I’m actually not at Panera Bread. Today I am at Barcode Fusion Café. It is primarily a pearl tea place. It’s much closer to home than Panera. I used to come here all the time, but it gets a little loud and crowded in the late afternoon. There are usually a bunch of Asian’s here playing some sort of card game or another. I’m not really sure what it is they are playing.

Barcode is pretty cool. They have free wireless and a big flatscreen TV playing a mix of Chinese and English music videos. There are also some cool, hand-painted murals on the walls. They have a ton of pearl teas to choose from. They also have some pretty good box lunches like katsudon and teriyaki. A combo comes with the main dish, rice, fried tofu and a drink of your choice. It’s pretty good, especially the little fried tofu cubes. I had a picture of the combo I ordered today (chicken teriyaki), but somehow I managed to delete it. Of course it’s all gone now!

Man do I love pearl tea. I know I have mentioned pearl tea before, but for those that don’t know it is an iced drink made with sweetened tea, milk and tapioca pearls. I have also heard it called boba tea and bubble tea. The tea can come in many different flavors like black, green, jasmine, etc. You can also add flavors to it like mango, strawberry and chocolate. Today I am having a honey milk tea. The pearls are small balls of tapioca about the size of a marble. They are generally dark brown (not sure why), and the good ones are sweet and almost the consistency of gummy bears. You drink it with a fat straw which you poke through the sealed plastic lid (not all places do this, but I think it’s an important part of the experience). If you’re really good you get pearls with every sip, and if you’re really, really good, then you finish the last pearls with the last drop of tea!

Well, I guess I’m not getting much work done today. Oh well, I need to recover from a late night of working anyway. For more on that, you can check out my International (Ad)Venture blog.

I seem to spend a lot of time at Panera Bread these days. I’ve been going there for lunch then hanging around and taking advantage of their free WiFi service. They have pretty good sandwiches there. Here’s what I have tried so far:

Smokehouse Turkey Panini -plenty of smoke here, and how can you go wrong w/bacon?
Turkey Artichoke Panini - it’s like a spinach-artichoke dip bread bowl with turkey.
Frontega Chicken Panini - like a white sauce pizza
Chicken Olivada - like a Greek salad, my favorite so far
Sierra Turkey - Really great bread, but a little less spicy then I hoped for

I may have had the Tuscan Chicken as well, but I can’t remember now. It seems similar to the Frontega Chicken Panini.

Both the broccoli cheddar and French onion soups are great! And you must try a cinnamon crunch bagel! I also like the I. C. drinks, especially the I. C. Cappuccino Chip! I don’t even like coffee, do I? The Iced Chai Tea Latte is pretty good, but not as good as Border’s Cafe (I do miss Border’s Cafe, why did they switch to Seattle’s Best?). There are still so many things to try at Panera! Good thing I go there so often…

[For a full set of pictures, visit my Gallery page here.]

Today is Sunday, which means I usually go for a hike to Mission Peak. Mission Peak is one of the higher points (2,515 feet) in the Southern part of the Diablo Range to the East of the Bay Area. It is part of the Mission Peak Regional Preserve. Their website is here. I usually hike up the Ohlone Trail from Ohlone College.

The trail starts just above the Ohlone College parking lot. The college campus is on a hill in a pretty nice setting. The trail starts just past a grove of eucalyptus trees. It seems that some kestrels make use of these trees for nesting. After the new chick fledge, you can usually see some of the young ones hanging out on a dead tree near the edge of the grove. I’ve seen as many as 2 or 3 on that tree at a time!

After a bit of a steep grade, you get to a little valley I like to call “hawk valley”. On sunny afternoons, if the wind is right, you can see tons of hawks soaring around here. Mostly I see red-tailed hawks, but occasionally there are Cooper’s hawks, kestrels, northern harriers, white-tailed kites, and even golden eagles! There are also lots of ground squirrels in this valley. That may be why there are so many raptors around. Oh yeah, and sometimes there’s even a coyote here.

Past hawk valley, you will get to the “cow pond”. This pond is across a barbed wire fence from the trail. There are usually a bunch of cows near the pond. By the end of the summer, the pond is completely dry and the cows like to roll around in the dirt for a bit of a dust bath. My best encounter with a golden eagle was here! Check it out on the left.

Next you pass through a wooded area. This is the best part of the hike on a hot summer day. Nice and cool. In the winter, however, it can be pretty muddy here, so watch your step! After a little ways, the trees start to thin out to more of a thicket. Then pretty soon you’re back out in the open. Now you have to cross a field before you start heading up in earnest. I have seen many, many wild turkeys in this field.

After the field, the trail joins a dirt road. The road climbs up a ways via switchbacks. I imagine the road is for fire use, but it is also used by a group of avid hang-glider fans. On a good day I have seen as many as 10 hang-gliders and para-gliders up in the air near Mission Peak.

After you get to the top of the switchbacks, you can see Mission Peak up ahead. The next bit is fairly flat, so rest up now, because the steepest part is coming up. This is another great area to observe the abundant wildlife. Once again there are a lot of ground squirrels and raptors. You may also see coyote here.

Just before the steepest part, you will come to an outhouse and some junctions. I have never braved the outhouse, so I can not vouch for its cleanliness. The first junction to the right goes to the hang-glider launch. Just after that, also to the right, is the trail down to the Stanford Avenue trail head. A little further on is a bigger junction. The right fork goes to the Stanford trail again. The left fork is the continuation of the dirt road which can be used to get to the peak. It is mostly used by bikers. The common hiker path is the middle fork. This one goes straight up (at least that’s what it feels like).

It’s not much farther to the top. The trail follows a bit of a ridge, then winds its way up the rocky side to the summit. When you first get to the top, you will see a post pointing out all the sights around the Bay. This is the North Summit. A lot of people will most likely be resting here. However, this is not the true summit, so don’t be fooled. The true summit is the slightly higher South Summit. Look among the rocks for the U. S. Geological Survey marker denoting the summit. That’s it, you’re at the top! Now just stop, relax and enjoy the view!

Based on my last blog title, I guess it has been a week since my last entry. Once again it’s Friday and once again I’m at my new favorite hang out, Panera Bread. It’s scary, I recognize a lot of the staff, and I’m starting to recognize some of the other “regulars”. There’s a smallish girl with a huge laptop sitting across the restaurant from me. We are like some sort of mirror opposites since I am not at all small but my laptop is…

The weather is improving. We even managed to get a game of roller hockey in this week. I hope the rain stays away for the weekend so I can get in some basketball and hiking. It is spring after all.

It looks like I’ll be on the road again in a week and a half. Another trip to China, this one will last about 11 days. I guess I’ll be making this sort of trip a lot of the next year or so. For more on that, you can check out my other blog called International (Ad)Venture.

I added Google AdSense to my pages just to see what happens. Of course I don’t expect much traffic, so I can’t quit my day job. Wait, this is pretty much my day job!

They say “Thank God It’s Friday”, but I guess it doesn’t really make that much difference to me. That’s the beauty of working for yourself I suppose. While I could end up working any day of the week, I can also play on any day of the week. The unfortunate side effect is that I rarely know what day of the week it is. I have to keep track based on my activities:

basketball - must be Saturday
hiking - it’s probably Sunday
roller hockey - Tuesday or Thursday
going to the gym - ugh, who care what day it is, I hate it!

I only remembered it was Friday because I had a reminder to meet some friends for lunch! By the way - Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I’ve been spending a lot of time at Panera Bread this week. It’s a pretty good place. Good bread, good sandwiches, free coffee refills (if you like coffee), and free WiFi! I show up for a late lunch then pretty much park there for the rest of the afternoon. I was heading there today, but I was a little early and it was still crowded. So I’m sitting at the Tapioca Express in the same plaza. Mmmmm… pearl tea…

I’ll still probably head over to Panera in a little while. Why end the streak!