Lincoln MKS
Almost all of my writing ends up being political in nature, so I started this site to just write some more fun stuff. If you’d like to read my political stuff, well check out Calitics.com. But, from time to time, I’ll post new content to this site about my random goings-on.
On June 19, Brian and I had a loaner Lincoln MKS, a big luxury sedan with all the bells and whistles. I’m not really a car writer, so I’ll point you to a few reviews of the car for that technical stuff. Here’s Edmunds, and then a video Lincoln MKS Cars.com review. For me, I enjoyed the car’s smooth ride and all the electronic features. I plugged my HTC Touch Pro into the device, sync’d it up with the Bluetooth, and I was all ready to go. Unfortunately, I had to wait for streetsweeping and Brian to come home.
When we did make it out on Saturday, we met up with two of my cousins, Rich and Becky, over in Berkeley. Getting there was a breeze…the car had a very easy to use GPS system. We stopped at what Rich says was the well-restored Hotel Shattuck Palace. Downtown Berkeley is a rather interesting place. For the most part, it is a place for students. So that means, cheap eateries, which for the most part are pretty good, a few dive-y bars, some random sellers of hemp products and a few not so wonderful hotels. In fact, the old Hotel Shattuck Plaza, was um…not so nice. I am really quite excited that Downtown Berkeley, which by all means should be a really cool area, is gentrifying a bit. The recent renovation of the Downtown Restaraunt, while not necessarily the best value in the area, also gives some variety to the area.
We headed for some cheap South Indian food at Udupi Palace, one of said cheap downtown Berkeley eateries. My cousins are pretty awesome. We grew up together in Dallas, and Rich and I were only a few months and a grade apart. While we went to different schools, we spent a lot of time together. All three of them are ridiculously smart, Rich is a doctor, Becky is getting her PhD in medical history, and Julie is about to jump headlong into being a big firm first year in Dallas.
Anyway, both Brian and I were very excited about going to Berkeley. Not just to see the cousins, but also to check out the new Berkeley Bowl at 920 Heinz, right off of Ashby. Compared to the other location on Oregon, this one is huge and has tons of parking. And just about every type of produce that you are going to find in the Bay Area. They have exotic fruits and vegetables galore, and pretty much everything also comes in organic if you are so inclined. Plus, the produce is as cheap as you are going to find around here. I highly recommend it for the produce, the other items are pretty much standard fare.
On Sunday, we cruised down to Santa Cruz. It was a beautiful day down there, the sun was shining, hipsters were skateboarding and selling crap they made or found on the street and old hippies were, um, doing old hippie things. After running a few errands in the surrounding area, we made it down into the City of Santa Cruz. Ditching the car in a parking garage, we made for Malabar, a delicious Asian vegan restaurant in downtown Santa Cruz. Unfortunately, we hadn’t bothered to see if it was open for lunch. Disappointed, we wandered back into the heart of downtown Santa Cruz, past the slew of random junk shops and grabbed some food at a nondescript diner.
One of the things I love about the Bay Area is that you can go from winter in the City to summer on the peninsula in less than an hour’s worth of driving. That weekend was no different. It was a pretty nice day in SF, but it was an amazingly gorgeous day in Santa Cruz. This, of course, brought out just about everybody in a 50 mile radius to the Santa Cruz beach. The boardwalk was going crazy, but I still managed to find a vacant skee-ball machine and injure myself. Both are things at which I excel.
I pretty much have skee ball down. I don’t mean to brag (except that I do), but i pretty much own the game. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be any skee-ball leagues, so I’m stuck in the political world for the foreseeable future I guess. As to injuring myself? Well, this time I sliced my finger whilst banging the skee-ball machine to get my coin back. I suppose I could avoid that…
The beach itself was hopping, so our walk in the water was somewhat abbreviated by about 100 volleyball matches. Eventually, we walked back to the garage to find that somebody had hit the fancy loaner (sans note)…nothing says bummer quite like that. Our drive back was full of traffic on Highway 17, a sign of the good weather I suppose. But, hey, at least I got to play with the fancy bluetooth on the car!
