Some notes from California

I'm back from another week in SF. These are my musings...

I ended up in a bar called Eddie Rickenbacker's on 2nd,
which has (apparently) 40 classic motorcycles dotted around
the place, mostly suspended from the ceiling. I noticed that
not one was dripping oil into the beer, so they're obviously
not the genuine item. Interesting, nonetheless, and they
also sell Stella, and the barmaids thought the English accents
were sexy, so everyones a winner. Muddy probably know
of this place.
http://www.roadcarvin.com/node/100

While I was "over there" I took the advantage of the
free shipping within the US to smuggle back a new-fangled
gadget for the race bike - a Direct Link Race Performance
kit from TechnoResearch. This is like a Power Commander
on steroids as it allows a lot more customisation of the
ECU, as you are reprogramming its internal memory
rather than fooling the signals coming out of it. Hopefully
we can remove the rev limit and play with the spark map
to find some decent increases on the dyno.
http://www.technoresearch.com/Products/Direct-Link/Direct-Link.htm

I also did a drugs deal for Dr Ivan. See my other post.

That is all.

 

[snip]

Did you see the Queen Mary II just squeezing underneath the Golden Gate
bridge?

 

No - I flew home friday so I missed that and the Superbowl.

The GG bridge is pretty impressive. I went over to the park
on the other side and you get a great view of the bay
and the bridge. The currents around there look deadly
as it flows into the ocean. I've seen cruise ships
parked up on the piers before and they look massive
anyway, so the QM2 must be very impressive.

The US seems to be Superbowl crazy. All of the channels
were plugging it constantly, even down to the daytime
programs doing their recipe slots on "things to do for
the tailgate party" and such like, all friggin week.
Crazy stuff.

 

It certainly is impressive. I went across it twice (once in each
direction) during our Harley road trip in 2005.

Hence the positioning of Alcatraz, I guess!

Quite. The video on the Beeb website is pretty good.

Well, I've done a UK equivalent of that at both Wembley for football
and Twickenham for rugby. I guess that the Superbowl is another
magnitude, though.

 

Even a six toed, cousin fucker accent?

 

Its all gravy.

 

heh, any hole's a goal

 

Iwatched the first 30-odd minutes of the game last night (well this morning,
actually, for me) for the first time...

Was interesting to see a touchdown after, I think, 26 seconds had elapsed.

Then nothing happened much except constant changing over of players
("Offense!" Defense!" "Offense!" "Defense!" "Drive Thru!" "Ad Break!" etc
etc etc) and about 5 actual minutes of playing time had happened. I got
bored and went to bed which was a shame as I was looking forward to watching
Prince. Was he any good?

The whole American, sorry, 'World' sport thing must be wide of the mark for
me though, as I can't see the attraction in a 60 minute game that takes 3
hours to play with teams featuring more sub teams and separate groupings of
players needed for specific 10-second plays than I can understand.

Dave

 

They all do that, sir. Works rather well, I think...

If you like decent (live) blues, there's also a place called 'Biscuit &
Blues' in downtown SF that's rather good. Also does some decent Cajun
cookin'.

 

I always stay at the Clift, which is 495 Geary, so
the Biscuit & Blues is literally across the road.

 

How's that hotel then? Only stayed there once in '97 and wasn't overly
impressed.

 

Its ok; very upmarket and trendy allegedly. The rooms are
nice and bright and plenty big enough and the hotel is
ideally situated for downtown.

The bar prices are silly - $8 for a bottle of Anchor Steam -
but then it is a hotel rather than a bar. Thursday nights
is like the parade of the Barbie dolls in the bar...

I've stayed there four times in the last year and three
of those there has been a fire alarm at 1.30am which
hasn't been too impressive! The only other place I've
stayed is the Stanford Court on Powell and California
which was one hell of a walk every day up that
bloody hill, so I still prefer the Clift.

The apartments look dead swish...
http://www.clifthotel.com/clift_hotel_penthouse.asp

 

Ah, they've refurbished it since I stayed there. It was good for
downtown when I was there as well but back then it was just expensive
and not that great, IIRC.

 

Actually no. Never been there.

 

Well in that case the first round is on me
next time I'm passing ;-)

 

I'm in for that.