The Simple Life

Some people seem convinced that the life of an unemployed college graduate is one of ease and leisure, of endless days of nothingness. I assure you, this is not true—I too have the same angst and stress of my full-time counterparts. Sure, I don't have homework, midterms, and labs, but nonetheless, my life is hard.

Ah, who I am kidding?

So what am I doing these days? Primarily, applying for jobs. If you know anyone in Northern California looking for a web developer (preferably in the greater Sacramento area), feel free to pass along my resumé. I'm trying to find the motivation to compile samples of my work into an online portfolio, and there are two sites that are begging me for redesigns. So I'm keeping myself busy.

And spending a ridiculous amount of time on Thefacebook, finding old friends, Malagasy students in the US (I had no idea there were so many!), and random groups to join. I somehow managed to get accepted into the uber-exclusive Beautiful Peoples' Club at UCD. I applied with a mischievous bent, to see if they'd accept someone whose face isn't even clearly visible in his user pic, but I didn't think they'd actually let me in. To confuse matters further, I was rejected from the Davis Gorgeous Peoples' Club, but was gladly accepted by The Ugly Peoples' Club.

Yeah, way too much time on Thefacebook.

Speaking of Thefacebook, I randomly stumbled on their office. Our family took a day trip to visit Stanford (appropriately, on the first day of Spring Quarter at UCD), and we were wandering around downtown Palo Alto, looking for lunch. We turned a corner and saw the menu pictured here at the bottom of a staircase. I went up to take a look around, and it was everything you'd expect a dotcom startup to look like—scant office furniture (save a long conference table), half-finished bottles of soda, bags of chips, and a random guy walking around talking on the phone. There were at least two other people in the back, and no one seemed to care that I was standing in the middle of it all. Cool.

We had lunch at an Italian place down the street, Pasta Pomodoro. Even though it's a chain, it was the best Italian restaurant I'd been to in ages. The service was great, the food was excellent, and the prices were reasonable. What a great find! For Davis folk, there's a Pasta Pomodoro in Elk Grove…might be worth checking out.

Was Pasta Pomodoro the best Italian I've ever had? Until this Saturday, I would have said yes. Now I'm not so sure, as my family went to Osteria Fasulo to celebrate my graduation. Although it's reputedly the best restaurant in Davis, not a whole lot of people have heard of it (it used to be the Plumshire Inn), mostly because it's nestled in a residential neighborhood. My mom has been attending a series of seminars over the past couple weekends, and one of the perks is that the restaurant opens exclusively for seminar participants for Saturday lunches.

So the inevitable question: how did it compare to Pasta Pomodoro? Well, my lunch at Osteria Fasulo (including an espresso and gelato) came out to nearly twice what I paid at Pomodoro, for less than half the portions. But it tasted good. I guess the real question is: what's the money value of taste?