Ants on the Melon
• • • • •

I arrived in London yesterday morning, after a 9 hour flight from Houston. I managed to get the only window seat on the plane without a window, but not a big deal.

When I was walking to my hotel in the city I noticed the picture to the right. Click on it to see the full irony.

Today I taught two classes on DNS to several Rackers here in the UK. The Rackspace UK office is amazing, I would love to work in an environment like this. Now I know why Rackspace UK was ranked 6th best place to work in the UK.

Tonight some of the Racker’s here are going out to dinner with Jason and me to a Turkish restaurant. I’m trying to remember to take pictures, but I’ve never been very good at that. I’ll be uploading pictures into my Europe 2006 gallery whenever possible.

Cheers!

Apparently Pat Robertson is claiming that he was able to leg-press 2,000 pounds:

Clay Travis of CBS SportsLine.com called the 2,000-pound assertion impossible in a column this week, writing that the leg-press record for football players at Florida State University is 665 pounds less.

“Where in the world did Robertson even find a machine that could hold 2,000 pounds at one time?” Travis asked.

Andy Zucker, a strength-training coach at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, said leg presses of more than 1,000 pounds represent “a Herculean effort, and 2,000 pounds is a whole other story.”

Sigh.

I spent the weekend with some friends in Virginia at Wintergreen Resort.

The event was great because almost all of us had something to celebrate. Rebecca is (finally) graduating from Pharmacy school, it was Pete’s birthday, I finished paying of my college loans, and Scott was celebrating the fact that Rebecca is (finally) graduating. Sarah and Elissa helped to get the party started. Its not very often that this group of friends gets together, since we all live in different parts of the country, but when we do it is a lot of fun. Unfortunately I was never able to meet up with Tate and his entourage while we were all up there (sorry Tate!), but I’ve already told them that next year we have to plan a trip out west.

I’ve been skiing and snowboarding at Wintergreen since the fourth grade, and it always seemed like such a fun place. But after spending several days snowboarding in Colorado my perspective on east coast slopes is a little different now. The snow is so slippery and icy, the slopes are short and crowded, the lift lines are long, the lifts are slow, and the people are dangerously novice at best. People also appear to have attitude problems there as well, but that seems more like a general east coast issue.

But, then again, there are a lot of mountain men up that way and you tend to see some interesting sights, like the guy in the picture to the left. Notice the camoflague hunting overalls doubling as skiing attire, and the awesome “pizza” stance.

It was a very quick trip, but we had a great time.

Recently I spent some time out in Colorado, here’s what happened.

Snowboarding at Beaver Creek

After landing at the Eagle/Vail airport I met up with some mutual friends and caught a shuttle to our place at Beaver Creek Resort. When I arrived at the house I didn’t know any of the other 7 people there, but they were Chris’s friends and everyone was very friendly. We had dinner and played some games until everyone was ready for sleep around 10. Chris arrived later that night.

The next day we hit the slopes. It had been about 3 years since I had last used my snowboard, so it took me an hour or two to get back in the swing of things. Soon I was back on the advanced blues and hitting the black daimonds. I started skiing when I was in the 4th grade, and switched over to snowboarding around the 11th grade in high school, but almost all of my experience is from the mountains on the east coast, especially at Wintergreen Resort. In college Tate and I used to go up there several times a week in the winter, good times. When I lived in New Orleans I flew out to Winter Park, Colorado to hang out with my cousin and snowboard for a few days. I remember thinking then how much more intense the slopes are in the Rockies, and Beaver Creek is no different. (check out the trail maps)

We snowboarded for 4 solid days and after each day everyone was completely exhausted. Usually everyone passed out by 10pm, but one night we took the opportunity to head over to Vail and check out the scene. By the end of the 4 days my calves were a jelly-like substance and there was no way I could think of spending any more time on the slopes. The only thing that kept me going was the excellent food that Katie, Jason and the group prepared each night, although I am quite sensitive to peppers now. We headed out Friday morning, and I caught my flight to Denver to continue the rest of my trip.

Hanging Out in Boulder and Denver

Ken picked me up from the Denver airport around 4pm on Friday and we headed over to his friend Scott’s place to hang out. While we were in Denver with Scott and Jenny we went to dinner at Tommy’s Thai. When we walked in we noticed that everyone was wearing jackets, gloves and stocking caps. It was very cold inside, but the food was worth it. I ordered medium hot Pad Thai and an order of vegetable gyoza, and every bite was excellent. I’m not a huge fan of Asian food, but I could eat at Tommy’s any day. After playing several games of pool and being reprimanded by a middle-aged woman in an “N’Sync” shirt, Ken and I headed up to Boulder where he lives.

The next morning we woke up early and got off to an extremely good start by having breakfast at Lucile’s. Breakfast is my favorite meal and I think its pretty hard to get a top of the line breakfast. There are many great lunch and dinner spots, but few places specialize on breakfast. Lucile’s breakfast was one of the best I have ever had. There were 3 or 4 things on the menu that I really wanted to order, but I finally settled on the New Orleans french toast. It came with eggs, sausage, fresh fruit, and was hands down one of the best breakfast meals I have ever had.

After breakfast Ken showed me around the Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder. There were all kinds of interesting shops and stores, and I picked up a few CDs from Bart’s CD Cellar. After a few hours of this we headed up to the foothills and walked around for a while. By this time we were ready for a late lunch so we headed back down to the city and stopped by Foolish Craig’s for a byte to eat. Once again the meal was incredible. I ordered their chicken salad sandwich and a Raspberry Frambozen and all was at peace. We walked around for a while longer then headed back for a break.

My friend James Taurman recently moved to Fort Collins, CO which is about 45 minutes north of Boulder, so I called him up when I got to town to see if he had plans. James drove down to Boulder to meet up with Ken and me at the Red Fish Brewhouse for dinner. We all ordered one of their Pilsners and I thought it was quite tasty. (I originally order their “Badonkadonk Brown,” but was disappointed to hear that they were sold out.) The meal was pretty good, although my previous three meals were a hard act to follow. James’ suggested that we head down to Denver to see Robert Randolph and the Family Band at the Fillmore Auditorium. Danny told me that Robert Randolph put on an excellent show at last year’s ACL Fest, so it sounded like a good plan to me.

Robert Randolph at the Fillmore in Denver

When we arrived at the Fillmore Auditorium there was a large gathering of people around the ticket window, but we were still able to get tickets. I thought the Fillmore was actually a really cool venue, with the blacklight-fueled purple chandeliers and the sunken center area. We were only there for about 5 minutes when a man on the center of the stage started making some incredible electric sounds. It sounded like a guitar, but the man did not appear to be playing a guitar. Then I finally realized that it was Robert Randolph and he was making these sounds on a pedal steel guitar, an instrument almost exclusively used in country music. But here he was playing it in funk/soul/blues music. Insane!

The show lasted about 2.5 hours, with about the last 30 minutes of that being a 4 song encore. These guys can really jam, as several of their songs lasted 10-15 minutes each. They are also great showmen. At one point in the show Robert started pulling people from the crowd and giving them an electric guitar (a PRS, btw) for them to play leads on. Two different white guys jumped up onto the stage, but their skills weren’t quite on the same level as the rest of the bands. Around that time the band also had about 25-30 girls from the audience come on stage and dance with them. But of all the stage tricks they had, the most amazing was when they started swapping instruments. At first Robert went back to play drums, while the drummer came down to play the pedal steel. Then Robert went to bass and the bass player got behind the drums. Then there was more swapping with the keyboard player until they all finally swapped back into place. The crazy thing was that each one of them did a fantastic job on each instrument, they are all extremely talented.

Without question this was the most high-energy concert I have ever seen, and I see a fair amount of music shows. Whenever he wanted to Robert would make the pedal steel screen and the entire room would be just buzzing with energy. This lasted throughout the entire show too, I have no idea how the band members can sustain it without any break other than the 3 minute gap between the show and the encore. In addition to their own original music they covered a few older songs including Michael Jackson’s “Billy Jean”, Bobby McFaren’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” All in all, it was an excellent show and I would highly recommend checking out this band.

Wrapping it up…

Sunday morning Ken, James and I had a really good breakfast over at the Buff Restaurant in Boulder. Afterwards Ken and I bid farewell to James and then headed towards the Denver airport, where I had the only negative experience of the whole trip.

I arrived at the airport at about 12:45pm (an hour and fifteen minutes ahead of my flight), waited in line at the United Airlines counter for 30 minutes, and when I finally made it to the front I was told that I could not check my luggage and snowboard since the flight was scheduled to leave in less than 45 minutes. It was actually around 42 minutes before the scheduled departure time, and she told me that she didn’t care that I had waited in line for 30 minutes, only to miss the checkin deadline by 3 minutes. I had checked-in online the night before, I only needed my baggage to make the flight. I told her that the baggage could come on a later flight if necessary, but she wasn’t interested in making a deal. She put me on standby for the next flight to San Antonio, which was at 7:30 and told me there was almost certainly no way I would make it, as the flight was already overbooked. Thanks, lady. After talking with several other people for the next hour and a half I finally ended up in front of a man with a brain and the will to get things done. He immediately told me to ignore what everyone else had told me, and that he would put get me a seat on the 7:30 flight, which is exactly what he did. I asked if there was anyway that I could tip him, but he said no and quickly asked to help the next person. Rock on, dude.

I’ll probably avoid United Airlines from now on, just as I have done with Northwest for the past year. Sometimes the lower price just isn’t worth it.

Overall, I had an excellent trip and it was great to see a few old friends and make some new ones. Oh, and Boulder has topped San Francisco in my list of most awesome cities. I didn’t think that would be possible, but The People’s Republic of Boulder is one extremely cool place.

My morning drive to work is only about 15 minutes, and during the drive I normally flip between KSYM, KNBT and KSTX (TPR/NPR).

Yesterday morning I happened to be listening to the KNBT morning show during the trivia segment. Each day during the KNBT morning show the hosts (Wayne and Tiffany) ask some sort of trivia question and the first person to call in with the correct answer wins a prize. Yesterdays prize was a pair of tickets to see Pat Green, and the question was: who was the last U.S. president to serve without a college degree? I thought it was a pretty good question so instead of switching to another station like I usually do, I waited to hear the answer.

A few people called in with good guesses (Reagan, LBJ, Hoover), while Wayne kept giving more hints. Then a woman called in and gave her answer: “Churchill, Winston Churchill.” At first Wayne just said “no” and then when he realized what she said and told her “he wasn’t even a president!” She just said “oh” and hung up.

But just when I thought that was weird, the next caller took the opportunity to confuse Wayne again. She answered correctly: “It was Harry Truman.” He congratulated her and asked her if she was ready to go see Pat Green, to which she replied “no.” Wayne said “uh, uhm, ok well thanks for calling.” About 4 or 5 calls later someone finally got it right (after Wayne kept saying “someone just called in with the correct answer”) and accepted the prize.

People are so weird. And stupid.

So I am flying home today and for the first time in years I end up in a seat on the exit row. Sounds great to me, I get a little extra space around my feet for my backpack.

The 40ish flight attendant was making her rounds and when she got to my row she looked at me with this silly face and said “now, are you okay to sit in the exit row?” I am little confused by her tone, but I assure her that it is not a problem. Apparently she was not convinced because she then asked “well, how old are you?” I couldn’t believe she was actually asking me this, but I answered “26″ anyway.

This seemed pretty stupid to me, but then it got worse when the other flight attendent read her part over the intercom: “Children under the age of 15 are not allowed to sit in an exit row.” So apparently the flight attendant who first spoke to me thought that I might be 14 or younger. Come on, tell me that I don’t look 14!

And before you say it, yes, I have heard it a thousand times before: “you’ll appreciate that when you are older.” Wonderful.

A few weeks ago I discovered that Terry Allen would be performing his “Dugout III: Warboy” for three nights in Los Angeles. I’ve been trying to see Terry Allen for a while, and since he does not perform very often I thought it might be a good idea to check this out. I knew that Chris was out in L.A., and I figured he might want to go as well. A few IM’s later I had tickets to the show and my flights booked.

Chris picked me up from LAX last Friday afternoon, and apparently he can now read minds because as soon as I hopped in his jeep he asked if I was hungry for In-n-Out Burger. I had just spent 3 hours on a plane, mostly thinking about eating at In-n-Out Burger, so yea, perfect. Mmmm so good!

That evening we went to the “rooftop bar” at The Standard hotel. This is an open air bar on the top of a high-rise hotel in downtown L.A. There is a pool up there, and these big red pods shaped like giant Hershey’s kisses with waterbeds in them. It was a pretty cool place to hang out, and there were some sweet views from up there.

Later that night we met up with Chris’s friend, the Dread Pirate, and headed over to Cozy’s to see Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys. These guys were a lot of fun and put on a pretty good show. Also, it was interesting to see the SoCal rock-a-billy crowd, it must be pretty rough being stuck in 1952.

Saturday afternoon we went down to Hollywood Boulevard. While walking down the sidewalk we passed by Richard Pryor’s star, who had died earlier that day. There were people there with cameras taking pictures of the star with flowers on it.

Saturday night was the event I had been waiting for: Terry Allen’s “Dugout III: Warboy.” After a sushi dinner at R23, Chris and I headed over to the REDCAT theater to catch the show. Honestly, I had no idea what to expect. I knew that it was some sort of theatrical performance that included Terry’s wife, Jo Harvey Allen, as well as Lloyd Maines and Richard Bowden, but beyond that I wasn’t sure. As it turned out, the show consisted of Jo Harvey telling a story based on Terry’s parent’s lives, while the three musicians performed the soundtrack of original music. This might not sound that interesting, but let me assure you, it was incredible. Not only was the story extremely fascinating, but the music was pure Terry Allen and was excellent.

Afterwards we headed out to Tommy’s Burgers for a late night snack. Before eating at Tommy’s I thought that Chester’s made the world’s messiest chili-cheeseburger, but now I know I was wrong. Tommy’s burgers are served from a stand on the side of the road, and you do not even have the option of ordering a burger without chili — like the bun and the meat patty, its part of the experience. About 15 napkins later I realized that I had been defeated, so I called it quits.

The trip was quick but it was a lot of fun. Thanks again to Chris for letting me crash there and showing me around the city.

Recently I have started receiving more phishing emails, so I thought I would explain these things and give an example of one. For those that don’t know, phishing is when scammers send email disguised as reputable companies such as Paypal and eBay, and sometimes as banks. The messages tend to look very similar to emails sent by those companies, in an attempt to trick you into clicking on a link in the email. Often, you will be asked to enter some login information such as your email address and password, or even worse, your credit card number. These email messages are sometimes very difficult to distinguish from the authentic messages from the actual company, so unsuspecting recipients rarely know the difference. Here’s an example of one that I recently received:

Dear PayPal User,

We recently noticed one or more attempts to log in to your PayPal
account from a foreign IP address.

If you recently accessed your account while traveling, the unusual log
in attempts may have been initiated by you. However, if you did not
initiate the log ins, please visit PayPal as soon as possible to verify
your account:

https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

Changing your password is a security measure that will ensure that you
are the only person with access to the account.

Thanks for your patience as we work together to protect your account.

Sincerely,
PayPal

—————————————————————-
PROTECT YOUR PASSWORD

NEVER give your password to anyone, including PayPal employees. Protect
yourself against fraudulent websites by opening a new web browser (e.g.
Internet Explorer or Netscape) and typing in the PayPal URL every time
you log in to your account.

—————————————————————-

Please do not reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and
you will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal
account and click the Help link located in the top right corner of any
PayPal page.

PayPal Email ID PP321

Anyone who has a Paypal account will know that this looks very similar to the official messages that are sent out. However, this message was from a phisher, not Paypal. When I moved my mouse over the link in the above message, it pointed to http://paypalusupdate.info/cgibin/webscrcmd=_login+run/?logIN (DO NOT VISIT THAT LINK) rather than the official https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run link that it appeared in the email.

The phisher even took the time to modify the message header so that it would appear the email originated from a Paypal mail server:

From: [email protected]
Subject: PayPal Email ID PP321
Date: December 11, 2005 1:28:53 PM CST
To: XXXXXX
Reply-To: [email protected]
Return-Path: <service @paypal.com>
Delivered-To: XXXXXX
Received: (qmail 12824 invoked by uid 533); 11 Dec 2005 19:38:58 -0000
Received: from 217.79.182.36 by silver.standblue.net (envelope-from <service @paypal.com>, uid 504) with qmail-scanner-1.25 ( Clear:RC:0(217.79.182.36):. Processed in 1.311025 secs); 11 Dec 2005 19:38:58 -0000
Received: from y036.yellow.fastwebserver.de (HELO 217.79.182.36) (217.79.182.36) by a.mx.standblue.net with SMTP; 11 Dec 2005 19:38:57 -0000
Received: from mexmmgabg.paypal.com (mexmmgabg.paypal.com [128.235.17.2]) by with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.6824); Sun, 11 Dec 2005 12:33:53 -0700
X-Qmail-Scanner-Mail-From: [email protected] via silver.standblue.net
X-Qmail-Scanner: 1.25 (Clear:RC:0(217.79.182.36):. Processed in 1.311025 secs)
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
X-Mailer:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Organization:
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=”=_IhfLiENz5z0″

If you receive a message from Paypal, eBay or any bank, please do not click on any link in the email. If you want to be sure, open your browser and type in the URL of the site, such as www.paypal.com or www.ebay.com, login, and update your information from there. Just please, please do not click on the links in these emails.

Last night my buddy Johnny Strunk and I were reminiscing about the old crazy days of instant messaging, and I started thinking about my early experiences with computers and the Internet.

Growing up in Blackstone, VA, I spent most of my teenage years focused on go-carts, guitars, basketball and squirrel hunting (yes, its true). My dad had computers around the house for years and our home was one of the first in the county to be on CompuServe. However, it was all text based and I had never really taken much of an interest.

Strunk was just the opposite. He was all into computers and was the man around our high school¹ for fixing anything that used electricity. At that time, most of the computers at Kenston were still old Apple IIe’s, with a few Macintosh’s mixed in whenever the school could scrape together some extra cash. Strunk hated messing with those old Apple’s, and by the time we graduated he was happy that the school had been given an old Dell running Windows 3.1.

Around this time “AOL” was becoming a household name (at least in our neck of the woods) and Strunk had a subscription. It was at his house in the spring of 1997 that I first saw a website, and it was a memorable one: www.heavensgate.com. Those crazy black-nike-wearing, spaceship-riding aliens had just committed suicide and their website was all over the news. Of all the websites on the Internet, this is what my friend chose to introduce me to the World Wide Web.

When I arrived on the Hampden-Sydney campus as a freshman in the fall of 1997 I was far from computer saavy. It was the first year that HSC had recommended that students bring their own computers, so when it came time for me to head off to school my dad hooked me up with a sweet Pentium 166MHz with 16MB of RAM and a 3GB hard drive running Windows 95, of course. I had no idea what to do with the machine, so at first it was mainly used as a glorified CD player. Asking Strunk for help was not an option, as he was two hours away working on his computer science degree at his new home, The College of William and Mary.

After a couple weeks of school I got an email from Strunk, telling me to go to www.mirabilis.com and download something called ICQ. I did this and installed the software, and after a few emails from Strunk, I had my UIN² and was online. Of course, initially I had no idea what this meant or how it was significant. I hated typing emails, and this seemed to be a way to get in touch with people without composing an email, so I was all for it. Soon he showed me how to send files through ICQ, and he sent something to me that he said was music. I clicked on it, and nothing happened, so he told me to go to www.nullsoft.com and download something called Winamp. After I downloaded and installed the software, Strunk told me to drag the music file on top of the Winamp window. I can remember the excitement as I listened to that first mp3 (“Far Behind” by Candlebox) and realized that my friends and I could send music to each other, for free!

So this whole trip down memory lane started last night when Strunk reminded me about one really annoying (and fun) feature of the early ICQ clients, some of you may also remember this. I can’t recall exactly what it was named, but there was a feature that allowed you to playback a foghorn sound on a recipients machine. Anyone who had this happen to them can probably still remember the sound. The first few times this happened to me I was completely confused and thought my computer had contracted some sort of extremely obnoxious virus. I soon discovered that I also had this ability, and neither friends nor family were spared, but I thought it was hilarious.

This reminded me of another annoying little Windows app that we had a lot of fun with: WinNuke. WinNuke was a small app that could be given an IP address, and it would DOS it. It took advantage of the WinNuke OOB vulnerability and would completely crash the victim’s computer. Combined with ICQ (which would reveal a person’s IP address), we used WinNuke to “bluescreen” all of our friends on campus. I can remember “nuking” one friend’s computer when he was apparently nearly finished with a paper. I guess this was before word processors had auto-save because he claimed to have lost all his work, but I always doubted he had actually written anything. For some reason, these things never stopped being funny.

It wasn’t long after this that Strunk set up my first Linux desktop for me and I started down a more serious path with computers. But, that’s a story for another day.

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1. For those that do not know, I attended grades 4-12 at Kenston Forest School, a small, rural private school in my home town of Blackstone, VA. This was not an elite “rich kids” boarding school. Think “Happy Days” meets “Green Acres“. The school was poor and always needed money. Fundraisers included selling Coach’s Brunswick Stew, selling fruit, selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and selling tickets to the “Texas Festival,” an all-you-can-eat BBQ/ribs/stew event. Notice a trend?

2. Although I have not regularly logged on to ICQ in almost 4 years, I still remember my UIN as if it were my social security number.

Recently I spent a few days out in Las Vegas and San Francisco. It was my third trip to Vegas this year, and my first trip ever to San Francisco.

I flew out to Vegas to meet up with my dad, step brother and step sister, who were there for NACE, an autobody industry conference that my dad usually attends. We started the trip off by seeing Mystere, a Cirque Du Soleil show at Treasure Island. I saw Varekai earlier this year, so when dad asked about things we could do in Vegas I suggested that we see one of the Cirque shows. As expected, Mystere was incredible. I really have no idea how humans are physically able to do some of the things that are done in a Cirque show, its just amazing.

Scott flew in late that night and I met up with him at the Luxor, where he and I were staying (I won’t bother linking to thee Luxor website, since it is one of the most tacky and outdated sites on the Internet). They didn’t have wireless, but fortunately I brought along my Airport Express and saved the day.

The next day we made the requisite pilgrimage down the Las Vegas strip. It was the first time Scott and Kathryn had been to Vegas, so there was plenty to see, including the fountains at The Bellagio. Afterwards dad took us to his favorite restaurant out there, a little out-of-the-way place called The Tillerman. This was without a doubt one of the most impressive meals I have ever had. If you are ever in Vegas and do not mind spending a little extra on a fantastic meal then be sure to check out The Tillerman. Oh, and make sure to try their Creme Brulee.

Dad, Colin and Kat flew out early the next morning, and Scott and I spent the day roaming around the casinos on the strip. Around dinner we were at MGM Grand, so Scott made reservations for us at the Wolfgang Puck Bar and Grill. We had another terrific meal, and to top it off, Wolfgang himself appeared beside us just as we were finishing our desserts. He stopped long enough to speak to us and shake hands before hurrying off. You never know who you will run into in Vegas.

From Las Vegas I headed over to San Francisco, where I was originally supposed to meet up with this slacker friend of mine. I had never been to San Francisco, or California for that matter, so I was pretty excited about this trip.

You may remember back in July I went up to Austin to see Elana Fremerman play with with Cindy Cashdollar and Doug Davis. While I was there I met Mel Chapman, an extremely nice guy who seemed to be a living encyclopedia for the music that I love. He was visiting Texas from California, and offered to show me around San Francisco if I ever made it out that way. So, when I had secured my plane tickets, I sent an email to Mel to let him know about my trip. Mel pointed me in the direction of an inexpensive and clean hotel in SF, and told me about several music hot spots that he suggested I try to see. I am not sure how the trip would have turned out without all of Mel’s help, but I know I would have been much, much more lost.

On Monday night I decided to head over to Alameda and check out the bluegrass jam session at McGrath’s Irish Pub, which Mel had recommended. I arrived between 8:30 and 9:00, and by that time there were already around 20 musicians gathered in a circle. It had been a long time since I had seen anything like this, and it sounded absolutely terrific. I can remember 4 fiddles, 4 mandolins, at least 6 guitars, 2 banjos, an upright bass, and a guy playing harmonica. I pulled up a bar stool, grabbed a Fat Tire, and listened to some excellent music for the next 2.5 hours.

The next day I decided to drive down to Silicon Valley. I took Highway 101 down there, drove by the Google headquarters, and then found my way over to 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino CA. I went into the retail store they have there and bought some Apple swag, including a couple t-shirts, a mousepad and a pen. Yes, I know that I am a total Mac fanboy, so you can stop telling me now. On the return trip I drove up Interstate 280, which was a complete surprise. Where Highway 101 was mostly commercial, I-280 was almost entirely scenic. It was hard to keep focused on the winding road because I kept looking out the window at the foggy little mountains on the left, and the rolling pastures on the right. After getting closer to the city I spotted an In-n-Out Burger, so I had to stop for a snack. I spent about an hour driving around San Francisco, which only resulted in frustration. I stopped by a few stores, and later that night I walked over to the Fisherman’s Wharf to meet up with some other Rackers who were in town.

The next morning Mel drove down to give me a tour of the city. We started the day by driving over to Berkeley and visiting The 5th String, a music shop with an excellent selection of guitars, mandolins and banjos. We stayed for about half an hour and played many of the instruments before leaving. The 5th String is one of only 5 “Gibson Acoustic Instruments” dealers in the U.S., and with my visit to the Mandolin Brothers store in Staten Island earlier this year, I have now been to 40% of all the places in the U.S. where you can buy a Gibson Mandolin.

After leaving The 5th String, Mel and I headed over to the U.C. Berkeley campus. We walked along Telegraph Street for a while and stopped by Rasputin Music, Amoeba Music, Moe’s Bookstore and several other shops before grabbing a late lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant. Berkeley was pretty much exactly how I expected it to be.

It was 3:30 by this point so it would be getting dark soon. One of the things Mel had suggested that I see was Muir Woods, so we decided to head over there before the park closed. I’ve seen some impressive trees before, but nothing quite like these big boys. Even though the park is only a little over 10 miles from San Francisco, when you are out in the middle of these big trees there is nothing but complete silence. If you didn’t know better, you would never know that you were that close to a major U.S. city. We walked around the park for about 45 minutes (until it got dark), and then headed down to the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of those things that I had always heard about, but I had never really thought much about it. As we drove across the bridge, parked the car, and then walked back across it, I began to realize how incredible it must have been back when it was completed in 1937. The wind was blowing really hard, and there were people bicycling back and forth across the bridge. Every few hundred feet we would stop and look over the edge to see the city lights, and Mel would tell me another interesting fact about the city, or point out some building over in the lighted hills. What an amazing place.

When we left the Golden Gate Mel drove us back into San Francisco where he showed me a few more places around town, including Lombard Street, the “most crooked street in the world.” By this time it was getting to the point where Mel needed to leave to head back to his home. He had driven 2 and a half hours down from his home in Placerville that morning to show me around the city. Mel is one incredibly nice guy and I am truly thankful that he took time to come show me around. I would have certainly missed out on seeing a lot of fascinating things if I did not have him for a guide. Thanks Mel!

While at the Rackspace Halloween party the previous week, Annie told me that I needed to have sushi while I was in San Francisco. This sounded like an extremely good idea, so I asked if she could get the names of some good sushi restaurants. After reviewing the recommendations she gave me, I settled on Ebisu and started the drive over there.

And I drove.

And I drove some more.

And I got lost.

And I ended up on some hilltop.

And I backtracked.

And I got really hungry.

And I began yelling at stop lights, and curvy roads, and hills, and cautious drivers.

After what seemed like an hour, I finally found the restaurant.

Whew.

(According to Google Maps, this should have been a simple 11 minute drive. I would have taken this route if only I had known about it. The hotel did not have wireless, so I was stuck with only my imagination and a car — apparently a noxious combination in SF.)

Once inside Ebisu I sat down at the bar and began looking at the menu. The Itamae was extremely friendly and chatted with me the entire time I was there. I started with a Boston Roll, and it was without question the best roll I have ever had. The six pieces disappeared much faster than I was expecting, so I looked at the menu again and asked for the 49er Roll. From my seat at the end of the bar I could see everything the Itamae was doing and it was so fascinating. In the same way that I can spend hours watching construction machinery move materials around and dig holes, I could have sat there the entire night and watched him transform the raw ingredients into the works of art that everyone was enjoying. Even considering the expensive food I had the previous days in Las Vegas, this $16 dinner was one of the best meals I could remember.

As I left the restaurant and began walking back to the car, I thought that it would be absolutely perfect if I could find a little coffee shop to stop in for a while and check my email. Well, wouldn’t you know there would be an incredible little place called The Canvas Gallery on the next corner! As I walked by the window I could see several Apple laptops inside, so I knew I was at home. Outside the door there were couches with several people playing guitar and hanging out, and I wondered why you don’t see that in more places. Inside there was an area where a bunch of people were playing cards, and another area where lots of people were listening to a girl sing and play the guitar. I found a table near all the other computer users and opened up my laptop. In San Antonio (and most places, for that matter), I have become used to having to pay for wireless access at coffee shops, airports, etc. So, it was really nice when I joined the Canvas wireless network to see a message that simply said “The Canvas Network: Help Support FREE WiFi – Get a coffee once in a while.” I experienced the Apple brotherhood, stayed for about an hour, and then finally accepted that there was no way to avoid it: I was going to have to drive back to the hotel.

The next morning I awoke with the sad realization that my trip was over, and that I had 2.5 hours to get ready and to find my way to the Oakland airport. It felt like I had just arrived and that there was so much more that I needed to see and do. Sigh.

Oh well, one day.