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The Cruise Liner Hits an Iceberg
Last night, doped to the gills on codeine cough medicine and dressed to what currently passes for my version of "the nines," I headed off with the Spouse to the Skywalker/ILM/LucasFilm holiday party.
Wow. It was held at the San Francisco Design Center Exhibition Hall--a venue we'd last been in for the San Francisco Public School Fair (which was not anywhere so elegant). Huge place, huge number of people. You surrendered your "tickets" to someone at the door, were given a passport, and ushered into a vast space that had been divided into six ports of call--plus a steamship deck with a smokestack, right in the front of the place. Each port of call had different things on offer: "Paris" had a wonderful exhibit of artwork by Lucas Employees. "Barcelona" had a dance floor, a bar, and nifty Gaudi-like hangings and structures around the edges. "Tahiti" had a bunch of fire jugglers and dancers, and a band of drummers--and food! (They had shrimp and soba noodles and other cool things). And a bar, because, well, party. The "Republic of Karaoke" was a darkened area with a bar, a big karaoke machine, and a very tall man dressed as Barbubblella, stamping passports.
Oh, yes: did I mention? You had to have your passport stamped, so you could get your picture taken on the "Steamship." "Jamaica" had curried food and rice and macaroons (I was going to go back for one, but...well, you'll see). "Monte Carlo" had gambling and desserts...and a bar, for the shaken-not-stirred crowd. It was just amazing. So the Spouse and I wandered around, got all our stamps, and were picking up food in "Tahiti" (Ahi tuna ceviche, the which I could have kept eating all night) when... The lights went out.
In a place like that, it's not that someone leaned on the light switch. So we continued picking up our food (by luck) and found a couple of seats. And ate, and chatted with the other people at our table, and waited for the lights to come back on. And waited. Around us, people were still cheerily getting their food and their drinks; I suspect the art exhibit was depopulated pretty quickly, and it must have been difficult for the folk in Monte Carlo to continue with their gaming. About an hour into the darkness someone came around to quietly explain that a water main had burst nearby, taking out lights in an eight-block radius, and that while the party was going to continue, well, the lights weren't going to go back on very soon.
We wandered about, but trying to find the Spouse's co-workers by braille was not easy. About 10pm we decided to call it an evening, and we headed out into the flood. Literally, the epicenter of the water main burst appears to have been about 200 feet (uphill, fortunately) from where we parked our car, so we slogged through and around six inches of water getting back to the vehicle.
It was a really fun evening. I wish, in the way that one does wish about minor acts of God like this, that it hadn't happened, and in some alternate time stream we stayed until the party was winding down, saw everyone the Spouse wanted to see, and I did get my macaroon.
Wow. It was held at the San Francisco Design Center Exhibition Hall--a venue we'd last been in for the San Francisco Public School Fair (which was not anywhere so elegant). Huge place, huge number of people. You surrendered your "tickets" to someone at the door, were given a passport, and ushered into a vast space that had been divided into six ports of call--plus a steamship deck with a smokestack, right in the front of the place. Each port of call had different things on offer: "Paris" had a wonderful exhibit of artwork by Lucas Employees. "Barcelona" had a dance floor, a bar, and nifty Gaudi-like hangings and structures around the edges. "Tahiti" had a bunch of fire jugglers and dancers, and a band of drummers--and food! (They had shrimp and soba noodles and other cool things). And a bar, because, well, party. The "Republic of Karaoke" was a darkened area with a bar, a big karaoke machine, and a very tall man dressed as Barbubblella, stamping passports.
Oh, yes: did I mention? You had to have your passport stamped, so you could get your picture taken on the "Steamship." "Jamaica" had curried food and rice and macaroons (I was going to go back for one, but...well, you'll see). "Monte Carlo" had gambling and desserts...and a bar, for the shaken-not-stirred crowd. It was just amazing. So the Spouse and I wandered around, got all our stamps, and were picking up food in "Tahiti" (Ahi tuna ceviche, the which I could have kept eating all night) when... The lights went out.
In a place like that, it's not that someone leaned on the light switch. So we continued picking up our food (by luck) and found a couple of seats. And ate, and chatted with the other people at our table, and waited for the lights to come back on. And waited. Around us, people were still cheerily getting their food and their drinks; I suspect the art exhibit was depopulated pretty quickly, and it must have been difficult for the folk in Monte Carlo to continue with their gaming. About an hour into the darkness someone came around to quietly explain that a water main had burst nearby, taking out lights in an eight-block radius, and that while the party was going to continue, well, the lights weren't going to go back on very soon.
We wandered about, but trying to find the Spouse's co-workers by braille was not easy. About 10pm we decided to call it an evening, and we headed out into the flood. Literally, the epicenter of the water main burst appears to have been about 200 feet (uphill, fortunately) from where we parked our car, so we slogged through and around six inches of water getting back to the vehicle.
It was a really fun evening. I wish, in the way that one does wish about minor acts of God like this, that it hadn't happened, and in some alternate time stream we stayed until the party was winding down, saw everyone the Spouse wanted to see, and I did get my macaroon.