Monday, July 28, 2008
Usual oatmeal breakfast. The car yesterday had a sticky clutch I noticed so I asked Patrick to take the car in to the shop today. Patrick drove to the place we've been getting work done at lately, and the car just gave out 3 blocks before he got there. He called AAA and they said the BMW dealer would charge twice what it ought to cost and they recommended a AAA-certified dealer nearby instead. The car needs a new hydraulic system. We had already planned to get the brakes fixed. And they also found a leak of something. Total estimate is about $2,000 and a few days. Could be worse, I guess—I get to celebrate my car's 10th birthday in December! I took a vacation day today. Did some clothes shopping in the Castro and downtown. Injeanious, Body, That Underwear Store on Castro Street, Way Out West, Clobba. Got a slice of mushroom pizza at Escape From New York Pizza on Castro Street. Train to downtown. Stopped in the Apple Store. All I wanted to do was use a Mac to find out where the Zara store was since I forgot the address, and when I got to the store I realized what Thom had said earlier—they've commandeered practically every demo Mac in the store for iPhone 3G activation. The one Mac I could find wouldn't even let me get to maps.google.com—it wasn't allowed by the parental controls set. Fortunately there were lots of demo iPhone 3Gs so I used one of those and they are slow. I know there is probably a faster way to find that information on iPhone than the way I did it, but nonetheless I couldn't help thinking how slow 3G is or maybe it was the store's wireless? Whatever the case it was not very easy to get the directions to Zara. And once it found it, I had to laugh because it drew a route for a car instead of walking—Zara was about 2.5 blocks away. I visited Britex Fabrics for the first time. I climbed every floor and was stunned by the overwhelming number of choices of fabrics, ribbons, buttons, buckles, and more. I'm not anywhere near the point where I can make use of a place like Britex, but I'm glad it exists. Stopped by Neiman Marcus to see if Nico was around but I couldn't find him in either the men's or women's shoe departments and now I'm not sure if I got the store right. Visited the men's department of Zara but the sizes weren't exactly right for me. I found a properly sized tie for $8 in the boys department of Zara, however. Late lunch by myself at mr hana—teppanyaki which was tasty except for the shrimp which seemed like it came from a freezer bag—the flavor was not fresh and one of the shrimps was cold. Back in the Castro I saw Karl S on his bicycle and he noticed me—I got his name wrong and said, "Hi, Kurt!" but it was noisy on the street so hopefully he didn't hear me anyway. Getting on the train home I ran into Steven Z, said hello briefly. Fortunately I remembered his name right. Dinner at home with Patrick: cow burgers topped with grilled vegetables, french fries, corn on the cob.