Sneaky

[bryant]

Thanks to the kindness of an incredibly generous friend, Susan and I spent the last three days in not so sunny California. Sorry to everyone who didn't know we were coming! Which was everyone, because half the point was to show up on flit's doorstep and go "Hi!"

That worked out very well; I think it took her like three minutes to figure out what the hell was going on. Me showing up on her doorstep wasn't always very unusual so there may have been some temporal confusion in there. We also got to see aelfsciene and Jamie (not Susan's nephew Jamie) and of course Brad and also Carl. Next time we come out we'll announce it and perhaps stay a bit longer.

Things we did, in order:

Oakland International Airport
Route 17 (excellent beautiful drive)
Zachary's (best breakfast in the world)
Logos (excellent used bookstore)
Boardwalk Santa Cruz (Lost Boys bridge)
Surprising people
Bookstore Santa Cruz
Game-A-Lot (decent game store)
Mobo Sushi (raw garlic and macadamia nuts in your sushi is good)
Red Tractor breakfast (not the best but pretty good)
Chinatown dive bar (we tried for the dive bar from Tim Powers' Earthquake Weather but it was closed)
House of Nanking
Gamescape San Francisco (where I used to play Shadowfist)
Lots of walking up San Francisco hills
Alta Plaza (OMG view, I'd somehow never been here)
Amici's Pizza (delivered)
Zorn's (good breakfast, no earth elementals)
The Book Store (link because otherwise you wouldn't believe that was the name, very nice small used bookstore)
Kepler's (contender for title of Best New Bookstore In The World, thankfully reopened)
Bookbuyers (also excellent used bookstore)
Amarin Thai (when you order the coconut milk, they just bring you a coconut with the top cut off, nom)
Sufi Coffee (real Kona, real Jamaican Blue Mountain, I had the former)
Know Knew Books
Endgame Oakland (best gaming store I've ever seen, although there are a few Midwestern ones I've heard good things about)
Conversation with Ben Lehman (who found us at Endgame cause Carl Twittered)
Breads of India (superb Indian food, remarkable bread)
Oakland International Airport

We did not see a movie while we were there, but I think otherwise we managed to experience a microcosm of my California life in three days. Excellent food and top-notch bookstores? Yeah, that covers it. I guess we could have spent some time sitting in cubes surfing the web and worrying about datacenters, but that seems like a less important aspect of the area in retrospect.

It was ridiculously awesome to show Susan all this stuff.