March 20, 2006

St. Pat's in SF

I've got 2-3 entries I meant to make but didn't do it at the time.  I'll be catching up in the next few days as time permits.  Thanks to everyone who participated in the science workshop survey.  I had over 300 responses, most very supportive.  The proposal went to NASA, and I should hear something in June.

I spent St. Patrick's Day in San Francisco, in the North Beach area.  It was a mad house, crazy busy, and if you could get into a bar you could barely move, at least until closer to midnight.  I was staying with a friend in Castro who was too tired to come out, and about a half hour before the bars closed I decided to get a cab back to his place.

But it wasn't going to be that easy, I slowly realized, as I watched full cab after full cab pass me for half an hour.  Around 2AM, a friendly drunk guy approached me suggesting that we share a cab.  He, too, was going to Castro.  Okay, cool.  It's good to have company in such circumstances.  He was with his drunk girlfriend, or wife (never figured out which), and their sober friend Sarah.  I liked Sarah since, besides the fact that she was sober and had an awesome Welsh accent, was nicknamed "Queen of the cabs" because she always managed to get a cab.

While it might have been a good night for queens in San Francisco, it wasn't a good night for cab-seeking queens.

Sarah did have a clue about how to go about it, more than I did anyway.  If all the cabs you see are full, well, they must have picked up their fares in the direction they're coming from (away from downtown).  So, we started our death march out of the North Beach area.

Another half hour goes by, us walking.  The drunk couple became a bit quarrelsome as they got tired.  Well, she became irritable, and he became hungry.  We kept at it, another half hour.  Sarah turns to me at one point and asks, "Are you limping?"

I was.  I'd been shoes shopping that morning and had picked up a really nice pair of dress shoes.  They were so nice, I felt meterosexual.  But they were new, not broken in, and slicing into my heel with every step.

A bit after 3AM the miracle finally happens, and a cab stops.  Saved!  We pile in and ride to the Castro.  It turns out, not only are we both in Castro, Sarah's place is in the same complex as my friend's place!  We make breakfast plans and I make it into bed by 3:30AM.

Just for fun while handing back exams, I polled my big astronomy class here in Wyoming.  I asked how many had never ridden in a cab.  About 80% of their hands went up.  I was feeling just like that on St. Patrick's Day.

Posted by Mike at March 20, 2006 10:06 AM