![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adventures in transit
Dec. 21st, 2011 02:22 pmYesterday's adventure was to get from my hotel to Amoeba Music, just steps from Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, without any taxi or other car. So, that meant taking SamTrans (i.e. San Mateo county's buses) to CalTrain to BART to Muni to get there.
I got on the Muni 71 going the wrong way at first and ended up waiting forever for the one going in the right direction. I didn't mind too much, though, because it was a beautiful, sunny day and I was on Market St. in San Francisco. I got to check out what people were wearing. Trends: crazy tight pants, lots of leggings, chunky-shafted boots, sweater dresses. I saw one woman (?) older than I am ride a bicycle helmetless down the double yellow line in a red velvet miniskirt and heels. That's what I love about San Francisco.
What I don't love about San Francisco is aggressive panhandlers and other two-legged nuisances. They didn't bother me personally, but that was a matter of luck. I can tell they're a problem that a tourist town like San Francisco can ill afford.
Public transit has a last-mile problem, definitely in the Bay area, and everywhere else in my opinion. CalTrain & BART are dreams of spaciousness, frequency, and swiftness, but if you're at all off the beaten track (even Haight Street in San Francisco?!) then frequency of service will be far too poor for anybody but a fanatical tourist like me. Never mind the sardine scene that is Muni.
What to do about it? A quick look at my beloved King County Metro's expenses seems to indicate that automating driving & maintenance would be the biggest win.
Why am I sleepy right now? Because Mom texted me from her BlackBerry at 0645 this morning Pacific time, thinking she was emailing me. And who taught her how to text from her BlackBerry? Need you ask? In all fairness to Mom, by default BlackBerry unifies all text & email messages in one view, and unlike Windows Phone 7 it doesn't have an obvious way to get to the separate kinds of messages. That's more convenient in some senses, but it could (and did) confuse somebody who was new to the technology.
I just washed a bunch of undies & socks. I brought more than one pair of undies per day of my (non-hospital) stay, but I was bleeding so much when I got out of the hospital that it wasn't enough.
Tomorrow I'll be visiting N, who was the best man at my wedding, in dowtown San Mateo;![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trystbat, whom I met at a wedding, in Palo Alto; and college chum H and her hubby D back here in Foster City. I'll be getting a CalTrain day pass and flogging the hell out of it. Mmu hu hwaugh huh hah ha!
ETA: Picked up at Amoeba: The Knife, Neon Indian, and the KLF.
I got on the Muni 71 going the wrong way at first and ended up waiting forever for the one going in the right direction. I didn't mind too much, though, because it was a beautiful, sunny day and I was on Market St. in San Francisco. I got to check out what people were wearing. Trends: crazy tight pants, lots of leggings, chunky-shafted boots, sweater dresses. I saw one woman (?) older than I am ride a bicycle helmetless down the double yellow line in a red velvet miniskirt and heels. That's what I love about San Francisco.
What I don't love about San Francisco is aggressive panhandlers and other two-legged nuisances. They didn't bother me personally, but that was a matter of luck. I can tell they're a problem that a tourist town like San Francisco can ill afford.
Public transit has a last-mile problem, definitely in the Bay area, and everywhere else in my opinion. CalTrain & BART are dreams of spaciousness, frequency, and swiftness, but if you're at all off the beaten track (even Haight Street in San Francisco?!) then frequency of service will be far too poor for anybody but a fanatical tourist like me. Never mind the sardine scene that is Muni.
What to do about it? A quick look at my beloved King County Metro's expenses seems to indicate that automating driving & maintenance would be the biggest win.
Why am I sleepy right now? Because Mom texted me from her BlackBerry at 0645 this morning Pacific time, thinking she was emailing me. And who taught her how to text from her BlackBerry? Need you ask? In all fairness to Mom, by default BlackBerry unifies all text & email messages in one view, and unlike Windows Phone 7 it doesn't have an obvious way to get to the separate kinds of messages. That's more convenient in some senses, but it could (and did) confuse somebody who was new to the technology.
I just washed a bunch of undies & socks. I brought more than one pair of undies per day of my (non-hospital) stay, but I was bleeding so much when I got out of the hospital that it wasn't enough.
Tomorrow I'll be visiting N, who was the best man at my wedding, in dowtown San Mateo;
trystbat, whom I met at a wedding, in Palo Alto; and college chum H and her hubby D back here in Foster City. I'll be getting a CalTrain day pass and flogging the hell out of it. Mmu hu hwaugh huh hah ha!ETA: Picked up at Amoeba: The Knife, Neon Indian, and the KLF.
