I've been busy the past couple of days because I had a short-notice trip that came up. I'm in San Jose, CA for a seminar and while looking around on the map I noticed it was near Palo Alto and San Francisco. So I decided to send David (ddrueding) a note asking him if he was around this week and much to my luck he was. I left Boston at 6:00AM and arrived in San Jose around 12:00PM. We met up at my hotel (in fact he beat me there because traffic was bad...and I got a little lost on 101).
After I got in, we headed back out and he was gracious enough to show me around the areas. We stopped at several places (a nice bird location which now I cannot remember the name of it) near where he lives. After that we headed on in to San Francisco for a nice tour. We parked the car and walked around taking pictures near the peers and through parts of the city near the bay bridge. After that we headed our way closer to the golden gate bridge in a few different locations. We found a nice path that was a couple miles to the bridge and walked it which was nice. We even got to walk part of the way across the bridge taking pictures until we decided to turn around (it was getting cold).
After that it was on to some more tours of of the down town area and off to get some food at (I think) Polker's Gourmet Burgers? David killed a double burger in record time while my slow ass had only consumed 1/4 of my single burger.
After that we drove by the classic lumbar street which I insisted we needed to drive down in the nice little forester from the rental car company. It was a hoot and worth the experience (not to forget some of the insane inclines on some of those fun streets). After that as it was getting darker we stopped at one last place to get a few pictures at the Hoit Tower.
Not to forget the great company; David was a nice guy to spend a large portion of his day with me touring around (many thanks). I had a great time and it was a fantastic experience meeting someone for the first time after all these years. I had to fly over 3000 miles to meet someone but would do it all again. The only down side to it all was the severe lack of sleep after a long day of flying. My day started at 3:00AM to get ready and leave for my 6:00AM flight. I didn't get to bed until midnight west coast, so I was up for basically 24 hours...but it was all worth it! Now onto more sleep before the conference starts again! I'll post some of the pictures once I can get them onto flickr.
After I got in, we headed back out and he was gracious enough to show me around the areas. We stopped at several places (a nice bird location which now I cannot remember the name of it) near where he lives. After that we headed on in to San Francisco for a nice tour. We parked the car and walked around taking pictures near the peers and through parts of the city near the bay bridge. After that we headed our way closer to the golden gate bridge in a few different locations. We found a nice path that was a couple miles to the bridge and walked it which was nice. We even got to walk part of the way across the bridge taking pictures until we decided to turn around (it was getting cold).
After that it was on to some more tours of of the down town area and off to get some food at (I think) Polker's Gourmet Burgers? David killed a double burger in record time while my slow ass had only consumed 1/4 of my single burger.
After that we drove by the classic lumbar street which I insisted we needed to drive down in the nice little forester from the rental car company. It was a hoot and worth the experience (not to forget some of the insane inclines on some of those fun streets). After that as it was getting darker we stopped at one last place to get a few pictures at the Hoit Tower.
Not to forget the great company; David was a nice guy to spend a large portion of his day with me touring around (many thanks). I had a great time and it was a fantastic experience meeting someone for the first time after all these years. I had to fly over 3000 miles to meet someone but would do it all again. The only down side to it all was the severe lack of sleep after a long day of flying.
My day started at 3:00AM to get ready and leave for my 6:00AM flight. I didn't get to bed until midnight west coast, so I was up for basically 24 hours...but it was all worth it! Now onto more sleep before the conference starts again! I'll post some of the pictures once I can get them onto flickr.
