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Notes from the road
2006-07-16 17:07Actually, notes from the table: specifically a table at the Rogue Ales Public House in San Francisco, at a window table. Looking out the window is a surprisingly pleasant street scene. (I tried to take a picture with the cell phone, but the camera is just so unrepentantly awful.) The pub has three or four dozen microbrews and imported beers on draft, including a lot of ones from the Rogue Ales brewery that you can't easily get anywhere else.
So why am I here, you may ask? Given that I have relatively little money and shouldn't be gallavanting off to the Big City? Good question. My BART ticket is already paid for, though (you prepurchase transit tickets and they function like debit cards), and I felt like hiking somewhere a little more urban today. So I got off at the Embarcadero station, headed up to the corner of Montgomery, Washington and Columbus--right by the base of the Transamerica Pyramid--and walked up Columbus into Little Italy. Every other shop along Columbus is a neighborhood cafe (usually Italian, given said neighborhood) or a coffee shop. The pub here is actually right across from a little park. And, while it doesn't have free wifi, I've discovered there are 16 wifi networks that the MacBook is picking up--statistically speaking, I figured one would be open, and indeed it was.
I've finished lunch here (which may be dinner, too)--a kobe beef burger (!). It was good, as expected, although it makes me want to get a patty from their supplier (Snake River beef, I think) and cook it at home on the cast iron pan. I'm about to have a taster, at least, of a chipotle ale. C'mon, I had to, right? But on the way back to the BART station--which is a bit of a hike, I have to say--I'll be stopping at the relatively famous Caffe Trieste.
My impression that I could indeed be happy living in San Francisco proper--or another sufficiently metropolitan downtown--is of course just being reinforced by all this. As much as I like going into proper wilderness to recenter myself, I'm pretty sure I could get used to an urban lifestyle the rest of the time.
I'm not being a complete layabout, though--I'm making, uh, notes. Notes on an idea for a mildly interesting web application I'm disturbed there might be a market for. I'll worry about it if I ever get past notes, of course. Notes are the easy part.
(N.B.: The Chipotle Ale taster has arrived and it's... better than I honestly expected, although I probably shouldn't have doubted: these guys really are pretty good damn brewers, good enough to take what seems like a novelty item and make it work. Their smoke ale is better, though.)
So why am I here, you may ask? Given that I have relatively little money and shouldn't be gallavanting off to the Big City? Good question. My BART ticket is already paid for, though (you prepurchase transit tickets and they function like debit cards), and I felt like hiking somewhere a little more urban today. So I got off at the Embarcadero station, headed up to the corner of Montgomery, Washington and Columbus--right by the base of the Transamerica Pyramid--and walked up Columbus into Little Italy. Every other shop along Columbus is a neighborhood cafe (usually Italian, given said neighborhood) or a coffee shop. The pub here is actually right across from a little park. And, while it doesn't have free wifi, I've discovered there are 16 wifi networks that the MacBook is picking up--statistically speaking, I figured one would be open, and indeed it was.
I've finished lunch here (which may be dinner, too)--a kobe beef burger (!). It was good, as expected, although it makes me want to get a patty from their supplier (Snake River beef, I think) and cook it at home on the cast iron pan. I'm about to have a taster, at least, of a chipotle ale. C'mon, I had to, right? But on the way back to the BART station--which is a bit of a hike, I have to say--I'll be stopping at the relatively famous Caffe Trieste.
My impression that I could indeed be happy living in San Francisco proper--or another sufficiently metropolitan downtown--is of course just being reinforced by all this. As much as I like going into proper wilderness to recenter myself, I'm pretty sure I could get used to an urban lifestyle the rest of the time.
I'm not being a complete layabout, though--I'm making, uh, notes. Notes on an idea for a mildly interesting web application I'm disturbed there might be a market for. I'll worry about it if I ever get past notes, of course. Notes are the easy part.
(N.B.: The Chipotle Ale taster has arrived and it's... better than I honestly expected, although I probably shouldn't have doubted: these guys really are pretty good damn brewers, good enough to take what seems like a novelty item and make it work. Their smoke ale is better, though.)
