Jay Lake (jaylake) wrote,
Jay Lake
jaylake

[travel] The manifold delights of a chilly San Francisco night

Yesterday's dinner at Espertento was awesome. We eventually had about 24 folks, and took over the upstairs balcony. It was really great to see so many people, though I hadn't expected quite such a mob scene. Not only that, we got out in time to attend Writers With Drinks featuring, among others, the mighty kenscholes.

I was so tired I left after his reading, only to experience significant cabfail on Mission. Eventually I wound up back at my Classic Luxury Hotel in time for a decent night's sleep, only to be woken up around 12:30 am by the people in the neighboring room, who had decided to bring their high-volume fun night on the town home with them. Many voices arguing and laughing in Hindi or Farsi or some such language, except for the nasal whine of the teen-ager complaining very loudly in English about they never came to the city and it just wasn't fair. And the repeated door slamming as this large party moved back and forth between several rooms.

After about 20 minutes of this, when it became clear they were not going to taper off and go to sleep, I called the desk. Security came up and spoke (quietly) to the neighbors. Mirable dictu, after that they were quiet. It's been my general experience in hotels that if you complain about the noise from another room, it normally comes back louder a few minutes later in a giant, passive-aggressive middle-fingered "howdy".

Around 5 am this morning, the loudspeakers from the Nike Women's Marathon began thundering outside the window. Along with much cheering. I am hoping my late night partying neighbors enjoyed this experience to the fullest as I did. I gave up, got up, and went walking on those San Francisco hills, going only up until I wound up on Priest Street, which was the highest point I could reach without going downhill on the way out. By the time I got back to my room, my body was letting me know in no uncertain terms how vexed it was with me. But then, this is the first hill work I've done in about a year.

A bit later, trade show set-up. Yes, I am working today.

Tags: california, travel, work
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