Skip to main content

A few of my (new) favorite things

Trying something new is the spice of life.  Heck - no spice no life.

So this weekend I got to explore a few new things.  And I must say I hit four for four on it.

I like to take transit into the city to check out spots to take pictures. SF can offer that if you have the patience and temperament for it.

China town in the heart of the city bordering the financial district gives an opportunity to photograph a civilization calling another continent their home.  One of the larger expat communities of Chinese, the SF locale is bustling with fruit and veg vendors along with smells of fresh dim sum. 

This picture is of the edge of the financial district showing the now for sale Transamerica pyramid.  I traveled a new Muni Route and got rewarded for it.


Sharp lines in the building hardware are broken by smiling 20 year old mural hiding in the shadows as I snapped it traveling down Stockton Street that runs south from North beach.

Then it was back in my hood to chow down some of my favorite food. Vietnamese cuisine.  This time we tried Banh Khot along with the sweet coffee and Bahn Mi.  It reminded me of India's street food (as this is to the streets of Saigon) called Gol gappa or Pani Puri.  Except here it is more like half a puri.  Delish to the last morsel.



Banh Khot loosely translates to rice cakes as they are made of rice flour topped with fresh scallions and shrimp and some sweet dipping sauce.  I added chilli sauce to enhance its flavor.  Yum.

Post prandial we headed to the local library to get some good reads.  I stumbled on my favorite subject - investigating god.  Or the existence or lack thereof.  As the old adage goes - Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 



Author Amir Aczel (new to me) makes some rather bold commentary in this publication.  As I read I got a hankering to try the pilsner that I had picked up at Trader Joe's earlier.

A light pilsner.  Another new to me brand, this one is called Warsteiner -from central Germany - is quite hoppy to make me happy.





A chilled bottle of bottom fermented goodness and perfection, it helped me absorb the complicated truths of whether god exists.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

On the go(zay masta) in Japan again

Cool cat the Japanese are Tokyo at dusk  My second visit to this land of the rising sun after almost a decade. Back then clearly I was wet behind the ears product manager and likely didn’t pay attention to all (efficient) things Japanese. But today I did and of course continue to be impressed. It is as much the obvious stuff like on time travel that is both clean and comfortable and all that which makes it possible. The impressive landmark and landscapes that these humans have put together despite their cramped (or because of it) surroundings and precarious geological conditions could amaze a novice architect among us. But it’s also the little things that someone had to think about which have a phenomenal impact on day to day lives that make the Japanese stand apart. Below are few random examples- 1. Providing a very fine machined wooden toothpick in every packet of wooden chopsticks. The said chapsticks are simply set on the To Go counter of any food vendor/ convenience store wher...

A few good books

 On an informal mission to read one book a week as long as the eyes allow for such ambition. Fiction or non is not important as long as it entertains and /or educates. To that end the past few weeks have brought a bounty in the form of some wonderful and then not so engaging literature. Among the notables are - Non fiction category: 1. Good arguments by Bo Seo (how to handle a dispute or debate the most efficient way possible) 2. Genesis by Eric Schmidt (and former US Secy of State Henry Kissinger, who recently passed) - how AI might affect our lives as we know it 3. One in a billion - Zarna Garg (an autobiographical look at an Indian born American woman with a bindi narrated in a standup format - yes it is at times cliched but still funny) Fiction: 1. Personal by Lee Child (a vigilante story with Jack Reacher the giant, nomad protagonist of Child's novels goes hunting for a sniper) 2. Ramayana unraveled by Ami Ganatra (she might disagree about it being a work of fiction but oh wel...

Back in DC

This time for a tech conference in the realm of what else? AI. But applied to an oft neglected space called Knowledge Management. The latter is a community of practice that focuses on analyzing, organizing and making available reams of data that have been gathered over time by various functions within an organization for anyone in the company to utilize. This function or process is ripe for applying AI agents (or agentic AI framework) and optimize for better outcomes. It was informative. More rewarding was getting acquainted with folks who practice this craft as well as learning of what they see in the corporate or public sectors. Since the venue was Washington DC it also afforded me the chance to take evening strolls albeit the weather was trying. With wind chill in the single digit it still is a glamorous place to perambulate through history absorbing what this country has been through since its founding days. I was able to visit the place Lincoln was killed along with his monument t...