Destination Daly City

Okay, so it might not be the most glamorous of locales, the fog – shrouded city southwest of San Francisco, but it’s on the line, and since I have to head downtown at the ungodly hour of 430am, it seems to work best for me. Not one to hop into a car to make the commute (gas, parking, bridge toll, insurance), the BART train seems the most efficient form of transportation. Not only that, but it’s kind of fun as well. I can sleep or read, (two of my favorite pursuits in life) or I can gaze out the window and ponder the meaning of my existence. Now, “ponder the meaning of my existence” might not be as in-depth as you might be think – it could be something like: “man, I’m really hungry” or “I wonder if it’s going to rain today”, heavy topics such as that.

All this brings me to this post – I thought it might be fun to bring my laptop with me on the train. Change my habits. Make my mind think a bit more in the morning. I have an oldish IBM Thinkpad that I use at home. I usually just plug it into the wall, log into the wireless network, and I’m good to go. Then I thought: “Why not get a good battery, and take this show on the road?” After all, the laptop itself isn’t really much heavier than some books that I’ve lugged around for a few months, and I can work on making myself a little more productive on the rides to and from work. Not to mention being able to post items for my invisible readers more frequently.

Guess what? I did, and I have. I received my sparkly new battery Saturday (USPS – hooray!) and now I have freedom of movement with this thing. Yesterday being a holiday, I was forced to drive, so today is the first real run through. Postings will now abound! Mobile computing shall reign supreme!

We’ll see how long it lasts…

I was reading a column written by a gentleman in a daily newspaper here. He spoke of how after many years of writing 700 words on a daily basis there have been changes made in the layout of the page in which his work is displayed. As a result, his column word count has now increased, and he is finding it difficult to change. The key was not so much his struggle to find more words (although for anyone who writes this can be a huge challenge) but that he wrote 700 words every day. Seemed pretty amazing to me – I mean, wouldn’t you run out of stuff to write about after a while? Sitting down every single day to put together coherent thoughts, then transfer them to paper (or computer) and have people read what you have written – whew! Don’t think I could do it, which of course makes me want to try, stupid man that I am…

As my word count approaches 500, and my train time is coming to an end for this morning, I run into a deadline of sorts myself. Can I get the requisite number of words written? Will the ride end before I can type something profound and meaningful?

Probably not.

Maybe, just maybe, though, I’ll get into the habit of it – be able to have the words connect in my brain, transmit themselves down my arms to my fingers, and type them out into a 700 word essay that might be fun to read. Or boring. One never knows.

On the stretch run now. Entering into the transbay tube (great name for a tunnel under the bay) and increasing speed to fly through it as quickly as possible, arriving underground in my fair city to begin yet another workday. Ah, what promise the new day will bring! Of course, that’s only if I can keep my eyes open to see it…

Wow, just checked my word count, was 653 when I started this paragraph… seems getting to 700 is somewhat easy. Of course, making sense to someone who is reading it, and doing so every day, is the struggle, the challenge. Wish me luck, invisible reader, here we go.

Why I love San Francisco - Part 1

Seems I was chided recently by a not so invisible reader that I should post more often...

So I'm standing in line for the movie, in my own little world - reading the sign over the self serve ticket machine perhaps - when I feel the presence of a human behind me... I slowly turn my head and into my field of vision enter two piles of gray hair on top of tiny bodies... two ladies in their mid 70's, quite a bit less than five feet in height, checking out the big board to confirm their movie selection... as I take this all in, a patch of bright catches my eye and I take in the visage of a large man, dressed all in white, from his hat to his shoes, solo run for him as well it appears, gazing at the big board... think to myself what a great city...

J seems to have changed a bit, things have smoothed out quite nicely...

Today was beautiful... wispy clouds against the blue sky, first warm day in about six weeks, spring time feel, was really nice...

Tired now, IRs... shall bid you all the happiness you can stand...