712 My SF adventure second half

05/20/2015

Work: is getting negatively interesting. People pointing fingers behind other's back.
Grant writing: frustrating, I know how to write a grant I just have to find them now. Why do people leave things up that are expired? A lot of the grants (like 75%) that I'm finding are from last decade or leads to broken links.
Karen: I've backed off a bit as far as contacting her. I have to understand-respect she has a job that doesn't allow her to have her phone on her and she's usually is tired when she gets off from work. I send her a "good morning" text every morning and if she responds, great and if not, maybe she's already at work. She told me the last time we were on the phone, the earliest I would be able to come out is late August which would be perfect for me.
Parents: driving me nuts, what else is new?

Back to our featured program
San Francisco Adventure

Monday
Walked around, stores, apartments, markets
Sushi-Japanese restaurant
One of the few things Lisa wanted to eat while in California was sushi. I found a place that was, or should have been, 0.3 miles away but we walked right past it as there was a trolley parked right in front. We walked past it, and down the very steep hill. The numbers were getting too high so Lisa said that we must have past it, questioning out loud, how that could have happened as we were climbing back up the steep hill that is a side walk. She spotted the restaurant, near the top of the hill, near the cross street. We went in and it was this little restaurant with 12 tables of either 2 or 4 seats and a sushi bar, I think it was in the back right. There was a few other tables occupied but as we sat there it got busier. She had 3 types of sushi and I had fried rice with vegetables in the same bowl. There was a lot too. Before that they offered the Japanese soup which neither of us eat. I had a salad which had some strange things in it, including something that resembles a not-so-cooked piece of chicken. I spit it into my napkin. There was also cherries (with pits) and a slither of watermelon. Except for the piece of chicken of some sort, the rest was good. The only issue Lisa had was that my food didn’t come out till she was almost done. She took another cigarette break while I was eating. We paid the tab and continued walking down the hill and headed to Ghirardelli Square.

Ghirardelli square
There was a stone plaque saying “GIRADELLI SQUARE” carved into it and probably the date it was established. I got a picture next to it.

We went up a few flights of stairs to a landing that had a few stores and shops. (if I recall correctly) with one being a large shop with the Ghirardelli chocolates but we went up more flights to the next landing…it was many flights actually, and there was a few more shops but there was the original Ghirardelli factory. We went in and it was just this shop on one side, which Lisa and I went through, she was telling me what things were and how much they cost. I was told by a few people back home that I had to have the ice-cream and since I was still hungry, we went to the ice cream shop side. Lisa read all the flavors. I got a chocolate covered cherry ice cream with a cone bowl which the inside surface was a layer of chocolate. They gave us a number which we had to put on the table and when my ice cream was ready, they would bring the ice cream to me. At first I didn’t understand how they knew where we were (Lisa didn’t explain too well) but it’s a pretty nice idea. As soon as I got my ice cream, Lisa was off for another cigarette. About a minute after she return, she was on the phone with my mother. She meant to text her mom to call her but she texted my mom instead to call. Lisa was telling her what we’ve been doing in her perky tone of voice. She asked if I wanted to say hi but I told her I was eating and my fingers were a bit sticky. It was very good. We didn’t end up getting any chocolate even though a few things sounded very tempting but it was very expensive, we didn’t really feel like it plus I can get it anywhere.

(This is to try to explain how hilly SF is)
We were going to go back to Pier 39 after the ice cream. If you remember, to get to the chocolate factory, we had to go up a bunch of flights. Lisa said ok, let’s walk this way. I was following her and asked when the stairs were coming. She asked what stairs? I said the stairs we came up? She said that we weren’t going that way. (My thought, if we came up all’ll those steps, we had to get down somehow?) We were walking on the side walk but on a regular city street. But how could that be? There was a regular city street before all those steps which led to the chocolate factory and there was another regular city street (way up there) on the same level as the factory? How is that possible? After Lisa tried to explain it a few times and getting frustrated with me she finally figured out how to explain to me and said the stairs and the different levels were carved out of the side of a hill. Eventually, that regular street on the same level as the factory had a very steep decline.

Explored pier 39 more
We walked the 1.0 miles to pier 39 where we walked in-around-out of about 10 stores. She didn’t buy anything. Every time she saw a baby, she would go over and say “aww what a cute baby. I miss my baby.” And would get into a conversation with the parent-parents. Not that I kept track of how many times she did this but it was between 8-12 times in the 3.5 days we were there. We explored the pier a lot. Eventually we found the seals. We went down to the water side where she took a picture of me with the 200 or so seals behind me. There was 16 slabs of land with 10-15 seals on each out in the ocean. Once we did that, she was contented. So we headed back to our hotel to relax and get ready for the Oakland Athletics Boston Red Sox game.

Stadium #26, Oakland Alameda County coliseum. Red Sox VS Athletics
We walked a few city blocks to the trolley. The trolley driver was pretty funny. We had met two older women who Lisa was talking to, telling them how we are going to the A’s game and how this is my 26 stadium. They told me the few stadiums they had been to. Lisa saw a building that said the name of the train we wanted and walked me to the front and took one step down, and the driver said “aren’t you going to (name of station)?” Lisa: umm yes? Isn’t this it? Driver: no, I can drop you off a bit closer. You can get off and walk if you want. … We waited the other stops and got off when everyone wearing the A’s and Sox hats-jackets. We got off and went to the station. We met some guys wearing Red Sox jackets. They told us which train to get on. Lisa said that we would just follow them. I was amazed how close the train station was from the stadium. When you get out of the stadium, you walk over a bridge that is probably 100 Feet, or so, then a city block ahead on the left was the stadium. I was worried about how Oakland was this dangerous city. There was no issue, the 500 feet from the foot of the station to the foot of the stadium.

We walked in, walked around a bit. Found the A’s clubhouse shop. Lisa looked to see if they had shot glasses. The person working said “no, we haven’t gotten any in yet”. Here it is May 11th and they have not got any in yet? Ok.
Lisa asked someone where we should go. The lady said that if we go down a bit, there is an elevator on the right. We found the elevator. There was an employee who said hi to us as we were waiting for the elevator. We got in, went down, stepped out of the elevator and Lisa said “I think we got off the wrong floor. It looks like this is where the offices are.” We got back into the elevator. When we got in, there was a security guy on and asked if we wanted to work for the team? Lisa said, sure. He confirmed that was the Athletics’ office floor we were on. Eventually we found stairs to go down and found our section, with some help. We went down to field side where Lisa took a picture of me with some Red Sox players coming out of the dugout. We went up to our seats. It was cold. Everyone was wearing jackets. It was 58 when game started and went down to a cool 52 degrees. Lisa took a few pictures for me. One was of the retired numbers. I had the radio on and it came in surprisingly very clear. Lisa cheered and called out some Red Sox names she knew. The game was close, back-forth action with some great pitching and defense. 2 balls came close to our seats. One landed two seats over from Lisa and the other 6 rows behind us. I asked Lisa why she didn’t get them for me.
I was considerate of Lisa. I told her we could leave in the 7th inning but said “Just don’t tell anyone. For all anyone knows, we were here for the entire game.” We were both hungry, I was chilled she was freezing and was a bit bored plus there’s no smoking in the stadium anywhere so she was feeling anxious. The game was 4-3 Red Sox when we left. OH plus it was getting late. Lisa had a smoke then we got on the train and got off our stop. She thought we got off the wrong stop when we got out side but I think it was because it was dark or we came out a different door, or both.

We took a cab back to our hotel room. The game was still on an hour later when we got back to the hotel. I couldn’t get it on my radio. I tried to have it on ESPN.com but the screen wouldn’t update for some reason. Lisa had another smoke when we got to our room. When she came back from her smoke she said that Sandoval hit a homerun in the 11th inning. I was pretty excited since everyone in the area didn’t like how he just up-left the Giants after winning 3 championships with San Francisco.
Red sox 5 A’s 4 11 innings Sandoval home run to win the game

In and Out Burger
Even though I had an “In and out burger” Saturday night, it was under less than desirable situations. I was looking forward to having one sober. Soon after we got back from the game, Lisa went across the street and got me two burgers and herself one. They were very good. The best “fast food” burger I ever had. It was a bit messy though. Hmm ok, I was a bit messy but it was very good.
 

Tuesday
Breakfast
Lisa asked me if I wanted a tea, she was going to Starbucks so I said yes. When she came back, we were talking about what to do for breakfast. She said that she would like somewhere for coffee and a pastry. I said that sounded good. She said, ok, let’s go to Starbucks. I was slightly confused as she just got back from there but ok. So we got to Starbucks and asked if I wanted another tea. I was like…um yes? She said ok. (Isn’t that half of why we came here?) I asked her what they have for pastries. She turned to me and I only imagine had the most confused look on her face and asked me what I was talking about? They don’t really have pastries here. I asked, so what are we doing here? She said so she can have a coffee with her pastry. I’m thinking, so why didn’t we just go to a pastry shop? Why are we coming here? She carried the two drinks and we walked back to the hotel and kept walking, we walked to Little Italy. We went into one place, she sat me down, asked what I wanted. I had no idea what they had. She went over to the case and came back and said they didn’t really have that much that I would like. She named 3 things, none of them had fruit. She said, let’s go find a better place. We walked about hmm I don’t know. How much further but my legs were killing me and my blisters I got Saturday, was now not only hurting but pulsating. I was worried they would pop. This other place was busy and had lots of goodies. They had different flavors of turnovers. I got a yummy apple one and a delicious lemon one. She got two as well. We sat out side in front of the store. It was nice plus I could relax my feet.

Hmm I want to say after that, it was still too early to head back… ah, yes, ok. So this is when we just walked and walked. We walked through the rest of Little Italy, walked through China Town and came across apartments. There was apartments after apartments with a random corner shop every once in a long stretch. Eventually Lisa was satisfied that there was nothing else this way so we walked all the way back to the hotel where we rested for a few minutes.

Alcatraz
We walked down to pier 39, where we walked around a bit, went in a few more shops. We then walked down to Pier 33, where the ferry would leave from.
We went up to the window and they told us that we could get into the handicap line…that’s not how they worded it but I was happy since my foot was hurting. We walked away from the window after getting our tickets and the following exchanged happened between us (yup, another sorta misunderstanding)

L: I wonder if we can get in line.
J: I think it’s the one for the time before us.
L: No Jonathan, it’s the right time.
J: What time is it?
L: It’s 1217.
J: right, I think that’s the one for the ship before us. Our ship leaves at 1.
L: no Jonathan. This is the 12:30 ship.
J: (chuckled) that’s what I’ve been saying. I think it’s the ship before ours, the 12:30 ship.
L: oh, whatever. I wasn’t listening to you.
I was shocked and hurt and although I put it aside, I still felt hurt by that comment.

We walked to wear the handicap area was. Lisa had mentioned something about how she better grab a cigarette before she boards. An older woman said that her husband is over there smoking. His name is Dicky. Lisa said to me, I’m going to go smoke with my new friend Dicky. I said ok. She turned to the woman and said “I’m going to go up to him and say Hi Dicky, I’m your long lost daughter. Can I have a cigarette?” and laughed.

When they came back, she said to the woman “you should have seen his face. It was priceless.” And laughed. Lisa introduced me to them and they introduced themselves. Ironically, they were from Texas but lived far away from Lisa.

It was time to board the ferry. I was now excited. Lisa wanted to know where I wanted to sit. She gave me 3 levels of options and both in and outside. I chose first level indoors. This way we would be one of the first people off the ferry. We were near the front too.

It was a 10-15 minute ride over to the island. The people who were on the bottom level who was outdoors, got soaked. I’m glad we didn’t sit out there.

I had looked on line and saw they have an audio guided tour. I was very excited about this.
I told Lisa and she said that she wasn’t interested. I tried to explain to her that they walk you through explaining everything. That’s all I knew about it. I know she thought I meant it was for blind people and it just tells you what the plaques say but it wasn’t.
We got over and gathered just off the dock. There was an official Park Ranger to greet us. There was some 300 people. If I remember correctly, I heard 312 people on our ferry. There was an obnoxious man who was obviously drunk. Lisa said she saw him drinking vodka on the ferry from a large bottle. The Park Ranger noticed that the drunk man was also wearing an official Park Ranger’s uniform. Over the microphone, he said “I would like to know who your boss is.” and later “I would like to talk to you aside when we’re done here”. The Park Ranger was pretty cool. He was asking where people were from and he was repeating it so everyone could hear. He also asked if anyone has been here before. A few shouts were heard he said “Oh good, a few repeat offenders” I thought that was cleverly funny. He explained the basic history and the construction they’re doing and will be doing over the next few years and how it is going to cost an estimated 200 million dollars. He talked about the 3 different trails you could take. One being the audio tour where he basically explained it the same way I did and Lisa said “Oh, I thought you meant they just read the plaques because I’ve been on a few of those and you hear exactly what you read on the plaque in front of you. It was stupid.” She asked me what the other trails were about. She said “I wasn’t listening”. I told her what they were. There was a tram you could take if you didn’t want to or couldn’t walk the 1.25 miles to the sell building. We took the tram to the sell building.
We were on the back, facing the back. As we were riding, I was wondering what was around so I asked her. “So, what do you see? What’s around?” her response? “Nothing” Me: “Nothing?” her: “Well, trees”. Umm ok.

We got up to the Cell building and went in. She was asking where we got the audio player. I didn’t know and told her. We took a left within the building and there was a desk where someone was giving them out. Lisa was freaked out a bit about using the headphones they offered and took out her own to use in the player and asked if I had my own too. I told her no. (She is OCD) I told her that I’ll keep one ear piece off my ear so I could hear her if she describes something to me. I was disappointed that not only did she not tell me anything, she didn’t make any audible sounds at all. Unlike me, with my “OH!” and “WOW!” and “THAT’S SO COOL!” and “THAT’S FREAKY!” etc etc.

The audible tour was amazing. The first few minutes it was inmates saying the following “my name is” “My number is” “I was incarcerated from …to…” “I was in for…”
Then they walk you through and telling you a story about everything as you walk along. There was an actual cell you could go in. I took a picture when in there.
They talked about 2 escape attempts. One of them was bazaar and the other was very skillfully planned. They both left people dead. One of them an inmate climbed the wall after getting out of his cell, and climbed the wall and grabbed a set of keys hanging from the sealing. He through it down to another inmate and was able to open some other cell. Someone grabbed the officer’s gun and killed him. They then killed 4 other officers who came running into the cell hall way. As the narrator is telling the story, you could hear the sound effects of guns being fired, people screaming, glass shattering and other sounds.

There was a food fight in the cafeteria that left some hurt but no one dead because there was a button that released tear gas from the ceiling which stopped that and everyone was returned to their cells in less than perfect condition.
They talked about visitors.
They talked about how some of the officers lived on the island with their family. It was a nice community. They had a small school house, a grocery store and other things you would find in a little community.

They told the story how there was 5 people who’s escape was never confirmed. One guy thought they had drowned, trying to swim the 1.5 miles back to the mainland where another thought they went to Mexico since they spoke Spanish fluently. .

They told of the different sections of cells depending on what you were in for and how good your time was. The extremes were not let out of their cell. They talked about “the bird man” which I thought was quite interesting. They then spoke of the court yard, the classes they could take in the library, the radio that was installed in 1960. One inmate said that it was the best thing. “We could listen to baseball games for an hour a day” and they also had prayer services if anyone wanted to attend.
It was all so amazing.

We went to the book store but the shirts and other things were waaaay toooo expensive to purchase.
We got on the first tram back to the dock area and she asked if I wanted to see anything else. I told her no, I’m good. We caught the next ferry to the mainland. We did end up behind Dicky and his wife while walking towards the ferry. The woman said “maybe we’ll see each other in Texas” Lisa said “maybe”
Lisa did thank me for convincing her to get the audio tour. She reiterated that she thought it would just tell you what the signs said.

Walked around pier 39
When we got back, we walked to pier 39 and walked around a bit. I had to go to the bathroom and told her but I think she forgot as she went into a few more shops. I wasn’t going to say anything because she was looking for me. I wanted to get my nephews shirts and myself a shot glass. I did but not sure which time we walked pier 39. She was also looking for something for her mom and something for her husband and something for her son. There was one shirt she was hung up on to get for her husband. It said “I was never here” and showed a picture of Alcatraz. I don’t remember what exactly it was, but that saying had some connection to the army.

We walked back to the hotel to rest and use the bathroom and so she could charge her phone up a bit as well.

We then walked back to Ghirardelli square. This time we walked (climbed?) up the mountain, I mean, the road that led to the top where the winery was.

Waddle Creek Winery.
This was another mother’s day gift from me to Lisa. This was a surprised though till I sent her the groupon email a few days before we left for our trip.

It was this half-circle bar in the middle of this place with a countertop along the front wall, bottles of wine on both the left and right wall. So we sat down at the bar when there was room. There was 2 other sets of people but there was only one person working. Eventually the bar tender? Came over to us and asked what we would be doing, and gave us our options. Lisa showed him the groupon and said ok, let’s get right to it. It was a set of “stairs” 6 glasses of pre-selected wines and at the end, you could take a bottle home.

Lisa chatted the other patrons up, especially the two ladies sitting next to us who lived in the area and are members of their wine club. Lisa told them all about us, how we are best friends and we’ve known each other for 30 years (27 but who’s counting) and how I go visit her once a year in Texas and how I’m trying to get to every stadium and some of the crazy things I have done with her and hmm I don’t know what else she was telling them.

The first glass of wine was a white wine. The winery worker guy who I don’t know what his real title is so I’m sticking with bar tender… SORRY DAN! (That’s his name) So Dan told us everything I ever thought one could tell about a glass of liquid. What was used in each wine, where they things were grown, how each was made, the age and the different steps and which was done by hand and which by machines. I felt bad because of the 6 of them, 5 were red and Lisa preferred white wine. Then of the 5 reds, 3 of them tasted the exact same to me. One I didn’t like at all. I didn’t tell Lisa because she would think I’m nuts but my dad drinks scotch and one tasted just like that. The last one, I liked but again, Lisa and I had a bit of an argument.

J: mmm I like this one. It has bubbles.
L: he said it did.
J: no he didn’t.
L: yes, he did. He told us it was a sparkling wine.
J: Yes, but he didn’t say it was bubbly.
L: that’s what sparkly means. (In a negative tone)
J: to me, sparkly is like what you like to wear on your shirt.
I don’t recall if that was the end of the conversation or not, but at the end she gave a “whatever” sigh.

I had saw one on line that I wanted to try. It was called triple play. I thought it was 3 berries. It turned out not to be.
Lisa figured I wanted to try it because it had a baseball terminology. The Bar tender told us about it, said it was a popular choice. Said the SF Giants put out a limited addition 2014 championship bottle. Lisa read me the story that was on the bottle. It was a red wine. At this point, all I could taste was wine.

I was just a bad bad bad wine taster. She was saying “doesn’t it feel heavy in your mouth?” I had NO IDEA what she meant by that. It wasn’t weighing down my tongue or anything. She asked me on one if I could taste the lemon. I said no. On another she said, can’t you taste the peach? I was like no, why, you can? She said yes. I said, well, can you taste the olive? She said no but named another flavor within it she could taste. I have NO idea how someone could taste a specific thing when there are 6 to 10 different things in each wine. It would be like tasting a fruit punch with 6 to 10 fruits in it and saying “oh, this has…”

Lisa had a glass of something else that also wasn’t on the list. I left him hmm I think 15 dollars. He was really good and didn’t charge us the $4 for each of the extra 2 glasses. Lisa really liked the first one we had so got a bottle of that to bring home. Hmm I think she left me to go smoking 3 times while we were there.

We asked the bar tender if he could recommend a pizza place. He asked what type we wanted. His first suggestion was a place that sounded really good until he said it was $30 for a pizza. We tried this one place that did delivery, so we could pack. We went back to the hotel, walking back of course.

Pizza
We went to the business floor and sat at a computer. She looked up the pizza place and read the different pizza’s they have. A personal pan was $8 where a large was $20. So we each got our own personal. There was one with Sausage, peppers, onions and tomatoes. I got that one. I didn’t know till later, but Lisa got a spinach and onion pizza.

When we got back up to our room, I started to pack while she went for a smoke and to call her husband. She called him –him and their son at least 3 times a day.
Another side story of this trip, Lisa never sent her Mom a Mother’s day card. She face timed her and chatted to her. During this chat her mother said “So does this mean I’m not getting a card?” Lisa said “what? Talking to me, seeing my face isn’t good enough?” So for the rest of the trip she had tried to call her mom and she just ignored her calls or when her mother’s husband answered the phone, she could hear her mom say “tell her I’ll call her back later” At some point when we were walking and she was trying to reach her mom I said, “well, did she send you a Mother’s day card?” she said “I don’t know” I said “Matt (her husband) wouldn’t tell you if you got mail?” her “no”
I was floored by that. I would not only want to know but I would tell my wife if she got mail.
I digress

The pizza came and we paid. I was starving at this point. I’m not sure if I breathed or not while eating my pizza. It was good. The sauce was a sweet tomato taste. I’m not sure what made it “San Francisco” pizza but it was good.

Lisa only had half of hers. She offered what she didn’t finish but said “you probably wont like what I have” spinach and onion? Sounded very good to me. I had one slice and although it was good, they put a lot of oregano either in the cheese or the sauce. It was over-powering. I like oregano but not that much.

She jumped in the shower while I finished packing up then I jumped in the shower. She fell asleep about 10 and I didn’t get to sleep till 1AM. She set her alarm for 2:40 because she had a wakeup call at 2:50 and the in-house car service was going to pick us up at 3:30.

Wednesday
Lisa woke me up at 2:50 saying “wake up sleepy head. We have to catch a flight” I got up. I grabbed my cloths and went into the bathroom. Came out and did my last minute packing. I had her do a last check around the room and we were off.

When we got down stairs they told us that the in-house service wasn’t available but they had called a cab for us. I gave the cabby my credit card. It was a $63 fare. He was nice. I also gave him (Lisa asked me if I had any more cash left) a tip when we got out.

We arrived at the airport about 4AM. Lisa had a 6AM flight while I had a 7:50 AM flight. However, she was in a different terminal altogether. There was no one at my terminal. The sign said the window doesn’t opened till 4:30. Lisa panicked a bit. There was this nice couple who Lisa was talking to, Doug and Annie, telling them our predicament. They said they would make sure I got to the window. They were flying back from NH, got re-routed from JFK because of construction and 3 extra flights and some 14 hours later, they hope to be home in Oregon. They were both smokers so Lisa was out side with the wife smoking and when they came in, Lisa said she had to go. She gave me this nice, tight, loving hug. Said our byes and she was off to catch her flight. She told me later that she had to take a shuttle that went 3/4th around the airport. It would have taking her less time walking because she could have walked directly to the terminal. Her print out was not her actual ticket which panicked her but they printed up a boarding pass and she was ok to go. The window didn’t open till 5AM and the window I needed didn’t open till 5:15 so it was a very good thing that Lisa left me in the care of Doug and Annie.

When the first window opened, Doug brought me up and the woman said that this window was just for checking bags and I had to wait at the next window over, which wasn’t opened yet. When the window was opened some 15 minutes later, it was ok. I got assist to my gate where I had to wait almost 2 hours but I spent my time wisely. I wrote the outline to this while trying not to fall asleep. .

Eventually the paint dried, the grass grew and it was time for me to board my flight. I got on. Buckled in, once we were in the air, because I flew JETBLUE, I put ESPN on the TV and watched sport center a few times, dozed off a few times. Watched a few other shows and after 4 hour and 10 minute flight (30 minutes shorter than expected) I arrived back in Boston where the weather was a warm 66 degrees. My entire time in SF the warmest it got was 64 degrees. .

And that my friends, is my San Francisco adventure with Lisa