My San Francisco Trip. In More Detail Than You Want

So I would've updated from San Francisco but Blake, in a moment of incredible silliness, forgot his wireless internet password. It's a good thing I have one, because I was relegated to my iPhone for internet access for most of the trip. Blake, that deserves a fist shake. There, I shook my fist. Internet problems aside, San Francisco was a ton of fun. Real quick recap
Tuesday - arrived and met up with Dave, who saw Will Ferrell in a Starbucks at the airport. I clearly arrived too late. Once we got to the city, we (the gang - Dave, Blake, and Emma, as well as Dylan, Blake's roommate, oh and Kool-get it?) went to the Mission for some delicious burritos. Then we hit up a bar called the Rio whose main attractions were terrible margaritas and even worse live music. And a cat roaming around the patio. We lasted for two rounds at that bar before moving on to find greener pastures. We settled on heading to a party hosted by some girl Emma knows (read: "knows"). After listening to Blake complain about the bus system for twelve minutes, Emma decided to try to catch the bus. Blake and Dylan decided they weren't going along and headed towards the BART station (yes, San Francisco's subway is named after a Simpsons character). I followed Blake, and we ended up near the party waaaay before Emma and the rest. So we went to another bar before heading to the party. The party ended up being a bunch of drunk modern hippies sitting around a bonfire trying to make s'mores. Life lesson: marshmallow is a bad chaser for whiskey. The fire was pretty fun though - marshmallows, guitar, a burn victim, and Blake tackling Dave. My clothes smelled like smoke for the next fifteen hours, but it was well worth it.

Wednesday - Emma and Blake had work. Lame. Dave and I met up with his roommate Sam, and the three of us did touristy things. We walked around the Embarcadero, Fisherman's Wharf, and the Pier. We saw a man try to scare a seal off the dock. Wildlife abound. After a desperate search for somewhere to pee, we ate a much anticipated meal at In N' Out Burger. People from the West Coast love it. I've heard much praise. And honestly, it wasn't that great. Maybe it was my sobriety. Or maybe I just didn't drink the In N' Out Kool-Aid. I don't really get the hype. Chipotle hype seems more legitimate. I mean, the burger was just fine. The "animal style" fries were sort of gross. It was far from the mind-blowing experience I expected. Our next stop was recommended by my mom, of all people: the Buena Vista, famous for its Irish coffee. And I'll say, the Irish coffee did exactly the opposite of In N' Out burger; it totally rocked my world. Best Irish coffee I've ever had. Heck, the Buena Vista was even mentioned in a recent NYTimes article about Irish coffee. At night the gang headed out to a New York style deli (chosen by Blake - why is that what I want to eat when I head out west?) and a couple bars. The first bar, Kozy Kar, had centerfolds all over and classic tv interspersed with porn on tv. It really wasn't the perfect set-up, so we moved on to playing pool at an Irish bar. Emma put metal on the jukebox and scared away customers, leaving Blake and Dave to apologize to the bartender. Way to go.

Thursday - (wow this is getting long. I'll try to shorten it up) Again with the work for Emma and Blake, leaving Dave and me to fend for ourselves. I had lunch with my cousin at the Embarcardero and bought twelve dollar jeans. I was proud of myself. That evening, Dave and I ventured out to an Italian restaurant called Ideale and a fantastic bar called the Comstock Saloon. The Comstock was on the GQ top 25 cocktail bars list, and it absolutely lived up to its billing. I had the best Sazerac of my life, and a really good Blood and Sand. Then we met up with Emma to watch fire spinners. As in, people spinning sticks that were on fire. Apparently it's a popular hobby? But it was pretty cool to watch. However, the highlight of the night was one of Emma's friends letting me use his bullwhip. I'll be damned if I didn't hum the Indiana Jones theme song to myself as I attempted to crack the whip without smacking myself in the face (I succeeded!) It was epic. I think I have to purchase a bullwhip now. It's just about the coolest thing I've ever held. Dave got a hotel room with his girlfriend (too long a story - he can get his own blog if he wants to tell it), so Emma and I got some bomb nachos and went back to Blake's. Long story short, I ended up drinking with Blake and his girlfriend until 4 am (7 am EST, which is the time I was on). And Thursday mergers into...

Friday - where I woke up drunk after about five hours of sleep. What a miserable feeling! Oh god! It's somehow worse than the "I'm never drinking again" feeling. Blake took the day off and he, Dave, and I went to Haight St. Apparently there are no laws in San Francisco and you can drink and smoke a bowl in public. Saw lots of that. And a drum circle in the park at the end of Haight, which I think is Golden Gate Park. Nothing causes righteous anger like a drum circle. (Side note: I really have never smelled as much pot just walking around the street. It's totally crazy for me to wrap my mind around. I guess I'm not 'chill' and 'mellow' enough to find it normal. Don't you all have jobs?? What are you doing smoking a joint in the middle of the day walking down the street?) In the middle of Haight, I started feeling a lot better (how is not fit to print). We went to the Alembic, another of GQ's chosen cocktail bars, where I had a good pisco sour. Maybe it was the context (not feeling well, middle of the afternoon, bartender's bad attitude), but the Alembic was not as good as Comstock Saloon. Take a note of that. Still a fun bar. After Haight, we went for dinner in the Mission. Blake ordered a pitcher of margaritas and berated me for an hour that I wasn't day drinking with him. How dare he take a day off and I refuse to drink away my hangover? So while Blake and Dave engaged in some competitive margarita drinking, I ate a taco salad and felt a lot better. That night the gang went to a funk show at the Independent. Now, we thought we were going to see Dumpstafunk (not that it means anything to me), but the opening band just kept playing. And playing. Their first three or so songs I was fine with. Then I got annoyed, but I found solace in the fact that they were just the opening band and would end shortly. I was wrong. They played for at least an hour and a half. I went through the entire emotional spectrum: excitement -> annoyance -> anger -> denial -> acceptance -> funkytown. But by the time I got to funkytown, everyone else got to anger. Who was I to stop everyone from leaving a funk show where we had already put in 90 minutes? So we left, went to a crappy bar, and I got about 4 hours of sleep before my flight. The next day Southwest almost let me miss my flight, but that's not as good a story.

And that's quite long enough for that post. More later. Sufficed to say, I am back in DC, the weather is beautiful, and I have little to no drive to do my reading. In fact, this week I just skipped my Trusts & Estates reading. And no hellfire rained down. Nothing bad happened to me. I think this may be the start of a whole new outlook on life.

Costco is a great place

I would say the highlight of my weekend was going to Costco. If only to congratulate myself for the awesome purchase of a 24-pack of Guinness in preparation for St. Patrick's Day. What forethought I have. Oh thanks, me. Between that and an industrial-sized pack of Cliff Bars, I feel that I made out like a bandit. Not to mention that cheap pizza and hot dog I had from their vendor. The $1.50 hot dog-soda combo they offer restores my faith in humanity. I love knowing they can profitably sell that delicious due to me every time I visit.

Besides that, it was mostly research for my antitrust paper and being weirdly tired. Damn you, coal industry for being unnecessarily opaque in terms of production and pricing data. You are making my paper much more difficult to research. Sounds thrilling already, doesn't it? Oh, you want more? Well I am writing about a merger between coal firms in the Southern Powder River Basin of Wyoming, the largest coal-producing region in the country. I know it's thrilling. Please, hold your applause.

My plane ride tomorrow will be full of coal mergers and editing 2L note drafts. 'Cause I'm going to San Francisco! I believe the appropriate words are "Oh yeah!" I'm meeting up with Dave and staying with Blake and Emma. It's going to be magical. In preparation I've been listening to nothing but "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay". Now I am curiously depressed to visit California. I'll have to mix in a little "California Love" and "California Dreaming." And "California Girls." Hey, why are there so many songs about California? And so many movies? They think they are better than the rest of us?! Well listen up hippies, I'm coming to prove you wrong. This thought took a belligerent turn. It needs more Tupac. And the Eagles!

Alright, I have to pack. But I promise there will be California updates.

Mostly Empty

Emma came to visit this weekend. Predictably, though through no fault of her own, she was about 4 hours late getting here on Saturday. Jessica also came from Delaware for Saturday night. Emma got kicked out of the Big Hunt for hopping a wall on the patio and sitting on someone else's property. In preparation for my Torts midterm, I can tell you that is trespass. But a fifth grader could also have told you that. Apparently Emma wasn't thinking about it at the moment. What repercussions? Oh, right. It wasn't a big deal. Also not a big deal: stealing nachos. But there were soggy, so it wasn't the best. Sunday morning Jessica woke both me and Emma up at 7 in the morning to try to convince us to go to Starbucks. Um, no. I'm sorry. That's too early for life on Saturday. It's an ungodly hour. I like Starbucks, but that's no excuse for being woken up that early.

Sunday Emma ended up staying for the night partly because she's awesome and partly because her ride ditched her/didn't pick up her phone because she stupidly left it in the trunk of her car for 5 hours. But before all that we went to the National Equality March. We walked down the the White House, met up with the march, and walked to the Capitol Lawn. Google Maps says that's 2.5 miles. Woot. There's my workout for the day. They didn't release crowd estimates, but there were tens of thousands of people. I wouldn't be surprised if it surpassed 100,000 people. With almost as many homemade signs and rainbow flags. It was a really cool experience. I was very proud to be a participant. Also, Don't Ask Don't Tell and DOMA are awful laws and are state-sponsored discrimination, which I'm not so ok with in any way. (Except against Republicans...?) Among the speakers who we saw were Judy Sheppard, Matthew Shepard's mother (or related to the Laramie Project, if that's how you prefer to understand things), Miranda (I think?) from Sex and the City, and Lady Gaga. When Lady Gaga got up to speak there was a mad rush to the stage, like someone was giving out free beer only the beer was irresistible to gay men. She spoke for a little, it was fine. She loves her gay fans. But she included a quip about how she won't support any homophobia or misogyny in music. That's all well and good, Lady Gaga, but didn't Akon sign you? Aren't you on his record label? Oh yeah. Just checking.

On the way back from the Capitol Lawn Emma and I passed an ambulance taking care of someone. But I'm pretty sure that the guy was dead. As in, he didn't look like he was breathing or moving and the paramedics weren't in a particular rush to do anything, like get a dead body off the street. Holy crap! I'm not sure I've ever seen a freshly dead guy before. A little spooky. I'm not a fan. I'll try really hard in law school so I don't have to drop out and become an undertaker. Or a professional wrestler (The Undertaker...that was the most hick-ish thing I've said maybe ever).

I don't want to even talk about Boston Sports right now. But I will say this: Papelbon maybe should be on suicide watch right now. But, as BDP pointed out to me, the Celtics won their preseason game yesterday. So the glass is about 1/8 full, better known as mostly empty.