For not quite the last week, I have been working in the city by the Bay - San Francisco, California. While I didn't have much time to actually walk those streets made famous by Michael Douglas and Mr. Malden, you have to admit that San Francisco is a fascinating place.
Unfortunately, the attempt to get there was a bit trying.
The flight from Las Vegas is only an hour, but first we had to sit in the plane on the runway for more than 2 hours while they tried to get the plane's parking brake to release. Rather than let us off the plane, they kept changing out various switches and parts and kept assuring us that "we'll be on our way in just another 10 minutes."
The unnerving thing is that even after changing out countless parts, it was only after they "jiggled the wires a few times" (as the pilot put it) that the brake just decided to release itself.
Anyway, that screwed up my plan to land in San Francisco and get fast enough to the hotel to watch the Cowboys game. To make this even more difficult, this is 49ers country and naturally that was the game on the local channel in the airport.
Thankfully, the wonders of technology allowed me to wirelessly connect my laptop to our cable box in Las Vegas (where the Cowboys were on tv) and thus I watched it sitting outside the security gates at a cafe in the San Francisco airport...
I sat there for hours staring at my computer, but it also looked like I was staring at the TSA security guys. The next time I fly I'm probably going to be flagged as a security threat. I do carry a tube of chapstick with me after all.
Eventually I did find my way to the hotel and spent a few minutes walking around San Francisco.
They still run their famous cable cars through a section of the city. At the end of the line, however, the cars need to be turned around to go back in the other direction...
...which happens on a big circular track...
...but is still turned using nothing more than the hard work and sweat of the cable car operators themselves...
Really, it was just three guys spinning that whole car themselves then pushing it back on the main track.
San Francisco is also a place that disdains big chain stores...
And that aversion to big franchises is very evident when you try to find something to eat. While I spent one of my nights searching for gifts to bring back for each of our children, I headed off to a food court in a mall hoping for a quick bite...
But none of the normal food court faire was anywhere to be found. These were unique places, but in what appears to be a typical San Francsico style, these were high end unique places.
Rather than a Wendy's or McDonalds in the food court, they offer this...
From my perspective, if I want a burger, I want it either quick (like a fast food joint) or really fatty and artery hardening like from some dumpy greasy spoon.
Burgers should not come from Bistros.
Rather than the typical fast food Asian food, they've got this...
Gourmet Thai.
Although I have to admit that I was happy to see this place...
Gotta love high end Korean food.
This food court is probably the first one I've ever seen to actually have a place that serves this stuff...
Yep, fresh crepes.
And just in case you didn't like the crepes from the first place, you had another option as well...
I will admit, that since I was in San Francisco, having a crepe from a mall food court for dinner seemed like the trendy thing to do. So here's the guy in action making my dinner...
While I wished I had more time to explore San Francisco, that was about it. Early in the week I was at a conference and later in the week the chief executives of some 30 foundations gathered at Stanford to create a new framework for our work.
We were meeting as a part of the National Task Force on Community Leadership. The first day of our meeting happened to occur on a very important day of celebration. September 19th was international...
Yes, International Talk Like a Pirate Day really is a day of celebration. I saw it on the news that morning.
So naturally, during that day's discussions of the National Task Force, whenever someone agreed with a comment, it was met with a chorus of, "Aye, matey." And if you said something foolish, you were a "scurvy dog" or a "scalawag."
Ah, it was a true honor to be gathering with some of the brightest minds in the community foundation world.
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