What I Did On My Spring Vacation, A Photo Essay in Several Parts

First stop, San Francisco, where I met the Larges:

We rode the cable cars and took the BART over to Oakland to see the Warriors get their asses handed to them by the Sonics.  

We went to Haight-Ashbury, where I bought a bunch of used CDs at Amoeba and eavesdropped on record store clerks geeking out over whatever record store clerks geek out over these days:

And can I say, I'm really proud of the fact that I don't care that I didn't know what the hell they were talking about.  I just marched up to the counter with Madonna's first album & Randy Newman's Little Criminals.  I also bought the new Magnetic Fields and an older Bonnie Prince Billy, lest you think I've gone soft.  Oh, and Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend, which I had on cassette and lost sometime in the mid-90s.   I think the clerk must have taken a shine to me, because there was an extra Bonnie Prince Billy CD in my bag.  Awesome.  Thanks, record store dude.  You were cute, in that record store dude way.

The line to get into the Trader Joe's in San Francisco is just as long as the one on 14th Street in NYC, except you wait in your car, rather than on the sidewalk:

Then we watched the sunset from the top of the Bank of America building:

Wow.  Pretty sweet, huh?   The next morning, I headed north.  I'll get to that tomorrow, since Blogger's being a pain in the ass with the image uploading.  Stupid Blogger.

Weekend Tourist Fun

I love when my extended family comes to visit, because they're fun and I don't get to see them very often. And because it gives me an excuse to do touristy things that I normally wouldn't, like go to Top of the Rock. Here's the view to the north:

And to the south:

Step aside, Empire State Building, got to make room for Jersey in the photo. I also enjoyed the room with the motion-activated, light-up walls, which answered the age-old question, "What if Tron was sponsored by Target?"

Then I bought a Battlestar Galactica coffee mug in the NBC Universal gift shop. Because I am a geek.


Thanks to my awesome cousin Pam, who totally hooked us up with tickets. That's the great thing about being a tourist in your own town- someone can usually get you on the list. And Aunt Maggie, Aunt Mary Ellen, Becky, Lyn, Ainsley, Beth, Carlin, Amanda and Eliza? I love you all and it was great to spend the afternoon with you.

RIP Jules Dassin

In honor of his passing, I was going to link to Rififi's amazing jewel heist scene, which is so realistic & detailed that the filmed was banned in Mexico because thieves were using it as a burglary primer. I guess the Mexican government wrested control of YouTube from the Chinese, because I can't find it. Go rent the movie, you won't be sorry. As a consolation, here's the nightclub scene: