Plastic Cups, Bad Shoes and no Rice-a-Roni

I'm back from San Francisco. As usual, I have observations:

- San Francisco has a huge homeless population. I think I personally stepped over every single one of them on my way to work each morning. I've never seen that many scraggly, bearded men shaking their plastic cups all in one place. Ewww!

- They're homeless, but they're creative. One held a sign asking for money because 'he needs a haircut'. Another asked for something...anything...'even if only a smile'. That's all he got, too.

- It's only September, but already, a slight fall chill is in the air. Leather boots, gray tweed skirts and light fall coats abound. And those are the men. (Hey, it's San Francisco....what do you expect?)

- The aroma of exoticly spiced food seemed to be in the air all the time.

- Starbucks coffee is cheaper in San Fran than in the Palm Beach airport.

- High tech is still king. Every human (probably even the homeless guys) sported a cell phone, Blackberry, iPod, iPhone or some other late model chip-laden gadget, and they were all actively using them.

- Street-car/trolleys can be annoying.

- Food was everywhere, but I saw no Rice-a-Roni anywhere. :)

- I walked down a very busy shopping street with some fun architecture, but I noticed that it was still pretty much all the same shops you can find at any mall -- Old Navy, the Gap, the Container Store, Crate & Barrel, William-Sonoma. Corporate America has moved in and ruined yet another formerly unique neighborhood.

All in all, it was a quick trip...no real fun to be had....just work and trying to deal with the time zone differences and sore feet from wearing new/wrong shoes. I may be crippled for life now. Perhaps that's what happened to some of the homeless guys....the ones in the wheelchairs. Perhaps it all started with bad shoes, a long walk to work and people shaking their plastic cups at them.