So I spent a few days in Sacramento as I was hoping it would be a possible future home for me.  I didn't really like it that much.  It really doesn't have much going on.  Perhaps going to San Francisco first was a bad idea as that place just blew my mind.  Next time I'm going to the smaller city first. 

I hung out in Old Sac, which is a couple blocks of old west feel.  They've got lots of interesting little shops and a TON of candy stores.  They must REALLY love their candy in that town, geez.  There are also tons of bars there, so at night it becomes filled with young drinkers.  Fun fun.

Old Sac is also home to a train museum where they tell you all about the beginning of the trans-cont railroad and how extremely important it was.  That was pretty neat.

I took a drive up to Folsom Lake, past the Folsom prison, and watched the sun set over the lake.  It was lovely.

Sacramento is a hot desert that has a pretty large flood zone.  Outside of the flood zone, the locals tell me there is a large risk of fire. You'd think they could just balance that out somehow.  Oh well.

So nothing in Sac really wow'd me.  It just felt like a larger, hotter, more expensive Rochester.  But it is within an hour of San Francisco, bonus.

Time to hit the road back to the coast.  We're driving over to Santa Cruz and all the way down the California coast to Los Angeles!  This will surely be the highlight of this trip!

Right now I am sitting in a hotel room in Daly City just south of San Francisco.  I spent the entire day doing everything I could all around San Francisco.  I love this city and don't ever want to leave.

This was a perfect day.  The locals here were surprised at how sunny, warm, and clear it was ALL day.  There was absolutely zero fog and total sunshine.

I started the day by driving into the city after the rush hour in a rented Mitsubishi Eclipse.  I drove down the crooked Lombard Street then down to Fisherman's Wharf.  I took the hour long Bay Cruise that goes around and under the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.  It was so fucking beautiful I can't even begin to explain it.  I'll just have to post the photos.

During the boat ride I saw a bunch of seals poking their heads out of the choppy water.  Then as we were pulling back towards the piers just after going around the Rock there were a bunch of seals chillin out on some rocks or something right by the pier, giving some onlookers at Pier 39 something to take pictures of, besides the bridge of course :)

After the boat ride I drove up to Chinatown for some Chinese.  Yummy.  Then I headed over to Haight-Ashbury to take pictures of the cross street sign.  A lot of the stores in this area look like they belong in the Village in NYC.  As I had imagined there were some hippy stores with greatful dead shirts and tie dyed numbers.  I even got to see some authentic old school hippies.  A lot of them were sitting on the sidewalk with their trusty dogs.  Far out man.

After the Haight I made my way to Golden Gate Park, which was really nice.  It was kinda like the Central Park of SF only it had Bison or Buffalo, or whatever the hell they are.  Then I drove up the ocean side coast to see the ocean beach, Point Lobos, and other areas having breathtaking views.

Next I drove through the park that is all around the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge and made my way onto 101 and over the bridge.  That was a trip.  Being on the bridge was crazy.  I am so used to seeing it in pictures and on TV, so it was really ill to actually be on the damn thing.

Once on the other side of the Golden Gate I stopped at a scenic area that had picture perfect views of the bridge.  The wind was wild and almost blew me off the cliff.

Continuing on through the Marin City side, I drove through an extremely curvy, mountainous, scary-as-hell-to-go-fast-on road that took me to Muir Woods where the Redwoods live.  I hiked through the woods to get up close to the elderly giants.  Looking up at the tops of these monsters almost made me dizzy.  I learned that these are taller than the giant sequoias but less wide.  Who knew.

After the woods I took the mountainous road (think route 6 near Bear Mountain only scarier) back to the 101 and back over the "International Orange" colored bridge and down to the Sunset area of the city, just south of Golden Gate Park.  I had some authentic Hong Kong style Chinese food with a local friend.  This was the absolute BEST Chinese food I have EVER had.

Finally after a long adventurous day I made it back to my hotel room, which overlooks Cow Palace in Daly City.  I am exhausted yet excited to experience what tomorrow has to bring.  In the morning I will be making my way to Antioch, back to the city, then out to Sacramento.

Time to get some sleep...

I spent a wonderful night and afternoon in Portland Maine and I must say that I am extremely impressed with this city. The night life is awesome and filled with tons of 20 and 30 somethings hanging out in lots of cool bars and interesting little shops.

Four of us went bar hopping through the old harbor area of downtown Portland. The people were really nice and mostly drunk. Every bar had live music and there were a few places to dance. The bars and clubs were comfortably packed, there weren't too many or too few people.

We went to some awesome little shops like Condom Sense and Mexicali, where I finally bought myself a triangle wrap for bellydancing, made in India too. There are lots of "wicked cool" shops that are cheap and open late so you can stumble in drunk or between bars to buy some Portland garb, Jewelry, and other fun stuff.

We stayed in Old Orchard Beach. Our hotel room was directly on the beach. I had a room with a private balcony that overlooked the beach. It was so beautiful. We were able to take a midnight walk on the sandy shore. The sand was different than what I am used to on the Long Island beaches. It was really course and cold. You could walk on it barefoot without burning your feet, but the sand was so course that it almost hurt.

Old Orchard Beach reminded me of the Jersey shore. There is a boardwalk with lots of beach shops and an amusement park called Palace Playland.

This was my very first trip to Maine and I can't wait to go back. In fact, I could make Maine a once a year trip. It was relaxing, exciting, beautiful and fun. Plus we went during off-peak times so it was cheap.

I went snowboarding yesterday for the second time in my life (never skied before).  What a blast!  It was so much fun, even when I hit the icey snow with my mushy ass.  I did much better this time that I did the first time I snowboarded, about 5 years ago.  Towards the end of the day I was actually able to control my movements and go down the mountain falling only 3 times!  That is a huge improvement over falling every 3 seconds.  I even went flying down at speeds that would have made me poop myself at the beginning of the day.

I knew I would be in pain today as I could feel my muscles burning while barrelling down the mountain.  Oh fuck it hurts.  My neck, arms, abs, and legs are extremely sore today.  Simply holding myself up is painful.  I am a weakling, but I want to snowboard again.  That shit is expensive though.  I guess that is why I only went twice so far.  Maybe I'll get to go again in another 5 years.

Shit.  I stopped working around 7ish today, worked out for an hour and decided to take a quick relax nap before starting to work on my project.   5 figgen hours later and here I am at 1 and a half AM!

What the shit is that!? 

I stink at waking up!  I can sleep all day long if there were no alarms or people or cats to bother me :)  I can literally stay in bed for 14 hours, no problem.  I am a hardcore sleeper.  Can sleeping count as a hobby, or is there just something wrong with me? 

I guess it didn't help that I only got like 4 hours of sleep last night!  Oh well.  Im going back to sleep.

Wow.  Now Nine Inch Nails knows how to put on a show.  They were amazing.  Best show EVER!  Can't wait to see them again.