Bay Area Thank Yous

Mark and James at the Giants game

I had a wonderful time in Oakland, San Francisco, and Palo Alto, and that leaves me many people to thank.  Super big thanks to Scott Cabaniss for setting me up with tickets in San Francisco and more goodies to come on this leg of the journey.  Mr. Pritchett, thank you for your directions, driving me around Oakland, hosting me the first night, and giving me a good view of your hula hoops biz.  Tell your roommate and friends thanks for the intrusion. Mark McClure, thanks for transporting me all around the Bay Area - AT&T Park to Oakland, Palo Alto to Los Altos, Palo Alto to Oakland, and for the 6 AM wake up call to make the 6:23 Caltrain to make my 9 AM flight.  It was nice meeting all of your friends as well: John, John, Ian, Brad, Star, Aaron, Lauren, Melissa...sorry if I forgot some of the others, but everyone was incredibly nice. Thanks for the futon mattress, and more importantly, accompanying me to the games when you had a ton of other stuff going on. A's Snuggies for life.

From James' back porch in Oakland

I wrote the paragraph above last night before I went to sleep, but I wanted to edit it this morning so I didn't post it.  Mark was gracious enough to drive me to the Caltrain stop at 6 this morning for my 9 AM flight from Oakland to Seattle. Plenty of time, right? Palo Alto to Oakland in 3 hours?

The Caltrain was about twelve minutes late and put me in San Francisco to make the BART transfer around 7:30.  After I hopped on the BART, it took me another 50 minutes to get to the Oakland/Coliseum stop, where I had a 12-minute shuttle to the airport. Time now is 8:32 and I'm panicking.

I did the e-ticket check-in for Southwest (which is AWESOME), hopped in the security line for about 10/15 minutes, and SPRINTED to Gate 24. They could have put me on the flight, but I arrived just as they were announcing vouchers for people willing to give up their seats.  The $305 temptation + flight to Seattle had me sold.  Giving up my seat wasn't altruistic at all, but I'm glad someone else got on that flight. Since this might be happening a lot on this trip, I figured I could use the Southwest insurance money.

So, Mark, as long as I make it to Seattle for the game, your suggestion to use public transportation to get to the airport was a MONEY move.  Thanks.

Your Coca Cola bottle and large glove at AT&T Park

Broadcasters "fighting" in between innings. Fighting consisted of Rock, Paper Scissors. Needless to say, it was pretty strange.