Because of Casa Buena

I wrote that I left for MV at 3 and arrived at 16^th around 5.  I went to Pauline’s for pizza with a friend.  We talked about our work week.  She gave me some flyers for the Ladies’ Ride to distribute at Bike Party and I headed to Ashby Station.

I went to Civic Center.  While there, I saw an old classmate on the platform—he had recently been promoted to art director at his company.  He was headed home from his job with this awesome aluminum bike that all the Bike Party people on the train thought was awesome.  We talked about mutual friends and I told him about my GIS career.

I told him that I thought his company would eventually allow things in the GIS market to scale up.  He indicated that this was not presently the case.   I let slip that I was speculating on who was likely to partner with his firm in the GIS market.  This caused us to discuss mutual friends and I mentioned some people that he didn’t know.  However, there were a number of people that we knew in common.

Bike Party was near his place in the Ashby area, so when we parted I was already at my destination.  I saw a bunch of guys I knew almost immediately.  I gave flyers to a bunch of women that I knew.  The ride went down Stanford to Powell and then to Hollis.  We turned then and went up 7^th to a parking lot on 4^th.  I handed out a lot of flyers here.  I saw a couple I knew pretty well and later some of the guys I knew.  I interacted with a manager at a local transportation agency then gave flyers to his friends.

The ride left then and headed north.  I know we went up Ceder to Hopkins and back on Gilman.  I also know we crossed San Pablo and headed over to Pierce and then Cleveland.  We passed through several towns and entered CoCo County.  Most of the ladies I interacted with already had a flyer from me.  I was able to give out quite a few though.  I introduced a riding buddy to one of them.  We ended up at a Point Isabel—a park on the bay.  There was one firework and I gave the last of my flyers out.  When I had finished up I caught a train in El Cerrito del Norte.  There was a long wait at Mac.  I went to bed around 12.

I was up at 8 and had a bit of refreshment.  Then I headed to my friend’s work to help her take a broken bike rack off of her bike.  Then we rode up 17th to Sanchez to Matching Half to meet her coworker.  My friend had asked her to be our companion to test the route for the Ladies Ride.  We ate food and left flyers there and a bit later we took McAllister to Central and entered the Panhandle.  We had some trouble using the Shrader Valve and our companion almost went the wrong way at Conservatory East.

We took the 10th Avenue exit from the park and had a bottle of water.  At Lake I noted that the turn was a bit confusing.  We turned on 15th and climbed through the Presidio Golf Course to the General Store.  Then we rode to Immigrant Point overlook and also visited the camp ground.  There were three places with a lot of conflict in the Toll Plaza approach.

We crossed the bridge and our companion stopped a bit early.  We continued till the parking lot and talked about the experience.  She indicated that it was a mess and said it was the tourists.  I thought it was the spandex riders though.  My friend seemed to think that the bridge is really difficult as well.

We descended to Fort Baker and rolled around for a bit before ascending to Alexander Boulevard and on to Sausalito. There was surprisingly little traffic but a lot of bikes.  In town we stopped near B of A and then visited Odyssey Bicycles.  I left them and doubled back to get coffee at Triest.  When I returned to find the girls, they had decided that My Dutch Bike wasn’t a good stop.  We continued on Bridgeway.  There was some confusion at the intersection in front of Mike’s Bikes because I had looped around but they had stopped at the light.​

We agreed along the bike path in Bothin Marsh to stop at Bayfront Park.  There we saw a guy who sets up a bike tripod on Saturdays.  We rode over Horse Hill and then down to Corte Madera.  There was confusion at the top because of Casa Buena—someone would have to be there to direct people during the actual ride.

We rode past the mall and then under the freeway and over the slough.  We made a box turn to get to the brewery but later we decided that we would use the overpass during the ride.  I realized later that we would have to figure that out.  When we got to the brewery we had two hours till our boat departed—plenty of time.  We had beers at the bar and then got a table.  My friend made a reservation for the big day.  We tweeted over our salads and onion rings and had another drink.  We left with about ten minutes to spare for our boat.

We bought tickets for the boat, boarded and took photos over some beers.  Some girls were drinking wine near us while the three of us were taking photos and the wind got it all over my shirt.  We said bye to our companion at the Ferry Building.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.