Busy Relaxing

I'm almost done with my eight-day tour here at home in South Bend/Niles.  I've watched a good number of movies, which will be recapped at the end of break when I have a final tally :)  I've eaten plenty of sweets and other food and sweets.  And had probably as many beers as I had during the whole semester, which is like five.

I've accomplished lots of silly but useful things on my computer rearranging and organizing photos, music, contacts, etc.  Part of it is a means of further organizing data for use on my iPhone.  I've downloaded some apps too- so I now have German Spanish and Italian dictionaries and phrasebooks on my phone in anticipation of Barcelona.

My vacation really consists of three parts- roughly 5 days in Indianapolis, 8 days in Chicago, and the remaining 13 ish days in Chicago (save for a day and a half of coming back to Niles for family type stuff).  So I'm almost to the Chicago part- which is the toughest, because my Chicago to-do list is the largest.  First and foremost is finishing really moving into my apartment (unpacking, decorating, etc.) and spending time with Tiffany (out to dinner, watching movies, etc.).  Third is my to-do list, for school, my computer, life, whatever.  Thats for during the days.  

I've heard from a number of people recently that they actually (!) READ this blog, so it'd be nice to get more comments.  I guess what's to comment on, since I'm just blabbing, but feel free.  Maybe I should start posting questions or riddles or something.  Who knows.

Movies During Christmas

Movies Watched Since/During Finals (including some while I worked on models):

19 in total.  Only two of them had I seen before.  Success!

Get Smart

Journey to the Center of the Earth

XFiles

The Happening

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Robots

Cars

Casino Royale

Dark Knight

Wanted

White Christmas

Cinderella Man

Quantum of Solace

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

21

all the bonus discs from The Matrix Collection

2001: A Space Odyssey

THX 1138

The Great New Wonderful

No Country For Old Men

Oops This Never Got Posted

My favorite website, as of late.  

This is kinda what my brain is like sometimes.

Hold your mouse over the comic for a sec when you're done reading it.

http://xkcd.com/439/

I.AM.FREE

This is it folks.  The moment you've all been waiting for.  Or maybe just me.  Or maybe Tiffany and Josh so I can actually hang out with them and not be stressed and busy all the time.  I'm free from school!  Thank you Newsboys for providing the soundtrack to my Christmas break.  Below you can see how I enjoyed my first day of break while cleaning my apartment:

Cut my hair...

...aaaaaaaaand cut my face.

And did a little dancing and air guitar for the camera...

I am now on the most glorious Megabus ($1* fares!) on my way to Indianapolis to visit my favorite kids in the world, and some friends.  Stoked.  I of course could be sleeping like everyone else on here, but why the hell would I waste the opportunity to surf the internet at 70mph?  Mobile wifi is sweet.  I feel so 21st Century right now.

Flash forward to the next day.  I'm in Indianapolis with the kiddies.  

Time to sum up the semester.  Hardest I've worked for that amount of time.  People say architecture is hard.  And then there's being given loads of work over the weekend "because you have two full days to work on it".  Great.  Its okay, I don't need sleep, food, or time to bathe myself.  If I could live with a beard, I could certainly use that lost shaving time back.  Geez.  I just hope I got good enough grades to continue my quest to go to Barcelona.  Which is to say (which is the department chair's favorite phrase) I'm trying to maintain a 3.0 so I'm in good standing and not kicked out of school.  My 3.67 first semester was hurt by the 2.89 I got the following semester, due to (as far as I'm concerned)an  unappreciative six-credit C in my Studio class.  Hoping to not repeat that this semester.  Will know soon.  I worked my ass off, within reason.  Still need time to be a human being.  Shop for groceries, slowly unpack my belongings, spend time with my girlfriend and roommate.  

This semester was an urban design studio, designing a library for the currently library location in downtown Chicago.  We spent weeks researching, weeks doing other research, and the rest of the time building models it seems like.  Oh and then there were three other classes- lord knows when I have time to devote to those.  Here's some model pictures below.

Tiffany and Josh came to my final all-day review (part of it) before we went out for AH drink that turned into many drinks since the bartender knows my regulars classmates and was pouring us tasty girly shots all night on the house.  Okay, sounds good to me.  

The following morning I began my one-month quest to regain my humanity.  It began with having three days to plan a magical birthday for Tiffany and clean up my apartment enough to have some guests (my brother and his friend).  And spend the afternoon playing Super Nintendo as well.  Tiffany's pre-birthday and birthday went well, complete with my brother and his friend winning tickets in the Wicked drawing they do every day.  We did some shopping, did some Tex-Mex food, saw a wonderfully depressing WWII movie to end the night on a high note.  Even the weather wasn't too bad.  Until it went from 53 on Sunday to 6 on Monday.  Thankfully I was off for warmer climes (Indianapolis).

So I'm well on my way so far.  Changed my address with all the places in life that have my address, two months after moving.  Cleaned the bathroom for the first time since I moved in.  Not meaning we cleaned it when we moved in.  Visiting some friends and family here in Indianapolis.  Onward and upward.  Cleaning up this semester's files on my computer, messing with my music library.  

When I get home home, to SB, will be the real activity.  Cleaning out or at least organizing all my garbage thats still there, helping the family clean/arrange the basement.  Creating a website with Chris.  Playing some guitar.  Doing Christmasy things like making cookies, drinking egg nog, sitting by the fire, eating cookies, sitting by the fire, eating chocolate, sitting by the fire, drinking cider...you get the idea.

So more blog entries will come as I continue my tri-state travels over vacation and continue firmly grasping my sanity for a few weeks until it is stolen from my desperately clutching fingers.  And now for some completely different pictures.

A model I made for mid-term that was universally hated (~2 feet long):

The model I build next, with a grassy roof.  Same-ish size.  Took days.

Me and my pal Shubair, Tiffany's friend from Baylor.

Me and my pal Tiffany :)

Tiffany's brother Wesley.  We went to NASA Space Center in Houston over Thanksgiving- fulfilled a lifelong dream to go see all the rockets and space shuttle and stuff...

Tiffany's sister Karen and some large rocket engines...

Cockpit of the space shuttle!  Cool.  Airplane nerds might like this.

Tiffany celebrated her early birthday!

Snow-covered world from the air- neato.

My newly much larger class sitting around at a review, where we pin our garbage up on the wall and talk about it one by one.  Usually takes all day :)

My final model in the giant model of Chicago we built.  This model may come to South Bend with me if you wish to see it there, family members.  Its about 2.5 feet long.

Another closer photo.

A large model that was just a small section of my whole building.  Chris spent half a weekend in November helping me with this, Tiffany helped me make furniture and place people.  Then I borrowed people from many people in the Studio and populated my auditorium for a photo.

And then I knocked all the people down.  On purpose, this time- they fell down a few times on accident before I got them all up for the picture.  Couldn't glue them down since I hadta give em back!  This model was about three feet tall.  Maybe four.  It got throwed away.  After I rescued the people.

Inside of the model decorated and furnished by Tiffany :)

The whole thing.  Its tall.

Some of my classmates' models sitting on the ground waiting for their presentation.  Neat.

Hell Hath Descended

I don't have time for a real post.  I was gonna write about Thanksgiving and my time in Houston, while I was there, but suddenly I'm back, its snowy and cold, I have a sh-ton to do, and this is the best I got.

Observations from my flight to Houston:

-I greatly underestimated the number of people at the airport pre-6am the day before Thanksgiving

-They want us to turn our electronics off for takeoff because that's when most accidents happen

-Southwest airlines either buys their snacks on the cheap or is given them as advertising- every time I fly the snack is different

-there is a lot of farmland and river tributaries in the midwest

-people really look vulnerable and helpless when they're sleeping on an airline tray table

-getting five hours of sleep before a flight is a bad idea, made much much better by having beaten Wario's Woods the night before

-i have a tendency to get micro-crushes on middle-aged flight attendants.  they're saucy.

I will see many of you over Christmas Break.  Until December 11th consider me dead to the world.

Burnt Out

I'd rather be doing the following than doing more school work:

many many things.

1st   semester: Architecture rocks!!

2nd semester: Architecture is cool, and a lot of work.

3rd semester: This sucks.

(anticipated)

4th semester: I wanna die.

5th semester: BARCELONA!!!!!

6th semester: just get me out of here.

...almost forgot

...and one of the highlights of my birthday was omitted because it happened 9 days later...but that didn't keep it from being awesome.  By now I know Tiffany noticed I didn't mention her fantastic gift...she took me out to a Brazilian Steakhouse.  For anyone unfamiliar, its all you can eat 16 kinds of meat in giant hunks being walked around the restaurant on swords by men wearing pantaloons and tiny vests, with a waiter who continuously replenishes your supply of mashed potatoes and fried bananas and small rolls, with the world's best salad bar in the center of the place.  Oh yeah, its expensive, and oh yeah, its magnificent.  We stayed for two hours and tried maybe 10 kinds of meat and most everything at the salad bar- they had mushroom risotto, cheese tortellini, ceviche, oysters, spicy shrimp salad, fresh mozarella, four kinds of cheese with prosciutto and salamis, and then the other half of the salad bar.  Wow.  We were disgustingly full.

I wish I could take people there.  There's now four of em I think in downtown Chicago- so they must be doing something right.  It was my second time!  Uncle Tony happens to be a fan as well ;)

Oops.

Well I guess since I haven't posted since apparently October 3rd, I guess I should do that.  Geez I didn't even write about my birthday.  Less is more so I guess nothing is a LOT, right?

Here's an update on me.  I bought a book awhile ago called One Thing At A Time.  100 simple ways to live a clutter free life.  That lines up with the list I saw a while ago called 100 things, where you try and pare your life down to 100 possessions that you need (not counting things like toothpaste or something, but counting pairs of shoes and such) and see what you can get rid of.  Geez, ending sentences with prepositions is apparently bad.  So anyway that combined with moving got me to start getting rid of things.  Not stuff I need, just stuff I don't.  Toiletries, clothes, shoes, random things, you name it, trying to get rid of it.  Clothes in particular I will add up and post a list of what I got rid of.  There's that preposition again.  Anyway, its fun.

Also keeping in mind that being in grad school makes clear what I need and don't, what I use and don't.  Of course I'm not getting rid of my guitars just because I don't play them now.  I will use this newfound skill though in finishing what Jenny started, or at least continuing it, and helping my family get rid of/clean up/organize things at home as well, over Christmas break.  I've got a fair share of my own stuff there as well that needs to be addressed. 

I'm writing, by the way, because I have nothing else to do.  Which is to say (a phrase used in heavy rotation by the chair of my department at school) that I have a ridiculous amount of things to do, the least of which is trying to clean and organize my apartment.  My number 1 and 2 priorities are making sure I pass the semester, which at times I worry I may not.  Seriously or not, I dunno, but I do worry about it.  Priority number 3 is making sure I still have a girlfriend at the end of the semester.  Grad school, I shake my fist at you- if you were a person, I would punch you in the face.  

I've been working my uh, face of for like three weeks now.  The week before midterms was bad, midterms was bad, and it got zero better after midterms, and this week at least until Tuesday is bad, except then I have a Structures exam on Thursday.  Which used to be physics but now is more just glorified algebra.   But lots of formulas charts and numbers.

I'm hoping for 2 As and 2 Bs, expecting at least 1 A, considering the possibility of 1 A 2 Bs and a C, and dreading 1 A 1 B and 2 Cs.  I don't think it'll happen but with big final projects it really can come down to the wire.  And with the amount of work thats asked of us, the gap in performance between grades is chasmic.  Wow, thats a real word, spell check didn't even underline it!  Sweet.  I thought I kinda made it up on the fly.

Well anyway, I'm basically trying to hunker down and not hate life until Christmas break, and take small victories in not working for half the weekend if I can get away with it- but these days I have so much that I'm always thinking I *should* be working.  And I'm doing more work with worse results than last semester.  

Currently as usually in the past few weeks, I have multiple things due in the next couple days and constantly trying to assess which of them I should be giving my time to.  As I am completely hopelessly and constantly tethered to computer also, its of no small importance that half the stuff I need to use for school right now is currently not working right.  I have plenty of time to spend the afternoon error checking and defragging Tiffany's computer so it runs enough so I can use IT instead.  Sad times, resorting to a Windows machine to get by.

My birthday was a gleaming diamond of fun and relaxation in an arid desert of stress schoolwork and the occasional frappucino-  I got some Notre Dame green suede shoes from Tiffany, we got Qdoba burritos for dinner, went to South Bend, got pumpkin pie blizzards, and watched Iron Man on 60" almost HD with almost surround sound.  Spent Saturday looking at the new garage's progress, eating lasagna and DQ ice cream cake, opening presents, playing cards, watching another movie, and I think drinking multiple tasty liquids- ah yes Ruby Red Squirt, Mudslide, Very Vanilla Soymilk (The Taste Kids Love) and some other stuff.  I got a couple cool things from my parents, oh yeah and found out Chris and Tiffany had been not exactly lying to me, but certainly manipulating and deceiving me, for around three months-

CHRIS BOUGHT ME AN iPHONE.  

So he's crazy, its awesome, and when the going gets tough, the tough pull out their iPhone, look at their sweet suede shoes, and remember that their cool birthday presents and the people they care about will help em get through it.  My phone hasn't quite transformed my life, but thats because I received it before mid-terms and haven't exactly had the time to give it the attention it deserves.

I really must do work now.  I'm hoping everything I've been doing on here will finally make the computer work now.  I'm getting desperate here.  Times are getting rough.  I've spent more of the weekend being I.T. guy fixing this computer than I have actually doing school work.  Its awesome lemme tell you.

I also know I'll be home with Tiffany for at least five days during Christmas and afterwards, and maybe myself longer, dunno yet.   Also hoping to take a trip to Indy to visit some newly moved friends of mine as well as some of my favorite little cousins.

Gotta go.  

Suh-weet.

Carl's personal favorite architecture firm these days.  The principal architect, Bjarke Ingels (firm is called Bjarke Ingels Group, "BIG"), gave a rockin lecture last year on their work.  The lecture alone, work aside, was just really cool and well done.  He's Dutch.

www.big.dk/

Live and Learn.

New apartment.  Third night in the place.

dripping toilet

broken doorknobs

windows painted shut

smells like gas

no battery in smoke alarm

no carbon monoxide detector

windows painted shut.

called the gas company

they'll be right out

(within the hour)

make sure i'm by the front door

(three floors down)

its okay, i've got sleep to burn

only one assignment to finish in the morning

but i'm nearing the edge here

no more clean underwear

and my windows are painted shut.

Weary

I had something due in every class this week, and another project due for design studio on Monday (that's tomorrow).  Fortunately I was far too busy with every other assignment this week to have time for studio.   I was also lucky enough to move on Saturday and have my anniversary of having met Tiffany then, so I get to do a week's worth of project in one day.  Its joyous.  

I'm not complaining about the move, cause it was sweet to have Josh's parents and minivan to help and move most of the stuff, and Andrea and Tiffany to help too.  And having an anniversary is nice.  But not being sure when I'll even have time to shave next, let alone unpack and really move all my stuff INTO a new apartment, is not cool.  Its gotten out of control.  Its funny how quickly things turned from enjoying and working hard at school to wanting to get it done as quickly as possible.  

I gotta turn my attitude around enough that this doesn't keep up, and so that I enjoy school like I should.  But I'm certainly not given much time to actually enjoy it.  And forget trying to do anything in life but school.  Granted I'm playing soccer on Wednesdays and decided to work on a project with a professor, and its not every day you have to move, but still.  Time and money, the two main currencies of life, are both in short supply with no means of ready replenishment. 

I'm not interested in going so far as to let it be depressing, but it certainly turns me on autopilot, and the days go by.  I mean geez, I'm starting week 6 of school.  Christmas break will be magically, but even Thanksgiving I'll probably have a bunch of work to do- while I'm traveling to and from Houston.  Awesome.  I would like to practice doing school in moderation.  Or something.

You'll hear from me again next time I'm badly in need of procrastination.

Datum? I hardly even know him.

So I kinda like data.  I like making things into something I can understand.  I like numbers and ways of making sense of numbers, with graphs or otherwise, that can reveal hidden interesting information.  For example we have four professors in our design studio.  Each professor has their own students they personally meet with, and we had group projects, four groups per professor.  We pinned them up, we all voted.  Yes, its interesting to see who got the most votes, and why.  But more interesting?  Adding up votes across all projects, and see which professors students got the most votes (or in this case, the least- by FAR).  Now THAT is interesting.  Goes beyond the projects and students to say something about the professor!  Or maybe not.  But its interesting.

Here's more data I like:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122211987961064719.html?mod=yhoofront#articleTabs_interactive-PERSONALITY08%26project%3DPERSONALITY08

Me.

My favorite website, as of late.  

This is kinda what my brain is like sometimes.

Hold your mouse over the comic for a sec when you're done reading it.

http://xkcd.com/439/

The Noise in My Head

I made the wrong decision

Apple stock tanked

I have too much to do today

I need to exercise

Moving is gonna suck

How am I supposed to get all this work done?

Dammit I hate money

Why didn't I sell at $180

I hope Chris is happy at his job

I need to sell this stuff

Am I cut out for this?

I wanna watch a movie

What would I do without music

I need some chocolate

I hope I can sell this computer

I'm an idiot

This is just a down time

It'll turn around

I hope Nathan is happy at school

I gotta call about my credit card

I hate money

Just gotta get through the semester

Dammit I want an iPhone

I hope Tiffany is happy with ME

I'm not good enough

Am I good enough?

I can do this

I can't take this

I need my iPod

I can't get all this work done

I'm tired

My head is too noisy

Not sure I can take this

Breathe...................

IRISH.

Given the heavy workload we had for this coming week, I chose to go to the Notre Dame-Michigan game.  I chose "weisly".  Highlights include:

-Not spending all weekend studying

-Seeing Josh's girlfriend Andrea's sweet new circle couch

-Going to Corby's for the first time in like a year

-parking for free at Uncle Paul's dentist's office

-Andrea's friend buying the 82cent box of snozberry PopTarts from CVS

-getting soaked walking to tailgating

-having my first veal bratwurst

-having a tasty brew of Jack and Coke

-seeing Uncle Dave, Zach, Ross tailgating

-seeing Sper-uh-BRIAN LONG, and friends (Dolan Cross Hagan)

-making it to the band show on time

-sitting with Josh  Andrea Gobel and later Tiffany for the game

-seeing two ND touchdowns in 4 minutes of football

-seeing sleventeen Michigan turnovers

-seeing Michigan fans sit down often and leave early

-getting poured on in the 4th quarter and not caring

-seeing how pumped up the Irish got AFTER it started pouring

-running through "Stonehenge" water fountain with Tiffany and Andrea after the game

-eating chili at the Fulchers with some beer and wine

-watching Clausen throw a perfect TD pass to Golden Tate on Tivo at home, over and over.

-sleeping.

-eating and drinking tasty things at my parents house: Bailey's Ice Cream, Very Vanilla Silk, Jordan Almonds (Italian Wedding Almonds), pasta, Ruby Red Squirt.

-getting new batteries for my watches, and glasses for Tiffany, and Nutty Bars, at Walmart- and getting the opportunity to mutter "Irish" to myself every time I saw Wolverines apparel

-cleaning up the floodwaters in my parents basement before we left town

Now back to the grind.  Deciding about an apartment tonight.  Moving soon hopefully.

A Brief One (Its About Underwear) (No Its Not)

Whats funny is that with everyone texting, we have conversations like "I hate when I type 'go' and it substitutes 'in' instead" and people know what you're talking about.  'Home' always ends up 'good'.  Well here's some words that get substituted when the real words aren't in the phone's dictionary cause they're swear words.  Ha.

Dual

Eval

Duck

Dial

Econ

Shiv

Coal

Remis

That's all I got.

Its now back to work for me.  Looking at apartments, packing, doing school work, going to (a) Notre Dame game, can keep you busy.  But I'm already done with three of my sixteen weeks of the semester already so there's that.  Sweet.  Gotta go.  Irish.

Twitter

I am thinking in Twitter-length posts lately.  Probably because my mind is more scattered and busy, with starting school.  Though I also realize that it was a way I adapted last year and have immediately taken on as the way I need to be, and maybe I need to rethink that.  Could actually feel my mind and pulse race on the first day.  Just not necessary.

Twitter, ps, is like blogging except in 140 characters or less, but multiple times throughout the day.  Its a way of keeping up with people's thoughts and daily activities.  Yes, it sounds boring or invasive or both, but it turns out to be kinda addicting, for some anyway.  Once I get an iPhone, I'll be posting to it like mad, because I have lots of one-line thoughts that I wish I could tell someone or put somewhere.

Like:

How many department chairs at this university wear bright blue plastic watches?

This year I get to see the Trump Tower be finished out my window!

This damn chair's squeakiness is driving me crazy.

I don't have time to meet all these new people.

How is it that practicing and teaching architects can have such mastery of design software and still be so inept at using the basic functions of their computer?

And so on.  Twitter.com.  You can sign up and "follow" me, and then see who else I'm following or who is following me, and add them as well.  Another way of networking, which people love these days.

As you may have surmised, I've started school again.  I have a new studio (upstairs) with a balcony behind me overlooking the old one, and a window in front of me looking at the skyline instead of into my director's office.  I have 47 or so classmates, instead of 18.  All of whom I think are either younger than me or exchange students.  I have four less hours of class this year, and probably more than enough extra work to make up for it.  I no longer have 8am classes.  But I have class until 6pm every day.  There are already three party-ish things happening this weekend, all which I'm missing.  Oops.  My butt is already sore, I'm waiting for a new iPhone and laptop to come out, and I already knocked off a hefty to-do list the past couple days.

Year two is underway.  Damn this squeaky chair.  Everyone hates it.  Next week I start running again and start learning Spanish.  T-minus one year until Barcelona.

Tiffany started class too- Human Anatomy.  She gets to learn all the stuff Jenny did.  Til 8:30pm, Mon/Wed, all semester.  Wow.  Time for me to go and do something useful.

Another Side Note

One thing I've thought much about recently is future plans.  Tiffany and I have talked about her grad school a lot- where that would be, what it would be, etc.  She wants to go to Houston for school to be near her family.  She also wouldn't start until next fall.  So if she has a two-year program (the first semester of which I'll be in Barcelona for school anyway) then presumably I'll be moving down to Houston when I graduate.  That's when I'm buying my Mini Cooper.  Hopefully at that point we'll only need one apartment.  

After SHE graduates, we've talked about moving to Dubai, if jobs are really as plentiful as they seem, and if I could make enough money in a year or two to save up a bunch, and get an employer to fund flights home for holidays.  Thankfully her (our) friend Shubair shook hands that he'd move there if we did, since he has family in town there and his dad might move there for a job.  So at least we'll have someone to keep us company.  Chris said he'd come if he could :)

So it'd be nice to be able to come home from Dubai with enough cash in the bank to buy a house, or better yet build my own.  I'd also like to buy an electric car by then- unfortunately currently, they're at least 80 grand, if I bought a Tesla or more for a four-door Fisker Karma.  We'll see about those plans.  Where this house would be is the next question.

Its gorgeous though check it out:

http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/index.php/vehicles/features/

Going Home

We slept in, we got woken up by housekeeping (housekeeping, are you checking out today? housekeeping, are you checking out today?  housekeeping, are you checking out today?) and rode the train downtown just to have lunch at a waaaaay expensive German beer hall (shoulda just gone to "Innn-Out Burr-jah" and Jamba Juice), and then stopped to check out a water fountain TIffany recommended.  The weather was great again, I really enjoyed this city.  The only other place I've been besides Chicago and NY with a genuine real worthwhile large walkable downtown and extended city-scape.  Not Houston, LA, Denver, Atlanta (though they have a decent downtown) are that seamless to be able to walk 19 miles and seeing stuff the whole time.

Then we got back on the train, and after a million people took their time getting off so we could get on, the train driver decided to shut the doors and leave halfway through people boarding, so my dad and some girl also going to the airport got left on the platform while Chris and I drove away on the train.  Ridiculous.  They literally snapped shut between us.  Lame sauce.  The airport better have free wireless.  (Yeah as you can see, it didn't- dammit).

Last Day (ish)

So our last day was full.  Of walking.  According to my phone pedometer, 19.1 miles.  Rockin.  A trip record.  Due mostly to my destinations around the city- thankfully Chris was mostly in agreement and my dad assuaged to my plans.  Not only did we see Thom Mayne's Federal Building (more hideous than I had expected) and Daniel Libeskind's Comtemporary Jewish Museum (less interesting than I had hoped, but still cool) we got to see a small Frank Lloyd Wright building, built after The Guggenheim both in time order and in design aesthetic, the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park by Herzog & de Meuron, and across the way the new California Academy of the Sciences by Renzo Piano, which I forget was even here until I saw it.  That was a close one- almost missed it!  

We also walked through Japantown, where were underwhelmed by the pagoda thing but pleasantly surprised by a sweet Catholic Church (St. Mary's) across the street, and walked way way down Haight St. and saw miles of hippies and hookah shops and record stores.  We even saw the SFLBC in Golden Gate Park.  Yeah thats the San Francisco Lawn Bowling Club.  Old people wearing all white playing sort-of Bocce on a putting green surrounded by fence. 

I also found out this morning that we literally walked right by my friend Amy's work, BCV Architects, yesterday in a place called The Cannery, right near Ghirardelli Square in the Wharf area- I remember seeing the office and thinking hmmm, thats nice, I bet this is a cool hip area for lots of architects' offices- I wonder if Amy works around here?  Turns out YEAH.  

We also saw some other churches, and found out that while the streets are on a grid, the addresses are not so much, because while they follow a linear pattern, if you follow a street you might see a 2300 on the cross street at one block and then 2200 at the cross street of another.  Stupid, hard to find addresses that way, and hard to understand the map.  Oh well. 

Lastly, we went to dinner with an old employee of First Response, a good friend of my dad's.  And her husband and son.  We went to an Italian place called A16, had appetizers, pizza, pasta, wine, and wine, and then proceeded to a pub in Oakland to have a Belgian beer.  Tasty, and perfect for us weary travelers.  By a recommendation we're also gonna have lunch and possibly a beverage at a pub before scooting outta town tomorrow.  And hopefully finding wireless and seeing the Ferry Building that Tiffany told me to see.  

Now its time to give Chris a sensual back massage for his messed up shoulders, and go to bed.  Oh Motel 6 I shall miss you.  And sleeping on the edge of the bed while Chris sleeps in the middle with his grandma knee-pillow in my back...

Victory!!!

I'm not so much relishing my being correct as I am amazed and excited by the fact that I was indeed correct and it happened once again.  We ran into someone we knew.  I was just thinking earlier today that the trip was almost over and we hadn't seen someone we knew yet...and then out on Fisherman's Wharf we crossed paths with Mitch Walorski, the dad of one of my old grade school friends (who I've also run into in Chicago when he was with my cousins).  And I thought back on all the minute choices that has us walking right through there, right then, to have the opportunity to run into him.  Unbelievable.

Today was swell, aside from failing to see the one thing I'd wanna see in SF.  We found out the Alcatraz tickets were sold out until Monday.  The night tickets were sold out months ago and we never got day tickets ahead of time.  Punch myself in the crotch.  We got lucky with a room in Yosemite, but not so with Alcatraz.

We had already had an interesting morning- after Chris spending an hour last night and us spending another hour this morning, trying to figure out where to stay in SF, we ended up literally driving into the street and back into the next parking lot to the Motel 6 and spending half as much for a room.  Its clear you get what you pay for- but still not bad all in all.  The BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit- train) goes from a mile from our hotel, in Oakland, to downtown SF, in like 20 minutes.  Just as good as walking to a damn hotel downtown SF, without the price.  Our hotel is right by where the A's and Raiders play.  Kinda a junky looking stadium.  We did have a decent free contintental breakfast this morning, highlighted by the magical drink Very Vanilla Silk, which they had in weird tall little juice box type things.  Yeah I took three.  Its the nectar of the gods.  One of them is still on ice here with a leftover piece of pizza, since this ghetto-ass place doesn't have a fridge.   Yeah we left the white-people hotel last night and came to the black-people hotel tonight.  Sorry if I offended anyone but look outside and tell me it isn't true.  Its like night a day, from one parking lot to the next.

What I don't get about this whole place is first, why Oakland is a separate city and not just an extension or suburb of SF (though I guess the same applies to St. Paul, MN) and second, how the hell does Oakland manage to support, and NEED, their own baseball and football team?  I don't really get it.  Oakland is a decent sized city and all, but its literally right across a bridge (albeit a 2+ mile one) from SF.

We got to see The Church of Christ the Light before we left Oakland this morning, once we made our accomodations decision, and that was sweet, since its the most expensive Catholic Church in American history (200million I think?), and isn't finished, and we got some lady to walk us into the building.  Its pretty inspiring inside.  We then got to drive to SF and across Golden Gate Bridge before ditching the car and starting the hiking portion of the trip again, up and down and up and down the hills of San Francisco.  The stories weren't kidding.  We even saw the Crooked Street, which was pretty sweet slash ridiculous slash sweet.  It'd be cool to live there.  Golden Gat was so foggy we couldn't see half of it and couldn't see jack once driving across it, and the fog was visibly drifting rapidly.

Fisherman's Wharf and all that came with it, was like Navy Pier times a thousand, and was lots of people, shopping, food, and repeated identical camera shops and trinket shops.  Seriously, the exact same yellow sign saying "Convert Memory Cards to CD" in three stores, in one block, exact same displays in the window.  How is that possible.  We also saw over 200 sea lions chilling on the docks.

Chinatown was quite...Chinese, and hopefully we can see Japantown tomorrow.  Its farther west along with Haight and Asbury and Golden Gate Park.  We shall see.  We had lunch in some place with some Tsing Tao beer.  Tasty.  The weather is temperate and breezy, high of 63, and we got to wear pants.  The breeze feels great.  Was sunny too.  We walked around and saw a few churches, Little Italy, and ate dinner there, ACROSS from a more expensive place Tiffany recommended called The Stinking Rose: A Garlic Restaurant.  

We also saw Crooked St., climbed up and down a million ridiculously steep streets, and generally marveled at the weather, the hills, and the architecture.

Tomorrow we see all the cool buildings on my list (okay 2-3 of em, cause we already saw TransAmerica) and then have dinner with First Response's former HR person Bev, who loves wine.  Friday our flight is at 4:20 but checkout is at noon so then we have our bags and probably unfortunately just go to the airport and chill.  Nuts.