’s very sweet.

Anna ordered a latte and I had my usual Americano. Today the drinks were exceptional. The Four Barrel Espresso Americano is not as tart and colorful as my yardstick coffee, the Verve Streetlevel, but there was a very nice fruitiness and a hint of chocolate. Anna said her latte was the best she’d ever had.

We learned a little more about the Four Barrel coffee that they use at Subrosa. The beans are purchased at auction, and are sourced from a variety of growers in several regions. Since Four Barrel buys small lots and they’re not always able to get beans from the same grower each season, they blend beans from several different growers into their espresso blend to maintain flavor consistency over time. The Four Barrel single bean roasts are also available at Subrosa if you want a brewed cup, which they will custom drip for you.

There’s not much room inside Subrosa, so if you go on a rainy morning and can’t take advantage of their tiny patio, you’ll need to snuggle up pretty close with the other patrons at the cozy window-facing bar. Three people can share the space, so keep that in mind if you’re looking for a cozy spot to hang out. (I suggest Modern, Awaken, or Actual Cafe for a comfy social experience.) But for a really great cup of coffee just off the beaten path on the western edge of Oakland’s Temescal district, Subrosa is a great stop. If you go in the afternoon, you can stop in and browse through the vinyl offerings at the record shop two doors down.

It was a blustery morning again today. The wind was whipping and destroyed many Oaklander’s umbrellas. (I saw three umbrella’s in a similar state laying on the ground today.) I’m not sure why people just leave them laying on the sidewalk instead of dropping them in a garbage can, but I suppose anger could be a factor. Today’s storm activity is supposed to be the most powerful of the series of storms that are passing through this week. The clouds are breaking up right now, but I think there may be some afternoon activity yet to come.

I was downtown this morning to listen to a panel discussion presented by the Oakland Merchants’ Leadership Forum, and just as that meeting wrapped the rain stopped so I took advantage of the good weather to walk home via Awaken Cafe. It’s a modest sized cafe (inside seating for about 10 people, max) on 14th Street between Broadway and Franklin. They pull drinks using beans from Taylor Maid Farms. (Trish Skeie of Taylor Maid is credited with coining the term third wave coffee. Spend a little time perusing the Taylor Maid website for lots of interesting stuff about coffee. The geeky coffee aficionado could spend several hours reading the stuff they’ve posted.) Besides offering drinks made with Taylor Maid beans, the cafe sells those beans whole. You can start with a can of your favorite blend and then return with the can in hand for a refill from their bean dispensers. According to the baristas I spoke with this morning they turn over their product pretty quickly so the beans should always be relatively fresh.

As with the other cafe’s I’ve visited, I expect to make a return visit to Awaken Cafe to fully appreciate their work. On my first visit I ordered a double Americano and was not disappointed. The Taylor Maid beans produced a lush, chocolatey beverage. Not as rich as the Verve Streetlevel Americano I enjoyed so much at Modern Coffee, but full of flavor. Awaken has been open for a couple of years and they have plans to expand to the old bar next door sometime in 2010. That space will offer organic wine and beer, provide more gallery space and offer more room to hang out. I really enjoyed the ambiance of the little cafe. There’s an old door hung sideways on the back wall displaying the drink menu. At the bottom of the menu is this quote:

“Who looks outside dreams, who looks inside awakens.”
— Carl Jung.

Good advice. As Anna says, “either way you look, it’s good.”

Drink good coffee, my friends.

The weather today was a little unsettled but very nice. Early in the morning we had the first wave of rain. Pretty heavy, and since Nate commutes in the wee hours, he had to deal with it. For those of us who commute by slipper, it was not a problem. By midmorning we had clear skies.

Dave called and asked if I was free for lunch. I was, so we went to Luka’s Taproom and split a couple of sandwiches. He ordered a reuben and I chose the grilled chicken with carmelized onions and roasted sweet potatoes. In a twist that I really appreciated, sandwiches come with a tossed green salad. If you want fries, you can substitute for $1.50. I love a restaurant where the healthy choice is the automatic choice. That it’s also the cheaper choice is pretty sweet, too. (Question to restaurateurs: does it really cost more to serve a handful of dressed salad greens than it costs to serve a plate of fries?)

The sandwiches were tasty, due partly to the fact that they were made on delicious bread. This is something that we missed in the Midwest. Bread with thick, al dente crusts and tangy flavour. The grilled rye for the reuben was substantial and flavorful. The ciabatta used for the chicken sandwich was just crusty enough to feel and taste hearty, without causing the sandwich ingredients to spray out the sides when bitten. The salad served with the sandwiches was a generous portion of mixed greens tossed in a light vinaigrette. Perfect.

The restaurant is in the building which used to be Oakland’s Hof Brau. I remembered that restaurant as being dark and a little gloomy. This place is bright and not at all gloomy. The staff is cheery and accommodating. Our only complaint was that the button to open the door for a wheelchair didn’t work. Fortunately a patron was standing by to push the door open so I was able to help Dave get inside.

After lunch I came home to work on a couple of projects. Mid-afternoon I heard some thunder and noticed a flash of lightning. (Not the big show we used to get in Moline, but at least it was a little weather.) The rain followed, augmented by a minute or so of pea-sized hail. The gutters on Perkins street filled pretty quickly and the storm drain across from our apartment looked like it might not be able to handle the flow. A few minutes later the rain stopped and Anna called to say there was an amazing horizon-to-horizon rainbow. (I couldn’t get an angle from our terrace to take a picture. Fortunately, a neighbor managed to snap one.)

Anna and Nate are in the kitchen now putting together a delicious smelling meal of Indian food. Gotta run!

“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

(Thanks, Karla.)

My aunt Chris just forwarded an email message from a friend about the unique weather situation that’s shaping up in California. Here’s a clip from that message:

Currently, the strong El Niño is reaching its peak in the Eastern Pacific, and now finally appears to be exerting an influence on our weather. … a 200+ kt jet is barreling towards us. Multiple large and powerful storm systems are expected to slam into CA from the west and northwest over the coming two weeks, all riding this extremely powerful jet stream … Very heavy rainfall and strong to potentially very strong winds will impact the lower elevations beginning late Sunday (Jan. 17) and continuing through at least the following Sunday. … Above 3000-4000 feet, precipitation will be all snow, and since temperatures will be unusually cold for a precipitation event of this magnitude, a truly prodigious amount of snowfall is likely to occur in the mountains, possibly measured in the tens of feet in the Sierra after it’s all said and done. … Between this Sunday and the following Sunday, I expect categorical statewide rainfall totals in excess of 3-4 inches. That is likely to be a huge underestimate for most areas. Much of NorCal is likely to see 5-10 inches in the lowlands, with 10-20 inches in orographically-favored areas. Most of SoCal will see 3-6 inches at lower elevations, with perhaps triple that amount in favored areas.

California is experiencing a drought, so this rain is much needed. It’s rough, though, to get it all at once. These rain totals may seem unremarkable to our midwestern friends, but it’s important to remember that California only gets around 17 inches of rainfall on average each year. (Compared to an average of 30+ inches per year in Illinois.)

The wind and rain that the weathernouncers have been predicting has started. It’s been pretty blustery, off and on, and while this weather is tame compared to the weather we experienced in the Midwest it will keep me from spending the morning exploring on my bike. Fortunately, Saturday morning was dry and I was able to get out and walk around the lake.

I took a little time to wander off the main path. On the southeast side of the lake, (near I-580 on Lakeshore) sits Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. A plaque on the building notes that the church sits on the site where the first Catholic mass was celebrated in what would become Alameda county. It’s a pretty, well maintained building and the doors to the sanctuary were open on Saturday morning so I slipped in to take a peek. There’s something eery about walking into a completely empty church.

A short stroll east along Lakeshore brought me to the Cleveland Cascade park. It was built in the 1920s by architect Howard Gilkey. The cascade was buried in the 1950s, but the pools have been excavated recently and there are plans to restore the whole fountain to it’s original splendor. The stairs flanking the cascade were in heavy use on Saturday by people looking for an aerobic workout. At the top of the hill is a small pool which had been planted with herbs. The gardener had a sense of humor. in each corner of the pool was a recycled toilet tank with well labeled plots of herbs.

(One of the good things about visiting the Cleveland Cascade and preparing this entry was that it led me to The Organic City. The site, created by a couple of grad students at CSU East Bay, collects stories from Oaklanders about Oakland. It’s been left to lay fallow for a couple of years, but it does have some interesting tidbits of info peeking out of the weeds, including this series of stories about the Cleveland Cascasde.)

One of our main reasons for moving back to Oakland was to be near our two sons. Our older son, Justin, lives in San Francisco. Last night he and Zina showed a little of their work at Space Gallery on Polk Street. Zina had two paintings in the show and Justin had a video, called “portrait of a young woman on the beach making waves.” (Featuring Zina.) Space is an ironic name for the gallery. There were probably about 80 people smashed into the rooms on two floors. The show featured about a dozen artists, including a few of J & Z’s friends. We met Maja and David. Their work is wonderful. All the work in this show was pretty engaging. The pieces by Julie Okahara were interesting.

We hung around for a while and then decided to go get a bite to eat with Zina and Justin to celebrate Zina’s birthday. Pie sounded good and since Mission Pies was closed we decided to trek over to Orphan Andy’s on 17th St. near Market and Castro for a snack. We shared Zina’s turkey sandwich and onion rings and also had apple pie, pecan pie, and a brownie. The onion rings were among the best I’ve ever had, made with big thick slices of onion.

It was fun walking around the Castro. We ran into some guy who was totally naked except for a knit stocking cap. He wandered into Hot Cookies. The city has blocked off traffic from Market or Castro onto 17th Street and put some trees in the mini plaza that they’ve created. There are some tables and chairs creating a kind of European street cafe aesthetic which, combined with the effervescent attitude of the people in neighborhood, made it fun to hang around. Anna noticed a place for rent on Castro near 16th Street and we talked about what it would be like to live over there. We agree that it’s a fun place to visit but that we are perfectly happy in our Adams Point neighborhood. We have the benefit of a slightly more accessible neighborhood with easy access to the more colorful neighborhoods of San Francisco when we’re interested in a little more excitement. We still have to visit some of the newer nightspots in our own neighborhood. Who knows, maybe we don’t even need to cross the bay!

I wanted to take a little spin on BART with my bike today and since I needed to run a couple of errands related to my Teach For America interview prep I decided to combine several tasks into one trip. (For some inexplicable reason WIU didn’t include the details of grades from other institutions on my final transcripts so I need official transcripts from all the previous schools I attended, including Merritt College and UC Berkeley.) Rather than mail requests for those transcripts I decided to stop into the Merritt and UC records offices and order them in person. Merritt is at the top of a very steep hill, but, luckily, it’s part of the Peralta College system so I was able to process my request in downtown Oakland at the Laney College campus. I hopped on my bike and pedaled down to Fallon and 9th to order my Merritt transcript. The Laney campus is right across the street from the Lake Merritt BART station, so to speed my trip and test the BART/Bike interface I hopped on a train and rode up to Downtown Berkeley.

BART is happy to accomodate bikes, but taking a bike on the train is still a little awkward. There isn’t really a good spot to place a bike on the train where it’s not in anyone’s way. My bike is a little too long to fit between the door opening and the first forward or rear facing seat, so the front wheel protrudes slightly into the doorway. When we pulled into one station the train jerked a little and a woman, reaching for something to steady herself, grabbed the handlebar of my bike. It’s not as steady as the usual grab bars on the train, and if another passenger hadn’t been standing next to her to provide a shoulder to lean on, she might have tumbled to the floor. She didn’t seem real happy about the bikes on BART policy at that moment.

Getting in and out of the BART station with a bike is not difficult, if you happen to find a wheelchair accessible gate. Not all entrances to the stations have such a gate, so you have to pass through an emergency gate with your bike, then go back out through the emergency gate and process your ticket through a narrow, regular turnstile.

Once I arrived in Berkeley, it was a short hop through the campus from BART to Sproul Hall to request my transcripts. It’s always fun crossing the campus — it recalls so many memories. The route I rode this afternoon took me past the building that used to house the UC Drama Department. (Maybe it still does?) I remember having a meeting in that building with Bob Goldsby when I was deciding whether to return to Berkeley to finish my undergraduate degree or to accept the invitation to attend American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and finish my degree later. (If I recall, his advice was to accept the invitation to ACT.)

After ordering up transcripts I hopped back up on my bike and shot down Dana to Dwight to Telegraph and then a couple miles into Oakland. I turned south on 40th and noticed Subrosa Coffee on the right, just past Webster. My bike pulled up at the front door and we agreed it would be a good time for an afternoon pick-me-up. The Four Barrel Americano was just what I needed. Subrosa is a cute, tiny place. There’s a “patio” next door, which is really a small space between two buildings with a few tiny tables. It’s homey. The tables are about 18 inches square and there are benches along the wall and some stools made of mossy sections of logs. It was a nice sanctuary from the bustle of the city. The cup of coffee was fine. It wasn’t as rich and satisfying as the Americano I drank at Modern Coffee a couple of days ago, but I suspect that the difference could be attributed to the superb barista skills at my downtown cafe-of-choice. I’ll revisit Subrosa sometime soon. It’s a nice, tiny oasis.

After coffee I was steeled for the final leg of my bike journey. A straight shot down Webster to 27th, south on 27th to Grand and on to Perkins. A nice ride. Errands complete. Questions about bikes on BART answered. It was a good afternoon.

I just opened an email from Teach For America. They’ve invited me for a final interview. There are no guarantees, but I’m definitely pitching them on my deep desire to work in the Oakland Public Schools. As a graduate of this district (Joaquin Miller Elementary, Montera Junior High, and Skyline High School) I know that there were deep divides and a great disparity in the quality of education provided by different schools in this city, even when I was a student in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I was among the privileged — my teachers and schools were well funded and supported by the communities in which they were situated. I have many reasons for applying for TFA, but among those reasons is my love for Oakland. I want to play a part in the effort to bring educational equity to my city.

It’s not a done deal. I still have to get through the interview, and I need to convince them that Oakland is the right place for me. But I am going to be working hard over the next couple of weeks to make sure that I am prepared to make a strong case. Wish me luck!

Anna and I took advantage of BART last night to go to the Orpheum to see Wicked with our dear old friend, Casey. (And our dear new friends Paul, and Sean and Jody.) Wicked is a pretty clever show, and we had a tasty meal in the tiny First Crush on Cyril Magnin St. in San Francisco before the theatre.

Riding BART for a show at the Orpheum is more convenient than driving — the Civic Center station is right in front of the theatre. It would have been perfect, except that it was raining pretty hard when we got off the train at 19th Street on our way home after the show. The wind was blowing, too, and it was a little bit of a struggle to stay dry with our two little pocket sized umbrellas. I guess it doesn’t typically rain very hard in Oakland, because the gutters and storm drains were clearly unable to keep pace. There were a couple of intersections on our walk home where water had risen above the curbs and flooded the sidewalk. Anna’s shoes filled with water and I felt responsible because I had insisted we walk to BART instead of driving over to Rockridge to park the car in case it rained. (She, graceful as always, refused to give me grief about my stubbornness. I love that woman.)

Update to previous post: I updated my Oakland Coffee Trail entry on Modern Coffee after a second visit this morning.

Justin slept over at our place last night and this morning when I walked him over to BART we stopped at Farley’s east for a shot. He had a double Americano, I a double espresso.

The place is pretty tiny, but it looks like you can take your food upstairs and eat. We actually hit the place as they were dealing with a little rush for lunch, but when we ordered espresso rather than sandwiches, the cashier happily moved to the machine to pull our drinks. She told us they were using a Latin American blend of beans as she produced a thick, rich crema on top of my shot. It had nearly the fruitiness of the Verve Streetlevel I drank last week at Modern Coffee. Nearly, but not quite. It was good, though, and the place has a nice feel to it. There are two well stocked magazine racks covered with art and design mags. The clientele seemed a little older and more professional than what I encountered at Actual Cafe last week, but the population could have been skewed by the fact that it was lunchtime for downtown workers. I need to go back sometime in the early morning and see who hangs out during coffee time.

Justin tells me that he’s been to the Farley’s across the bay and that he likes their western location as well. After we drank our coffee he headed to BART and I walked home. On the way I was nearly run over in the crosswalk at the corner of Grand and Harrison (next to the big new cathedral) by a woman in a red Honda Fit from City Car Share. Fortunately I had just swallowed a good double shot of espresso and was alert enough to avoid being crushed.

The SJ Mercury News is running a series of articles on the sorry state of public transit in the Bay Area. In one part of the series the paper proposes that it’s almost as cheap and much more convenient to drive to work than to use public transportation. In the Sunday edition of the paper (which we read while spending the afternoon with my Aunt Chris and Uncle Kemp in their treehouse condo in Belmont) they use four example commutes to make their case. While I agree with the Merc’s general argument that public transportation in the Bay Area is too expensive, their proposed solution — drive — is moronic. They just aren’t looking at the problem with a fully informed perspective.

First off, their sample commute routes are not very realistic. I may have an antiquated perspective, but I suspect that more people commute from Oakland to San Francisco every day than commute from San Francisco to Oakland. The Merc uses the latter as an example of a SF/Oakland commute, and further confuses the issue by landing the eastbound, morning commute at a location where parking is free. An Oakland to downtown San Francisco morning commute may be more common, but it would disprove the the Mercury News’ thesis so apparently they decided not to consider it.

Our son Nate commutes to San Francisco every weekday. He catches a ride in a casual carpool each morning and walks a few blocks to his office. In the afternoon he rides BART home. Total time crossing the bridge in the AM? About 20 minutes plus 10 minutes to walk to work from the casual carpool drop-off point. (Casual carpools get to buzz through the toll plaza in special lanes that move pretty fast and they pay no toll.) Time for a driver and no passengers to cross the bridge during the morning commute in a car? Probably double that. When you get to downtown San Francisco, what do you do with your car? Parking is going to run about $20. Total cost for driving to work from Oakland to San Francisco? About $26 (not counting wear and tear on your vehicle). Cost for getting to SF by casual carpool? $0. Return trip, by car — let’s say $2 for gas, and if traffic is typical, it might take 45-50 minutes (including the time required to walk from the office and retrieve a car from the parking lot). Return trip on BART? $3.10, and if Nate catches the 5:34 train at the Embarcadero station he gets off at 19th Street in Oakland 12 minutes later. It takes 10 minutes to walk from his office to BART and 15 minutes to walk from the 19th Street station to the apartment, so total travel time is 40 about minutes.

So, to sum up, Nate’s commute by public transit and casual carpool takes a little over an hour and 10 minutes total for both directions at a total cost of $3.10. That same commute by private car would take a little over an hour and a half total for both directions (20 minutes longer) at a total cost of at least $28.

Admittedly, Nate is not paying to support the public transit companies in his morning commute, so to some extent the Merc’s larger story arc — that public transit is failing to attract necessary ridership — is valid. But the public response to the problem of falling ridership should not be a wholesale return to private cars. The question before us as a community is whether we value the quality of life that comes with useful, affordable, and efficient public transportation. If we do, there are ways to create financial incentives for using public transit. First off, we could charge much higher tolls for single drivers crossing the area’s bridges, and devote some of the additional revenue to subsidizing fares on public transit.

I’m not naive enough to believe that this will happen without a fight. Increasing tolls (like increasing the cost of parking) is unpopular with people who are committed to a car centric culture. But we are all supporting that car culture, whether we want to or not, when we fail to be proactive about using alternative transportation.

The Merc’s sidebar on the four sample commutes essentially proposes that faster is better when it comes to commuting. While I agree that time is a factor in determining the quality of one’s life and experiences, it’s short sighted to discount the value of time spent intentionally doing things for a higher purpose. You can breeze through the drive-through of a McDonald’s and order a Big Mac for dinner and have consumed a 540 calorie gut-buster in just a matter of minutes, washing it down with a soda. It takes much longer to prepare a nice meal at home, let’s say a piece of broiled, locally caught fish and a side of tossed baby greens from a local farmers market, accompanied by a glass of Sonoma County wine. Just the time spent sourcing the ingredients for that home cooked meal will take at least an hour. Prepping the food will take another 15 to twenty minutes. No one I know is going to argue that the McDonald’s meal is better than a home cooked meal, merely because you can get it and eat it quicker.

Things that are important often require some intentional trade-offs. Public transit may take longer than driving alone. It may not cost a lot less than driving alone, but it’s better for the environment, and time spent on a train or bus can be devoted to something other than avoiding accidents or raising one’s blood pressure. You can read, you can chat with friends, you can watch people. You can write. Weighed against the time spent in a car during rush hour, time spent on a train or bus can be extremely valuable. The Merc’s calculations fail to take these values into consideration.

Bonus Content:

Here are a couple of really fun historical films made in the late 1960s about the BART system. They’re long compared to the typical YouTube fare, but definitely worth watching. I’d recommend starting with the second film, “Along the Way,” it has a song and it’s a classic!

Anna and I rode our bikes over to the Lakeshore Burrito Shop for a little lunch. The woman behind the cash register was about as cheerful as she could be. After observing that we had arrived on bikes and that we looked happy and healthy, she took our order and said she hoped we enjoyed our lunch. She was adorable. If I were rating the lunch on friendliness or cheerfulness alone they’d get a ten on a scale of one to ten.

The burrito was good, too. We’ve eaten there a couple of times over the past month (and noticed the cheery cashier before) and always enjoyed the taste. Anna likes the Thai Chicken bowl (a burrito on a plate, without a tortilla) and I like the regular sized carnitas burrito. The flavors are straightforward and nice. The real joy comes in the salsa bar that’s next to their soda fountain. I have yet to try a spicy salsa at the burrito shop that I don’t enjoy. They serve a burrito with a handful of chips. It’s just the right size — a regular is $4.95 and is a very satisfying meal. Anna’s Thai Chicken bowl was $5.50 and was just a little more than she could eat. For a little more you can upgrade the size of your burrito to a grande, and it looks like it would feed a hungry teenaged boy.

It’s conveniently located next to our neighborhood Trader Joe’s so we’re able to combine a trip for a few groceries with a little lunch and a bike ride. Nice.

Anna hung a bird feeder out on our “terrace” last week but so far no birds have found it. I see birds around the neighborhood, but I assume that they must be able to find ample food from other sources. There was a humming bird buzzing around the feeder but it didn’t light, and I don’t think it would be able to eat the seeds anyway. There are birds in the neighborhood — I’ve seen a couple of house sparrows playing in a tree across the street, and there are bigger birds (gulls and crows) around, too, but they’re not going to be interested in our feeder. Perhaps the particular seed we’ve chosen isn’t appealing to our little feathered neighbors.
UPDATE: Just as I posted this entry I heard a bird chirp and turned to see a house sparrow sitting on the bird feeder. He/she pecked at a seed or two and then flew off. I’m hoping he/she went to gather his/her flock.

Keeping it Clean: On the second Monday of the month there are several blocks in our neighborhood where, due to scheduled street sweeping, parking is not allowed. This is not just a revenue tactic for the city (although the tickets are pricey if you get one). The street sweeper actually comes by on schedule to sweep out the gutters. This is not a cursory fly-by sweep job. The sweeper might even make two passes on a particular block to be sure to get all the trash.

Anna and I were coming home late one evening and both of us noticed that the area around our Adams Point apartment seems tidy. Sidewalks are relatively free of litter. The owner of the building just south of our place had steam cleaned his driveway and sidewalks that morning. As I am writing, there are a couple of people across the street sweeping up the sidewalks, picking up trash, and sprucing up the area around their building. On our walks and rides around Lake Merritt we’ve seen people picking up trash and cleaning up detritus that has collected along the shoreline of the lake.

Of course, in a perfect world, there wouldn’t be trash on the ground or in the lake, but if there is, it’s good to see Oaklanders taking pride in their city and making an extra effort to tidy up.