Arun Bhalla

Voice Post

2009-06-06T04:55:16Z

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2009-06-05T04:25:09Z

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2009-06-04T04:57:05Z

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2009-06-03T05:00:41Z

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2009-06-03T04:53:24Z

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2009-06-02T04:05:26Z

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2009-06-02T04:02:30Z

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2009-06-01T02:19:18Z

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2009-06-01T02:13:12Z

The Ride is here!

2009-05-31T04:33:32Z

It's hard to believe, but in mere hours I will be riding out of San Francisco with 2,500 of my closest bike buddies. By this time tomorrow, I'll be getting ready to hit the sack (a sleeping bag) in Santa Cruz.

Thank you so much for all your support and donations! It's been quite a journey since my training began in November. In this month alone, I've biked for over 42 hours, covering 586 miles and climbing over 20,000 ft. I'll cover about as much distance in the next week! One side effect of all this riding is losing 10 or so pounds since I started training, and now my weight is at its lowest since sometime in college.

I'll try to blog here by phone. There's also official AIDS/Lifecycle Web coverage at http://experience.aidslifecycle.org/. Be sure to check in later when I post some photos and more detailed writeups after the ride.

By the way, the State of California threatens to cut over $150 million of aid to HIV/AIDS programs throughout the state, so your donations are more valued than ever. If you would like to donate further, you can still
do so at http://tofighthiv.org/goto/arun.

A lovely evening

2009-02-27T08:58:18Z

I left work at a reasonable hour this evening to meet up with Jane at Mission High. We had tickets to Voices of a People's History. Imagine a high school auditorium packed to the brim, all eyes and ears towards the stage, with an all-star line-up of Howard Zinn, Anthony Arnove, Benjamin Bratt, Josh Brolin, Diane Lane, Renee Maria Saucedo (local community leader), Boots Riley (hip-hop artist and activist), Clarence Thomas (an ILWU leader), and Kerry Washington. Each person would take a turn reading a passage from a writing or speech by a historical radical figure, ranging from the 16th Century to this decade. The Stairwell Sisters, a local old-time string band, played a couple fitting numbers, easily rocketing into position as one of my favorite local bands. Mary Elizabeth Lease's "Wall Street Owns the Country" piece (from 1890) on Wall Street, foreclosures, and loan sharks is eerily appropriate today, especially in the past year; how little we've progressed in the past century? And did Muhammad Ali really speak out against the Vietnam War a year before Martin Luther King, Jr., did?

Buzzing from the performance, we decided it was time to find some dinner. Since it was a Thursday, I suggested Mission Street Food. Jane was unconvinced, wanting to stick with something tried and true. But then we ran into Luke and Sally, who were raving about their meal there, particularly the red hot banana ice cream, despite the 75-minute wait and dish shortages. So off we were, and we were seated at a community table after not too long. Unfortunately they were out of the acorn soup, but the big winners for us were a couple of their classics: "King Trumpet Mushroom with Triple Fried Potato, Garlic Confit and Charred Scallion Sour Cream on a fresh flatbread" and a smoky & spicy fried rice with duck. We tried both of the Humphry Slocombe ice creams. We really need to go to the parlor and try some other flavors!

Afterwards, we strolled home. And now time to work some more!

My ride to end AIDS

2009-02-03T09:16:26Z

I wanted to let you all know I've registered for the AIDS/Lifecycle Ride! It's a 7-day, 545-mile organized bike ride from SF to LA in the first week of June. No matter how you look at it, this ride is at least an order of magnitude more intense than any ride I've ever done before. The longest day is over 100 miles of riding! I've been wanting to do this for nearly as long as I've lived here but previously couldn't afford to, for one reason or another -- usually not enough vacation time or some major pending project. This year the stars aligned, plus another co-worker was also interested, so we're reinforcing each other. I'm really excited! I've already started training, and even those rides have been plenty fun.

I'm riding to support the SF AIDS Foundation, who provide many services to the community to prevent the transmission of HIV and offer help to those who are HIV+. I'd really appreciate it if you could sponsor me! I have a personal goal of raising $3000. Donations are tax-deductible as the SF AIDS Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit.

Please help however much you can.
http://www.tofighthiv.org/goto/arun

Stay tuned for updates here as I train for the ride.

Super Bowl XLIII

2009-02-03T09:11:00Z

I got home yesterday from a bike ride with a few minutes of game time before halftime. I was looking forward to Bruce's performance, but not long after I tuned in, I saw James Harrison's 100-yard interception return. What a great way to close the half and lead into the Boss. The E Street Band put on a wonderful show with "10th Avenue Freeze-Out," "Born to Run," "Working on a Dream" (a new song), and closing with "Glory Days." I have to say that I've been pretty hit-or-miss with watching Super Bowls over the years, but this seemed like a top-notch halftime performance, and the nail-biting/roller-coaster second half was hard to beat, in my limited experience.

tap tap tap Is this thing still on?

2009-01-17T00:39:38Z

Hey, everybody! It's been more than a year since I last posted and even longer since I posted with any regularity. I feel like I've lost touch with many friends, so I thought I'd give this another shot. I've started using a RSS aggregator recently, so that has helped me keep organized and maintain some momentum in reading blogs.

A lot has happened in the last year or two, and even the last few weeks have seemed sometimes tumultuous, other times momentous. My personal most memorable events for 2008 included a trip to India with my mom -- I'll have to make a post about that sometime soon -- and running my first half-marathon, which seemed like quite an accomplishment considering that I struggled running a whole mile during junior high.

Here's to a better 2009!

Dancing in the Streets

2006-05-09T05:54:57Z

I snuck out of work to catch part of the May 1 march. My pictures don't do it justice, but imagine the blur in the horizon is 100,000 people marching down Market St., from Embarcadero to 9th St.

Some other bystanders had much better views:

Strike! (aka Happy May Day!)

2006-05-01T07:02:09Z

May Day is quite a big deal this year in San Francisco. Maybe it normally is -- as SF is home to many immigrants and leftists, all of whom (correctly) celebrate Labor Day on the 1st of May -- but I wouldn't know, it's my first year here. But this year, a mid-term election year, Congress and the nation have had some fierce debate regarding immigration, undocumented workers, and H.R. 4437 (the Sensenbrenner Bill). California is home to millions of immigrants, so LA, SF, Oakland, and other cities have had marches and rallies to keep Congress from tearing apart families and communities. Today's rallies mark San Francisco's third in the last month.

Yesterday I took pictures of flyers along 24th St. and neighboring parts of Mission St. It's amazing how many businesses are participating in the strike and how many more support the boycott. Even the Popeye's had flyers, and I thought that was unusual, but then I saw that the McDonald's had elected to close for May Day! Reports indicate that the Mission District is mostly shut down today and that schools are lightly attended. I haven't seen so many American flags since right after 9/11.

Meanwhile, the San Jose Mercury News prints an article that seems to reference A Day Without a Mexican. The conservative reader comments linked off that article are particularly scary.

Quite a charged day.

This Week in SF

2006-03-03T07:53:38Z

On Monday I got stuck in an elevator. I was riding up when the power cut out briefly, trapping me between the 3rd and 4th floors. It took an elevator serviceperson more than an hour to come out and restore service.

On Tuesday I felt my first earthquake. I was at work and felt the floor wobble for a split-second. Cool!

San Bruno Ave. Brewery is in business!

2006-01-15T09:34:21Z

Tonight I started the "Make Your Own Merlot" kit that my sister Asha gave me for Christmas. I've been meaning to branch out into making other fermented beverages, and here was my chance. I think maybe the kit is supposed to remind me of how she wanted to visit Napa Valley with us during her stay at Thanksgiving, but we failed to make it there. I received the gift while in Illinois for Christmas; rather than checking some luggage, we decided to ship it to San Francisco, and I think the shipping charge cost about as much as the kit did originally. It seems like a decent beginner's winemaking kit, but I took advantage of my homebrewing equipment (and kung-fu!). The instructions say I'll be bottling in a month, so we'll see if the wine bug bites.

I also racked to glass the Irish stout I started on New Year's Day. I'm not so optimistic about it, as it was born in haste. A nasty boilover lead to mess on the stove and a weakened wort. Maybe some aging and carbonation will cover up the shortcomings. I need to remember that it's never a good idea to start a brew when I might be pressed for time; if I'm going to also bottle on the same day, I need to ensure that the afternoon or evening is free and clear.

I am excited about the wee heavy -- I call it the Hallowe'en Heavy -- that jane837 and I brewed on Halloween Eve. It should be ready at the beginning of next month and fairly true to form.

Saturday afternoon on Bartlett Street

2005-11-09T09:10:20Z

22nd & Bartlett, San Francisco, CA

¡Ya voté!

2005-11-09T07:56:45Z

We haven't even been here for a month, but we've already registered to vote and, today, voted. I'm sure we missed months of debate and discussion, but we did our best with a little bit of research. The polling place was at the elementary school at the end of our block, so that was a short and sweet walk this sunny morning. Buena Vista School, indeed! It was pretty similar to how Champaign County conducts elections, except
=> the voting booths don't have curtains here on any side,
=> the ballots are large legal-size sheets containing all the text you'd need, in English, Spanish, and Chinese (the unofficial official languages of San Francisco, with the occasional Japanese),
=> votes are marked with a black felt-tip pen, filling in the body of an arrow,
=> and the ballots are cast into a scanner which instantly tabulates the votes and retains the paper ballots in the vault beneath it. It's a simple user interface with nearly zero chance of misvoting, the original ballots are retained for a recount, and the totals are available right after the polls close. Sounds pretty good to me. In San Francisco, local officials are elected using ranked-choice voting, also known as instant-runoff voting, which is not as mathematically sound as the Condorcet method, but it sure beats the usual plurality electoral system.

Californian voters rejected all propositions, which basically means that the Governor wasted $7.2 million of his own money for this special election, and drug companies blew $80 million trying to avoid prescription drug discounts for the poor; over $250 million was spent campaigning for or against the initiatives. The teen abortion proposition (73) was the closest call and fortunately failed, barely. San Franciscans like to vote yes on city measures, and as a result, streets and sidewalks will be improved, military recruiters will be barred from public schools, and possession of handguns in the city will be forbidden. Good thing I left behind my Walther PPK when we moved!

...

2005-10-18T06:00:51Z

jane837 is doing a better job of documenting our first weekend as SF residents. Today was my first day at Coverity. A pretty good first day -- free lunch (Indian takeout!) and I committed a revision.

Tomorrow morning, the movers show up with all of our stuff. I can't wait to unpack and be settled in for the first time in months.

The Odyssey

2005-10-18T05:06:35Z

As prepared as we thought we were for this trip, we still ended up in a panic last Sunday evening when we realized that we had WAY more stuff than we had space in our car. We repacked the car several times to maximize space, but we still ended up throwing out at least a second carload’s worth of stuff. The rest went to Miranda and Harmon’s house – they got the booze, baking supplies, paper products, and toiletries. Afterwards, we had one last meal and Old Style at the Esquire before heading out to the Sleater-Kinney show at the Highdive. Almost everyone we knew in town was there, and it was a happy way to cap our last night in town.

We set out around 9:30 on Monday morning, after saying goodbye to Mom and handing the apartment keys over to the new tenant. Emma had been given her valium pill, but it hadn’t quite kicked in yet, so the trip started with about an hour of pitiful meowing. Our first stop was in Bartonville, IL at Tyroni’s, an Italian restaurant that turned out to be pretty mediocre. We both had their house specialty of cheese soup, and it tasted like the main ingredient was Velveeta. Later on we stopped at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop (they claim to be the largest truck stop in the world). It definitely was huge – an enormous gift shop, shower facilities, a dentist’s office, barbershop, and food court.

We had dinner at the Cracker Barrel in Omaha and then decided to drive on for a little while longer before giving up for the day. This turned out to be a HUGE mistake, as Emma was coming out of her Valium-induced stupor and realized she REALLY needed to use the bathroom. We had no idea just how badly she needed to go until she had already peed in the carrier and started freaking out (as would anyone who was trapped in a small box with their own urine). So we had to find the nearest motel as quickly as possible so we could clean everything up and get her to her litter box. We headed to the Super 8 in Gretna, NE – Super 8’s are generally pet-friendly, but this one was definitely not. So we had to sneak Emma in as quickly as possible, and pray we wouldn’t get caught. Of course, at this point the Valium had totally worn off and Emma was extremely stressed out and meowing as loud and as often as she possibly could. Even after a full dose of Valium, she cried the entire night and kept us awake worrying about the motel staff coming to yell at us. Morning came, and somehow we weren’t in trouble.

Our first order of business on Tuesday morning was to go back to Omaha to buy Emma a new pet carrier, harness, and leash. We hoped that she would be able to use the litter box at rest stops now that we didn’t have to worry about her running away. In the mall parking lot, we gave Emma her first experience with the outdoors. She was willing to get out of the car, but then she just plopped herself down 6 inches from the door and refused to move. The noises and sights were pretty overwhelming and she was shaking from the stress. There was no way in hell we were going to get her to use the litter box outside.

On Jane's stepdad’s recommendation we stopped for lunch at Ole’s Big Game Bar in Paxton, NE. Ole was a big game hunter in the mid 20th century, and the restaurant is full of his impressive, yet EXTREMELY CREEPY collection of taxidermied animals including a polar bear, a giraffe, an elephant head, a moose head (right above our table!), and a bobcat. It only seemed fitting for Jane to order the buffalo burger.

The only bad weather we had during the trip was the three hours of rain through central Nebraska. The western part of Nebraska and the eastern part of Wyoming had a bit of snow on the fields along the roads, but the roads were clear and dry. At the first rest stop in Wyoming, we stopped to stretch our legs and change drivers. We put Emma on her harness and again tried to get her to use the litter box outside. She didn’t use it, but she found the snowy lawn to be interesting and fun.

We decided to end our day a little earlier than on Monday, since Emma still refused to use the litter box outside of the safety of a motel room. We stayed at the very pet-friendly Sunset Inn in Laramie, WY, so we were able to let Emma roam free for a bit while we were at dinner. We ended up going downtown to a brewery/restaurant called Altitude Chophouse & Brewing Co., where Arun ordered the beer sampler for $7. It turns out the sampler comes with eight 7-ounce glasses of beer, which was MUCH more than we expected. And Jane couldn’t help him drink it since she’d been fending off a sore throat for the last couple of days. To his credit, he did manage to make it about ¾ of the way through before giving up.

We woke up well-rested on Wednesday morning and headed west through Wyoming. At lunchtime we stopped in Rock Springs, WY at a quiet little joint called Pam’s Bar-B-Que. We were the only customers there, and Pam liked to talk at us. We admired the collection of pigs – stuffed animals, figurines, torn out coloring book pages – and the creepy doll standing on a shelf next to our booth. When we got into Utah, we decided to stop at the Echo Canyon rest stop, where we dragged Emma up to the top of a very large hill so we could get some scenic pictures. Although she doesn’t seem to mind the leash, she’s not about to walk in the direction we’d like her to go.

We also stopped at the West Wendover, NV rest stop, where a police officer gave Arun funny looks for using the electricity to charge his cell phone. We also got our first taste of the Nevada casinos there.

Yet again, we stayed at the Super 8, this time in Elko, NV – unlike the one in Omaha, this Super 8 was pet friendly. After getting Emma settled in the motel room with her litter box, we decided to walk down the street to Toki-Ona, a “Basque and American” restaurant that piqued our interest. It turned out that “Basque and American” meant overpriced steak dinners with spaghetti and baked potato side dishes. (Apparently Elko has a significant Basque community, and we happened to choose the "worst" "Basque" restaurant in town.) Blah. We were not in the mood to pay $12-$25 for a meal made with crappy ingredients that we wouldn’t really enjoy, so we paid for our drinks and got out of there. Instead, we walked the other direction to the Red Lion Casino where we ate at the Coffee Bistro and proceeded to play a whole $5 in slots before heading back to bed.

The last day of our trip started out well – we passed through the official “Armpit of America” according to the Washington Post (Battle Mountain, NV), and then had an excellent lunch in Reno at the Silver Peak Brewing Co. outside on their patio. The Reno 911 theme song was stuck in Jane’s head for hours.

Not far outside Reno, we crossed into the final state of our adventure – California! We traveled for miles through forested mountains, much of it at glacial speeds due to road construction. Eventually we emerged through the mountains only to hit rush hour in the Auburn/Sacramento area. Near dusk we arrived in the North Bay area, crossing the Bay Bridge – the only toll we paid the whole trip!

We arrived at our new home around 7pm Pacific Time, having traveled 2236.9 miles (including backtracking) since driving out of Urbana. We probably burned close to 100 gallons of gas! After unloading the car at the house, we drove to the nearest Target and bought an air mattress (although at that point it was tempting to just sleep on the floor if it meant we could go to sleep sooner). Despite the uncomfortable mattress, we slept really well that night.

A month (and 2000 miles) away...

2005-09-13T05:23:45Z

This evening I accepted a position with Coverity! It was a tough decision between that and Yahoo!, but in the end I decided to take the one less traveled by.

In terms of dates:
My last day with the University will be October 7th. We'll start driving towards San Francisco on October 10th or thereabouts, and my first day at the new job shall be on October 17th. Hopefully we'll find a new apartment during a housing-hunting trip the first weekend in October.

Final Opportunists show this Saturday!

2005-07-14T22:31:54Z

The story of the Opportunists is drawing to a close. Meghan and Cyrus
moved to NYC in June, but they have blessed us with a visit this weekend
for one final show. On top of that, at this show we will be releasing
a CD of songs we recorded this spring. Please come see us one last time
if you can!

This Saturday, July 16
Mike & Molly's (beer garden, if weather permits!)
with Triple Whip and Cameo Turret.
Show starts at 10pm, we'll go on at 11ish.
Come early to hang out with us!
$4 cover, 21+.

arun251 @ 2005-06-28T20:39:00

2005-06-29T01:53:01Z

I'm finally caught up with dishes since maybe the party in mid-May. Maybe that means it's time for another party?

Today I bottled 4.5 gallons (48 bottles) of lemon coriander weiss beer. It's pretty fruity now, but the beer may mellow and carbonate enough in time for the Opportunists' final show! I suppose I'll hold off from brewing until after we move into the new place in late July. I'm not sure what I'd like to brew next, but I have some ideas. In the mean time, there's still thirty-something bottles of English IPA and forty-something bottles of orange blossom wheat beer waiting to be quaffed.

Arun Bhalla

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The Ride is here!

A lovely evening

My ride to end AIDS

Super Bowl XLIII

*tap tap tap* Is this thing still on?

Dancing in the Streets

Strike! (aka Happy May Day!)

This Week in SF

San Bruno Ave. Brewery is in business!

Saturday afternoon on Bartlett Street

¡Ya voté!

...

The Odyssey

A month (and 2000 miles) away...

Final Opportunists show this Saturday!

arun251 @ 2005-06-28T20:39:00

tap tap tap Is this thing still on?