295. Goodbye to the Temporary Transbay Terminal

Microsoft vs Google

Here’s a perfect example of the idiocy of Microsoft vs Google. On my Chromebook if I get my access password wrong -- I’ve changed it twice recently so this happens all the time -- I get a little error message, but all I have to do is continue typing in the correct characters. Not so with Windows. On my Windows machine there’s an error dialog that you have to get out of by clicking “OK.” What else is going to happen at this point besides your trying the password again? Possibly this is a security measure so someone can’t just keep tossing different combinations of characters at the machine until it gets it right, but I can think of better ways of avoiding that. I think it’s just Microsoft being Microsoft.

It only took two months for people to discover my new favorite Peet’s out on Brannan. All the best seats were taken when I arrived today. I’m at a nice counter, but sitting on a stool. Still nicer here. 

Waiting for the bus, I realized I was actually across the street from another Peet’s, and a Starbucks. Unfortunately, that Peet’s has hardly any seating and that Starbucks is always freezing cold. 

Just noticed that this room has really well positioned sound absorbing panels. The ceiling is quite high, maybe 16’, and the panels are suspended from the ceiling about 4’ down. This way the bottom absorbs sound heading up and the top should be absorbing sound bouncing down from above. 

Counting and packaging pennies

“The Olympic Flame is always an adventure.”
This would be my slogan for the Olympic Flame cafe/diner here in SF, if they asked me to help with their branding. The idea of them having “branding” is a joke.

The OF is just a block too far into the Tenderloin from Union Square. The block to the east is the heart of the theater district but the next block is nowhere. It’s my regular neighborhood breakfast place because it’s cheap and the food is usually quite good. Also, since it is that extra block away, there isn’t the line of tourists you find even in the block before. But you pay a price for your bargain price and short lines.

The proprietor is an older Greek man who seems to be losing it. He is also the cook. On a normal visit, it seems that all the staff speak different, non-English, first languages and then try to communicate in English. Not sure why, but the waitresses can’t post the written orders as happens most places, instead they have to shout the order to the cook. This communication can take a while and entropy is high. 

Usually, a younger man I believe is the cook’s son is also behind the counter on weekends, but he hasn’t been present the past two weekends. So when seated, you are informed that your food will probably be delayed 10 to 30 minutes. Last weekend I was on my way to work, but had built in some buffer time so this worked out fine. Today I wasn’t in a hurry and I was ordering something really simple, blueberry pancakes. The delay wasn’t the problem.

For a long time I avoided ordering items cooked on a grill because of the likelihood of meat contamination. The effect of a bite or two of actual meat on my GI tract is dramatic. But more recently I’ve changed my mind on that and decided exposure to small amounts of meat in this way could actually give me immunity to that dire reaction. If my stomach has some of the necessary meat enzymes in reserve, it won't be forced to flush everything down the colon. We may get a bit of a test of that today as there was a good sized debris field of what I believe was hamburger at the bottom of my bottom pancake. The first bite, and taste, took me by surprise. I was still pondering the taste when the “mouthfeel” of the second bite warned me that something was very wrong. 

I then removed the offending meat from my food, but the question is, How much did I consume in that first bite and how will my gut respond? Time will tell. Fortunately, I’m home doing my laundry and other “errands” so I am at least close to the toilet. (I lucked out.)

Speaking of laundry. 
The other day, when the banks were open, it occurred to me that the last time I checked I only had $2.50 in quarters, which is exactly the amount I usually need. But then again, it frequently happens that the washer or the dryer will reject a coin for some reason, so I like to have at least one more quarter in reserve. Then I forgot about it. 

So today I discovered that my recollection was correct and that I also had no quarters in my pocket -- since I’m always giving them out as tips. I then dumped out my loose change collection and found one extra quarter. Success. But now I had a pile of pennies on my table. So I found some wrappers and started counting them out.

And that reminded me of when I first learned to do this, when I was parked with my grandmother as a young child and put to work doing everything my grandmother needed done. Counting and wrapping change was actually one of my favorite jobs -- perhaps because it didn’t require crawling around under the furniture dusting and polishing, or carrying laundry about. I also enjoyed using the carpet sweeper. I know I was under eight, but I don’t know at what age my grandmother first started using me as seasonal or part-time labor. My cousins were also enlisted when she “put up” the grape jam she made each year from grapes she grew around the garage.

Saying goodbye to the Temporary Transbay Transit Terminal, 

The new complex is opening over the weekend -- no, not the train box underneath or most of the retail -- but the bus portion and the park on top. While I am curious to see what we’ve bought, mostly I’m sad that the Temporary Terminal is going out of service. So I took a final trip on the AC F line to Berkeley for my favorite Vegan deli. More on that later. 

I did take a bunch of final pictures of the Temporary Terminal as I suspect this will be one of those things Bay Area people will be nostalgic about for generations.

By the time I did some errands and was ready to go, it was already past 1pm and I was starving, so I grabbed the 38 Geary bus to take me directly to the Temp Terminal, except that it didn’t.  SF’s Muni buses have already switched to the new terminal, because of course they would. So I had to walk several additional blocks. Didn’t matter. I still had time to take my photos before my bus arrived.

The trip to Berkeley takes forever because of the seemingly random route it follows, so I returned on BART, which was so fast it was almost spooky. This may have been because I had picked up a used copy of The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe in Berkeley, and was engrossed in reading the introduction.

Now for The Butcher’s Son vegan deli: They have moved across the street into a much larger space with lots of outside seating both in front, on the sidewalk, and in a large garden in the back, which connects with other properties. It’s really quite nice, and they seem to be able to get your order out faster now. It used to take forever. It was a serious temptation before and now it’s much worse.

Here are the photos,