genetikayos - Had a lot of fun in San Francisco

On Tuesday, I met up with Dan in the city after work.

Last time I went up to see him, he showed me the ferry building and the gelato place there. They had grapefruit and Compari gelato. I had to get another bowl on the way to the meeting spot.

I waited at the ferry plaza, next to the "just in case" fountain, eating my gelato and picking at my phone until Dan got off of work and met me there.

I still don't know San Francisco very well so Dan was personal guide and gave me a bit of history and trivial as we walked.

First stop was Cruz Skate shop in the Mission. I mostly just wanted to see what they had. I also entertained ideas of buying a gift for Diana or bling for my skates. I was sort of disappointed. They only had a few quads, some skate boards, and a bunch of skate board shirts.

We walked around and talked a bit and sort of stumbled over Borderlands Books. Cory Doctorow had gushed all over it and said it was a great book store. I wholeheartedly agree. I bought a set of "Promethea" trade paperbacks and an autographed copy of "Little Brother" as a gift for someone.

I picked up all of the Borderlands paraphernalia so I could add their events and whatnot to the calendar. I'm going to make an effort to go there some more. Between the events they have and the little self-published zines and stories they carry, the shop has a lot of revisit value.

Dan next guided us to Dolores Park. The view was spectacular. It was another reminder that I need to buy my own camera that can fit in my pocket. I never have a camera when I really need it.

Buy this time, it was starting to get dark and our bellies insisted on seeking food. We went to Crazy sushi. It was meh sushi but it was food.

Sabrina had told me about some "secret" that Rob has taken her to but didn't actually tell me what the secret was. I had Sabrina talk to Dan over the phone and the side of the conversation I heard was rather intriguing: "Oh, that! Yes!". We set off for the "secret" which turned out to be downtown off of Union Square.

We went into the Sir Francis Drake hotel and I followed Dan around a while as he sought out what was apparently a certain back of elevators. We went up 32 floors in the glass elevator and were treated to an awesome view of downtown, bridges, and bay. Again, I was kicking myself for not having a camera.

Even though the view on the way up was awesome, the trip down was literally breathtaking. It went down fast. I think I was maybe at 2/3rds G. When the elevator entered the enclosed shaft, it made my brain think I had crashed into the ground and I lost my breath for a moment.

That was exciting.

We celebrated by going across the street to Cheesecake Factory for drinks and dessert. We had gin & tonics, Georgia Peach cocktails, Jamaican coffees, and blackout cake.

It was starting to get towards pumpkin-time for me so we went out and walked along the Embarcadero, taking the long way 'round to the train station.

Along the way, we got close to the SF office, which I had never been to. It took us a bit to figure out where it was and how to get into it. We saw one office and it looked very close to being right, with the bright primary colors and toys, but turned out to be a day care center. Then, we found the right place. Dan asked me if this was the right one, it looked the same as the first. I was pretty sure it was because it had computers and the first office definitely lacked computers. After flashing my badge to get in and using the restrooms, we set off again to the train station.

I managed to make it back to the train station with only 10 minutes to spare.

I had a really good time. I got to go to some places I'd been meaning to go to, got a personally guided tour of part of the city and we had really good converstation.

We had walked for almost 6 hours continuously. When I finally got home, I went directly to sleep.