Day 26: Frisco! San Fran! Baghdad by the Bay! The City of Freedom! Sucka Free City!
Wikipedia is just FULL of weird little things, isn't it?
Yes, today I rented a car and journeyed to Fog City to visit with one of my oldest friends, one IK. He and I grew up in the same subdivision, and he lived just around the corner and down the hill from me. Often, we would meet up and head out to have adventures, though we've fallen out of touch over the intervening decades since graduation, during which we'd actually hung out together exactly once, more than six years ago.
Today, I arrived at his (truly magnificent) apartment building, and parked on a side street. I walked around the corner, and down the hill... and there he was, just arriving on his bike. For both of us, it was kind of an amazing moment. Just two old friends meeting up again, after quite a few years and thousands of miles. SF is an hour-and-a-half trip from Sacramento, but we're basically neighbors again, and it has been kind of shaking me all day how great it is. I love that guy.
We spent the day with his adorable daughter, MK, though his wife (SK) and I only had a few minutes to chat before she headed out for an afternoon with her friends. IK and MK and I journeyed to the Exploratorium in The Golden City, which is sort of like EdVenture on steroids. There were HUNDREDS of little interesting science-y things to look at and play with, and I dare say that IK and I had just as much fun as MK.
There were a bunch of exhibits, but one of the favorites deserves a quick anecdote. This was one of those tornado-shaped funnels that you find in lots of museums, where kids roll pennies down a slide, and then the pennies whirl around the smooth surface of the funnel, until eventually disappearing into the hole at the bottom, lost forever to the coffers of the museum. This one had one fundamental difference: instead of pennies, you rolled little hard plastic marbles, and when they dropped through the hole, they popped out at the bottom. So you could have races, you could release handfuls at one go, and...
IK: I've noticed an interesting thing about this one. There's an eternal struggle between two types of people. The first type is made up of those who want to watch the marbles spin around and around. The second type is the kind who wants to see if they can grab any marbles that come within reach. The conflict between these two groups leads to much frustration on both sides.
And, once he'd noted that, we spent nearly half an hour howling in laughter as it happened over. And over. And over. One kid would get an armload of marbles, releasing them in a wild torrent of spinning wonderment much to his delight, only to be brought low seconds later when other kids snatched them out of their perfect little arcs... much to their delight! It was like watching one side trying, patiently, to play a beautiful game of grace and beauty, while the other side was just playing Duck Hunt.
It was hilarious.
We did so much today, and I'm almost kind of overwhelmed, and I don't want to bore you with all of the details, especially knowing that later on I'll be able to frame them in a really funny, interesting way. I'll get around to posting up quite a few of the many, many pictures we took, but for now I'll just leave you with this one, which pretty much summed up our day:
Wikipedia is just FULL of weird little things, isn't it?
Yes, today I rented a car and journeyed to Fog City to visit with one of my oldest friends, one IK. He and I grew up in the same subdivision, and he lived just around the corner and down the hill from me. Often, we would meet up and head out to have adventures, though we've fallen out of touch over the intervening decades since graduation, during which we'd actually hung out together exactly once, more than six years ago.
Today, I arrived at his (truly magnificent) apartment building, and parked on a side street. I walked around the corner, and down the hill... and there he was, just arriving on his bike. For both of us, it was kind of an amazing moment. Just two old friends meeting up again, after quite a few years and thousands of miles. SF is an hour-and-a-half trip from Sacramento, but we're basically neighbors again, and it has been kind of shaking me all day how great it is. I love that guy.
We spent the day with his adorable daughter, MK, though his wife (SK) and I only had a few minutes to chat before she headed out for an afternoon with her friends. IK and MK and I journeyed to the Exploratorium in The Golden City, which is sort of like EdVenture on steroids. There were HUNDREDS of little interesting science-y things to look at and play with, and I dare say that IK and I had just as much fun as MK.
There were a bunch of exhibits, but one of the favorites deserves a quick anecdote. This was one of those tornado-shaped funnels that you find in lots of museums, where kids roll pennies down a slide, and then the pennies whirl around the smooth surface of the funnel, until eventually disappearing into the hole at the bottom, lost forever to the coffers of the museum. This one had one fundamental difference: instead of pennies, you rolled little hard plastic marbles, and when they dropped through the hole, they popped out at the bottom. So you could have races, you could release handfuls at one go, and...
IK: I've noticed an interesting thing about this one. There's an eternal struggle between two types of people. The first type is made up of those who want to watch the marbles spin around and around. The second type is the kind who wants to see if they can grab any marbles that come within reach. The conflict between these two groups leads to much frustration on both sides.
And, once he'd noted that, we spent nearly half an hour howling in laughter as it happened over. And over. And over. One kid would get an armload of marbles, releasing them in a wild torrent of spinning wonderment much to his delight, only to be brought low seconds later when other kids snatched them out of their perfect little arcs... much to their delight! It was like watching one side trying, patiently, to play a beautiful game of grace and beauty, while the other side was just playing Duck Hunt.
It was hilarious.
We did so much today, and I'm almost kind of overwhelmed, and I don't want to bore you with all of the details, especially knowing that later on I'll be able to frame them in a really funny, interesting way. I'll get around to posting up quite a few of the many, many pictures we took, but for now I'll just leave you with this one, which pretty much summed up our day:
MK, IK, and myself. LOOK AT HOW CUTE THAT LITTLE GIRL IS!!!
I know, I know, I try to make this blog funny, and sometimes I can do it, but mostly I'm just a little emotionally overwhelmed by how happy I am, so I'll save the funny for later, and I'll detail lots of the little adventures we had.
More than anything, I had a wonderful day with a wonderful friend, and there's just nothing better than that in the world.
Oh, yeah, we also went to the Golden Gate bridge, which, as you know, was made famous by "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". It was even more impressive in real life. You could almost feel the horse-mounted super-chimps coming up behind you.
I know, I know, I try to make this blog funny, and sometimes I can do it, but mostly I'm just a little emotionally overwhelmed by how happy I am, so I'll save the funny for later, and I'll detail lots of the little adventures we had.
More than anything, I had a wonderful day with a wonderful friend, and there's just nothing better than that in the world.
Oh, yeah, we also went to the Golden Gate bridge, which, as you know, was made famous by "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". It was even more impressive in real life. You could almost feel the horse-mounted super-chimps coming up behind you.
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