Isaac Sinnett

The Race Lost by the Car

Bumper to bumper traffic on a Friday evening while driving on Sheridan has become something that I have grown use to.  Tonight was the exception though, it was worse.  Much, much worse.  If anyone recalls the opening of the movie Office Space where the lead character is sitting in traffic and the old person with a walker passes them, well, that was me today.  Seriously, there was a four block stretch where a couple was walking and I was driving.  They won!  They actually beat me in a race of four blocks!  You have to be kidding! Someone could walk four blocks faster than I could drive them.  That is just crazy insane.

Sheridan is one of those streets in Chicago that is a two lane road with lots and lots of stop lights.  It is one of those roads that could have four lanes instead of two and still be backed up.  I have decided that the amount of traffic definitely affects the back ups.  But it is something deeper than the amount that causes the crazy “what the hell” backups that seem to occur more and more often.  My brother Sean and I have been saying for years that if someone puts on their brakes, the people behind them also put on their brakes and the ripple effect continues until you have stopped traffic.  This may be quite a bit simplified, compared to the real reasons, but I definitely think that we are on to something here.  It’s a reactive thing that turns into a chain reaction.  (yeah, yeah, all of you english folks can give up telling me that I explained something with the same term.  The only thing I can tell you is…”get over it”)

S.F.

Yesterday I woke up early, per my usual, though I was glad. I was leaving for San Francisco and I wanted to be sure that I had enough time to pack, eat a nice breakfast and enjoy a nice cup of coffee. Well, I doddled around with the packing (which included reading the news, listening to NPR and generally enjoying the early morning hours), didn’t get such a nice breakfast and became to lazy to even make a cup of coffee making it quite difficult to enjoy drinking any. i was not to be deterred though. I was leaving for the Bay area, which I had never before been too. I took the train over to the airport, finding a nice seat in the corner where I could read. I had a nice hour or so of the wonderful CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) on my hands before I would reach the airport.

Arriving at Midway, I took a tour of the terminal to see which restaurant I wanted to sit in and eat. I had grabbed a snack while at home so that I could postpone breakfast til I got to the airport. I figured that I might as well sit at the airport for a few hours and engage in some always entertaining and sometimes adventurous people watching. There are two places where I find people watching to never grow dull; airports and big cities. There a slew of interesting characters to watch. After taking in some Power Rangers that was being broadcast on the big tv’s, it was finally time to board and start the second leg of my journey. I was to have a layover in Las Vegas before finally arriving at the Oakland airport.

The flight was relatively uneventful, except for the lady that was sitting next to the window. She was a nervous flyer and had the bladder control of a 2yr old. The better part of the flight involved me standing in the aisle, reading my book and waiting for her to return to her seat so that we could repeat the entire process again.  As we flew into Oakland, it became quite apparent that the young lady sitting next to me was not fond of water.  The point of realization for me came, after a few oooh’s and aww’s, when she looked at me and stated, “I’m scared of water.”  I know that I was rather quick in this realization, but I figure it may have something to do with my ability to break down phrases, like the above quote, and get to the heart of the matter.  The airport in Oakland is located on an island and you do fly over the bay and, like a few other airports, you feel like the only thing for the wheels to land on is the water.  I had faith in Southwest that it had checked over my plane to make sure it was safe and that the pilot was coherent and skilled enough to land the plane on the desired runway.  My belief that these things would come true was so realized.

Andriy picked me up from the airport and we were off for a quick bite of sushi before heading to the hotel so that I could check and then finally, heading of to San Francisco to meet up with Brian, a good friend from my days of yore in Arizona.  The sushi was absolutely amazing.  It was as if they had just come in from the daily catch and filleted them right there and oh so fresh and so very tasty.  After purchasing a few necessary toiletry items, I checked in to the hotel and off to the city we went.

These being my first time to the Bay area, there many visits of sites and views to catch up on.  The first I was able to see was the Bay Bridge.  This is an incredibly massive structure that connects Oakland and San Francisco, with a nifty little island in the middle. (I believe it is Treasure Island, but welcome corrections if I am wrong)  The view of San Francisco, sitting on the bay, from the bridge is absolutely amazing.  Andriy was driving, so I was free to absorb the view and take pictures.  We arrived in downtown, being welcomed by crowds of people.  After picking up Brian, we managed to evade the people and find some nice free parking in the nearby financial district.   After walking around a bit, we got back in the car and headed in search of Lombard St, which is the very famous and very curvy street.
Even after waking up early the previous day to travel and staying up late that night, I awoke with the sun.  Not really any surprise for me, seeing that I am used to waking up early for work and that my internal clock was two hours ahead, thanks to the time change.  This allowed me to get a good start on the sightseeing in store for me.  Andriy and I decided to take Bart downtown, San Francisco’s public transportation system. It is not necessarily that extensive but it is extremely nice.  The cars are large, spacious, clean and to top it off, there is cell phone reception down in the tunnel.  What a concept! (and no, US Cellular doesn’t count as cell phone reception for those Chicago based CTA riding readers).

After getting some breakfast, we contemplated taking the trolley but after seeing the line of nearly a block long, we opted for walking.  And then we walked and walked and walked and, you get the idea.  It was really great though, because we were really able to take in a lot of sights. We walked from Union Square, on Powell down to Firsherman’s Wharf and from there, along the bay and past all of the piers.  Got some good looks and pictures of Alcatraz along the way.  After nearly arriving at the Bay Bridge, we turned and headed back towards downtown, passing all the bums sleeping under the overpass on the way.  After arriving back at Union Square and taking in a few more sights, we decided that we were to tired to do more and so we headed back to the Oakland hills, where Andriy was staying with his aunt and uncle.

It is a really gorgeous view of the entire bay area from their house, but after eating some dinner, we left to take a drive down the hills and over through Berkeley.  I wanted to see the campus and all, seeing that it is a very well known school and town.  However, I will not lie to you and lead you astray.  I was most curious about making a Mecca trip to the original Peet’s store.    (see previous blog to understand my stance on Peet’s)

I would have to say that the streets of SF are one of the coolest things about the city.  Where else can you visit where you have to drive up such steep inclines, stop at the top of them or hope that your brakes are still working good enough to stop you when you reach the bottom.  The fact that people have to park on these things are amazing, but even more so when they have to park horizontal to the slope.  When you are driving up the steep streets you already feel as though you might fall backwards and flip over.  Just think how you would feel if you had to park horizontally to the incline?  I would be afraid that my car would start rolling down the hill like a ball.  So, we opted for the less adventuresome parking.