Chris Poch

Today, we rented a car and left San Francisco. We headed east to Yosemite National Park, the home of the giant sequoia trees, many beautiful mountains, and waterfalls. The drive was very interesting–a chance to get to see the rural part of California. We spent more than four hours in the park, first hiking up to see some of the famous sequoia trees and then driving to the Yosemite Valley, which is bordered by majestic mountains and graceful waterfalls.

We’re staying at the Best Western that’s about half an hour south of the park entrance. Once again, I have free in room internet access. However, this time, we have three queen size beds arranged as two rooms with a bathroom and wet bar in the middle. It’s much more comfortable than the Adante Hotel, which had two double beds in a closet size room.

Tomorrow, we’ll get back on the road and head to Monterey. I don’t know where we’re staying and what amenities they offer, so I may be offline until Sunday.

Today, while waiting with the luggage in the Adante Hotel’s lobby, I witnessed firsthand how unusual some of our American ways seem to the rest of the world. First, I noticed a car pull up in front of the hotel. The rental agent got out, and a lady got in. She and another lady loaded their luggage, but then just seemed to sit there. At one point, she pulled up about six feet, then stopped. The second lady had gone back into the hotel lobby and was standing there looking confused. My sister asked me what kind of car my parents were picking up, and I told her I had no idea. The lady overheard me, asked me if I was American, and asked for help with their rental car. Their Chevy Mailbu had a tap on / tap off floor pedal to control the parking brake. The ladies thanked me and said something about their rental in New York had a normal parking brake in the center console. Ironically, my parents ended up with a Malibu as a rental. My dad struggled to figure out the parking brake too.

The second interesting exchange that took place in the hotel lobby was between the guy at the front desk and a man from Germany. The man seemed upset about the accomodations in his room. Apparently, he booked a room for four people and the hotel gave him a room for two. A few exchanges later, it came out that the man thought that a twin bed slept two people. It seems that in Germany, what we would call a twin bed is referred to as a single bed. Fortunately, the hotel had extra rooms with two double beds available, and they were able to get him into a room that would sleep four people.

Today, we visited the Golden Gate park (not near the bridge), went to seal rock, rode the famous cable cars, and enjoyed the waterfront. Inside Golden Gate Park, we visited the Japanses Tea Gardens and also walked through the Botanical Gardens.

Today’s lunch was Cathay House in Chinatown. I had beef with mixed Chinese vegetables. It seemed that the only vegetable used was something that vaguely resembled celery. The beef was fatty and chewy. And don’t get me started on their brown sauce. The only redeeming factor was the Oolong tea that they served with the meal. For dinner, we returned to In-N-Out Burger. It’s already a favorite. To quote one of the guys from my office “general note about eating in California: In-N-Out Burger: wherever you see one, stop and eat!” I agree.

Tonight is our last night in San Francisco. Tomorrow morning, we pick up our rental car and head to Yosemite National Park. No word on the internet access for the rest of the trip.

Today was spent in San Francisco. We’re staying at the Adante hotel. Today, we started by walking through Union Square on our way to visit Chinatown, where we toured the Golden Gate fortune cookie factory.

We looked at the Trans American pyramid building, but it’s no longer open to the public.

Continuing on to Fisherman’s Warf, we took a cruise from Pier 39. The cruise showed us Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Angel Island (the Ellis Island of the west) up close.

Lunch was at Boudin cafe, where I had a bread bowl of chili. In the afternoon, we hiked up to Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill, which has panoramic views of the entire San Francisco Bay area.

An afternoon Segway tour of the waterfront introduced us to Segway human transports. The tour ended at the Palace of Fine Arts. Dinner was at In-N-Out Burger. On the way back to the hotel, we walked down the famous block of Lombard Street, which has 8 switchbacks on a 40 degree slope.

Just arrived at the hotel in San Francisco, where we’ll be staying for the first two days of the trip. Jet Blue has great in flight service, but they ripped part of my suitcase that was checked. Nothing duct tape won’t fix.

I’ll have web access the next two days while I’m in San Francisco. After that, I don’t know if I’ll be online or not.

During holiday weekend, I spent a lot of time in DC. Over four days, I spent every evening downtown. FridayI went down with my mom and sister to see the Folk Life festival. This year, the topics were Food Culture, Oman, and the Forest Service. I didn’t like the exhibits as much as those from some previous years.

Saturday evening, I brought the family back downtown for a tour of the monuments, memorials, and the waterfront on bike. I think that riding bikes is the best way to see many of the famous landmarks downtown. The weather was perfect for being out on a bike. The only thing that could have made it better would have been fewer people blocking the sidewalks.

Sunday night, I went to see the dress rehersal of A Capitol Fourth on the steps of the capitol. I got to see Barry Botswick, Gloria Estefan, Sharon Lawrence, The O’Jays, and Ronan Tynan. Gloria Estefan and the Beach Boys were the headline acts, but for the dress rehersal, the part of the Beach Boys was played entirely by musicians who were not yet born when the real Beach Boys burst into the music scene. Gloria Estefan was excellent, as were most of the other performers. They had some technical issues between O’Jays songs, so they were cracking jokes with the audience. Overall, it was an excellent evening and a fun time.

Monday night, I met up with The Gathering to watch the fireworks. The location where we told people to meet was fenced off because “that’s where the fireworks land.” We ended up getting equally good seats between the reflecting pool and the Lincoln memorial. It was a fun evening–even the reorganized Metro system with all the lines the wrong colors and my mad dash across the Memorial bridge on foot to get to the Arlington Cemetary metro station.

We’re closing the company early today! The CEO’s assistant says it’s because of Canada Day, but I blame that on her being French Canadian. Whatever excuse it takes to leave early is good enough for me.

Last night was a fun night at The Gathering. John gave the sex talk, which is one of the best sex talks I’ve heard. You can hear it (once it’s posted as Part 5) here. Reminds me of Jim Pace from [nlcf]’s story about how the first two times he ever gave a talk about sex, his mother decided to come and visit. Talk about a hard message to give, especially since there was new (to her) information in it.

The event of the night was the guest appearance of This Holiday Life for the closing song during the service. Later that evening, they gave a concert. For those of you who have never heard of This Holiday Life, they’re currently on tour with Switchfoot and used their night off to come and play for us. They sound a lot like Switchfoot and put on a good, although short, show.

This week has been productive but busy at work. I’m in the process of replacing one of the machines that I use on a daily basis right now. It’s been running on a 5+ year old machine that’s outlasted its useful life. A build that takes over an hour on the server takes less than 10 minutes on my 2 year old work computer. Hopefully, my project will start moving faster once I get it over to a year old machine.

Once again, I’ve managed to slip into a cycle that doesn’t include posting. Blacksburg was fun last weekend, everything except getting a ticket on the 460 bypass coming into town. What really sucks about that is I was in the right lane going the same speed as the other cars, but I’m the one they decided to pull over. I enjoyed getting a chance to catch up with people who I hadn’t seen for over a month. Oh, and now I have Mill Mountain coffee at home. Mmmmm . . .