Greetings from San Francisco

[yendi]

Where it costs a motherfucking $5.70 to go ten stops on the subway. What the fuck?

Anyway, in about an hour, I'll be out the door to head to the keynote of MoodleMoot '08. I attended the pre-conference hackfest yesterday, which was essentially an eight-hour edutech version of one of those Readercon "let's define sixteen subgenres" panels, only with more navel gazing and fewer results. That said, there was enough there to make it worth the time, in terms of both networking and knowledge gained.

Of course, most of the room was surfing the crappy Best Western wireless to find the news from the other tech show in town (my take: Yeah, it's all wonderful, but until the iPhone allows the option to work as a bluetooth modem for your laptop, it's lagging behind the other 3G phones).

Last night, a bunch of us headed into Chinatown, where we dealt with the aforementioned obscene public transit prices and grabbed some yummy food.

Tonight, there's a conference dinner. My expectations for food quality there are not as high.

Flight out here was fine -- it was Jetblue, which meant that even though it was six hours, I could eat munchies and watch some baseball. I also read most of Catherine Asaro's Sunrise Alley on shadesong's Kindle. The book is quite fun (a technothriller, essentially, but a well-done one), and the Kindle is a godsend for traveling.

The hotel is pretty much exactly the sort of hotel you'd expect Richard Shindell to write a song about. That said, the bed's comfy enough, and there's free and frequently working wireless.

Looks like any free time I have will be confined to Thursday during the day. Feh. I might just pay the "so high it should come with oral sex" BART fares and hit MOMA. Of course the Frida exhibit would open right after I leave. Feh.

Miss shadesong, Elayna, and the cats like crazy.

Needless to say, not reading much LJ; if you need something, drop me an email.

Comments

Transit Issues

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

That's the BART. The BART fare is done by number of stops, although if you have a MUNI monthly pass, you can use the BART inside the City for free. If perchance you were using the BART to go from the airport to your hotel downtown, 5.70 sounds about normal. (It's a 35+ cab ride.) When I had to use the BART to get to work in Oakland, work subsidized it, so getting to work only cost about 65 a month. (120ish normally)

The BART is the Bay Area Rapid Transit, and spans most of the Bay Area cities, and is funded by county taxes, and so on. That's why it's by number of stops and why it doesn't go to Marin, since Marin opted out.

The Muni is the Municipal Transit System and that is city funded. It's also probably more what you were expecting, but you probably accidently got on the BART by mistake. So when you pay a fare on the Muni, or if you have a pass, you get to go anywhere in the city system. (Although you can only use the BART part between Mission and Downtown for free if you have the monthly pass.) You are best off buying a weekly MUNI pass and usign that to get around SF. (BTW, I thought it was crazy that every time I've transferred in Boston I've had to pay whatever fare for that leg. In SF they give you a transfer at least. I've never had a transfer from a Boston train to a bus or vice versa. (When I was in SF last year, fare and a transfer was 1.75, and it was good for three hours. I had a pass, natch.)

To sum up: The super fast trains: BART. (Fare done by stops.)
The normal J, K, L, M, N, T trains and the bus system: Muni. (Flat fare, good for three hours.)

Re: Transit Issues

[ckd]

The MBTA has transfers now. Of course, to get the best rate you need one of the RFID CharlieCards.

Re: Transit Issues

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Ooooo...please to be sharing this divine knowledge? What do I do to transfer? (Swiping my ticket so far has thus resulted in even more money being removed from it.)

Re: Transit Issues

[ckd]

When you say "swiping" and "ticket" that's probably the key. You need to get one of the hard plastic RFID CharlieCards, not the magstripe CharlieTickets. (The MBTA, king of stupid nomenclature; other cities call the RFID cards something that isn't so easily confused with their "regular" system.)

You're supposed to be able to just ask for a card from the Customer Service Agents (assuming you can find one, and they're not out, and they're not too busy drinking coffee or something, etc etc). I've never tried that, but it's supposed to work. At worst, try the T sales office at one of the commuter rail stations (Back Bay, North Station, South Station).

I did pick up a CharlieCard when they started handing them out in late 2006 (I was walking through a T station and they were giving one to each passer-by). I've never used that one, though; I'm saving it as a visitor/guest card, and will just put some money on it when someone needs to use it.

I get a T pass through work (and the new job pays for it all rather than just half of it, yay!) which is a CharlieCard that automatically renews the pass stored on it each month. It's great. No worries about transfers, balances, picking up each month's pass on time, and so on. I don't know why the FAQ page says "later in 2008"; my old job started doing the CharlieCards in January 2007.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Also, places to go for food: (Check between streets and aves....9th ave is different than 9th street)

- House of Nan King (in Chinatown) on Kearney St. between Jackson and Columbus (really close to the Transamerica building) (Looks kinda dubious, I know, and super crowded, and the owner may scowl at you, but he will also recommend a dish you will like and the atmosphere is only surpassed by the food.)

- Park Chow (either 9th Ave and Irving-ish OR Market Street and Church St.) - excellent summer lasagna and delicious ginger cake with pumpkin ice cream

- Awesome burritos and tacos can be found at any taco cart in the city (I like the Best Buy taco cart over on the 13th ST) but Tacqueria Cancun (locations: Valencia St. in the Mission and 6th and Market downtown) is awesome. It looks like a complete hole in the wall but the food is delicious.

- More spendy - check out Belden Place (it's this alley in downtown SF, and you can get to it from Bush or Pine and it's between Kearney and Montgomery. There's about seven little tavernas down there, French, Italian, Tuscan, etc, and they are all delicious and yummy and my favourite is Tiramisu where you can get their ENTIRE dessert menu as a sampler for 9 bucks.)

- Citizen Cake (Grove and Gough) - Their chef, Elizabeth Faulkner, was on Iron Chef America and they are best known for their quirky desserts. (Their patisserie has some excellent small dessert options if you don't want to wait for a table). Their food is good too, and they did this amazing melon seafood ceviche (and I do not like seafood normally, although they aren't a seafood restaurant per se.)

- 21st Amendment (Second ST, between Bryant Street and Brannan) - they are a microbrewery and they also have a risotto of the day and a lot of yummy sandwiches. Try their Watermelon Pale Ale, if that's your sort of thing.

I can tell you more, but you probably don't want your own Zagats.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

If you are staying downtown:

You can walk to Belden Place and Chinatown and 21st Amendment and even one of the Tacquerias Cancun with ease.

In fact, you can walk to Citizen Cake too, but otherwise, you get off at the Civic Center Station and walk to the Symphony area. (Symphony should be on Grove St.)

Park Chow is an N train (to get to the location by Golden Gate Park) or any train EXCEPT N to get to the Church St location---just get off at the Church St. Station.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Also, if you tell me where you are staying in the City (provided it's in the City) I can tell you what small things you can squeeze in. (Sorry about the sheer number of posts. SF is my city though.)

[yendi]

(Checking in during our lunch break). We're actually in South San Fran; our means of getting to town basically involves taking the shuttle to SFO, then hopping on Bart from there.

And thanks for the tips!

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Aha. That accounts for it. (In the future, South San Francisco =/= San Francisco. It's actually a separate city.) SamTrans might also be able to get you places if you are in SSF.

If you need to go the City again any time soon, and price is a worry, there's a Holiday Inn over at 8th and Market which is relatively non-expensive and like all Holiday Inns everywhere, remarkably consistent. It'll get you relatively close to the heart of downtown without breaking the bank. That's where we put up John's mum when she came for her visit.

[ckd]

The cash fare for a trip between Covent Garden and Leicester Square: GBP4.

That's $7.88 for just over a quarter of a kilometer of track distance. The stations are so close that when Covent Garden is being run as an "exit only" station, Leicester Square is the standard alternative.

[yendi]

So the Laziest Man in London is also apparently the Richest Man in London? :-)

[ckd]

He has an annual Travelcard loaded on his Oyster card, so that he doesn't even have to pay after making a walking transfer. Taking out money? Pushing buttons on a machine? Putting a ticket into the fare gate? Those all sound like extra effort, and he's lazy!

For those wondering what yendi and I are talking about, it's the board game On the Underground. (In a complete coincidence, I played it last week at the office; we've had a boardgaming night going the past couple Thursdays.)

Oh, and that cash fare I mentioned? If you thought the CharlieCard/CharlieTicket price difference was annoying, check out TFL's pricing. The Oyster single fare for Covent Garden-Leicester Square is £1.50, not £4.00. Still not cheap, but far cheaper.

[underpope.livejournal.com]

You're at Moodle Moot in SSF? Neat. I'm there as well. That's the reason I've been having so many fun experiences at Fawlty Towers West.

[yendi]

Seriously? Holy crap -- I'd not been reading LJ, so I didn't even think to see if anyone else might be posting about it. I'll have to start scanning namebadges now.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

I was about to push assaultdoor to go over, and see if he can get enough ammo to get his school off of *spit* Blackboard, but then I saw the registration fee. Gah.