I've been back for almost 5 days now, and I finally feel recovered. We took the red eye back on Tuesday, and I wimped out and ended up taking Wednesday off. We finally had some great weather, and ended up having a great rest of the trip. Some highlights:
Muir Woods: Ok, how many of you when you think of redwoods, think of these huge fat trees? Lets just say I was disappointed. The ones we saw were tall, but I was expecting the kind you can drive a car though the middle. I later found out that these trees are a type of redwood, but are known as seqouias, and are only found in extreme spotty locals throughout mostly eastern California. Still some cool trees though.
Napa Valley: We ended up renting a car one day and heading about an hour north on up to Napa Valley. San Francisco is the only town I know of where it is cheaper to rent a car and to park it overnight. Car Rental: $40. Overnight Parking: $42. Gotta love big cities! Anyway, Napa was cool, 1000's of acres of grapes, nothing was real green yet, as the grapes were just budding, but you wouldn't believe the rows and rows. We ended up taking a tour of the Robert Mondavi winery which was extremely cool. Its amazing how tedious wine making is. The tour also included some very good wine at the end and I ended up bringing just a bit back with me. I fell in love with a desert wine they had which was the 2004 Moscato d'Oro.
Golden Gate Bridge: No explanation required.
Alcatraz: Ended up taking the boat out to Alcatraz Island. Cool ride and got to see some good views of the city. This place is a lot bigger than I thought. Its also funny, because The Rock, happened to be on TV the night before we visited. It was pretty cool to walk the halls of the place where some of our nations criminals once called home. It surprised me to find out that the place has been closed since the 1960's and several of the buildings are in a state of disrepair.
ScootCar: We ended up having some free time our last afternoon, so we decided to rent this small little four wheeler and hop around the city. The first one they gave us, wouldn't even go up the smallest of hills, with two big dudes in it, so we ended going back and getting the big boy. This thing was awesome, it was a little intimidating to be surrounded by traffic, but you could go almost anywhere in it, and probably got up to around 30 mph. People were pointing and laughing everywhere.

Two days down in San Francisco, and we've yet to experience what I'd call a beautiful day. We've had some good times, but man it won't stop raining. When you think about California coming from the midwest, I always think of this tropical warm paradise, but in reality northern California really isn't all that warm. Its actually been warmer back in Detroit the last two days. At least we're supposed to see some sunshine in the next couple of days.
On to things about the city. Where do I start? This place is incredible and unlike any other place I've visited. I would still rank New York City as my favorite city of all time, but San Francisco has some good things going for it, and is quickly moving up the list. I've never seen a city so diverse, from chinese, to blacks, to gays, I've never seen a city so integrated and accepting of one another. Some of this may come from the fact that I live in one of the most racially divided cities in America, but SF is definately a very understanding place. Another thing about San Fran, is the unbelievably hilly terain. Its almost difficult to walk some of the streets. In fact when riding in street cars you almost become uncomfortable with the amount of slope on normal city streets. The whole streetcar thing is extremely cool by the way and in fact the public transportation here is absolutely incredible.
We've done an incredible amount of walking and have been able to catch some cool sites. Highlights so far:
Incredible seefood. Nothing like two guys putting down three pounds of crab, along with a couple of good ol fahsioned mojitos. A meal has to be good if you have to wear a bib, don't you agree? I think I look pretty good. We ended up eating at a place called the Crab House which is located down in Fishermans Wharf on Pier 39.
Chinatown: San Fran has one of the better Chinatowns that I've seen. Our hotel is right on the outermost edge of Chinatown, and I would say its probably a five block by five block area. Everything is written in Chinese, and everyone seems to speak chinese. Good food also. We ended up eating at a little place called the R and G lounge which was at the recommendation of our hotel staff. I know it sounds like a cheap nightclub but it was actaully quite good.Baseball: We had an opportunity to catch the Oakland Athletics at home this afternoon. So that now puts me with 6 stadiums down and only something like 24 to go. Not a real nice stadium, but good baseball none the less. One of the first games I've ever left before it was over, and we missed an incredible comeback by the Rangers in the top of the ninth. At least we got our free Huston Street bobblehead. FYI: If anyone is interested I happen to have a Huston Street bobblehead doll for sale for 10 dollars. If interested please inquire within. Architecture: One of my great joys of visiting any major city is just walking the streets and taking in the sights and sounds. Buildings amaze me and I could look at cityscapes all day. If I had one ounce of artistic creativity in me I believe I may have been able to pursue this deep down hidden passion of mine. Anyway, San Fran has some great buildings and along with the waterfront and hills, offers some outstanding views. Its hard to believe that just 100 years ago, this entire place was leveled in an earthquake and then the fire that followed. They said something like 28,000 buildings were leveled in the carnage.
The next couple of days should be good, we're planning on heading on up to Napa Valley tomorrow and then hitting some more city streets along with Alcatraz on Tuesday.
Toodles!

Hey its a week before Easter, and next Saturday I leave for a small four day vacation to the beautiful, scenic San Francisco! This was one of those last minute trips that me and my buddy Mike planned just a couple of weeks ago. San Francisco won because a) I handn't been there before b) we got pretty cheap plane tickets. So there you have it, my secret behind planning trips. We're staying downtown and so far the list includes the normal, Alcatraz, Fishermans Wharf, Golden Gate, etc. We're going to try to do most of it relying on public transportation so that should be interesting. Will catch the Oakland A's one day, and the day we leave, we are planning on renting a car and heading on up to wine country, before we take the red eye back on Tuesday night and hopefully head into work on Wednesday morning.

Ok, I picked up another nickname this week. Yeah its stupid, but you can now refer to me as Head Band. I kind of like it, I'll say its original at least. Here's how it came about. Earlier in the week, I went with some friends to a local pub after work, and we were flirting with the waitress a bit. So we go around the table and introduce ourselves. I'm last and say in this suave manner "and Ben" at the end of the introductions. Well, me being me, and tending to mumble my words, she thinks I just said my name was Head Band, and starts to rib me about it. My buddies got an extreme kick out of this, and for the past week have been calling me Head Band. So feel free to join in on the party.

Well, if you're wondering, yes, I still have a job. At least for another month or so. There are rumors flying again that more cuts are coming. Tuesday was ugly, and everyone was on pins and needles. Overall it sounds like they got somewhere between 400 and 500 individuals. I'll say I personally knew 4 or 5 of them. This one was weird because some decent individuals with over 20 years were walked out the door, and is the first time that GM has actaully fired anyone outright in years. It seemed like it was mostly managers and others with company vehicles. The next round is supposed to dig more into the "grunt" workers as I call them. The media coverage was intense, it was all you heard about on the radio, tv, newspaper, news vans were everywhere, you would have thought that a major murder or something had gone down. On a positive note did anyone catch 60 Minutes on Sunday night? If you did you got a sneak peak at what will hopefully be my next vehicle in about 2 years. I didn't catch the show, but overall from what I've heard, they gave us some decent press, which would be a first in a while. Theres a small snipet here. Click on the GM's push for Better design video on the right hand side of the page.

I got to catch my beloved Pistons in action for the first time live this year on Sunday. A good time all around. It was a special GM deal, and at halftime we got to go eat a bunch of free food, in a fancy conference room. I always find it funny, how people act when the prospect of free food is presented to them. It makes what I would call normal indivduals behave in strange ways. Hey, who wants to see if they can eat six hotdogs? How about a handful of five cookies? You can't make this stuff up. Good game all around though, they were down big in the first half, but came back and pulled it out against the Phoenix Suns in the end. They also ended up cliniching home court advantage through the Eastern Conference finals. Sorry Chris, but your Pacers are fading fast.

I also experiended my first ever live comedy club this week. Mark Ridleys Comedy Castle on amateaur night. There was a gentlemen from work performing and out of the 12 acts that went, only one guy truly bombed, which I though was pretty impressive. His Enema Man routine was pretty good. Lets just say, if you can't accept humor about sex, religion, racism, or did I say sex?, you probably wouldn't be a fan of comedy clubs.

Until we meet again,
Toodles!