Back from San Francisco

Out there for the first time in over a decade. A great city, to be sure, but in some ways it feels like New York in the 80s: lots of homeless people and dog shit everywhere.

Admittedly, I was kind of hemmed in by work and didn't really exit the Tenderloin/Nob Hill/downtown region till the last night, when we went down to the ferry building, which was pretty much closed down at night except for fancy restaurants. We walked from there to Fisherman's Wharf, which definitely sucks, although they did have Squirt in the 7-11. They also had a most impressive selection of hot dog and taquito varietals on the hot rollers. Really pretty disgusting.

On the way back, I enjoyed some bonus hospitality at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, thanks to a late plane from New York. I continue to believe that place has reasonably priced food, for an airport.

One thing, though. It was over a hundred outside, and inside the airport it wasn't cooled very well. A woman who lives there told me that it used to be kept cooler. They've no doubt adjusted the temp as a cost-savings measure. What's odd is that, former Texas governor and US President George Bush used to tout air-conditioning as the best approach for dealing with global warming. Where's the strong cooling, oh mighty W? I guess that plan kind of depended on the notion that the US could just buy its way out of anything. Whoops!