Tuesday, May 19: Berkley Oakland and Polo in Silicon Valley

Near the Rental Car Place

Well I decided to sleep in there on my phone and my around for a while. I was a half hour late to my rental but the woman with nice

Where I Had Coffee

and declined to charge me the extra hour she could have charged me. I then decided

Nice Woman at Peat's

that I'm going to go down to the Best Buy in Oakland and replace that barely works now. After dropping

A Berkley Person

off the car, I went to Pete's coffee since I was disappointed and Café Clem with its harsh coffee and no Wi-Fi.

At Peat's

I went to Pete's coffee and finished up yesterday's draft up the blog. I have to make it look pretty but I

View From Peat's

have all the pictures that I can fit in place. That took a while. Why did it take an hour and a half. I had to decide what pictures to delete and then wait for the downloads to finish off. Now 1:14 PM I'm going to look at Google maps and take the old barn down to Oakland. I haven't seen much of Oakland

BART Station

since I've been here. It's now

My Route to Best Buy

View From BART Station

1:23 PM the sun is out that you can see from the later picture outside the coffee shop. Well I got off

The BART Station

the MacArthur stop and I have about 1.2 miles of walking to get to Best Buy. So I'll be able to feel little bit of

Bike Racks at McArthur Stop

Oakland if I brought along. Well is going to catch the bus but just like back home in Philly they don't

Along 40th Street in Oakland

make change so I'm walking. The weather here is perfect walking weather 60° and a nice breeze.

Yucca Plant

Well I got to the Best Buy and of course when I know what I want to get I couldn't get customer service for

Oakland

15 minutes. What's I got the customer service my card was declined by capital one because I'm out-of-state

The Best Buy

and didn't tell him. It's for protection I get it but it's spooked  me. I'm meeting a Panera Bread waiting for

The New Chromebook

Greg to pick me up for his polo match. Dig this bro Pat wants to sell his house to me pay office bills and then he rents from me after I buy his house!!

The Trip

This far out or what? I can't make this shit up!!! Man was I

X Marks Not Available

hungry and sandwich really hit the spot. It's now 3:45 PM I should be picked up around 4 o'clock or so

Lunch

from Greg I'm a little further away than I expected. We managed to make it on time for Greg to change

View from Peat's

and get on his polo match at Woodside Equestrian Park.. I became timekeeper by default. It's very interesting. The traffic's awful but it's beautiful here you would never know there was a traffic jam anywhere near

here. Well in news outside my head and

 The Freeway

outside Silicon Valley, The Philadelphia 76ers just got the 3rd pick in the NBA

Near the Woodside Equestrian Park

draft.

The will still suck but maybe they won't suck as much. Speaking of

Philadelphia I just read on Facebook that Jim Kenny one more than 50% of the primary voters. Daily news

The Horses at Woodside Equestrian Park

columnist Christine flowers Republican I believe, really doesn't like him. She likes Lynn Abraham. I  think she

Greg LaBlanc

was out of touch with voters and was past her prime. I think she could have done better in previous election.

I as the Timekeeper

Here's with Christine flowers thanks Jim Kenny what do to make Philadelphia worst place to live.

"Decriminalize pot. Accuse people of homophobia. Weaken the ability of the police to effectively execute

Spectatior

legal stops. There's more, but I'm tired.  I'm sure I'll have more ideas by Friday's column :)"

And made a response but I was more concerned about how Jim Kenny

Will run the city and cause more ministry it up and physical basis.

Add caption

Her response was as follows: 

"Yes Domenic, I think so. Mark, I think he's become progressive out of necessity and

 Woodside Equestrian Park.

a desire to hold into relevance. I've  never seen a more fabricated character in local politics." I think me and Ms Flowers agree on that point that he tacked left to win votes for the primary.

Coast, I came home with Greg. John Marcia and I had a very interesting conversation.

Greg Helping a Homeless Man

Marsha got two job offers which is great! I been with my new chrome book did some editing on my blog. Pretty late. My flight is at 10:40 AM I just arrived back in Philly by 7:30 PM. So will end this vacation and time we get

Buddy

together. It's been pretty fun I saw family I saw several friends I haven't seen in a while and not a spot of rain

John and Marcia

during the  entire trip. The temperature never went about 65° the entire time as well. It was the same weather. Fog and cloudiness in the morning and clarified evening.

Sunday, May 17: Becky's Graduation and Dinner with Greg and Sue

Good morning are you seekers of knowledge. Today is Becky's graduation. I got up feeling really weird

John Setting Up Party

and I found out why because I hadn't taken my meds all day yesterday. I guess because today was so fun that I didn't really

Kate and John

notice. Just what I was going to bed I realized that I left my leftover Asian curry soup in my bag and it

Driving to Graduation

leaked all of my bag. My chrome book I think is dead.

That's why bought a used one and not a new computer

Picking up Alex

in there. So I had cereal and eggs and it's now

Meeting for Graduation

8:13 AM and I need to quickly shave and get dressed. John's going to drop mom and myself off and then we're going to head to the ceremony.

We drove up and we found a parking garage right near the graduation

Becky at Her Graduation

ceremony. This was after we went to Stephanie's house and picked up Alex. We then running to Hannah

Becky in the Middle

and the others got our tickets for the ceremony. We walked in and we saw Greek Amphitheater it is a beautiful structure.

Family

and they have real concerts like Willie Nelson, Culture Club Jackson Browne and

Great Speaker from Afghanistan

Daryl Hall and John Oates. It has cement seating and it was built about 1903. It's approximate three

Dave and John

hour ceremony so I decided to get a refreshment and catch up on my blog away from the family. I don't

Chilly

want to be rude. It is a chilly 54° and overcast right now at the ceremony. There are couple of

The Greek Amphitheater

speeches that went on during the ceremony. The first black woman from Afghanistan was very

A Cute Song

moving and powerful. She really got the audience interested. The next one was absolutely graduation

Trying to Stay Warm

boring. It was some kind of awful. First you took too long and then she rambled on about things that

Becky Receiving Diploma

were little bit too politically correct leaving for Berkeley in my opinion. It wasn't a total loss she had the

Party Time

audience singing a song. it was so late but I found it pretty amusing and so did the family. We all gave out a big Hoot & holler when Becky's

Having Lunch

name was called by the dean. I got a couple really good pictures

John's Friend Rose

of her when I step down and got closer. When the ceremony and we got up pretty quickly and came

Eating Cake

back to John's place on Ashby Avenue. Everybody showed up around 12 12:30 PM and it's a very lighthearted

Becky and Mimi

affair. With plenty of food and drinks for everyone in attendance. John did a really good job of organizing the party.

Becky's Friends

I had to periodically charge my phone during the whole thing. I'm really glad I had my portable charger

Winding Down

and my charging cord with me. Anyhow, afterwords when everyone left, I decided to take a walk to the souvenir

Dave @ Telegraph St

store on telegraph Avenue & Durant. I got a sweatshirt that was half off and a polo shirt. I thought about

Store

going to a Best Buy or stopping and having coffee but I decided against both. I decided that I needed a

good old-fashioned power nap before  Sue LaBlanc picks me up to meet Greg, & Sue for dinner. Well I got

Sue

my power nap and that was really good. I then got picked up by Sue and her husband and her

Going to Greg's Place

five-year-old child. They drove me to Greg's place. Well located right at the Berkeley campus in an

Greg

area of it by the University and how's the professors. Several famous people in the area one of them is Robert Reich

Dinner!

. Greg and his girlfriend Emily had some pork and potatoes. I managed to cook pork it with you seeing

Nice Dinner

very tasty. Not much but some is how to cook that shows. A nice dinner and conversation. I meant

Sue and Emily

husband was very cool dude. The retirement from France and like a really nice guy and their kid

View From Greg's Place

down five and seemingly well-adjusted kid. It was a very nice time hope to get to see them more often.

Emily

Greg then drove me back unfortunately nobody was awake for Greg. The 10:30 PM Pacific daylight Time.

Greg's Living Room

It was a pretty good night. The day was fun and I got this Chromebook to work just one more day so I can make this blog post pretty. Tomorrow, I hope to drive to Mount Tam and see LARGE trees.