Good-bye CA!

I couldn't have had a nicer last day in San Francisco. I forgot how tired I was!

I woke up to Abby's voice inviting me to lunch, as she's in DC these days! Still muddled with sleep, I tried to tell her about my crazy Spinal Tap dream, and then we figured out a coffee date. I can't wait.

I left the house around 8, made my way to Berkeley no problem, and met with an admissions officer in the Information School. Good, informative stuff. But at this point, I think I'd rather just keep working for the Electric Sheep than take time off for school.

I met Sue (my former boss from the Wellesley Library Conservation Lab) for lunch at noon at the Ferry Building, and we got each other caught up on our jobs. Note to self: must remember to send her some machinima of Second Life; she was pretty curious about it all.

Mavis joined us after that, and we went up to Coit Tower. We got to take an Italian streetcar there! I guess San Francisco uses all kinds of historic streetcars from cities around the world. Very cool. And what a cool job it would be to be a streetcar mechanic in SF! So we got to see the amazing views from the tower, which made me homesick/impatient for Enger Tower in Duluth, and then we wandered down some lovely staircases and back towards the center of the city.

Bus delays diverted us from seeing the Palace of Fine Arts, but we had a nice walk though the Civic Center area of town instead and got to check out the nice public library. Sue headed home after that, and I picked up my luggage from Mavis's apartment and took off for Pixar to visit Mike. Mike who is still listed in my phone as Mike Beer, because when we exchanged numbers at Bohemian Caverns ages ago, he told me his middle name was beer. I think it's true.

I got to Pixar shortly before six (and got a snack from the proverbial milk and cereal kichen! Way cool.). I got the personalized tour of the building, which is filled with great movie- and non-movie-related artwork, and kicked myself for not having seen The Incredible or Cars. I even got to see the server room. Boy do their graphics take a lot of computing power! We got dinner, we tossed my frisbee around on the lush lush lawn, we convinced me that San Francisco really is a fantastic place to live. Now I'm at Oakland airport waiting for a delayed red-eye back to DC. Tired and happy.

Thanks so much to all of my hosts this week - Sibley, Mavis and Nia and Maya, Sue and Mike.