I haven't yet discovered a good way to start these. I don't think that's a keeper either. So last Saturday neither Carissa or I can remember what we did. It was obviously a lot of fun. We can remember we went to Newport Beach at night for dinner and I had a mahi mahi sandwich. It was yummy. The place was called Baja Sharkeez. It was a weird place that had kind of a dive bar feel to it but it was really open and had a TON of TV's. We managed to get seats at the bar and got the Bruins on one of the TV's (and they even won! I think... don't go fact checking me). Then Sunday we went back to Newport Beach and saw the beach (we didn't really go to the beach as much as we just were at and observed it), went to some shops, stood around while Carissa shopped, got some food, etc. It was a more low-key weekend than the weekend we moved in for sure. Carissa is now reminding me that she went to lots of yard sales on Saturday morning which means I likely played video games so we wouldn't lose our parking spot (we have a 1 car garage but the other spot is up to chance depending on whether there are spots available in the lot. It's about 10-12 cars trying to fit in like 6 spots so its a hot commodity... Yes I'm trying to defend playing video games on a Saturday morning/afternoon instead of exploring Southern California).
So Monday morning rolled around and I was off to the airport. Luckily there is one very close to where I live, possibly as close as TF Green was to my parents house in Cranston (but not as close as we were when we lived in Warwick). Flight left Irvine at 6:45am and landed in San Francisco at around 8:30am. From there I jumped on the Bart (public transportation - not a trolley to my dismay) and took it to about a block away from the Marcum office in the financial district. Now you may be thinking "Woah! Jeff just got to California and he's already in San Francisco?! I wonder if he did that really fun thing I did 5, 10, or 20 years ago when I was there???? I'll keep reading and see all the things he did!" I'll stop you right there. Unless your favorite things to do in San Francisco are to go to the Marcum Office or go to a hotel/airbnb in the area chances are I did not do what you hope I did. If those ARE your favorite things than you're in luck! So the Marcum office is on Montgomery Street (in case you know where that is or want to google it) and the Airbnb I stayed in on Monday and Tuesday night was about 0.8 miles away on Post St.
The Airbnb was crazy because it was probably about a 450 sq ft studio apartment. I suppose I have never really been in a studio apartment before but they are pretty awesome, pretty much just the essentials there. The only problem is if you want to watch TV you have to lay in bed which leads to falling asleep and occasionally letting your beer spill on your chest (hypothetically of course). They had netflix set up on the TV so I started watching Wilfred. It's pretty funny but apparently also good to fall asleep to if you're already in bed (I think Brian, my Dad, and the Egg Chair know what I'm talking about). I went to a bar on Monday for dinner and one of the items on the drink menu was a 16oz PBR and a shot of Evan Williams for like $5 (keep in mind San Francisco overtook NYC as the most expensive city in the US this year... so $5 is cheap). I also got a sandwich that was called the Foghorn Leghorn that was delicious and had a great name. From what I recall it had turkey, lettuce, onion, guacamole and melted parmigiana cheese. Some of that might be inaccurate.
Tuesday in SF I worked another long day but went to a nice fancy Italian dinner where I had Pasta Carbonara and a really expensive beer that was 750ml and like $30 (thanks to the Marcum per deim... otherwise I would have stuck to the PBR). When I got home I was still hungry though because what they don't do at fancy Italian places is give you a large portion. So I dipped into Wednesday's per deim and bought a large pizza! The pizza had San Francisco toppings (Pepperoni, Ham, Olives, Green peppers) and was very good. I ate about half of it around midnight and brought the other half to eat the next day.
At this point I was still under the impression I would be able to go back to Irvine on Wednesday night. I didn't book the Airbnb for Wednesday night because I thought there was a solid chance I would be going home. Turns out it wasn't in the cards so I had to book a hotel around 2:30pm for Wednesday night. (for those keeping track, including Wednesday night I had spent 7 night since moving to California in either a hotel or an Airbnb and 9 nights in the apartment we got - a horrible ratio). Since it was last minute and San Francisco I had limited options and ended up deciding on the Omni hotel. It was SUPER nice and made me feel like a big shot. That night I also took a stroll for dinner. I hadn't planned my day very well because I got an expensive pizza at midnight so I had to be more budget conscious for dinner so I just went to a little hole-in-the-wall kind of place. I hung out and watched the Mets beat the Cubs and had a couple drinks and a quesadilla that totally sucked (I could tell from the menu that it was not a bar known for food). So I hung out for an hour or two when this dude walked in. I was finishing my last beer (or so I thought) and he was already a few drinks deep. I'm not sure what he asked me but it was something about the area and the conversation went something like this:
Guy: blah blah blah San Francisco?
Me: Oh, I don't really know. I've only been here a couple days for work.
Guy: Oh, me too. What do you do?
Me: I'm a CPA. So where are you from? (the question that would change the course of my night).
Guy: Washington DC... you?
Me: Well I just moved to Southern California two and a half weeks ago but before that I lived in Rhode Island.
Guy: Seriously? I grew up in Warwick then lived in Jamestown and graduated from Jamestown High School.
Me: That's crazy, I moved from Warwick... I grew up in Cranston and went to West, then I went to Bryant.
Guy: No way! I graduated Bryant in 2000.
So as you can see... I have uncovered that I am actually in The Truman Show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3gI9ms8Fdc)... you can all cut the charade because I've figured it out. It only took about 25 years but its over now. But seriously. This guy did graduate from Bryant (or at least spent enough time there to know a lot about it). He was talking about where he lived and naming different halls and stuff so I believed him. He then got me a beer at that bar and a beer next door before we decided to head to our various hotels... which as fate may have it was actually the same hotel. At this point I should have probably been concerned that he was trying to kidnap and "Bill Cosby" me but I'm just a small town boy living in the big city. Luckily we both went back to the Omni and he got off the elevator at the 4th floor instead of following me up to the 16th. So all and all his attempt to pick me up were futile... his attempt to liquor me up was successful however... It was a bit of a rough morning but hey... when don't people get out of hand on Wednesday night, right?
So Thursday as I mentioned was tough but I made it in on time and did my work as well as I normally would have. I flew home later that day and got my first glimpse of something tourist-y! I saw the Golden Gate Bridge out the window of the airplane!
If you look REALLY closely you can see it there in the middle between the greenish brown and the brownish green! So yeah I got home around 6:30ish and changed and went right back out to a concert that included Ballyhoo! and Pepper. It was a good show but it reminded me that Pepper (although in my top 5 favorite bands to listen to) is terrible live. They just don't play enough of their songs... they either sing or play and don't do both at the same time often enough. I'm assuming its due to various chemicals affecting them while their up there but yeah, that's my opinion on it. The first opening band did bless us with the opportunity to be the fashion police. This picture shows 2/3 of the members wearing either really long shirts or average length dresses:
Carissa coined the phrase "Welcome to Orange County, where the tee's go to your knees!" This picture doesn't even do this justice either. These just look like average tall tees but I assure you they were waaaaay too long. To the point that we both pointed it out because it was so obviously terrible. That's the only other thing we got out of the concert really. Ballyhoo! is still great live.
Friday we both worked, Carissa had a 1/2 day. Last night Carissa went out with some random girls she won't stop talking about that she met on the internet. I think she's probably in love. I stayed home and watched the Bruins and played some video games. Carissa made it home safe and has been bragging about how many girls she gave her number to. I think shes trying to compete with my obvious new boyfriend in San Francisco/Washington D.C.
Today we took a trip to Balboa Island to try to find Rocky and see what it's all about. There's a street with some restaurants and shops and a bunch of SUPER nice houses with yachts and the whole shabang. We weren't sure what to expect, we were going to take the ferry there and thought it would be like Block Island or something but when we typed in the directions to the Balboa Island Ferry into the GPS it took us to the side that was on the island not the side that was on the mainland because it was closer to our apartment. We just crossed a bridge that was maybe 30 yards long and we were there... the ferry is kind of a joke... but it's also only $3 for a car and two people. Once we got there we walked around the island (took about 45min), grabbed some lunch and watched Carissa do a little bit more shopping. While shopping I found this book that I was surprised to find out I didn't actually write:
(The first part... not the influencing people part... If I had written the first part I probably wouldn't have stopped at just 120). Then I got a frozen banana at the stand that Bluth's Original Frozen Banana stand was inspired by (from the show Arrested Development):
When we were walking we also saw that a bunch of people had lime trees so we did a little research and decided that we could also afford a lime tree... so after we left Balboa Island we went out and bought a lime tree so we can have some fresh limes for vodka sodas and other uses too..... there's no reason for us to go buy limes just as an alcohol garnish.... QUICK get distracted by these pictures!
This is our baby lime tree. If we care for it and water it I'm told that someday it can give us fresh limes! That takes us to the end of Saturday. Go Pats! See below for pictures of my new car and for a video of the apartment! Aslo, happy birthday AJ and Chris (it's AJ's birthday in California and Chris's birthday in RI! How crazy is that!!!!!)
MY CAR:
So Thursday as I mentioned was tough but I made it in on time and did my work as well as I normally would have. I flew home later that day and got my first glimpse of something tourist-y! I saw the Golden Gate Bridge out the window of the airplane!
If you look REALLY closely you can see it there in the middle between the greenish brown and the brownish green! So yeah I got home around 6:30ish and changed and went right back out to a concert that included Ballyhoo! and Pepper. It was a good show but it reminded me that Pepper (although in my top 5 favorite bands to listen to) is terrible live. They just don't play enough of their songs... they either sing or play and don't do both at the same time often enough. I'm assuming its due to various chemicals affecting them while their up there but yeah, that's my opinion on it. The first opening band did bless us with the opportunity to be the fashion police. This picture shows 2/3 of the members wearing either really long shirts or average length dresses:
Friday we both worked, Carissa had a 1/2 day. Last night Carissa went out with some random girls she won't stop talking about that she met on the internet. I think she's probably in love. I stayed home and watched the Bruins and played some video games. Carissa made it home safe and has been bragging about how many girls she gave her number to. I think shes trying to compete with my obvious new boyfriend in San Francisco/Washington D.C.
Today we took a trip to Balboa Island to try to find Rocky and see what it's all about. There's a street with some restaurants and shops and a bunch of SUPER nice houses with yachts and the whole shabang. We weren't sure what to expect, we were going to take the ferry there and thought it would be like Block Island or something but when we typed in the directions to the Balboa Island Ferry into the GPS it took us to the side that was on the island not the side that was on the mainland because it was closer to our apartment. We just crossed a bridge that was maybe 30 yards long and we were there... the ferry is kind of a joke... but it's also only $3 for a car and two people. Once we got there we walked around the island (took about 45min), grabbed some lunch and watched Carissa do a little bit more shopping. While shopping I found this book that I was surprised to find out I didn't actually write:
(The first part... not the influencing people part... If I had written the first part I probably wouldn't have stopped at just 120). Then I got a frozen banana at the stand that Bluth's Original Frozen Banana stand was inspired by (from the show Arrested Development):
When we were walking we also saw that a bunch of people had lime trees so we did a little research and decided that we could also afford a lime tree... so after we left Balboa Island we went out and bought a lime tree so we can have some fresh limes for vodka sodas and other uses too..... there's no reason for us to go buy limes just as an alcohol garnish.... QUICK get distracted by these pictures!
This is our baby lime tree. If we care for it and water it I'm told that someday it can give us fresh limes! That takes us to the end of Saturday. Go Pats! See below for pictures of my new car and for a video of the apartment! Aslo, happy birthday AJ and Chris (it's AJ's birthday in California and Chris's birthday in RI! How crazy is that!!!!!)
MY CAR:
As you can see it is red! It is also a convertible but I didn't take any pictures of it with the top down... sorry... But here's a video of the apartment! Again - should have taken the video in landscape but I didn't and I wanted the video to be authentic first try so if you want a better look at the car or the apartment you'll have to come visit!
-JD
i like the lime tress
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