Ten Things I Learned On My First Trip To California

1. The only thing worse than watching the Mets bullpen is following their exploits on XM Radio while you're in a JetBlue plane flying high above America with nowhere to pace.

2. Thirty minutes in Amoeba Records in San Francisco is not nearly enough time.

3. You can wear a goose costume in McAfee (or whatever it's called now that McAfee is not renewing its lease) Coliseum without arousing much suspicion.


4. Weekday afternoon baseball games in perfect weather are a beautiful thing, regardless of whether the teams playing really have anything at stake.


5. Amoeba Records in Berkeley is cool, but Rasputin's a few blocks away is just as good, if not better.

6. Schnappsie is the only dog in the world with a magic button ($4 at Rasputin's).


7. You can see a lot of cool things in San Francisco in a really short period of time and take some pretty good pictures through the windshield.

8. Traveling across the country for your friend's wedding, which is already cool because you love your friend and haven't seen her in nine years, is made exponentially cooler when the hotel is five minutes away from a mini golf course that gives you two 18-hole options and ten minutes away from Earl Anthony's Dublin Bowl, where you can bowl at 9:30 Saturday morning next to a guy wearing sunglasses, an A's jersey, and a kilt.



9. The best doughnut ever is the chocolate buttermilk doughnut fresh out of the oven at the Donut-Wheel in Livermore, CA.

10. I really miss being in college.