San Francisco

Last week I went to San Francisco to attend a 2.5 day conference. I didn’t really want to go, but I wound up having a very good time. As of late when I travelled, I’d usually just retire to my room unless I was conducting the business I was sent out to do or working out. I was feeling pretty good though and decided to go out. I was glad I did because I wound up meeting some interesting people which kept my trip very entertaining.

The first entertaining thing that happened to me in SF was while I was standing in the Taxi line waiting for a cab to take me to my hotel. When a Taxi finally showed up, some guy come from out of the blue and says he was ahead of me on line and proceeds to put his luggage in the trunk. I told him “No Fucking Way” and through my luggage in the back seat and hoped in as well. Obviously, I now had this guy stymied, because the only way he was going to get the cab was to physically throw me out of it. The guy then looks at me through the window and tells me I have very bad Karma. I replied that may be so, but I also have the cab.

I kind of felt funny afterwards at making a scene, since a business colleague I knew was also on line for a Taxi with his two sons. I thought to myself, how did I just look, yelling at the guy that there was no f’ing way he was getting the cab. I called him when I got to my hotel and he just laughed saying, “Well that’s New York”. He then told me he tried to cut in front of the people that were behind me. Well, since I had a great trip and met many friendly people, I figured I must have been in the right and my Karma wasn’t so bad after all.

In a previous blog posting, I wrote about a theory that I have in which you will suddenly find yourself in a place that you don’t normally visit more than one time in a short time span for completely unrelated reasons. My theory was never stronger than on this trip. It wasn’t more than the previous month that I was down at Crissy field and other locations in San Francisco to participate in the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon. How could I ever have predicted that I would have met a local real estate agent that would take me on a tour of houses she sold and in the process pass all of these places I had just visited? I didn’t know I was going to San Francisco until 4 days before the conference. San Francisco is not a place I normally go to, but it is not inconceivable that I could go there in any given year. I’ve been there many times before, but the fashion in which I just revisited not only San Francisco, but places in San Francisco that I had no intention of visiting is just uncanny. Long live the theory.

I also got in a workout every day I was there. The first workout was a 2.5 run to the Aquatic Park, where I swam for 40 minutes and then a 2.5 mile run back to my hotel. The water was a bracing 62 degrees. I had used the services of the Dolphin Club to store my running gear while I went swimming. While I was getting ready for my swim, I asked a person just coming in from the water if I needed a wetsuit. He said Oh No, go without it. Well I almost did, but fortunately I changed my mind and put the thing on. Did I mention the water was 62 degrees? I wouldn’t have lasted more than 10 minutes in that temperature. The other days I managed to get in 6 mile runs in between conference sessions.

All told it was a very happy and successful trip.