Brian L. Colbert

Posts Tagged ‘san francisco’

CALICO, was in full force at The Boardmatch 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco last night.

The Boardmatch is a job-fair style event featuring Bay Area nonprofits whose leadership was on hand to talk to interested candidates about serving on their organization’s board of directors.  It was great!!  CALICO’s contingent was led by the BDC (Board Development Committee), which is led by me, your tireless and intrepid reporter.  The entire BDC battalion was there, Gloria, Holly and Patricia.  Joining in the cause was Vicky, CALICO’s Executive Director and Mark (a fellow board member).  It was great opportunity to talk about CALICO’s mission in a relaxed setting.  We met some really exciting candidates and are  looking forward to following up with them in the near future.

If you are interested in getting involved with CALICO, as a possible board member, sponsoring our Spring Gala or just volunteering,  get in touch with CALICO or drop me a line; these kids need everybody’s help.

Been busy lately.

Wrote up a contract last week which was mentally challenging and fulfilling  at the same time.

Had a great San Francisco Weekend.  Grabbed some food at the  Ferry Plaza Farmers Market on Saturday and then went back for an early dinner at Slanted Door.  Finished up the evening at the Top of the Mark, which has really great views.  Unfortunately the sound system was bad so it felt like my ears where going to explode every five minutes.

Sunday was spent out in Napa, a quick stop in Tiburon to visit, lunch at Taylor’s Automatic Refresher and then wandering back to SF, hitting some wineries along the way.

Monday was back to the grind, capped off by a great meal at Lark Creek Steak House.  The pork chop was great, but their biscuits are simply transcendent.

On Wednesday, around midday I was heading on BART over to the East Bay to check out this month’s Infusion.  I entered BART at the Civic Center stop, which is a loooong football throw from City Hall in beautiful San Francisco.

As I sat in the middle of the platform reading Holman Jenkin’s  column on the “Backdating Molehill.”  a couple (of sorts) sauntered past me.  They were either having relationship issues or he was a potential stalker.  Turns out it was a latter.  About five minutes later, I saw the young man shouting loudly at another man at another BART.  They were about 10 feet away from me and the young man was screaming, “Don’t try to run up on me.”  I was unfamiliar with the phrase, “run up on me,” but I quickly deduced that that young hoodlum, hooligan, ruffian, man thought that the other guy was trying to pick him up. It was also clear that that young man was completely out of his mind.  After a few minutes of shouting he began to madly flail and hit the other guy, screaming, “Don’t try to run up on me,” the entire time.

As I sat there, I wondered if I was watching a bizarre reenactment of Dan’s rather’s surreal, “What’s the frequency Kenneth,” experience.  As I sat humming they lyrics to,” What’s the Frequecy Kenneth by REM, a less contemplative BART passenger defused the situation.

Then to my surprise the man approached me, wildly gesticulating and screaming, “did you see him try to run up on me.  Taken aback, I relied up the time worn strategy of a warrior born in Fairfield County, CT … I hid behind my Wall Street Journal!!

And it worked.   It must have been the editorial page that scared him off.  Somewhere Robert Bartley is smiling.

I live in the heart of San Francisco and don’t own a car.  So, I’m always walking and frequently taking Muni for longer jaunts around the city.  Muni is crazy, I mean seriously crazy. There usually seems be seems a screaming lunatic with a slight air of menace on every bus that crossing Market street.    I tell people about this situation and tend they stare at me like I’m crazy, particularly people that don’t live in SF.  How could a place with Fisherman’s Wharf, Union Square and Michael Mina  have a bus system that frequently seems to be a toxic brew of Rollerball, Ultimate Fighting and an insane asylum.  So I’m pained that I missed the recent hearing on Muni.

I don’t regularly ride the “worst” bus lines mentioned in the article, so I can’t imagine what the bedlam quotient is  on those particular lines.  But, I have seen this video taken on Muni.

Yesterday was absolutely beautiful in San Francisco,  I hopped over to Japantown and picked up some Pocky.  Pocky is a throughly addictive and totally fun to say Japanese snack.  To have Pocky is to love Pocky.  I also picked up few random cheap bits of fun from Ichiban Kan.

Today was a much more deary day in SF.  It was cloudy all day and even tried to rain for about 30 seconds, but no matter.  As long as it’s not snowing.

Had dinner Michael Mina’s new place RN74 Friday evening. I’ve already dined at his flagship “Michael Mina” and decided to mix things up.  RN74 is on the ground floor of the Millenium Tower in SOMA.

The food was unsurprisingly delicious.  The preparation was absolutely flawless, Friday’s selections consisted of  the following:

• soft-shell crab with lemon and ginger
• sauteed pork bellies and manila clams with spring garlic and paprika
• wild Alaskan halibut with black truffles, sunchokes, peas and a whole lot of carrots
• duck “cassoulet”

The meal was topped off with a couple of delectable desserts:

• Kumquat Confiture with coriander sponge cake, yogurt and white verjus sorbet
• Warm beignets with mascarpone, blueberry, lemon thymey and Ras al Hanout sorbet

The menu is simple and , so I would definetly make sure that everyone in your party was happy with the possible selections before making a reservation.

The room, successfully invoking the feeling of railroad era gone by  was nice, not particularly cramped and nice high ceilings.

The place was also a bit loud, but that could be the result of dining on a Friday night.  The bar area is a  least the size of the restaurant and at one point the line for the bathrooms (coed) was baffling long.  Perhaps someone (or some two) was trying to recreate the bathroom experience at The Box in NYC.

Very interesting meal for an anniversary.

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