Of Cabbages and Kings

Day Five

8:54:36 AM PST, Monday, August 11, 2003 CE
Room 201, Comfort Inn, San Francisco, CA

Woke up, ate a bagel. Yum. Walked down what I believe was the gayest street in America, seeing as how it was the gayest street in one of the country's gayest cities. Walked by several hundred pairs of men holding hands. Yeah. Good food, though. And they're really friendly - we stopped in a shop to buy something, I don't remember what, and the owner talked to us for fifteen minutes. Nice guy.

Went to Uncle Bob and Jean's place after that. That's my Mom's uncle Bob and his wife, Jean. They're really cool. He kept trying to give me catalogues and CDs and things. At first I was bewildered, but later he told me that when he was my age his parents would drag him around all the time to see old people and he would be bored out of his skull. I learned that my Mom's dad, when he read books, would tear out the pages once he'd read them. Why would he do such a thing? So that Grandma couldn't save them (her condo has several actual mountains of boxes full of things inside it, and I'm amazed her car will carry all the things she's put in there). Crazy stuff. Had sushi at this place, I don't remember what it was called. At the end, they gave everyone liquor and gave me Botan Rice Candy. It's actually pretty good stuff. Yum. Then I came back here and watched Old School.

Yes.

Day Three

10:05:37 PM PST, Thursday, August 7, 2003 CE
Room 201, Comfort Inn, San Francisco, CA

Yeah. I've been prevented from accessing the Internet all day.

First thing we did was visit the Sony Metreon. It's this four-story monument to Sony. Great stuff. As with everything here in San Francisco, all of the goods sold in the place's many stores are approximately three times the price that same goods would be in San Antonio. Just goes to show... something. A tree. I'm not sure what it goes to show, but it does it, by Jove.

Yes.

What was I rambling on about? The Metreon. Right. I whiled away a happy hour in their arcade before I realized that every single game was crap. Then I watched some guy play Dance Dance Revolution. He was good. The movement of his feet broke my brain for a while as I tried to grasp how he could be moving that fast. Then I left and had sushi in that very building (Sony's a Japaneses company, after all). Then I tried to go upstairs to their Internet Lounge thing. I spent fifteen minutes waiting for someone to get off of a computer so that I could type all of this up. During that time this very short, very fat Korean guy walked up to me and sat down. He was equipped with the most electronic equipment I'd ever seen outside of The Sharper Image. While I was admiring the view, he grunted, got up, and - I swear to you - sprinted to a computer that had just been vacated. This was after I had been there for ten minutes. I would have yelled at him or something, but it wasn't like I had any pressing business and anyway he scared the hell out of me. When I finally got to a computer and logged in, it told me that popups had been disabled and it wouldn't let me enable them. I type these entries up in a popup window.

Yes.

Then we went back to the hotel room. Relaxation ensued. We got up and left. We took the bus to the Exploratorium. That place is, in a word, intense. There are tons of exhibits, all hands-on, all fun as hell. They're designed for kids but they're still fun, dammit. I was entertained for the full two hours I had until they closed. And it was good.

Yes.

Then I walked to this Ghiraldi Square place. I was already very tired and sleep-deprived, for no readily apparent reason, so I didn't really want to be there, but I dutifully explored anyway. The place was like a small Quarry composed entirely of cheap bars and souvenir stores.

No. Bad.

I had pizza for dinner. It was good. Then I came back here. It's freezing out there, I think I lost my left foot to frostbite in the six-block hike (uphill both ways!) to the hotel. However, I am here now. And I'm typing. And that's the end of the day.

Good night. 

12:35:47 PM PST, Friday, August 8, 2003 CE
INFOPUB-39, Doe Memorial Library, Berkley campus, San Francisco, CA

Berkley.

I'm going on this tour thing in a little while, I get to check out the campus and apparently do some sort of pre-admission thing.

Yay.

This morning, after another bagel, I went out and saw the fabled Crookedest Street in the World. It's not really crooked, just really curvy. I don't know what the big deal is, but there were at least fifty people walking down it and there was a line to drive down the thing. Nice view, though. Then we were off to find a cable car to take us to the BART, a sort of sub/superway (it switches between aboveground and underground. Spooky.) thing that took us here. The cable car was like a really loud, really slow bus. Imported from Milan, Italy.

Exotic.

==========

5:19:31 PM PST, Friday, August 8, 2003 CE
Room 201, Comfort Inn, San Francisco, CA

So.

I toured Berkley for an hour and a half. Wasn't remotely interested, spent most of the time just watching the people who passed by. I saw a security guard on a Segway. It was crazy fast.

I made a new grammatical construction. Yay.

Then we went down Telegraph Street. In it I saw people whom I'd never suspected existed outside of Blade Runner, Hackers, and most sci-fi B movies. You know, the guys with more piercings than you'd think possible, holding up signs that say "Will work for REVOLUTION!" and such. Yes, I actually saw someone holding up a sign that said that. I would have taken a picture, but I think he would have eaten me. I stopped inside this Amoeba Music place, picked up some Hendrix and Zepplin. On the way back up Telegraph, a guy walked up to my family and said "Spare change for crack cocaine?" It was crazy. I also saw another guy holding up a sign saying "Spare change for pot (it's my birthday)."

Fun.

Then we took the BART back to town. We were pretty tired out, so Dad got the bright idea to take a cab. I almost died many times in that ride. I'm pretty sure that less than half of the maneuvers he executed were legal. I heard more honking of horns on that ride than I'd ever heard, ever. It was crazy.

==========

12:03:36 AM PST, Saturday (I suppose it is, technically), August 9, 2003
Room 201, Comfort Inn, San Francisco, CA

Just got back from a tour of Alcatraz. Great stuff. You know, that prison out in the water in the middle of the bay. Great view from there, got plenty of photos. The tour itself wasn't exactly primo stuff, but it was still kind of cool. Ate dinner. It was good. Nothing else to report. Get some shut-eye.

Day Two.

=====================

9:33:25 AM PST, Thursday, August 7, 2003 CE
Room 201, Comfort Inn, San Francisco, CA

Morning.

This morning, it took me three hours to wake up. After that, I spent thirty seconds putting
on clothes, grabbing my hotel key, and exiting the room. My room is right next to the ele-
vator, so I just walked the five feet to the "down" button and discovered that it was al-
ready lit. I then noticed that there were three French women standing next to me, staring
at me. When they saw me look up, one of them pointed to the evactuation chart and started
talking to the others, who listened dutifully. After thirty seconds, they all left. I waited
for five minutes. The doors slid open and I saw the most full elevator ever - this sucker
was crammed. I couldn't squeeze myself in, so I just let them go. I waited for another five
minutes. The French women came and left when they saw me still standing there. Another min-
ute. A car came going up - no good. Another two. Finally a car came with enough room for me
and the five Mexican guys standing behind me.

I ate breakfast. Two minimuffins and a bagel. It was good.

On my way back up here, I had to use the elevator again (stairs have an alarm that'll go off
if you try to use 'em). There was a boy of about 12 standing there alone, waiting for the
thing to arrive; he'd already pressed the "up" button. He stared at me for five seconds and
then slowly inched away, never turning his back to me and always keeping eye contact. He was
almost out the door of the hotel by the time that the car came.

He didn't get on.

Am I really that scary?

Day One.

10:12:44 AM CST, Wednesday, August 6, 2003 CE
Gate 30, Continental/American West, San Antonio Airport, San Antonio, TX

My flight leaves at 11:20 and I have a whole lot of nothing to do
between now and then. I'd fall asleep, except that I'm getting a little too big to squeeze
my body through those solid metal armrests inconveniently placed on either side of my chair;
I can't really lift the things out of like I could in a movie theater. Pretty inconsiderate
of the airports, if you ask me. I can't imagine why they wouldn't want drunks spending the
night in these chairs, taking up space and scaring away customers.

Quite a mystery.

Speaking of torsos, I'm sitting across from a woman with legs so long that I am not wholly
convinced that she actually possesses an upper body. She's wearing an appropriately sized
shirt, but somehow her legs do not visibly converge below it.

Spooky.

On the way through my security, my mother was stopped for the umpteenth time and was
subjected to a search of her carry-on. This happens to her every time we ever go through
airport security, ever. During their random checks where they pull aside every nth person
in line, she is always one of those picked. She's also always picked in any and every other
search being conducted at the time. Doesn't she look suspicious to you?

==========

12:48:24 PM CST, Wednesday, August 6, 2003 CE
Gate C31, Continental/American West, Houston Airport, Houston, TX

My flight to Frisco leaves at 2:38. That's right, I have a full 1:50 layover. I just
picked up a pizza - tasted much better than I expected - and scoped out the candy shop and
finally made my way over here.

I love this pre-recorded announcement that's played every five minutes or so. You know,
the one where they say that they will treat all untended belongings as bombs. The best
part is right after that, where they say "Please keep in mind that any suspicious remarks
or jokes regarding airline security will lead to your arrest and subsequent execution by
a firing squad, you poor bastard. Have a nice day."

I took a few liberties with that one, yes, but you know they meant to say it.

I am now beginning my long and arduous wait. I'll be lucky to survive.

with
James? Tune in next week to...what? What the hell do you mean, I'm 'not on a TV show'?
There's a microphone right - oh. I forgot. I'm typing. Sorry, I'll just be leaving now.
</ANNOUNCER>

==========

3:58:48 PM PST, Wednesday, August 6, 2003 CE
Somewhere several miles above California

Well, I made it. The flight's been interesting so far. It seems that there's a rule that
whenever I'm on an airplane, there has to be a nun on board. Oh, and a hot chick. The rule
holds true yet again on this flight.

On the way to the restroom and back, I was told at least five times "Nice shirt!" and
"Mass burnination, dude!" Yeah, there are a lot of people my age on board.

The entire time, I've had this eight-year-old girl right behind me with her laptop. She's
been playing old Disney movies as loudly as the laptop will permit, which is plenty loud,
believe you me. I'm amazed that the pilot hasn't come back here, taken it from her, opened
up a door, and chucked the damn thing out, altitude, temperature, and air pressure be
damned. Ah, well.

She keeps kicking me. Ow.

==============

5:31:39 PM PST, Wednesday, August 6, 2003 CE
Avis Rent-a-car, San Francisco, CA

During the flight they announced that we were initiating our descent and should
turn off all electronic devices. This in itself would be wholly unremarkable except for the
fact not only did I turn off my laptop but the girl behind me turned off hers. Then I saw
why her parents brought the blasted thing on the flight anyway. She began to speak.

She spoke of how excited she was to be coming back home, of how far away her house was from
the airport. She then uttered the fateful words, "Oh, look! The San Mateo Bridge!" From
that point on until the time I disembarked from the plane, she spouted nonsense about the
bridge and somewhere in there, for the space of about five minutes straight, she said "Mom!
We're about to fly over the San Mateo Bridge! We're about to fly over the San Mateo Bridge!
We're almost flying over the San Mateo Bridge! We're flying over the San Mateo Bridge! We're
flying over the San Mateo Bridge! We flew over the San Mateo Bridge!". At one point in our
descent, she said "San Mateo Bridge" seven times in less than a minute. I counted.

Oh, and after getting off the plane I found that the little girl was actually a little boy.
Yeah.

==========

6:51:47 PM PST, Wednesday, August 6, 2003 CE
Room 201, Comfort Inn, San Francisco, CA

Most of my updates will be from this location from now on, most likely. We just got here and
I'm getting myself situated. It's my parents' 20th anniversary, so Dad had a little surprise
waiting for Mom when we got here and we're going out to eat tonight. Tasty.

More news as it develops.

==========

11:13:28 PM PST, Wednesday, August 6, 2003 CE
Room 201, Comfort Inn, San Fracisco, CA

Just got back from what I believe was the best dinner ever. When we got there and sat down,
they gave us each a glass of, I think they said, lime and goat cheese. It was delicious.
We proceeded to dine on our five-course meal (it being my parents' 20th anniversary, they
decided to have a nice feast) which consisted of the smallest, most beautiful, and probably
best-tasting morsels I've ever experienced. It included some business with a gooose liver
and some very tasty sweetbreads. We were originally going to go out on some boat restaurant
or something, but they had an equipment failure so we went to this La Folie place within
three minutes' walking distance of our hotel. It was great stuff. We had one of the best
waitresses ever, the chef and his brother (both owners of the restaurant) came out and
talked to us for a while, and at the end they gave us some awesome desserts in my parents'
honor.

I am reminded of two occasions at camp that have no bearing whatsoever on this past discourse.

The FAs did the Hall of Torches again this year, as usual. What are FAs? Counselors at camp
pick a few guys every week who they feel are basically pretty good guys (most of the time,
with some exceptions) and make them part of the Order of the Flaming Arrow. We help out
around camp. We do this Hall of Torches thing before one of the closing ceremonies on the
last night of camp. We all strip down to our shorts and bare feet and paint a big white
arrow on our chests. We are then outfitted with torches and hold them, unmoving and express-
ionless, as the non-FAs walk through the hall we've formed. Then we give our torches to
Tony (the sponsor) to douse in the river. It's kind of boring, except for the part where you
get to hold a flaming stick. On my way to get my torch doused, I got my hands and feet
burned. The burns weren't that bad, but they negated the coolness factor of the torches and
made me think that I was going to come out behind for the night as far as fun factor was
concerned. However, as I stood in line to get said torch extinguished, the biggest beetle
I'd ever seen came out of nowhere, flew right into my torch, caught on fire, fell to the
ground, and died a spectacular death. It was beautiful.

Bloodworth was there again this year. He got up to his usual antics. At one point halfway
through the term, someone gave him a hard hat and he pilfered a hammer. He then went around
to each and every cabin and hit things with the hammer for five to ten minutes per cabin. He
grinned the entire time and didn't say a word. You can't read.

Go to sleep.

Cadets.

Cadets class at camp was awesome. We did pointless stuff for most of the classes just to see if we could do it (climbing a rope, swimming a certain distance and back completely underwater [stealthily], climbing a slick, near-vertical hill without using your hands, etc.), but in the end we planned for Night Maneuvers. Night Maneuvers is, traditionally, a series of missions completed by Cadets in the middle of the night without being seen. This year, we had to find seven pieces of paper hidden in various spots around the camp. We had forty-five minutes to do so. We could not be seen. There would be four people (Haters, they were called) who would roam said spots looking for us and, upon capturing one of us, would loose plenty of five-stars upon our backs. I was introduced to the concept of the five-star over the past month: you carry it out by slapping someone on the back so hard that you raise a nice welt, leaving the imprint of five fingers.

However, this year there was a little addition to the program.

That night, one of the cabins was going on a raid (they were going to find a way into the camp store to steal candy and Cokes). The counselor of this cabin just happened to be the counselor who taught Cadets. He went ahead and got the Cokes and candy to make it easy for his kids, but he put them in the middle of the chapel - a large, lightless, open-air affair complete with all sorts of vines. He left the loot under a tree for his kids to grab. So, in the middle of the night, they ran - one by one, and not stealthily at all - to the spot, with the counselor leading them. After they all grabbed their candy and drinks and were proceeding to gorge themselves, he was heard to say "Quiet! Did you hear that sound?" and walk away from them, his flashlight on and sweeping the ground. All of a sudden, his flashlight went dead. That's when things got fun.

Half an hour previous to this time (somewhere around midnight), the Cadets class made their way to the chapel clad in nothing but shoes and black shorts. We proceeded to slather mud over our bodies - hair, eyelids, shoes, everything - until we were completely black and camouflaged. We split into four groups and each headed to a different hiding spot, asking others to verify that we could not be seen.

We could not be seen.

Then, we waited. Those ten minutes while the counselor went to get his kids and go on the raid were the longest ten minutes ever. We could not move, we could not speak, we could not shift our weight on pain of disturbing the kids. All of a sudden, I noticed a flicker of movement. A century passed. Then, I saw the campers run to the chapel where they all met the counselor. He played his flashlight over the ground, leading them to the spot - the beam just happened to avoid our positions. The kids ate. Another century passed. I stifled a gasp as a firefly suddenly flashed within an inch of my head. The campers didn't even look up, and I had to also stifle a sigh of relief. The counselor spoke, walked off, turned off the flashlight. The signal was given. Slowly, we each gathered handfuls of mud from our similarly camouflaged buckets and moved in a creeping, crouching walk toward the campers. We did not make a sound. All of a sudden, one of them mumbled something about a tree. His words were cut short by a torrent of mud and a cackle, both from above his head. I later found out that, unbeknownst to the rest of the class, another camper and counselor had actually donned rapelling equipment and attached themselves to the top of the tree that the candy was situated under. Both held massive buckets of mud.

We moved in and, other than the camper above who never actually stopped laughing, didn't make a noise. That made it all the scarier for the children we had ambushed. Mud was slung, and I heard a cry of "It's in my EYE!". Our work done, we made our way to our meeting spot for the next and final segment of Night Maneuvers.

It was past 3 AM before I got to sleep that night. It was worth it.

Best pizza guy ever.

Picture this. It's a nice summer day, about 60 degrees, not a cloud in the sky. It's dusk and the sun is setting on downtown Anchorage (Alaska). I'm sitting in my hotel room on the 13th floor and I'm snug in my bed watching TV. I don't know what channel I was watching, it might have been the Sci-Fi channel; all I know is that cavemen were debating with large-brained aliens about whether or not technology would destroy the world. I think a meteor hit them or something.

Anyway, back to our story.

I'm lying in bed, half-asleep. All of a sudden, my head nearly implodes as a shockwave of sound tries to force its way through my ears straight into my brain. It's a siren, and it's very, very loud. The TV's turned off in the meantime. I look out the window and see darkness - which would make sense except for the fact that I was in a 13th floor hotel room in the middle of one of Alaska's busiest cities. Shortly thereafter I figure out that there's a power outage and the fire alarm is somehow rigged up to the circuit board so that when the power goes out, the alarm goes off. However, just to make sure I don't die a fiery death, I decide to walk all the way down to the lobby - I needed the exercise. About halfway down I run into a guy wearing a Papa John's hat and carrying several large pizzas. We chat and it turns out that the building is not on fire and I was indeed correct. He tells me that he's got a customer on the 20th floor and, since the elevator is out, he's got to walk the entire way. As I turned around to go back up to my room, I heard him muttering "I better get a tip for this."

Why the world is out to get me.

Over the years, I've had quite a few alarm clocks. Big one, small ones, short ones, tall ones. I'm afraid that I didn't have a Dr. Seuss one, that just came to me. Each one has been louder than the last, and yet I've managed to sleep through all of them except this one. This one is capable of playing 99.5 KISS at the decibel level of a rocket launch - and does every morning; it's the only way I ever get up.

However, there is something very wrong with this clock.

This clock cannot tell time. I have set it six or seven times over the past six months. Within two days, it always manages to count the seconds fast enough to set itself four minutes fast. It doesn't ever go any more or less than that; it's content at four minutes. I know because I've tried several times and it always stays there. Now, some people would say "Set the clock four minutes slow, you jackass! Why the hell are you bothering me with this inane chatter?" and proceed to spread lighter fluid around and torch the place (no specific place, just "place" in a general sense). Well, Mr. or Ms. I-am-king/queen-(here at JR's world, we're politically correct - sometimes)-of-the-world, I've already thought of that. Understand this:

The clock, when set four minutes slow in the hope that it will set itself four minutes fast, thus displaying the right time, will not count the seconds fast. It simply will not. It gives me the exact right time for as long as you care to stare at it, except four minutes slow. I believe you can plainly see that there is a conspiracy involved.

Creepy.

Right. I'm sitting here behind the Youth Wired desk at the library at my normal 1-4 shift (Sundays, volunteer work). About twenty-five feet away from me stand - or wiggle - four humans devoid of any intelligence whatsoever. They're four girls composing a song for the sole and express purpose of remembering the quadratic equation. I've been told that the song they've been playing on repeat for the past hour or so is some Busta Rhymes thing. Instead of the lyrics "Down (jump? get? I don't know) on it", they keep saying the word "Quadratics!" over and over again. B squared minus 4 AC has been repeated in four off-tune voices for the past two hours straight. They haven't taken a water break, a breathing break, nothing.

I suggested to Robert (the guy I work with, assist, grovel before, whatever) that we sell earplugs. We're waiting for the shipment to come in.

I think they have some sort of alien telepathy - they're all looking at me. Oh, never mind, I've just been burning holes in each of their foreheads with my eyes for the past hour or so. Perfectly normal behavior.

He was out there again.

Every morning when I'm driving to school, I pull out of the driveway and turn right down the hill. Every morning the same guy's there across the street, raking or sweeping or whatever the hell he does. He's always got some sort of long stick in his hand, so I think he sweeps stuff. I honestly have no idea what on earth there is for him to sweep; he stands stock-still on the same patch of pavement every day for several hours. Anyway, he's there at 6 AM in the morning when Dad wakes up and goes to get the paper - and he always wants to talk for long amounts of time. I think he's there till 9 AM, sweeping. He's never in the bathroom or closer to the house, tyding up - he's always parked in the same exact spot at the same exact time - like goddamned clockwork. And it's for this stubbornness or whatever the hell it is that I salute him.

The law of Mexican.

I was thinking again a few days ago. My thoughts had to do with Mexican restaurants, as I was driving along and happened to pass two of them. One of them was really big and must have been a chain of some sort; the other one was a little hut that I had never seen before and doubted that I'd ever see again. I was hungry and felt like having some good Mexican food, so I had to choose between the two. Without even thinking about it, I chose the shack. Why did I do such a thing? I'll tell you why. I did it because of a law of physics that I made up on the spot. The law goes something like this:

The smaller and rattier-looking the restaurant, the more likely it is that you're going to have some damn fine fajitas.

Is it not true? If I had the choice between going to the Picante Grill (a large, nice-looking, well-established Mexican place on Broadway) and going to the Tacqueria No Que No, I'd definitely choose the latter. The Tacqueria is - was - one of those shacks that I mentioned earlier and had the best Mexican food in town (surpassing Paloma Blanca; quite an achievement indeed). I say "was" because they closed down recently. Why's that? Because the Law of Mexican hasn't been properly publicized, since I've just now made it. Spread the word, stop by the hut near you, and enjoy your burrito.