wender bender: Sep 13, 2009

(forgot to shoot a morning pic today ... oops ... not that big of a deal since i was home.)

after burning through this 'blog i went to sleep, but woke up refreshed a mere four hours later (and three hours before i wanted to). i booked the cruise i'd been considering earlier -- my mom and i are going to go -- which means i won't be back in CA until the end of next month. i'll talk more about that as the time gets closer.

made a run up to the golden gate bridge walked with a few AYCJers ... @michele_pacheco and @sawyouonjetblue (the brains and braun behind isawyouonjetblue.com); and later @suki and her pal @thegermaphobe (who is only sorta that way, although it gave me the [welcome] opportunity for many germy jokes).

on the way across i was with the isawyous ... they were snapping pix and videos right and left as i gave what little information i knew to the walk ... lots of spunk and vitality, this was their first AYCJ weekend (they are only flying the weekends) and lived it up in oakland and SF the day before.

i made it a point to brag about swimming from alcatraz because i always make it a point to brag about swimming from alcatraz. and we talked about a bunch of other stuff too.

i wanted to walk the bridge while i was home because it's the one thing i tell everyone to do if they go to SF. if you're reading this and you ever go to san francisco, walk the golden gate bridge. it's the largest bridge in the US that actually allows people to walk on it, the structure itself is gorgeously utilitarian art deco and nothing makes you feel more alive. ocean on one side, bay on the other. full view of the city, alcatraz and tiburon (as well as the majority of the bay bridge). seals and sailboats below. whipping, unpredictable wind. rumble of heavy traffic going by. nothing makes you more aware of being human.

on the way back from the far side, we ran across suki and the germ-man. i excused myself from the isawyous and walked back toward marin with my new-found duo.

suki, the germaphobe and the isawyous

combined these people represent roughly 35,000 airmiles

let me take a step back here for a second ...

once i had scheduled myself to be in the bay area for a full night, i knew in my tourist-in-my-own-town guise that i had to walk the bridge.

i'd run across suki as a fairly chronic tweeter about AYCJ in the early days and once i found out she was doing burning man and AYCJ, i decided to read her 'blog. on there i'd seen her list of 101 pre-set tasks to complete in 1001 days -- a compendium that i admired greatly in its reach and honesty. i figured that if she wanted to walk the bridge i might be able to help her with something on the list ... once she said "yes," i focussed on #50 "learn the basics of binary." i figured we could walk the span to marin, then i could teach her the basics on the way back.

she was brunching 'til late, so i missed walking the span with her, but ran into them about the second tower ... and that's when i jettisoned the isawyous.

suki's pretty good with numbers, she's an accountant by trade, so we dropped quickly into the basics of number theory (like, what does 125 mean?) and then walked into the world of binary. she was picking up fast enough on it that i also gave her the basics of octal, and how to convert binary from octal and octal from decimal. as we stepped off the bridge she converted 45 from decimal to binary. that's pretty damn great.

i took a couple pix ...

the super-art deco gift shop

... and headed home.

a quick re-pack of my bag ... i jettisoned bowling shoes, replaced one pair of fatigues, swapped my track suit out for one that's red and black, and headed to the san jose giants.

oh the horror

one of 10 lines resulting from a beer batter strike out

the "party people" leading the stadium in the YMCA

the weather had been threatening all day, but around the 4th inning, it started to spit rain. not hard, but enough to keep things continually moist. it waxed and waned, but mostly just continued.

san jose was slipping down 1-0 and then 4-0 which against bakersfield is inexcusable ... those people never play in rain in the desert. at the start of the 8th inning rain was hitting hard enough that it was sheeting and i proposed to my accomplice that we leave. i don't think i've ever walked out of a ticketed sporting event in my life -- but the connection was set to be a bit tight anyway and i didn't want to fly in wet clothes.

no sooner had we left than the giants turn around to win 8-3 in one of the biggest comebacks in franchise history. and it matters to me a grand total of none. i had my polish sausage, after all.

we made the airport close enough to flight time that the automatic kiosk abused me and made me talk to an agent to get a seat. we hustled through super-fast security and then waited well over an hour for a plane that had a faulty indicator light.

red eye to JFK, connect to bermuda tomorrow.

miscellaneous pix of the day, along with a bonus pictorial history of the SJ baseball teams through history: