(Warning: lots of dorky photos of me standing in front of stuff below!)
We had a nice trip to San Francisco, and I survived turning 30. Here’s some of what happened:
My talk at SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) went well, except that it was a wee bit short. I’m the only particle physicist in the world who gives short talks. I feel bad that I didn’t give them their money’s worth, and, since I have to give the very same talk at least two more times in the coming months, I’m going to have to think up something more to say about semileptonic decays. That’s easy, but coming up with something to say about semileptonic decays that other people would actually want to hear is less trivial.
We took not a single picture of SLAC! It was the nicest particle physics laboratory I’ve ever seen, but that is not saying a lot — particle physics laboratories are notoriously ugly.
Palo Alto is a little weird. Much more to my taste was Mill Valley, where we headed next. We stayed at the Mill Valley Inn.

The innkeepers left a birthday card, chocolate cake and a bottle of wine in our room for my birthday. Isn’t that nice? There was also a redwood grove right outside our room.

We also drove up the coast to Point Reyes Seashore on highway 1, both of which were really spectacular.

We went for a very pretty and very windy walk on the beach.

On my birthday, we went for a hike in Muir Woods.

Howard was very good to me on the whole trip, and especially on my birthday. Among other things, I got cool nike+ipod stuff. In San Francisco, we stayed at the Harbor Court Hotel. The staff seemed to be high on something, but we had an awesome view of the Bay Bridge.

For dinner on my birthday, we went to Millenium, which was lovely and delicious.
My friend val loaned us an awesome book Stairway Walks in San Francisco, which was a really excellent way see and learn a lot without spending money. The hills there are craaazy! I have no idea how people drive standard transmissions in that town!

On our final night there, we walked out on the pier next to the hotel

And finally, we had dinner at the Tanga Room with my long-lost friend Sherry, and Howard got to hear about all the trouble I got up to in junior high and high school.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip.

As usual, I’m really happy to be home.