I bought Ogii a cute little whale whose eyes pop out when you squeeze him.
Lots of little gifts for Ogii.
HughesNet, except it's satellite and has a lot of latency. Which isn't a big deal for me because I don't play games, but it's still a worry.
Spectrum seems to finally be available at our address now. Although our current AT&T internet seems to work fine for basically everything, except uploading, but maybe we'll switch over since that's five times better with Spectrum (100 down, 5 up versus our current 15 down, 1 up).
My mini umbrella broke in the wind, so I bought another one, the one with the best Amazon reviews in the wind I could find. Except it broke as soon as I openend it, just checking it out in the house. They sent me a replacement, though.
An owl at Ogii's work.
Closeout items at the grocery store. A lot of Axe bodywash.
Except it's one I don't use.
Driving up to San Francisco on Thursday night, lots of traffic in the other direction but almost none my way, nice.
Although I hit some when I got almost to San Francisco.
The meeting is in the Marriott, but I had only reserved Friday night very early. By the time I realized I needed Thursday night, too, the prices there were almost twice as much, so I reserved right across the street at the Hampton Inn instead.
Ooh, free M&M cookies.
There's a nice little business area here. Although not much parking. I wanted to buy some sour beer for a home poker game in a few weeks where they like players to bring craft beers, and there were a few breweries around this area.
South San Francisco city hall.
Armstrong Brewing Company.
Pretty small inside.
Their selections.
The only ones they had to go were these in the fridge, and none were sours.
Grabbing some late night pizza. I loved doing that in Berkeley.
A local pro wrestling show.
Checking out a second brewery.
47 Hills Brewing Company.
More space inside.
And a couple of video games. Still no sour beers to go, though.
I like the inspiring message on the bathroom door.
I drove over to the Marriott early in the morning.
To catch the sunrise. It's just south of SFO so you can see the planes landing and taking off.
The airport to the north.
A few chairs out by the water.
Cute little plant.
This candle lamp might be cool to get the sunrise through.
I got a plane inside of it, but it's still kind of boring.
If I hauled it out to the posts closer to the water, I think I can get a better angle on the sunrise.
Yep. Now I just need to wait for a plane.
There one is. And there also happened to be two reflections in the water from two holes in the clouds, so it looks like both candles are lit. Nice.
The hotel has the e-bikes, but I don't think there's really much around here to bike to.
Some chairs close to the hotel.
The bar inside.
Neat lights.
From upstairs.
Cool wood inside plastic.
Getting our voting cards for this year's House of Delegates.
We had four attendees.
Time to start.
We had spent a lot of our money the past 10 years.
A speech by Assembly Member Kevin Mullin.
Working on a resolution.
Bob and Trevor looking it over.
Although it was mostly just cleaning up the wording; nothing exciting.
A couple people spoke on it.
Including Bob.
Voting.
A speech by Assembly Member David Chiu.
I've met him at a few other events. He seems very smart.
All of us.
The future AOA president talking.
They had an online donation site that you could donate to by paying with a credit card on your cell phone.
All of the past COA Optometrists of the Year.
And the current one, Dr. James Dallas.
Us with our flag.
Next door was a house flipping seminar.
Not as many people in there.
A lunch dinner with other society presidents.
We had a really good discussion.
Which was structured by these six questions.
Although we spent most of our time on the first ones.
This is surprising. The water in the bay went down a lot.
Lots of airplane staff stay here.
My room at the Marriott.
I was excited for my bay view room but it was pretty dirty and my camera kept focusing on the dirt.
I don't know why I need three different key cards.
The bar lit up at night.
Dinner.
Which had a variety of food set up around the room. Cold cuts.
Indian.
Mexican.
And Italian.
Desserts.
The next day; onto elections.
Candi handed out these cute snacks.
Strategic goals for the next year.
We used to have meetings in Indian Wells, but have saved a lot of money by having them scattered around the state instead.
Trevor talking.
Bob was elected to the new Governance Task Force.
Announcements from the Public Vision League, which dealt with a lot of issues I'm concerned with.
Introducing the new officers.
All of the past presidents in attendance.
Speech by the new president, Ron Seger.
They raised over $11,000 over two days, very nice.
Trevor was on the Membership Committee.
And Bob was on the Leg and Reg committee.
All done with the meeting.
Time to go shopping in San Francisco.
50% off, but none that fit me.
The main reason I came to downtown San Francisco: there was a tulip festival in Union Square where you could pick your own flowers. However, there was a long line in the rain.
A very long line.
A very, very long line.
I don't even know where it starts or ends.
A view from Macy's. The festival was only open from 1pm to 4:30pm, though, and I got there late because I was in the meetings. At this point, at 2:30pm, the line literally wrapped around the block; the end is under the parking garage right in front and it wraps counter clockwise around the park to the entrance at the left. Even if I got in line now I don't think I could make it in on time. Some people said they showed up around 9am.
It's nice they spelled out "love" in flowers.
You were only supposed to take 10 flowers, but it looks like some people got more.
Including this woman.
On the bright side, I found some really cheap shirts at Macys.
After that I checked out Artichoke Joe's, a casino near my hotel.
An aquarium in front.
Lots of table games, with almost 100% Asian players.
A restaurant in the back.
With neat lights.
It's almost all limit games, and we usually play no limit. He said he's put me on the list but it might be over four hours before they get a no-limit game going. I appreciate the honesty, but I'll have dinner and see how it's looking after that. I can always surf the internet on my phone for a few hours, too.
A huge menu.
Their prime rib.
When I got done eating the no-limit list had filled up quickly; nice. Almost time to start.
I didn't know they still sold cigarettes in vending machines.
They have a couple of promotions, including free money for getting your aces cracked or making four of a kind.
The poker tables were over in this area.
Poker and MMA; a fun combo.
I really like their chips. They're bright and easy to tell apart from each other.
Four to a straight flush on the board, but I guess my opponent didn't have a flush or a straight.
I made quads twice. The first one was before the promotional time started, but I got a bonus $100 for the second one.
From the outside at night.
Back at the Marriott. There's a different photograph of San Francisco on each floor by the elevators. Floor 11.
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
Except on floors 2 and 1, which had meeting rooms and the lobby. Although there was this nice ad for the restaurant on the first floor. They really should have put it on the top floor for the view.
Done with the organization meeting on Friday and Saturday; now onto the CE meeting on Sunday.
A room with vendors.
And more over here.
The first speaker.
He presents for a lot of companies. I wonder how much money he makes from them.
Top ten malpractice causes.
Lunch time. They had these funny tall but thin soda cans. I also ran into Dr. Ha, who is still at Drs. Hall & Szeto Optometry in San Francisco, so we caught up over lunch.
Nice landscaping out front.
Now for the less-than-fun part: trying to get out of the parking lot. You wouldn't think it would take that long, but for some reason it was insane.
10 minutes later and I had barely moved.
10 minutes after that and I'm just getting around the first corner.
It seems there was an issue with validation. They had one employee out helping two lanes of exiting vehicles, and it was taking forever to get each one out.
Finally, 40 minutes after I got into my car and slowly crept towards the exit, I was the next in line. After this woman also had trouble getting out, I was finally free. Bad job by Marriott handling this situation.
Some cool buildings.
I don't think I'd want that plate.
On the other hand, considering 8s are lucky in China, this would be a nice one.
Ogii loves tulips, so I felt bad not getting her any from the festival in Union Square. Someone mentioned Trader Joe's has them, though, so I thought I'd stop there on the way home. It doesn't seem there are any in San Jose or south of it, though; that doesn't seem right.
Ah, Google Maps only shows so many results, and it seems to start from the north. You have to move the map farther south or zoom in more to see these.
And one in Gilroy.
Google Navigation is asking if there's still a speed trap here. I think that's a new feature they're incorporating from Waze.
Fog in the hills near home.
180,000 miles on the Prius.
Always have to look at individual review on Amazon. This hard drive has a great overall review, but some recent reviews are all negative. Maybe they don't make the drive as well any more? Or maybe they're fake review from competition. Hard to tell nowadays, although it says they're all verified purchases.
Holding Out for a Hero by Bonnie Tyler seems to be in a big movie every 10 years or so. I remember it from Short Circuit 2.
Two of my classmates got awards: Eric got Young Optometrist of the Year and Matt got Educator of the Year.