Closure

As I sit in my quiet office again after a day spent with (by some estimates) up to 2 MILLION people on the streets of San Francisco in recognition and celebration of the Giants winning the World Series, I'm struck by a great many thoughts.

- I can finally shave again. I am NOT a beard guy!
- The rest of the country doesn't "get" San Francisco or the Giants and that's not only okay, its kind of how I/we like it.
- All the pain and all the suffering since 2002, 1989 and all the other years when we had a helluva team that just couldn't get it done.
- Ashkon. I'd heard him mentioned on KNBR but hadn't had a chance to listen to and enjoy his rewrite of Don't Stop Believing until just the other day. And I've since played it at least two dozen times and maybe more, for myself and for others. I downloaded it and have it loaded on my iPhone, I have it on my MacBook Pro's desktop. It will be rotation for a long time. Listening to it gives me goosebumps!
- The nearly totally united city joyous in celebration, strangers hugging and giving high fives.
- Spontaneous chants of "Let's Go Giants" breaking out on BART and in the streets.
- The smell of fine Northern Californian marijuana wafting freely through the crowd. (How did Prop. 19 fail?)
- Yahoos using the winning of a championship as an excuse to break stuff and riot in SF.
- The lovable assortment of goofballs, misfits, castoffs and freaks that are the Giants. Seriously, these guys have more character in their long hair and fearsome beards than the Dodgers have in their entire baseball system.
- And I keep thinking about my father.

An Unexpected Day Off

Here are a few additional shots from yesterday:

My Memorial Day weekend has gotten off to an early start. Actually it started yesterday afternoon when I left school for lunch and, when I called in to check, was told to take the rest of the day off.

This morning I should have checked my email before leaving for work. But, in retrospect its a good thing I didn't. If I had then I would have known that the entire district was closed down due to air quality concerns.

But since I didn't, I drove up the highway into work at the school. Only to find it almost completely deserted. Almost, except for one of the school's "grandmas" was standing on the curb with a distressed student.

What had happened, I think, was that her father had dropped her off at the bus stop out on the street and didn't drive down to the school. There was a sign at the steps leading down into the school announcing the closure but nothing out on the road at all.

Anyway, it took a little doing but we got her mom's company name out of her and I, using my superior iPhone technology, looked up the number and called it. She asked for her mom and let her know what had happened and could she come and pick her up? Did I mention she was in shorts and short sleeves and it was a heavy fog morning?

I called the school principal to let him know what was happening and took her into the library to get her out of the cold. She's either quiet as a mouse or was pretty upset by the whole thing. She got a book and sat to wait.

I checked my email and, sure enough, there were several emails about the district-wide school closure. And news that at least one district employee's house had burned down.

I'm home now, told to stay indoors due to air quality issues again. Trying to keep the boys from killing each other, trying to work on resume stuff and keeping an eye on job boards.

I am glad that I went into work today and was able to help the student get picked up. Her day had already been pretty unfun. And I got to do a good deed.

The good thing about the cold fog today is that its apparently helping the fight the fires and the news reported 20% containment as of 8 this morning. A good start and I hope nobody else has to lose their home.

And that a sensible undergrowth clearing plan is put into place. The fire spokesman said there is a hundred years of undergrowth up there and the dry spring basically makes it one huge tinderbox.

The Passing of an Era

Weekly World News to close (aliens not blamed!)

I grew up reading this trash tabloid with my brother, it was one of those things that I remember and remember happily. And everytime I saw a copy at the supermarket, I'd think about him. I guess there are a finite number of ways and times you can write about Bat Boy and aliens. Too bad.

I also just read that Amp'd Mobile is collapsing under its own bulk. Hope you didn't just re-up your minutes, dude! I like that the news is relayed via a Customer Q&A on the home page. Very slick!