Slide Rule

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Up at 4am. I could blow away with any slight gust of wind. On a side note, www.onlineclock.net is a pretty cool service provided your computer doesn’t interrupt its effectiveness with sleep mode, hibernate or muted speakers. Fortunately none of my alarms failed, though the cats may never forgive the jarring interruption to their notably gentle slumber.

Airport terminals offer, for me, a nostalgic sense of privilege. Undergoing the exchange of considerable sums of personal finance, the lines, the unrivaled scrutiny. By the time one arrives at the enormous windows framing the vehicle of your demise, the experience becomes euphoric and accomplished.

The flight was brief & uneventful, though Virgin Airlines is a pretty classy way to fly. Very in touch with modern culture. I’m told most airlines these days have added a fee for everything they can – food, drink, snacks, movies, etc. Sadly Virgin is no exception. Somewhat of a disappointment over previous experiences I’ve had, but acceptable considering the ticket price.

San Fran is pretty cool so far. Very much the Cali atmosphere as I envisioned it – palm trees, ocean, “real” beaches. I’ll post photos when I can. We visited the Port of SF & waterfront – Seattle’s lake Union experience is drastically reduced in scale, though not dissimilar.

Next was Golden Gate. There’s really no substitute for seeing this monolithic feat of engineering in person. I envision giants big enough to crush godzilla under their feet working together to assemble this bridge as one would a model airplane. Human capacity to assemble such a structure seems absurdly impractical.

Next was Stinson beach. I appreciate that it was well out of the city to the north. This offered the impression of very clean ocean water, reaching as far as the eye can see (which, by the way, has a very nice look to it in the sunny/misty/hazy environment.) Getting to the beach brought back memories of travelling through dirt roads through the mountains in tropical 3rd world countries – windy roads on the edge of a steep drop with no guardrails & rocks. Jess also drives very fast.

We returned to the city to visit the Sutro Bath House Ruins. Not much left of what was, I’m told, a grand affair of bath-house awesomeness, but great location right on the ocean built into a bunch of rocks, very fun to just hang out. Also, it’s parked right next to the first “real” beach I’ve seen this trip. Certainly dwarfs anything we have back home.

Dinner at a hole-in-the-wall fusion place, then finally crashed around 10:30. After 3 hours of sleep & going since 4am, I can tell you I was *very* relieved. Today’s plan – going to Pacifica for a hike, pretty loose schedule, I’ll update later.

I’m heading to San Francisco tomorrow, and will be in LA later this week. It’s been a while since I’ve done any travelling like this, and I’m a bit excited at how spontaneous it is. I was invited though, which seems to be what made it happen. I’ll have to work on that. I’ve never really hung around in either of these places that I can remember, though I’ve been in the area of both at least once. If anyone has any recommendations, let me know.