martinlittle.com:thinkThin

Well, it's been another fast and furious week. During it, Mahyad headed home, leaving me all alone (kind of). On Monday I managed to get a 15km run in and then on Tuesday I did some cycling at the hotel gym. I ate in the hotel restaurant, the West Bay Cafe, which was surprisingly good in terms of quality and value.

On Wednesday a few of us from work headed to a good Mexican restaurant on El Camino in San Mateo (what was the name, Nazar?), then Thursday I drove up to our office in Sacramento for a very busy day of meeting people I had worked with previously and have worked with over the phone but never met. In the evening I managed to get invited to a barbecue which was a really nice way to end the day: sitting outside in the fading warmth with good conversation. The only downside was no beer, due to driving.

On Friday evening, colleagues A and HP (they didn't want their names mentioned on here!) and I headed into San Francisco. We started off by aiming for an Italian restaurant on North Beach, but that was then vitoed and we headed to a fish restarant in Castro, finally ending up, after some quality on-street parking space spotting by yours truly, at La Mediterranee, which really hit the spot for me after too much generic dining and then drinks at Mecca. No beers, due to driving once again...

Yesterday colleague A left, so colleague HP and I headed to the city. My plan was to meet the mighty Russ and go to the first Bay Area Mobility Forum meeting, via somewhere for quick food. It was great to see Russ again; hard to believe I last saw him, for the first time, in April 2003.

As has been noted, the first BAMF was a great success. 27 people turned out, and there were some great conversations and discussions going on. I've got a stack of photos to post ASAP. The afternoon rolled to a close somewhere about 6pm!

Russ then gave me a guided tour of San Francisco over to the Marina, so that I could meet colleague HP. She had a plan for a good Italian restaurant for dinner, but it didn't turn out to be what either of us wanted. We ended up marching about for a while, before settling on Calzones for some carbo-loading action. Then we really needed to walk some of it off, so we wandered to Union Square, and then SWIG, a cool new bar on Geary Street. Again, no beer for me due to driving, but I'm not really missing it... :-O

This morning I took a 16 mile run on the Bay Trail. Felt wiped after it, but a shower, some Gatorade and a banana pretty quickly revived me. After the run, I didn't stretch enough, and I can feel my thighs and calves complaining already. Stupid mistake to make, but at least that is the sum total of my pain. Next weekend has to involve a really solid 18-20 miler.

In the afternoon, colleague HP and I went to Big Sur, and the Nepenthe cafe, which was cool. Somehow I feel like I've now seen enough of the Pacific Coast Highway for this visit, so it's looking like a direct visit to Yosemite during the week (plus, my geography was all messed up, which had me thinking Yosemite was south east of SF, not just east).

Tonight I'm going to sleep very well, before a visit to our Dublin office and a night in the city tomorrow.