a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
I made my way to San Diego airport early evening, but it was past midnight by the time we arrived at San Francisco airport.
A rainstorm with high winds had battered the city all evening. ‘High winds on bridge’ flashed a sign on I-80 still, by the time around 1 am as I was driving by. But hey : no snarled-up California freeway traffic at those wee hours in the morning.
On Saturday I went my first little league ‘football’ game (the term football being loosely used, since it is played by 6-year olds!) on Saturday. My nephew was one of the little tykes running around on the field under the guidance of two coaches. It is flag football, so there is no tackling. The pursuer rips a flapping velcro ribbon from his opponent’s waistband, and is a ‘tackle’.
Later in the day my brother and I made it out to the beach late afternoon, and then went for a beer at a local microbrewery.
Friday night’s flight out of San Francisco to San Diego to visit my brother turned into a belary-eyed midnight/ early morning affair. The incoming airplane was several hours late, so it was midnight by the time we stepped on board, and 2 am when we arrived in San Diego.
Busted flat in Baton Rouge, headin’ for the trains
Feelin’ nearly faded as my jeans
Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained
Took us all the way to New Orleans
I took my harpoon out of my dirty red bandana
And was blowing sad while Bobby sang the blues
With them windshield wipers slappin’ time and
Bobby clappin’ hands we finally sang up all the songs
That driver knew
Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose
Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’ but it’s free
Feeling good was easy Lord, when Bobby sang the blues
Feeling good was good enough for me
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee
From the coal mines of Kentucky to the California sun
Bobby shared the secrets of my soul
Standing right beside me Lord through everything I done
Every night she kept me from the cold
Then somewhere near Salinas Lord, I let her slip away
Looking for the home I hope she’ll find
And I’d trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday
Holding Bobby’s body next to mine
Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose
Nothin’ left is all she left for me
Feelin’ good was easy Lord, when Bobby sang the blues
Buddy that was good enough for me
Good enough for me and Bobby McGee
The words are from Kris Kristofferson’s 1969 song ‘Me and Bobby McGee’, of course. I loved the song ever since I was in high school, and I love the melancholic Kristofferson rendition. Man! Got to listen to that song again, I thought today, as the California sun sat high in the clouds, as my colleague and I made our way down on Highway 101 to Salinas. (We are holding a workshop with some of our target users. They are getting tablets with which to manage their work in the field, and it is very important that we get their feedback).
I went to the dentist in Seattle downtown this morning, then home to pick up my suitcase and to catch the taxi out to the airport. We were not directly impacted here on the West coast by the massive snowstorm in the Northeast, but our departure from Seattle was delayed by 90 minutes, nonetheless. Two bolts were found to be missing from one of the wings (!) and it took time to track down the exact right parts in the warehouse to fix it. It was 4 pm by the time I left San Francisco airport in my rental car, and of course then traffic through the city to get to the Bay Bridge is everywhere. I should have taken BART (the train), but I had conference calls to dial into and the train is so noisy, that that would not have worked. Ah well. I made it in to work at 5.45 pm just to say hello to everyone before we wrapped it up and went to the hotel.
The shopping catalog of the sky (‘SkyMall’) has filed for bankruptcy. I paged through it many times to ogle the offerings inside, and chuckling at the weirdness – but I have to think long and hard now to remember when the last time was when I saw one in the back pocket of the seat in front of me.
My colleague and I shared a rental car and he drove us to the airport. We always drive through a tunnel on the way there and today I finally checked out the San Francisco map to pin down the location of the tunnel. It’s the upper deck of the Yerba Buena Island Tunnel, in fact. Yerba Buena is named for an abundant plant in the area, an alternative name for hierba buena, literally meaning “good herb” in Spanish.
No, this is not me! I
t’s passenger Chris O’Leary, tweeting that he was the only one on a 76-seater Delta flight to La Guardia airport in New York City. (One more passenger actually boarded right before the door closed, though). Hey – no screaming babies, and I can lean my seat back all the way at any time, he said afterwards.
As for me : I had canceled my flight to San Francisco for Monday, since I was still battling the nasty cold that had started on Wednesday last week.
I was well enough to travel today and made it in home, albeit with some discomfort and pain in my ears as we descended.
My flight out today was full as usual, but went without incident, and we arrived on time at San Francisco airport. The winter’s coldest weather is pushing into the midwest and all the way south into Texas, but on the West coast we have relatively warmer temperatures. I love the graphics on the weather underground’s maps. (Check out http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/).
It’s time to go back to work and travel out to the project site in the Bay Area again. Late today I ran out to Bergman’s luggage store in downtown to buy a new roller bag. The casing and zippers of the one I have are totally fine, but the wheels are coming off ! Not good! Maybe I can have them replaced, but that will take time. I ended up buying a TravelPro bag that was slightly more expensive than the Samsonite ones. I really wanted a bag with two big wheels, not a ‘spinner’ with the four little ones.
We checked out the town of Cannon Beach on Friday after visiting Hug Point.
I started back to Seattle on Saturday and I crossed the Astoria-Megler Bridge again. I stopped to take more pictures of it.
The bridge stretches 4.1 mi (6.6 km) from Astoria, Oregon, across the mouth of the Columbia River, to Point Ellice, Washington. The bridge replaced previous ferry lines running from Astoria to Washington. Construction on the bridge began in 1962 and it was formally dedicated August 27, 1966. The bridge was initially a toll bridge, but by 1993, the bridge had been paid off and the toll was removed.
We drove a little up and down the northern Oregon coast on Friday. When I saw the signs for a turn-out to ‘Hug Point State Recreation Area’, I suggested we stop and go check it out.
I later learned that the name comes from 19th century stagecoach drivers that used the beach as a highway, and they had to ‘hug’ this particular point even at low tide to get around it.
I drove down to the Oregon coast on Thursday, to a little town called Manzanita to stay with friends for a day or two. Here are some pictures I took on the way down.
We headed back to the mainland on Friday, taking the ferry from Kingston to Edmonds this time. It’s a short crossing – only 30 minutes. The sun had come out by the time we set sail, but it was still very chilly on the upper deck !
Thursday comes quickly when you are busy, and we were very busy this week, trying to squeeze in a last few hours of work before bidding each other a nice holiday on Thursday as we headed out to the airport. It would be Monday January 5 before the project team convenes again and take up our challenges. First, it is time to go home and take a break.
The airport was surprisingly full of travelers on Monday morning – that did not know what to do, or where to go (so they were infrequent travelers, and in a way I envy them). Maybe some of them were in Seattle for the Seahawks-San Francisco 49ers football game (the Seahawks beat the 49ers again). My flight was delayed again, and by the time we were in the air it was almost 10.00 am. There was fog and rainy weather in San Francisco, and they had to close one of the runways.
The West Coast was getting soaked with rain today. I did not have a rental car for the week – a good thing, since I could take the train and not worry about accidents and flooding on the freeways.
My Alaska Airlines flight made it out of San Francisco airport after a delay of an hour or so. It was a choppy take-off in San Francisco, with no in-flight beverage service and a bumpy landing in Seattle! Yikes. I guess we are all a little spoiled with smooth flying. Not used to flying in rough weather.
It’s always flight 222 on Monday mornings to San Franscisco for me : an easy number to remember. Flight numbers are usually taken out of use after a crash or a serious incident, and the lower numbers are used for premium flights. So is there an Alaska Airlines Flight 1? Why, yes. It’s the flight that departs Washington, D.C. every day at 8 am, for Seattle.
It’s back to San Francisco tomorrow, and so my bags are packed. I see I missed a story last week of a woman that brought her ’emotional support’ pig onto an airplane in Connecticut. (The pig ended up not flying; see the report from ABC News > here). Since I don’t have a pig to take traveling with me, I will confess that back when I traveled to China for three weeks at a time, I would take a book that I loved, and would make very sure I have my iPad with my TIME magazines downloaded and my favorite music on it, though. (To ’emotionally support’ me while traveling).
