San Francisco – First Impressions

Its big.

NOTE: I just wrote this as fast as I could. I haven’t proof read it yet. If you choose to read it now, set aside your grammatical ethics.

When I stepped out of the airport and into the shuttle-bus area, I didn’t really know what to expect or to look for. I was hoping the hotel would provide a shuttle, but settled for the first thing I came across. The first thing I came across was the blue-van version of a taxi.

I piled in with 5 other people and attempted small talk. It failed miserably. That was a common theme throughout the day, so clearly it was me. I was off my game, so I sat in silence. I spent the time posting updates to Facebook.

Unfortunately, I arrived in the evening, so couldn’t get too good a look at the place. Even if it were daylight, though, I don’t know that it would’ve helped because the cab “driver” was a complete maniac. Everything was blurring by as someone punched the hyper drive.

San Francisco is as it looks on TV…. lots and lots of very steep hills. It seems that when going down hill, you can let the laws of gravity do most of the work. But no, you can’t. Apparently, in San Francisco you’re obligated to floor your gas pedal the instant the light turns green, regardless of the angle of the incline that you are currently descending. Another smaller cab made the mistake of pulling up next to our cab. Every time the light turned green, the race was on. It really was out of control, and also it would seem not uncommon. As I walked around this evening, I saw more of the same: everyone flooring it as hard as they can as soon as it turns green. Fortunately, for the most part the do abide the stop lines and red lights, unlike in Florida where such traffic controls are merely suggestive requests. My theory is that there are so many pedestrians, and that the traffic controls favor the pedestrians, so the drivers have to make best use of the time.

I have to imagine that the average driver replaces their brakes monthly and transmissions annually.

Anyway, back to the drive.

Before entering the terror of the city streets, I spent time being terrified by the freeway driving. I was trying to get a glimpse of the fabled “Golden Gate Bridge”, but didn’t have any luck. Finally, we took a turn towards the GG BRIDGE, which I thought was promising, but we didn’t make it far enough.

Somewhere along the way, we passed a sign for “Candlestick Park”. That served as a reminder that I was in an earthquake zone. I was going to ask the driver if any earthquakes were scheduled for this week, but as we already established, I was off my game and didn’t want to put myself in an awkward position. So I saved that gem for the blog. I hope you enjoyed it.

Despite the fact that I lost 5 pounds due to sweating during the drive, I do have to acknowledge the driver’s navigational ability. He dropped off 3 of the 5 people at these little apartments along the way. He never had to ask for directions or clarification, he knew where everything was.

Naturally, I was the last to get dropped off. Along the way, it seemed like we passed signs for MARKET STREET several times, often while going in the same direction. It’s possible that San Francisco is the site of a hidden black hole that distorts the plane of existence to a measurable extent.

At last, I arrived at the hotel. The driver slowed down so I could dive out safely. After executing a near perfect tuck-and-roll, I checked in.

I’m on the 21st floor.  The reminds me; its an Earthquake zone.

I got to my room at about 9:45pm pst. The back wall of the room is mostly a single window reaching from the floor to the ceiling. Its a nice view. The room is very decent, although the close door is unfortunately positioned. There’s a nice flat screen tv that comes with 20 channels of nothing I’m interested in. Except maybe ESPN, but after that Patriot’s loss, why would I want to watch ESPN?

Today I spent the day in a DDD tutorial, but who that reads this blog cares about that? I wouldn’t. So, we’ll fast forward to the end of the day.

My co-workers and I, after much negotiation, came to the agreement that we would meet in the lobby at 7pm and venture out for our evening meal. That left about 3 hours for me to keep myself busy.

I returned to my room and fired up the laptop. I’m being pretty literal when I say “fire up”, because the thing is hot. I tried using it on the plane. It quickly elevated my body temperature by 37 degrees; a matter of concern. I setup the webcam and called Gina and Jack. Jack was at the table in his height chair, the camera well positioned. It was pretty cool. It took him a few minutes to understand what was going on, but once he got it, he interacted with me at about 75% of normal capacity. We did all our tricks together (clapping, motorcycle noises, waving, etc). I showed him a toy that I found in my laptop bag during the conference today. I don’t think he was too interested in that since he had several better ones already at his disposal. Yay for technology. Yay for Skype.

After that, I wanted to go to the gym so that I could embarrass myself in front of strangers. But, I felt obligated to do some exploration instead. When I went to Seattle a few years ago, I didn’t have any time to look around until the very last day. I didn’t want to make that mistake again.

By the time I got out the door, it was about 5pm. The immediate concern was to not get lost. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m pretty absent minded about that stuff because, for the most part, I just don’t care. All roads lead somewhere. I’m usually not in enough of a rush to pay attention to that kind of thing. But, this time I was on a schedule, so had to make sure that I knew how to get back. So, I took mental notes of landmarks and intersections. (Quick Aside; the WESTIN AT MARKET STREET is actually on THIRD street…. unless that’s just a side entrance. It looks like the main entrance though). Then, I remembered that my trusty Verizon Voyager has a built in GPS system. So, I plotted a course back to the hotel and put it my pocket. At that point, I ceased taking mental notes of where I was.

And I began walking.  There are lots of people on the street, lots of buildings, and lots of traffic. Its a full blown city. I only leave my house for about 14 minutes a week, so I’m not longer use to this urban lifestyle. It was refreshing. Its colder out, also refreshing.

There are a few chain restaurants, and a lot of big retail stores. Between them, there are a lot of little places perhaps of the mom-and-pop genre.

While on the move, I tried to get a picture of one store called FCUK. It came out to blurry and I wasn’t going to stop for it. “Oh, another silly tourist taking a picture of our sign”. It looked like a high class join with a non-dyslexia friendly name. FCUK. Who’s idea was that? It reminds me of the SNL skit with the “kids” in lettered sweatshirts who keep almost arranging themselves in such a way that would bring down the wrath of the FCC.

The number of WALGREENS around here is comical. Just on the first random street I chose, I walked by 3 of them all within a minute of each other. I suppose that’s just good marketing. Suppose you’re walking down the street and you think “wow, I really could use an ab-roller as-seen-on-tv. Should I stop now?" If you say no definitively, then you’re ok. But, if you’re on the fence, then Walgreens takes two more swings at you within the next two minutes. You can resist it once… but can you resist it 3 times? In my case, its simpler. My question was “Do you want an Arizona Iced Tea”. The answer was definitively yes, so I stopped and bought one.

I didn’t really have a goal in mind when I set out, so had to make one up. “Get to the highest elevation I can find”. So, I started climbing the hill.

I can’t imagine this place in the winter. Everything is on a giant hill and a fierce angle. The calves in this city must be massive.

I didn’t-dally with my stroll up the hill. This was a gym-alternative, so I walked fast. It was a loop: walk to the light; rest while waiting for the pedestrian light, cross the street, repeat.

On one block, I walked past a guy and a woman. The guy suddenly turned around and angrily yelled “will you shutup!?!?”. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I looked back and saw who he was talking to. It was a mentally handicapped young woman. I played a few scenarios in my head trying to wonder what prompted the outburst. Maybe she wasn’t with them and was harassing them or something. Then she said “I think we made a wrong turn”, without acknowledging the outburst. She was definitely with them.

Crap. I hate stuff like that. What should I do? I probably should’ve just kept my mouth shut and mind my own business. I could spend some paragraphs discussing the virtues of that, but it would be an exercise in futility. A more interesting discussion would be about what I actually did. We stopped at the next light to wait for the pedestrian crossing. The girl caught up. I looked over to her and said “Hello”, in a very positive way. She looked back and smiled and said “hello” back, very enthusiastically. Then she looked looked to the other woman and said “He said hello to me!”, as if no one had ever done it before. At that point the guy looked over at me, and I forced eye contact. “Yes sir, you’re a ****, and I caught it.” I didn’t have to say it. He knew it. He immediately looked away. You can substitute the **** with the derogatory term of your choice. I have a particular one in mind, but I will respect your creative substitution.

After that, I kept moving up. The top of the hill was in sight. I made it to the top and was disappointed to see that there wasn’t a grand view of anything special. I looked to the left and right and saw that there were a couple more blocks of elevation to the left. So, I tackled that, and my disappointed continued. I don’t know what I was hoping to find, but whatever it was, it wasn’t there. I could see some body of water in the distance, but it wasn’t breathtaking from that vantage point.

The climb was breathtaking, though. Between the exertion and the cold air, my lungs made their presence known. Just in time to start working my way back down.

Descending the hill isn’t any easier than climbing it. You have to stop yourself from falling face first and tumbling over a 1/2 mile of asphalt. But, it is a fresh perspective. You get to hurt a whole different set of muscles.

I back towards the general direction of the hotel. None of the landmarks that I made a point of identifying jumped out at me, so I pulled out the GPS. The GPS didn’t work exactly as planned. First of all, its designed for driving not for walking. I think it was having trouble determining which direction I was going. Also, all of the tall buildings weren’t helping the reception. But, it got me back to the ballpark of what I was looking for. I walked past 19 Walgreens, including the 3 I mentioned earlier, and made my way back to third street.

It was a little after 6pm when I got to my room. I spent 3 minutes pondering the wonders of Easter Island, then sat down to write a blog entry. I started with a title of “San Franciso – First Impressions: it’s big.” Then I elaborated over many paragraphs until, finally, I reached the end, which is now: 6:48pm