"The world does not reward honesty and independence, it rewards obedience and service. It’s a world of concentrated power, and those who have power are not going to reward people who question that power."-Chomsky

"The trouble with self-delusion, either in a person or a society, is that reality doesn't care what anybody believes, or what story they put out. Reality doesn't "spin." Reality does not have a self-image problem. Reality does not yield its workings to self-esteem management." -J.H. Kunstler

"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."-Dylan

Monday, June 23, 2008

6/23/08: San Francisco, CA

Really not a lot to talk about. Got up late, had some coffee and sent off Couchsurf requests to see if I could find other places in the city to stay this week. I then found out where the REI is, only 10-12 blocks from here, so I walked up there to see if I could find a way to solve, or at least help, the blister and tendinitis problems. I was thinking I'd use their killer return policy to exchange the shoes if I needed to, but after chatting with the guy there it became apparent that my problem may have been the inserts I had, so I got some new ones. They had a deal on Cliff bars, so I loaded up on them for $1 a piece, then came back to Greg & Chloe's and joined them downtown while they had pizza. The weather here's been exactly what you'd think about San Francisco. Cold by comparison to where I came from, and windy. Nice to be out of the blazing sun, although I'm sure I'll get over enjoying the cold VERY soon!

I also chatted with Chris about ideas to make some money while I'm here, but that seems rather hard without a place to land. I'm digging thru Craigslist hoping to find temporary general labor type stuff. If I can work it out, I'd work for a week or so to try to recoup some of the money lost on the secy. deposit, but I'm not optimistic. We'll see.

The rest of the evening was spent watching Stewart/Colbert and sending out Couchsurfing requests for Tuesday. No luck so far, so if I don't find anything by mid- afternoon I believe I'll head into Marin County over the Golden Gate Bridge and start the second half of the California trip. I read that there are some lightning- induced wildfires up that way, so hopefully that wont be an issue.

Pretty funny when I think about how long it's taken to get here. I figured before I left it would take a couple of weeks at minimum, rather than 8 days. I wonder if the northern half of the state will be the same!