Waterfall? In Berkeley?

My work is doing a "build a better you" challenge and employees are encouraged to form teams of 5-10 members and compete in any of three categories: weight loss, pedometer steps, and minutes of exercise.  The team I joined is a very active team and set minimum requirements and if you don't meet them you have to buy the team pizza!  This has led to many weekend activities that involve being, well, active!  One weekend we hiked to the only waterfall in Berkeley.  It is very much an urban hike since its in a neighborhood.  One of our team members lives in the Berkeley Hills so we started at her house and walked from there. 


A little teaser

The waterfall is technically on private property, but the owners allow people to walk to the waterfall as long as they are courteous and responsible.  We went through a random unmarked gate, on the side of a trail, in the back of a park to get there.  We first saw little waterfalls/streams, and thought that was it, but luckily it wasn't.  When we reached the waterfall we were pleasantly surprised, it was a pretty little waterfall and so cool to just be naturally occurring in some one's backyard.  It's now on my list of things I want in my dream home/yard!

The BF being a fool

Are You Ready to Rock?

A few weeks ago we went to see Rock of Ages, the musical.  This was the second part of a groupon a couple friends and I had bought (the first part was Next to Normal, here).  I was pretty excited for this show, my parents and sister had seen it in New York and loved it, and all the music sounded fun (all 80s rock).  Headlining the tour was Constantine Maroulis, American Idol reject and star of the original Broadway production.  This was also exciting because he seemed to be a perfect fit for the show.

Sadly, the musical didn't live up to my expectations and the whole group I went with felt the same way (we are a bunch of theater junkies, we have good taste).  The music was fun and loud, but it was very hard to understand the lyrics.  The storyline was kinda blah and felt forced to fit the music.  It just didn't seem like a real musical, which I guess it isn't, really it's more of a musical revue.  Anyway, the singers/actors/dancers were great but the musical itself left much to be desired.  Maybe it would've been more fun if we had dressed up like the guy who turned around to the whole balcony and yelled "Are you ready to rock?" and then stood up to sing and dance to the songs, maybe next time!

Grand Lake

The wonderfulness of the Grand Lake Theater includes a very close neighborhood theater, an organ performance before some movies, and their sly political statements on the marquee.  A true Oakland gem!