every word of it.

I don’t know about you, but my shit stinks.

I always assumed that bathroom exhaust fans were standard. You wouldn’t build a bathroom without a sink – you wouldn’t build a bathroom without a vent.

But, in the past few weeks I’ve been shown that my expectation about bathrooms is apparently unreasonable.

On my trip to San Francisco, I stayed at the Hotel 480. There were 2 switches in the bathroom – one controlled the lights above the mirror, and one controlled the lights in the shower. There was no switch to control the fan because there was no fan to control.

Surren recently moved into a new apartment. Again, no blower. Now if it was me, having a vent over the toilet is one of the things I would look at when apartment hunting. It’s up there with location in relation to emergency services and access to highways.

What’s the deal? I thought I lived in the United States of America. How can you relax in a bathroom without ventilation?

Are you a tourist and planning to go to San Francisco?

Be prepared to stand in lines.

Lines everywhere.

Lines.

No kidding.

Lines for food.

Lines for museums.

Lines for hot chocolate.

Lines for the rainforest.

Lines.

But the lines are there for a reason. San Francisco is a pretty neat city.

I was there for a week and I didn’t get a chance to do everything. And I think attempting to do everything would’ve ruined the vacation. I’m on vacation to have fun (by following a general outline of things to do).

My favorite attraction by far was Amoeba Music. I easily could’ve bought half the store. I ended up grabbing

1. Belle and Sebastian – The BBC Sessions
2. Black Box Recorder – Passionoia
3. Grant Lee Buffalo – Jubilee
4. Clinic – Internal Wrangler
5. Guillemots – From the Cliffs
6. Richard Hawley – Lady’s Bridge
7. Sleeper – Smart
8. Sleeper – The It Girl
9. The Thrills – So Much For The City

On the smarter side of things, I also went to the SF MOMA and The California Academy of Sciences. In the SF MOMA, they had this interactive exhibit – where you connect your phone/camera/memory card to a computer, and it randomly grabs an image from your device. In the future it’ll be used in an exhibit – in the year 2030, if I remember correctly. From me it took a screenshot of the Obama iPhone app that was on my phone, and a picture of Jenny, Nadine, and Surren on the bus from my camera.

Bus That Steals Your Photos

Also at the SF MOMA, they had the iPhone locked up behind plexiglass. Not behind plexiglass, the T-mobile G1. Just saying.

The SF MOMA was sort of a consolation prize. On the Monday we went to CalAcademy, the lines were just way too long.

Lines!

We went back to CalAcademy on New Years Day – minus Nikko, Surren, and Vishant (they were recovering from NYE). CalAcademy was pretty neat. It was a mish-mash of every sort of “educational” intuition – aquarium, planetarium, history museum – under one living roof.

Now coming from Texas, what really impressed me about SF was the fact that everything is so close together. We stayed right on Union Square. I probably could’ve had a full (but less fulfilling) vacation by just walking around the area. In fact, getting a car while visiting SF is one of the worst things you can do – especially if you happen to have a Jenny who lives in the area. When I was back in Texas, driving home from DFW, everything seemed so empty. It just impresses on you the fact that Dallas – Fort Worth are fake cities.

The one downside to SF, the public transportation system. In San Francisco, you have to deal with MUNI, BART, and CalTrain. All systems are incompatible. Your MUNI pass will only work on MUNI. Your BART ticket will only work on BART. It just seems a waste – and a situation where you could easily improve things to make life easier in general. Like here, your TollTag will work with TxTag. And this is why California will be out of money by February.

… along with my stomach

Part of any good trip that goes along with what you did, is what you ate.

So the best thing in San Francisco that I stuffed in my face – Wings from Coco Bang. Yep, chicken wings from Coco Bang. I’ve never had wings so good. And they were meaty. And tasty. And had just the right amount of kick. Plus, I love the name – Coco Bang. I also had soju there for the first time. Turns out, I love soju. We ate there twice.

Another place I visited twice was Specialty’s. The first time, it was just a place to meet Jenny for lunch. The second time – I needed something easy to eat. I drank way too much the night before, and my stomach was telling me I needed something easy to digest. And both times the sandwiches were top notch. I really wish they had a location in Dallas, preferably by my office. Cheap and delicious – what more could you want from a sandwich shop?

So you know how I mentioned I needed something easy to eat – my cousins instead went to Naan N Curry that morning. I don’t know why they would do that, and as a result – Vishant threw up in the hotel. Nice.

The reason for the nausea – Johnny Foley’s Irish House. The best bar I went to in San Francisco. It’s right by Union Square and is probably considered a “tourist” bar. But still, it was great fun. The location had a friendly atmosphere, conducive to drinking Guinness and Newcastle, and a guy with a guitar – playing Oasis.

The official cocktail of the trip – the Vodka Madras. This guy Ernie we met late at night at this bar called Rye (don’t go to Rye, it was dead on a Saturday night), introduced it to us.

Did you know that Ghirardelli, the chocolate company, was started in San Francisco? Me neither. And frankly, I don’t really care for their chocolates. But at Ghirardelli Square, I had the best hot chocolate ever. Before sipping, I didn’t know hot chocolate could be something memorable.

Ghirardelli Square

And probably the food-related highlight of the trip was Sears Fine Food. I had a delicious crab salad sandwich on a croissant. But sitting in the dining room, 3 tables away was Jason Sudekis, Josh Meyers, this one guy who I can’t place, but I know I know him from somewhere, and probably some other comedians who I don’t know. It was a pretty fun moment, since Vishant spotted them first. And he kept on going on about how the people at the table looked famous. My back was to the table, but after turning around I spotted Jason Sudekis. And after a quick google image search on my iPhone, I confirmed it. Famous people eating food in a restaurant where I was eating food, at the same time!

This New Year’s Eve – I decided to do something different. Instead of not doing anything, I would go to San Francisco.

Yes, the one in California.

Backstory: Last year Surren was complaining that he never goes on vacation. So I jokingly suggested we go to Australia for New Year’s. But he didn’t know it was just a joke – and then later he followed up on it. So we were going to Australia. But the thing is, getting to Australia is expensive. Getting to Australia during peak travel, is shockingly expensive. We needed another destination. Los Angeles was thrown in as an alternative, but I figured if I’ll be in the state of California, let’s go to San Francisco. I’d get a chance to see Jenny as well. It’ll be a “2 for 1″ special.

So the day after Christmas, my cousins – Nikko, Surren, Vishant, and I – took off for SF. Nadine had gotten there on Christmas night. Disappointingly, Long wasn’t going to be there.

The Rogue’s Gallery

The trip was from Friday 12/26 to Friday 1/2. 1 week to experience San Francisco, could it be done?

The answer is no. There’s just too much to do.

You know what’s happening right? I’m twittering too much. It’s why my pledge of a post / week has gone unrealized.

I’m spending all my time posting tweets and not forming complete blog posts.

Also it doesn’t help that I have zero time for Raishad. See, I have 3 weeks to implement a “smart” pedometer using SunSpots. It’s doable.

Only because I’m awesome.

Mostly.

What other College of Engineering would send you a birthday card in the mail?

UTA College of Engineering Birthday Card

Since last time, I’ve got a new sack and new buttons

Ike is all over the news. And in every article, the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is mentioned. And in the reference, they all mention the same set of facts – Galveston was wealthy; the city was only 9ft above sea level at the highest; Isaac Cline tried to warn everyone, but they didn’t listen or it was too late. It’s boring. Like an encyclopedia entry. Wouldn’t it be exciting to read what the people in the 1900s would have to say about that hurricane?

Luckily, The Times has made their entire archive available online, from 1785-1985.

From The Times online archive

Things Learned

• Lamb cooks really fast
• Smoking a cigar is tiring
• Shiner Black is my favorite, and therefore the best Shiner
• Everyone loves Peter, Bjorn & John
• There is such a thing as too much chicken
• There is also such a thing as too much brats

From July 22nd – August 1st I was on vacation. I took a plane and landed in Trinidad.

Honestly, I was a little scared. It’d been 12 years since I was last in Trinidad. I can say this with certainty because the last time I was in Trinidad, Joe’s Apartment came out. I wanted to see it. But by the time I got back, it wasn’t in theatres anymore. A similar thing happened this time as well with The X-Files 2. But luckily I caught that before it disappeared. So yea, 12 years. It’s a long time.

But you know, it was a pretty good trip.

On Wednesday, I went with my uncle to sell gas (LPG). I used to like going with him when I was tiny (<5yrs). Everyone in Trinidad uses gas for cooking. I didn’t see one electrical stove while I was there.

The next day I went to the Caura River for a dip. The water was cold. But that’s what you get when you go up in the mountains. Then in the evening, some relatives had a BBQ.

On Friday, I saw Hancock at MovieTown. MovieTown is an outdoor mall with the center piece being a movie theatre. It was sort of like Southlake, but not so big, and instead of the Apple Store, you get Ruby Tuesday, Long John Silvers, T.G.I.F, Burger King, and some local stores.

Saturday was slow. On Saturday Evening, I went to a prayers.

Sunday afternoon, we headed to the beach at Manzanilla. I really enjoyed Manzanilla. It was raining when we arrived, and the water was perfect. Also, I had a shark and bake (pronounced shark and bake). Long wouldn’t shut up about it since he was that Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern that focused on Trinidad. So I had to try it. It was pretty good.

Monday was spent visiting family.

Tuesday and Wednesday, we were back at the beach. This time it was Mayaro. If I were comparing beach to beach, I would pick Manzanilla. The current was too strong at Mayaro, and the ocean floor wasn’t nice. We stayed at a beach house that had A/C, which was refreshing. Not a lot of houses in Trindad have A/C. This is because the climate is tropical and mild. And usually you have a breeze. So, fans are big. Also at the beach house, I found out I’m pretty decent at the Trinidad variant of rummy.

On Thursday we went to Trincity Mall. This was to stock up on fudge and sugar cake. Friday was the flight back, and I had many orders to fulfill.

Looking back at it, taking it all in, I really enjoyed myself. It was just the right length. Not so long where I got bored of Trinidad/missed Texas, and not so short where I didn’t feel like I got to do anything. The doing nothing/doing stuff ratio was prefect. Plus, I didn’t use a computer at all. I didn’t drive either. But that was more a survival thing. I couldn’t drive in Trindad. They’re too aggressive, and the streets are too narrow.