Kennon’s Space

I am in San Francisco this week on training. Staying in a decent place called the Monticello Inn. It isn’t bad. I have a few complaints about the accommodations such as, the wireless Internet connection is pretty dang slow. I was fortunate enough to get a room on the side of the hotel that faces another taller building that is very close, so I have a lovely view of a white washed brick wall. The ironing board in my room was totally broken when I first got here. But it only took the staff about an hour to bring up a new one when I called them and asked for a different one. Considering the price though I shouldn’t complain much. All the other hotels in this part of town were like double the rate of this one, and this is no dive. It is only about 100 yards away from a great sushi bar called Hana Zen. I swear if I lived in downtown SF I would weigh 300+lbs and be broke almost all the time. I love the restaurants in this city.

So I am walking to my class each day. The training facility is about 1.1 miles down Market St. from my hotel so I am getting more exercise this week than normal. Considering normal for me is almost nil now a days. The walk is really nice, San Francisco is a great walking town. The sights and smells are pretty extreme. I mean traffic sounds like traffic pretty much everywhere but San Francisco looks and smells like no other place I have ever been. And I have been around. Visually the city is crazy diverse. From really modern glass towers to ancient looking office buildings.From ill kempt transvestites, to slick bankers in silk suits. You never run out of stuff to look at. The experience is like sitting on the bench in the mall and people watching, times ten.
SF is boggling to the olfactory senses as well. One minute you are walking by Boudin and it is like you are somehow consuming this SF sourdough through your nose and the next minute the wind shifts and it is like someone just hit you in the face with raw sewage. Tobacco, both cigarette and cigar, sea salt, fish, spices of all kinds, perfumes, and body odor and other less than desirable aromas are all swirling around in the air. And the air here is rarely still. A constant breeze whips around between the tall buildings stirring all of these ingredients up into some kind of bowl of assorted Jelly Bellies for your nose. You never know which one you are going to get next, sometimes it is really good, and other times it isn’t. Still, no matter how fondly I talk about the City I am usually ready to go home to my little podunk town when the week is over. SF is somewhere I will always enjoy visiting but I could never live here.

So yesterday I was walking up Market after class on my way back to the hotel. I had this peaceful feeling going on, I am not sure why but I was just kind of enjoying my walk and taking in all the sights and sounds and smells. That is when I came up on 4 or 5 people all sitting at these card tables with these weird little machines in front of them. They each had signs that said: “Free Stress Test”. So I stopped and watched someone who was sitting at the table. He had his hand on some kind of pad and there was this little meter thing that looked something like the speedometer from my brother’s old ‘69 VW and the needle was wagging back and forth really fast. I assume it was some kind of Stressometer or something like that *chuckle*. From the action of the needle I would have thought the 20-something year old dude sitting there with his hand on the contraption would be clutching his chest in the midst of a massive coronary or something. This thing was about to spin off the face of the dial. The girl giving him the test was kind of cute. She had red hair and a pleasing look about her. Then I looked down on the table and saw stacks of L. Ron Hubbard books. Then I realized what I was watching. This was some kind of recruiting station for Scientologists! And before I could stop myself I suddenly burst out in this really loud laugh. I mean it was loud enough that several onlookers and Hubbardites all turned and looked at me. And getting anyone’s attention in downtown SF at 5pm is almost impossible, so I must have been loud…oops. A guy standing near the end of the little card table row who I guess was affiliated with the Hubbardites smiled at me and said. “Would you be interested in taking a free stress test Sir?” For some reason I could not stop smiling. I had this huge grin on my face and it took a substantial amount of willpower to keep myself from giggling like some little girl. I turned and looked at him, right in his eyes, and said “No thank you, really, I know exactly how much stress I have in my life. But thanks” as politely as I could. He started saying something about how Dianetics could change my life and about how many people had already been helped. At that point I was debating on whether or not I should stay and discuss whatever voodoo magic he was peddling but I thought better of it. Arguing with people like this was kind of silly. Arguing with people who are so sure they know what they are doing is like arguing with a friend who has just fallen in love with a chick you think is bad. You can see it in their face when they are beyond the point where reason will reach their ears. And this guy had that look in spades. It is probably the same kind of look someone like Mohammad Atta had on his face right before he stood up to start hijacking an airplane thinking about all the virgins he was going to be with in heaven. It is the same look those teenagers in the Middle East who blow up themselves and people picking out fresh cantalope in their local market in Tel Aviv have in their video farewells. Trying to reason with someone who has that look is kinda like trying to masturbate to a picture of Henry Kissinger…ain’t going nowhere. So I held my tongue and just kept walking.

I went down the street a little further and decided to stick my head into Circuit City. The CC on Market is pretty cool. I was going to buy a new Bluetooth handsfree for my Treo 700p. But the kid at the communications booth in the store didn’t seem to have any interest in waiting on me, so I went home and ordered one online instead. IMHO it was a great example of why brick and mortar retail will eventually fade away. And with service like that being the norm more often now, I would expect sooner rather than later. I hate feeling like I have to beg someone to spend my money. When I can just go home and click on something to buy it. Oh well…So I ordered this. I hope it works out ok. Most of the reviews I have read on it are pretty positive.

ok time for bed, nothing more to see here…move along.