Busy Times

I always love having an image to focus my blog entries around, but alas I've just been too busy lately to find the right image, so I guess I'll have to try to paint the pictures with words (which sometimes works but usually I'm too lazy to craft just the right combination of what are they adverbs, adjectives?).

The week following Easter is always a bit crazy as I try to recover from the busyness of the Holy Week / Easter festivities. In this particular instance it was also a chance for my wife to have a week off, and thus we did some fun things like going for a hike at a local park (with amazing trails that view the bay and the city) and head to the Oakland Zoo.

Now Zoos are something I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with. I love being able to go see all of the animals, but I hate it when they are cooped up in tiny spaces with little "reality" around them. The Oakland Zoo does a pretty good job with habitats although some of them (like the Meerkats) seemed a bit small. The downside of course to these habitats is that there are often too many places for the animals to hide, so I may not see my favorites. On this particular trip the Sun Bear was being a bit shy, the tigers and lions a bit sleepy (what else is new) and a few of the animals (I don't remember which) were just MIA (maybe they got moved out of the zoo?) There was an amazing number of giraffes though, so it was fun to watch them play follow the leader.

I always like particular animals at the zoo, especially Polar Bears ... but not every zoo has such creatures. So, it is theoretically fun to live in a place like the Bay Area where there are multiple zoos. Although, our visit to the San Francisco zoo was less desirable. While they are working on building habitats for the animals that are more "realistic" there are plenty of animals (lions for example) that still live in small cages where all they can do is pace back and forth on cement. One of these days we'll get down to the San Diego Zoo and experience one of the greatest zoos in America.

O.K. ... so the weekend was pretty busy. I started a limited term job with a company called Kids Take the Stage which is a children's theater company here in the East Bay. They are putting on productions of Guys & Dolls and I was hired as the Lead Deck Crew ... which means I spent much of Friday lifting lights, moving set pieces, and basically doing whatever the Stage Manager needed done but couldn't accomplish by himself. It's a really interesting company since most of the people that they hire are aspiring theater people and here I am, just a guy with a bit of high school theater experience and a love for the theater. My job has continued this week as we are in dress rehearsals and boy has it been fun. I get to wear a headset and listen in on all of the cues called for the show, move sets on the stage, and watch some decent actors play out their dreams.

Now, Sunday was certainly a highlight of the week for me as I had the chance to sit in with one of my favorite musicians, Jonathan Rundman, for a concert here in Berkeley. It's always a treat to hang-out with Jonathan and hear his music performed live. For a guy who plays with just a guitar he can really rock out, and the stories that he tells about his songs are always a treat as well. I especially like how he played to the Berkeley crowd by introducing two of his songs, "Dumb It Down" and "Closed Out...," as "protest songs".

As Jonathan notes on his blog one of the best parts of the night is the "after party" where we ended up at this little bistro on Solano Avenue. We actually intended to hit a pizza place over there, but apparently they close by 9:30 on Sunday nights, it was quite an adventure to find any place that was still open (surprisingly Berkeley is not a late-night town) but we fell into this place that was willing to stay open for us and it was well worth it. That little place had suddenly made the list of "places we have to take guests" I just hope we can find it again!

Alright, with a few papers to write this week, several hours of work at the theater, and yes, some classes to attend, I best not regale you with too many dull details of life, but I did want to include the aforementioned updates to keep you, my loyal reader, updated on life in Berkeley.