A bittersweet morning in Oakland

I woke up this morning feeling good. Maybe a bit fuzzy from all of that bourbon tasting, but I was still reveling in Pican’s grand opening party that I attended last night (thanks dto510 for inviting me!). Pican is  gorgeous, large, and comforting, yet elegant. I think it will soon become a destination restaurant.
But then [...]

The Parkway Speakeasy Theater

This weekend, I freaked out a bit when I realized I still hadn’t seen The Dark Knight, especially since everyone I know has seen it twice. So last night I coaxed my girlfriend into seeing it with me a second time at the Parkway Speakeasy Theater.
There are lots of options for movies in Oakland, but [...]

Oakland Art Murmur

I have an embarrassing confession to make – until last night, I had never been to the Oakland Art Murmur. It always seems like I’m out of town on the first Friday of the month, or I simply forget it’s the first Friday, or I’m just too exhausted at the end of the week.
But I’m [...]

Fire Arts Festival 2008

This year’s Crucible Fire Arts Festival was my favorite so far. But I’ll let the photos do most of the talking… (Thanks to my awesome girlfriend for taking the vast majority of these pictures!)
On the main stage, there were performers throughout the night, but the highlight was this graceful, incredibly coordinated, strong pair of acrobats [...]

Middle Harbor Park = Awesome

(So I haven’t been doing too good a job of writing about the places and events on my list of essential Oakland experiences, but I’m back on track now and will hopefully write some more soon. Also, I went back through old posts and linked to some of them on the essential Oakland experiences page, [...]

Oakland Rose Garden

The non-profit that I work at recently decided to give employees half days every other Friday for the summer so I took advantage of this yesterday and decided to start embarking on my list of essential Oakland experiences. I plan to blog about all of these experiences and to make it easier to reference these [...]

Essential Oakland Experiences

Over the past week or so, I’ve started to realize that there are a lot of amazing things in Oakland that I haven’t experienced (and probably an equal amount that I have). With life as hectic as it is, I really don’t think I’ll get to most of these experiences anytime soon unless I make [...]

Winter’s Still Here

Maybe I’m just a wimp, since I grew up in LA and have spent my whole life in California, but this winter has been really cold for the East Bay. It seems like the coldest winter we’ve had in my eight years living here, and it’s been one of the wettest too.
Yet somehow I’ve managed [...]

Move over Project Runway to make way for Hot Couture

Last Friday night I was lucky enough to experience Hot Couture, a fire filled fashion show and performance art spectacle at the Crucible in West Oakland. And wow – the night thoroughly surpassed my expectations.
If you’re not familiar with the Crucible, I think NovoScene described this place pretty accurately:
The Crucible is like that one little [...]

Fall’s Here

It could be argued that it’s been here for some time now, but as I’ve written here before, I track Bay Area seasons by produce, not by weather.
I didn’t make it to the Temescal Farmer’s Market last Sunday, but as I walked up to the market this morning, I immediately could tell that it was [...]