Sad to be leaving, but happy to go

I have to say that while being in San Francisco for a week and a half, I'm quite happy to be leaving. I went for a walk up to North Beach two days ago to buy salami and I thought, "Hey, I won't see this place for awhile, let's have a stroll." That was a rather tremendous mistake as shop upon shop is closed. It was just sad. This city is a husk of what it was and it goes to show how intangibly debt-driven the economy is here. Although, it did make me anxious to leave.

So, that's it. A total month and a half back in the US and now I'm off again. Why am I off again? Because economically, things are really still quite down. I knew that this would be the case though as January-March in any year are a hard time to find work. Of course, I had a sunnier disposition about things this time last year, which ended up burning me. But, given the fact that my rent wasn't increased for the first time in five years and a quick perusal of Craigslist shows that yes, things are not turning around, I am tossing in the towel and leaving the country.

Heading off to Europe again? No, not this time. As much as my in-laws would probably like to have me grilling meat and watching the puppy, I'm going a bit more adventurous this time; I'm heading to Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) for five months. Yes that is in Africa (West, not South) and yes, they do speak French there. And yes, it is quite hot there. So, why on earth am I doing this?

First off, I've wanted to actually live outside the US for an extended period of time. I've only really traveled outside for a maximum of maybe three months through a variety of countries. The closest I've come to living was staying in Figueres with my in-laws and that didn't really count as I wasn't paying rent, mom-in-law did the shopping, and I was there on the three moth tourist visa which I damn near went over on. Really need to use the other passport more...

So, this will be not only the longest time outside the US, but also the first actual living in another country. It just took until I was 33 to actually pull this off (I'm a late bloomer.) This is all being made possible by #1 Fan having a temporary contract there that was will take care of basic living expenses. Seeing how the economy was heading, she did something very smart last Fall and found this position which will not only allow us to hopefully weather this economic storm, but also work on that other project that I spend so much time on, Maneno. Also, I am hoping to come back speaking decent, as opposed to chicken-scratch, French by the end of this as well. Even though it's not my favorite language in the world (the multiple 'u' sounds and the numbers kill me) it is an incredibly useful one.

Most people who read this blog probably don't read Subsaharska that much as it's about Africa and African technology primarily. This one is a bit more fun, dealing with such things as food, tea, airport frustration, and of course, toilets. Speaking of which, there should be an article forthcoming about that last item. Otherwise, if you want to see some of the more cool things I'll be doing and the people I'll be working with, take a look at that blog.

If I didn't get a chance to meet up, I'll make sure to do so in July and will be happy to see a lot of folks again after so much time away, although I will be online just as much as here in the US and I have a SkypeIn number for those wishing to call as well. Au revoir!

27 01 2010      0 comments

Tags: california, in to africa, san francisco, us america

Man, that's a lot of NGO's. Vote for mine!

Well, as you can see below, San Francisco is not hurting when it comes to the number of registered NGO's (non-profits) in the city limits. I can't remember the specific figure, but it's somewhere in the multiple thousands. So to say that you're the director of an NGO in San Francisco is pretty much San Francisco-ese to say, "Hello."

Anyways, I've mentioned the one that I'm working for, Maneno, which naturally I think is a pretty cool organization to get more Africans actually being part of the discussion about Africa and to work on preserving African languages in the digital world. Both are not easy feats which is why the organization is always on the lookout for funding. If you are on Facebook and would be so kind as to help out, vote for Maneno in the Chase Community Giving competition. Thanks and and have a pleasant tomorrow.

09 12 2009      0 comments

Tags: aid, maneno, ngo, san francisco

Suck on that San Francisco

Time and again, San Francisco comes up as the go-to example of a public wi-fi failure. It's not a surprise as the Mayor is an incompetent ego-maniac and the City Council all want his job bu have forgotten that they need to theirs first. Essentially, there is never any consensus in city government and so little gets done except to stare in the gaping maw of a half a billion dollar deficit for 2010 because everyone keeps pushing their special interest programs. By the way, that deficit (we're not talking budget here) is more money than the annual GDP of 20 countries in the world.

Barcelona may have twice the population of San Francisco, but somehow they're able to run things a great deal better. The Metro flies along very nicely, the city is cleaner, and events thrive without shootings. It's also the case that Barcelona has deployed a public, city-wide WiFi network. Now, I haven't used it yet and will have to check it out on Tuesday when I'm there again, but the fact that a city which is not in the heart of all that is web, where internet is vastly more expensive is able to do this just goes to show what a dysfunctional heap San Francisco is these days.

Who knows, maybe San Francisco will get better soon, but in reality, I'm betting it will get a lot worse in the next six months or so. Honestly, it needs to and I'm planning accordingly...

27 11 2009      0 comments

Tags: barcelona, politics, san francisco, wifi

San Francisco in stun-o-vision

Naturally this came up on Laughing Squid in that this guy named Ben Wiggins decided to shoot stop motion video around San Francisco (and some other spots in California) with his super high resolution Canon 5D Mark II. The results are badass. Just watch the video below. My favorite bits are the fog banks rolling in and out as well as planes landing and taking off from SFO at night. Blow it up to full screen for extra special three minute evening at home.

19 09 2009      2 comments

Tags: photography, san francisco, video

The San Francisco Tourist Guide

I was quite intrigued by this article which talked about what are apparent commonalities that all guide books must share about New York City as all tourists stick to these guidelines. In looking around, I was astounded to see that apparently the same is true about San Francisco. Blinded by the obvious, I raced down to my local library and found that every major book does indeed cite this Publication T-NO as the definitive guide to visiting San Francisco. I found a copy sealed in a room only accessible once one is bedecked in a baseball cap, short pants, chewy pretzel, and a camcorder. Here is what I was able to glean from it before I was found out to be a local (shouldn't have worn the damned hoodie!) and quickly hustled away by security.

- San Francisco is often called "The City" by locals in the area. Unknown to many, "Frisco" is the actual preferred name. Call it that often. You'll find yourself blending in faster this way.

- There are four tourists attractions in San Francisco: The Bridge, The Crooked Street, Fisherman's Wharf, and the Cable Cars. Sometimes they are incorrectly called the "Golden Gate", "Lombard Street", "I never go there", and "Much slower than any other actual public transportation". In common conversation you may need to resort to this lower class vernacular in order to communicate with your taxi drivers where to go.

- Once you have seen these four attractions, San Francisco offers a wonderful array of Irish Pubs for the weary traveler to sit back and enjoy.

- Walking. Whoa, whoa, whoa! This isn't Los Angeles, is it? People really like walking here and it can be quite sickening to those not accustomed to it. Take a pedicab along the Embarcadero once you are done with the four main attractions and have had your fill of tipple at the Irish Pub.

- Make sure to take a taxi or airport shuttle for approximately $25-40 from the airport, especially if your hotel is at Powell and Market. The BART metro from the airport to Powell and Market is only for locals and you will be incarcerated immediately if seen attempting to use it!

- By advised that you are better off taking a taxi to the Golden Gate Bridge instead of the 28 bus. You could very well encounter what every tourist hates on that bus: other tourists.

- Stay out of the Tenderloin at all costs. You could quite easily be killed! There are no delicious Vietnamese, Thai, or Indian restaurants there at all!

- Make sure to take a picture standing next to one of the heart sculptures on Union Square. No one has done this before, so you need to make sure to focus your camera for 5-10 minutes to get the shot just right. Repeat as many times as necessary and stand as far in the middle of the sidewalk as possible to get your perfect shot. The locals will understand.

- If by chance you find yourself on public transportation (this is highly unadvised), when taking the escalator, make sure to block the entire steps. The locals always step right, just in case tourists need to get past. They're really nice people that way.

- Despite the size of Chinatown, there is only place to eat Chinese food, which is House of Nanking. This establishment knows how to cater to the tourist well, ordering their most expensive dishes for you and charging accordingly.

- Likewise, there is only one place to eat Italian food in all of North Beach which is the Stinking Rose. The name is so incredibly clever. Hilarious even. Genius. The name to end all names. Something to comment on forever and ever.

- Taxi drivers are incredibly helpful in San Francisco. No matter how short the distance, they will always take tourists the longest way possible to give them the chance to show off their magnificent city.

- Do. Not. Buy. A. Transit. Pass. The convenience of being able to not hold up a bus or train while you board, nor have to remember to take any money for the fare, nor having to remember to get a transfer is far overshadowed by the fact that if you will actually have to use the pass to get your money out of it and why do that when there are so many friendly taxi drivers.

- Make sure to tip at least 25% in restaurants and 50% in bars. While this may seem steep, it challenges the locals to tip higher and they're the type of people who thrive on challenge. Plus, it balances out the meager 10-15% that they leave, thus providing servers with the comfortable existence they deserve for writing down an order and then walking back with it.

- Pick any hill in the downtown. Walk one block of it. Stop. Then ask "How in the heck do all these people do this all the time?" An option is to have your travel companion take a photo of you on the hill, but be advised that San Francisco hills are magical and appear flat in photos.

- Rent a car if for no other reason than to drive down the Crooked Street while filming it on your camcorder.

- Take the Cable Car, stand at the front and use your camcorder to film all 3.4km of the trip. Each moment will grow ever more precious upon consecutive viewings at home.

- Skip Alcatraz Island. It's just a prison and let's be honest, we saw all the best parts in "The Rock", especially the underground mine which the authorities don't let you see anyways.

- Wear shorts. All the time. San Francisco has a reputation for being cold, but it is surprisingly warm year round. Short pants are an excellent choice of attire for your outings. If for some reason the weather unpredictably changes in the afternoon, there are always helpful merchants waiting to clothe your in the latest Alcatraz fashions for your enjoyment.

- View the gays in the Castro with special care, preferably from the safe confines of a moving vehicle. Actually setting foot in the Castro could very well give you, "the gay" and force you to live your life in as "fabulous" a manner as possible, which could very well kill you.

- There are approximately 30 museums in San Francisco. Likewise, there are approximately 50 Irish Pubs. Obviously, you should visit all the Irish pubs and not the museums because if locals thought the museums were better they would have built more of them and less of the Pubs.

18 09 2009      1 comment

Tags: san francisco, tourists

Bay Bridge bypass in 3:46

For those who only know about the signature Golden Gate Bridge, I need to point out that here in the San Francisco Bay Area, our much bigger bridge is the Bay Bridge. Half of it is a nice suspension bridge. The other half (ie, the Oakland half) is an ugly "cantilever span" that had a chunk collapse in the big 1989 earthquake. That being the case, and the fact they knew 30 years previously it wasn't seismically sound, they're working quite hard on replacing it.

In the process of getting the new bridge built, they had to do this switch-a-roo on the traffic going to Treasure Island in what was billed at the "triple bypass". The weekend before last, they completed this work, shifting a 91m double decker chunk of road in to divert traffic to the bypass. While it takes away from the four day enormity of this event, some clever fellow went and made a time lapse video from the surveillance camera that Caltran had focused on the work. Watch it below and see them toss around these many thousand ton chunks of road like Legos. Also watch a touch of fog roll in and out at various points.

14 09 2009      0 comments

Tags: bridges, san francisco, video

Closures abound in San Francisco town

Apparently 2009 will be remember as the Year of the Vacancy in San Francisco. One after another, old establishments are closing shop quite quickly. Some I've welcomed the demise of such as Postrio which was about 19 years late in closing its 1980's attitude. But just today, I read that the Carnelian Room is closing. I never ate there. I had maybe one or two drinks there. But what I did have there was a constant go-to spot to bring guests from out of town to admire the view. From 52 floors above the ground, you could see an amazing sweep of the city. At the end of the year, that will be gone. Well, the floor will still be there, but who knows if you'll be able to just pop up and see it. I think not and for that I, and all my future guests, will be sad.

But more importantly than views is that fact that when walking up through North Beach today, I found that Coit Liquors closed. This truly is sad news (that apparently happened a few months back) as they were one of my favorite wine shops in the city. They had a good selection and I liked pretty much anything I bought there. Naturally there are many other good wine shops in San Francisco (like biondivino and Ferry Plaza), but I liked them. This is a sad day for booze.

It's hard not to be a bit down about all this because it's not like these places are closing due to the owners getting tired of running them or someone else buying the place. No, it's the common thread of the economy and it's at this point that I say to all those who have been saying it, yes it is not like the 2000 recession. A lot of places closed then as well, but they were mostly fluff leftover from the dot-com excess. These are regular businesses who weathered that storm and seemed to be fine. Apparently there were a lot of spots left for the trimming. I just dread that only the Walmarts and Bestbuys will make it through this. All I can say is that if you have the means, support your local stores. They know you and need you now.

04 09 2009      0 comments

Tags: economy, san francisco

The 74X Culture Bus: A one way ticket to fail

Touristic creations like the Barcelona Bus Turistic are dreamy. They're a public bus line aimed at serving the needs of the tourist so that they don't crowd the other public lines that people commute on, the tourists pay properly for transportation that they don't pay taxes to support, and most importantly, they stop tourists from driving all over the city. It's a genius system and I was constantly pounding my fist on my desk about the fact we don't have this in San Francisco.

Well, it turns out that I bruised up my fist over nothing because apparently, we do have a touristic bus, the SF Culture Bus or otherwise known at the 74X. You can read all about it on their FAQ and while it may read a great deal like Chuck Norris Facts, you can get the general idea.

Reading through all of that, I quickly realized that this bus is screwed. First off, the route that it covers is quite well served by the 7 or the N Judah. These lines are a mere $4 (oh yeah, celebrate the 33% fare raise today. yay...) round trip as opposed to the $7 for the 74X. The bus runs every 60 minutes which is a joke. Also, it doesn't take credit cards, Translink or even give change, so you better have a five and two ones to pay for it on board.

Also, this route is not a popular route. Museums are fine and I like them, but the typical tourist doesn't give a rat's ass about these things. They want that "curvy street", "bridge", "pointed building", and the "Italian place". There is no touristic bus to these areas, but there are a great deal of taxis and other private operators who work to service these areas like all the taxis at Coit Tower waiting to prey of taking people to Fisherman's Wharf which is about a 10 minute walk--downhill. Can't step on their toes, can we now? I mean, just even stretching the 28 to go to Fisherman's Wharf instead of having it fart out at Fort Mason would be an improvement, but no, we get the 74X and that's it.

It reeks of people going to City Hall, showing how touristic routes would be a great idea, Mayor Prettyboy going along with it, but making sure not to touch the private operators, establishing this route in this way thus dooming it to failure as shown by the buses always being empty despite plenty of tourists being in town right now. This way, after they shut it down, they can point to it and say, "See, we had a touristic bus and it failed, so why you wanna go down that road again? Now, on to handing out more taxi medallions..."

01 07 2009      0 comments

Tags: culture, san francisco, tourism

Four stages of boredom at The Makeout Room

I was really not in the mood for going out last night. I just wanted to stay home and hide in code somewhere. This is what happens when I go out to events in The Mission in such moods. The last one is just before going home. Thanks for the patience to photograph my annoying-ocity, #1 Fan.

13 06 2009      0 comments

Tags: hudin, san francisco

The cafe way to save water

For some reason, the servers at cafes the world over are always afraid to actually fill up a cup to the top. I mean, I love Nook for a great many reasons (such as outdoor seating, cheap drinks, and the joy of watching tourists screech around the corner on the cable cars) but even there, the servers never want to fill up my cup. Take a look at the tea I got on a recent outing below. That's something like 2/3 full. It's really not like they're saving money by doing this. The expensive part is that bag floating in there. It's the same for coffee as well in that they rarely fill up the cup and it's the coffee beans that are the expensive part.

Sometimes I'll ask to get a fill up to the top and they'll oblige most of the time without a huff or sigh. Other times, the place offers free refills, but will still give you these meager cups. I don't get it. I just don't get it.

02 06 2009      0 comments

Tags: rambling, san francisco, tea