My last morning in San Francisco, I hid out in my room. That week of trashy lunches and overindulgent dinners did a number on my stomach and I was unable to eat much of anything for most of today. So I finished the book I bought on Wednesday and took it easy. I barely made it in time for the plane because I was trying to back up my hard drive. Stupid, since the backup didn’t work at all.

I got home in time to deliver some presents from Megan, eat some dinner with my mom, and go off to the Apple Store to get my keyboard fixed. Fortunately they had an extra “Return” key laying around and I was good to go. I also bought a wireless mouse since my buddies were telling me how I was no longer cool without one. It’s actually pretty nice. I also went to REI to buy a new pair of shoes, since I realized just before I left that my Keens were worn out.

Currently the rest of my unexciting evening is consisting of trying to back up my laptop. Of course it’s not exciting, but it’s something I need to do.

One of the biggest secrets of the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, even bigger than what Steve Jobs is going to reveal at the keynote, is what band is playing at the WWDC bash. Last year it was Ozomatli. While my LA Mexican buddies (or at least my buddies who think they’re Mexican) really wished they could have been there to see Ozomatli, I’d never heard of them. This year, however, the band was the Barenaked Ladies, a band that I thought was more fitting and a band I’ve wanted to see. Basically, a much geekier band as well.

So I got to see some live Barenaked Ladies. I suppose that’s as good as it gets for me.

After two months and two days and I finally caved and had a cheeseburger. And not just any cheeseburger, but a double-double animal style at In-N-Out burger. I even walked the whole route of the cable car to get to In-N-Out at Fisherman’s Wharf.

I walked back to work it off, but I had to make a pit stop and In-N-Out didn’t have a rest room. Some clown told me to just use the one in Hooters. (He really was a clown; he had a red rubber nose and floppy clown shoes and was juggling flaming pins while riding a unicycle.) The waitresses at Hooters all looked like they were in high school and it made me feel kind of creepy to be there. Fortunately, I just used the bathroom and got the heck out of Dodge.

I was going to have dinner with my friend Megan again, but it was probably for the best that I didn’t. Monday night was Suppenküche with Megan, Thuy, and JG.

Tuesday was Conduit with Megan and Vivian, super fancy.

And super fancy desserts.

So when Megan couldn’t make it back in time to meet for dinner, it was time for me to go for the cheeseburger. I’m on vacation, after all, and most times I’m in California I make it to In-N-Out. I even hit the drug store for some bandaids and the book store for another book to read. I’m all set.

My room at the Hilton pretty much sucks. It’s big but it’s really a living room and I was sleeping on a sofa bed until a woman from housekeeping told me to just get the roll-away bed. The mattress on the roll-away bed is a lot smaller, but it’s thicker.

Not only that, but I had a bunch of yahoos next door (like I said already) who were having a party when I got back last night at around midnight. I called the front desk and they make a lot of noise leaving. Lucky me, they came back around 2AM and I had to call the front desk again. They were making lots of noise for at least half-an-hour and I wasn’t able to get back to sleep. I finally gave up and read the book I brought down with me until 4:30 or so. The worst part about that is I’m not going to have anything to read on the way home unless I hit a bookstore. Or steal a book from one of my friends.

There is an advantage to the room, and that’s the view. I’m not spending a lot of time in the room so that’s that great an advantage for me, but it’s still a nice view.

The big disadvantage is the yahoos. I sure hope they’re gone tonight.

The problem with something like the Apple WWDC is that they usually give you something experimental that can destroy your computer. And that’s just what I did. Fortunately, I spent yesterday night making a backup. Tonight I accidentally erased everything. Fortunately, the backup got me most of the stuff back.

I’m up right now, at 4AM, because I’ve been up since 2AM. The people next door have been partying off and on since I got back around midnight and I can’t get back to sleep. I’ll probably nod off when I shouldn’t, in the middle of a presentation tomorrow sometime. That’s just the way it goes.

Oh, and I’ve been getting back late because I’ve been out having dinner with my friend Megan, and yesterday with Megan and Thuy and Thuy’s husband JG. I have pictures of the things I ate because, really, the meals were tasty enough that they deserved to have their pictures taken. I’ll have to do that when I’m really supposed to be up, not at 4:11AM.

I even went to San Francisco Crossfit and had my ass handed to me because I felt like such a pig. I think they wanted me to get reacquainted with my lunch, but I didn’t like seeing it the first time.

P.S. I really like San Francisco, if it weren’t evident already.

I’m writing this from a living room suite in the San Francisco Hilton Hotel. Somehow the travel agency didn’t confirm my non-smoking room, and this was the only thing they had left. I first looked at the smoking room, but I could tell it was smelly as soon as I opened the door. Since that would have done nothing for my allergies, I’m now sleeping on a sofa bed. Most likely a $300+/night sofa bed. It’s a big room with no desk, but it does have a dining room table of sorts. Unfortunately, the internet connection (another $15/night) is across the room from the table so I’m standing at a counter, typing. At least there’s a bathroom scale in the uncomfortable-looking bathroom.

I did go to a pre-WWDC barbecue, which only took three hours to get to. I had more beer than I did all last month (I think I only had four beers last month) and a gigantic hamburger and lots of chips. Of course, after all that we had apple pie and ice cream. I think I had my calories for the week.

In any case, I’m supposed to try to get up early to stand in line for the conference tomorrow, but I’m not going to kill myself to get into the keynote.

This is the week of the Apple Worldwide Developer conference and tomorrow is rumored to be the announcement of the new iPhone. It kicks off today with a barbecue that I crashed last year and turned out to be the run by a director at Apple. With all the abuse he was giving us on the intarweb, I thought he was just a “regular guy.”

Well, let’s see if I’m awake enough to report my travels this week. I’m guessing that I’m not going to maintain my low weight of 166# (as reported by my mega-accurate bathroom scale).

So this week I thought I’d miss going to the gym on Tuesday because of a massage, but I just made it. I thought I’d miss Wednesday because of a late work meeting. But Thursday I ended up talking to a contractor about (finally) doing something to the house. We’ll see what all we start doing and when.

It was a weird day. Went to the dentist (“Your teeth look fine.”) and the doctor (“Your bloodwork looks fine.”) and then met with the contractor (“Oh, honey, what have they done to your mortar?”) OK, so the contractor doesn’t sound like that but it makes for a better story. But other than waiting around a lot reading a book that I remembered to carry around with me, there really wasn’t much going on. Life’s kind of been on the boring track. Like when I’m in a room and an attractive woman comes in, she’ll sit right behind me so I can’t see her. Where’s the fun in that? I suppose there isn’t all that much fun if you just go around eating salads all the time. At least they haven’t worn my teeth down to nubbins yet.

All day I was walking around stiff-legged because my legs are SORE from taking too much time off from the gym. I was having all sorts of trouble getting up and down the stairs, but I still did it because I’m still subscribing to the “work out the lactic acid” thing even though it never seems to work for me. And now, using the power of the intarweb, I found out that it isn’t lactic acid but damaged muscle fibers. I guess the new thing is that I’m supposed to just take it easy. Huh. Who woulda thunk it?

Of course I’m too foolish to follow my own advice here, and I went for another hard workout at the gym. We were doing pullups with a 40-pound weight vest, which is doing pullups with 20 pounds more than I weighed when I started at the gym. How do I know it was hard, besides finishing DFL? We did four rounds of 250m rowing, 15 wall-ball (which I hate), and a sprint to the corner and even Mark the yoot was lying on the floor between rounds.

I didn’t feel so bad physically afterwards, but I felt kind of bummed out. Like I just realized that I haven’t done anything worthwhile with my life lately. Well, I know I haven’t done anything that worthwhile EVER, so it wasn’t a big surprise. I then had the idea that it might just be my blood sugar level because I’ve been rather hungry all day.

I’m now really bad at being depressed because all it took was eating dinner and then trying to put my USB-to-Morse-Code adapter back together to cheer me up. I dropped one of the screws (never to be found in my mess of a basement) and that completely distracted me from any efforts at being a gloomy Gus. That’s even though I probably should have been more depressed that I have a USB-to-Morse-Code adapter in the first place. At least I know what a tapir looks like, even though I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.

I went to get a massage today and I was told that the attachment point at the lower part of my glutes was “hot” and that meant that the muscles were holding my S-I joint together and I should wait for those muscles to relax before I did any more at the gym. Did I listen? Of course not. My legs are so sore that I can hardly walk and my excuse is that I needed to move the lactic acid out of my legs by exercising. The reality is that I’m going to just have to wait for the lactic acid to move itself out at its own pace.

It’s a good thing that I went to the gym because they told me about the recipe for a Zone-friendly cheeseburger that another crossfitter put on his blog for me. Plus, we did a partner workout and I once again partnered up with the Deputy DA from a neighboring county. Besides, why would I miss the conversation that I get at the gym? We were using foam rollers in our stretching exercises yesterday, and I asked:

“What if I have a bony Asian ass?”

“Eat more cupcakes!” answered the Cupcake Queen.

This means I was daydreaming about Red Velvet cupcakes from St. Cupcake, at least until I got home and started watching a Food Network show on frozen dinners and started daydreaming about Banquet fried chicken. Mmmmm. Fried chicken. It’s a wonder I don’t weigh as much as my car.

I ordered a bunch of books on Amazon Marketplace. They’re the next few books in the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly, and of course they’re arriving from different used book stores in the REVERSE ORDER of how I want to read them. Figures, doesn’t it?

I made it back to the gym today, and I’m finding out that my unplanned absence from the gym has had detrimental effects. I’m tired and I’m sore. Well, I suppose I was tired and sore back then, but I was doing better right before I stopped going because of my back. And today was a doozy. I walked into the earlier class and someone working out looked at me and said, “I feel like throwing up.” And here’s more visual proof, from the gym’s blog, of how I’m feeling.

I’m sure I looked a bit more like that today as well. Tired and wondering what I’m doing, only sure that it has something to do with these weights. I’m even dorkier looking when I’m sitting next to my sister’s dog.

Next week I’m going to be in San Francisco for Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference and I was thinking I better work out at Crossfit at the marina while I’m there. Now I’m thinking that I’m just going to eat like a pig and enjoy myself for a week. What a dilemma.

My back feels better, and even sitting in a theatre for hours didn’t hurt much. Getting to the theatre was probably the worst of it. They moved the Eastport Plaza Theatre years ago and I didn’t know what the new location was. The whole area had changed and I ended up calling a friend from a Walmart parking lot for directions. (It’s hidden behind JoAnn Fabrics.)

The Indiana Jones movie wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t so good, either, but it was entertaining and that’s all I really expected. I saw some weird technical problems with the synchronization of the sound and odd reflections, but I suppose it was worth it. And so goes another Sunday.