Monday morning felt great also. We went to the Castro because I wanted to visit a certain NGO called the Center. The San Francisco LGBT Community Center, also called the Charles M. Holmes Campus, also called “The Center”, is a place where LGBT organizations can get inexpensive office space in a great location a few blocks off Castro up Market(1800 Market Street) for event hosting and meetups. I took all the fliers which interested me and they gave me lots of ideas of how advertising services is different in San Francisco than Seattle. The most noticeable difference is the amount of niche groups meeting. I am not so surprised by all the Spanish-speaking meetups because I know there are more Spanish speakers in California, but still I was not expecting to see ads only for college prep for gay Latino high schoolers, or Latina couples who want to adopt, or legal assistance with regard to work problems for gay Latino laborers. I see ads for two educational events for young gay people which seem to be attempts to teach gay cultural history by mixing a conference with a social music show. The kinds of services I would expect in any city – health provision, job advice, music parties, homeless youth services, and social groups are here in greater numbers and with more specific targeting in many cases. I am not going to put links here to any of these because although every ad I have seems cool, I do have to say that a lot of these places do not have their internet reputations established so I am not sure who has been around and has solid operations and who just has efficient grant writers and sweet ad designers.
After visiting this place we went to Golden Gate Park and walked around the outside of the Conservatory of Flowers, said hi to the bison in the paddock, checked out the Dutch windmill, then went to the Sutro Baths on the beach. We went to the top of the cliff and watched the waves smash on the rocks and watched the children playing in the sand and felt the wind and listened to the ocean. We went through this cave to a place above the water where we could look down at the rocks, and I felt strange to think that I could be happy with my friends then and there, but the waves had been turning the rocky cliffs into sand for billions of years before I got there and would still be wearing at the rocks a billion years after I die. It made me feel really humble about what I do, because I have a lot that I want to accomplish and even with a long life my time is short to make any difference that lasts beyond me.
Jeff and Jenny drove me to the airport in Oakland but even then riding through the city and looking at the docks really impressed me. The billboards near the road advertised computer products, such as one showed someone on an iPad who was going to listen to a the Seattle radio station KEXP and another billboard was just asking people to use Yahoo! search. We passed a stadium in Oakland which had been named for Oracle. Then it was time to go. Jenny gave me a big hug and Jeff did not. I think he is not much for body contact, but he was very good to me. The trip really made me want to get more done faster and I am hoping to wrap up preliminary versions of lots of my projects soon.