So, living way out in the boonies as I do, I had planned to have the hubbie drop me off at the nearest BART station, then BART in. I was working at home yesterday as he needed the car and my work still thankfully has that flexibility.

Unfortunately, he did not get back from his thing until five PM, which does not leave a lot of time to get to Berkeley by 6PM (it's a one hour train ride if everything goes smoothly and a fifteen minute drive to the station). I might have decided to drive but that would have still been an hour plus half an hour of trying to find a parking spot two miles away, then the requisite twenty minute walk. So BART it is.

Let's back up. I actually got a lot of work done yesterday, finished off a component and unit test (always pleasing) and was feeling fairly good. So, I'm getting dressed and decide to wear the somewhat fashionable jeans (in my opinion which is faulty). Now, if I was wearing them to work, I would probably wear these boots I like. They are usually pretty comfortable and when I was living in Tokyo I walked around a lot in them. So, I wore them. After all, I must look not like a programmer-slob when meeting new people (in person), right?

Bad move. By the time I got to Berkeley my feet were a little tired. By the time I got to the closed restaurant, they hurt every time they were put down and felt on fire (and pins and needles) when I stood still. By the time I found aph, mm and the Q, I felt like I must look really ridiculous with all the mincing steps I was taking and kind of bouncing around trying to keep weight off them. Must not have because I had to admit the problem (in my mind I was explaining myself after getting funny looks, but I think I was likely reading more into it than I should have).

Fortunately, telegraph ave has a lot of shops...and there was conveniently a shoe shop as we were walking a long ... which also conveniently had very cheap sandals. Cute little black ones. Kind of fortuitous as I've been wanting to get some cute little pair of sandals, but I know that if I go looking for them, I'll end up spending like sixty dollars.

By the way, just so everyone knows, aphrael is just a really nice guy. How many guys will stay behind the group to keep a fool company? And it's not like he could be hoping to get a date or anything like that (married and the wrong gender after all!) Not to say Q, MM and lindze aren't nice -- they are, but frankly they probably wondered where I wandered off to and decided it didn't matter: there's a show to attend!

Anyway, we went to the concert after I immediately put the sandals on. Hurrah! I could walk (although it still hurt, it wasn't an intense burning). We tried to hookup with the group several times but it was not to be. DJ Shadow was pretty cool (very surprising for me -- completely not in my usual genres) and Lateef (or however that is spelled) was surprisingly exciting and interesting, although I could not bring myself to do the arm thing. I hope I didn't inhibit aphrael too much. aphrael and I spent the Massive Attack part up on the grass above (very steep!). It was pleasant and cool up there. Aphrael got drunk, I drank only a couple, we watched people and chatted about various things. And wondered why the girls behind us kept Xena-ulula-ing. Very peculiar form of cheering.

Afterwords, lindze got us all at a pub (which the husband wants to visit after I told him they had beer styles that weren't in the standard brewpub six). lindze and his friend, squished into a  side of a table with his other friend, made cuddly moves, etc. for aph, mm and my amusement. It was cute, but I think only aph and I found it all that interesting. It was cute.

I stayed about 10 minutes and had my input get lindze and company to order a pitcher rather than pints. Unfortunately, I wasn't going to be drinking it (even got carded for it, darn it) and then left to catch the train. Oh well, I imagine lindze and company were able to drink it. :)

I then had a shortish walk to the station (thankfully all of five minutes from the bar), then a long ride home on the last possible train that would have gotten me back to the back of nowhere that is Pleasanton (and my car).

Note to users of transit.511.org: do not trust their bull instructions. Their instructions had me either going to West Oakland or going to Lake Merritt and then transferring to the Milbrae-Dublin line. The former is not even possible after midnight. The latter can cause you to miss the transfer. If you get off at Bayfair instead and the train is running late and you thus miss the train to Dublin, they run one more train just from Bayfair to Dublin. Which is good because if I had transferred at Lake Merritt I would have been stranded: the train from Berkeley was arriving at each station 3+ minutes late -- the connection time is only four minutes.

Funny story: When I got on at Bayfair, there was a guy sleeping. That is not the funny part. The funny part is that at the next station (Castro Valley), he woke up with a start pushed his head out to see what station it was, then as the doors were closing pushed his way back in, causing them to pop open again since American train doors refused to cut body parts off. Anyway, after the train started moving again, he started looking at the system map and asked me a question: "how far is it till bayfair?". Oops, he meant to get off on the station I got on. I told him as much. He asked if I knew if there were any trains going back from the last stop. I said I didn't know but it is pretty late. Turns out there aren't. I kind of felt bad for the guy, but when he started hitting things, I stopped feeling bad and just kept pretending to be asleep...

Wait, that story really wasn't that funny, was it?

Got home (around 1:30/:45), drank some more, chatted with the husband, and then limped to bed before him. I was tired. :(

Today, I can barely walk (damn blisters!) but I have nice shoes out of the deal and everyone was fun (as much as I talked to everyone but aphrael...)

In addendum: if it seems like I am obsessed about my feet, it's because I am. Plus, it gave an easy for me to bind the story together without having a lot of "x was cool, and so was y" bits. Basically, I had to have some hook. Not saying it's a good one.