I’ve been in San Francisco for the past several days attending the LinuxWorld conference. Other posts to this journal have talked about the conference itself. This time I’d like to log my impressions of the area in San Francisco where I’ve been staying. I’ve been at the Argent Hotel on 3rd Street, a block away from the Moscone Center where the conference was being held. The hotel is just a half block from Market Street, one of the main streets in downtown San Francisco. My room was on the 26th floor with a great view towards the northeast.

1. There are a lot of tall buildings in downtown San Francisco. They must do a very good job of shielding from the wind! The past couple of days the clouds have been blowing from west to east in the sky and clipping along at 30-40 miles per hour, yet down at street level there’s just a light and variable breeze. The flags on top of the tall buildings are standing straight out, stiff in the wind, and the flags on the shorter buildings are just occasionally flapping in the breeze. It was so interesting, I had to figure out how to make my digital camera take a movie so I could catch some of the cloud action (the resulting file is about 4 megabytes in size, so I won’t post it).

2. This morning there was some coastal fog — nothing downtown but clear skies, however it was quite humid outside. With the heavier air and no breeze, the air in San Francisco doesn’t smell very good. There’s a lot of diesel and automobile exhaust fumes in the air. I guess you get used to the smell, but I found it to be rather foul this morning. Further, the steam coming up from grates in the sidewalks smells terrible! Whatever is being exhausted has a bad odor to it and I’ve quickly learned to walk around these grates rather than over them. Each one smells different. I have wondered at how many ways "bad" can smell!

3. All of the taxis in San Francisco are American brand cars, mostly Fords. None of them are so-called foreign brands, such as Toyota. The brand actually has little to do with where the car is manufactured. Most of the Toyotas driven in the U.S. are built in Ohio, and Toyota even exports cars back to Japan from the U.S. While I was at dinner one evening, sitting out on the sidewalk part of the restaurant (eating some very delicious Italian food), I noticed an Oldsmobile parked across the street. It was the only American-brand car visible. Now, I didn’t count minivans or SUV’s, which are mostly American-brand vehicles. Nor did I count pickup trucks, where Ford and Chevrolet seem to dominate — except for very small pickups where Toyota seems to have the significant edge. So counting just regular two- and four-door sedans, over the course of a half-hour, around 90% of the vehicles were foreign-branded cars. Of those that were American-branded cars, they were overwhelmingly taxi cabs. Why do all the taxis drive Fords? It’s a mystery, since most of the drivers are not white Anglo-Saxon people!

4. Sony has quite a facility in the middle of the Moscone Convention Center called The Metreon. This building has several restaurants (none of them chains or franchises) along with sections dedicated to different classes of Sony products. All of the products are out and available for people to touch, play with, and try out. The sales people aren’t pushy and seem to know their products. Sony products are generally quality products as well as pricey products. While I’ve no idea how well this particular store is doing, it was always packed with people, particularly the PlayStation area. There must have been more than 50 PlayStations setup with different games. There was time limit set and at the end of the time, the user had to give up the controller to someone else. Incredibly popular place. I’ve known that the gaming industry is larger than the movie business but this PlayStation area was a graphic example.

5. A sign on the walkway alongside Sony’s Metreon Center says "Live in your world, Play in ours." That motto certainly applies to San Francisco! One evening I asked the Concierge about restaurants in the area. In response to his question about what kind of food I was interested in, I told him I was looking for something that was a reasonably priced, normal American food restaurant. He told me, "… there is nothing normal in San Francisco." I’m sure he knows how right he really is. There are a lot of people in San Francisco living in a different world than I’m living in! Some of them sit along the street with a cup held out for small change contributions. As I was walking down Market Street towards Nordstroms, a young fellow was dancing down the sidewalk towards me. As he got closer, I could hear that he was singing (and not too badly, either) as he danced along the sidewalk. My first impression was that he was spaced out on something and that may well be the case. At any rate, he was definitely living in a world different than the one I am living in. As darkness falls, all of the street vendors appear setting up their tables to hawk their wares. Many are selling "normal" stuff (remember, is anything normal in San Francisco?) but there are quite a few folks selling some very esoteric things. Near the cable-car station is a walkway underneath Market Street leading to the subway as well as the shopping center on the other side of the street. I watched a fellow set up a massage chair (the kind that you sit astraddle and has a pillow area for your head). He was a very strange looking fellow and I wondered how many people would stop and pay him for a massage. Very quickly a lady came along, talked with him, sat down on the chair and put her head down. The fellow reached out, with his hands over her head, but without touching her at all, began chanting. That went on for several minutes and he stood back. She got up, gave him some money, and walked away. Within a couple of minutes, someone else sat down. The same ritual was replayed. It was quite astounding to watch how many people were interested in this transcendental experience (see the picture and brief writeup in an earlier post)!

6. I’m sure there are lot of very pretty girls / women in San Francisco (and I’m sure there are many handsome fellows…). However, even in the early part of August, the temperature never got above 75 degrees (I believe it was Mark Twain who said that the coldest winter he ever spent was one summer in San Francisco), so everyone wears sweaters, shawls, and jackets! It’s quite unlike the south bay area! If you live in San Francisco, you have to own and have available a winter wardrobe year around. This morning walking down Market Street I was struck by how many people were talking on cell phones as they were walking. It was about 8 a.m., most of the folks walking were on their way to work somewhere, and a large percentage of them were talking to someone on their cell phone. Perhaps this is a morning phenomenon??? It didn’t stand out last night like it did this morning.

7. At least on the south side of Market Street, all of the interesting stores are on the numbered streets, that is, the streets going north and south. The named streets seem to be mostly places under construction. Building is happening all over the area. They don’t seem to be big buildings, but things in the ten to twenty story type buildings. With all of the variety and diversity in San Francisco, I expect to find interesting stores. My favorite store on this trip was the Rand McNally store on 2nd and Market. The store is full of maps, globes, software, travel books, and little travel things like locks and intrusion detection devices and such. I only bought a couple of small items as I’ve already bought too many books at LinuxWorld. I’ve got enough weight to take with me as it is.

8. Every time I visit a big city, I notice how many and how often sirens are blaring. The fire station was not far from my hotel and those guys get quite a workout on their shift. The hook and ladder truck seems to be rarely in it’s garaged space! There weren’t as many police sirens here as I hear in New York, but there are always fire engines going somewhere in the area where I spent my time. It is so common that people seem to know how to get out of the way at intersections where the traffic is piled up waiting for the light to change. I think some folks even relish having the fire engine coming so they have an excuse to run the light!

This has been an interesting trip. I didn’t get over the other side of the hill to any of the area around Fisherman’s Wharf, where all the tourists congregate. I didn’t ride the cable car, I didn’t do anything associated with chocolate. In short, this was pretty much a business trip and well worth the time. Outside of the conference, San Francisco itself was quite entertaining.