This weekend, Mike, Andrew and I all went out for some fun in the Castro district. Mike was a bunny, I was a sailor. We all had a blast and really enjoyed seeing all the costumes of people. People here in San Francisco really go out on Halloween–the costumes were hilarious!
I walk into work this morning and to my dismay, my brand new DVD writer had been stolen. What was funnier was the fact that there is no one in my area except for workers that are constructing cubes all around me, and like a squirrel, the thief left me a thuggy, nappy knit cap on my desk. So, while the others were working around me today, I simply said, ‘Hey, did one of you guys leave a knit cap behind?’ ‘Yah, Mark did, he was here yesterday and the only one–you have it? I had a flash back of the Apartment Surveillance hookup I did back in TN when I suspected someone coming into my place–and caught him RIGHT ON VIDEO!
My parents brought my violin out with them when they visited after having it restrung and such. However, it fell out of tune on the transit here, so I brought it last week to get it tuned and fixed up. I found a place in the Haight that did this. On Tuesday it was ready for pick up so I took a bus over there. Bus #21. About half way through, I see commotion up at the front, and hear people yelling, so I take off my headphones to discover this:
An elderly woman had asked a young black girl to get up and give her seat to her, and when she said no, she must have tripped over the black girl’s foot, but she went toward the floor and ran to the bus driver. She was yelling that the girl had kicked her, and everyone said that the girl had kicked her. We sat there stopped on the street as these two people were yelling back and forth about who kicked who first, until the passengers started getting riled up. Despite all the yelling and commotion, the passengers practically turned on the old woman, (granted, she sounded a little crazy), and yelled for her to get off the bus so we could leave. Eventually we all had to evacuate the bus and wait for another one, because a policeman on a bike came to settle the despute. The funny thing about this, was that throughout the entire fighting kicking and screaming that went on, the black girl still had her cell phone to her ear the entire time!
On Thursday, my parents and brother all flew in from the South to visit me in the Bay Area. We did the entire tourist thing, walking around China Town, going to Fisherman’s Wharf, the night tour of Alcatraz, driving up and down the hills of SF, Twin Peaks, the Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito, then driving down to Oakland to see my work place, then back over the Bay Bridge to SF. We had a great time, and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect.
So Joi and I went to the joint called Top Dog over at Oakland City Center for just a snack mid afternoon. As we ordered our top-dog, I looked on the floor, and on top of the black mat that all the cooks would walk on, was a dirty spatula. This spatula sat on the floor abandoned for our entire order, until the cook noticed it, picked it up, and placed in with the other spatulas used to cook our hot dogs and buns. Question: When did our young society learn to not regard others with consideration?
Yes, yes, I know, it’s been almost over a month now that I returned from my trip to Asia. Well, the wait is over for the pictures. Indulge!
This weekend, my friend Mike and I wanted to get away from the city, so we went up to the Russian River. It’s an area kind of like Palm Springs, that’s resorty, and near a river. I was wearing my great sandals that I bought in Singapore and had finally broken in. We stopped at Target to get a float for the river, so I was really excited to swim! Once we got there, as I started to get out of the car, I was looking for my right sandal. It was NOWHERE to be found! How could that be? I got in with them at Target, and took them off on the drive up, but we went directly there.
—-HOW CAN ONE LOSE ONE’S SANDAL IF ONE DOESN’T LEAVE THE PLACE IN WHICH IT WAS WORN?—-
So, I had to put on my tennis shoes, and wear hot sneakers for the whole day instead of my nice sandals. More than disappointed about this loss, I was just dumbfounded.
We asked around for the best place to set up on the river for swimming and such, and ended up at Monte Rio. There were a lot of people kayaking and canoeing, but not so many swimming. It was pretty shallow too, and when we started edging out into the water, the amount of algae and debris in the water was quite unappealing, so we opted to head back to the resorts with pools.
Once back at the resorts, it was almost too crowded to swim, so we tried to squeeze in just to relax in the sun. By that point we had already spent most of the afternoon trying to find a place to set up camp.
We then found a good pizza place for dinner, lazily strolled the streets and chatted with people we had met at the pool earlier. That night, we went to a few bars to mingle and then to the main club in town that was putting on a foam party. As fun as it sounded, we went to look and, for $20, you could just in a small caged area with foam. I don’t know how this podunk town was able to charge $20 for entrance, but people sure were paying it. I don’t even pay that much in San Francisco!
After that, we went back to one of the ranch cabin style resorts that had a bonfire. We sat around the bonfire, and chatted and kept warm–the night got a little chilly! After the bonfire, we walked around a bit and then headed to our Bed & Breakfast for sleep.
The next morning, it was a family style breakfast where we sat at a table with all the other occupants. We met some really nice people–they were all from the Bay Area, and we talked about various things while eating bread pudding, coffee cake, fresh strawberries & raspberries, ham and orange juice. Quite the odd combination of breakfast foods, but it filled us up to be on our way back to the pool for another day in the sun.
We got back to the ranch style place for the pool, and met some more nice people and chatted, had lunch, and started to round up our stuff for heading back home. Even though I didn’t really get to swim, it was really nice to basque in the sun and feel like I was in summer weather! As Mark Twain once wrote, ‘the coldest summer I ever spent was the summer in San Francisco.’
So, I finally finished the last push over of files last night to the new server.
Hopefully everything is functional, but as my site is quite complex, there may be some broken links here and there–if you find one, and want to help out, please let me know where it is. Otherwise, I’m sure I’ll eventually find them.
I’ll have my Singapore, Japan pics up soon!
As I was walking down the street toward the train station, I felt a coin in my pocket. So I pulled it out, and there was a head with wings on it, yet silver and the same size as a US dime. At first glance I thought it was foreign money–this globetrotter finds foreign currency left in the strangest places–but alas, it was a 1916 US Dime. It was really quite interesting. My thoughts started to run thinking about people that could have very well used that same coin almost 100 years ago, wondering what it was used to buy, and what the environment was like back then. Just such a nice little curious surprise.
Tonight, Mike, Sarah, Mike, Julie and I went to the Bond Girls concert aptly being held at the Bimbos 365 club. This stringed quartet of British Spice Girls played amazing music, but had the personalities of 14 year old girls. Surprisingly, the crowd was mostly comprised of older people.
Anyhow, the music was really cool–they play the theme song for the 2004 Athens Olympics. Which, of course, I keep wanting to see the Opening Ceremonies of–anyone have it Tivo’ed?