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These guys bought a huge TV at Wal-Mart; the only problem is they didn't think about how they'd get it home, because it didn't even remotely fit into their trunk or back seat, even with a couple of employees helping them out.



The walk / don't walk sign near where I work got twisted somehow, so for a few days you had to just figure out whether you could walk or not from the traffic lights. Thankfully this is a simple intersection where you can always walk in the same direction as traffic with a green signal.



When Mom, Dad, and Grandma came out, we toured around the northern part of San Francisco. We were going to take the F-Line from the Ferry Building to Fisherman's Wharf, but we waited for 20 minutes and one never came. So Mom and Grandma rode on a bicycle cart, while Dad and I walked.



On the double-decker tour bus around San Francisco.



A building which artists have hung various things out of the windows.



The bus driver hit a work truck as he was going around the corner. No real damage was done to the truck (the huge metal bumper got pushed in a little bit, but that could probably be hammered out in a few minutes); the bus, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky, and was out of service the next day.



Eating at the Equinox, a revolving restaurant. In the background in the Bay Bridge.



At Fisherman's Wharf there is a free museum of coin-operated games. I thought it was a pretty good deal to be free, but then I found out that all of the machines still require money, so it wasn't such a great bargain. Although you could always watch something when other people put their money in. This was one of my favorites; you box with the two metal men and when you hit the pin on your opponent's chin, he falls backwards.



A chess set. I don't remember how much it was, but it was just a tad more than we were willing to shell out.



Eating at Skates on the Bay, a restaurant with a nice view of the bay in Berkeley.



The Berkeley rose garden.



This car sure stands out.



I went to Wal-Mart, and all I was looking for was a little stool. I couldn't find any, but finally I found these and was overjoyed (I had been looking for a stool for a week, and not a single store had them). But wait, there was no little sticker on the shelves that said how much they were, and I didn't see any stickers on the stools themselves that stated the price, and, not to mention, they were still all stuck together like they had just been unloaded. Great; I finally find what I've been searching for and they're not for sale yet.



A high school band was playing on a sidewalk in San Francisco to raise money to go somewhere. Normally I don't give money to street performers, but these guys were really good and it seemed like a good cause.



I went to the Renaissance Festival in San Francisco. These two had a mock duel with swords. Finally, they put down their swords and finished it "the old-fashioned way:" rock, paper, scissors.



And this was real fencing. Most duels lasted only a few seconds, though.



Ah, that's my kind of food; just rip a big leg off of something. Unfortunately, the lines for the food were about 45 minutes long.



A juggler. He had some great banter to go along with his performance; the audience was really laughing at some points.



Probably the most impressive costume I saw there.



They also had a little archery range. I actually came down a little trail that came in right beside the bathrooms; it definitely wasn't an official entrance, but it worked.



The majority of people there were dressed up, which surprised me; I expected more people like me in t-shirts and shorts.



Another act, this one with four people.



A performance of a queen swearing-in ceremony or something like that.



This lady saw me using my cell phone and asked if she could borrow it. She was on the way to a birthday party and apparently showed up at the home, when the party was in fact somewhere else. The person setting up the party had emailed her the new location, but she told me she doesn't use email much and doesn't even use digital clocks (which explains the no-cell-phone situation). She was really nice, though, and said maybe she just might have to get a cell phone.



Two bugs, one yellow and one green. I also saw the only pink one I'd ever seen a few hours earlier.



Some of my roommates put the tap water through this filter before they drink it. I'm not sure why, as the latest study shows that the Bay Area recieved the highest possible score in water cleanliness of all major metropolitan areas in the US. Of course, they don't clean the filter much, so it usually has dust and stuff (and for all I know, bug parts) in it, which seems to be defeating the purpose.



Estate sales tend to freak me out and I generally stay away from them. It just seems creepy to go through all the possessions of someone who recently died, kinda like pulling the boots off of a guy who was just shot in a duel. Also, most of the stuff is way overpriced, at least for me, since it's usually a business that is interested in making money who is putting the sale on, as opposed to a family just trying to clear out their crap. Same thing with flea markets. This one, however, had a ton of books.



And I mean a ton. A whole room full, with shelves all around the walls and extra shelves in the middle, plus books in a few nearby closets.



Oh, and the lady liked cats. Just a little bit. There are more cat posters and ceramic cats and other cat things behind me as well.



I finally bought a FasTrak. I'd always assumed they cost money, which I why I hadn't bought one before, but actually they just have you start with $40 in your account and you get this little detector thing for free. So there's really no cost at all, and you get to go through the bridges at 25 (well, you're supposed to; most people run through closer to 45) rather than sitting in line waiting for a toll booth.



You can't really tell from the picture, but this lady had her blinker on for miles and a bumper sticker promoting women's rights. Ah, nothing like promoting the stereotype of women drivers.



Someone's gonna have some fun; cases of Bud and tons of corn on the cob.



Well, let's see here, first of all, these rags are for drying clean dishes, which isn't all that useful when they're covered in grime (the rags for cleaning are in a drawer 10 feet away, but I guess it's too much effort to open the drawer and grab one), and second, putting a rag on something that can get hot and start the rag on fire doesn't seem like the brighest idea.



They have warning signs on some roads advising trucks to stay off of them. I guess this is why; the semi got high-centered. That's gotta be a fun vehicle to tow.



Baker Beach, on the western side of San Francisco. It ends at the Golden Gate bridge.



I decided to wander north along it, and you had to crawl up and down over these boulders and outcroppings.



This part freaked me out a little. There was no way to go around closer to the water (it was like a 40 foot drop straight down), so you had to walk across this tiny little path with a drop-off on both sides. It looks much wider in the picture than it seemed at the time.



I finally got to the end of the beach. Unfortunately, there wasn't any treasure.



There was, however, a path up to the top of the cliffs, so I took that back rather than walk along the beach again.



One of the problems with the beaches here is that it's foggy until about 2pm. On the western side, over the ocean, you can see the fog; on the eastern side, towards land, the sky is completely blue without a cloud in the sky. It can make the beaches on the coast pretty cold until the afternoon.



Another beach I went to farther north, Muir Beach.



The northern part of Muir Beach is apparently clothing-optional, so there occasionally was a naked guy walking around or sunning himself.



Remember, when you get annoyed about being stuck in stop-and-go traffic...



...just remember that your car can still go, rather than looking like an accordion and being the reason for the stop-and-go traffic.



One thing that annoys me out here is bikers who bike on roads where there's really no room for them. The road down to Muir Beach is extremely twisted and this is the biggest the shoulders get, but bikers still think they have every right to use them and slow down traffic or make it have to whip into the other lane on a blind curve to get around them.



Animal sightings at the beach. Wait, bobcats? I don't really want to get mauled today.



Since I got to the beach before mid-afternoon when the fog goes away, I built myself a little wind break to stay warm. I dare say it worked pretty nicely. I got that beach towel and another one at Pamida in Vermillion years ago for a hugely-discounted price, although they still weren't quite as good of a deal as the $1 backpacks Monica bought the store out of.

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