We said goodbye to the Bay Area today. As usual the week was over too soon. On Thursday, we met Tyler and Pete C. for lunch at Brenda’s in the City. I’d say it was in a shady part of San Francisco, but I always think that wherever I go in the city. It’s the only place I’ve been that has filthy dive bars immediately next to five star restaurants. Anyway, Brenda’s was good.

Tyler took us by the street in Full House. We saw five tour buses drive by in the ten minutes we were there. And one guy drove by with his window down and shouted, “Wassup Danny Tanner!!”

The view above the Full House house.

We drove to Fisherman’s Wharf afterward and walked around Cannery Row and Pier 39. Hayley has been pestering me since our last disaster* to visit the harbor area, so I finally gave in. It was fun walking around, although I wish we had eaten at a real restaurant instead of In and Out. Check out our pics, which are posted in a million different places, including http://mswebby.com/flickr/.

The next day my masculinity was put to the test at the Filoli Gardens in Woodside. It was pretty cool for an hour, then I lost it and ran straight to the deli to have a drink. It’s tough being a dude in that place. Ok, honestly it was fine.

One of Filoli’s many Secret Garden-eque pathways.

We spent the rest of the trip hanging out with my folks. Last night mom and dad took Hayley and I to the über fancy Le Papillon in San Jose to celebrate both our anniversaries. My meal consisted of a glass of very nice champagne, a generous helping of lobster bisque and a delicious Pinot Noir Braised Duck Breast with Sour Cherry, Green Peppercorn Gastrique and Black Forbidden Rice. It was pretty fricking sweet, especially since we will be eating much less extravagant meals for the next year and a half (starting July 29, I’m milking this country for all it’s worth, baby).

We flew out today. When we arrived at home in San Diego, we tried Skype video chat with my folks and it worked great.

* Description of the “Last Disaster” mentioned above: We were at the Golden Gate bridge lookout point a few years back and I went prancing down through the shrubbery to check out the famous surf spot at the base of the bridge. Halfway down I noticed that I was surrounded by many beautiful bushes with leaves of three, oily texture and red tips. Yes, Poison Oak, my worst enemy that used to attack me regularly in Junior High while Mountain Biking.

I sprinted back through those bastard plants, ran to the car, changed into my red “santa pants” as Hayley calls them and proceeded to flip out like a school girl. We drove a mile before stopping at the first house I could find. I jumped out of the car, stripped down to the bare essentials and drenched myself under their garden hose, all the while hoping they wouldn’t come out and ask me what I was doing in their lawn. Hayley had put the seat all the way back and was hiding, although I think she may have been laughing at me. She’s very good at that.

We drove another twenty minutes before parking illegally in front of the CVS on Van Ness and I ordered Hayley to get me (1) rubbing alcohol and (2) cotton balls. I scrubbed my legs, arms, face, stearing wheel, shoes, Hayley, etc… until I had finally convinced myself that the Poison Oak was sufficiently removed from my skin.

In the end I didn’t actually get Poison Oak. I guess that’s either because the hose and rubbing alcohol worked, or because it wasn’t actually Poison Oak.

Tags: bay area, breakfast, garden, photography, photos, san diego, san francisco, sunnyvale, Travel

Most of my time between the ages of 12 and 17 was occupied playing sports, studying for school and searching for rare albums at Compact Disc Warehouse in Sunnyvale, California. I had so many great finds, like a rare bootleg CD of Phish performing Dark Side of the Moon or a deluxe Nirvana recording from back before they were famous. Those were the days. My CD collection was probably worth a couple thousand dollars and it was my most prized collection.

After losing my AOL account (long story), I quickly found other means for communication with IRC. Shortly thereafter I discovered file sharing. While IRC fserves worked pretty well, other easier ways to get files and music appeared, like Hotline. FTP was also pretty popular at the time.

Then came Napster. I arrived on campus and the illegal music revolution was just becoming mainstream. Every single person that owned a PC was downloading music like crazy. It was a marauder’s wildfire spreading from computer to computer. At the same time, my CD collection dropped from several thousand to three hundred dollars in value. All my rare CDs were now worthless and everybody had instant access to them on the Windows file sharing network (not my doing, I was selfishly keeping them on CDs).

The record companies were hit hard. They tried everything from discounting CDs in places like Target and Best Buy to suing grandmothers and ten year olds. It didn’t change anything. The fact remains that physical media is gone forever and there is little that they can do to stop it.

I suppose I should be thankful that I have millions of records to choose from online, or on my hard drive, but I miss those days. I can’t help but think that I was personally responsible for screwing such a good thing. I suppose that’s just nostalgia and it’s hard to break from what is comfortable.

I can say that I appreciated music more back then. Lately, I’ve switched back to purchasing music, mainly on iTunes. I love music and those artists deserve my money. I can afford a CD every now and then.

But It’s still not the same. The artistic insert, the shiny CD surface and the feeling of putting the CD in the player and pressing play. That feeling just never goes away.

Tags: cds, music, sunnyvale