(Mary Beth)
Day 2
10/22/11
(I’m typing this at 6:10 A.M. on Sunday. I’m in a hurry, ’cause we want to leave our hotel by 6:30 A.M. to get to our whale watching adventure. This will be quick, but I just can’t skip blogging today because yesterday was just so much fun!)
Yesterday (Saturday), we took the bus down to Cow Hollow and met our friend Melody and her family for breakfast at Rose’s Cafe. The Cow Hollow neighborhood is adorable. Beautiful, well-kept row homes in a hilly area on the northwest side of the city. Rose’s had excellent food. Craig had a smoked salmon pizza with eggs on it (yum!), and I had a polenta dish with eggs and chicken tarragon sausage (mmm…polenta wants to be grits!).We had a very nice visit with Melody, Ross, and their two cutie-pie boys Cy (2) and Decker (1). They are Gerber babies!! So cute. But, watching Ross and Melody do the Parent Rodeo definitely made Craig and I grateful that we are past the sippy-cup, droppy droppy, put everything in my mouth, make Mommy do tricks phase! (If I had time, I’d go back and put the hyphens in that adjective phrase. Can we just pretend they are there?)
After, we went back to the hotel (again — bus) and changed clothes. Then took the bus BACK down to the wharf area and rented bikes from Blazing Saddles Bike Co. From the bike shop, we biked about 8 miles across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito. I swear I read somewhere that this trek would be leisurely and flat. Where did I read that? Okay. Well, it wasn’t. DAMN! Lots of hills. It’s San Fran-freaking-cisco, right???? LOL Well, it was do-able nonetheless. And, I felt much, much skinnier by the time we reached Sausalito. Oh. And, I didn’t take any water with me for the bike trip! WTH?? I told Craig, “What the hell am I doing biking 8 miles with no water? I don’t even go around my neighborhood without water!” We were glad to reach Sausalito, and there was no question that Sausalito was “far enough.” (We had originally wanted to bike to Tiburon to go to a placed Melody and Ross recommended – Sam’s – but that was before we heard it was 20 miles to Tiburon.)
We wanted to eat lunch on the water, and we found this “fancy-pants” place called The Spinnaker. I thought I was going to get kicked out for dress code — people were dressed VERY nicely for a 2:30-3:00 lunch. Weird! But, the place was beautiful and right on the water. So, basically, we were sitting right there in the bay with an amazing view of Alcatraz, the city, Sausalito (the houses/town), and a peek of the GG Bridge up over the hills of Sausalito. I kept thinking to myself, “See all that land? You just biked all of that. [satisfied grunt]”
We sort of did a “tapas” thing for lunch… pot stickers, crab cakes, salad, bruschetta, and clam chowder. AMAZING FOOD! Great lunch.
Then it was back to the ferry landing for the ferry back to S.F. What a mess! Cattle operation. Huge line of bikes like us, plus plenty of pedestrians. We BARELY missed the first ferry — meaning we ended up first in line for the “next” ferry. We were feeling pretty patient, though, and we “made friends” with some nice girls from Boston.
It was a pretty ferry ride back with the almost-setting sun highlighting the bay views. Oh, and there were TONS of sailboats out there. All day. So pretty!
We got back to the hotel around 6-6:30 and did a quick clean up. We went to a restaurant/bar next door to our hotel. It’s called “Fly.” Had good food and we could still watch the end of World Series Game 3. (Everything went the way of St. Louis last night, and Albert Pujols hit two homeruns while we were watching. We are rooting for Texas, though.)
Okay. Enough for now. It’s off to whale watching. I have low expectations for whale sitings, but if the weather remains beautiful, it WILL be a great day on the water no matter what. Looking forward to “relaxing” compared to the past two days, too.
(Mary Beth, not Craig!)
My 40th birthday is coming up next week, so Craig and I decided to celebrate with a trip to a place we’ve never been. We picked San Francisco, and I’m so glad we did. There is SO much to do here! I think of this blog as a way for me to keep some great memories, but I am posting it, ’cause I know some family members (okay, hi mom!) like to read about what we’re doing. 
Day 1 San Francisco
Friday 10/21/2011
(I am typing this blog entry on Saturday at 4:55 A.M., so it’s earrrrly on Day 2)
Happy 40th birthday to me!
We had a very good, very fun first day in San Francisco. I am so glad we decided to come here – I love the city life, culture, and just the experience of being somewhere new.
We flew in on Thursday night (10/20) after I got finished with student-led conferences. Flying in late was a great idea. We slept a LOT on the plane, and we got to experience a full first day on Friday, as a result.
We both woke up early – probably 5 A.M.?? But, we forced ourselves to sleep in just a little bit. After we got up and got going, we headed down for breakfast at the hotel restaurant, Saha. The restaurant is billed as specializing in Arab Fusion Cuisine. Huh? Craig had the eggs benedict, which he said was “fine,” (I never met a “just fine” eggs benedict!) and I had the Yemeni Breakfast, which I really liked. The Yemeni Breakfast was 2 poached eggs served over a traditional Yemeni fava-bean dish. It was seasoned with cumin and topped with a bit of what I will call a Yemeni pico de gallo. YUM. I added a bit of hot sauce to it at the table, and it was sort of like having chili for breakfast.
After breakfast, we had a lot of time to kill before our scheduled noon trip to tour Alcatraz. We decided to head downtown to the Visitors Center to get a transportation map of the city. Well, not having a transportation map, yet, to tell us which route to take downtown by bus, cable car, etc., we decided to walk. It wasn’t a long walk, but after about the sixth homeless person, we realized we would have felt a lot more comfortable getting there by vehicle. Whew. We walked very fast through the part of town south and east of our hotel, and I, for one, tried to maintain that “don’t eff with me” look on my face that says “I’m not the one you want to mug.” Despite my remarkable focus on looking tough, I noticed San Francisco is a culturally rich city, to say the least!
At one point when we knew we were close to our destination, Craig stopped to look at a map on a street corner. But, when a homeless person began making the rounds and asking another couple for a donation, I had to shoo Craig along… “Come on. Close the map. You look like a tourist. Let’s go.”
Thankfully, we made it downtown. We knew we were “safe” when we saw Nordstrom and the Gap.
We spent some time in the area of the Visitors Center getting oriented. We studied the options for public transportation and ultimately decided to invest $27 each for a 7-day pass. This would allow us to ride nearly any public transportation, and the convenience alone made it seem worth the price to me. By the end of the day, we were definitely glad we had purchased the passes.
We took a cable car (a.k.a. trolley) from downtown to the Wharf area. (It is very difficult to get the “lingo” down for street cars and cable cars. Why don’t they just call the trolley a trolley??? It’s obviously a trolley???) From where it dropped us off, near Beach and Hyde Sts., we then walked quite a distance east to Pier 33/Alcatraz Landing. Again, a real slice of humanity! Tons of good people watching at Alcatraz Landing. It was a real international crowd, too – lots of folks speaking foreign languages.
The Alcatraz tour was very good. Quality stuff. I had heard it was excellent, and I was not disappointed. The audio tour was great – a great way to learn. The audio provides lots of “real life” prison sounds and is narrated by former prisoners, so it really makes an impact. Of course, the BEST thing about the audio tour was NO ONE WAS TALKING. Wow. I cannot TELL you how great that was. The prison area was very, very crowded with tourists. But, since everyone was walking around with headphones on, intently listening to the narration and instructions of the audio tour, it was oh so pleasantly uninterrupted. No yapping… no “smarty pants” tourists making too-loud comments… no sons talking loudly to hard-of-hearing mothers in a foreign tongue… Just me and my own personal, serene audio-tour world. I decided I should put together some audio instruction lessons for my classroom! “Okay, kids. Everyone put on your headphones…”
The audio tour of the cell area probably took an hour or so. The tour guides you all over the premises – inside and out. We learned a lot. The most memorable parts, for me, were the specific information about a failed escape attempt during which prisoners overtook guards, and learning about the men who did escape Alcatraz. These men made fake human heads out of soap, paper mache (sp?), and other materials. Having secretly dug through their cells with spoons (or other tools, depending on the theory to which you subscribe), the men placed the dummy heads in their beds to fool the guards, escaped out of their cells to a utility hallway, climbed from there to the roof, and somehow got off the island. Did they survive? No one knows. But, the three men are still considered fugitives. Fascinating stuff! Craig says I have to watch the Clint Eastwood film “Escape from Alcatraz” which is based on the above escape.
We got back on the 2:00 ferry back to the mainland. Our feet and legs were pretty tired from all the walking in the city and at hilly Alcatraz. We had been emailing back and forth with our friend Melody Thomas who lives in the Bay Area, and she suggested we go to Buena Vista Café for a “famous Irish coffee”. Sounded good to us.
At Buena Vista, I had a yummy cobb salad with fresh Dungeness crab and lots of blue cheese and bacon. Mmmm. The Buena Vista is an Irish Pub. It’s very popular, so you share tables and take whatever seat you can get. (More restaurants should operate this way, in my opinion!) We shared a table with some very nice folks. They stayed on their end, and we stayed on ours. It was perfect! We enjoyed the sit-down, the food, and, yes, an Irish coffee. Not bad at all.
After, we headed right across the street to catch another cable car back to our hotel area. The wait for the cable car from the Wharf area was MUCH longer than the morning wait downtown. Everything just seemed to be moving slowwwwwwly. And, at the station, this old, hippy man was playing his electric guitar and singing. Sounds pleasant, right? Uh, no. In the words of Randy Jackson, he was MORE than “a little pitchy dawg.” Oh, it was rough. Worse, after each horrible song, the man kept canvassing the line of people asking for donations. Hardly anyone was tipping him. In this real deadpan, monotone voice, he kept saying stuff like, “That’s okay. You can keep ignoring me” and so forth. AWKWARD!!!!
Our cable car ride back south was jam-packed. We got lucky and got a seat, though. We had happily ridden as “standers” on our jaunt out to the pier area (felt like a real S.F. tourist!), but after a lot of walking, we were happy to sit down.
Because we ate lunch so late, we opted to skip dinner. We got back just in time to enjoy a wine happy hour provided by our hotel (with a keyboardist playing live music, even!). Afterward, we lounged around reading the news on our phones, half-listening to the TV, and fell asleep.
Again, great first day!
Today, Saturday, we are looking forward to meeting Melody and her family for breakfast in the Cow Hill area. We aren’t super sure what we will do after that. We had tentatively planned to rent a car for the day and head out to the wine country. But, now, we are thinking of doing that on a weekday – either Monday or Tuesday. We may just make today a bit more leisurely. I woke up thinking massage and manicure, but I haven’t mentioned that, yet, to Craig. LOL We’ll see. Maybe some shopping?
Getting hacked can suck. Especially if you run a commerce site and you make $ online.
In my case, I am just a stupid blogger who posts rants about politics and tries to make a joke once in a while. Not a huge loss if my site goes down.
On the other hand, I could be flattered. Maybe I caught the attention of some disgruntled international nerd who decided to whack my ideas.
I thought I did everything right. I kept my wordpress version updated. I deleted any spam. My PC is virus protected.
In the end, I was only offline for about 22 hours. I want to thank JustHost.com for their quick response to restore my site. I want to also give Kudos to the human that answered the phone when I called their tech support. Frankly I was shocked I got a human so quickly. They were helpful and got my issue working and resolved.
On the dark side, I read many reviews and posts that JustHost had a weak security scheme and susceptible to these hacks. Maybe so, but I would argue that many web hosting providers will run into these issues. I trust they are working to fix the holes they have.
I am staying with them for now.
Much like the Tea Party, this “Occupy Wall Street” movement is a bunch of mad people. As best I can tell. I don’t exactly know their goal. At least the Tea Party had an understanding of lower taxes and control of debt/deficit.
I get it. I support the effort. Peaceful protesting is acceptable.
What I don’t get is what do they want?
Here are some loosely mentioned desires (blogs/news/etc) I found that seemed to re-appear. Keep in mind there is no leadership to this protest thus no spokesperson.
“End of corporate greed” – Good luck with that. ”Greed” is inherit to capitalism. Why target Wall Street alone? It does serve a purpose. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/why-you-shouldnt-hate-wall-street/246282/
“jobs” – ok, understood.
“Free education” – that’d be nice, but nothing is free in life. Why protest Wall Street on this point? Go to your state university and campout.
“debt forgiveness” – not sure this is going to fly. There are numbers passing around the internet that show that the 99% hold the most debt opposed to the top 1%. This is probably true. But what is debt? When you buy things on credit, you have debt. Of this 99% hold debt, where did it come from? Probably school loans, mortgages, credit cards, car purchase. All voluntary expenditures.
The occupywallst.org site posted this list. http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/
I have to say the list is rather radical and unrealistic. As a reasonable person, I would hope this is not a representation of the movement as a whole.
Here is where my Andy Rooney like editorial begins…
I am getting old. I admit. I try not to sound like an old curmudgeon, but this will.
Most of the Occupiers are 20-something hipsters (probably 80% of that “99%). They are over-educated and under-motivated. They grew up in good economic times with TV, Sega Genesis’s, Xbox, Internet. They represent an entitled generation that were told they could do (or be) anything they wanted by their helicopter parents. Now they are faced with a downturn in the economy and out of the nest having to fend for themselves. They’re spoiled and pissed and want to blame the “fat cats”. After they roll up their sleeping bags and go back to their lives, not much will have changed. They still need to find work and be a productive member of society.
I’m done. I am pulling up my sans-a-belt pants and going home.
he 9 most important words: “I need you to do this, and here’s why…”
The 8 most important words: “That’s my mistake and I will fix it.”
The 7 most important words: “My door is always open to you.”
The 6 most important words: “Let’s focus on solving the problem.”
The 5 most important words: “You did a great job!”
The 4 most important words: “What do YOU think?”
The 3 most important words: “Follow my lead.” (chart the course for the destination and lead)
The 2 most important words: “Thank You.”
The MOST important word: “YOU” or “WE” (you choose knowing your audience)
The LEAST important word: “I”
Wow, I know that sex sells but I didn’t realize the uptick in hits to this site when I blogged about her hacked phone.
I did have a brief moment of fear when I heard that there was an effort to sue people who posted the pics. I am a small fish and I doubt they may come after this site. I have not taken down the pic. (to be fair to me, I posted the more modest image).
I continue to get hits on “Scarlett Johansson naked pic” keyword phrase.
Aceman. Big fan. Love the podcasts. Come back to KC again. Saw the show earlier this year, it was great.
Sidenote on KC show: when signing stuff afterward you seemed out of it and soon after that show you revealed on a podcast that you turned down a big syndicated gig. You had a lot on your mind. It all makes sense now. Come back soon. My buddy Chris (also a fan who attended the show) with the ’64 Vette will let you drive it.
I digress…
I am not in your typical demographic. I am not a stoner. I am a college graduate. I am gainfully employed. Thusly I hired sub contractors to finish my basement.
The project is complete except for one last detail. The Recyclarolla. I designed into the bar a spot for a scaled down version of the recyclarolla. I have a drawer at half depth so that the internal chute can fit. The lower drawers house the bins for trash and recyclables.
My dilemma is figuring out how to dress up the opening. Your traditional iron/metal swivel door probably won’t work due to the overhang of the counter not allowing for the opening to clear the hole. I don’t have anything cut yet but you can see in the photo what I am dealing with. The CD represents approximate location of hole to be cut.
I would like your creative advice on this.
PS. The “Good Times” mirror was a decision by both my wife and I. We’ve been listening since 1998 Loveline days.
Thanks.
Craig Hope – Kansas City
PSS.
Used LED lights by the TV.
LED Lighting behind the TV
So… America… stop using your cell phones to take pictures you wouldn’t want publicly seen. Scarlett apparently had her phone hacked and the images made their way to the internet.
I admit, when I heard, I googled. Pow. Only to be slightly disappointed.
I have to say that this image is no big deal and actually kind of artsy. There is another that shows your breast. Again, if this were Europe, that would be used as a students senior picture. Not a big deal.
scarlett johansson
Compare the above image to others that are seen in magazines.
Vanity Fair
Or from movies…
I don't know what movie this is from, but this is spectacular side boob.
Lighten up America.
For all we know, this is a calculated publicity stunt.
