It is crazy how busy I am these days (hence no updating of weblog). Although the busy-ness is probably excarbated by that fact that I do not really have a good routine while living in SF. Anyways, here is what has been going on recently:
15 JANUARY 2005 : SATURDAY
The day started out sunny, so we planned to go to Fisherman’s Wharf, rent a couple of bicycles, bike over the Golden Gate Bridge, wander about, and then take the ferry back. We walked down to the Powell St. BART station to pick up one of the cable cars (the only mobile National Monument) to the Wharf. The ride itself was fun; Amanda and I made sure we stood hanging off the edges rather than sitting down. It was interesting to see all the streets we typically walk down from a new perspective.
However, Amanda got way chilled on the ride due to the vanishing of the sun and the pickup of the wind. We went to the Ghirarddelli Square to warm up with some hot chocalate beverages and a sundae of all things. The hot chocalate was too rich for Amanda, so I gave her my mocha because I am the good spouse.
We then checked out a bicycle rental place, but decided it would be too cold to bike about (especially over the bay). Amanda was getting very frigid by this point, so we spent some time looking for a sweater for her. As Fisherman’s Wharf is ubercommercial, shops were not all that hard to find.
Amanda really wanted to get out of the city and see some green plants, but that did not look like it was going to happen. Eventually, we walked through Chinatown back to the apartment. Vishal was still there, still not dressed, and still watching anime… just like when we left. Amanda was feeling uninspired at this point, so she spent time knitting socks while I do not remember what I did (but probably just yakked with Vishal). We had planned to go to the Green’s for dinner, but decided we did not want to have that kind of meal so we cancelled our reservations.
Instead, we headed up to North Beach with Vishal to have dinner in an Italian place (Amanda is way way tired of Southeast asian food… we are surrounded by it near Vishal’s apartment). We walked about looking far a place and eventually settled on one called Cafe Delucci (most of the others seemed way too expensive, but the area is a more touristy place). Dinner was fun, and we retired to another cafe that had pretty awesome coffee and cappucino for the aforementioned drinks plus dessert and conversation.
16 JANUARY 2005 : SUNDAY
We briefly considered trying to implement our bicycling plan today, but after a spirited conversation in the morning about residency rankings, Amanda and I went to Cup o’ Joes (a nearby cafe) to pin down how we were going to rank residencies. Not actually rank them, but merely to provide a framework for how we were going to decide. Perhaps fortuitously, we agree on #1, but disagree on #2 (and probably the order of the rest).
We finished up with that in the morning and then convinced Vishal to take us up to Marin county. Vishal and I are there all the time, of course, but Amanda has been spending all her time in the city in the Mission district. We went to Muir Woods and hiked about. It was nice to be out of the city; one can really notice the difference in the level of air pollution for instance.
We walked about the Polk Gulch area to find a suitable place for dinner. We considered various Indian restaurants, which looked very good and very cheap, but eventually settled on a sushi place (Sushi Rock). It looked more like a mexican restaurant, tho, but had apparently won local awards. The food was good (they had a wide variety of Japanese dishes), but their sushi itself was okay but nothing really exceptional. What was exceptional was they have a happy hour (well, a few hours) where all drinks a half off. This apparently includes bottles of sake… we would have ordered more than one had we known.
17 JANUARY 2005 : MONDAY
It was a holiday, but since Amanda was overnight at the hospital, I went into work with Vishal. I had gobs of stuff to do anyway. We did manage to get work done, but also spent much time discussing Vishal’s future and what he should do with his life. We also played ping pong. I always lost. I am out of practice since the company got rid of the table in Ithaca years ago.
18 JANUARY 2005 : TUESDAY
Amanda got a bunch of vaccinations for her trip to India after her overnight. I do not know what she did in the afternoon, but Vishal and I were working of course. We got home very late, and then Vishal tortured Amanda with questions about what she thought of his future. I spent much of the night/morning working as there was much to do.
19 JANUARY 2005 : WEDNESDAY
I went to our San Francisco office for work today (our HQ is in San Rafael which is 20 miles or so north of SF). It was quite the glorious day outside; the office was a 20 minute or so walk from the apartment.
I had lunch with Hawkeye, a friend from my Von Cramm days. He works for my company as well, which is kinda funny. We went to a very popular Mexican place near the office. It was cool to see him, and hopefully I will be able to catch up with him again before I leave town.
[to be continued, like life itself]