Sunday, May 16, 2004
Weight training. Breakfast: an orange and a pear. Shower. Met Travis, Steve, H a o, Bryan, Dave, Andy, and Scott at the finish line of Bay to Breakers. They walked the whole way and finished in about 3 hours. I didn't do the whole walk because my knee is still getting better. They day was sunny but with strong chilly winds coming in from the ocean. I saw a few naked people; some women dressed up as Fruit of the Loom characters; some people pulling a large, elaborate model of the Golden Gate Bridge. I didn't see any centipedes. Before I left home, ABC news reported the winner was a man from Kenya—about 32 minutes—and the first woman to finish was (I think) someone from Marin County. I think her time was about 42 minutes. The race is about 7.5 miles, I think. One woman reporter in the studio at ABC said to the onsite reporter, "Why is it that all the people who shouldn't be naked are the ones who are naked?" which I thought was rude and insulting. I wish that onsite reporter would've come back with some tart reply to lay bare her self-righteousness and body fascism, but she didn't. We walked to a stadium inside Golden Gate Park where portapotties, live music, food booths, and free samples of pharmaceuticals and healthy foods awaited us. I got teriyaki chicken on a stick with fried rice from Solano Teriyaki (or maybe it was Sonora Teriyaki—something like that)—a bargain, I thought, at only $8. The rice was cold when I got it, but what do you expect for festival food on a cold, windy day? At least the chicken stick was still plenty hot and it tasted really good, too. I got 3 samples of Alavert for Patrick—allergy relief medicine. Snapple gave away entire bottles of Snapple—cool! Ben and Jerry's was selling ice cream bars for $5 each—not cool. Adobe had a booth—I was surprised at that, having never seen them sponsor events like these with a booth with freebies. They were giving away trial versions of Photoshop Album 2.0 on CD-ROM. Maybe Bay to Breakers is cheaper and more effective than MacWorld? Tigger the Tiger from Kellogg's gave away small plastic cereal bowls. Ben Gay gave away heat rub patches. It was much too cold to stay longer to enjoy the post-race festivities. Hao gave me a ride home before dropping Steve and Travis off in Daly City. I took a nap. Repaired my khaki shorts which had a button that was coming loose. Did some ironing. Dinner: heated some leftover cow stir-fry, made a fresh spinach salad with tomatoes and mushrooms. Watched the rebroadcast of the Bay to Breakers on channel 4. I got the first woman runner wrong—it was a woman from Russia, Alibina Ivanova. The first place runner's name was Benjamin Maiyo. The Bay to Breakers web site shows Travis came in 2,522nd place! Watched the Simpsons: Bart-mangled Banner. Chatted with Patrick and Travis online. Scanned in documents for archiving. Archived Travis's photos of Bay to Breakers.