Hey DBD, exciting announcment: cf-98 was born three weeks ago today! Despite being born 2 weeks early, she was a robust 8 lbs, 12 oz. She enjoys napping, eating, pooping, and making all kinds of weird noises in her sleep. She even watched (well, slept through) ESPN's replay of the 2004 Cal-Oregon game a couple weeks ago.
Cf-98 is doing well. She's a very easygoing baby and she only wakes us up 1-3 times per night, which has made getting enough sleep very manageable. Mrs Bk97 is doing better. She had a rather difficult delivery that resulted in an emergency c-section and a large blood loss (she needed a couple transfusions in the following days before we left the hospital). She's recovered to the point where she can do light activity now, and she should be able to get back to hiking and gardening/landscaping within a couple weeks.
I interviewed two candidates this week, and I have to admit they earned just a little extra credit for telling me “Go Bears!” to start the call. I love it when candidates research the company and me before their interview! Surprisingly, few people do this!
I just got a call from my dentist as a reminder for an appt in Sept I booked after my cleaning in Feb. They said they would understand if I wanted to cancel which is why they called so far in advance. They said they do all the precautions and also take extra time in between patients to clean.
I'm debating whether or not to go. I feel it's much safer than something like a haircut. Thoughts?
thanks for all the feedback. I think I will go ahead with the appt. They said they have new Covid-19 prevention things in place so I think I'll be pretty safe. But I think I'll still have No 3 cut my hair for the foreseeable future.
I had been planning to go to the dentist in spring but I delayed it due to covid. I'm now at the point where my concern about waiting so long is outweighing the concern over covid (though it helps that the cases are reasonably under control in my area). So I now have an appointment in a couple weeks.
you should go (says the daughter of a dentist who is also a Cal alum). My dental office went full PPE years ago (mask, gloves, goggles) but now they had to add open doors (no touch), hand sanitizer in the waiting room, temp check, and the standard pre-entry questions. And you wait in the parking lot until they call you, ensuring the patient before you is out and they've cleaned everything before you walk in the door. more control than the hair salon!
I'd say the dentist and the barber are roughly equally safe, but then I'd assume form the start that the dentist is less safe because you're literally sitting there with your mouth open a lot of the time. When I went to get a haircut during that brief glorious moment when barbershops were open in some counties, me and the barber kept our masks on the whole time. But I would also assume that a dentist's office is more likely to prioritize hygiene, so call it a draw.
Is it really safer than a haircut? I'm guessing the health protocols for the dental staff are probably more stringent in many respects, but be definition your mouth is gonna have to be open, whereas with a haircut you and the provider can both be masked.
S.V. Dáte, who will almost certainly be blacklisted from future White House briefings with the all-time greatest question to Trump. His response of "uuuuuuuuuh" is the cherry on top.
Not specific to Cal, but I wish I learned a language in college. I shied away because I heard they start with little English from day one, which intimidated 18-year-old me.
Enology. I agonized over whether I would take this class, but I remember it was on Fridays like 5pm and I had prided myself in ensuring my schedules was only M-Th. I'm an idiot.
Aerospace Studies 442, basically how to fly a plane. I think it was an AF ROTC based class which was Th 1-5. I think there was a requirement so I probably couldn't have signed up for it and i always had a Th afternoon class.
Maybe Marian Diamond's IB/Human Anatomy class? I heard great things about it, but Berkeley made me realize I was bad at just pure memorization (or I didn't study it correctly) and it seemed like that class would have involved a lot of it.
I've heard pretty negative things about the basic IB anatomy course, mostly due to the number of highly competitive pre-med assholes who are looking to screw each other over in order to get ahead of the curve.
Seriously, I've heard horror stories about students altering the specimens on lab practical exams to trick following ones. No thank you!
I was a Poly Sci/US History double major so I took both those classes and did my senior thesis under Litwack.
The day our senior thesis is due he invites everyone to his house in the Berkeley Hills to turn them in and have dinner and drinks with him and his wife and gave a tour of his personal library.
Afro Am class on basically the speeches of MLK. Went over the history of the civil rights movement. As a Mechanical Engineering major, I didn't have much time to take non-engineering classes after satisfying my breadth requirements (I think 1 semester english, 3 humanities classes, and I APed out of foreign language).
The other class I took that really helped was basically an Engineering speech type class where I was forced to do a few presentations in front of the class. I HATED public speaking and this class greatly helped me not be super nervous when speaking in front of a larger group.
Sociology of sports: I learned a lot about public stadium financing and the amateurism promoted by the NCAA, the latter especially relevant in today’s world.
An interesting fact I learned in class: Fights between athletes occur more in football than other contact sports because of offsetting penalties (attacked team can hit back for “free”), the amount of protective gear they wear, and how large the teams are compared to other sports (“mob” mentality)
Earth and Planetary Sciences 51 with Prof. Alvarez. It was an extremely broad history course integrating geological, biological, and human histories. It was inspiring to take a course with Alvarez, who hypothesized and later confirmed that the dinosaur extinction was due to an asteroid impact. He was a very engaging prof too, even taking the time to learn every student's name.
Had several classes with him. good guy, bit of a nut. but just because he's nuts doesn't mean he's wrong.
The time I had classes with him the asteroid theory was shall we say on the way to being more respectable than 'Birtherism' is now, but was still on the conspiracy theory side of the academic consensus.
strange name for a freshman intro to western civilization survey course
counted for both a history and english requirement.
it was the hardest course i have ever taking. i wasnt a particularly good writer coming out of HS, so this really kicked my butt.
but we read everything from Iliad/Odyssey thur ancient Roman lit, the Bible, the entire Divine Comedy and up to Renaissance lit. everything has the original and read mostly in full.
the other cool thing was it was team taught w/ one history/classics prof and one English prof.
it certainly was the pivotal class that got me to major in Classics as well as just appreciate that there is more to life than just math and science.
Survey class for like 3 units P/NP. Included lectures from lots of different perspectives and since it was PNP, it was all about learning new things, not studying. One lecture was Glenn Seaborg.
MechEng 105 (I think), which was something to do with thermodynamics. It was one of the first classes where it felt like things clicked and made sense after years of struggling. Plus, it made me feel like an actual engineer.
I loved (but was bad at) ceramics. I would have liked to take more non-major classes, but because there wasn't too much overlap between my majors, I didn't have much time to take classes that weren't for my majors (or electives or required breadth).
No 2 took History of Rock. Said it was an amazing class. each lecture was on a different time period. She would lecture on a band and then they would listen to a sample. Different eras from early rock in the 50s all the way to today. Not just rock. There was a lecture on rap, one on grunge, alternative, punk, etc. I listened to a few of the lectures and it was really cool. There were a few that I missed that I was going to try to listen to before he lost access but I missed. I wanted to hear the 80s rap one, the one with REM, the one with Green Day. I think she also had one that included U2.
Probably Anthro 160 (Folklore). It was so interesting to understand where so many of our existing tropes had their origins. And Dudes was a great, funny, enthusiastic teacher.
I also really loved Statistics, but since I was an Econ major that might have been a req, I cannot remember.
I had a HS friend that had a really bad ID. He told me a story where the bouncer at the Bear's Lair said to the guy in front of him, "This is the worst ID I've ever seen" but let him in. My friend handed him his ID and the bouncer said, "I take that back. THIS is the worst ID I've ever seen".
When I was a student I paid the extra money so that I could use my DC card on campus and get a little more money for lunch since I spent so much time in the Engineering part of campus. I used to either get a sandwich at the deli or get a burger at the grill on the Engineering building.
Probably rugby, who won the national championship all four years. But that 2006 football team was pretty good too (same with the 2007 season until the season got cancelled after the Oregon game).
If you don't have it, I highly recommend reading Ron Fimrite's book "Golden Bears". It chronicles the history of Cal football from the university founding. Really entertaining and well-written book. The story about the Bruce Snyder era and his departure is pretty compelling reading, especially Mike Pawlawski's very clear opinion of Bob Bockrath.
Softball in 2002 did win the lone championship, first NCAA title for a Cal women's team, and I did following that championship run on the ESPN networks. Other than them, both Rugby and Men's Rowing won 3 championships during my 4 years at Cal but I didn't get to see any of those championship matches/races.
Well that was when AmEx had the special for flights and the closest we could get was Pensacola. We couldn't get to ATL to drive to Orlando. Although maybe ATL to Orlando isn't any closer.
Yes, I recall both winning pretty much all the national championships. at one point we had won something like 3/4 of all the national championships in water polo.
As an undergrad, I used to study at Boalt. It was never crowded, which is great because I like to manspread at tables when I study: one or two books open, notebook, different highlighters and colored pens, etc.
I loved the music library. With all the glass windows, the light would stream in during the day and stream out (if you walked by) at night. There was also a cute guy who worked there when I was a student.
Solid set of buildings here (although I didn't care for Northgate's aesthetics or its tendency to be about a thousand degrees in late spring semester).
lecture hall in Evans Hall (i think). there were 2 seats near the back that was right in front of the A/V booth so you could properly lean back and fall asleep w/o falling over in your seat.
I took Meditation for a single credit, so that classroom with the lights off and everyone quiet was the best room for falling asleep.
That being said, I remember being at the bottom of Wheeler Hall when a lecture was in session (don't remember the context) and thinking "oh... I thought that I'd be anonymous and unnoticeable in such a big hall but no, people who are asleep are very very conspicuous from down here".
For me it was PSL. I had 8 AM Chem 1A and Physics 7A freshman year. Many a lecture i would put my feet up and end up falling asleep. Not a surprise I didn't do so hot in those classes.
i only had one really large class at Cal and that was Econ 1, and that was in Zellerbach (i think). but it seems strange they would have classes in there.
maybe it was when they were renovating the big lecture hall in Wheeler
I took Psych 1 (just for fun) in Wheeler. I tend to sit somewhere close to the back just because. One time, there was a couple in front of me that were making out for the bulk of the lecture in the dark (for PowerPoint) like it was a movie theater. That was super bizarre.
Afternoon lectures in Wheeler for me were definitely naptime. I wish I had figured out earlier that eating a carb-heavy lunch was what was putting me in a food coma.
taken many a nap in PSL, probably the best sleeping classrooms are not the large halls designed so that people in the back can see, but one of the smaller ones.
I don't know about best, but I have probably fallen asleep in all of them. I'm also not a subtle class-sleeper. My head rolls forward, then I jerk awake, and then repeat. Apparently, it gave my friend motion sickness.
I also fell asleep during a study session in Pimentel once. Most of the pre-meds were clustered near the bottom, and I was sitting about halfway up. And then I fell asleep, and I guess the professor was making fun of me.
Okay... all my comments seems to be double-posting and when I tried to delete one, it deleted both. Now posterity will never remember my insightful, totally necessary comment.
I don't know if it was the "best", but we went to La Via Hermosa a lot because it was cheap and they gave you a lot of food. Same building as where Amoeba is now.
I found myself watching on YouTube the old UPN show, Deadly Games (one of the first shows on the then new UPN channel with Christopher Lloyd as the main villain). I didn't realize it at the time (since it predates me visiting Berkeley), but the first episode had an exterior shot of the campanile to show that the main character is apparently a physicist at Cal.
I was thinking the website Cameo that let you buy a personalized message from a celebrity for varying amount of money (set by the celeb) from $20 to $200 (or more).
Mookie Betts is going to be a Dodger for the next 12 years. Yeah, I really can get used to that.
As if you didn’t already know, Betts is really, really, really good at baseball. He showed that on Thursday night as he had his best game as a Dodger. For the night, Betts reached base all five times and had four hits. Three of those hits came for home runs. Although he’s only 27, Betts now has six career games with at least three homers. That ties him for first all time with these two players.
yup at the courts down at the end of Bancroft where the diving place is now (I think). I was standing at the net inbetween points and the first thing was the slamming of the fire escape against the building we were next to. then I had to hold onto the net because the ground was rolling.
My roommate was in PSL and the ground shook and he looked up and he was right underneath the projector that was maybe 30-40 feet up. Got up and ran out real fast.
Hey DBD, exciting announcment: cf-98 was born three weeks ago today! Despite being born 2 weeks early, she was a robust 8 lbs, 12 oz. She enjoys napping, eating, pooping, and making all kinds of weird noises in her sleep. She even watched (well, slept through) ESPN's replay of the 2004 Cal-Oregon game a couple weeks ago.
Awesome!! Congrats! Looking forward to meeting her at a future game, maybe Notre Dame.
Congrats!
Congrats! Hope you and the family are all doing well!
Congratulations!!!!! Good health to all three of you!
congrats
Congratulations on successfully making a tiny human!!
Very nice, congrats to you and Mrs. Berk!!! How's she doing?
Cf-98 is doing well. She's a very easygoing baby and she only wakes us up 1-3 times per night, which has made getting enough sleep very manageable. Mrs Bk97 is doing better. She had a rather difficult delivery that resulted in an emergency c-section and a large blood loss (she needed a couple transfusions in the following days before we left the hospital). She's recovered to the point where she can do light activity now, and she should be able to get back to hiking and gardening/landscaping within a couple weeks.
I'm glad to hear that the scary time is behind you two.
Sorry it was difficult, but I'm glad Mrs. Bk97 made it through okay and is recuperating! Best wishes to all of you.
That's scary! I'm glad that her recovery is progressing.
Yikes! I know how scary that can be!
Cal
I interviewed two candidates this week, and I have to admit they earned just a little extra credit for telling me “Go Bears!” to start the call. I love it when candidates research the company and me before their interview! Surprisingly, few people do this!
Yay Go Bears!
Did they go to Cal or were they just kissing up?
Haha they went to Cal, too
Dentist Appt
I just got a call from my dentist as a reminder for an appt in Sept I booked after my cleaning in Feb. They said they would understand if I wanted to cancel which is why they called so far in advance. They said they do all the precautions and also take extra time in between patients to clean.
I'm debating whether or not to go. I feel it's much safer than something like a haircut. Thoughts?
thanks for all the feedback. I think I will go ahead with the appt. They said they have new Covid-19 prevention things in place so I think I'll be pretty safe. But I think I'll still have No 3 cut my hair for the foreseeable future.
I had been planning to go to the dentist in spring but I delayed it due to covid. I'm now at the point where my concern about waiting so long is outweighing the concern over covid (though it helps that the cases are reasonably under control in my area). So I now have an appointment in a couple weeks.
luckily I did go in Feb so it's my normal 6 months. But I don't think it'll get any better before next spring anyways so maybe I'll just go.
you should go (says the daughter of a dentist who is also a Cal alum). My dental office went full PPE years ago (mask, gloves, goggles) but now they had to add open doors (no touch), hand sanitizer in the waiting room, temp check, and the standard pre-entry questions. And you wait in the parking lot until they call you, ensuring the patient before you is out and they've cleaned everything before you walk in the door. more control than the hair salon!
I'd say the dentist and the barber are roughly equally safe, but then I'd assume form the start that the dentist is less safe because you're literally sitting there with your mouth open a lot of the time. When I went to get a haircut during that brief glorious moment when barbershops were open in some counties, me and the barber kept our masks on the whole time. But I would also assume that a dentist's office is more likely to prioritize hygiene, so call it a draw.
Is it really safer than a haircut? I'm guessing the health protocols for the dental staff are probably more stringent in many respects, but be definition your mouth is gonna have to be open, whereas with a haircut you and the provider can both be masked.
Yeah but, you don't need a haircut, but you do need good dental health.
Yep, that's why I haven't been getting mine cut. I was just trying to think through it purely on the relative safety aspect.
You should go.
Our crumbling democracy
S.V. Dáte, who will almost certainly be blacklisted from future White House briefings with the all-time greatest question to Trump. His response of "uuuuuuuuuh" is the cherry on top.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1294033047143108608
Other Best Cal...
Not really best, but what class do you wish you took
Also wish I took the class about war. As a polisci major, I'm bummed I couldn't make the class work with the schedule
Not specific to Cal, but I wish I learned a language in college. I shied away because I heard they start with little English from day one, which intimidated 18-year-old me.
Enology. I agonized over whether I would take this class, but I remember it was on Fridays like 5pm and I had prided myself in ensuring my schedules was only M-Th. I'm an idiot.
TIL what enology iss and that there as a class for it at Cal.
Aerospace Studies 442, basically how to fly a plane. I think it was an AF ROTC based class which was Th 1-5. I think there was a requirement so I probably couldn't have signed up for it and i always had a Th afternoon class.
i tried to take Celestial Navigation but they wouldnt allow "civilians" in the clas.
I'm guessing AAS442 was the same way.
Maybe Marian Diamond's IB/Human Anatomy class? I heard great things about it, but Berkeley made me realize I was bad at just pure memorization (or I didn't study it correctly) and it seemed like that class would have involved a lot of it.
I've heard pretty negative things about the basic IB anatomy course, mostly due to the number of highly competitive pre-med assholes who are looking to screw each other over in order to get ahead of the curve.
Seriously, I've heard horror stories about students altering the specimens on lab practical exams to trick following ones. No thank you!
Ugh, I forgot how much I hated the pre-med grinders.
I have never forgotten.
Says the brilliant doctor, but okay.
Too traumatic?
I wish I'd taken Leon Litwack's History 7A & B.
I was a Poly Sci/US History double major so I took both those classes and did my senior thesis under Litwack.
The day our senior thesis is due he invites everyone to his house in the Berkeley Hills to turn them in and have dinner and drinks with him and his wife and gave a tour of his personal library.
I heard about that party. I think he did that every year.
Correct, he did that every year. Sorry if I implied we were the only class that he did that with.
Best non-major class you took
Afro Am class on basically the speeches of MLK. Went over the history of the civil rights movement. As a Mechanical Engineering major, I didn't have much time to take non-engineering classes after satisfying my breadth requirements (I think 1 semester english, 3 humanities classes, and I APed out of foreign language).
The other class I took that really helped was basically an Engineering speech type class where I was forced to do a few presentations in front of the class. I HATED public speaking and this class greatly helped me not be super nervous when speaking in front of a larger group.
Sociology of sports: I learned a lot about public stadium financing and the amateurism promoted by the NCAA, the latter especially relevant in today’s world.
An interesting fact I learned in class: Fights between athletes occur more in football than other contact sports because of offsetting penalties (attacked team can hit back for “free”), the amount of protective gear they wear, and how large the teams are compared to other sports (“mob” mentality)
Did Prof. Lawton teach that one? I took a couple of her courses, but I was never able to fit that one into my schedule.
I think the professor was named Wong
Harry Edwards taught it when I took it.
Earth and Planetary Sciences 51 with Prof. Alvarez. It was an extremely broad history course integrating geological, biological, and human histories. It was inspiring to take a course with Alvarez, who hypothesized and later confirmed that the dinosaur extinction was due to an asteroid impact. He was a very engaging prof too, even taking the time to learn every student's name.
Had several classes with him. good guy, bit of a nut. but just because he's nuts doesn't mean he's wrong.
The time I had classes with him the asteroid theory was shall we say on the way to being more respectable than 'Birtherism' is now, but was still on the conspiracy theory side of the academic consensus.
Special Programs 44A and 44B
strange name for a freshman intro to western civilization survey course
counted for both a history and english requirement.
it was the hardest course i have ever taking. i wasnt a particularly good writer coming out of HS, so this really kicked my butt.
but we read everything from Iliad/Odyssey thur ancient Roman lit, the Bible, the entire Divine Comedy and up to Renaissance lit. everything has the original and read mostly in full.
the other cool thing was it was team taught w/ one history/classics prof and one English prof.
it certainly was the pivotal class that got me to major in Classics as well as just appreciate that there is more to life than just math and science.
Survey class for like 3 units P/NP. Included lectures from lots of different perspectives and since it was PNP, it was all about learning new things, not studying. One lecture was Glenn Seaborg.
interestingly Glenn Seaborg is from the Upper Peninsula in Mich. i gave a talk at U of Northern Mich in Marquette in "Glenn Seaborg Auditorium"
MechEng 105 (I think), which was something to do with thermodynamics. It was one of the first classes where it felt like things clicked and made sense after years of struggling. Plus, it made me feel like an actual engineer.
Yup. 105 was Thermo.
I loved (but was bad at) ceramics. I would have liked to take more non-major classes, but because there wasn't too much overlap between my majors, I didn't have much time to take classes that weren't for my majors (or electives or required breadth).
I still want to take a pottery class! It's on my bucket list.
Philosophy 7: Existentialism in Literature and Film
This thread makes me wish I had the energy/brain capacity to audit lectures virtually
Every DeCal (e.g. Intro to Comics, Harry Potter, etc.)
Popular Culture, in Wheeler, 500 fellow students from about 1900 to 1950's or so. Comics, animation, comic books and such, lots of fun.
Ooh, I took a History of Pop Culture to satisfy my history req, and it was a lot of fun!
No 2 took History of Rock. Said it was an amazing class. each lecture was on a different time period. She would lecture on a band and then they would listen to a sample. Different eras from early rock in the 50s all the way to today. Not just rock. There was a lecture on rap, one on grunge, alternative, punk, etc. I listened to a few of the lectures and it was really cool. There were a few that I missed that I was going to try to listen to before he lost access but I missed. I wanted to hear the 80s rap one, the one with REM, the one with Green Day. I think she also had one that included U2.
Astronomy 10 with Professor Filipenko.
I wish I had taken this one.
+1
Great class and was worth it just to listen to the last lecture of the semester by Filipenko. Awe and hope inspiring stuff.
Zoo 10. very interesting. the prof used flatworms as his example for nearly every animal behavior.
Probably Anthro 160 (Folklore). It was so interesting to understand where so many of our existing tropes had their origins. And Dudes was a great, funny, enthusiastic teacher.
I also really loved Statistics, but since I was an Econ major that might have been a req, I cannot remember.
I've definitely heard people loved that class.
Ooh, I took Anthro 160 with Dundes. The only class where homework included documenting all the dirty jokes that I knew.
Upper division proseminar on ancient history with Dr. Elm
Best Cal campus restaurant
the Women's Faculty Club had much better sit down food than the Men's
Bear's Lair because... beer + sunshine + location. Based on my experience, I have no idea if they serve anything but beer.
*Original Bear's Lair
indeed. when they basically just served beer to anyone.
on Fri afternoons sometimes a prof would take us down there and buy us all beers
I had a HS friend that had a really bad ID. He told me a story where the bouncer at the Bear's Lair said to the guy in front of him, "This is the worst ID I've ever seen" but let him in. My friend handed him his ID and the bouncer said, "I take that back. THIS is the worst ID I've ever seen".
Very important clarification!!
I eat like crap. I loved the chili cheese fries at the convenience store/deli on Sproul
When I was a student I paid the extra money so that I could use my DC card on campus and get a little more money for lunch since I spent so much time in the Engineering part of campus. I used to either get a sandwich at the deli or get a burger at the grill on the Engineering building.
especially on nice days when they grilled burgers and chicken out on that patio.
i dont remember having a better grilled chicken sandwich.
Yup that patio was a great place to have lunch. And their burgers tasted really good.
I thought that place didn't have any hot food and only sold packaged stuff. The one on top of the engineering library?
yup. Not back in '89. They had the building where you go to get stuff and pay and then you took your receipt to the grill outside to get your burger.
Faculty Club on a fall Saturday afternoon.
Best Cal team during your time at Cal
Probably rugby, who won the national championship all four years. But that 2006 football team was pretty good too (same with the 2007 season until the season got cancelled after the Oregon game).
Bummer about that Corona Virus outbreak that concealed the rest of the 2007 season.
Citrus Bowl year ('91). Pawlawski, White, Zomalt, Treggs, Dawkins. Fantastic team and fantastic coach.
fuck bob bockrath
If you don't have it, I highly recommend reading Ron Fimrite's book "Golden Bears". It chronicles the history of Cal football from the university founding. Really entertaining and well-written book. The story about the Bruce Snyder era and his departure is pretty compelling reading, especially Mike Pawlawski's very clear opinion of Bob Bockrath.
I'm sure I could imagine Pawlawski's view of Bob Bockrath. Probably echos every Cal fan in the early 90s.
Preach.
He doesn't even deserve to have his name capitalized.
Softball in 2002 did win the lone championship, first NCAA title for a Cal women's team, and I did following that championship run on the ESPN networks. Other than them, both Rugby and Men's Rowing won 3 championships during my 4 years at Cal but I didn't get to see any of those championship matches/races.
Definitely '91 football culminating in the Citrus Bowl and an AP #8 ranking.
same .. especially the road trip to the Citrus Bowl.
@heyalumnigo and i booked plane tix to Pensacola with the idea that we could drive to either Orlando or New Orleans (but we got screwed ...)
Well that was when AmEx had the special for flights and the closest we could get was Pensacola. We couldn't get to ATL to drive to Orlando. Although maybe ATL to Orlando isn't any closer.
although I imagine most years it's probably rugby.
Agreed.
Men’s Waterpolo and gymnastics were national champs. Bartkowski-led football team tied for pac-8 champions.
Rugby or water polo. The mid-to-late 80s were not a major sports high time.
Yes, I recall both winning pretty much all the national championships. at one point we had won something like 3/4 of all the national championships in water polo.
Best Cal Library that most students don't know about
As an undergrad, I used to study at Boalt. It was never crowded, which is great because I like to manspread at tables when I study: one or two books open, notebook, different highlighters and colored pens, etc.
the music library. you could check out any music you wanted (mostly classical but they had a lot of other stuff too)
i would study there a lot while sampling various recordings of classical music which was all i could realistically study to
I loved the music library. With all the glass windows, the light would stream in during the day and stream out (if you walked by) at night. There was also a cute guy who worked there when I was a student.
I always liked walking past that one in late afternoon or early evening when all the light was streaming out.
Knowing your stalking skills, I bet you found him on FB.
Haha I probably did.
On that note, one of my favorite things about my boss is how avid and skillful and internet stalker she is.
*an internet stalker
Discovered that late freshman year, but then I moved to north side, so it was too far. Bonus points because it's named after Jean Grey.
I don't know if the East Asian Library counts. It was relatively unknown when I was a student because it was new.
Morrison Reading Room had the best vintage library atmosphere
I definitely napped in there several times
I love Morrison, spent many hours there reading or napping.
I do regret never studying there, but didn't it have extra rules or something?
I don't know how much studying I have done there, but I have definitely took a number of naps there.
No computers!
Wouldn't have been an issue when I was there.
I think they've updated to say that eReaders are ok, but nothing with a keyboard. No typing noises in Morrison.
Are they aware of soft-touch keyboards? Or other advances made in the last decade?
Ah yes. Now I remember exactly why I never studied there.
I sometimes studied in the French library
Best Cal Building (architecture-wise)
There are a lot of great buildings. The Doe/South/Wheeler triumvirate, Hearst Mining, Northgate would be my top 5 I think.
Solid set of buildings here (although I didn't care for Northgate's aesthetics or its tendency to be about a thousand degrees in late spring semester).
Hmmmm, or the Greek.
The log cabin behind the Faculty Club.
Senior Hall.
Worst building? Tolman Hall. (Now gone)
It's still weird to me that Tolman is gone. I walked under that building's arch every day when I lived on the north side...
I took a forgettable psych course there, plus a history class I took had section meetings in one of the classrooms there. Odd vibe to the building.
I would say all Cal buildings have great architecture with the exception of Evans and Wurster.
Wurster is vastly under appreciated.
I don’t know about that, Wurster looks like something designed and built in the Soviet Union.
Nah, no where near brutalist enough for that, I think there is a church though, south of campus that would qualify.
it's a bit like a tomb opening from the inside. The roof is about a foot above the top of the walls in the Sanctuary portion.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58953f47ff7c50370b78ae15/1486176255264-M3M5JET4MYPPDHEHFM6G/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kAHWeGNrnTNuaaRsQC5iQLWLPZHY9930KFuik00L7GzBKdq8kyNB6kzmmlKIayPDyP2t63aHWkMIQdtLKKvU3kzXpPDBXeB2C1aoJXa6Jv2bCjLISwBs8eEdxAxTptZAUg/Newman.jpg?format=2500w
Newman Hall
The Newman Center.
Or Barrows.
I almost included Barrows but they gave it a slight face lift while I was at Cal, I think it must have 2001-2002 and it made it slightly better.
Or Kroeber
The sound in the auditorium of Hertz is fantastic.
Best Cal classroom to accidentally fall asleep during lecture
Pacific Film Archive, 8am on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I never lasted more than an hour in that cozy, comfy theater.
lecture hall in Evans Hall (i think). there were 2 seats near the back that was right in front of the A/V booth so you could properly lean back and fall asleep w/o falling over in your seat.
I took Meditation for a single credit, so that classroom with the lights off and everyone quiet was the best room for falling asleep.
That being said, I remember being at the bottom of Wheeler Hall when a lecture was in session (don't remember the context) and thinking "oh... I thought that I'd be anonymous and unnoticeable in such a big hall but no, people who are asleep are very very conspicuous from down here".
For me it was PSL. I had 8 AM Chem 1A and Physics 7A freshman year. Many a lecture i would put my feet up and end up falling asleep. Not a surprise I didn't do so hot in those classes.
never had a class in PSL.
i only had one really large class at Cal and that was Econ 1, and that was in Zellerbach (i think). but it seems strange they would have classes in there.
maybe it was when they were renovating the big lecture hall in Wheeler
I took Psych 1 (just for fun) in Wheeler. I tend to sit somewhere close to the back just because. One time, there was a couple in front of me that were making out for the bulk of the lecture in the dark (for PowerPoint) like it was a movie theater. That was super bizarre.
My Econ 1 was in Wheeler. 8AM M/W/F my first semester. Oooof.
Afternoon lectures in Wheeler for me were definitely naptime. I wish I had figured out earlier that eating a carb-heavy lunch was what was putting me in a food coma.
PSL?
It's renamed now. let me find it. Pimental Hall? The round, underground one in front of Latimer (I think). Forgot what PSL stood for.
I think it's Physical Sciences Lecture Hall.
I love the design of PSL but I never had a class there.
taken many a nap in PSL, probably the best sleeping classrooms are not the large halls designed so that people in the back can see, but one of the smaller ones.
I don't know about best, but I have probably fallen asleep in all of them. I'm also not a subtle class-sleeper. My head rolls forward, then I jerk awake, and then repeat. Apparently, it gave my friend motion sickness.
I also fell asleep during a study session in Pimentel once. Most of the pre-meds were clustered near the bottom, and I was sitting about halfway up. And then I fell asleep, and I guess the professor was making fun of me.
Okay... all my comments seems to be double-posting and when I tried to delete one, it deleted both. Now posterity will never remember my insightful, totally necessary comment.
I've noticed this happens before. It's only double posted on your browser. When someone replies to your post you'll see two copies. We only see one.
Yeah, if you just refresh the page you will see it's only one comment.
The large classroom in Wheeler Hall. History 5
Best Cal Southside restaurant when you were a student
IB's. It opened my freshman year when I lived in Unit 1.
My freshman year as well, except I was in Unit 2. I recall IB's being something of a revelation.
When parents in town: La Trattoria Siciliana
Everyday: rotation between Smart Alec’s (free fries with an “A” grade!) and Steve’s Korean barbecue
I don't know if it was the "best", but we went to La Via Hermosa a lot because it was cheap and they gave you a lot of food. Same building as where Amoeba is now.
Sufficient Grounds. I still dream about that club sandwich.
Top Dog
still my favorite off-campus Cal food establishment
I would agree with this. Many a late night in Unit 3 where we would go to Top Dog for a Hot and a Cherry Coke.
Also Blondie's at 2am for a slice of pizza.
Cal celeb/alum
I found myself watching on YouTube the old UPN show, Deadly Games (one of the first shows on the then new UPN channel with Christopher Lloyd as the main villain). I didn't realize it at the time (since it predates me visiting Berkeley), but the first episode had an exterior shot of the campanile to show that the main character is apparently a physicist at Cal.
obviously this should've been best Cal celeb/alum for a Cameo
Do we know what Cal celeb is on Cameo?
oh I didn't realize you could buy Cameos. I just thought a cameo like on a TV show or to show up at an event.
lold
I was thinking the website Cameo that let you buy a personalized message from a celebrity for varying amount of money (set by the celeb) from $20 to $200 (or more).
I think I'd have to go with Marshawn.
yeah ..
Can't decide between Dr. Emmet Brown or C.J. Cregg
TIL Doc went to Berkeley.
I'm surprised you didn't choose Ed Quinn though.
In my head, he's Dr.NathanStark and the only info I have on his education is that he got a PhD from MIT
Eureka?
Yes!
It’s one of my favorite TV shows
Chris Pine
John Cho
Trump-rona
Our failing postal service
I wouldn't say failing as much as sabotage.
flailing because of the orange orangutan
Isn’t orange orangutan a bit redundant? Aren’t all orangutans orange?
He's more orange than most orangutans.
The main similarity is their curious posture while standing up. The main difference is that orangutans are clever and social.
Pro
Mookie Betts hits three homers as Dodgers offense comes alive
https://www.truebluela.com/2020/8/13/21368517/mookie-betts-los-angeles-dodgers-mlb-news-julio-urias-recap
Mookie Betts is going to be a Dodger for the next 12 years. Yeah, I really can get used to that.
As if you didn’t already know, Betts is really, really, really good at baseball. He showed that on Thursday night as he had his best game as a Dodger. For the night, Betts reached base all five times and had four hits. Three of those hits came for home runs. Although he’s only 27, Betts now has six career games with at least three homers. That ties him for first all time with these two players.
Bay Bridge Series starts tonight.
Series preview: Giants vs. A’s
https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2020/8/13/21365891/san-francisco-giants-oakland-athletics-preview
I still remember we were outside playing tennis before Bay Bridge World Series game 3.
yup at the courts down at the end of Bancroft where the diving place is now (I think). I was standing at the net inbetween points and the first thing was the slamming of the fire escape against the building we were next to. then I had to hold onto the net because the ground was rolling.
My roommate was in PSL and the ground shook and he looked up and he was right underneath the projector that was maybe 30-40 feet up. Got up and ran out real fast.
Go A's.
Piscotty grand slam ties it, Canha sacrifice fly in the 10th wins it. Save Hendriks, with three K's.
Star Wars news: Rogue One spin-off series on Disney+
https://deadline.com/2020/08/6-undergrounds-adria-arjona-disney-plus-rogue-one-diego-luna-1203008549/