Chapter 6, Verse 2: Two Days in the Valley

Silicon Valley that is Space Travelers. I drove down from San Ramon to the Sunnyvale area to visit my friend Will Li. Will and I lived together for a year in the famous Palace. It was not uncommon for me to go to St. Charles with him and stay with his family. Will Graduated in May 2005 and has been doing some really amazing things.
He is a Computer Engineer and a Computer Scientist which makes it perfect that he is in the Silicon Valley, a hot spot for ultra nerd activity.

Since I was in the area, I called my long time friend Jessie to come out with us too. Jessie lives in San Jose, also in the silicon valley. Jessie, and I grew up together in Springfield and she now floats from job to job in the San Jose area.

As a side note: Being that the silicon valley is a hotbed for nerd activity, it's also primarily male. So basically, it's a really fancy Rolla Missouri. San Jose is more commonly referred to as "Man Jose" in adoration for its askew male to female ratio.

So being in the valley is different. Different in ways, that would be hard to put into words. The party: Will, Jessie and myself decided that we wanted to have some sushi. Jessie knew the area best and decided to take us to a place that she had been wanting to go to for some time. Let me speak plainly: This place was the oddest sushi bar I've ever been to. As you see above, they don't put lemon in your water, but instead a cucumber. The oddness didn't end there either. The walls of this very sheik and sophisticated restaurant were covered in very expensive flat screen monitors. Nature videos? music videos? No. Japanese anime.

on every monitor.

and manga in the menu.

Where the hell was I?

Jessie had to go to work so we parted ways, but then will and I went into San Fransisco proper. Will having lived in the area for only 3 months and having quite the rigorous work schedule had not yet taken advantage of seeing the area. We decided to start in downtown.

After driving for what seemed to me like a full week trying to find parking, Will and I finally drove out into the ghetto to park. Seriously, the area we parked was called Tenderloin. We parked as close to the police department as we could and then we hiked back into downtown.

Once we made it back downtown, we began to see fewer and fewer crazy people. This meant that no longer was every person we saw the most bat-shit-crazy person we have ever seen to only like one in ten amongst a crowd of thousands. Also as we returned into downtown proper we began seeing many San Fransisco staples.

We walked all the way down to the Embarcadero Plaza, which is right on the water front. Basically, we were trying to get lost. We accomplished this task with grace.

The water front was a great way to see the entire bay. Above you will note the Bay Bridge crossing over to Treasure Island. Will noted that he would someday like to live over there just to say he lived on Treasure Island. Me, I say treasure is for smelly pirates.

San Fransisco also had this large piece of weaponry just sitting out. There were kids everywhere too which is the worst part. Someone could have lost and eye. Shame on you Frisco!
We were getting hungry and tired so we trekked back to Tenderloin and began to look for food. While we were lost, we accidentally drove down the famous Lombard Avenue. I found a house that was completely made of flowers.
Honestly, we weren't just looking for food. Food is plentiful in downtown San Fransisco. We were looking for the infamous Pizza Orgasmica. Will had recently been on a business trip in New York, New York and had been prescribed by a local there to eat pizza here upon his return. apparently as legend has it, the New Yorkers know their pizza and if a New Yorker tells you to get pizza elsewhere, you do it. As it would turn out, the legend was true. The Pizza was second to none. This is a must do if you are in the area. I'll fully endorse it: Hero approved.

After Pizza, we retired for the night. We drove back to Sunnyvale and watched TV with Will's roommates.
The next day, we returned to the city. As I have told many people before this adventure, navigating San Fransisco is a challenging endeavor.

Today we had only one real destination, and for that matter, neither one of us knew what it was. A few weeks prior to leaving, I was reading my weekly favorite blog; the post secret blog (click on the side bar). Someone had posted a link to Google maps a to where their secret spot was here in San Fransisco. I decided to bookmark this place and make it a priority on this trip to see it. Today was the day to do it.

The drive there however gave birth to a very large distraction. As Will and I navigated through the hilly streets a large dome appeared in our peripheral vision. We both agreed that this was too large of a sight to simply pass up so we decided to put our current mission on hold and go investigate. As it would turn out, the large dome was a part of the "Palace of Fine Arts," which was built in 1912 for the worlds fair and in this hero's opinion was the most impressive thing he's ever just found on accident.

Some creatures were not able to appreciate the beauty of the Palace. The ducks above continuously tried to drown themselves.

Others like myself were quite taken by the numerous lagoons and shady hallows. This place is probably one of the best cheep dates you can go on.

Finally we made it to the secret spot. It was a fishing pier. As we were taking photos, I realized something: We were the only tourists there. Everyone there was a local. no difficult parking, nothing.

Perhaps best of all was the fact that this secret pier gave way for the best photos of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. We walked around the area for a while and of all things came to consensus about one thing: having a dog would be awesome.

Being in such close proximity to the Golden Gate, we decided to cross over and see for ourselves. The bridge itself seemed to span for miles on end. As I crossed I remembered a frightening statistic. The bridge is the USA's most popular place to commit suicide. I watched the people crossing on foot and wondered if any were thinking of jumping.

Once across we got to drive through the tunnels! I love the tunnels. It reminds me of the movie "The Graduate," which by the way if you haven't seen, you simply must.

Once across, we pulled into the fancy harbor town of Sasilito and walked around for a while. There were numerous boutiques and restaurants, it seemed to be a great place to go on a date with the assumption of wealth.

The sun was falling and we were hungry for cheap food, so we returned to the valley and called it a day. For me, I was sad it was over, but I felt quite fulfilled otherwise. That night, I tried to learn how to Play DOTA and was spammed as being a n00b. Although true, it was a tad harsh in this hero's eyes.

More to come in the near future Space Travellers. Stay Tuned!

Chapter 6, Verse1: Finacial Planning

Good evening Space Travelers. I'm in San Ramon California, a outer community of the greater metropolitan area of San Fransisco. I'm staying with my Uncle Stephen. He's not my uncle by blood, but instead a long time family friend.

Stephen and my father grew up down the street from each other in San Diego. They quickly became good friends. Stephan and my dad were big time surfers in the San Diego Area and would surf everyday before and after school.

Being that I'm here, it was cool to get to talk to Stephan and learn some cool things about my Pops that I didn't know. You see, from sometime around the age of 16 until the age of 26 my father never seemed to walk in front of a camera. I've been since my 16th birthday looking for photos to see how much my father and I resemble each other. However, as I stated before, this was no easy task as few pictures existed. Fortunate for me, Stephan had some. It's odd seeing my dad at such a young age. I'll say this though, he has aged well. Once he grew his mustache, he doesn't look like he has aged at all.

I'll post a picture soon.

Stephan works as a financial planner. One of the things I've been curious about is how to plan out the next few years post grad, and finances are something that always are on my mind. At time of graduation, I will have about $25,000 in college loans. Uncle Stephen gave me some good tips on how to manage that debt over the following 5 years. I also learned about stock options and taxes on capitol gain.

Wait a second.

Yep, this is seriously the most boring post ever.

Hmmm.... Well other than that, I got in touch with my friend William Li. He went to UMR as well and graduated in 2005. I decided to go visit him the next day.

Chapter 5: Escape from LA

Another travel day Space... Travelers. On the road to San Fransisco. Look out Chi, you're being chased.

The funny thing about traffic is this, you always think you're out of it. The psychology involved is much like that of the drug addict or avid smoker. That change as it would be for the better doesn't happen now, but later. That and when things are at their best you are most fearful of relapse.

Traffic no this fine California day was peculiar. I felt like I was being followed. Perhaps I shouldn't have used the lord's name in vein. I think they sent a truck after me.
What they never tell you about the joy of driving a stick shift is that stop and god driving in Los Angeles will exercise your left leg more than doing power squats. Jesus Christ, My legs were sore by time I left. The above self shot "MySpace photo" is noticeably more centered than usual. This is mostly due to the fact that I'm driving zero miles per hour, which considerably reduces my Goddamn task list at the moment of driving.

Okay you get it: "he's swearing for the fun of it now." I'll quit for the time being, because I value all Space Travelers that read my blog. But I am left wondering why of all things this is taken as so offensive? With swear words such as "Fuck" and "Shit" and their usages like...

"You fucker!"

"Jane is a fucking idiot"

"This car is a piece of shit"

"These shitheads keep stealing my Sunday post"

differ greatly from the usages of "God" and "Jesus" as "swear words." These words are more commonly expressed as...

"God Damn car broke down again."

"Jesus Christ! Turn that music down!"

The first mentioned swear words are easily interjected into the holy swear words place, but the holy swear words are awkward in the place of normal swear words. For instance...

"You Goder!"

"Jane is a Jesusing idiot"

"This car is a piece of God!"

"These Jesuses keep stealing my Sunday post!"

In my personal analysis, I don't see the use of "God" and "Jesus" to be swearing or if you are nine years old: "Cussing." I do acknowledge that they have become popular expletives. Expletives however are not exclusively positive or negative. "Wow" is a popular expletive, yet if you were to see some amazing sight and instead say "Oh my God!" or "Jesus" this becomes a act of offense? What does "in vein" mean anyway? Is the trivial use of a deity's name so bad that you can't say it let alone hear someone else say it? "God" isn't even a name to begin with. People certainly aren't saying "Yahweh damn!" as someone cuts them off on the highway. Next, I don't even think the use is trivial to the believer. Saying the "God damn" car broke down again, is a statement on the car, not on god, and the person saying it is certainly not trivializing the relation between the car and God if they believe that god is responsible for everything. Anyways, it's beyond me to understand it.

Hell if you ask me, this is a great act in vein, and uses the word "Jesus." Which reminds me: This is a blog about my trip, and not about etymology. The Jesus sign did make me wonder if the truck had got a head of me and set up a religious checkpoint.The truth is, that L.A. is full of useless signs. This one, who knows what it's for? Windorphans? Sounds twisted in my opinion (I lack a humble opinion on this). I went to the site http://windorphins.ebay.com/special/index.html and as I expected, it was full of just fucking nonsense. Returning to the fact that this was on a sign that millions of hot and angry people pass in traffic, I am left asking myself "who other than a person, who travels and writes about the things he see is going to take the time to visit the site for some product that they don't know what it is just because they saw a sign for it?" I'm starting to believe it was placed there exclusively for me. They must have known I'd take a photo and then post about it. Ingenious!

In rare and fleeting moments when the car was moving over 10mph, I would find myself in new areas of the city. By the way, smog is real. I can't believe how much it cut down visibility in the city. Above is the only skyline shot I got with buildings. Ridiculous says me.

Plantiff: Alias Seiichi Tagami

Defendant: Los Angeles

Charge: Being a hot, polluted city with bad highways, worse drivers, and no foreseeable redeeming qualities.

Verdict: Guilty.

Once I escaped LA, I went into some mountains, about 4000ft above sea level at max, and then like a roller coaster I went down and into California's central valley. The Central valley is a giant expanse of land where I can only imagine countless orchards and crops are grown. It was incredibly flat, almost Nebraska-flat to the east. To the west, there were many rolling hills covered in a golden short grass.

A note to all Space Travelers: This is an area where you can speed your ass off. Every car was going at least 80mph. But be careful not to go over 88mph, if you do you may go back in time.

I spent many boring hours on the road in the valley, and it would have been intolerable if it had not been for my stand up comedy CDs my sister made before I left. Thank Go- goodness for David Cross. Had I not had something to laugh at I might have lost my mind. Amongst the static scenery, one thing to look at did change: JFK's check engine light cam on about 200 miles away from my destination.

The problem was later resolved. my 4th cylinder was misfiring and I had to change a spark plug. Normally a simple task, but it was not so easy on JFK's boxer flat H4 motor. It's honestly worth a whole post in itself, but frankly it was exhausting already once, I don't need to relive it. chances are I'll be changing the other three once I'm back in Springfield anyway. sigh.

As I left the central valley and headed west towards San Ramon, I was pleasantly surprised by Earth propellers! They were everywhere. California really does its part in making the world go around. I had heard that San Fransisco was a down to earth kind of place, it's time to test that.

Space Travelers, good night and here's to one for the lamest stretches of my trip thus far, may it go unchallenged. Being that I'm going to one of America's most crunchy granola cities, make sure that this week you eat as much bran as possible.

Hero out.

Chapter 4, Verse 9: Phorth of July

I know what you're thinking Space Travelers, and your right: The world is getting warmer, globally.

Anyways, I went downtown for the Phorth of July. Parking sucked, but I have found that in general, parking in San Diego is a sad thing. After some 30 mildly enjoyable minutes I found a parking spot infront of the Hall of Justice.

"A Hall of Justice, what's that?" you ask. A hall of justice is where numerous super heroes get together after a long day of busting evil-doer ass, a have some beers. They brag about saving the world etc, it's kind of like the Elks lodge, but for people who can fly, breathe fire, and crush cars with their mind.Maybe the Hall of Justice is a sponsor of this years Comic Con! Comic Con for those who don't know is a large travelling convention centered on Americans fascination with comic books. Seen above is one of many downtown advertisements for the convention in San Diego. Such public displays of comic fandom used to be licenced only to the nerdiest of nerds, namely the Trekkies. comic books were at one point in time believed to be a form of childhood fascination. After a few generations of comic book readers, the public has become more comfortable with comics expressing more adult themes. Some modern comics even approach real modern day issues such as the patriot act and human rights related issues. This along with the realization by many that comics are a profitable form of popular media has allowed for cities like San Diego to post large pictures of Iron Man on their light posts, and at the same time not being afraid of the local jocks beating up their city council members. Hell, even famous celebrities such as Snoop Dogg are frequent visitors to Comic Cons.

After successfully navigating downtown, I found my way to the harbor. Once their I boarded the USS Midway. The midway, is now a part of the San Diego Maritime Museum, which includes several historical ships.As I boarded the ship, I saw the biggest display of liberalisming. The poster above displays how this feel-good-every-child-should-have-a-trophy idea has infiltrated our Navy. That stupid whistle boy has his commanding officer saluting him while he does his one trick pony act and blows the whistle as a hard as he can.

[/joke]

Once, on the behemoth of a ship, the flight deck was a sea of lawn chairs and people. despite the fact that 3000 people were let aboard, it seemed that the ship handled the people with ease; only about half of the flight deck had human traffic on it.Despite the human traffic, the Midway was not allowing giants on the ship. In a great act of defiance, two giants seen below just made out in public outside of the ship. Oh the indecency of it all. Get a room already! A giant room!Feeling for the giants and not knowing how I could help I searched for other causes to adopt. I didn't search for long, a young private came up to me and told me about signing up to be a bone marrow donor.It didn't seem like a bad idea, so I went and talked to these hippies. I filled out a question sheet for them about my health and basic genetic make up. They didn't seem pleased that I had in recent history had anal sex with a man while in Africa while doing intravenous drugs when I was innocently getting my tongue pierced and that cute tattoo to commemorate that time I ate that homeless man. but despite their reluctance, they put me in the data base. They explained that if they took bone marrow from me that they'd take it out of my hip bones. This was their way of dancing around to avoid saying "butt surgery."But our hero, fears no butt surgery, not for America! While I waited for the sun to fall, and the fireworks to start I wandered around the flight deck and examined all the aircraft that were on display. Above you will see me with one of my all time favorites, the F-14 Tomcat. That's right, a Tomcat is actually not a cute Hollywood couple, but instead a deadly killing machine. For the biologists reading, after some lengthy research, it turns out a Tomcat is also a feline.

Happy Phorth of July Space Travelers. I hope that wherever you are, that you are with friends and family. I hope that you had a safe one. Until next time, this is goodbye San Diego. May your Comic Con be the envy of the nerd community. May Snoop Dogg bless your superheroes at the Hall of Justice. I'll miss you, "America's finest city."