David's Blog

Saturday, I biked the bridge with Delia and family. Sunday, we did a GoCar tour of San Francisco.

The cars are 3-wheeled, gas-powered (1 gallon tank for 70 miles, they say) 2-seaters. The only way to go backwards is to get out and push the car.

They come with a “GPS,” which is a bit misleading. As long as you follow the route map (which is attached to the dashboard), you get an audio tour of your surroundings via a CD in the CD player. The tour gives you directions, but it is easy to miss a turn. Once you make a wrong turn, the “GPS” won’t give you any instructions again until you get back on the route.

Lesson learned: study the map before venturing out…you can’t rely on the GPS to keep you on the path.

The cars are considered motorcycles and thus can park easily almost anywhere in SF.

The maximum speed of a GoCar is 30 Mph…so they can’t go on any highways (and the GPS will bark at you if you try).

Here are some pics I took along the way.

I saw a lot of things I had never seen before on this tour. It is a fun way to see the city in an unusual vehicle. Highly recommended.

Posted on June 20, 2009 3:47 PM | Permalink| Comments (0)

Delia Flores Salazar and her husband John and daughter Sydney came to SF last weekend. I went to high school with Delia and haven’t seen her in 20 years. We’ve actually become better friends than we ever were in high school because of Facebook…weird!

There is a ton of stuff to do in SF. I’ve done a lot of it, but there is a surprising amount I haven’t…including riding a bike across the Golden Gate Bridge. Delia and Co. wanted to bike the bridge, so I tagged along.

We rented our bikes from Blazing Saddles in Fisherman’s Wharf at the Hyde St. location. We rode along the bay to Fort Point, crossed the bridge, and stopped in Sausalito for lunch. We took the ferry from Sausalito back to the Ferry Building in SF, and the rode back to the Hyde St. location where we started. Total trip was about 8 miles.

Here are some photos I took along the way.

If you get the chance…you *must* do this…it is an amazing way to see the sights and get some exercise as well. *Definitely* bring sunscreen (I didn’t and my arms got fried).

Posted on June 20, 2009 3:11 PM | Permalink| Comments (1)

My old pal from high school came over to visit me last weekend. The photos are here.

I gave Chris the traditional tour of ILM and then we went bar-hopping off Chestnut.

Chris had been to San Francisco before...so I needed to come up with something to do that would be new for him and me. He hadn't been to Silicon Valley before, and we are both big nerds, so we went on a tour of corporate campuses. We saw...

• Sony Computer Entertainment
• Sling Media
• Electronic Arts
• PDI/DreamWorks
• Apple
• Google
• Intuit
• Mozilla

Here is a map of where we went.

Next we toured the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. It is a beautiful mansion that was under non-stop construction for 36 years, 24 hours a day, year round. It features bizarre designs like doors and stairs that go to nowhere. The mansion had 40 bedrooms, even though the owner, Sarah Winchester, never had any guests.

Technorati Tags: Sony Computer Entertainment, Sling Media, Electronic Arts, PDI, Apple, Google, Intuit, Mozilla, Winchester Mystery House

Posted on July 1, 2007 2:01 AM | Permalink| Comments (4)

When I was in high school, I used to call in for radio contests from K98 in Austin. I spent a lot of time doing homework and listening to the radio. They gave away something every hour. Since I spent at least 3 hours a night on homework, I usually got at least 3 attempts to win.

I ended up winning...a lot. I got in a competition with my high school buddy Chris Lowe. I finished with just over 100 wins at the end of high school, but Chris beat me by a few (lucky bastard!).

There was one night where I won three consecutive giveaways.

At school, people would ask me to win them tickets to an upcoming concerts...and sometimes I actually did it.

K98 had a policy where you could only win once a month. I won so many times that the DJ's started to recognize me. To keep winning, I started giving out names of family and friends.

Most of the stuff I won was crap, but I did win a few good things. The best was this time when I won front row tickets and backstage passes for the Poison/David Lee Roth concert for naming a small sample from a song. I took my brother for his birthday. After they pried the groupies off of the band, they got together to take a picture with us. The girl next to me was our K98 host for the concert. 

Another time I won $300 for naming the last 3 songs played.

I don't have all my winnings recorded, but here are a bunch of them...

1. David Lee Roth/Poison Concert Tickets
2. $300
3. Van Halen 5150 Concert Tickets 
4. Evil Dead II Movie Premier Passes
5. Oingo Boingo Concert Tickets
6. Debbie Gibson Cassette
7. Aerosmith and Dokken Cassettes
8. Astroworld Tickets
9. Bleacher Creature T-Shirt
10. Chance to win Bon Jovi Concert tickets in Hawaii (I didn't win)
11. Cherry 7-Up 6 Pack
12. Cory Hart Cassette
13. Chicago Concert Tickets
14. Eddie Money Album
15. Europe Concert Tickets
16. Fabulous Thunderbirds Cassette
17. Health Show
18. Heart, Fleetwood Mac, Def Leppard, Pink Floyd, U2, and Tina Turner Cassettes
19. Kool and the Gang Concert Tickets
20. Win by my Mom (I handed phone to my Mom when I knew I was going to win)
21. Lita Ford Concert Tickets
22. Morris Day and the Time Concert Tickets
23. Jody Watley Cassette and 4 Movie Passes
24. Movie Passes
25. Pepe Shirt
26. Pepsi Power Pack
27. Rain Man Cassette and Sunglasses
28. Fabulous Thunderbirds Cassette and K98 T-Shirt
29. Willie Nelson Wrangler Music Invitational Concert Tickets
30. Willow Movie Passes

Posted on October 19, 2006 9:34 PM | Permalink| Comments (8)

My old high school buddy Chris Franka flew in to hang out for the weekend. Our first stop for happy hour was the new Ghostbar on the 32nd floor of the W Dallas-Victory. The elevator says it is the 33rd floor, but it skips floor 13, just to be safe. Ghostbar has been open for only 3 weeks.

I took pictures and video with my Motorola Q. Let's just say it is a better phone than a camera. Here are the photos. Here is a video from the south balcony, which has an outdoor bar. Here is a video from the north balcony, which has a see-through glass floor.

We got in just before 7 and did not have to pay a cover. For Friday's and Saturday's after happy hour, cover is $20 for guys...girls get in free. For happy hour, ghostbar is just a bar/lounge. Later on a DJ plays music and it becomes a dance club.

The first thing I noticed when I got off the elevator were the waitresses. They are all very tall (most around 6 foot with their heels), very thin, very cute, and dressed in sexy outfits with fishnet stockings. Here is a photo of one of our waitresses.

Ghostbar is one large room with a bar on the west side and couches and chairs throughout. It has a lot of style and attention to detail. Very cool design.

We headed out to the south balcony to see the view. It is amazing, but it got to me a bit. I *love* observation decks in tall buildings, but they scare the *hell* out of me. I could feel the building shake a bit...but I found the more I drank, the less I noticed. We sat at some bar stools right by the glass window on the balcony. The window has a glass bar on it so you can take in the view and enjoy a tasty overpriced beverage. My rum/diet coke was $10 after tip! The window is not connected to anything above, so you really are outside. Besides the bar stools by the edge, there are also some couches and tables that are on the balcony but closer to the building.

The north balcony is much smaller, but it has a see-through floor! That is such a bizarre feeling to be able to see cars driving 32 floors beneath your feet! It took me a while before I could be comfortable out there...but it was worth it. Definitely a thrill.

I ran into one of my friends that works at Ghostbar. He was nice enough to take us to the "VIP" area. The VIP area is just a small corner in the north part of the bar that is sectioned off with a curtain and a private bar and waitstaff. Next, he took us around to meet all the really cute waitresses. Why can't all my friends be this cool?!?!

We left Ghostbar to check out some other places. We planned on coming back to see what it was like later in the evening. We returned at 1:30am, but they had stopped letting people enter because Ghostbar had reached its maximum occupancy of 450.

In summary...way cool bar! I'll put Ghostbar in my regular rotation. Two acrophobic thumbs up!

Posted on July 23, 2006 9:46 PM | Permalink| Comments (1)

Posted on April 17, 2006 8:01 AM | Permalink| Comments (2)