Month: May 2010

Travelogue San Francisco

I was in San Francisco last week representing Entrustet at Digital Death Day 2010 and then stayed for a few more days for some more meetings and to check out the city.  I’ve been to San Fran a few times in the past, but hadn’t been able to spend much time exploring the city.

I really enjoyed exploring San Francisco and made it over to Oakland for an afternoon, too.  One of my favorite parts of traveling is experiencing the food a city has to offer and San Francisco and Oakland did not disappoint.  Since most of this post is about food, you might be tempted to think that all I did was eat, but I did get out and explore too.

I started out at Digital Death Day at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.  The computer history museum was interesting, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to go there unless you’re a really big computer history buff.  After the conference, we went to Amarin, a Thai restaurant right near the Caltrain station, which featured all sorts of interesting Thai food.  A bunch of us shared 8 dishes, all of which were awesome.  Speaking of Thai, I checked out Chabaa Thai for lunch the next day and hand the Panang Curry, which was a coconut milk curry that had a good mix of sweet and spice.

I walked around San Francisco, checking out the Embarcadero and wandered over toward Chinatown between meetings, climbing up some really steep hills.  I stopped into Capital Restaurant in Chinatown and got the Chinese Broccoli and a clay pot seafood dish that were both really good.  San Francisco’s Chinatown is mostly a tourist trap and not all that interesting, so make sure you check Yelp for ratings.

The next day, I had a mostly free day, so I went over to Oakland to check out the A’s and Giants in an interleague matchup.  For as crappy as people claim the Oakland Colliseium is, I really enjoyed the game.  It really reminded me of County Stadium (in a good way).  After the game, I took BART over to Oakland’s Chinatown and walked around.  If you’re interested in good food and a unique experience, skip San Francisco’s Chinatown and take BART a couple of stops over into Oakland.  It’s much bigger, less touristy and less expensive.

My next day, I explored Ocean Beach, a park along the rocky Pacific coast, and walked all along the coast, past the Golden Gate Bridge, through the Marina and stopped at two restaurants along the way.  In my winding route of about 10 miles, I saw some breathtaking scenery and learned about the shipping history of the Golden Gate.  If you’re not into walking as much as I am, check out Land’s End Trail for a 3 mile walk along the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean and later the Golden Gate Bridge.

At the start of the walk, I stopped at a small Chinese restaurant for Dim Sum to try a bunch of different dishes.  Later, I stopped into Pacific Catch for some awesome Ahi Tacos, which were seared to perfection and had the right balance of lime and spice.

The next afternoon before my flight, I walked up to Alta Mira, which is a park way up in the hills that has awesome views of the bay on one side and San Francisco on the others.  I did some work, then went to Fresca, a Peruvian restaurant in Filmore and tried two seafood heavy cream-based stews, Chupe and Picante de Mariscos.  Both had incredibly rich flavors and were full of calamari, fish, clams, shrimp, mussels and squid and featured Andean corn.  The Picante de Mariscos was a great mix of spice and cream to go with all of the seafood.

Overall, I really enjoyed exploring San Francisco, especially the food.  While Madison has a great food scene for a city it’s size, I love going to larger cities that have amazing diversity of food.  I think that the best way to get to know a city is to walk around as much as possible and try small, locally owned restaurants.  I had a great time and really enjoyed my stay.  I’m looking forward to going back soon!

Why I Won’t (might not) Vote For Russ Feingold in November

Update 1: May 2010: Shortly after I wrote this post, I got a follow up email from a member of Sen. Feingold’s staff with the correct email response.  The next day, I got a phone call from a different member of the staff apologizing and asking if they could do anything else to help me and yesterday, I received an snail mail copy of the email response with Sen. Feingold’s signature.  This morning, I got an update from one of his staffers about new changes to the Banking Bill that seem to help change the original problems.  While it did take a negative blog post to get the correct response, I am impressed that Feingold’s staff has been this diligent about my blog post.  I changed the title to add “(might not)” because I don’t think it’s fair that when people Google “vote Russ Feingold” my post comes up 5th.

Update 2: October 2016: After six years of Sen. Ron Johnson and Russ Feingold’s seeming rejuvenation, I’m supporting Russ for Senate in 2016. We need a Senator who will bring a different perspective than the vast majority of senators and isn’t afraid to stand up for things he believes in. We need the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act back in government.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how the new banking bill would screw up angel investing in the US.  The bill plans to raise accredited investor levels by over 2x and institutes new regulation on angel investment.  It treats angels like hedge funds, which is wrong.  In the comments, someone asked how we could fight the bill.  I answered that I didn’t really know, but would email both of my Senators, Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl.

I sent them both a shortened version of my blog post with a little background about me through their official Washington senate emails.  I have yet to hear back from Senator Kohl, which is what I expected.  Aside from making sure that the Milwaukee Bucks stay in Milwaukee and donating $25m to get his name on the Kohl Center, Kohl really hasn’t done anything for as long as I can remember.

I figured that I would get a response from Senator Feingold, since generally more involved and he’s up for re-election in November and some are predicting it will be a close race.  He (or more likely someone from his staff) emailed me back today, 3 full weeks later, which isn’t too bad.  I assume he gets hundreds, if not thousands of emails every day.

So here’s why I won’t vote for Feingold in November.  I wrote to him about the angel investment changes in the tax bill, but here’s what I got back (emphasis added):

Dear Mr. Lustig,

Thank you for contacting me regarding your support for having private student loans be regulated by a consumer financial protection agency. I appreciate hearing from you, and strongly agree with you.  In fact, I am a cosponsor of an amendment to the financial regulatory bill which would extend consumer financial protection agency regulations to student loans.

Access to high quality public education should be available to all children, and access to higher education should be based on a student’s desire to gain knowledge and skills, not financial resources. As I travel throughout Wisconsin, I hear from many individuals who cannot attend college or other post secondary training programs without financial aid. I also hear from students who are extremely concerned about their growing debt as they try to finance their education. I support efforts to make education beyond high school available and affordable to qualified individuals who wish to pursue it.

Thank you again for contacting me. For more information about my work on behalf of Wisconsin, you can subscribe to my monthly e-newsletter by visiting http://feingold.senate.gov/newsletter.cfm. I look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Feingold (or his staff) couldn’t be bothered to actually respond to my email.  I took the time to write him an email, the least he could do is make sure he wrote me back about the issue I wrote about!  I understand it is most likely a mistake, but it’s a mistake that shouldn’t happen.  It shows that he (or his staff) don’t really care about the people who write him emails.  I know I’m not the only person who’s had a similar experience, as I’ve talked to two other people who have written to Feingold and never gotten any response.  To be honest, I’d have rather not gotten any response than the one above.