Showing posts with label Alan T. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alan T. Show all posts

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Isn't technology wonderful? - My weekend in Tahoe

Because I am new to San Francisco and don't have a broad social network yet, my weekends tend to be dull. Therefore, when my friend called on Friday afternoon to let me know that a friend backed out of their trip to Tahoe, I was more than happy to take the seat.


The weekend was great! I spent Friday night gambling and drinking free beer in the casino* until the sun came up. It has been a long time since I had one of those nights, but somehow my friends actually went skiing on Saturday morning. On the other hand, I just loafed around and wrote a blog entry. After recovering all day Saturday I was ready to go skiing on Sunday, but unfortunately there were whiteout conditions.


The reason for the title of this blog is that I am writing and posting it from the back seat of my friends truck as we inch towards a snowy mountain peak on Route 50 in California. Isn't technology wonderful?


*Sarah, you will be pleased to know that I stayed in a Wyndham resort and the experience was pretty good. ;)

Saturday, February 23, 2008

On the Scene in California - Background about my situation

I know that it has been a while since my last post, but I am finally in California and am comfortable with my situation. Therefore, it's time to get back to blogging! This article sets the stage for my current living arrangement.


I am currently staying in the Mission District of San Francisco, which is typically just called "The Mission." As you might have guessed, it got its name from Mission San Francisco de Asis, an early spanish mission founded in 1776. During March I will move into an apartment close to work and the SF Giants baseball stadium to a neighborhood called South of Market or SoMa for short. This is another one of those inventive names because it is the district situated immediately South of Market Street.


The weather in San Francisco is very mild compared to anywhere on the east coast. During the winter (the rainy season) days are typically in the 50's/60's while nights are in the high 40's. The spring and summer however, warm up to 60's/70's by day and 50's at night. Mark Twain is often quoted as saying "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco," but as long as you layer it seems pretty nice to me. San Francisco is so mild because of the Pacific Ocean's cold Alaskan currents and the high heat of California's mainland. It is exactly this combination of temperatures that creates the fog that San Francisco is so well known for.


The topography and physical location of San Francisco create a unique system of "microclimates" where each neighborhood can have radically different weather at any given time. Lucky for me, the neighborhoods that I live and work in are on the sunny side of the city and are therefore clear more than 2/3 of the year.

*Most of the facts in this article are confirmed by wikipedia.