I walked across San Francisco today, from Ocean Beach on the Pacific, through Golden Gate Park, through the Panhandle along Felt to the Civic Center, wiggling my way, figuratively speaking, through downtown to the bay, where there was a cold beer, a nasty cheroot, and some friendly company waiting for me. Wait ... maybe I got those adjectives mixed up a bit. Along the way I walked past Moscone Center where, in a moment of "how the hell did this happen?", a friend of mine was just arriving to do booth duty at a trade show. (Java One, if you care, which I hope you do not, otherwise you be nerds) The timing would not have ever been this good if we had planned it.

I made a tactical error and wore old running shoes. Owie. Those are now gone, or they will be completely gone next trash day, and so will all of my other old ones. That's it, I'm turning over a new leaf ... or foot. Only new running shoes from now on in the house.

The ears don't really hurt, but they are tired, because I've been pumping music into them all day, mostly Satriani. I picked up the new album yesterday, Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock (owie, now my mouth hurts, or would be if I was actually speaking instead of typing), and listened just today. I've heard it 3 times already, and liked it more each time. The tracks Professor Satchafunkilus and Come On Baby have got me especially enthralled. (iPods are great, but you just can't beat a full blown stereo; I'm doing the bring the neighbors over thing again.) Since I had all this time, I also got a chance to really listen to Is There Love In Space?, and found stuff that I didn't know was there. (This makes no sense to me, because I've heard that album may times, but the only words I can come up with are that I didn't listen before.) The track Searching seem like it came out of nowhere and pinned me right between the ears. Maybe that's what comes from listening to music while climbing fucking hills.

The thing about the eyes was just to make a symmetrical title. They are just fine. But they were busy, cause I was taking pictures. Lots. 477 to be exact. (Actually that is low. How Weird last Sunday brought home 972; a typical soccer tournament brings home close to two thousand.) Most of them are crap, which is normal. I finally made the obligatory pilgrimage to the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers. Holy crap that place is like a sauna. No, it really is a sauna. The butterfly room was full of sweaty people. I've never seen so many sweaty people in one place with their clothes on before. Ewww. (Some of them were tourists, you see.) Pictures posted here www.flickr.com/photos/tor...4925470246/ That's pictures of the flowers, and a few butterflies, not the sweaty people. Go ewww yourself. And I found the secret shoe garden in Alamo Square. More pictures posted here www.flickr.com/photos/tor...4924502310/ I had never heard of this before, but there it was. You can read a much better writeup about it here www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi

Ended the day with an annoying water rat that would not leave us alone. people.tribe.net/torroid/p...7c49e84e3c

A great day. Owie.