Yesterday - no lunch, but dinner & robots

[howeird]

Work - there was a lunch for the boss' boss' department, at a Mexican restaurant which is a zoo on Fridays with all the other corporate types so I declined. After the gang had gone I drove to Mountain View to pick up the new car alarm remote, but it was the wrong model, so back to work half an hour before everyone else. I had brought lunch - two Psycho Donuts from last night's Cinequest.

Played with the automation widget till it was time to go to the department monthly meeting. It was supposed to last an hour, but big boss made the mistake of scheduling two automation demos by people who did not know how to say "time's up, I'll take your interminable meaningless questions offline". I finally bailed at 4:55.

Drove to the newly re-opened Santa Clara Caltrain station but it was 5:44 before a train stopped there. I thought they had put it back on the express stop list, but noooooo. My company go-pass worked fine. Free ride.

Got to SF at 7, the 47 bus was parked and it was a 15 minute wait. Short ride to 11th & Howard.  Clipper card worked.

It was only 7:30, BarBot did not open till 8, so I went down Howard and the first restaurant was a Thai place called Suriya. They gave me three menus. One was today's specials (BBQ fish) one was the house specialties - mostly fusion things with lots of pumpkin. I never saw a pumpkin all the time I lived in Thailand. The third was a more traditional Thai menu, but also with some creative dishes which were not traditional but sounded Thai enough. It took a while, but I decided on spicy mint beef. Service was very fast. This is a stir-fry dish, first they fry some mint leaves. Lots of mint leaves, most still on the vine. Woked in are garlic, Thai chili, thin sliced tomato slivers, cilantro and beef. It was delicious, on top of white rice, though they are not serving the best Thai rice, but good enough.

I knew it was authentic when after about 5 minutes I started to cough, and another 5 it cleared out my sinuses and continued to do so. All without burning my tongue. I will be back.

8:45 got to BarBot, it was packed. There were many robotic drink servers, all with an emphasis on looks. Lots of shiny. Lots of colorful lights. kproche's was by far the most colorfully lit. 

Here is another entry- a rocket-shaped drinkbot, the dry ice added a nice touch. 

More photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/how3ird/sets/72157629503914257/

Left at about 9:30 hoping to make the 10 o'clock train, but the bus did not get to the station until 10:02 and they changed the schedule so there is no 10 o'clock train:
7:30
8:40
9:40
10:40
12:01

Got home around midnight.

Now I'm off to Consonance.