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April 23, 2001
Mike Craven Visits
It's nice to see old friends. Mike and I have been good friends for about 6 years, having met at my job at the University of Minnesota. We spent many drunken nights and hung-over mornings together. Our first hang was at the Minnesota State Fair, which to the uninitiated would seem like a lame place to hang out, but it's really quite a lot of fun. We laughed until it hurt.
He was out for a visit of 1 1/2 days for business. We went out the first night (Thursday) to a work gathering - a friend was leaving for six weeks in South East Asia and she a few friends together for drinks at a trendy place called Back Flip in the Tenderloin. We had a beer and headed back over the bridge to join Jenny for some of the best pizza in the Bay Area - Zachary's. They make an amazing Chicago-style pizza, topped with some of the best chunky tomato sauce I've ever tasted.
We dropped Jenny back off at home - allergies! - and headed to Gino and Bears for beer and pool. The pool table ended up being dominated by the locals, so we played some darts instead. I like hanging with Mike and this time it brought back lots and lots of memories of what fun I had in my past life. It was fun seeing him, and fun introducing him to the life I've made here.
We woke up early and headed off to Jimmy Beans for breakfast - it's a nice placed owned by the folks who also run LaLimes - a fancy place near our house. The fare is simple at Jimmy Beans, and we always order the same breakfast - Tortilla Eggs, and a bagel with Cream Cheese and Tomato.
The bagel, cream cheese and tomato is something that I have realized is a San Francisco breakfast. It's hard to find outside of the city, and I think Mike found it mildly strange that we ordered it time and time again. Still, I enjoy it and we often make 'em at home for a fast and tasty breakfast.
The day was spent mostly at home waiting for my DSL lines to be reinstalled. A frustrating experience, as I would have liked to go out and about with Mike, but was tied to the front window watching for the Van to pull up.
Mike had a presentation to attend for work on Friday night, so I spent the evening with Jenny, and then headed to pick him up in The City at 10:30 p.m. We drove around in The City for a while, looking for parking in the Lower Haight, but had no luck so we headed back across the bridge to Gino and Bear for some beer and pool, again.
We did, this time, get to play pool. We played several games, both slop and straight, both of us benefiting form the slop game. Still, the pool was just a vehicle for conversation, and we had a great time catching up and talking about Minneapolis. It was nice.
Saturday, we both woke up poisoned. We had breakfast at Saul's in Berkeley, and headed off to the Oakland Airport so Mike could head South to Los Angeles for part two of his business trip.
Posted by tdotjay at April 23, 2001 10:20 AM
Comments
Hello T. Jay,
I know this is really kinda of Odd but...is the Mike Craven your talking about originally from Crystal Lake Il? if it is could you pass my e-mail addy to him..
Thanks
Posted by: Clark White at September 15, 2006 7:24 AM
