San Francisco and what to do in it

lol beer pong

Oh dear, spouse talked to some tech bro and now wants to add RENO to the mix??? Wtf??? How did we get from NoCa to RENO?

Hemet is where it's at ... or Turlock

quincie do you like meth, perchance?

― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, August 28, 2019 8:55 PM (yesterday)

If she does, I would really like to give a shout out to Bakersfield!

Oh dear, spouse talked to some tech bro

I've found the problem.

Reno pros: cheap, close to Tahoe, "under the radar cool"

Or so I hear. Friends move there and people nod and say "yeah Reno is actually supposed to be pretty cool." idk

I am not moving to fucking reno

Ned otm

"Dude, and each year, Burning Man is RIGHT THERE."

"Wow, you've sold me."

Yeah well for better or for worse spouse is a tech bro so we do need to go somewhere where he can do that. I figure we will both end up working at Kaiser.

On cursory inspection, Santa Cruz looks like Coney Island?

I figure we will both end up working at Kaiser.

headquarters in Oakland, represent!

Does coney island have redwoods? Locals dont generally bother w the boardwalk

Santa Cruz is pretty small and it's two most notable features are probably the university and the boardwalk. But essentially it's a small beach town (with all that that implies) on the edge of a redwood forest.

xp - hey, we fucked w/the boardwalk on $2 Tuesdays! ... Santa Cruz was more scruffy boho prior to the earthquake in 1989. It's gotten way more bougie since the extensive earthquake damage allowed developers to gentrify the fuck out of it. One of the best used record/books stores, Logos, that I remember from my teen years, closed in the past few years ...

I went to school there so would never call myself a "local" (altho DJI can def claim that)

I have many records that still have the LOGOS price sticker stamped on them

I have many records that still have the LOGOS price sticker stamped on them

same here! some of them I sold last year for at least what I paid for them ... so many $3 punk and new wave records ...

We was ridin high til the '89 quake
Hit the Santa Cruz Garden Mall
Like a wrecking ball

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1ujuoo9VbA

I have no knowledge of pre-earthquake SC. I guess downtown is more bougie, but the overall city itself still seems to have that weird insular bubble vibe college towns sometimes have - still a mix of hippie burnouts, students/academia, surfers, retirees, and weirdos

way better vibrant music scene than their used to be, as well

Reno is fine to visit but idk abt living there

way better vibrant music scene than their used to be, as well

Camper Van Beethoven would like to have a word with you.

Here's a good history of the UC Santa Cruz banana slug mascot:

https://www.ucsc.edu/about/mascot.html

*cough* I think I trust the guy who lives within driving distance of Santa Cruz and is actively involved in music to be able to say how the scene's been doing in comparison to recent years -- like, say, this century. You know?

It was a joke. You know?

Oh I’m a huge CVB dork. Of course they were done by the time i got there. I did see Cracker’s very first show ever at the Catalyst in SC though. They covered Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy.

But when I was there there was nowhere for small bands to play (or even rehearse), one local label in operation, and maybe a half-dozen (non-hippie) bands trying to play house parties and random breweries and shit. The Fucking Champs were the biggest thing going.

There’s way more going on now afaict

Maybe you're forgetting about my band from high school? Stigmata?

I think the (((Folk Yeah!))) guy has been a godsend to the area, he's booked a bunch of stuff in SC. There's a metal scene, there's psych stuff, we recently did a show with a great singer-songwriter type guy from down there. There's two major places for smaller, independent music that opened up since I left (Moe's Alley and the Abbey), etc. There's an actual recording studio at UCSC's Music Center that did not exist when I went there (I did get in there a couple years later when they were initially setting it up). It's very different now.

When I went there touring bands did *not* come through Santa Cruz - with the exception of boomer bands coming through the Catalyst and the odd "secret" Neil Young show - and shows by local bands were generally tiny, illegal, and sparsely attended. One time I saw the Melvins at a (now defunct) brewery, that felt like a big deal.

lol DJI xp

I always thought it was crazy that there would be a university and no on-campus venue or resources for live music, but that's the way it was then.

I saw Nirvana open for Dinosaur Jr at the Catalyst in 1991

yeah that was just before I got there

the Catalyst was really the only game in town at the time

Reno is shitty, trust me.

I'd live in santa cruz if I didn't have to commute to SF.

Are there IT operations jobs plentiful in SC? No way would spouse be up for an SF commute (nor would I, but my options are more flexible, plus they will all pay fairly shitty regardless).

no jobs are plentiful in SC but I know people commute from there to SV/SJ tech firms, that's what Highway 17 is for. I had college roommates that would commute to Cisco's campus back in the day.

How much of a nightmare is a hwy 17 commute?

26 miles of amazingly dangerous and beautiful highway

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/the-commuters-guide-to-driving-highway-17

Yeah, that's the perfect description of it. There's transit bus lines for it, at least.

I knew people who got into major accidents on it. I managed to avoid that somehow, but then I didn't drive it every day.

and Caltrans goes... somewhere near Santa Cruz, right? Gilroy? Maybe that's not so close

Not close, no. Yeah, there are Caltrain runs that go to Morgan Hill and Gilroy, and if transit to work is a factor -- and horse space -- I wouldn't rule those out, but they are getting increasingly popular and busy all around. Also, it can get REALLY hot. (My gf grew up in Morgan Hill and her parents live there; I've been there often enough now to speak from experience on the heat point in particular.)

Here's the official system map -- you can see where the 17 approaches it.

http://www.caltrain.com/stations/systemmap.html

Anyway, yeah, I think I'd recommend Morgan Hill a little more over Gilroy just because it's not THE end of the line, and a whole slew of thankfully non-developed land is right there for hiking, riding, etc. The Caltrain connection only runs during the week, not the weekend, so it's not a simple hop up to SF for a weekend visit, but if you get yourself to Diridon Station in San Jose you have that.

If you work at a big company, there are often company shuttles to the Valley.

There are a few companies in SC. I know a couple guys who work at Universal Audio. The Alexa app team is down there. I'm sure there are other computer jobs, but not like the Valley.

Netflix corporate is just over hwy17 from Santa Cruz in Los Gatos... but in the winter when the rains start coming, that 30-45 min commute can turn into a WFH day (which is not bad). About a year and a half ago I was driving back from SC in the rain on hwy17 and on one of the sweeping off-camber horseshoe curves the driver immediately in front of me did a full 360 and ended up not hitting any other cars nor the center divider, it was pretty amazing/horrifying as that could have turned out much worse.

Romantic lunch date, San Francisco style (yes, that’s an electric one-wheeled skateboard) #PeakSanFrancisco pic.twitter.com/i9lRZ8yw2R

— Wᴇ Bᴜɪʟᴛ Tʜɪs Cɪᴛʏ is the name of the photo blog (@TheRealWBTC) August 29, 2019

god I hate those things

Highway 17 is awful, and you don’t want to live in Mormon Hill or Gilroy

I am actually in San Francisco rn playing a gig at the knockout