I did a lot of planning both today and last night for the trip that’s now just about a month away. The goal has been to get everything locked in place, tickets purchased and everything by March 9, exactly one month before I’m set to leave.
The problem I’ve been having is that I don’t see how everything fits together and there’s a good reason for that…it’s because it doesn’t fit together.
Last night, I stayed up until about 4am and I printed off a small slip of paper with the name of the attraction, the location, time of operation and expected duration of the event. I then printed out a page with the hours in a day so I could move the slips of paper around to see how everything fit, or didn’t fit.
On Thursday, it’s a relatively light schedule. I’ll land around 11am and visit the Modern Art Museum and Cartoon Museum before going to the Giants game at 4pm. The game is part of the Giants’ opening series and there’s a good chance that Randy Johnson will be pitching against Jeff Suppan. The Giants also have former Brave Edgar Renteria, Aaron Rowand and Randy Winn. The Brewers have Prince Fielder, JJ Hardy and Ryan Braun.
That Sunday’s Easter is a slight problem and some of the places are clearly closed, others might be closed even though the website doesn’t specifically state that. For the most part though, the biggest problem is that too many things have a 10:30 start time. In some cases, that’s the only start time they have, in other cases, the alternate times conflict with the other events as well.
As it stands now, and it’s not by any means locked in place, one day will be devoted to the Golden Gate Park area, which will include Twin Peaks and Haight-Asbury. The end of that day, depending on time (I should have two extra hours), could have me either visiting the Pacific Heights area or some places that would give me side shots of the Golden Gate Bridge.
The day to visit the Golden Gate Park will likely either be Friday or Sunday of the trip (again, Thursday and Monday are travel days). I’m leaning toward putting this day on Friday. It’ll be the most taxing physically and I think I’d rather get that out of the way first. It also has the potential to be the shortest of the days. Of course, there’s merit to making that the last day of the trip since it will be the hardest day.
My side has started hurting worse over the last couple weeks. There’s a concern that there’s only so much walking I’ll be able to do and unfortunately, that’s going to have to factor into the planning of this trip.
Since Thursday and Monday are set and one of the days will be devoted to Golden Gate Park, that leaves two days that will be primarily based out of the Wharf. Most of the amusements and tours originate from one of the piers at Fisherman’s Wharf. But trying to fit everything I want to do outside the Park into just two days seemed near impossible. The worst thing was that no matter how I moved stuff around, I couldn’t figure out how to tour the baseball stadium.
Now I love baseball and I enjoy touring baseball parks, especially one as beautiful as the one in San Francisco. In order to make it fit, I’d have to do something at the Wharf, then go all the way to the other side of the city, take the tour and go all the way back to the other side again. In order to do that, something would have to be eliminated.
The two most likely candidates were either the movie tour, which lasts three hours or the air tour, which would take up about two and half hours. Either one would open up the time needed to fit the ballpark tour in (plus the travel time there and back to the Wharf).
The first two questions: Is seeing a baseball stadium more valuable than going on a movie tour? Is seeing a baseball stadium more valuable than getting a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge from the air? The third question: Which is more valuable, going on a movie tour or getting a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge from the air?
I decided that I value seeing a baseball stadium more than I value both the movie tour AND the air picture, meaning that whatever I did, I needed to make the stadium tour fit into the schedule. I checked to make sure that I couldn’t fit the ballpark tour into Monday but because of when my plane is leaving, Monday will need to basically be a travel only day.
That left it between the movie tour and the air tour. Here’s the thing, I don’t know how good the movie tour is going to be. There’s going to be a certain amount of redundancy in the movie tour but that’s kinda the point. I want to have multiple chances to get the same shot in case weather is an issue. How good are the pictures really going to be on the movie tour.
The movie tour apparently stops at City Hall, Fort Point area (near the Golden Gate Bridge) and some reports say a surprise location that could be Lucas Films. On Trip Advisor, they have 16 reviews and all of them are five stars and highly recommend the tour.
On the other hand, we’re talking about a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge from the air in either a helicopter or seaplane. I’ve never been in a seaplane! But here’s the thing, I’ve never really gotten great pictures from the air. The shots are hit or miss, mainly miss. In St. Louis, because they don’t let you go up by yourself (like the seaplane and possibly the helicopter in San Francisco), I had to purchase two tickets. And then the pictures sucked major ass.
Two tickets in San Francisco would cost $300 and the odds of getting a good shot of the bridge are minimal. Even if I could do it for the price of one ticket, the odds aren’t great of getting a good shot of the bridge. So I would’ve just spent a bunch of money and lost two and a half hours for almost nothing.
I decided that the risk was higher with the air tour and decided to kick it out of the itinerary, leaving the movie and ballpark tours on the list.
As it stands right now, the Blue and Gold Cruise and Alcatraz trip are on separate days. Now, the last I checked, the Blue and Gold website isn’t working. Is that because it’s temporarily down or is it no longer running? What’s going on? That’s why next week, I’ll call each place to make sure it’s open on the day I’m planning to visit.
I also need to find out the exact time between location and MUNI routes and everything. That shouldn’t take too long to do. But the hardest part is done. No air tour. No zoo. Likely no Mt Davidson or Legion of Honor museum. No Wells Fargo Museum. And Marina Green and Fort Mason or looking doubtful.
Jimmy Fallon’s Debut
I saw Jimmy Fallon’s first episode. It wasn’t as horrendously awful as I’d expected. Maybe he’ll get better. I mean, I didn’t like Conan when he first came on.
Fallon’s monologue was dreadful and the skits were lousy and his interview skills were weak. He seemed comfortable with Justin Timberlake but it was more like two guys hanging out than one person really interviewing another.
Side note: Timberlake was funny and I really liked his imitations of Michael McDonald and John Mayer. Maybe JT should get his own show.
It was cool to see Van Morrison. He has one of the most intriguing voices in the world. It made me want to go pull him up on my mp3 player but I didn’t do it because I’m too lazy. I could listen to him sing almost anything…until he starts singing ‘Rigga digga digga’ over and over again like he did on Fallon’s show.
I watched Fallon’s second episode and it was a lot like his first. You could tell he was friends with Tina Fey but them telling stories about stuff they did together wasn’t all that interesting or funny.
I imagine NBC will have a long leash on this show, probably a couple years at least but I don’t have that kind of patience with a new show.
Will I Stop Watching?
Speaking of patience for shows. I didn’t watch any of the ‘Simpson’s’ last week. Okay, so it was because my DVR ended up taping the end of a NASCAR race but still. It’s not like I’m going to be make a concerted effort to watch it.Also, the end is near for ‘Chuck.’ If it doesn’t start getting better soon, that’s it. It’s stuck in the same rut it was in last year. The show is far too predictable and liking the people only takes you so far. Each episode feels like a rough rewrite of the last one and it’s getting really old. At the beginning of this season, it’s like they realized that and some curves were being thrown in there but the last few weeks have really sucked. That long hiatus didn’t help either.
Dylan News
Big news from the music front. I was looking at a list of albums coming out this year and it looks like okay list of stuff. But then today, word came out that Bob Dylan is releasing a ‘surprise’ studio album next month. It’s supposed to contain “raw-country love songs, sly wordplay and the wounded state of the nation.” Whatever it is, I’m certainly looking forward to it. This wasn’t on any list of upcoming albums I read, hence the ‘surprise’ element in its release.
Quick Internet Hits
It’s been a while since I felt this affected by a Falcon leaving the team. In this article, Keith Brooking says goodbye to the Falcon organization, while at the same time inferring that he wants to be part of the organization after his playing career is done. Brooking is an absolutely classy guy and it’s really upsetting to see him go. It’ll be even harder when I see him playing for the Cowboys next season.
The Sunday Alcohol bill was withdrawn after it was clear it wouldn’t get out of committee. That puts Georgia in the weird position that you can drive to a restaurant or bar and drink alcohol and then drive home but you can’t buy it in a store on Sunday and drive it home to drink it there. Governor Sonny Perdue cites safety concerns as the reason he opposes the measure, even as he signed a bill to allow Sunday alcohol sales at the new minor league stadium in Gwinnett.
Headline: For one-armed woman, court victory is bittersweet
Harrison Ford, after successfully putting the one-armed man behind bars, wasn’t as successful in imprisoning the one-armed woman.
Final Thoughts
The other day, I actually jumpstarted someone else’s car for the first time. I was so excited that it actually worked. I’d watched an instructional internet video on it and then went out and got it done. For about 10 minutes, I actually felt like a man…and then I went back to feeling like an amoebic blob.
I still don’t really understand why so many people are upset about ‘The Bachelor.’ I watched a CNN segment on it and I still don’t get it.
Why is it when I see the lead singer of The Fray, I want to squish his little, oval head?
No comments:
Post a Comment