Current mood:	hungry
Current music:	The Cranberries- "Linger"

jiggedy-jig
Home again. The journey, in no particular order-

Got off the plane. All the janitorial staff at San Francisco Int'l Airport are Chinese. Confirms I am not in the same place as I left.

The wedding was beautiful- a short, lovely Jewish ceremony, with a charismatic and good-natured rabbi. Julie looked gorgeous in her gown- very sweeping and elegant. Tom was in a simple suit- all nervous angles and a huge smile. Seriously, he was just BEAMING with joy. Mark my words, since I've seen enough of all types of marriages- this is one of the lifelong ones.

The wedding cake had a layer of raspberry sauce. This was a Good Idea.

In addition to getting to see Julie and Tom (more than I expected to see of them, what with the getting married and all), and the expected time with Karen, I more than doubled the total amount of time I've ever spent with Megan Burns (we might be topping a half an hour now!), there was the happy surprise of Josh Holz and Ariana. They're engaged now! And living in Falls Church VA! Have been both for about a year! I need to communicate more frequently with them. Anyway, great to see them, and best of luck to them both in November.

New acquaintances were also met, and good times had. Will be communicating with at least one of them in the future. Being me, I hauled my business cards all the way to CA, and left them in the hotel room EVERY DAY. Genius level IQ, right here!

San Francisco... okay, I've been there before, when I was 16, but there's a difference between wandering a city with your father and brother and doing it solo. I only got one real morning of sightseeing, so I took the BART to Chinatown. I'd been craving steamed pork buns for seriously about three months, so I found a bakery and went to town. It had photos on the wall of when Bill Clinton visited it in 1996- I miss that president. When was the last time Bush just popped in somewhere that didn't have army troops, or a screen with his latest endeavor projected onto it? I honestly can't remember him just visiting random parts of America. Anyway. The bakery was awesome; and I hold love for anyplace where I can get two pork buns and a melon roll for $2.90. Then did some very fruitful souvenir-shopping; got a jade massage roller that I'm looking forward to trying out. Plus gifts for lots of folks.

Then walked up Telegraph Hill... okay, when I'm a famous screenwriter or film actor, to the point where I don't have to worry about money or auditioning, I'm buying a house and living there. GORGEOUS. Great views, interesting and mostly cool houses (a couple ugly boxes, but not many), CHARACTER dripping from every sidewalk and parking space. The roads are so schizophrenic up there that the houses surrounding them absorb it- I'd love to live there and feel it around all day. There was a house for sale by Sotheby's International Realty- it was unfortunately one of the ugly boxes, but it was across the street from Colt Tower. ACROSS THE STREET. Imagine it!

Then walked east and followed the ports back to the BART. Not much to report from that, but the breeze was nice and the bay was lovely.

Berkeley. If hippies were a dying race, this is where we would go to find a mating pair to breed them. I have seriously never seen so many VW buses, '60s Bugs, Daily Worker stands, tie-dye clothing booths, etc. Fair amount of homeless, too- I can't tell if there's a correlation, or just the normal concentration for a rural area that size, or if vagrants journey there to live off hippie-generosity. Saw one family buying a guy in a wheelchair a burger and fries from a stand. That was cool.

La Quinta hotels did not impress me. My iron was broken; the business room only had one computer, and the internet was down for a day; my first keycard barely worked, then didn't work, and the second was starting to have issues when I left; both drink vending machines were out of order; etc. No big issues, but not impressed.

The hotel room did have HBO, and I think I'm not as much of a tv addict as I used to be. I probably shouldn't be afraid of falling off the wagon. I never watched tv in the hotel room when I could have been doing something else, and the only thing I made time to watch was Die Hard. But, it was on well after all the daily plans were done, and... well, it's Die Hard. It rules. Passenger 57 was on after, and I watched that too, and was amazed at what a sub-par ripoff of Die Hard it was. I honestly wonder if some programmer intentionally put them one after another to emphasize it.

Remind me not to rent a car again unless it's ABSOLUTELY necessary. I could have taken the BART to and from the airport, and there was nothing all trip that I couldn't walk to/ride the BART to/catch a ride from someone else. Big fat waste of money and time.

The BART- GREAT SYSTEM. Seems limited by the maps (doesn't even go to NW San Francisco), but it's a well-set-up train, and I have no complaints. It's a lot like the DC metro system, except a little dirtier, and aboveground a lot more, and it's going through a more interesting city.

My favorite part about riding in an elevated train is the piles of stuff behind businesses. Like, you can see the front, where it's all shiny and organized and parking lots and such, and behind the place is a huge heap of wooden pallets, or empty cardboard boxes, or new bricks, or old bricks, or firewood, or just a weed-infested lot. It gives a real eagle's eye view on how the world is laid out, from factories to homes to scrap yards and train tracks and all there is to see. LOVE it.

I love Sun Country Airlines. Aside from a good website design, and fairly cheap tickets. "Please be careful opening up the overhead bins, because Shift Happens." Hee.

Woke up late this morning, so I rushed and ran to the airport. I'd done all the packing and prepping the night before, and skipped filling the car with gas (extra wasted money), and cursed at the Monday morning rush hour on 80 and over the Bay Bridge, and made it to the rental car return without making any wrong turns. Getting the car back was a breeze, and I had half an hour before the plane took off. Waited for the shuttle to the terminal, COME ON COME ON I'M LATE, rushed to the ticket desk with 20 minutes to go AND I HAVEN'T EVEN GONE THROUGH SECURITY YET, THAT'LL TAKE FOREVER MAYBE THEY'LL LET CLOSE TICKETS SKIP THE LINE and the ticket agent says "It's okay, your flight is delayed", OH THANK GODS AND KISMET. So I'm still an oversleeping idiot, but it was cloudy in Minneapolis, and the plane left four hours late. Four. Hours. Finished my book, and now I'm home.

Fahrenheit 451 is a very, very good book.

The end.