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After a month and a half of non-stop rain, we got a break here in the Bay Area. It couldn’t have come at a better time. It’s the kids’ spring break, you see. I took advantage of the wonderful weather and took the kids out on two separate days.

Last Tuesday, the kids’ cousin from my side of the family joined us to go to the Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito. It’s nestled at the base of the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s got lots of little things for children 8 & under to do. The bigger kids had fun anyway.

Once we were done at the museum, I decided to drive up to the Marin Headlands to check out the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the western side. Could you believe I have not been on that side before? The view was absolutely spectacular.

Yesterday, we headed out to the San Francisco Zoo. This time the kids’ cousin from my wife’s side of the family went with us. We got there pretty late but we covered the entire zoo in two hours. We had fun checking out the animals but we were pretty exhausted by the end of the day.

I chose these San Francisco spots because, first of all, the kids have never been to these places. Secondly, thanks to the internet, I found out that SFUSD’s spring break was last week so there were no big crowds to contend with. There’s also a third reason: these places were actually slightly cheaper than their East Bay counterparts. The online coupon for the museum, for example, helped a little bit.

The older boys are now at my parents’ house. They’re spending time with their grandparents for a couple of days. I heard they went kiting at Berkeley Marina today. It was another beautiful day, I bet.

Here’s what the victim had to say about the incident at a wi-fi enabled cafe in San Francisco:

“I looked up, and I saw this guy leaning into me as if he was asking a question,” he said. “I leaned forward, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone fiddling with the computer cord. I tried to stand up, and as I stepped back, he stabbed me in the chest.”

So far this type of violence hasn’t happened in other major Bay Area cities like San Jose, Palo Alto and Berkeley. I still feel pretty safe in my corner of suburbia. I may have to get a hold of this, this and this however, if I ever plan to use my iBook in San Francisco.

Related: San Francisco chooses Google and Earthlink to provide the city free wireless internet access. San Francisco already has the most free wi-fi hotspots in the world according to MetroFreeFi’s database.

via boingboing

3rd of a series*:

This man was doing some sort of vocal calisthenics in a tunnel across from the Conservatory of Flowers at Golden Gate Park in SF. He was quite shy about his picture being taken. That’s my uncle walking in front of me. You probably hear my aunt yapping in the background.

2nd one of a series:

This is a street performer at the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco. She actually has a website! Check it out.

This is the first of a series of videos I uploaded to YouTube:

I took this video in front of Moscone Center in San Francisco last month. The man shown here is equipped with a megaphone helmet and is spouting off unintelligible nonsense to Macworld attendees passing by.

(Runtime: 00:58; Recorded: 2006-01-10; Canon PowerShot SD110)