I can't believe its Thursday already

This week blew by. I got back from the Jamboree on Sunday at around 10 AM Eastern, slept all day, had dinner, slept all night, went to work Monday, and then *poof* it was Thursday. I meant to blog a little more during the week but somehow my heart just wasn't in it.

Better late than never I suppose. So, the conference picked up nicely on the last day, and I wasn't so tired and cranky anymore. After the conference ended, it was time to start my extra-curriculars. I had made plans to hang out with some friends both Friday night and Saturday day. Before that could begin though, I had to drive from Walnut Creek to Pacifica, a drive that should really only take about an hour (it was 7 pm on Friday night). Unfortunately I got a little confused about the difference between I-580 and I-80, and ended up going north along the east side of the bay, rather than going over the Oakland Bay Bridge like I should have been doing. When I realized my mistake, I turned my head to look back at the Bay Bridge and noticed that a) it was packed with traffic and b) said traffic was parked. After quick glance at my map, I thought it might take less time to go all the way north, cut over to Marin county and then go South over the Golden Gate bridge, cut through San Fran and then end up in Pacifica that way. That was a mistake. The short story is that it took me about 3 hours to get to Pacifica, which wasn't even my final destination for the night.

Anyway, so I get to my friend Kira's apartment in Pacifica and in minutes we are back out the door to drive to my other friend Garrett's in Santa Cruz, another hour south. Briefly, Kira has a nice place in a complex. Its a breezy studio apartment with an unobstructed view of the ocean through the large sliding glass doors that lead to her deck. Pacifica has a repuation for being cloudy and foggy most of the year, and the coast there is all rocky cliffs, no real beaches that I could see. It doesn't matter though, because in my book any view of the ocean is an incredible view. Its the kind of view that should just make you feel good and humble every day you wake up to look at it.

Garrett also lives right on the beach in a studio apartment, but he's a block or two away from the water on ground level, with no real water view that I noticed. All the windows in his place are small, so if there was a view to be had, it was hard to notice at night. Nearly as soon as I got there I had some crazy allergy attack that made my eyeball all itchy and swollen, so we left to pick up some claritin and a bite to eat from a local hipster diner with gender-ambiguous restrooms. I was amused when Garrett started up a conversation with our waitress about how he wasn't vegan anymore because he ate pastries once a week now. The waitress herself admitted to being a mere vegetarian by welcoming Garrett to the land of vegetarians. The whole exchange was pretty Calarious (get it? I combined the words "California" and "Hilarious" there to imply a brand of comedy particular to that state. I'm funny right? Please tell me I'm funny)

Ahem, so, anyway, my eyeball calmed down in response to the claritin and we went back to Garrett's place. We hung out and listened to some music, and talked and talked. Garrett had some bongos that were moderately fun to just hang on to, even if I didn't pretend I could play them. He also started noodling around on his guitar for a while, all during our three-way chat fest. We ended up staying awake till about 4 in the morning before Kira and I took off and crashed at her place around 5 AM or so.

I peeled myself off Kira's couch at maybe 10 AM and called my buddy Claus to let him know I'd be at his place in South San Francisco by 1 PM, after I had some breakfast. Kira made some killer vegan-style pancakes. I'm normally pretty fucking snotty about the whole vegan/vegetarian thing, but really these pancakes were delicious. I shoud emphasize that when I say it, I mean "delicious" in the real, "buttermilk batter with blueberries and a side of bacon" sense of the word, not the fake, "it's impolite to insult the cook when the meal is free" sense of the the word. Yum, pancakes.

Claus is a friend of mine from days past at my company. He used to have a science-related job before he earned his MBA part-time, nights. Now he's a muckity-muck business type at Genentech. I've always liked Claus. He used to be a hyper-smart, crazy, womanizing, fast-car driving, Danish ex-pat. Now that he's married with a six-month old son, he's merely a hyper-smart, crazy, fast-car driving, Danish ex-pat. Claus and I didn't do much Sunday and I fear I wasn't my social best again, this time as a result of stretching myself too thin with lack of sleep. I had a good day regardless. Claus took us for a trip along Skyline Drive, through the redwoods to Alice's restaurant where we each had "The BMW burger" and a beer. After that, we went to the Stanford campus and just poked around. I had never been to Stanford before. The architechture is an attractive, consistent blend of Spanish buildings of yellow brick walls and terra-cotta roofs with British stylings of statues and coat-of-arms. Claus took me on a few Sunday errands before we got back home and had pizza for dinner. Three hours later I was on the red-eye back home.

The End.