Saturday 06/14/2008 @ 9:40 pm (160 days ago)
San Francisco - Friday & Saturday
Blog
Posted by Nick
So I finally all the videos from San Francisco posted. Whether I mentioned it or not, I bought a flip video a few months ago after months of deliberating. I have taken a ton of video with it so far and am really happy with it. So that is why you saw all the videos coming over and over.
Our trip to San Francisco was awesome though. We got in on Friday and it was beautiful. We took the BART from the airport into the city. It was a pretty easy ride and it didn't take too long. We got off at the Powell St. station which is kind of a hub for a lot of things. It was a few blocks to the Serrano Hotel which I found on the TravelZoo newsletter for an amazing deal. It was a nice place but I wouldn't have paid full price to stay there.
We were going to do Alcatraz and Fisherman's Wharf on Friday so we took the train down that way. A couple of people told us to do the Alcatraz at Night tour but we soon found that was a pipe dream. Not only was that sold out for our entire trip, but we couldn't get a day tour until Sunday. I assumed that because it was only May (even though it was a weekend) we could pick our tour. My advice, if you are going buy the tickets way in advance.
We still did Fisherman's Wharf which was ok. We took a walking tour and saw some cool stuff but that area is so touristy. The sea lions were awesome and their story is cool. We hit up the Ripley's Believe or Not Museum along the way. It was kind of cool. We also had a Sunday at Ghiradelli Square. Delicious. We decided to take the Cable Car back just to get the experience. It was lame. We had to wait a while, it cost 3x what the bus did and was totally enjoyable. Friday night, we just chilled. We had had dinner at Lori's Diner, which was just ok, but had horrible service.
Saturday we got up and had breakfast. Then we went and checked the Exploratorium. It is a hands-on science museum at the Palace of Fine Arts. One thing to be aware of, it's fully hands on. It got kind of boring after a while, but whatever. We walked around for a bit after that. Then we went back and grabbed a slice of pizza and just relaxed before heading to the White Sox/Giants game at AT&T Park. I am going to try and get a full review of that up.
Saturday 06/14/2008 @ 9:21 pm (160 days ago)
San Francisco - Day 4
Blog
Posted by Nick
Still more videos. We hit up Alcatraz and the A's/Rays game.
Sunday 06/08/2008 @ 3:13 pm (166 days ago)
San Francisco - Day 3, part 2
Blog
Posted by Nick
After Coit Tower and Lombard Street we headed to Chinatown. It was mostly restaurants and shops. We had some lousy Chinese food and then walked around a bit. The gift shops has some priceless stuff in them.
After Chinatown drove over the Golden Gate and checked out some awesomely scenic views.
After the Golden Gate, we briefly visited Golden Gate Park. We saw the Japanese Tea Garden, and that was about it.
Wednesday 06/04/2008 @ 9:59 pm (170 days ago)
San Francisco - Day 3, part 1
Blog
Posted by Nick
I need to get back to posting videos. I am so behind. This time it's Day 3 of our trip. We met up with Heather's cousin and his family and they took us around. We started at Coit Tower, which is supposedly shaped like the nozzle of a fire hose, but some say it looks like something else. The view was tremendous.
Next we hit up Lombard street, otherwise known as the crookest street in the word. These videos don't do it justice, but it was pretty crazy.
Saturday 05/31/2008 @ 8:53 pm (174 days ago)
San Francisco - Day 2, part 2
Blog
Posted by Nick
Saturday night we took the train to AT&T Park to watch some interleague baseball between the White Sox and Giants. We had amazing seats about 20 rows behind home plate and slightly to the left. I hope to post a more detailed review this weekend. In the meantime here are the videos I shot:
Thursday 05/29/2008 @ 9:19 pm (176 days ago)
San Francisco - Day 2, part 1
Blog
Posted by Nick
Saturday in San Francisco was another day of random stuff. We decided to hit up the highly acclaimed hands on science museum The Exploratorium. We didn't realize that the whole place was hands-on. So while it was great for kids, we got a little bored. To add to it, we had to take two buses and it took like 45 minutes. We went through a really nice area of San Francisco though. It was a chance to see more of the city. We saw the fog roll in too. Here are some highlights:
Saturday 05/24/2008 @ 1:59 pm (181 days ago)
San Francisco - Day 1, part 2
Blog
Posted by Nick
Of course one of the star attractions of Pier 39 is the sea lions. Apparently they have only been there for about 20 years. There are a couple of hundred of them that live there. Apparently they really like it there.
After Pier 39 we made our way down the way. We walked past a string of seafood places that I knew my mom would enjoy. Including one of her favorite places, Nick's Fishmarket.
Boudin Bread Company makes famous sourdough. Supposedly clam chowder in a breadbowl is one of the highlights of a trip to SF. Unfortunately I don't like clams, soup, or clam chowder. But they had some cool looking loaves of bread.
Then we stopped at Hyde Street Pier and saw a great view of the Golden Gate. Having never been to San Francisco we didn't realize that it's not often you can see a fog free Golden Gate. We didn't take enough of an advantage of it, but we did see some good views of it.
We stopped and got a hot fudge sundae at Ghiradelli Square. It was quite delicious and I should have gone to back to have another one ;). After the ice cream we decided to head back to the hotel. We thought we should hit up another tourist attraction, the cable car. It was $5 to ride back to the hotel (the bus was $1.50) but we went for it. It was terribly uncomfortable and crowded (way more herky-jerky than the bus) but I guess it was still worth going.
After that, we just chilled at the hotel and enjoyed the relaxation part of our trip. We had a dinner at Lori's Diner, a local chain of '50s style burger joints. The service was some of the worst I have had, but the food was ok.
Saturday 05/24/2008 @ 1:59 pm (181 days ago)
San Francisco - Day 1, part 1
Blog
Posted by Nick
So Heather and I got back from San Francisco. We had a pretty awesome time. I took a ton of videos with my Flip Ultra Video. I thought I would post about our trip and include the videos along the way. Click more under the first video to continue...
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We arrived in the San Francisco on Friday. The San Francisco airport is pretty weak. Way too many upscale shops and restaurants and nothing that appeals to us. I kind of hated it. Plus it's pretty far from the city.
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We took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) from the airport to the city. It was about 25 minutes and let us see some of the south suburbs of San Francisco. It didn't seem like a very good place to live.
So Heather and I got back from San Francisco. We had a pretty awesome time. I took a ton of videos with my Flip Ultra Video. I thought I would post about our trip and include the videos along the way. Click more under the first video to continue...
.
We arrived in the San Francisco on Friday. The San Francisco airport is pretty weak. Way too many upscale shops and restaurants and nothing that appeals to us. I kind of hated it. Plus it's pretty far from the city.
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We took the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) from the airport to the city. It was about 25 minutes and let us see some of the south suburbs of San Francisco. It didn't seem like a very good place to live.
Wednesday 04/09/2008 @ 10:25 pm (226 days ago)
8 months later...I wish I had a Mac Pro
Geek
Posted by Nick
I bought a MacBook Pro back in August. It was not long after they had gotten a small performance bump. My MacBook was about a year and a half old and I was constantly putting it to it's limits with all the apps I had open and multi-tasking I had going on. Also, now that I was confident I was a full-on Mac convert, I felt like it was time for an upgrade.
I contemplated the newly released (and now aluminum) iMac, but found too many negatives (can't use as an external monitor for other computers, if the monitor dies the computer dies) for it to make sense. The only other option I considered was the Mac Mini, which was not enough of an upgrade over my current MacBook for it to make sense.
I never even thought about a Mac Pro. I used the way back machine to confirm that the price was probably about what it is now. When you take the Mac Pro and change it from two processors to one, it doesn't end a lot more than my custom MBP configuration (I upgrade the HD by 40GB and to 7200 RPM). Plus it has more video memory and a bigger hard drive.
The pros to the MacBook Pro at the time was that I wanted to be able to move my main computer around whenever I wanted. But after Leopard hit and Screen Sharing changed my life, I could remote in to my office. Now I use my MBP docked 98% of the time. Using it in a docked state is frustrating at times because sometimes it doesn't like the external monitor and freaks out.
The Mac Pro wouldn't have had this problem, plus adds the ability of being easily upgraded and maintained if parts got old. Because of that the Mac Pro would have likely lasted longer than my MBP would.
Unfortunately there isn't a lot I can do now. But next time I will know better.
Monday 04/07/2008 @ 9:30 pm (228 days ago)
The Kingdom
Music/Movies/TV
Posted by Nick
So I finally got around to seeing The Kingdom. I really thought this movie had promise when I saw the previews, a plot I like, pretty decent cast (Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jeremy Piven) but I never made to the theater. So I was happy to finally get to watch it.
I had kind of mixed feelings about it. Foxx was solid, and he continues to show me that he is a talented actor. He's not on my list of must-see guys, but he is approaching the list of guys where if I see his name I will at least look into the movie. In fact I liked the characters for the most part (Piven not withstanding, but more on that later).
The plot bothered me a bit. It's not a terribly long movie (just under 2 hours), and with a action/drama sometimes it hurts the story. For those of you that don't know, the premise is that there is a bombing of an (basically) American complex in Saudi Arabia. An FBI agent gets killed which drives Foxx to find a way to get his team over to investigate. His four-man team (Foxx, Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) all have investigation specialties. They end up going over and fight the politics and restrictions they are put on them (some by Piven who is a US Ambassador over there). I expected a lot more CSI-style investigating, but it ended up with more politics and maneuvering.
In fact, the investigating doesn't even play a very big role them catching the bad guys, as they kind of just luck into finding them. For this reason, I didn't see the ending coming. I looked at the time remaining on the movie (the worst thing you can do when watching a movie) and couldn't figure out how they were going to resolve the the crisis. Then it kind of just happens.
As for Piven, I love him. He is the reason I started watching Entourage and the reason I fell in love with it so quick. But since them, he plays Ari Gold in every movie. I know he is talented and I wish he would show that instead of just playing the same fast-talking, manipulative a-hole that he has the last few movies.
I went in expecting The Siege meets CSI. I think the movie ends up being Black Hawk Down with political drama.