Most critics release their best and worst movie lists at the end of a year or at the beginning of the following year. I decided to wait until the end of May to release mine. Why? I don’t know, it’s just what I did.
For those not familiar with the way I list movies, I only consider films released between January 1 and December 31, 2008 in the area where I’m able to watch movies. This means if a movie was screened in New York and Los Angeles on December 20, 2008 but didn’t open in Atlanta until January 5, 2009, it can win an Oscar for Best Picture of 2008 but it won’t appear on my list until the next year.
This is why ‘There Will Be Blood’ is on this year’s list and why ‘The Wrestler’ isn’t. If I was considering release dates in New York, then ‘The Wrestler’ would be number one on this list without a question but it didn’t come to Atlanta until January 16th (after being released on December 16th in NY and LA).
Like the last couple years, I compiled the list as I went through the year, rating each movie as I saw them. The past year, I’ve lost a little patience with dramas, which is probably why a) I didn’t see as many dramatic movies in the theater last year and b) my top list is crowded with comedies.
Of the movies released last year, I saw 73 of them. Notable movies I didn’t see include: ‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,’ ‘The Reader,’ ‘The Visitor,’ ‘Snow Angels,’ ‘Traitor,’ ‘Man on a Wire’ and ‘Valkyrie.’ Those may or may not have been good movies but I just didn’t get around to seeing them yet.
Likewise, there are some movies that might’ve made my worst of list but I didn’t see them, such as: ‘Righteous Kill,’ ‘Postal,’ ‘Sex Drive,’ ‘The Longshots,’ ‘The Bucket List,’ ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still,’ ‘Death Race,’ ‘Extreme Movie’ and ‘The Love Guru.’
I’ve decided to make the list 20 movies deep for both the best and worst sides. So starting with the 20th worst movie that I saw from last year…
20. ‘Son of Rambow’
I saw the preview for this movie before ‘Rambo’ and it looked like a sweet, small budget film about two kids that were going to try to make their own movie. Except, it turned out that it wasn’t all that sweet. It wasn’t as funny or as engaging as I’d expected and worse, it was slow moving and tedious (almost as tedious as a San Francisco travel blog).
19. ‘Drillbit Taylor’
Coming into this movie, I had moderately high expectations. I’m a huge fan of anything Judd Apatow puts his name on. On the other hand, Owen Wilson’s in this. I don’t think Wilson was the worst problem about this movie. I mean, sure, did I want to punch him in the nose? Of course. I always feel that when I see him in a movie…even those that I like with him in there. The problem was that the kids looked like they were cast to resemble the main characters in ‘Superbad,’ which only served to point out what an inferior movie this was. There were a handful of funny scenes in the movie but most of it was mean-spirited…and not the funny kind of mean-spirited.
18. ‘The Bank Job’
There have been so many stylish movies about breaking into locations to steal stuff. But what if someone would make a movie with a bunch of characters you can’t keep track of, that’s disjointed (so it can look clever) and stilted dialogue? Well, then they would’ve made ‘The Bank Job,’ a movie that tries so hard to be relevant but instead flounders in a well of predictability.
17. ‘Semi-Pro’
I don’t know why I watched this movie. I don’t like Will Ferrell except in a small, handful of movies. I thought a few scenes in ‘Talladega Nights’ were funny. But this movie is so completely stale. Usually, Ferrell looks like he’s having fun in his movies (which is good, since at least one of us should be enjoying what he’s doing) but even he looks a little bored through much of this thing.
16. ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’
Maybe it’s an even numbered thing. I liked the first and third installments of the Indiana Jones franchise and didn’t like the second and fourth ones. Or maybe I just like Indiana going up against Nazis. Whatever it was, this outing for Indiana was so incredibly bad. I don’t know exactly when it lost me. Was it Shia LaBeouf playing a greaser (maybe slightly more convincing than C. Thomas Howell in ‘The Outsiders’) or Indiana surviving a nuclear blast because he stuffed himself in a refrigerator? I’m not sure but by the time it got to the ‘Aliens are involved’ twist, I’d been lost for a while. Oh and there are three endings to this movie, each one worse than the one before, culminating in a lame wedding sequence that made me throw up a little in my mouth.
15. ‘Nobel Son’
The best thing about this movie was that I had really good chicken wings afterwards. Every character in this film struck the same note from beginning to end. With the pulsing dance soundtrack (that inexplicably stops midway through), it was like someone saw all of Guy Ritchie’s movies in a row (which are basically the same movie made over and over again) and decided the world needed another one…but this time with Alan Rickman in it.
14. ‘Flash of Genius’
Let’s stop for a moment and agree that Greg Kinnear seems like a nice guy. To use my mom’s terminology, he’s someone you root for. He’s not the problem with most of this movie (although when he appears to start having cotton stuffed behind his lower lip in the second half of the movie, it is somewhat disconcerting). The problem with this film is that it’s like someone wrote an outline for a book and then just shot the outline. Every scene building to the next scene and it’s this focus on moving the story ahead (while leaving character development behind) that makes you feel like you’re not watching a movie but rather a documentary…a very boring documentary. By the time the movie starts employing the device of ‘8 months later,’ ‘2 years later’ and ‘3 years later,’ you’ll feel that time is moving as slowly for you as it is for Greg Kinnear’s character. And the near final court room scene, I half expected someone to bring in a bag of letters to Santa and dump them in front of the judge. But that would’ve been funny.
One last note: The plot of the movie is about a guy that claims to have invented the intermittent windshield wiper. The novelty, I figured, would be they would take a boring idea and make it interesting. Instead, they took an uninteresting topic and made it even more uninteresting.
13. ‘War, Inc.’
Okay, so John Cusack’s playing a conflicted hitman and the costars include Joan Cusack and Dan Akroyd but this isn’t a sequel to ‘Grosse Pointe Blank?’ This movie’s an absolute mess. I could make a compelling argument why this is the worst movie of the year…until I look at what else is on this list. This attempted satire falls completely flat and becomes a mashup that’s almost painful to watch. Alright, so the military industrial complex is evil, is that an excuse for some director to force me to watch Hilary Duff hold a snake and talk in a Russian accent while sticking scorpions down her pants? Maybe super-hardcore liberals can tolerate a movie because it’s anti-Iraq War but the heavy-handedness is going to turn off everyone else (including many who agree with the bottom line thesis of the film).
12. ‘Seven Pounds’
Speaking of heavy-handed… Isn’t it interesting how Will Smith keeps finding himself in movies where he is depicted as a savior of sorts? This movie is called ‘Seven Pounds’ because that sounds better than ‘3.175 Kilograms’ or maybe it’s because it’s so contrived and gimmicky, you’ll want to hit yourself in the head with a seven pound hammer after seeing it. The movie is intentionally oblique in its storytelling because it wouldn’t have a movie if it laid its cards on the table. Once you figure out what the filmmakers are hiding from you, the rest of the movie becomes painfully obvious…painful because you still have an hour left to go before the ending. And in the end, always root for the jellyfish.
11. ‘Towelhead’
The preview of this movie seemed to suggest the story of a Muslim girl in America, a coming of age story set against the backdrop of prejudice in a small town. Turns out, not exactly a small town (it’s Houston) and it’s more about the pedophile living next door. The racism aspect of the film is a relatively minor subplot. Instead, it’s a creepy little narrative about adult men who want to have sex with a 13 year old girl from Lebanon.
10. ‘What Just Happened’
That’s exactly what you’ll be asking yourself after this movie’s over, followed by ‘And why did I just watch this?’ Every now and then, a movie comes out that Hollywood insiders love because it’s full of in-jokes and because it’s about them, their favorite subject. Watching from the outside looking in, it’s not nearly as funny as what it could’ve been, which is a shame. They had the people there to make it work. Robert DeNiro as an agent for the bearded Bruce Willis could’ve been really good. I mean, they certainly had a funny scene together. They even showed that one scene in the commercial so you could go and realize how the whole movie is nothing like the one scene that made you go in the first place. As for the idea that Hollywood is full of back-stabbers and sycophants…what an amazingly obvious insight.
One note: Credit though to Sean Penn. His performance was as close to self-deprecating as he gets.
9. ‘Hellboy II: The Golden Army’
I liked the original ‘Hellboy’ because it was charming and visually different than other movies that were playing. The second ‘Hellboy’ wants to make sure it’s visually different while neglecting the charm that made the first movie special. The previews for this movie used the term ‘From the visionary director…’ and that was the problem. The movie was filled with effects but it lacked any heart.
8. ‘Rambo’
This might sound stupid but even though I didn’t like the first three Rambo movies, I thought the fourth one would be good because I liked ‘Rocky Balboa.’ I mean, the logic is completely flawed but I watched it anyway. Through much of the movie, Rambo would grunt or spread out his dialogue with a sentence here, a sentence there. Mainly, he seemed like a man that wanted to be left alone…and I wish that I’d left him alone. The only reason to watch this movie is to see people get killed in gruesome ways, which is what the ‘Saw’ series is for.
7. ‘Quantum of Solace’
I enjoy the Bond series a lot and, while I wasn’t thrilled by the choice of Daniel Craig as the new 007, he won me over in ‘Casino Royale.’ In this movie though, the action starts off mindless and goes from there. The plot was pointlessly convoluted and I was completely bored through the entire movie.
6. ‘Saw V’
I was okay with the first movie in the franchise. The second movie was terrible. The third one was better than the second one but not as good as the first. And why exactly do I keep watching these awful things. I don’t know. The preview had something about how I wouldn’t believe how it ends. Yes, there’s a gimmick ending that sets up ‘Saw VI,’ which will probably have an ending that sets up ‘Saw VII’ and this is how we go. The series has twisted into basically making Jigsaw, if not the good guy, certainly on par with the good guys and better than ‘the really bad guys.’ Debates on moral relativism are fun, torture porn is not.
5. ‘Batman: Gotham Knight’
I rented this because I heard it was written by the screenwriter of ‘Batman Begins’ and another guy who wrote ‘A History of Violence.’ I was picturing a gritty graphic novel type of movie. Instead, I got this ridiculous mess that was a combination of a four or five separate chapters, including one that imagined Batman as a Transformer. A couple of the segments were okay but weren’t developed enough. It was essentially an anthology of different imaginings of Batman, not really a coherent story.
4. ‘Yes Man’
I went into this movie expecting it to be bad and it was actually so much worse than I’d expected. First thought in every scene: Jim Carrey looks really old. I mean, REALLY old. That’s not to say he should go hang himself or anything but every scene seemed to zoom in on his face, underlining just how old he is (he was 46 during filming but could’ve passed for older) and it’s made worse because the love interest is Zooey Deschanel (28 during filming but could’ve passed for younger). The plot is that a guy takes a vow to never say no and always say yes. How can this not be horrible?
Jim Carrey looks like he’s trying too hard in every scene, summoning all the zany energy he can but it resembles a man who can’t swim, flailing around in the water helplessly. I mean, I think there was something funny in the movie somewhere, I just don’t remember it.
3. ‘Hamlet 2’
Steve Coogan is great and I especially loved him in ‘Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story.’ In this movie, it takes a promising premise, a drama teacher on the way out who’s going to direct one last play, a sequel to a play in which everyone pretty much died in the first one. The movie relegates Coogan to such comedic bits as getting a hand stuck in a locked door. The comedy is broad and not nearly as edgy as it thinks. And for a while, it forgets that it’s a comedy and becomes a drama. It wasn’t much better at being that either.
2. ‘Chapter 27’
Jared Leto gained a bunch of weight to play Mark David Chapman, the person who murdered John Lennon. I’m not sure what I was expecting with this one. Leto walks around New York wearing glasses and whispering a lot. He meets Lindsay Lohan, whose character is soon freaked out by him. Then it shows him killing John Lennon. There’s nothing to be gained from watching this, no insights that are added and ultimately, no reason to watch this shallow biopic of sorts. As for Leto’s performance: He gained weight and added body-mass doesn’t make for a better acting job. For a film that’s entirely about one person and follows that person everywhere and includes narration from inside of his head, I learned nothing that I didn’t know going in.
1. ‘Zombie Strippers’
I almost hesitated to even include this in the list at all. Whereas ‘Chapter 27’ thought of itself as a good film, ‘Zombie Strippers’ is a joke movie. A gag. But I’d heard it likened to ‘Shaun of the Dead,’ which I liked. So I rented ‘Zombie Strippers’ expecting a movie that was corny, didn’t take itself too serious and was silly. The problem was, it wasn’t funny. I mean, like a B-movie, it had the cornball plot and the bad acting but there wasn’t the self-awareness that ‘Shaun of the Dead’ had. And then there were the unnecessary but ever-present George W. Bush shots. Okay, he was shitty president but when that’s a movie’s go-to device for a laugh, it’s in trouble. The reason this movie is the worst movie is because it had absolutely nothing going for it and a hell of a lot going against it. The best thing I can say about it is that it made me pull out ‘Shaun of the Dead.’
Upcoming Posts
Obviously the next post will be the Top 20 Best Movies and some notable movies left off both lists.
Final Thoughts: Workplace Edition
I met someone face-to-face at work that I’ve spoken to numerous times on the phone. She said that I looked nothing like what I sounded like. She exclaimed that she never would’ve picked me out in a crowd. I don’t know what this means. I later asked a coworker who was there when this happened and she didn’t understand it either. I obsessed about it a lot until I decided that it means I have a good voice but an ugly face. I mean, I felt depressed about it but at least I wasn’t obsessing.
I heard a story at work about a guy who married a woman three weeks after they started dating (and they started dating three weeks after they met). They’ve been married over 20 years but I swear, I can’t imagine doing that. Maybe my decision making skills are slow.
Something that seems to have increased lately are the number of women who paint their toenails in the nearby area to where I sit. The smell is nauseating but the idea people are doing this at work is bizarre. I wasn’t a huge fan of clipping nails at work but this is even worse.
There’s this one coworker who plays opera-type music kinda loud. I don’t like that style of music, or any music where the emphasis is on the singer’s talent as a vocalist and nothing else. It seems like it’s not about what’s being said, it’s about how it’s being sung. Words just break down into syllables that are used to hit certain notes. That and I don’t like people playing music loud in a workplace.
Overheard at work: “I don’t believe no guy over 20 don’t have kids somewhere. He may not know about it but there’s no way they be dodging that bullet. Unless they’re gay. But all heterosexual men over 20 have at least one child somewhere.”
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The Talladega Wreck (from April 26th)
Okay, with the San Francisco experience already written down, the next biggest thing to happen in the last couple months was my experience at Talladega.
Michelle had tickets to the Aarons 499 (which is actually 500.1 miles), so I was able to go to my first NASCAR event ever on April 26th. Now, I realize it’s now a month later and not really newsworthy, but you know that blind-woman sucker punch thing I commented on the other day? Well, that actually had happened a year earlier and CNN had just gotten around to putting it as one of the top stories. So if CNN can cover something a year later, I should be allowed a month delay to report on a NASCAR race.
But here’s the thing. Had I written this right after I’d gone to Talladega, I would’ve had all these stories about the experience. Instead, I’m just hitting on general thoughts I had about the race.
You know all the stereotypes you have about a NASCAR race? Well, most of them were true as far as I could tell. It was a lot of clichéd rednecks (not that there weren’t some non-rednecks but the majority…) yelling things like ‘Git r done’ and one guy shaking his cane at the drivers as they passed by. And then there were women walking around with tramp stamps (including one that read: ‘Git r done’) and one who took off her shirt so she could wave it around and spent a good portion of the race sitting there in her bra.
The rows of seats were very close together, making it nearly impossible to exit out the row. When we first sat down, I noticed the fence blocking my view, which I didn’t figure was a huge big deal except it was going to obscure all my pictures. I was trying to be able to shoot through the fence like I’ve done at Turner Field through the netting but it never came out very well and nearly all the pictures I got from the day were crap.
We were three rows back from the fence, so we were really close but it turns out that being close isn’t a good thing. See, the track is an oval. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t see the other side of the track at all and I could just barely see the top and bottom of the oval. And when the cars passed in front of me, they were just a blur. At no point could I really tell who was winning just by looking at the track. Instead, I had to look up at the leader board.
So, I can only see what amounts to a quarter of what’s going on, which is like watching a baseball game but only being able to see the pitcher and the catcher.
But the fans there were totally into it. Each time the drivers passed by, they would yell cheers and taunts at different drivers. The PA announcer implored the crowd at the beginning of the race to get as loud as possible because the drivers can hear them. Trust me on this, I could barely hear anything when those cars were anywhere near, there’s no way in the world those drivers can hear the crowd. The fans don’t seem to get that.
Of course, that’s not to say all fans are like that. There are those who have headsets that can listen into what the drivers are saying and they’re into the technical aspect of what’s going on and I admire them. They weren’t the ones screaming for the number 88 car to ‘Git r done.’ I think some fans are into the strategy (such as it is) of when to pass, when to hold back, when to pit etc. But I can’t believe that most of those fans there viewed the race that way. It was like an exposition to scream in a crowd, drink beer and hope for the big crash.
In an effort to make Michelle laugh, I hollered a few times, including ‘Git r done,’ ‘whoo-hoo’ and whenever David Reutimann’s name was mentioned, I’d yell ‘Who’s the man?! Reutimann!’ And it was fun…four or five times.
But the race was nearly four hours long and consisted of 188 laps. That’s 188 trips around an oval. I’ve never really understood the appeal of racing. I’ve been able to watch a little racing on television and certainly the ends of these races can be exciting, generally the last 20 laps (30 at most) but I figured this might be a sport where you kinda have to be there to ‘get it.’ Since I could only see a quarter of what was going on, it seems like it’d be a sport more suited for television.
I was okay for the first 15 laps and for the last 15-20 laps but I really struggled during the middle 150 or so. Baseball might be slow moving but at least different things are happening. With the exception of crashes, what happens in lap 110 isn’t that much different than lap 52 or lap 141. A bunch of cars go in an oval.
Each time the drivers passed by, I was hit by a huge breeze that was mixed with all sorts of dirt and debris so that by the end, I was covered in a filthy second skin. I can’t think of a time I felt dirtier than after the race.
Adding to that: Smoking is permitted in the stands. I don’t think about smoking much because it’s been banned in most stadiums for some time but it’s really annoying when everyone around you is smoking and their ash is falling on you. I must’ve sat in the chain smoking section because nearly each person was downing cigarette after cigarette for the entire race and I was their ash tray.
Because the fence was in my way, I couldn’t get the pictures I wanted, so I put my camera away after about 10-15 laps. But when I heard Carl Edwards was making a move to the front, I got my camera back out because I was pretty sure he was the one who did the backflip off his car if he won and I wanted to get the picture.
Carl Edwards had been in 20th place or so for most of the race, never threatening to win it, while Aarons’ driver, David Reutimann had been flirting with the top spot for a good portion of the day. Reutimann would finish 26th and Edwards was seconds away from winning it. This says to me that the first 150 laps don’t matter all that much. I mean, you don’t have to really lead any of those laps to win, you’re just trying to avoid getting into an accident. But with all the caution resets, it’s perfectly okay to hang around in 20th place and then make a move with 30 laps left.
But Carl Edwards didn’t win and that he didn’t win (and how he didn’t win) is what makes this race notable.
Edwards took the lead with a half lap left. Directly behind Edwards was Brad Keselowski and looking back on it (because I couldn’t see this at the time), Keselowski tried to pass low and Edwards blocked him, which caused Edwards’ car to spin and come off the ground a little. Then Ryan Newman’s struck Edwards, causing the car to go fully airborne, spinning into the catch fence that protects the fans from incoming cars.
The fence gave in a little but stayed largely intact, prevent the car and it’s debris from entering the stands. The debris that did enter appear to come from the fence itself, including the PA speakers. Seven people were injured, two were air lifted to a hospital (as a result of traffic concerns, not because of the severity of their injuries. The most serious injury was a broken jaw suffered by a 17 year old girl sitting one section to my left.
And what did I see? Well, I could see Edwards coming around and I saw he was spun out and hit by another car (though it appeared to me at the time to be Dale Earnhardt Jr., not Ryan Newman, that sent him fully airborne). I had the camera in my hand as the car hit the fence but I was completely frozen. Not scared. It was extremely surreal. The car flips around and so I was looking straight ahead (remember, I was three rows back) and seeing the top of the 99 car before it landed back on the track.
The pictures I got were after the car had already landed and none of them especially impressive. In the video that I included below, you can see that the front end hits the fence and then it flips around and at one point, the 99 painted on the top of the car is pointed at the fans, and that was my view looking straight ahead.
My first thought: I wasn’t sure if Edwards was dead or not. Looking at the video, he gets out quickly and easily and trots to the finish line but from my view, I never saw that. Instead I was my view was being blocked by a group of dumb-ass rednecks giving each other high fives and cheering. On the projector screen in the middle of the infield, that I could barely see, it looked like Edwards was being interviewed. But again, I couldn’t really see the screen and the PA speaker for my section was broken.
(if you can't view this video from this page, you can also click to view it here)
After the race, we hung around and waited for it to clear out and then we went to the car, where we waited a couple more hours for traffic to clear out before leaving.
I’m certainly glad that I went but I’m not sure I would go again. Maybe if I had suite tickets so I could be inside because it was really hot out there and I was right in the sun. Michelle said that if you sit higher up, you can see more of the track and then the pictures wouldn’t be blocked by the fence. But I don’t know. It’s still 188 trips around an oval.
Alls I Wanted Was a Meatball Sandwich
Clearing out some more old news: The weekend before last, Michelle and I were going to go to dinner but neither of us really knew what we wanted. She wanted something to take back to my place and I only knew that I didn’t want anything too heavy. After eliminating pretty much every fast food place in the area, she decided on Nathan’s Hot Dogs.
On the way there though, I decided that I wanted a meatball sandwich from Serafino’s, which I was under the impression was a sandwich deli place down the road. Why did I have this impression? Because I’d been there before and I ordered a meatball sandwich to go. I just wanted the same thing.
But when we got there, they had a movable wall, you know, like the kind you change clothes behind, that was blocking the area where I’d previously ordered at. The lights were dim and a waitress came out of the back to seat us. The place had converted into a sit-down Italian restaurant, exactly what neither of us wanted since I didn’t want something too heavy and she didn’t want to eat at a restaurant.
Worse, on the menu, meatball sandwich wasn’t listed. The waitress explained they only do those at lunch. So, me and Michelle ended up leaving and going to Nathan’s. The strangest thing about Serafino’s conversion? They still had their television going. If you’re going to try to fashion yourself as a higher class restaurant, take down the TV or at least turn it off, especially if you’re going to charge $18 for lasagna.
At Nathan’s
We got to Nathan’s and both ordered the same thing. Turned out though that the restaurant was out of drinks. All they had was tea and lemonade. So if we were in the mood for an Arnold Palmer, we’d be set but we both ordered soft drinks. We settled on lemonade. I paid for the meal and they were also out of pennies.
At Zaxbys
The next day, we went to Zaxbys. And I’m not a huge fan of that restaurant but I’d never tried their salad, so I went ahead and ordered a chicken Caesar salad and it was okay, certainly better than anything else I’ve had there. Here’s the weird thing though, at the drive through, I was asked if I had a church bulletin.
I know this sounds strange but I felt a little guilty about not having a bulletin. In some way, I felt compelled to apologize but I didn’t know why. And I didn’t apologize either. But I felt medium bad when I said that I didn’t have one.
Final Thoughts
I was watching Jay Leno the other day and Bill Maher said ‘fuck’ and it was beeped out but when he used the word retarded, the sound was removed so you could see his mouth move but couldn’t hear the word. Why use an audible beeping sound for fuck but mute the sound for retarded?
‘Chuck’ was brought back by NBC for 13 episodes, not a ringing endorsement of the show but better than being cancelled. There was a strong online effort to save the show and it made me wonder if my girlfriend’s mom signed the ‘Save Chuck’ petition.
I’m hearing the term ‘pissing contest’ a lot lately. You know one person I’d never get into a pissing contest with? A guy on Flomax because that’d be like going up against a fire hose.
I heard a joke that began with ‘A penguin walked into a bar…’ I say, if your joke starts with a penguin walking into a bar, you don’t need a punch line…a penguin going into a bar is funny enough.
Michelle had tickets to the Aarons 499 (which is actually 500.1 miles), so I was able to go to my first NASCAR event ever on April 26th. Now, I realize it’s now a month later and not really newsworthy, but you know that blind-woman sucker punch thing I commented on the other day? Well, that actually had happened a year earlier and CNN had just gotten around to putting it as one of the top stories. So if CNN can cover something a year later, I should be allowed a month delay to report on a NASCAR race.
But here’s the thing. Had I written this right after I’d gone to Talladega, I would’ve had all these stories about the experience. Instead, I’m just hitting on general thoughts I had about the race.
You know all the stereotypes you have about a NASCAR race? Well, most of them were true as far as I could tell. It was a lot of clichéd rednecks (not that there weren’t some non-rednecks but the majority…) yelling things like ‘Git r done’ and one guy shaking his cane at the drivers as they passed by. And then there were women walking around with tramp stamps (including one that read: ‘Git r done’) and one who took off her shirt so she could wave it around and spent a good portion of the race sitting there in her bra.
The rows of seats were very close together, making it nearly impossible to exit out the row. When we first sat down, I noticed the fence blocking my view, which I didn’t figure was a huge big deal except it was going to obscure all my pictures. I was trying to be able to shoot through the fence like I’ve done at Turner Field through the netting but it never came out very well and nearly all the pictures I got from the day were crap.
We were three rows back from the fence, so we were really close but it turns out that being close isn’t a good thing. See, the track is an oval. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t see the other side of the track at all and I could just barely see the top and bottom of the oval. And when the cars passed in front of me, they were just a blur. At no point could I really tell who was winning just by looking at the track. Instead, I had to look up at the leader board.
So, I can only see what amounts to a quarter of what’s going on, which is like watching a baseball game but only being able to see the pitcher and the catcher.
But the fans there were totally into it. Each time the drivers passed by, they would yell cheers and taunts at different drivers. The PA announcer implored the crowd at the beginning of the race to get as loud as possible because the drivers can hear them. Trust me on this, I could barely hear anything when those cars were anywhere near, there’s no way in the world those drivers can hear the crowd. The fans don’t seem to get that.
Of course, that’s not to say all fans are like that. There are those who have headsets that can listen into what the drivers are saying and they’re into the technical aspect of what’s going on and I admire them. They weren’t the ones screaming for the number 88 car to ‘Git r done.’ I think some fans are into the strategy (such as it is) of when to pass, when to hold back, when to pit etc. But I can’t believe that most of those fans there viewed the race that way. It was like an exposition to scream in a crowd, drink beer and hope for the big crash.
In an effort to make Michelle laugh, I hollered a few times, including ‘Git r done,’ ‘whoo-hoo’ and whenever David Reutimann’s name was mentioned, I’d yell ‘Who’s the man?! Reutimann!’ And it was fun…four or five times.
But the race was nearly four hours long and consisted of 188 laps. That’s 188 trips around an oval. I’ve never really understood the appeal of racing. I’ve been able to watch a little racing on television and certainly the ends of these races can be exciting, generally the last 20 laps (30 at most) but I figured this might be a sport where you kinda have to be there to ‘get it.’ Since I could only see a quarter of what was going on, it seems like it’d be a sport more suited for television.
I was okay for the first 15 laps and for the last 15-20 laps but I really struggled during the middle 150 or so. Baseball might be slow moving but at least different things are happening. With the exception of crashes, what happens in lap 110 isn’t that much different than lap 52 or lap 141. A bunch of cars go in an oval.
Each time the drivers passed by, I was hit by a huge breeze that was mixed with all sorts of dirt and debris so that by the end, I was covered in a filthy second skin. I can’t think of a time I felt dirtier than after the race.
Adding to that: Smoking is permitted in the stands. I don’t think about smoking much because it’s been banned in most stadiums for some time but it’s really annoying when everyone around you is smoking and their ash is falling on you. I must’ve sat in the chain smoking section because nearly each person was downing cigarette after cigarette for the entire race and I was their ash tray.
Because the fence was in my way, I couldn’t get the pictures I wanted, so I put my camera away after about 10-15 laps. But when I heard Carl Edwards was making a move to the front, I got my camera back out because I was pretty sure he was the one who did the backflip off his car if he won and I wanted to get the picture.
Carl Edwards had been in 20th place or so for most of the race, never threatening to win it, while Aarons’ driver, David Reutimann had been flirting with the top spot for a good portion of the day. Reutimann would finish 26th and Edwards was seconds away from winning it. This says to me that the first 150 laps don’t matter all that much. I mean, you don’t have to really lead any of those laps to win, you’re just trying to avoid getting into an accident. But with all the caution resets, it’s perfectly okay to hang around in 20th place and then make a move with 30 laps left.
But Carl Edwards didn’t win and that he didn’t win (and how he didn’t win) is what makes this race notable.
Edwards took the lead with a half lap left. Directly behind Edwards was Brad Keselowski and looking back on it (because I couldn’t see this at the time), Keselowski tried to pass low and Edwards blocked him, which caused Edwards’ car to spin and come off the ground a little. Then Ryan Newman’s struck Edwards, causing the car to go fully airborne, spinning into the catch fence that protects the fans from incoming cars.
The fence gave in a little but stayed largely intact, prevent the car and it’s debris from entering the stands. The debris that did enter appear to come from the fence itself, including the PA speakers. Seven people were injured, two were air lifted to a hospital (as a result of traffic concerns, not because of the severity of their injuries. The most serious injury was a broken jaw suffered by a 17 year old girl sitting one section to my left.
And what did I see? Well, I could see Edwards coming around and I saw he was spun out and hit by another car (though it appeared to me at the time to be Dale Earnhardt Jr., not Ryan Newman, that sent him fully airborne). I had the camera in my hand as the car hit the fence but I was completely frozen. Not scared. It was extremely surreal. The car flips around and so I was looking straight ahead (remember, I was three rows back) and seeing the top of the 99 car before it landed back on the track.
The pictures I got were after the car had already landed and none of them especially impressive. In the video that I included below, you can see that the front end hits the fence and then it flips around and at one point, the 99 painted on the top of the car is pointed at the fans, and that was my view looking straight ahead.
My first thought: I wasn’t sure if Edwards was dead or not. Looking at the video, he gets out quickly and easily and trots to the finish line but from my view, I never saw that. Instead I was my view was being blocked by a group of dumb-ass rednecks giving each other high fives and cheering. On the projector screen in the middle of the infield, that I could barely see, it looked like Edwards was being interviewed. But again, I couldn’t really see the screen and the PA speaker for my section was broken.
(if you can't view this video from this page, you can also click to view it here)
After the race, we hung around and waited for it to clear out and then we went to the car, where we waited a couple more hours for traffic to clear out before leaving.
I’m certainly glad that I went but I’m not sure I would go again. Maybe if I had suite tickets so I could be inside because it was really hot out there and I was right in the sun. Michelle said that if you sit higher up, you can see more of the track and then the pictures wouldn’t be blocked by the fence. But I don’t know. It’s still 188 trips around an oval.
Alls I Wanted Was a Meatball Sandwich
Clearing out some more old news: The weekend before last, Michelle and I were going to go to dinner but neither of us really knew what we wanted. She wanted something to take back to my place and I only knew that I didn’t want anything too heavy. After eliminating pretty much every fast food place in the area, she decided on Nathan’s Hot Dogs.
On the way there though, I decided that I wanted a meatball sandwich from Serafino’s, which I was under the impression was a sandwich deli place down the road. Why did I have this impression? Because I’d been there before and I ordered a meatball sandwich to go. I just wanted the same thing.
But when we got there, they had a movable wall, you know, like the kind you change clothes behind, that was blocking the area where I’d previously ordered at. The lights were dim and a waitress came out of the back to seat us. The place had converted into a sit-down Italian restaurant, exactly what neither of us wanted since I didn’t want something too heavy and she didn’t want to eat at a restaurant.
Worse, on the menu, meatball sandwich wasn’t listed. The waitress explained they only do those at lunch. So, me and Michelle ended up leaving and going to Nathan’s. The strangest thing about Serafino’s conversion? They still had their television going. If you’re going to try to fashion yourself as a higher class restaurant, take down the TV or at least turn it off, especially if you’re going to charge $18 for lasagna.
At Nathan’s
We got to Nathan’s and both ordered the same thing. Turned out though that the restaurant was out of drinks. All they had was tea and lemonade. So if we were in the mood for an Arnold Palmer, we’d be set but we both ordered soft drinks. We settled on lemonade. I paid for the meal and they were also out of pennies.
At Zaxbys
The next day, we went to Zaxbys. And I’m not a huge fan of that restaurant but I’d never tried their salad, so I went ahead and ordered a chicken Caesar salad and it was okay, certainly better than anything else I’ve had there. Here’s the weird thing though, at the drive through, I was asked if I had a church bulletin.
I know this sounds strange but I felt a little guilty about not having a bulletin. In some way, I felt compelled to apologize but I didn’t know why. And I didn’t apologize either. But I felt medium bad when I said that I didn’t have one.
Final Thoughts
I was watching Jay Leno the other day and Bill Maher said ‘fuck’ and it was beeped out but when he used the word retarded, the sound was removed so you could see his mouth move but couldn’t hear the word. Why use an audible beeping sound for fuck but mute the sound for retarded?
‘Chuck’ was brought back by NBC for 13 episodes, not a ringing endorsement of the show but better than being cancelled. There was a strong online effort to save the show and it made me wonder if my girlfriend’s mom signed the ‘Save Chuck’ petition.
I’m hearing the term ‘pissing contest’ a lot lately. You know one person I’d never get into a pissing contest with? A guy on Flomax because that’d be like going up against a fire hose.
I heard a joke that began with ‘A penguin walked into a bar…’ I say, if your joke starts with a penguin walking into a bar, you don’t need a punch line…a penguin going into a bar is funny enough.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Covering SF: Monday April 13th: In the End
Now, for the semi-exciting conclusion to the coverage of: San Francisco 2009
Getting Up
Once again, decided to wake up without an alarm clock since I didn’t have anything concrete planned for the morning. I had toyed with going to the Cable Car Museum, which is something I really wanted to do but it didn’t open until 10am and I needed to leave for the airport at about 10:40.
Instead, I went to Mel’s Drive-in for the final time. The experience was horrible. They never refilled my drink and were fairly rude in general. The food was still good but it sucked that the last two times I went, the service was poor.
I hung out in the hotel, watching television. Storms were going through Atlanta and I was concerned that it might cause airport delays.
Getting Out
I left for the airport at 10:45 and I thought I could get to Powell Station but my knee was hurting so bad, I had to keep taking breaks on the way down the steps. I missed the train, though it didn’t end up mattering. I still got to the airport in plenty of time. I checked in, went through security and got to my gate.
My flight was delayed 10-15 minutes but I was concerned that this was only an initial delay and that more delays might be on the way. My girlfriend was supposed to pick me up from the airport at around 8:45. She was going to have to get up at 4:30 to go to work the next morning and I was concerned that the we wouldn’t get back to my place until 9:30-9:45 (and we’d planned to watch ‘24’ on DVR that night), meaning she probably wouldn’t get but about five and a half hours of sleep or so…and it could be worse if the delay was any more than 10-15 minutes.
Mom suggested having my dad pick me up from the airport since he was going to be downtown late. I called Michelle at work to see whether the delay (and potential for more delays) made her want to change plans but she was really set on picking me up.
(Side note: Michelle sounds completely different at work. Her tone of voice, everything. Not bad, just different. Completely different.)
Getting Home
It turned out that the plane wasn’t delayed any more than the originally stated 10 minutes. Aboard the plane, I bought a sandwich for lunch, listened to podcasts, watched onboard television and, of course, played trivia.
I was kicking everyone’s ass until JAAACK showed up. It was the same guy who was so great on the flight out to San Francisco. We shared the flight to and from San Francisco, which is a crazy coincidence. JAAACK wasn’t quite as strong on the flight back though. San Francisco must’ve really tired him out or something.
While up in the plane, I was able to watch the vast majority of ‘Pardon the Interruption,’ which was really cool.
As for landing, we made up a good amount of time in the air and landed at 8:45pm as expected. The plan was for Michelle to hang out in a bookstore on Camp Creek Parkway until I landed. I figured that I’d text her that I’d landed and the time it would take me to get off the plane and to the front entrance would be the same time it’d take her to leave the bookstore and arrive at the south gate.
And it worked perfectly. We got back to my apartment without any problems and were able to watch the parts of ‘PTI’ that I had missed on the plane and the episode of ‘24’ that had aired.
Thoughts on the Trip
Looking back at the planning of the trip, I clearly had three concerns. First, I wasn’t sure whether my side would be 100% by April and when it became clear that it wouldn’t be, I was concerned about how it would affect the trip.
Second, I felt that I would probably never get the chance to go to San Francisco again, so I wanted to do as many things as possible as quickly as possible so that I didn’t leave anything out. This issue was made more difficult by concern number one.
Finally, I hadn’t been on a major trip like this in a long time and I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to go on a trip like this again. I had this feeling that ‘I better make this count.’
As a result of these three concerns, I created a massive plan designed to both fit in as much as possible with the understanding that my side might prevent me from completing the plan in full. What ended up happening is that the plan became a job and the things I wanted to do became tasks.
While the plan was extremely flexible and the flexibility was needed, not because my side but because my knee, there was too much information. The list of alternate bus schedules was a waste and never used. The listing of all bus routes was barely used and kind of unnecessary.
But it wasn’t that the plan was too big, it was that the creation of the plan was bigger than the trip. When I was younger, I remember how going from one event to another to another limited the fun. I always wanted a vacation where we could just hang out and not feel like we were running from place to place to complete ‘a plan.’ What’s the purpose of a vacation when it’s just a different kind of work?
On my trip to Colorado, my plan consisted of things I wanted to do and addresses. I used my GPS to get from place to place but most things weren’t really nailed down. I felt like I really was able to get away and just have a good time. The fun factor was missing on my trip to San Francisco because I was too caught up in the details.
I think adding to that a little was my purchase of the City Pass, which at $59 is still a great deal. The Pass gave me free use of cable cars, buses and street cars and it saved me an estimated $43 in fare. It allowed me to take part in the Blue and Gold Cruise ($24 regular price), the Aquarium ($16 regular price), the Modern Art Museum ($12.50 regular price) and the de Young Museum ($10 regular price). That’s usage worth about $105.50 for the cost of $59, a savings of at least $46.50.
But here’s the thing: Would I normally go to the museums and an aquarium? Probably not. I felt like I couldn’t cancel those things because they were already paid for and it put added pressure to ‘have’ to do those things. I mean, the City Pass still worked out overall because I would’ve done the cruise anyway and the transit stuff, so it would’ve paid for itself but I wasn’t impressed with either art museum.
Writing the coverage of the trip has been extremely tedious and tough to slog through but it captures the trip pretty well. It was a series of ‘turn here, turn there, get here, get there’ rather than enjoying the experience.
I wonder how much of an effect my knee getting hurt Friday morning played on the trip. Obviously, there were some things that were cancelled because I just couldn’t keep going. If my knee wasn’t hurting the way it was, would I have been so focused on the minutiae of the trip? Or was I focused on the minutiae because of the way the trip was planned?
I’d like to think that once I got out there, the plan would’ve become a guideline and less task oriented if my knee wasn’t hurt. I began viewing the plan as something to get through. ‘Will I be able to get through X, Y and Z before having to stop?’
I don’t know the answer to that. What I do know is that my side only seized up three times. Twice on the plane flight out there and once at Buena Vista Park on Friday. My side was completely a non-issue. I think in part because of the trip, I have greater confidence in my side and haven’t worried about it as much since I’ve gotten back. It’s not been a problem overall since I’ve gotten back and I’m very thankful for that.
I had planned for about 12 miles and I thought that was a lot. But because of getting lost, not counting the amount of walking I would incur during events and forgoing the bus because I thought walking would be easier (since the two points just seemed so close on the map or because I couldn’t find the bus stop), I wound up walking almost 28 miles in five days, 15 miles on Friday alone.
As for traveling while out there, I was glad that I didn’t rent a car. Parking was so bad out there, that it wouldn’t’ve done me any good anyway. The transit system is the city’s strongest asset, especially important given that it was insanely hilly, much worse than I could’ve pictured.
The weather was much better than I’d expected. Thursday was overcast and dreary but by late Friday afternoon, it began to clear up so that my Golden Gate pictures were shot against a mainly blue sky.
I ended up talking on the phone more than I'd expecting, running up a bill of $210. Since a good portion of my trip took place during a weekend, I either racked up a bunch of minutes on Friday (when I was walking everywhere an taking knee breaks) or I was in a roaming area and didn't realize it. I knew my bill would be higher but not that much higher.
The biggest victory to me though was the way I was able to always stay on East Coast time. While I was always aware of Pacific time, I kept waking up and going to sleep on an East Coast schedule, meaning I was in bed by 7 or 8pm PDT and awake by around 5am PDT. This made adjusting to my home schedule fairly easy.
Final Thought on the Trip
In the end, I’m certainly glad that I went. I’ve never been to a place like San Francisco but I think that I over-planned it because I was putting too much pressure on the trip, turning it into a job and robbing it of the fun that I could’ve had.
Upcoming Entries
The goal is to write my NASCAR experience and post it on Thursday and post my best and worst movies on Saturday. Then I’ll see where I’m at after that and hopefully the blog can get back to being something less boring and a little more funny.
Obituaries
I saw that Dom DiMaggio died on May 8th. Obviously it’s impossible to mention Dom without mentioning that he was the younger brother of Joe DiMaggio. What gets forgotten is that Dom was one of the best centerfielders of his era who finished his career with a .298 batting average. And while his brother had the famous 56 game hitting streak, Dom hit in 34 straight in 1949. The streak ended against the Yankees in a game in which Joe made a great catch to rob his brother of a hit.
But what I remember most about Dom is his book ‘Real Grass, Real Heroes,’ a story of the 1941 season in which his brother had the 56 game hit streak and Dom’s teammate, Ted Williams, batted .406. (Also in described in the book: Lou Gehrig’s farewell address, the first televised baseball game, the Mickey Owen World Series and Lefty Grove’s 300th win).
The book shows current fans what the game was like back then. The travel. The camaraderie between teammates. What it was like to play baseball as America’s involvement in World War II grew near. As a backdrop, the book also portrays what America was like during that time.
‘Real Grass, Real Heroes’ is an incredible book about an amazing season in a transformational year in our country and is definitely worth reading.
Dom passed away at the age of 92 of pneumonia.
Getting Up
Once again, decided to wake up without an alarm clock since I didn’t have anything concrete planned for the morning. I had toyed with going to the Cable Car Museum, which is something I really wanted to do but it didn’t open until 10am and I needed to leave for the airport at about 10:40.
Instead, I went to Mel’s Drive-in for the final time. The experience was horrible. They never refilled my drink and were fairly rude in general. The food was still good but it sucked that the last two times I went, the service was poor.
I hung out in the hotel, watching television. Storms were going through Atlanta and I was concerned that it might cause airport delays.
Getting Out
I left for the airport at 10:45 and I thought I could get to Powell Station but my knee was hurting so bad, I had to keep taking breaks on the way down the steps. I missed the train, though it didn’t end up mattering. I still got to the airport in plenty of time. I checked in, went through security and got to my gate.
My flight was delayed 10-15 minutes but I was concerned that this was only an initial delay and that more delays might be on the way. My girlfriend was supposed to pick me up from the airport at around 8:45. She was going to have to get up at 4:30 to go to work the next morning and I was concerned that the we wouldn’t get back to my place until 9:30-9:45 (and we’d planned to watch ‘24’ on DVR that night), meaning she probably wouldn’t get but about five and a half hours of sleep or so…and it could be worse if the delay was any more than 10-15 minutes.
Mom suggested having my dad pick me up from the airport since he was going to be downtown late. I called Michelle at work to see whether the delay (and potential for more delays) made her want to change plans but she was really set on picking me up.
(Side note: Michelle sounds completely different at work. Her tone of voice, everything. Not bad, just different. Completely different.)
Getting Home
It turned out that the plane wasn’t delayed any more than the originally stated 10 minutes. Aboard the plane, I bought a sandwich for lunch, listened to podcasts, watched onboard television and, of course, played trivia.
I was kicking everyone’s ass until JAAACK showed up. It was the same guy who was so great on the flight out to San Francisco. We shared the flight to and from San Francisco, which is a crazy coincidence. JAAACK wasn’t quite as strong on the flight back though. San Francisco must’ve really tired him out or something.
While up in the plane, I was able to watch the vast majority of ‘Pardon the Interruption,’ which was really cool.
As for landing, we made up a good amount of time in the air and landed at 8:45pm as expected. The plan was for Michelle to hang out in a bookstore on Camp Creek Parkway until I landed. I figured that I’d text her that I’d landed and the time it would take me to get off the plane and to the front entrance would be the same time it’d take her to leave the bookstore and arrive at the south gate.
And it worked perfectly. We got back to my apartment without any problems and were able to watch the parts of ‘PTI’ that I had missed on the plane and the episode of ‘24’ that had aired.
Thoughts on the Trip
Looking back at the planning of the trip, I clearly had three concerns. First, I wasn’t sure whether my side would be 100% by April and when it became clear that it wouldn’t be, I was concerned about how it would affect the trip.
Second, I felt that I would probably never get the chance to go to San Francisco again, so I wanted to do as many things as possible as quickly as possible so that I didn’t leave anything out. This issue was made more difficult by concern number one.
Finally, I hadn’t been on a major trip like this in a long time and I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to go on a trip like this again. I had this feeling that ‘I better make this count.’
As a result of these three concerns, I created a massive plan designed to both fit in as much as possible with the understanding that my side might prevent me from completing the plan in full. What ended up happening is that the plan became a job and the things I wanted to do became tasks.
While the plan was extremely flexible and the flexibility was needed, not because my side but because my knee, there was too much information. The list of alternate bus schedules was a waste and never used. The listing of all bus routes was barely used and kind of unnecessary.
But it wasn’t that the plan was too big, it was that the creation of the plan was bigger than the trip. When I was younger, I remember how going from one event to another to another limited the fun. I always wanted a vacation where we could just hang out and not feel like we were running from place to place to complete ‘a plan.’ What’s the purpose of a vacation when it’s just a different kind of work?
On my trip to Colorado, my plan consisted of things I wanted to do and addresses. I used my GPS to get from place to place but most things weren’t really nailed down. I felt like I really was able to get away and just have a good time. The fun factor was missing on my trip to San Francisco because I was too caught up in the details.
I think adding to that a little was my purchase of the City Pass, which at $59 is still a great deal. The Pass gave me free use of cable cars, buses and street cars and it saved me an estimated $43 in fare. It allowed me to take part in the Blue and Gold Cruise ($24 regular price), the Aquarium ($16 regular price), the Modern Art Museum ($12.50 regular price) and the de Young Museum ($10 regular price). That’s usage worth about $105.50 for the cost of $59, a savings of at least $46.50.
But here’s the thing: Would I normally go to the museums and an aquarium? Probably not. I felt like I couldn’t cancel those things because they were already paid for and it put added pressure to ‘have’ to do those things. I mean, the City Pass still worked out overall because I would’ve done the cruise anyway and the transit stuff, so it would’ve paid for itself but I wasn’t impressed with either art museum.
Writing the coverage of the trip has been extremely tedious and tough to slog through but it captures the trip pretty well. It was a series of ‘turn here, turn there, get here, get there’ rather than enjoying the experience.
I wonder how much of an effect my knee getting hurt Friday morning played on the trip. Obviously, there were some things that were cancelled because I just couldn’t keep going. If my knee wasn’t hurting the way it was, would I have been so focused on the minutiae of the trip? Or was I focused on the minutiae because of the way the trip was planned?
I’d like to think that once I got out there, the plan would’ve become a guideline and less task oriented if my knee wasn’t hurt. I began viewing the plan as something to get through. ‘Will I be able to get through X, Y and Z before having to stop?’
I don’t know the answer to that. What I do know is that my side only seized up three times. Twice on the plane flight out there and once at Buena Vista Park on Friday. My side was completely a non-issue. I think in part because of the trip, I have greater confidence in my side and haven’t worried about it as much since I’ve gotten back. It’s not been a problem overall since I’ve gotten back and I’m very thankful for that.
I had planned for about 12 miles and I thought that was a lot. But because of getting lost, not counting the amount of walking I would incur during events and forgoing the bus because I thought walking would be easier (since the two points just seemed so close on the map or because I couldn’t find the bus stop), I wound up walking almost 28 miles in five days, 15 miles on Friday alone.
As for traveling while out there, I was glad that I didn’t rent a car. Parking was so bad out there, that it wouldn’t’ve done me any good anyway. The transit system is the city’s strongest asset, especially important given that it was insanely hilly, much worse than I could’ve pictured.
The weather was much better than I’d expected. Thursday was overcast and dreary but by late Friday afternoon, it began to clear up so that my Golden Gate pictures were shot against a mainly blue sky.
I ended up talking on the phone more than I'd expecting, running up a bill of $210. Since a good portion of my trip took place during a weekend, I either racked up a bunch of minutes on Friday (when I was walking everywhere an taking knee breaks) or I was in a roaming area and didn't realize it. I knew my bill would be higher but not that much higher.
The biggest victory to me though was the way I was able to always stay on East Coast time. While I was always aware of Pacific time, I kept waking up and going to sleep on an East Coast schedule, meaning I was in bed by 7 or 8pm PDT and awake by around 5am PDT. This made adjusting to my home schedule fairly easy.
Final Thought on the Trip
In the end, I’m certainly glad that I went. I’ve never been to a place like San Francisco but I think that I over-planned it because I was putting too much pressure on the trip, turning it into a job and robbing it of the fun that I could’ve had.
Upcoming Entries
The goal is to write my NASCAR experience and post it on Thursday and post my best and worst movies on Saturday. Then I’ll see where I’m at after that and hopefully the blog can get back to being something less boring and a little more funny.
Obituaries
I saw that Dom DiMaggio died on May 8th. Obviously it’s impossible to mention Dom without mentioning that he was the younger brother of Joe DiMaggio. What gets forgotten is that Dom was one of the best centerfielders of his era who finished his career with a .298 batting average. And while his brother had the famous 56 game hitting streak, Dom hit in 34 straight in 1949. The streak ended against the Yankees in a game in which Joe made a great catch to rob his brother of a hit.
But what I remember most about Dom is his book ‘Real Grass, Real Heroes,’ a story of the 1941 season in which his brother had the 56 game hit streak and Dom’s teammate, Ted Williams, batted .406. (Also in described in the book: Lou Gehrig’s farewell address, the first televised baseball game, the Mickey Owen World Series and Lefty Grove’s 300th win).
The book shows current fans what the game was like back then. The travel. The camaraderie between teammates. What it was like to play baseball as America’s involvement in World War II grew near. As a backdrop, the book also portrays what America was like during that time.
‘Real Grass, Real Heroes’ is an incredible book about an amazing season in a transformational year in our country and is definitely worth reading.
Dom passed away at the age of 92 of pneumonia.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Covering SF: Sunday April 12th: Piers of a Clown
And the recap of the trip to San Francisco continues with Sunday. I was disappointed that I’d been forced to cancel the trip to Chinatown and Pacific Heights (among other events) as a result of my knee hurting. Now the good news was that the swelling was at least down a bit and the discoloration was not quite as bad as it had been. But it was still hurting.
To Breakfast
My first event wasn’t until 9am so I didn’t bother setting the alarm. I went to Burger King, which was right near the start of the cable car route that goes straight to the Wharf. Fisherman’s Wharf is the most touristy part of San Francisco and most of the places I’d been weren’t filled with too many tourists.
On the Cable Car
The cable car I was on broke down and couldn’t get up one of the many hills in the city. It turned out that the gripman had released something to go down the hill faster and when he tried to reengage, the car had derailed from the track. So we were stuck until a truck could come out and fix everything. Even so, I still was at the Wharf an hour early.
Celebrating Easel in San Francisco
One concern I briefly had about the trip was that certain things wouldn’t be open on Sunday, being that it was Easter. But this was San Francisco and with the exception of the Cable Car Museum, everything was open that would normally be open on Sundays.
My mom sent me a text, “Do they celebrate Easter in Sodom.” I replied, They don’t have Easter in SF. I asked and they said, ‘For Art?’ And I said, ‘No, that’s an easel.” Mom responded, “Happy Easel to them.”
I meant to post on this site before I left a funny Easter clip but I didn’t because I forgot. Here’s the clip now, over a month late:
Playing Battleship
I was going to tour the Jeremiah O’Brien, which was a WWII battleship. The plan was to wander the deck mumbling, ‘You sunk my battleship’ over and over again.
The website advised allotting an hour and a half to tour the ship but I needed to be at my next event at 10:15. The battleship shared a pier with the USS Pampanito, a WWII submarine and I would’ve loved to have hit both back to back but due to time, I felt that was unrealistic.
The gate blocking the pier though didn’t open until 10 minutes after 9am. I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to get through the entire ship in time before I’d have to leave. Making things more difficult was that my knee started to really hurt and going up the ship’s steps made it hurt even worse.
I went to the engine room, which is where parts of ‘Titanic’ were shot but I couldn’t go all the way to the bottom because I was in too much pain. A little after 9:30, I decided to leave. I had seen the majority of the ship and I couldn’t stand to walk much more. The only part of the ship that I didn’t see was this room that apparently had a French diorama. I figured if it was French, it couldn’t’ve been that great.
On my way out, the ticket seller stopped me and said that I didn’t spend much time up in the ship. I explained that my knee was hurting and the narrow, metal steps was making it worse and I just needed to sit somewhere. He told me that he was sorry and that if I brought my ticket back later in the day, I wouldn’t have to pay again.
On a Submarine Without a Sandwich
As I began to walk toward where I’d seen a group of benches, I wondered whether I might be able to squeeze the Pampanito into the 40 minutes I had remaining. It would save me time walking from one pier to another if I could knock out both the submarine and the battleship back to back. So I decided to give it a try.
The booth for ticket sales was empty, so I went to the gift shop for the submarine. The girl there said that she didn’t sell tickets and that I would “need to go over there” as she pointed toward the empty booth. I explained that there was no one there and she replied, “I don’t know when they start selling tickets.”
This is the gift shop for the submarine. How can you not know when ticket sales start if you work there? It was like: We’re in no way affiliated with the Pampanito…now buy some submarine stuff. That was crazy to me. What was crazier was that I saw a couple people walking on the sub and they were clearly tourists. How did they get in there?
I sat on a bench and this guy walked past and asked if I wanted to go on the submarine. He told me that the guy that manned the booth hadn’t gotten there yet but if I put something in the donation box, he’d let me on. I put some money in the box and went on the self-guided tour.
What I was really struck by was how tight everything was. There wasn’t much room for one person to get around and I couldn’t imagine an entire crew working in a place like this. The ‘doors’ from one part to another weren’t like normal doors. You had to lift your leg up and squeeze through to the next part of the sub.
There wasn’t much to see though and I was able to get through the tour pretty quickly. When I got out, the guy had finally arrived at the ticket booth.
Halfway There: Living on a Pier
I wasn’t exactly sure where the pickup spot was for the movie tour. I walked up and down the Wharf looking for the spot but I couldn’t find the correct pier. I was supposed to go to Pier 43 and a half. The Pampanito was on Pier 45 and the next pier seemed to be number 41.
On the way to Pier 41, a guy yelled something at me in a foreign language. I figured he was a beggar and my general policy is to not make eye contact with people like that and certainly not to respond to them yelling at me.
When I realized that at Pier 41, I must’ve passed 43 ½, I turned around and had to pass by foreign man again and like before, he yelled at me in a foreign language but this time when I didn’t respond, he shouted, “Don’t ignore me!”
Look, here’s the thing, if you’re going to beg for something from me in my country, at least speak my language or don’t be surprised when I ignore you.
(Full disclosure: I would’ve ignored him if he’d yelled at me in English too)
And what if I’d been deaf? That guy didn’t know that I wasn’t deaf. But what was I supposed to do? Go back and engage this moron in some meaningful conversation? ‘Oh, I’m sorry. When you yelled at me in a foreign language, I didn’t understand what you were saying or that you were actually speaking to me as opposed to being on the phone or responding to one of the voices in your head. I hope you can forgive me, you dirty bastard.’
There were a lot of homeless people in San Francisco and there were a lot of beggars but let’s be clear, the two aren’t necessarily the same. The homeless people were scattered around and for the most part, left people alone. The beggars were primarily in the touristy areas, like the Wharf. Not all homeless people are beggars and certainly I don’t believe most beggars are homeless.
On the Movie Tour
I was able to find pier 43 ½ by 10:15, in time for the movie tour bus to arrive. Here’s the stunning part…the bus was virtually filled. I knew that they offered a couple pick up spots around the city but I figured most people would meet at the Wharf. Instead, I was one of three people (of about 20) at the bus’ final pickup spot. I was also able to take the last available window seat, though there were little star stickers on the outside of my window, partially blocking the view and making taking pictures even more difficult.
The bus tour was in many ways the best part of my trip out to San Francisco. I was able to get a good tour of the city on an air conditioned bus and we saw clips of movies that were shot in SF as we passed by where they were filmed. It was actually a lot of fun. There were several places along the way where we were able to get out and take pictures instead of always shooting inside the bus.
Most of my bus shots didn’t come out all that well but the outside pictures were pretty good. On the tour, I was able to see the Presidio, Grace Cathedral, Alta Plaza, Pacific Heights, Bank of Canton, Chinatown and several Victorian houses. It felt like that made up in some way for what I had to cancel the day before.
The halfway point of the tour was the Golden Gate Bridge. There was an extended break for 15 minutes and I had a choice between going to the bathroom (which I had to do pretty bad) or take more pictures of the Bridge. Guess which one I chose.
I was able to visit Fort Point (which I wasn’t able to do on Friday because of my knee) and shoot from almost directly under the bridge. At one point, in order to get a better angle, I stood up on the top of the Fort, wind whipping around and my knee hurting and I took pictures that came out decently good.
After about two hours on the tour, I did start getting a little antsy but I think a lot of that had to do with having to go to the bathroom. I was starting to actually feel sick to my stomach.
The tour went by LucasFilm, which didn’t allow visitors inside on the weekend. I took a couple pictures through windows that came out alright. There was a Yoda fountain that I still need to remember to send the picture of it to my brother.
Freaky Man’s Wharf
The tour dropped us off in the general area of Fisherman’s Wharf, though not at the exact pickup spot, so I was a little turned around. At the beginning of the tour, I saw a billboard for In & Out next to a Hooters. It seemed appropriate that it was like that.
I’d never been to In & Out, so I headed in that direction. The sidewalk was crazy crowded and extremely loud. I don’t do well in crowds and I hate getting bumped around by people.
I got to the restaurant but it was closed. And I mean closed like it might not be coming back. Ever. This meant I had to turn back around, retrace my steps toward the heart of the Wharf again.
I didn’t want to go to McDonalds again and while there was a Johnny Rockets, they take too long and I wanted something faster. I was doing good on time because I’d already knocked out the Pampanito earlier. I only had the Blue and Gold cruise and the Aquarium by the Bay left.
Along the way, there are street performers everywhere, like a carnival. Mimes. Dancers. Musicians. I mean, they’re all begging for money really but at least they’re doing something. When you see a street performer with a sign asking for money and then you see a guy just sitting on the curb doing nothing begging, it really points out his own laziness. At least be a mime. Anyone can do that. And it’s so much easier to ignore a mime. You know, because they’re quieter.
One guy I saw appeared to be wearing a bed sheet draped around himself but not like a toga. It was like he took a bed sheet, cut a hole for his head and wore it. At one point the wind blew and he was completely out there. And no, he wasn’t wearing underwear. One might ask, ‘Why’d you look down.’ To which I’d reply, ‘Because it popped out.’ It’s not like you couldn’t not look. Wind blows. Sheet moves. Mr. Johnson says hello. You try not looking.
I found a public bathroom but the line stretched for miles and it was at a glorified porta-potty (which I have a story about in a future entry). Another point that’s important to mention, and I might’ve written it in a previous segment of this series but most fast food restaurants in San Francisco reserve their bathrooms to customers only. There’s a key and you have to have eaten there to get the key. I feel that I’ve eaten at McDonald’s enough in my life to deserve a lifetime exemption into their bathrooms but SF franchises disagree.
I ate at Boudin’s, the outdoor version, which meant a shorter line but no bathroom. I had a hamburger and these organic potato chips that tasted funny. Not bad but just odd.
To the Famous Pier 39
I went to the Blue & Gold Cruise but I missed the boat for the next tour. It was just as well though because I really needed to go to the bathroom and I was betting the Aquarium had a good one to use.
Both the cruise and Aquarium were off pier 39, which is the epicenter of the Wharf. That’s where it’s the most crowded, loudest and filled with the typical tourist ripoff attractions. One thing that I was sorta looking forward to were the sea lions.
I don’t know what I was expecting. It turned out that it was just a bunch of sea lions lying around. It wasn’t very exciting. I took a couple pictures of them but there weren’t doing anything and they smelled terrible.
At the Aquarium by the Bay
I could see the bathroom when I entered the Aquarium but it was blocked from getting to it. I’d have to go through the entire series of exhibits before I could get to the bathroom.
Maybe I’m spoiled because the last three aquariums I’ve been to have been ones in Atlanta, Chattanooga and Baltimore (though I feel like there was one more somewhere). The three that I clearly remember were impressive. This one wasn’t. There were a handful of fish in tanks, the obligatory Nemo exhibit all aquariums have since the movie ‘Finding Nemo’ came out.
One of my favorite pictures I took was from the aquarium. I’m fascinated with jellyfish. They don’t look like anything else really. They’re completely bizarre and I love taking pictures of them. The problem is that it’s dark so the camera wants to use the flash. Of course, the flash would bounce off the glass, ruining the picture. Shooting without the flash could cause blurring and I don’t have a tripod. So I tried to keep my hands as steady as possible and ended up getting a couple really good shots of the jellyfish without any blur. I was really excited about those photographs.
The biggest attraction is also the biggest letdown. It’s called ‘Under the SF Bay.’ Basically, you walk in this tunnel where you’re surrounded by water to your left, right and above your head. The Atlanta Aquarium has this too but since this one’s called ‘Under the SF Bay,’ I kinda figured that I was under the SF Bay. Uh, no. I wasn’t under the Bay at all. As small writing revealed on this one sign, the fish in the exhibit are like fish that could be found within the Bay but I wasn’t actually underneath the Bay.
Perhaps they should’ve called it, ‘Fish from the SF Bay’ and avoided the potential confusion. Not that the biggest issue was the name issue. I was really feeling sick to my stomach and I just wanted to get through as quickly as I could so I could get to the gift shop’s bathroom.
I sped through the tunnel and the exhibit where you could pet a sting ray. I was able to get to the bathroom after 3+ hours of holding it in.
Under the Bridge
I went to the entrance for the Blue and Gold Cruise, my last event of the day and I knew, more than likely, the last of my trip. The big feature of this tour was that it went directly under the Golden Gate Bridge and allowed me to get pictures from the other side of the Bridge.
The boat featured this crazy narration that reminded me of those little puppet features at Six Flags. The voices talked in a crazy Old West accents and it was really strange. The narrator would tell stories but you could only understand a little bit of what was being said because the speakers weren’t the best in the world.
I stood on the front of the boat and it was extremely windy. I was leaning against a rail, holding the camera tight with both hands because I was scared I’d drop it into the water. I didn’t feel very secure on the boat but rather than move into a safer position, I stayed where I was because I thought the pictures would turn out better.
I got a few good pictures from the tour but nothing as great as I was imagining when I signed up for it.
I could tell that I was getting sunburned, so I went inside for the rest of the tour, since all we were going to do next was circle Alcatraz, and I had more than enough pictures of that.
Back to the Hotel
I took the Historic F Streetcar back to the hotel. On the ride back, this German guy was marveling at how amazing San Francisco was. He was saying that it was so much more advanced than the rest of the world. I don’t know about that but they certainly had a lot of Walgreens.
I stopped at the closest Walgreens to my hotel to pick up some more Gatorade and then I went to Mel’s Diner for a slice of cherry pie. The pie itself was good but the service was fairly poor and they didn’t seem quite as cheerful as the previous two times.
It was around 5pm and I really wanted to go to a movie but the theater that was nearest to me wasn’t playing anything I wanted to see. And the theater that was playing ‘Observe and Report,’ was located somewhere along Market Street but I never could figure out where.
I ended up just going back to the hotel and hanging out and icing my knee. I had walked 3.7 miles over the course of the day bringing the total for the trip up to 26.7 miles.
And that was how I spent my Easter. The next day, walking was going to be kept to a minimum as I packed up and flew back home on Monday.
Upcoming Entries
In the next entry, I’ll go through Monday and provide some final thoughts about the trip. I also still need to put out my best and worst movies of 2008, which I keep forgetting to do. And of course the story of my first (and quite possibly) last NASCAR race.
Final Thoughts
A Seattle Bar is putting on a ‘Hot for Teacher’ night hosted by Mary Kay Letourneau, a teacher who made news several years ago after engaging in a sexual relationship with a 12 year old student she would later marry. The bar’s owner said it’s supposed to be in fun but just a thought: If it was a male teacher and a female student, would they be having the same type of an event?
Natalie Cole was given a kidney by one of her fans who had died. Good news: Natalie Cole has a new kidney. Bad news: Her one fan has died.
This article talks about ‘classic’ groups that are teaming up to go on tours and put out singles. Bands like REO Speedwagon and Styx joining forces isn’t that much unlike Italy joining forces with Germany. The Axis of Shit. They’re on a tour called, Can't Stop Rockin'. Of course they can’t stop…they never started.
Headline on CNN.com: Man sucker-punches blind woman on bus. But I mean, you can hardly blame the guy. She was sitting in her seat being all blind and all. How was he supposed to resist? Are you telling me that you wouldn’t’ve punched her too?
The last time I considered buying the PX90 system (which some people insist on telling me is actually the P90X as if where the X goes matters to me) was during Spring Training because Matt Diaz used it and he’s completely awesome. If I’d started back then, I’d be two thirds of the way through the program with two thirds of the results, which would mean I’d have two thirds of a six pack...a four pack!
Friday, May 15, 2009
Covering SF: Saturday April 11th: In Jail
I’ll be honest, I’ve really lost interest in continuing to write this blog, especially the San Francisco recap. It is unbearably boring and I hate getting halfway through and quitting, so I’ll try to wrap this up. I’d like to think I can make it more interesting but…
Waking Up
Saturday morning, I didn’t need to get up until 5:30am, so I knew I wouldn’t have to set up my alarm. I went to Mel’s Drive-In, and once again, the service was extremely good. Everyone seemed happy and the food was very good.
On the Cable Car
I went to the spot where the cable car begins its route and the car was parked a half block ahead of the stop. I didn’t know whether that’s where we got on, so I went up and asked the two workers how and where do I board. The one guy pointed toward the other worker, who said that I needed to go wait behind the rope. I asked when it would leave the stop and they said they didn’t know but probably in five to ten minutes. I’d expected the cable car people to be friendly and during my time out there, they really weren’t.
About five minutes later, it moved in reverse toward me and a couple other waiting passengers. I got on and at some point, one of the workers yelled something and I thought he was telling us to get off, so I got off. I don’t know what he actually yelled but I realized that while some passengers got off, most stayed on and the car continued its route.
I was heading toward the part of Lombard Street that’s known as ‘The World’s Crookedest Street.’ I thought about walking but my knee was really hurting and while I’d read that San Francisco was hilly, it was nothing like I’d pictured. The degree of the hills were much, much steeper than I’d imagined. It was really something else.
The walk would be nearly a mile from where I was to Lombard Street, so I instead walked to the nearest cable car stop, and caught the next one that came by. Walking up hill wasn’t too bad on my knee (though it still hurt), nothing was as bad as walking downhill.
While on the car, a worker asked to see my pass, and then asked the passengers next to me to show them their pass. While both passengers and the worker were Asian, they were having trouble understanding each other. Turns out they didn’t have passes and had to buy one from the worker. I wound up having to ‘translate’ between the two.
The Crookedest Street
I hopped off at Lombard Street. The street was so steep that several switchbacks were put in place to make it safer for cars, which makes it a very crooked street. When I was little, I remember seeing a picture of the street in the Guinness Book of World Records and I really wanted to take the same picture I’d seen.
I wasn’t able to get that picture for several reasons. First, the flowers weren’t in bloom and second, I couldn’t get the angle right. The pictures I took were a bit of a disappointment. Off to the right of all the crookedness was a pedestrian walkway straight downhill and I was in a great deal of pain walking down that stretch. I’d taken the pain pills but I was still hurting a lot.
Getting to Alcatraz
I had a bit of trouble finding the bus stop to take me to the Fisherman’s Wharf. By the time I’d gotten there, I’d missed the bus. It wasn’t the biggest deal in the world since another bus was about 20 minutes away but my next event was Alcatraz and I needed to be at the gate by 8:30am to make sure I was able to board at 9am so I could get back in time to get to AT&T Park by 12:30pm for the ballpark tour.
I arrived just before the Alcatraz tour closed off allowing passengers for the 9am tour. If I’d been just a little bit later, I would’ve had to wait for 9:30, which doesn’t sound like a huge difference but this was only time in the entire time I was in San Francisco where I had reservations for back-to-back events.
I sat out on the deck on the ferry to Alcatraz and took pictures of the island, the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. The best pictures though were of the downtown skyline. I had really wanted to get good shots of the buildings, which is why I tried to go to Twin Peaks and why I went to Buena Vista Park but the best pictures were from the boat to Alcatraz.
It was extremely sunny and while it wasn’t hot, I was concerned about getting a sunburn. I probably should’ve put on sunscreen but I don’t like doing that, so I didn’t.
In Alcatraz
Alcatraz is extremely hilly and I was concerned about the amount of walking I’d have to do. They offered a tram to get you to the top but it was designed for handicapped people and I felt funny about asking to be given a lift so I walked.
I sent a text message to my mom, brother and girlfriend saying that I was in jail. I thought that was funny since I was in Alcatraz. My girlfriend sent back two texts: “What??” followed shortly by “You better be messing with me”
Alcatraz itself was fairly dingy and not all that fascinating on the inside. I liked the story about how Native Americans claimed it as theirs as it was declared surplus property by the government but seeing individual cells and empty mess halls isn’t that interesting.
I wandered around the outside of Alcatraz looking at the birds and the Bridge until I was stopped by a worker tending to the plants. She asked me if I was a “S-P-I-E,” attempting to spell out the word spy. I didn’t know what she was talking about and she pointed to my bag and asked what was written on there. It was a bag that I’d been given that had the word tour written on it. She looked disappointed and said, “Nevermind.”
No More Pictures
While taking pictures of birds, I ran out of room on my memory card. See, when I was in Colorado, I was shooting some of my pictures on medium quality and others in high quality but when I got back and loaded the pictures on the computer, I’d forgotten which ones were which. In an effort to eliminate that, I decided to shoot all of them in the highest quality: Large, Superfine. (Though for some reason, all my first pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge were taken in medium)
Because each picture took up more room, I had less pictures I could take, which is why I brought a cable to convert my pictures to my mp3 player for storage. I thought about doing the conversion that morning but thought I could get through the day okay. I was wrong.
I started deleting some of the pictures that were clearly duplicates and started shooting on medium quality. Doing this picture dump to clear up memory gave me a chance to rest my knee but then I realized that there was about to be a departure ferry back to the city. This would allow me to leave 30 minutes earlier than I’d planned, giving me time to possibly go back to the hotel and dump the remaining pictures onto my mp3 player. It also would give me a chance to go to the bathroom, since I hate using public restrooms.
Escape from Alcatraz
The problem was that I didn’t have much time before the ferry left and I’d have to hurry. With my knee hurting like it was, I debated whether I should even try. What if I hurt it worse? And still didn’t make it in time?
I decided it was better to hurry because the alternative meant taking more shots in medium, so I took off moving as quick as I could (which still wasn’t all that quick).
The guy who was letting people onto the ramp that led to the boat hollered toward me asking if I was wanting to get on the boat. I replied that I did and he told me I could slow down that he’d let me on. I was the last person onto the boat and it left just after I boarded. My knee was absolutely raging. Instead of hanging out on the deck, I spent the ride back inside, continuing to delete pictures and just trying to rest. I’d walked around two miles so far that day.
To the Hotel
I caught the ‘Historic F Streetcar’ to go back to the hotel. I’m not sure what’s so historic about it. Every time I boarded that streetcar, it always said it was bought in the 90s. Not all the historic.
In front of the Federal Reserve, there were several protestors walking in a circle carrying signs. Mostly they appeared to be homeless people who were given coffee by the organizers. One had a sign that read ‘Tim Geitner, You’re a funny guy, now get out.’ Another had a sign, “Socialism is the only cure for War, Poverty and Racism.”
You know, I’m not sure Socialism is the horrible evil some portray it as but it certainly isn’t the cure for war, poverty or racism. There are enough Socialist governments to be able to verify that.
I got back to the hotel and I searched through my bag and while I found two of the wires needed to convert pictures to my mp3 player, I was lacking the third piece, which meant I’d hurried down Alcatraz for nothing and I was going to have to shoot most of the rest of my pictures in medium. If I’d known that was going to happen, I would’ve short more in medium earlier and maybe only shot the Bridge shots in the highest quality or something.
I still had some time before I needed to leave for the ballpark tour, so I iced my knee to try to help with the swelling a little. Thankfully, it wasn’t quite as ugly as it was the day before but it was still pretty bad.
AT&T Park Tour
I took the bus to the ballpark and hung around waiting for the tour to start. I asked one of the workers where the tour started and she said she didn’t know. I asked another worker and they said, “It’s over there somewhere,” as they pointed toward one section of the Giants Team Store.
I was able to figure out where the tour began and we were led into the dining area for the ‘special’ ticket holders. I’ve actually gone to a game twice with ‘special’ tickets but I still feel a certain level of derision toward those ‘special’ ticket holders. They get to have ‘special’ food and get to have the ‘special’ seats with ‘special’ parking and they get ‘special’ service. And it seems like every ballpark tour starts with showing us common people what the ‘special’ people enjoy.
The one consolation is that ‘special’ tickets (at least the two stadiums I went to with them and no tour has indicated otherwise) don’t allow holders access to frozen lemonade. So at least we common people have that to hold over those bastards.
Back to the tour…
AT&T Park, despite the frequent name changes (previously PacBell and SBC Park) in its short history, is actually a wonderful ballpark. The food was good, the sight lines were good and the transit to the park was great. The tour was awful. It’s the single worst tour I’ve ever been on for a stadium.
The tour guide knew little about baseball. She knew Willie Mays’ name and number but when asked whose numbers had been retired and were on display in one section of the ballpark, she knew Mays and that one of them was Juan Marichal. One of the people in the group pointed out Willie McCovey’s number. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a tour guide not know the names of the retired numbers.
When the tour started, she gave us a 5-10 minute bathroom break. And almost everybody actually went. That’s crazy to me, both that there was a break and that people went. Here’s the thing, it’s advertised as a 90 minute tour. Don’t most people go beforehand? Do they really expect a bathroom break will be offered?
Once everyone was out of the bathroom, she asked what we expected to see on the tour. The standard answers were shouted out: The field, the clubhouse, the dugout, the press box…hold on…She said that the press box wasn’t something we’d visit on this tour because there wasn’t enough time. Of course, maybe if we hadn’t just taken a 5-10 minute bathroom break, there would’ve been time…
After looking at the ‘special’ people’s dining area, we went into the room where player’s do their press conferences and we watched a 10-15 minute video about the stadium. I’ve never been on a stadium tour that’s done that. We then had to wait so people could have their picture taken in the press conference room. Almost 30 minutes into the tour and we hadn’t hardly seen anything.
We saw the visitor’s clubhouse, which was standard stuff and the field, where we were given the obligatory ‘keep off the grass’ line and the home dugout. Other than that, it was almost entirely general admission stuff. We walked around in the cheap seats and saw various views of the park, all of which I’d seen a couple days earlier. It was a complete ripoff.
Oh, and we saw the suites and got the standard sales speech on how to rent one, something every tour has.
In all, it was an extremely lousy tour, especially for how great the park is.
Stopping for Lunch
After the tour, I went to McDonald’s to eat lunch. The cost of the meals were a lot more expensive in San Francisco than they are in Atlanta. I think I might’ve mentioned that before but these blogs are so boring, I don’t really want to force myself to look through what I’ve already written and find out if I’m repeating myself.
While at McDonald’s, this father and son that had been on the tour came up to me and we started talking about baseball. They were from Cincinnati and they were nice at first until I asked them what other stadiums they’ve toured and they named some stadiums they saw games in and then acted like I was pestering them. They were weird.
Getting to Coit Tower
My next stop was Coit Tower. I was going to take the bus to the Filbert Steps, which was supposed to be a bit of a hike but worth it because how pretty the walk is. I had a little trouble finding the bus stop for the bus number I needed. I kept walking north toward Coit Tower so that I was at least moving in the right direction.
I walked almost a mile before getting to a bus stop that (I thought) was clearly marked for the bus I was waiting for. And then when I saw the bus, it passed by, and as it did, I could see the bus driver waving at me. I was infuriated. I walked a couple blocks north to another bus stop and caught the next bus that came by.
I later learned that I was standing at a dropoff spot for the bus, not a pick up spot and that’s why the bus didn’t stop. Still sucked.
While on the bus, the driver yelled, “Did you see that!” at the passengers. We looked out the window and some police had their guns drawn at this guy who had his hands up. Honestly, I was hoping for gun shots but nothing like that happened. The driver said that the city was on edge because of the recent killings of some officers in the Bay Area and that police are probably going to be quicker to draw guns and perhaps fire on criminals than they normally would be.
Up the Filbert Steps
I got off a stop earlier than I should have in retrospect. I was going to walk up the Filbert Steps, and looking back on it, I was simply insane. My knee was hurting so bad and walking up a few steps was difficult. Going up these steps amounts to about a quarter of a mile total and according to some sources on the Internet, include around 400 steps, though I didn’t bother to count them.
There were times when I thought about quitting on the way up but (a) I didn’t want to have to go back down and (b) I kept thinking I was almost to the top. The reason I thought this is because when you go up a set of steps, you then have to go right or left to the next set and so you can’t really see the ending. People say how beautiful those steps are with the gardening and the supposed parrots that live there but I say the steps hurt.
The steps are in between the homes of people so you’re just a few feet from someone’s window or door, which means even when you see a bench, it likely belongs to someone and I didn’t feel like I could sit at it and rest.
When I finally did get to the top, I saw a bus pulling up. The map with bus routes that I had didn’t show any bus going to the top of Telegraph Hill. I kicked myself for not having taken the bus, especially since there was a page in The Plan that showed that Coit Tower bus.
My knee was killing me and it took me a lot longer to get up those steps than I thought it would. On the map, it looks like three blocks. I figured somewhere between 7 and 12 minutes. I didn’t time how long it took me but it was a lot longer than that. (Based on phone records, my estimate is about 35 minutes)
At Coit Tower
I read one report that I had discounted at the time, that advised allowing two hours to visit Coit Tower. I thought there was no way it could take that long. But if it did, I wouldn’t be getting to my next event until almost 6pm and by that time, the places would be closed and because I wanted to be back at the hotel by 7pm each day (10pm EDT), Coit Tower would be my last thing.
The line wasn’t going out the door. Because Coit Tower is circular, the line can wrap around the inside base. I figured that I’d have to wait 30 minutes or an hour at worst. The line was barely moving though. The elevator could only take about 11 people at a time. The elevator was slow. It seemed to take forever.
And when I finally got to the top, there was a substantial line of people waiting to go back down. That really hadn’t occurred to me, that there’d be a line to get down. In fact, of all the people up at the top, only a handful were looking around, the rest were waiting in line.
When you get off the elevator, you have to walk up these thin, narrow steps and each step was extremely painful with my knee hurting the way it was. All I could think of was getting back in line so I could get down. I took some pictures but my heart really wasn’t in it.
I quickly got back in line to go down. I’m not sure if I already wrote this but the iPhone was everywhere. In line, two of the four people in front of me had one. So I kept staring at it, coveting it. I wanted it so bad. On Monday, a person left their iPhone on the MUNI and another passenger picked it up and yelled out to the person who left it behind. You know why they didn’t steal it? Because virtually everyone in SF has an iPhone and so there’s no need to steal them.
(Actually, for everything negative I can say about San Francisco, they appear to be really good about returning things that someone lost. They’re just not very good with directions or knowing where exits and entrances are)
As for the pictures I got while up in the Tower, they were decent. I got a good one of the TransAmerican Building. The view wasn’t as disappointing as the St. Louis Arch, which had two directions you can look out of: east and west but I wound up spending nearly 3 hours (including travel time) on Coit Tower.
Additionally, I’d walked almost four and a half miles when I’d planned to walk less than three miles. According to plans, I was still set to walk just over a mile and a half.
To Stop or To Keep Going
After I finally got to the bottom, I waited for the bus to arrive and I ended up getting out at Little Italy. I needed to transfer to another bus but I was a little confused about where I was and I ended up walking in the wrong direction and had to double back.
By the time I caught another bus, it was too late to go to the cable car museum and Grace Cathedral (though I could’ve stopped by outside and looked at it). And because my knee was hurting as bad as it was, I really didn’t feel like walking through Chinatown. So I decided to just go back to the hotel.
This meant that I wouldn’t visit the Bank of Canton, Chinatown Gate, Pacific Heights, the Haas-Lilienthal House and Alta Vista Park. I was disappointed but I was just in too much pain to keep going.
What I really wanted to do was just lie down for a bit and maybe go to Mel’s Drive-in for strawberry shortcake or cherry pie. Of course I also really wanted some Gatorade. I truly wanted some Gatorade. Gatorade.
To the Hotel...And Gatorade
On the bus, I sat behind a couple that kept arguing and then would start making out, go back to arguing and then would continue making out. It was very bizarre.
Behind me, I heard one of the funniest random lines of the trip. A girl was talking to her friends and explained to them, “I’m a ho but I’m a good ho.”
When I got off the bus, I went to Walgreens for bottled water and two Gatorades and I got back to the hotel. And while I had every intention of going to Mel’s, I was too tired and just fell asleep. I’d walked almost five and a half miles during the day and 23 miles for the trip
I woke up a few hours later because next door there was this arguing couple that kept screaming at each other. It was extremely loud and I wondered whether they were making out in between the angry exchanges.
And that brings Saturday to a close…blessedly. I just have Sunday and Monday to get through and this awful blog slog will end. I also have a story about the first NASCAR race that I went to that I’d like to include in this but I don’t feel like writing any more right now.
Final Thoughts
A CNN Poll asked: Do you trust the US banking system? And who sponsored the poll? Bank of America
Manny busted for using female fertility drug. He said it was for personal medical issue. What? Was he trying to get pregnant? Have a bunch of little baby Mannys running around?
Waking Up
Saturday morning, I didn’t need to get up until 5:30am, so I knew I wouldn’t have to set up my alarm. I went to Mel’s Drive-In, and once again, the service was extremely good. Everyone seemed happy and the food was very good.
On the Cable Car
I went to the spot where the cable car begins its route and the car was parked a half block ahead of the stop. I didn’t know whether that’s where we got on, so I went up and asked the two workers how and where do I board. The one guy pointed toward the other worker, who said that I needed to go wait behind the rope. I asked when it would leave the stop and they said they didn’t know but probably in five to ten minutes. I’d expected the cable car people to be friendly and during my time out there, they really weren’t.
About five minutes later, it moved in reverse toward me and a couple other waiting passengers. I got on and at some point, one of the workers yelled something and I thought he was telling us to get off, so I got off. I don’t know what he actually yelled but I realized that while some passengers got off, most stayed on and the car continued its route.
I was heading toward the part of Lombard Street that’s known as ‘The World’s Crookedest Street.’ I thought about walking but my knee was really hurting and while I’d read that San Francisco was hilly, it was nothing like I’d pictured. The degree of the hills were much, much steeper than I’d imagined. It was really something else.
The walk would be nearly a mile from where I was to Lombard Street, so I instead walked to the nearest cable car stop, and caught the next one that came by. Walking up hill wasn’t too bad on my knee (though it still hurt), nothing was as bad as walking downhill.
While on the car, a worker asked to see my pass, and then asked the passengers next to me to show them their pass. While both passengers and the worker were Asian, they were having trouble understanding each other. Turns out they didn’t have passes and had to buy one from the worker. I wound up having to ‘translate’ between the two.
The Crookedest Street
I hopped off at Lombard Street. The street was so steep that several switchbacks were put in place to make it safer for cars, which makes it a very crooked street. When I was little, I remember seeing a picture of the street in the Guinness Book of World Records and I really wanted to take the same picture I’d seen.
I wasn’t able to get that picture for several reasons. First, the flowers weren’t in bloom and second, I couldn’t get the angle right. The pictures I took were a bit of a disappointment. Off to the right of all the crookedness was a pedestrian walkway straight downhill and I was in a great deal of pain walking down that stretch. I’d taken the pain pills but I was still hurting a lot.
Getting to Alcatraz
I had a bit of trouble finding the bus stop to take me to the Fisherman’s Wharf. By the time I’d gotten there, I’d missed the bus. It wasn’t the biggest deal in the world since another bus was about 20 minutes away but my next event was Alcatraz and I needed to be at the gate by 8:30am to make sure I was able to board at 9am so I could get back in time to get to AT&T Park by 12:30pm for the ballpark tour.
I arrived just before the Alcatraz tour closed off allowing passengers for the 9am tour. If I’d been just a little bit later, I would’ve had to wait for 9:30, which doesn’t sound like a huge difference but this was only time in the entire time I was in San Francisco where I had reservations for back-to-back events.
I sat out on the deck on the ferry to Alcatraz and took pictures of the island, the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. The best pictures though were of the downtown skyline. I had really wanted to get good shots of the buildings, which is why I tried to go to Twin Peaks and why I went to Buena Vista Park but the best pictures were from the boat to Alcatraz.
It was extremely sunny and while it wasn’t hot, I was concerned about getting a sunburn. I probably should’ve put on sunscreen but I don’t like doing that, so I didn’t.
In Alcatraz
Alcatraz is extremely hilly and I was concerned about the amount of walking I’d have to do. They offered a tram to get you to the top but it was designed for handicapped people and I felt funny about asking to be given a lift so I walked.
I sent a text message to my mom, brother and girlfriend saying that I was in jail. I thought that was funny since I was in Alcatraz. My girlfriend sent back two texts: “What??” followed shortly by “You better be messing with me”
Alcatraz itself was fairly dingy and not all that fascinating on the inside. I liked the story about how Native Americans claimed it as theirs as it was declared surplus property by the government but seeing individual cells and empty mess halls isn’t that interesting.
I wandered around the outside of Alcatraz looking at the birds and the Bridge until I was stopped by a worker tending to the plants. She asked me if I was a “S-P-I-E,” attempting to spell out the word spy. I didn’t know what she was talking about and she pointed to my bag and asked what was written on there. It was a bag that I’d been given that had the word tour written on it. She looked disappointed and said, “Nevermind.”
No More Pictures
While taking pictures of birds, I ran out of room on my memory card. See, when I was in Colorado, I was shooting some of my pictures on medium quality and others in high quality but when I got back and loaded the pictures on the computer, I’d forgotten which ones were which. In an effort to eliminate that, I decided to shoot all of them in the highest quality: Large, Superfine. (Though for some reason, all my first pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge were taken in medium)
Because each picture took up more room, I had less pictures I could take, which is why I brought a cable to convert my pictures to my mp3 player for storage. I thought about doing the conversion that morning but thought I could get through the day okay. I was wrong.
I started deleting some of the pictures that were clearly duplicates and started shooting on medium quality. Doing this picture dump to clear up memory gave me a chance to rest my knee but then I realized that there was about to be a departure ferry back to the city. This would allow me to leave 30 minutes earlier than I’d planned, giving me time to possibly go back to the hotel and dump the remaining pictures onto my mp3 player. It also would give me a chance to go to the bathroom, since I hate using public restrooms.
Escape from Alcatraz
The problem was that I didn’t have much time before the ferry left and I’d have to hurry. With my knee hurting like it was, I debated whether I should even try. What if I hurt it worse? And still didn’t make it in time?
I decided it was better to hurry because the alternative meant taking more shots in medium, so I took off moving as quick as I could (which still wasn’t all that quick).
The guy who was letting people onto the ramp that led to the boat hollered toward me asking if I was wanting to get on the boat. I replied that I did and he told me I could slow down that he’d let me on. I was the last person onto the boat and it left just after I boarded. My knee was absolutely raging. Instead of hanging out on the deck, I spent the ride back inside, continuing to delete pictures and just trying to rest. I’d walked around two miles so far that day.
To the Hotel
I caught the ‘Historic F Streetcar’ to go back to the hotel. I’m not sure what’s so historic about it. Every time I boarded that streetcar, it always said it was bought in the 90s. Not all the historic.
In front of the Federal Reserve, there were several protestors walking in a circle carrying signs. Mostly they appeared to be homeless people who were given coffee by the organizers. One had a sign that read ‘Tim Geitner, You’re a funny guy, now get out.’ Another had a sign, “Socialism is the only cure for War, Poverty and Racism.”
You know, I’m not sure Socialism is the horrible evil some portray it as but it certainly isn’t the cure for war, poverty or racism. There are enough Socialist governments to be able to verify that.
I got back to the hotel and I searched through my bag and while I found two of the wires needed to convert pictures to my mp3 player, I was lacking the third piece, which meant I’d hurried down Alcatraz for nothing and I was going to have to shoot most of the rest of my pictures in medium. If I’d known that was going to happen, I would’ve short more in medium earlier and maybe only shot the Bridge shots in the highest quality or something.
I still had some time before I needed to leave for the ballpark tour, so I iced my knee to try to help with the swelling a little. Thankfully, it wasn’t quite as ugly as it was the day before but it was still pretty bad.
AT&T Park Tour
I took the bus to the ballpark and hung around waiting for the tour to start. I asked one of the workers where the tour started and she said she didn’t know. I asked another worker and they said, “It’s over there somewhere,” as they pointed toward one section of the Giants Team Store.
I was able to figure out where the tour began and we were led into the dining area for the ‘special’ ticket holders. I’ve actually gone to a game twice with ‘special’ tickets but I still feel a certain level of derision toward those ‘special’ ticket holders. They get to have ‘special’ food and get to have the ‘special’ seats with ‘special’ parking and they get ‘special’ service. And it seems like every ballpark tour starts with showing us common people what the ‘special’ people enjoy.
The one consolation is that ‘special’ tickets (at least the two stadiums I went to with them and no tour has indicated otherwise) don’t allow holders access to frozen lemonade. So at least we common people have that to hold over those bastards.
Back to the tour…
AT&T Park, despite the frequent name changes (previously PacBell and SBC Park) in its short history, is actually a wonderful ballpark. The food was good, the sight lines were good and the transit to the park was great. The tour was awful. It’s the single worst tour I’ve ever been on for a stadium.
The tour guide knew little about baseball. She knew Willie Mays’ name and number but when asked whose numbers had been retired and were on display in one section of the ballpark, she knew Mays and that one of them was Juan Marichal. One of the people in the group pointed out Willie McCovey’s number. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a tour guide not know the names of the retired numbers.
When the tour started, she gave us a 5-10 minute bathroom break. And almost everybody actually went. That’s crazy to me, both that there was a break and that people went. Here’s the thing, it’s advertised as a 90 minute tour. Don’t most people go beforehand? Do they really expect a bathroom break will be offered?
Once everyone was out of the bathroom, she asked what we expected to see on the tour. The standard answers were shouted out: The field, the clubhouse, the dugout, the press box…hold on…She said that the press box wasn’t something we’d visit on this tour because there wasn’t enough time. Of course, maybe if we hadn’t just taken a 5-10 minute bathroom break, there would’ve been time…
After looking at the ‘special’ people’s dining area, we went into the room where player’s do their press conferences and we watched a 10-15 minute video about the stadium. I’ve never been on a stadium tour that’s done that. We then had to wait so people could have their picture taken in the press conference room. Almost 30 minutes into the tour and we hadn’t hardly seen anything.
We saw the visitor’s clubhouse, which was standard stuff and the field, where we were given the obligatory ‘keep off the grass’ line and the home dugout. Other than that, it was almost entirely general admission stuff. We walked around in the cheap seats and saw various views of the park, all of which I’d seen a couple days earlier. It was a complete ripoff.
Oh, and we saw the suites and got the standard sales speech on how to rent one, something every tour has.
In all, it was an extremely lousy tour, especially for how great the park is.
Stopping for Lunch
After the tour, I went to McDonald’s to eat lunch. The cost of the meals were a lot more expensive in San Francisco than they are in Atlanta. I think I might’ve mentioned that before but these blogs are so boring, I don’t really want to force myself to look through what I’ve already written and find out if I’m repeating myself.
While at McDonald’s, this father and son that had been on the tour came up to me and we started talking about baseball. They were from Cincinnati and they were nice at first until I asked them what other stadiums they’ve toured and they named some stadiums they saw games in and then acted like I was pestering them. They were weird.
Getting to Coit Tower
My next stop was Coit Tower. I was going to take the bus to the Filbert Steps, which was supposed to be a bit of a hike but worth it because how pretty the walk is. I had a little trouble finding the bus stop for the bus number I needed. I kept walking north toward Coit Tower so that I was at least moving in the right direction.
I walked almost a mile before getting to a bus stop that (I thought) was clearly marked for the bus I was waiting for. And then when I saw the bus, it passed by, and as it did, I could see the bus driver waving at me. I was infuriated. I walked a couple blocks north to another bus stop and caught the next bus that came by.
I later learned that I was standing at a dropoff spot for the bus, not a pick up spot and that’s why the bus didn’t stop. Still sucked.
While on the bus, the driver yelled, “Did you see that!” at the passengers. We looked out the window and some police had their guns drawn at this guy who had his hands up. Honestly, I was hoping for gun shots but nothing like that happened. The driver said that the city was on edge because of the recent killings of some officers in the Bay Area and that police are probably going to be quicker to draw guns and perhaps fire on criminals than they normally would be.
Up the Filbert Steps
I got off a stop earlier than I should have in retrospect. I was going to walk up the Filbert Steps, and looking back on it, I was simply insane. My knee was hurting so bad and walking up a few steps was difficult. Going up these steps amounts to about a quarter of a mile total and according to some sources on the Internet, include around 400 steps, though I didn’t bother to count them.
There were times when I thought about quitting on the way up but (a) I didn’t want to have to go back down and (b) I kept thinking I was almost to the top. The reason I thought this is because when you go up a set of steps, you then have to go right or left to the next set and so you can’t really see the ending. People say how beautiful those steps are with the gardening and the supposed parrots that live there but I say the steps hurt.
The steps are in between the homes of people so you’re just a few feet from someone’s window or door, which means even when you see a bench, it likely belongs to someone and I didn’t feel like I could sit at it and rest.
When I finally did get to the top, I saw a bus pulling up. The map with bus routes that I had didn’t show any bus going to the top of Telegraph Hill. I kicked myself for not having taken the bus, especially since there was a page in The Plan that showed that Coit Tower bus.
My knee was killing me and it took me a lot longer to get up those steps than I thought it would. On the map, it looks like three blocks. I figured somewhere between 7 and 12 minutes. I didn’t time how long it took me but it was a lot longer than that. (Based on phone records, my estimate is about 35 minutes)
At Coit Tower
I read one report that I had discounted at the time, that advised allowing two hours to visit Coit Tower. I thought there was no way it could take that long. But if it did, I wouldn’t be getting to my next event until almost 6pm and by that time, the places would be closed and because I wanted to be back at the hotel by 7pm each day (10pm EDT), Coit Tower would be my last thing.
The line wasn’t going out the door. Because Coit Tower is circular, the line can wrap around the inside base. I figured that I’d have to wait 30 minutes or an hour at worst. The line was barely moving though. The elevator could only take about 11 people at a time. The elevator was slow. It seemed to take forever.
And when I finally got to the top, there was a substantial line of people waiting to go back down. That really hadn’t occurred to me, that there’d be a line to get down. In fact, of all the people up at the top, only a handful were looking around, the rest were waiting in line.
When you get off the elevator, you have to walk up these thin, narrow steps and each step was extremely painful with my knee hurting the way it was. All I could think of was getting back in line so I could get down. I took some pictures but my heart really wasn’t in it.
I quickly got back in line to go down. I’m not sure if I already wrote this but the iPhone was everywhere. In line, two of the four people in front of me had one. So I kept staring at it, coveting it. I wanted it so bad. On Monday, a person left their iPhone on the MUNI and another passenger picked it up and yelled out to the person who left it behind. You know why they didn’t steal it? Because virtually everyone in SF has an iPhone and so there’s no need to steal them.
(Actually, for everything negative I can say about San Francisco, they appear to be really good about returning things that someone lost. They’re just not very good with directions or knowing where exits and entrances are)
As for the pictures I got while up in the Tower, they were decent. I got a good one of the TransAmerican Building. The view wasn’t as disappointing as the St. Louis Arch, which had two directions you can look out of: east and west but I wound up spending nearly 3 hours (including travel time) on Coit Tower.
Additionally, I’d walked almost four and a half miles when I’d planned to walk less than three miles. According to plans, I was still set to walk just over a mile and a half.
To Stop or To Keep Going
After I finally got to the bottom, I waited for the bus to arrive and I ended up getting out at Little Italy. I needed to transfer to another bus but I was a little confused about where I was and I ended up walking in the wrong direction and had to double back.
By the time I caught another bus, it was too late to go to the cable car museum and Grace Cathedral (though I could’ve stopped by outside and looked at it). And because my knee was hurting as bad as it was, I really didn’t feel like walking through Chinatown. So I decided to just go back to the hotel.
This meant that I wouldn’t visit the Bank of Canton, Chinatown Gate, Pacific Heights, the Haas-Lilienthal House and Alta Vista Park. I was disappointed but I was just in too much pain to keep going.
What I really wanted to do was just lie down for a bit and maybe go to Mel’s Drive-in for strawberry shortcake or cherry pie. Of course I also really wanted some Gatorade. I truly wanted some Gatorade. Gatorade.
To the Hotel...And Gatorade
On the bus, I sat behind a couple that kept arguing and then would start making out, go back to arguing and then would continue making out. It was very bizarre.
Behind me, I heard one of the funniest random lines of the trip. A girl was talking to her friends and explained to them, “I’m a ho but I’m a good ho.”
When I got off the bus, I went to Walgreens for bottled water and two Gatorades and I got back to the hotel. And while I had every intention of going to Mel’s, I was too tired and just fell asleep. I’d walked almost five and a half miles during the day and 23 miles for the trip
I woke up a few hours later because next door there was this arguing couple that kept screaming at each other. It was extremely loud and I wondered whether they were making out in between the angry exchanges.
And that brings Saturday to a close…blessedly. I just have Sunday and Monday to get through and this awful blog slog will end. I also have a story about the first NASCAR race that I went to that I’d like to include in this but I don’t feel like writing any more right now.
Final Thoughts
A CNN Poll asked: Do you trust the US banking system? And who sponsored the poll? Bank of America
Manny busted for using female fertility drug. He said it was for personal medical issue. What? Was he trying to get pregnant? Have a bunch of little baby Mannys running around?
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