Oracle, San Fran, and the seals

OK so it is 5:10 am, day 2 of my trip to San Fran, I am in the office. I am trying to keep East Coast hours to make it easier on myself. I walked in the doors here at Oracle HQ 401 Island Parkway at around 4:15 am, and the crazy thing is, it is easy to do...

So I arrived in San Fran Sunday night roughly 35 minutes late... Dave was right, Delta blows... but for $25 round trip (i used points for the flight) I can't really complain. I pick up my car... and I told them to give me something inexpensive , all it had to do was run since i was going to drive it a total of maybe 50 miles between the 20 miles each way to the airport and back, and the 4 mile round trip to work. What do they give me? The no thrills, no frills Aveo... this car blows... that's all I have to say about that.

Day one was cool, Merle was up around 4 and left at 4:30am for work. He keeps the East coast hours too. Still hadn't met his roommate yet, but he looks like a baseball fan. I left for work shortly after Merle. I got to Oracle HQ and I must tell you this campus is huge. I drove around it for a good 25 minutes before I could find a security guard who told me I was on the wrong campus. I found my building and tried to go in. Apparently my card for these buildings had not been activated yet, so I ended up sitting in my car working on my laptop from 5am until roughly 7am when the door was open and I managed to get in. Security helped me find where I was going but said I would need to activate my card at lunch.

I sat down at desk expecting someone to be in at 9am to show me where I could plug in since I couldn't pick up the wireless. No one showed so I asked around and finally logged in around 9 am. These offices are pretty cool... the building I am in is almost all tele-commuters... no one was here, it was weird.

So on Oracle Parkway each of the 6 behemoth buildings have their own cafeteria, each one different. The one I ate in was a good grilled food selection and good salads. Apparnently there is one that has good Mexican Food and Indian Food. That being said, I kind of felt like I was at Epcot center... All the different world food options, people speaking 100 differnet languanges around me, and all of the buildings surrounding a lake in the front with a rather large fountain in the middle shooting water probabley 35 feet in the air... really cool. Oh and the caf I ate in, had a concert pianist (do you really think I wished for a 12 inch pianist?) sorry joke popped into my head. He was good, but he made noticeable mistakes, and was playing a lot of scales for the left hand only which I thought was kind of weird.

So I got out of work 2:45 or so (5:45pm west coast) and got back to Melre's right after he did. So he asked me if I wanted to go do the tourist thing... I said sure, so we headed into San Fran... First stop along the way AT&T Park - Home of the Giants, I must say this ball park was cool, they were playing in LA so people were in the stadium watching the game on the screens... apparently during away games you can watch the game for free for three innings in the park. McCovery Cove was really cool too... well not ready but I can picture now what it might have looked like with all the kayaks. The Don Newcomb Bridge wa skind of cool... a little creepy looking like it was cooking to unfold itself and start attacking the city like some alien robot... but maybe I just have an over active imagination.

From there we went down to the wharf. This was really cool. We walked along the wharf and I could see Alcatraz from the walkway... I debated taking my picture with a punk... weirdest thing.. there was a kid with a sign that read "take a picture with a punk rocker"... hhhmmm. There were a bunch of cool break dancers there too strutitng there stuff, and the infamous silver people... so we walked down to the end of the wharf and I must say the view was unbelieveable.

Just a thought... it is kind of weird being in the office at least 4 hours before anyone else shows up... I mean the cleaning crews were making the rounds when i walked in....

Ok back to the Wharf, I think the coolest performers had to be the Sea Lions, I found this info about them:

Sea LionsOur favorite Fisherman’s Wharf performers are, unquestionably, the sea lions that abandoned Seal Rocks and began to frequent Pier 39 following the 1989 earthquake. Boisterous and noisy, they spend as many as 10 months of the year (September through June) sunning themselves on the docks or playing in the waters nearby, and then head south to the Channel Islands off the Coast of Santa Barbara in July and August to breed. Be sure to attend one of the Marine Mammal Center (MMC) talks to learn fun facts about the sea lions like:
California sea lions are known for their playfulness and intelligence
These traits make them popular performers in many zoos and aquariums (where they are often called trained "seals")
California sea lions are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which prohibits you from feeding, handling or harassing them
If that isn’t enough of a warning, you should know that sea lions will bite if provoked!
To learn more about the MMC talks, call (415) 289-7325 or visit their web site.

So we walked around a ton and saw a bunch of cool stuff... I got a feel for the steepness of the streets during the walk... I am impressed that cars can get up and down some of these there are so steep. We went to Ghiradelli square and I bought some chocolate, so anyone who wants are welcome to some. I will proabley put them out Fruday night at Jane's when everyone comes over on the way to dinner. The trollies were really cool too, infact the whole metro system is basically green, I thought that was soo cool... the trains were electric, and I guess the buses were pretty green too. I saw the curviest road in the city. Lombard Street, we walked up to the top of this one way street... Here is some info about it:

Not all of Lombard Street is as curvy as the famous part of this road. Actually it is only curvy for one block going down from Hyde Street. The descent of the hill at that location is about 27 percent, which was too much for a simple and straight road. That is why in 1922 archictects came up with the idea of building the road with eight hairpin curves. Today the road is one of the top tourist attractions of San Francisco and a visit of this city is almost incomplete without having done a car ride on this curvy road.

I also have to say, that being used to flat FFLD county, I must say the San Fran is a bit vast, I mean, everything is so scenic, even the more industrial areas have gorgeous mountains for a back drop... it is beautiful... and clean...

Then we went down to Haight and Ashbury which was the scene of the 60's peace love and happiness movement. This place was kind of cool... You still have that bohemian feel here, altough it felt a little more forced than it might have been, it was still pretty cool. Took a field trip up to 710 Ashbury... anyone know what that was? Anyone??? It was the home of the Grateful Dead for many years... it was really cool being out there...

After that we came back and watched a little "How I met your mother" classic episode... but you can find info on that anywhere... well anyway, I am going to get cracking on some work... I will write more tomorrow morning probabley while the rest of this state is still sleeping... Pics will go up when I get back since I did not bring any cables with me.

L8r - -z-