Independence Day

July 5, 2006

With both Monday and Tuesday off from work due to July 4th/Independence Day celebrations, I hung out in San Jose with my mom, uncles/aunts, and sister's family. I was able to see cute little babies, hang out with Olivia, help out at the house to prepare for the babies to come home in the next week or so, and sleep on an incredibly uncomfortable couch. Ahh, joyous family time.

My uncle painting with Olivia

On Tuesday morning, it was time for my mom to head back to Canada. She's coming back at the beginning of August for two weeks to spend more time with the new babies, but alas, the babies are not home yet and she's got lots to do at home!

I dropped off my mom at SFO and then headed back to the city to try and organize my life (yikes!). Around 6 pm, I trekked down the hill to Abe's casa to meet up with Kenny. Kenny and I were Fisherman's Wharf-bound...crazy, I know. But we were meeting up with two Spanish girls that he had met traveling in Barcelona, that were in town to check out SF for a few days. Shaun Webb was also heading to that general area and was nice enough to give us a ride (thanks to Frodo's...I mean, Robert's wheels).

We met up with the Spanish guests, Patricia and Noria, at Barnes and Noble on Bay St., whereupon I got a lovely vente soy chai latte for the road. From there, we wandered amidst the people/tourists/street performers/bums that were present en masse. We popped into the Amusing America exhibit (admission is free!) at Musee Mecanique at Pier 45, which includes the Playland collection of 175 antique coin-operated machines that were re-located from Cliff House. We spent a good amount of time and approximately $3 playing with a random assortment of games.

For some reason, Kenny kept spending money on the "love" machines, trying to predict his "love style"...

We discovered that they have bowling games at the Musee Mecanique!!!:






Skee-ball!!!




More bowling games!!!

I took a crack at the Arm Wrestling game, famously featured in "The Princess Diaries" with Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews.

Yeah, apparently, it doesn't matter which level you pick, I tried "Lightweight" and then "Bantam" (lowest level), and it still pretty much tried to rip my arm off.

After leaving the Musee Mecanique, we wandered around, watched a long-winded street performer juggle a hatchet, knife and fire torch, and then went over to In-And-Out burger for the girls to get a quite bite. Surprisingly, the massive line moved quite quickly, and as Kenny pointed out "It should move pretty quick, they only have 3 things on the menu!"

From Fisherman's Wharf, we walked up Columbus and then up Lombard Street toward Coit Tower, where we intended to watch the July 4th fireworks display. We ended up at the base of the Coit Tower steps, as the parking circle at the top was thick with folks already and there was not much viewing to be had up there. But we had a pretty decent spot, as you could also see the fireworks show that was happening in Berkeley as well.

Fireworks as seen from the base of Coit Tower at Lombard Street:

(Note to self: Little digicams with 3X optical zoom don't really take good firework photos at night).

After the fireworks show, we met up with Shaun Webb and a bunch of other folks, who were hanging out at Ashley Simon's sweet pad in North Beach, just down the south slope of Coit Tower. Ashley lives on a teeny little street called Darrell, that is accessible only by stairs...ick!

You can't really see it here, but Ashley's view is killer!

Alas, it was a school night, so by 11 pm, we were sleepy and needed to head home. North Beach was post-fireworks chaotic, so we walked through Chinatown to Union Square to catch a cab home. Thankfully, it was a lovely night last night and the stroll was not unwelcome.

Hope you all had a great Independence Day!