This has got to be one of my favorite photos.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Father's Day
Assorted kites are casting unique shadows on the wind swept grass, and the kids are shouting indiscernable commands and squeals to each other. Alex is running around, likely playing an entirely different game than the rest of the kids, and Zoe is speaking in a whiny, draggy drone. She's probably a little hot, bored, and thirsty. My wife and I are just sitting here in the sun, chilling.
I have to say that I'm not one of those kite flying types - the constant challenge of trying to keep something in flight while its natural inclination is to do otherwise isn't meditative or carefree in my eyes. I don't have anything against those who do, I just don't think much of it. Unfortunately, neither do the kids. They got bored with it rather quickly and decided to do other things.
I got to sleep in a little this morning and we went to dimsum, and I have a whole book to go through that the kids and wife made for me, and we dropped off my mom before coming to gasworks.
I have to say that I'm not one of those kite flying types - the constant challenge of trying to keep something in flight while its natural inclination is to do otherwise isn't meditative or carefree in my eyes. I don't have anything against those who do, I just don't think much of it. Unfortunately, neither do the kids. They got bored with it rather quickly and decided to do other things.
I got to sleep in a little this morning and we went to dimsum, and I have a whole book to go through that the kids and wife made for me, and we dropped off my mom before coming to gasworks.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Hum
I was listening to this NPR report - it was the second time I was listening to it really, so it was just a refresher, but it basically said there the low hum in space is the echo from the big bang. So, thus the title. I know, not a great excuse.
I am tired. Headache tired. Yesterday we went to visit my wife's sister and husband, who flew in for a couple days for business from New Mexico. By the end of it, the kids were fast asleep in the car and I had been up for over 20 hours. I did get a full night's sleep but I'm still worn out all the same. We haven't really done much today, but the kids are tired, I'm tired, and we're all just waiting for more sleep, at least on a subconscious level.
I lucked out on not having to work today, we originally had to but there wasn't enough work for it. Good thing too, since I needed the rest. Been thinking a lot about looking for another job, not because of the company or the pay, but because I need this oddball schedule and overtime is slowly killing my spirit. I have way less spare time, I'm constantly tired, and I feel like I'm just going paycheck to paycheck, with very little personal progress in my personal life.
Listening to Paul Haggis during the Indiewire podcast was interesting, he was talking about being a struggling scriptwriter and filmmaker, who started relatively young in the business but didn't direct his first film till he was 49. He talked about being extremely stubborn, firm, and to take rejection lightly. He said that scriptwriting is a full time thing, not to do it and have any backup like be a doctor, because you'll just end up being a doctor. Not to give yourself an alloted amount of time, because it doesn't work that way. I don't know, I miss writing sometimes but whenever I start it up, I just think I'm a hack just reworking other people's ideas into my own. Like the young pregnant mom who doesn't want to finish school, I'm the father of two who can think of 1001 reasons why I can no longer be a filmmaker. Of course, that's not true at all. I think when the kids start going to school and I settle into a better job with regular hours, I can start to venture back into filmmaking. For now, I'll just have to blog and podcast to keep my mind sane and occupied. When it's not busy sleeping anyway.
So the iPhone 3G came out, and I'm supposed to be excited about it, but it's been a meh reaction thus far. The "lower cost" of the phone is just subsidized, so with basic math you're actually paying 40 bucks more at the end of two years, because EDGE service was just 20 bucks a month but 3G is 30 bucks. I don't know, I would jump on it if they offered a data plan with a minimum or prepaid phone option, but paying for minutes that I'll never use is just not something I'm interested in. Besides, aside from the 3G and the addition of GPS, there isn't much new to the phone. Steve Jobs did look a bit gaunt from the keynote though. It's as if he had shrunk, since the clothes he was wearing looked too big for him.
Well, time to think about dinner. After the short streak of illness with the kids, their appetite has been touch and go. Literally. I end up throwing their food anyway or just gnawing begrudgingly at their scraps because I've inherited my Mom's attitude toward wasting food.
I am tired. Headache tired. Yesterday we went to visit my wife's sister and husband, who flew in for a couple days for business from New Mexico. By the end of it, the kids were fast asleep in the car and I had been up for over 20 hours. I did get a full night's sleep but I'm still worn out all the same. We haven't really done much today, but the kids are tired, I'm tired, and we're all just waiting for more sleep, at least on a subconscious level.
I lucked out on not having to work today, we originally had to but there wasn't enough work for it. Good thing too, since I needed the rest. Been thinking a lot about looking for another job, not because of the company or the pay, but because I need this oddball schedule and overtime is slowly killing my spirit. I have way less spare time, I'm constantly tired, and I feel like I'm just going paycheck to paycheck, with very little personal progress in my personal life.
Listening to Paul Haggis during the Indiewire podcast was interesting, he was talking about being a struggling scriptwriter and filmmaker, who started relatively young in the business but didn't direct his first film till he was 49. He talked about being extremely stubborn, firm, and to take rejection lightly. He said that scriptwriting is a full time thing, not to do it and have any backup like be a doctor, because you'll just end up being a doctor. Not to give yourself an alloted amount of time, because it doesn't work that way. I don't know, I miss writing sometimes but whenever I start it up, I just think I'm a hack just reworking other people's ideas into my own. Like the young pregnant mom who doesn't want to finish school, I'm the father of two who can think of 1001 reasons why I can no longer be a filmmaker. Of course, that's not true at all. I think when the kids start going to school and I settle into a better job with regular hours, I can start to venture back into filmmaking. For now, I'll just have to blog and podcast to keep my mind sane and occupied. When it's not busy sleeping anyway.
So the iPhone 3G came out, and I'm supposed to be excited about it, but it's been a meh reaction thus far. The "lower cost" of the phone is just subsidized, so with basic math you're actually paying 40 bucks more at the end of two years, because EDGE service was just 20 bucks a month but 3G is 30 bucks. I don't know, I would jump on it if they offered a data plan with a minimum or prepaid phone option, but paying for minutes that I'll never use is just not something I'm interested in. Besides, aside from the 3G and the addition of GPS, there isn't much new to the phone. Steve Jobs did look a bit gaunt from the keynote though. It's as if he had shrunk, since the clothes he was wearing looked too big for him.
Well, time to think about dinner. After the short streak of illness with the kids, their appetite has been touch and go. Literally. I end up throwing their food anyway or just gnawing begrudgingly at their scraps because I've inherited my Mom's attitude toward wasting food.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Its quite easy to procrastinate on blogging especially when there's a new Samsung 22 inch monitor to distract me.
Coming to terms that I couldn't afford a decent HDTV was easy when I learned about this alternative. Suddenly to have hi-def goodness without the huge debt or space hog was a pretty good alternative to utilizing my ps3. All this while I've been gaming on standard def, wondering how much better it would look in its native goodness, and the answer is - very good. Droolingly spectacular.
So we are still dealing with Franklin not being around, and Alex has been sick these past couple days has been a sort of distraction for us. Alex vomitted in the middle of the night three times, and then twice during the day. So he hasn't really eaten a full meal for a couple days now.
Coming to terms that I couldn't afford a decent HDTV was easy when I learned about this alternative. Suddenly to have hi-def goodness without the huge debt or space hog was a pretty good alternative to utilizing my ps3. All this while I've been gaming on standard def, wondering how much better it would look in its native goodness, and the answer is - very good. Droolingly spectacular.
So we are still dealing with Franklin not being around, and Alex has been sick these past couple days has been a sort of distraction for us. Alex vomitted in the middle of the night three times, and then twice during the day. So he hasn't really eaten a full meal for a couple days now.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Franklin
It's been a rough week, so I haven't really been posting because I keep waiting for the news to get better, but I think it'll be what it is.
When we came home on our vacation, I was carrying Zoe in at 2am and Franklin darted out, like he does every so often when people come home at night. He does it often enough to not cause any concern, so we didn't think much about it.
Well, the next day my Mom reported hearing a cat outside her bedroom window, and some birds sqwaking about. We searched around the perimeter and my wife saw some gray fur, and a red stain on the grass. It was probably about a cup of blood or so, but then we got worried. Perhaps the birds just pecked him in self defense.
Posters went up, wife started asking door to door, and visited shelters, and we got a few speculations from people she told. But I didn't think any of it was feasible, just wild speculation from people who enjoy embellished stories.
On friday, I was driving to work for some overtime at five-twenty in the morning when a pack of two gray dogs crossed the road in the distance. It caught my eye because they were travelling in packs, and I've never seen dogs built like that. I managed to catch a second glimpse before they disappeared into the woods.
Its hard to imagine that any animals pose any threat to cats, but after seeing them, I held off on telling my wife for a day before I asked her what she thought happened to Franklin. Then we had to grasp that our chubby friendly Franklin was probably taken by a coyote. We still get sad when we think about it, and we're still checking shelters, but we're fairly certain he's gone.
Sucks.
When we came home on our vacation, I was carrying Zoe in at 2am and Franklin darted out, like he does every so often when people come home at night. He does it often enough to not cause any concern, so we didn't think much about it.
Well, the next day my Mom reported hearing a cat outside her bedroom window, and some birds sqwaking about. We searched around the perimeter and my wife saw some gray fur, and a red stain on the grass. It was probably about a cup of blood or so, but then we got worried. Perhaps the birds just pecked him in self defense.
Posters went up, wife started asking door to door, and visited shelters, and we got a few speculations from people she told. But I didn't think any of it was feasible, just wild speculation from people who enjoy embellished stories.
On friday, I was driving to work for some overtime at five-twenty in the morning when a pack of two gray dogs crossed the road in the distance. It caught my eye because they were travelling in packs, and I've never seen dogs built like that. I managed to catch a second glimpse before they disappeared into the woods.
Its hard to imagine that any animals pose any threat to cats, but after seeing them, I held off on telling my wife for a day before I asked her what she thought happened to Franklin. Then we had to grasp that our chubby friendly Franklin was probably taken by a coyote. We still get sad when we think about it, and we're still checking shelters, but we're fairly certain he's gone.
Sucks.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
San Francisco Travelogue
Super San Francisco Travelogue!
I wrote the majority of this on my phone, but didn't blog it in real time because of my slightly unnatural fear that if I blogged it, people would read it, figure that I was on vacation, and burglarize our house. I don't know why, but even when I was driving home I was thinking, "What should I tell the kids if the house was ransacked? That we're just camping at another hotel? Would I deal with the police while they're at the hotel, and then make up some reason why we have less stuff in the house?" Anyway, nothing happened of course. This morning, I woke up early, washed the minivan and returned it with a tear in my eye. I'll miss you, you big red lug. So, 7 days, a little less than 2000 miles logged, hundreds of dollars in gas refueling (80 bucks on a refill!), and way too much eating out, I got the rest of the day to catch up on blogging and photo editing.
Sunday
We crossed into the Oregon border on a rather intimidating bridge, at least to my wife. We got 3 hours in so far, but unfortunately that means about 4-5 more hours of driving to go before we reach our motel. So far the kids have been doing pretty well, although we dosed up on the dramamine an hour into the trip because the boy was feeling sick. But during the stop, we had some food which turned out to be a good thing since it was the last food stop for a while.
We are now hanging out at KB Toys at a factory outlet, I think at Seaside, Oregon. After about a half hour here, we'll do another couple hours on the road, maybe with another movie to distract them.
We also stopped at Dismal Nitch rest stop where some folks were doing some Lewis and Clark stuff, and the kids got themselves draped with buffalo hide and got to sit in a canoe
---
At Pig N' Pancake for dinner, and there's absolutely no reception for the phone. Alex is dead asleep, like Weekend at Bernie's tired, and we are running a little behind. Its 8:17 pm and we're just having dinner. Just about 90 more miles to go, so about 2 more hours considering the 55 or less speed limit. We still haven't seen much of the fabled Oregon Coast, just snippets of it and we didn't stop for any of it. Perhaps tomorrow when we get an earlier start.
Minutes into the meal, I hear Zoe say, "I eat all the butter all gone!" at first, I'm just thinking that Zoe had eaten the butter off the pancakes, but then I realized that she had eaten the whole ball of butter that was on her plate. I told her that she wasn't supposed to eat the ball of butter while she gave me an impish little grin. Silly girl.
----
We drove the rest of the way pretty much in the dark, but you could still make out that on the passenger side was a railing and the coast and a high drop was beside it. We didn't hit the beach like we thought, but we were glad to be home. Very windy and slow road.
We got to the Economy Inn past 11 pm, and both kids were fast asleep. I had to ring for late service and the kid didn't seem none too happy to accomodate me, but was cordial enough. Pickup trucks with ATVs seem to be evenly spread throughout the parking lot, because of the nearby dunes.
The kids did eventually wake up, and the funny smelling room was their new playground. It smells like someone had overused cleaner in a room that was really stinky before, so the smell is overwhelmingly weird. These guys are also charging a premium rate considering their proximity to the Oregon dunes, and their shower is standing room only, with a really large dubious window facing out by the shower.
After the adults took their showers next to a large window, we'll all settled to bed. The kids are on the floor watching Curious George on my laptop, while I'm typing with cramped hands on my phone. After this is bedtime. Early start tomorrow.
Monday
Memorial Day Monday, and got some good sleep despite the smallish queen size bed and the single pillow. Had some odd dreams about sexist scrabble and vacuuming ants off my Mom's ceiling.
We had breakfast at McD's and now we are basically walking around Safeway waiting for their bowel movements to activate. Then its off to the pumps and maybe if we're lucky, we will hit the beach when the weather clears up from this mild drizzle.
---
One fifty AM, and I'm just going to bed after driving around all day.
---
Well, I got tired after writing a single sentence. Anyway, yesterday was a 10 hour drive stretched out to a 14 hour affair, with a few more stops that we had anticipated. 2 beach stops, a Mystery Trees tour with guest star Paul Bunyun, and a gas station stop in the middle of California, with sandwiches and candy for dinner. The kids have had lots of sleep in the car with the help of dramamine, but so far nobody's gotten carsick, so that's a good thing. The Holiday Inn we're staying at is nice, but with amenities like 37 dollar parking, 20 dollar rollaway beds, and 19.99 breakfast buffets (no continental breakfast for you), I'm actually slighty disappointed at the nickel and diming us.
It was nice to have the Golden Gate bridge as a marker, even though we misannointed two other bridges while we were driving up. Impressions are that it wasn't as lit up as I thought it would be, it was also shorter driving across than it looks. And the first few natives were less than friendly - the toll operator took the money begrudgingly, and the hotel reception was ice cold. Oh well, perhaps its just the night shift. We put the kids on the floor again, and the Wifi is serviceable, though not impressive.
---
Tuesday
The first real day in San Francisco started off with a misdirection, and that was pretty much the theme du jour. Nobody told me that it was close to impossible trying to make a left turn in downtown San Francisco, but more importantly, nobody told my GPS. So everytime I had to take a left, I had to make a right a block after, followed by two other rights to take that left that I couldn't take. Basically like slingshooting myself in the right direction.
The other memo I missed was that the city was in all respects, under construction. The Palace of Fine Arts was covered with scaffolding all over, and certain portions of the Golden Gate Park was under construction as well. Seems like if we had hit the city in the summertime, it would have been perfect timing. The stuff is still for the most part visitable, but just not photo worthy.
We spent a couple hours at the Exploratorium, a science center that's actually well designed to keep the hands busy. There was a plethora of school tours there as well, so our kids were being muscled over by older kids quite often. We had to leave a little prematurely because the two hour parking limit was up and we had to skedaddle to the Golden Gate Park.
After taking a series of right turns, we eventually ended up near the music concourse, so the kids had a muffin/apple snack before we headed to the Japanese Tea Garden. We also hit the other portions of the park, including a Shakespeare garden. We got a little lost trying to find the Conservatory of Flowers, and then Zoe had to go potty, so we close sprinted in that direction. Alas, it closed at four thirty so we just got to go to their bathroom, and that was about it. My unforunate bathroom experience invloved the number 2, an absence of toilet seats, and a fair amount of hovering supported by one hand bracing against the wall. Defeated, we ambered back to the minivan and headed toward Chinatown.
Since we didn't really know where to go, I just pulled up randomly to some street and waited. Then I had to deal with the parking debacle but it was worth it, another 40 bucks saved. After a tasty takeout at the hotel, wife and I headed down to the Wharf and had a walk, just the two of us. It was pleasant for a while until the weirdos and miscreants started showing up, including a weird homeless guy holding up a palm leaf and scaring passerbys. More on him later.
Going to bed at 11 pm did make me feel old.
---
Wednesday
Because we had spent most of the day at the park, I got the feeling that my Mom was a little bored, so we decided to go to Union Square, which is the shopping mecca of SF. I myself was a little mixed about this, since I only care about electronics stores and since all these stores are basically franchises, there wasn't really any unique shopping experiences, just different versions of Gap, Macy's and whatnot. We took the cable cars and if you're a tourist, there really isn't much information to tell you what's what. Two of the lines run almost the same, and if you don't know where you're going, there's a strong likelihood you'd end up somewhere else. I read about having the optimum experience of standing on the cable cars and holding the poles, so my wife and I did that both ways.
We were on the way back when my wife told me that she had seen a decapitated pigeon on the tracks, and I was a little bummed having missed it. We were trying to see the crooked street on Lombard, but was on the wrong end of it. We hit the Wharf again, and just walked around for a little bit. We had Ghirardelli's for a snack (I had a really rich raspberry chocolate milkshake), and then back to the hotel. I tried to get some night shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, but having no tripod yielded no good results. We were all beat by the end of the day though.
---
Thursday
Waiting in line for the Alcatraz cruise, its a fairly big crowd generating what I imagine is a lot of dough. We spent the earlier part of today at the Museum of Modern Art, which had some Picassos and Matisses, and Riveria and Pollock. At least those are the ones that I remember. We experimented with taking public transit, and that particular line ran through Chinatown, and at times we were just overwhelmed with elderly Chinese people. But we found our stop just fine, found the museum, and dragged the bored kids through some great art, and some not so obvious art. There was a photo collection that looked a lot like I took the photos, and that's not a compliment in any sense.
We did come across a great Catholic church, and despite feeling really wrong about being a shutterbug while some folks were having conversations with God, I clicked away anyway. I'm a bastard like that.
After that, we just fell back to the hotel and snacked a little, before walking down to the pier.
The Alcatraz night cruise was interesting, though I wished they hadn't scheduled the talks over each other. We missed a couple of the talks because we were a little behind, and then we caught a little bit of one and a talk about escapes. My wife missed a chunk of one because Alex had to poop. She huffed up the hill but not before smacking me in the back, like some kind of physical release. It was a pretty neat tour, though I think in the end the numbers underwhelmed me. Here I was thinking it was this big time prison, which it was, a maximum security affair, but it was only operational for about 30 years, and only a thousand plus people throughout its stint. It was still impressive to go through there, certainly my first time in any sort of correctional facility. We stayed and took the last boat, and by then it was 9 something and we hadn't eaten dinner yet.
So anyway, on the way back my wife and I were bickering over something, so my mood wasn't really that settled. We went into a McDonald's right when they were closing and managed to get some food, but we couldn't eat there so we headed back to the hotel. We were walking down Fisherman's Wharf again and I saw the homeless guy with the palm leaf. From Tuesday's post. Initially I thought he was just some guy with some friends doing this, but then I realized that's his schtick. Like the homeless guy who was dressed as Chaplin, played with the kids, and then tipped his hand for some change, this guy was just scaring people for kicks. Anyway, I saw him down the street and I was just worked up because I knew it was the same guy. I saw him see Zoe, who was holding my Mom's hand, and then he stopped, pulled the palm leaf up to his face, and I shouted at him, "Don't you be doing that, man." He shouted back about being able to do anything since this is America, and I told him not to scare my kids. Some other words were exchanged, but we pretty much just passed without much incident. I had sized him up and he wasn't someone I couldn't handle. Of course, it shook everyone up but I'd rather that happen then have him scare Zoe. If he had scared Zoe and she had cried, I would've probably thrown him or something at him because any normal person with common sense would know that toddlers are off limits.
Anyway, it was a really uneasy night but it needed to be done.
---
Friday
Today was my Mom's birthday, and I decided that screw it, I'll just take the minivan out and worry about parking later. So we went to Chinatown and found a good garage for a reasonable price, and then walked around. Lots of elderly Chinese people around, and my Mom asked around for a good place for dimsum. We found a nice grand looking restaurant, had breakfast, and then walked around some more. Alex didn't want a wooden sword, so he opted for a bobblehead dog instead, as did Zoe. We spend a bit of time at the playground, and then decided to hit the Conservatory of Flowers again, this time with actual directions!
After the conservatory, we went to Crissy Field which is in the shadow of The Golden Gate Bridge, and had some time there. And we had dinner at McCormicks and Toleutos? Overpriced and not so great seafood. I didn't mind spending the money, but my razor clams tasted like eraser, and the crabcakes were really too expensive. They also gave the kids burgers with red in the middle. Oh well.
Since I had given up my parking spot, I actually had to park twice because of the time limits and restrictions. I managed to find free parking 3 blocks from the hotel, but I had to get the minivan by 10am, which wasn't too bad.
---
Saturday
An early start.
We headed off without breakfast, just snacking in the vehicle, and managed to make some good distance on that. After that, we only had about 4-5 stops, twice for food, twice for gas, maybe once for bathroom break. We had fed the kids a little and didn't give Zoe the dramamine, and gave her a Nintendo DS instead. When we pulled up for lunch, she said she was getting sick and had a terrible look on her face. So I pulled the game, her blankie and kiddie off and my wife yanked her out of the car. Afterward we realized that people at McDonald's could probably see the whole upheave. Funny thing was that we didn't even eat at McDonalds. We ate at KFC, where they had watered down gravy and some really dry chicken.
We also stopped at a gas station where they had a mannequin in the bathtub, which startled my Mom. The kids were really good on the way back, though they watched like 4 movies. The googled time of 12 hours turned into 18 hours. I was seriously listening to my iPod, furiously lip syncing the songs quietly and air drumming to keep myself alert and awake while everyone was sleeping. We left at 9:30 in the morning and didn't get home till like 2:00 am.
So that's the travelogue. I'll have photos tagged and organized soon.
I wrote the majority of this on my phone, but didn't blog it in real time because of my slightly unnatural fear that if I blogged it, people would read it, figure that I was on vacation, and burglarize our house. I don't know why, but even when I was driving home I was thinking, "What should I tell the kids if the house was ransacked? That we're just camping at another hotel? Would I deal with the police while they're at the hotel, and then make up some reason why we have less stuff in the house?" Anyway, nothing happened of course. This morning, I woke up early, washed the minivan and returned it with a tear in my eye. I'll miss you, you big red lug. So, 7 days, a little less than 2000 miles logged, hundreds of dollars in gas refueling (80 bucks on a refill!), and way too much eating out, I got the rest of the day to catch up on blogging and photo editing.
Sunday
We crossed into the Oregon border on a rather intimidating bridge, at least to my wife. We got 3 hours in so far, but unfortunately that means about 4-5 more hours of driving to go before we reach our motel. So far the kids have been doing pretty well, although we dosed up on the dramamine an hour into the trip because the boy was feeling sick. But during the stop, we had some food which turned out to be a good thing since it was the last food stop for a while.
We are now hanging out at KB Toys at a factory outlet, I think at Seaside, Oregon. After about a half hour here, we'll do another couple hours on the road, maybe with another movie to distract them.
We also stopped at Dismal Nitch rest stop where some folks were doing some Lewis and Clark stuff, and the kids got themselves draped with buffalo hide and got to sit in a canoe
---
At Pig N' Pancake for dinner, and there's absolutely no reception for the phone. Alex is dead asleep, like Weekend at Bernie's tired, and we are running a little behind. Its 8:17 pm and we're just having dinner. Just about 90 more miles to go, so about 2 more hours considering the 55 or less speed limit. We still haven't seen much of the fabled Oregon Coast, just snippets of it and we didn't stop for any of it. Perhaps tomorrow when we get an earlier start.
Minutes into the meal, I hear Zoe say, "I eat all the butter all gone!" at first, I'm just thinking that Zoe had eaten the butter off the pancakes, but then I realized that she had eaten the whole ball of butter that was on her plate. I told her that she wasn't supposed to eat the ball of butter while she gave me an impish little grin. Silly girl.
----
We drove the rest of the way pretty much in the dark, but you could still make out that on the passenger side was a railing and the coast and a high drop was beside it. We didn't hit the beach like we thought, but we were glad to be home. Very windy and slow road.
We got to the Economy Inn past 11 pm, and both kids were fast asleep. I had to ring for late service and the kid didn't seem none too happy to accomodate me, but was cordial enough. Pickup trucks with ATVs seem to be evenly spread throughout the parking lot, because of the nearby dunes.
The kids did eventually wake up, and the funny smelling room was their new playground. It smells like someone had overused cleaner in a room that was really stinky before, so the smell is overwhelmingly weird. These guys are also charging a premium rate considering their proximity to the Oregon dunes, and their shower is standing room only, with a really large dubious window facing out by the shower.
After the adults took their showers next to a large window, we'll all settled to bed. The kids are on the floor watching Curious George on my laptop, while I'm typing with cramped hands on my phone. After this is bedtime. Early start tomorrow.
Monday
Memorial Day Monday, and got some good sleep despite the smallish queen size bed and the single pillow. Had some odd dreams about sexist scrabble and vacuuming ants off my Mom's ceiling.
We had breakfast at McD's and now we are basically walking around Safeway waiting for their bowel movements to activate. Then its off to the pumps and maybe if we're lucky, we will hit the beach when the weather clears up from this mild drizzle.
---
One fifty AM, and I'm just going to bed after driving around all day.
---
Well, I got tired after writing a single sentence. Anyway, yesterday was a 10 hour drive stretched out to a 14 hour affair, with a few more stops that we had anticipated. 2 beach stops, a Mystery Trees tour with guest star Paul Bunyun, and a gas station stop in the middle of California, with sandwiches and candy for dinner. The kids have had lots of sleep in the car with the help of dramamine, but so far nobody's gotten carsick, so that's a good thing. The Holiday Inn we're staying at is nice, but with amenities like 37 dollar parking, 20 dollar rollaway beds, and 19.99 breakfast buffets (no continental breakfast for you), I'm actually slighty disappointed at the nickel and diming us.
It was nice to have the Golden Gate bridge as a marker, even though we misannointed two other bridges while we were driving up. Impressions are that it wasn't as lit up as I thought it would be, it was also shorter driving across than it looks. And the first few natives were less than friendly - the toll operator took the money begrudgingly, and the hotel reception was ice cold. Oh well, perhaps its just the night shift. We put the kids on the floor again, and the Wifi is serviceable, though not impressive.
---
Tuesday
The first real day in San Francisco started off with a misdirection, and that was pretty much the theme du jour. Nobody told me that it was close to impossible trying to make a left turn in downtown San Francisco, but more importantly, nobody told my GPS. So everytime I had to take a left, I had to make a right a block after, followed by two other rights to take that left that I couldn't take. Basically like slingshooting myself in the right direction.
The other memo I missed was that the city was in all respects, under construction. The Palace of Fine Arts was covered with scaffolding all over, and certain portions of the Golden Gate Park was under construction as well. Seems like if we had hit the city in the summertime, it would have been perfect timing. The stuff is still for the most part visitable, but just not photo worthy.
We spent a couple hours at the Exploratorium, a science center that's actually well designed to keep the hands busy. There was a plethora of school tours there as well, so our kids were being muscled over by older kids quite often. We had to leave a little prematurely because the two hour parking limit was up and we had to skedaddle to the Golden Gate Park.
After taking a series of right turns, we eventually ended up near the music concourse, so the kids had a muffin/apple snack before we headed to the Japanese Tea Garden. We also hit the other portions of the park, including a Shakespeare garden. We got a little lost trying to find the Conservatory of Flowers, and then Zoe had to go potty, so we close sprinted in that direction. Alas, it closed at four thirty so we just got to go to their bathroom, and that was about it. My unforunate bathroom experience invloved the number 2, an absence of toilet seats, and a fair amount of hovering supported by one hand bracing against the wall. Defeated, we ambered back to the minivan and headed toward Chinatown.
Since we didn't really know where to go, I just pulled up randomly to some street and waited. Then I had to deal with the parking debacle but it was worth it, another 40 bucks saved. After a tasty takeout at the hotel, wife and I headed down to the Wharf and had a walk, just the two of us. It was pleasant for a while until the weirdos and miscreants started showing up, including a weird homeless guy holding up a palm leaf and scaring passerbys. More on him later.
Going to bed at 11 pm did make me feel old.
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Wednesday
Because we had spent most of the day at the park, I got the feeling that my Mom was a little bored, so we decided to go to Union Square, which is the shopping mecca of SF. I myself was a little mixed about this, since I only care about electronics stores and since all these stores are basically franchises, there wasn't really any unique shopping experiences, just different versions of Gap, Macy's and whatnot. We took the cable cars and if you're a tourist, there really isn't much information to tell you what's what. Two of the lines run almost the same, and if you don't know where you're going, there's a strong likelihood you'd end up somewhere else. I read about having the optimum experience of standing on the cable cars and holding the poles, so my wife and I did that both ways.
We were on the way back when my wife told me that she had seen a decapitated pigeon on the tracks, and I was a little bummed having missed it. We were trying to see the crooked street on Lombard, but was on the wrong end of it. We hit the Wharf again, and just walked around for a little bit. We had Ghirardelli's for a snack (I had a really rich raspberry chocolate milkshake), and then back to the hotel. I tried to get some night shots of the Golden Gate Bridge, but having no tripod yielded no good results. We were all beat by the end of the day though.
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Thursday
Waiting in line for the Alcatraz cruise, its a fairly big crowd generating what I imagine is a lot of dough. We spent the earlier part of today at the Museum of Modern Art, which had some Picassos and Matisses, and Riveria and Pollock. At least those are the ones that I remember. We experimented with taking public transit, and that particular line ran through Chinatown, and at times we were just overwhelmed with elderly Chinese people. But we found our stop just fine, found the museum, and dragged the bored kids through some great art, and some not so obvious art. There was a photo collection that looked a lot like I took the photos, and that's not a compliment in any sense.
We did come across a great Catholic church, and despite feeling really wrong about being a shutterbug while some folks were having conversations with God, I clicked away anyway. I'm a bastard like that.
After that, we just fell back to the hotel and snacked a little, before walking down to the pier.
The Alcatraz night cruise was interesting, though I wished they hadn't scheduled the talks over each other. We missed a couple of the talks because we were a little behind, and then we caught a little bit of one and a talk about escapes. My wife missed a chunk of one because Alex had to poop. She huffed up the hill but not before smacking me in the back, like some kind of physical release. It was a pretty neat tour, though I think in the end the numbers underwhelmed me. Here I was thinking it was this big time prison, which it was, a maximum security affair, but it was only operational for about 30 years, and only a thousand plus people throughout its stint. It was still impressive to go through there, certainly my first time in any sort of correctional facility. We stayed and took the last boat, and by then it was 9 something and we hadn't eaten dinner yet.
So anyway, on the way back my wife and I were bickering over something, so my mood wasn't really that settled. We went into a McDonald's right when they were closing and managed to get some food, but we couldn't eat there so we headed back to the hotel. We were walking down Fisherman's Wharf again and I saw the homeless guy with the palm leaf. From Tuesday's post. Initially I thought he was just some guy with some friends doing this, but then I realized that's his schtick. Like the homeless guy who was dressed as Chaplin, played with the kids, and then tipped his hand for some change, this guy was just scaring people for kicks. Anyway, I saw him down the street and I was just worked up because I knew it was the same guy. I saw him see Zoe, who was holding my Mom's hand, and then he stopped, pulled the palm leaf up to his face, and I shouted at him, "Don't you be doing that, man." He shouted back about being able to do anything since this is America, and I told him not to scare my kids. Some other words were exchanged, but we pretty much just passed without much incident. I had sized him up and he wasn't someone I couldn't handle. Of course, it shook everyone up but I'd rather that happen then have him scare Zoe. If he had scared Zoe and she had cried, I would've probably thrown him or something at him because any normal person with common sense would know that toddlers are off limits.
Anyway, it was a really uneasy night but it needed to be done.
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Friday
Today was my Mom's birthday, and I decided that screw it, I'll just take the minivan out and worry about parking later. So we went to Chinatown and found a good garage for a reasonable price, and then walked around. Lots of elderly Chinese people around, and my Mom asked around for a good place for dimsum. We found a nice grand looking restaurant, had breakfast, and then walked around some more. Alex didn't want a wooden sword, so he opted for a bobblehead dog instead, as did Zoe. We spend a bit of time at the playground, and then decided to hit the Conservatory of Flowers again, this time with actual directions!
After the conservatory, we went to Crissy Field which is in the shadow of The Golden Gate Bridge, and had some time there. And we had dinner at McCormicks and Toleutos? Overpriced and not so great seafood. I didn't mind spending the money, but my razor clams tasted like eraser, and the crabcakes were really too expensive. They also gave the kids burgers with red in the middle. Oh well.
Since I had given up my parking spot, I actually had to park twice because of the time limits and restrictions. I managed to find free parking 3 blocks from the hotel, but I had to get the minivan by 10am, which wasn't too bad.
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Saturday
An early start.
We headed off without breakfast, just snacking in the vehicle, and managed to make some good distance on that. After that, we only had about 4-5 stops, twice for food, twice for gas, maybe once for bathroom break. We had fed the kids a little and didn't give Zoe the dramamine, and gave her a Nintendo DS instead. When we pulled up for lunch, she said she was getting sick and had a terrible look on her face. So I pulled the game, her blankie and kiddie off and my wife yanked her out of the car. Afterward we realized that people at McDonald's could probably see the whole upheave. Funny thing was that we didn't even eat at McDonalds. We ate at KFC, where they had watered down gravy and some really dry chicken.
We also stopped at a gas station where they had a mannequin in the bathtub, which startled my Mom. The kids were really good on the way back, though they watched like 4 movies. The googled time of 12 hours turned into 18 hours. I was seriously listening to my iPod, furiously lip syncing the songs quietly and air drumming to keep myself alert and awake while everyone was sleeping. We left at 9:30 in the morning and didn't get home till like 2:00 am.
So that's the travelogue. I'll have photos tagged and organized soon.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Look, I'm alive!
After the second attempt, we did manage to shock the car back to life
although we are still unclear what sucked the life out of it in the
first place. But I'm just happy there was no towing fees to speak of,
and the car seems to be okay for now.
although we are still unclear what sucked the life out of it in the
first place. But I'm just happy there was no towing fees to speak of,
and the car seems to be okay for now.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Got out of work early today but certainly not for the fun reasons. The wife's car decided to die at the library parking lot, where I'm sitting now, so I had to split from work to help jump the car. We couldn't get the stalled car to go to neutral (which I just solved thanks to my sidekick's internet and my car manual. It's called a "shift lock"), and then when we hooked up the car, we just weren't getting enough juice to get the stally going. So the wife took the working car to pick up Alex, and I'm sitting here in the gimpy car waiting for the chance of another jump. At least the stupid car isn't in park another. Thankfully we are taking a rental to vacation. Otherwise I would be having a major bovine right about now.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Bunk Bed
My muscles are sore, my thumb is messed up, and I still have a wood splinter in my foot because of you. Damn bunk bed.
Screen cap from "Monster Camp"
This is from Apple's trailer website, it's an indie film about World of Warcraft folks who go all out in their obsession. Anyway, I saw this and was surprised because I used to work with this guy and talk to him (still do when I see him.) Anyway, there's even a shot of him in his Freddy's monkey suit working in toys. He doesn't work there anymore.
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