Day 54 - Dallas, TX - Eating Out

Yesterday was my first day on the job here in Dallas and, since I knew I was going to have to be here for 4 days, I decided that for lunch I would try and find something that I could eat for all 4 days.  After an hour and a half, I went home defeated.  I walked by at least 10 or 11 different hometown Mexican eateries of various sorts, a pupuseria, a couple of BBQ places, and one Chinese restaurant.  Don't get me wrong; they all looked delicious.  I finally ended up at the Chinese place where I got Chicken Chow Mein for $6, and it was really good.  But it was also a big fat bomb.  They wanted to give me a free egg roll, and I had to turn it down.

One thing I take for granted in Portland, and also took for granted in SF and in Austin, is access to plentiful healthy food, especially at restaurants.  I'm not saying there aren't any Acai Bowls or Café Yumm in Dallas, but certainly what was easiest and most accessible was high-calorie food, mostly fried or covered in cheese.  And that makes it so much harder to be healthy.

Day 53 - Dallas, TX - Virtual Reality

It's not often that you get to see the future.  It's also not enough that you get to revisit the scene of a crime (metaphorically speaking), 15 years later.  But that's what i got to do today.  10-15 years ago, I was in graduate school, studying computer graphics, and my advisor was super into this new thing called virtual reality.  It wasn't exactly new, of course, the idea had been around, but we had this cool new hardware.  It cost $20,000, had to be bolted into a giant room in the basement, had these big heavy cables, weighed so much that it made your neck hurt to wear it - but it was real!  Virtually real!  In the academic world, we all thought it was very cool.  I built a tennis game where you could dance around to "hit" the ball back to an invisible tennis partner.  But even for us, the novelty wore off.  The headset worked off of magnetic fields, which meant that as you moved around the room, the concept of "up" kept shifting in a decidedly nauseating way.  We tried to compensate, but it never worked quite right, and none of us could keep the thing on for more than about 5 minutes.

So, yeah, cool, but ahead of its time.

Fast forward to day: I have a new client working on a virtual reality installation for SXSW Interactive, a big conference in Austin.  It's based on this thing called Steam VR and the Unreal Engine, and a piece of hardware called the HTC Vive.  Don't worry, I hadn't heard of any of those things either.  But suffice it to say: this thing is cool.  Badass, even.  I fired up this demo from Google called TiltBrush, and it just blew me away.  It wasn't, really, any different from the things we were tinkering with 10 years ago - and yet in another way it was completely different.  Because it actually worked.  The headset was light enough to feel invisible, the resolution was high enough to make you feel like you were actually there.  Walking around felt so natural that I kept bumping into chairs I couldn't see.  And the "paintbrushes" - kind of like Wii controllers - were perfect and natural.  

So, yeah - VR is still going to be a niche thing for a while, yet - but I don't think it will be too much longer before we all wonder how we ever did without it.

Day 52 - Portland, OR - Blogging Every Day

So yesterday, I didn't update the blog.  It's not that nothing happened; it was a pretty busy day.  I went out and volunteered for Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue.  It was actually a kind of interesting day; I was the hypothermia victim so I had to pretend that I had really cold feet and shiver a lot and be cranky.  Those who know me well will attest that this was not a difficult task.  :)

I felt kind of bad that I hadn't updated the blog.  I've only missed, I think, 3 days so far this year.  I set myself a New Years Resolution, while I was in San Francisco, of blogging every day.   I did that for lots of reasons, but I guess the same reason people make resolutions in general; the feeling that something is going to improve who you are as a person, and even more so, that doing something repeatedly, every day, is a win.  I know this from working on meditation, that meditating a little bit every day is much more valuable than trying to meditate a lot, once in a while.  Having a regular schedule for things is really important.  Habits are so much more valuable than just one-off things.  I'm not super sure why that is, but it's clear that it's true.

Today was tough; I really didn't feel much like blogging.  I thought about a number of topics, but nothing jumped out at me.  I had a really mediocre Banh Mi at the airport, and it reminded me of the awesome Banh Mi I used to have in Austin, for basically zero money.  But that didn't seem like a full blog post.  I played Oregon Trail for the first time in a while yesterday, but again, I wasn't sure that was really a full post.  And I saw Deadpool with my friend Keith, so I could have posted a review (my review: it's pretty good, nothing earth changing, but fun, although I wish they'd spent more time on the action sequences and less on his backstory).  What I finally realized is that any of those could be a post, and that blogging about anything was way better than not blogging.  Can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Day 50 - Bend, OR - Auto-Belays

When I'm in Bend, I don't really know very many people here, but I still like to practice my climbing.  There's a pretty good climbing gym in Bend, fortunately, called Bend Rock Gym, and even more fortuitously, they have a pretty significant investment in Auto-Belay systems.  As I've mentioned before, there are a few basic styles of climbing.  The style I do the most is called top roping, and it requires a partner to "belay" you up the wall - they manage the rope and make sure you're safe and lower you gently back down.  Although many aspects of climbing are very tricky, it turns out that top roping, in a gym environment, is simple enough that you could imagine a machine doing it - and someone has created that machine, called an auto-belay.  At its simplest, an auto belay is just a wound up length of a ribbon rope along with a winching mechanism that ensures that the rope can never travel through the winch at more than a very slow speed.  That means that, as you crawl up the wall, the rope is retracting, and when you start to fall, it catches you and slowly lowers you.  It's similar to one of those retractable phone charging cables.  If that sounds vaguely terrifying, I can assure you that it is.  :)  The first time I had to leap off of the wall was a definite leap of faith.  The upside though is that today I was at the gym for only about an hour and I on-sighted about 10 different routes, ranging 5.6-5.9.  Of course, I vastly prefer regular old top roping when I can; it's way more fun to be social.  But when you're alone, auto belays are huge for getting in some climbing practice.

Day 49 - Bend, OR - I'm not doin' one

In the meantime, enjoy Strong Bad. 

Day 48 - Portland, OR - MS 150

Today I ran across some mementos of a time past, including a gear bag from a ride I did in April of 2006, called the MS 150.  Back in those days, I rode my bike occasionally, often to work and back, but I hadn't yet developed the interest in really long rides that I have today.  I fell in with a small group of coworkers that liked to go out and ride on the weekends, along with my ex-wife.  When we heard about the MS 150, it seemed like a herculean task: ride 150 miles?!?  Actually, it turned out to be more like 180.  And it was great.  I can still remember those rides.  The heat, baking down on us on the ranches outside of Austin.  The group start the second day, over 10,000 bikes all arranged in a group, a mile long along a road in La Grange, TX.  I remember the camp we would stay in overnight between the two days, tents and sleeping bags laid out end to end as far as the eye could see to sleep under the stars.  The local high school where we'd take a shower.  The local Lions group, that would make 20,000 pancakes, using oil barrels to hold the butter and power drills to mix.  What I remember most, though, was the comaraderie.  Riding 15 miles to collapse on a grassy field with a granola bar and friends.  Riding with Sarah, my ex, through the suburbs of Houston.  The final approach into Austin, unexpectedly hilly.  The glorious hamburger at the finish line.  We did that ride 3 or 4 times, almost every year.

Back then, 180 miles seemed like an amazing accomplishment.  Little did I know that someday I would sign up to ride 3800.  And, back then, raising $300 for charity seemed impossible.  Today, I face raising $3800.  But I know I can do it with your help.  Asking for money isn't easy for me.  But what keeps me going is knowing that others can't ride.  That sounds cheesy, I know, especially coming from me - but it's true.

So if you can, please give.  Even a small donation helps; no donation is too small.  I know there's lots of good causes for your money, but I'm saying that today, this cause is worth your time and attention.  

Click the the bar above to donate, or at http://tinyurl.com/AdamBikes

Day 47 - Beaverton, OR - L&L Hawaiian Barbecue

I love food.  I'm kind of like that guy from Diners and Dives on the Food Network.  Give it to me local, plentiful, and delicious, and I'm happy.  I have a soft spot for "food of the people".  To me, food is memories.  I can't eat a golabki without thinking of my grandmother's house, or my mom's cookies without thinking of Florida.  And, for me, one of the best trips of my life is tied up forever with L&L Hawaiian Seafood.  Many years ago, I went to Hawaii with my ex-wife.  It was an amazing trip just across the board, filled with memories.  But one in particular involves being in a small town on Oahu.  We were taking a bus through the center of the island and had been let off for lunch, and we stopped in this tiny town and watched Navy men get their dry cleaning done.  I had never had this kind of Hawaiian food; real food, heavy food, with Asian influences but uniquely Hawaiian.  I fell in love with it and with the moment.  Years later, I found myself in New York City - this was before Google Maps - down near Wall Street, and I turned the corner and, like a yellow mirage, there it was!  I didn't know it existed outside of Hawaii.  I was immediately transported back to the pineapple plantations, and ever since, I've sought out L&L anywhere I can find it.  Today, it's going to be Spam Musubi, and a mini of Fried Mahi-Mahi.  I can smell it already.

Day 46 - Portland, OR - Bike The US For MS

Today, I rode about 15 miles through the woods of Forest Park.  It was a beautiful winter Portland day; a bit chilly and an awful lot muddy.  The wind whipped through my helmet as I heard the shush-shush sound of tree trunks passing on either side.

When I am feeling down, nothing brings me back faster than the feeling of motion, whether it’s riding my bike, running, or cross country skiing.  But for some of us, that right, that fundamental human right of motion has been taken away.  There are many diseases that affect our ability to move, but one of the most insidious and common is Multiple Sclerosis.  Multiple Sclerosis, or MS, is an autoimmune disease that affects the myelin sheaths that surround our nerves.  It causes difficulty with movement, can affect vision, and ultimately is completely debilitating.  There is no known cure, but there are some promising treatments involving stem cell research.  But those treatments are expensive and research is, too - which is where we come in.

This summer, I will be riding my bicycle 3800 miles across the United States, from Virginia to San Francisco, and I need your help.  You can ride along with me by donating to my cause and to the cause of MS research.  I’m sure you will have questions, and over the next few months, I’ll be striving to answer those questions, but for today I just wanted to announce my ride and get the basic information out there.  If you’d like to donate, you can click on the link below: http://www.biketheusforms.org/cyclists/detail.asp?cid=864

I’ll be posting more about my ride over the coming days and weeks, but this blog will still have lots of other interesting daily tidbits on it as well, so never fear; it won’t take over!

Day 45 - Portland, OR - Video Arcades

Today my friend Sebastian and his girlfriend visited.  He works in eSports and wanted to visit Ground Control here in Portland.  Ground Control is a member of a dying breed: the full service video arcade.  It’s old school.  You can play Rampart, Joust, pinball machines, Dance Dance Revolution, X-Men, you name it.  You can also get a drink and some tater tots.  I’ll be honest; the arcade machine is an interesting phenomenon.  Time has moved it by, in general.  We enjoyed ourselves for an hour or so and then moved on.  I’ll say this, though: the place was packed.  And, interestingly, half female.  I saw a lot of people on dates; how perfect is that!  I want to go on a date there.  And, hell, the drinks were cheap and strong and delicious, so, compared to a bar, it’s basically awesome.  I miss arcades just like I miss being young, and if somebody wants to serve me some nostalgia, I’ll gladly buy!

Day 44 - Portland, OR - Lead Climb Card

Today, with the help of my new climbing amiga, I got my Lead Belay climbing card!  I posted a while back about lead climbing, but to recap, it's basically climbing without a rope being already attached to the wall.  I had taken the class a while back and was looking for someone to test out with and found a really great partner.  We had been practicing the last couple of days, and it was going well but I honestly was still expecting to fail; but I passed!  So now I can climb on lead at the gym.  I've already been up a number of routes; I climbed for over 6 hours today!

Next up is the lead-and-follow card, and then, I conquer the world!!!  :)

Day 43 - Bend, OR - Deschutes River Trail

Nestled in Bend, along the Deschutes River, is one of the finest jogging trails I've ever seen in my life.  It follows the river, which is itself breathtaking, and takes you over a beautiful pedestrian bridge.  It's a natural surface trail, which is what I prefer.  Depending on what route you take, you can expand it from just a couple of miles to many more, because it connects with other trails such as the Haul Road Trail that could take you all the way to the Mt. Bachelor ski resort if you really wanted to.  The Deschutes River is exactly what you would picture on a postcard about Oregon; rocky, clear, cold, and beautiful - just look at the pictures below.  Say what you will about Bend, it's hard to deny that it's one of the most scenic places I've ever seen.

Day 42 - Bend, OR - What I Do For A Living

A lot of times, people ask me what I do for a living.  And, when some people answer this question, say a lawyer or an accountant, just saying "I'm a lawyer" seems to satisfy most people, even though - arguably - most people (including myself) don't *really* know what a lawyer does, day in and day out.  But those answers are so common that people usually just kind of nod and move on.  When I try and answer this question, I never know quite what to say.  Of course the answer is that I'm a computer graphics engineer, but that doesn't mean very much to most people, and understandably so.  Usually I follow up by saying that I've worked on video games and film (which is sort of true; I never really worked on a mainstream movie but it seems easier to explain).  That makes most people think I'm a big gamer or that I build video games, which is kind of true but not entirely.  It's like a civil engineer that happens to work on building bridges; she could probably build buildings and tunnels and train tracks too, she just happens to be using her skill on bridges.  The skill that I have and employ is that of making computers draw, or render, graphics out of data, such as art, provided by others.  I don't draw and model myself (well, I do a little bit sometimes).  I take those drawings and art and I make them sing and dance on the computer.  Most computers that have to interact with people these days - computers with a screen, let's say - have a little chip inside them which is a specialist at drawing images.  I program those chips to do what app designers or game designers want.  Sometimes I work on games, yes, but I've also worked on apps for meditation, on mapping software, and a lot of other things. 

So perhaps the best way to understand what I do is that I'm an engineer that specializes in art, specifically the kind of art that computers make.  I think that's the explanation I like best.  :)

Day 41 - Portland, OR - Full Lotus Yoga

Look!  A post about yoga!  Today, I had the opportunity to volunteer to teach my first yoga class in a while, at Full Lotus Yoga, which is a really nice combination yoga/cafe space in the Alberta district.  Sadly, nobody showed up, but that's totally fine, it was nice to put on the "teacher" mantle and think about how I would have taught, and I got to use their really nice space to do my own practice.  As I was sitting there meditating, though, some thoughts about yoga came to mind.  I have a theory about where yoga is going.  It may not be a popular theory, but it's mine, and supported by my experiences.  I see yoga becoming more of a supplemental and integrative practice for a lot of people.  That is to say, I am seeing the rise of places that teach yoga in addition to doing something else.  This place, for example, does yoga, but the yoga is by donation and is really a bit of a loss leader/spiritual addition to the cafe, which of course is also very healthy and spiritually complete.  But I also see that many people are attending classes at places like 24 Hour Fitness.  The yoga classes at my climbing gym, for example, are consistently full when I go.  They're good yoga classes, and they often teach them with an eye towards being a climber.  I see a lot of classes listed which are "yoga for X", such as yoga with ayurveda, or yoga with running, or yoga with climbing.  I, personally, have no problem with this.  I think it's perfectly fine and reasonable for people to want their yoga to be integrated into their lives.  It has some negative ramifications, though, for people who want to run a "yoga studio".  I've seen several yoga studios that I've been associated with close lately. 

Now, of course, there are also some yoga studios that are doing really well.  I suspect there will always be a few "flagship" yoga studios.  In particular, I notice that yoga studios which are doing well are doing a lot of yoga teacher training; they are places to learn to teach yoga.  My suspicion, though, is that merely being a "yoga studio" will soon not be enough.  People want to move, and exercise, or they want to eat, or they want to chant.  This is one reason I think Bikram has done so well, because it provides a workout experience in addition to the yoga.  I have my concerns about Bikram, but I admit that, if you stay aware of your own needs and pay attention to your body and find a good teacher, a Bikram class can be a sort of combination aerobic workout and stretch at the same time.  I know people who say that when they go do yoga they feel like they still need to hit the gym afterwards.

I hope there will always be places to learn the spiritual side of yoga because I think it's important.  But for those who want to run yoga classes - especially commercially - I think it's become important to provide a more full-service experience.

Day 40 - Portland, OR - Morning Smoothie

I'm not really a big smoothie guy.  But I've recently discovered the power of little daily activities you can do to improve your life.  And one of the ones I've been trying to stick to is a morning smoothie.  Now, some people make really elaborate smoothies, which is great.  If you have time to get to the grocery store and buy kale and peaches are god-knows-what-else, then more power to you.  I don't.  So my smoothies are dead simple.  I take one scoop of some kind of protein powder, a handful of ice, about 6 ounces of water, and one banana (preferably a bit overripe), and blend in my Vitamix on the "frozen dessert" setting.  Voila.  Tasty, nutritious, and a great way to start the day.  For protein powder, I've gone back and forth.  The good stuff costs significantly more, but it's worth it.  I got started on a German product that a friend of mine gave me free samples of, called Almased.  I love it, and they sell it at most GNC stores.  (I can't get free samples anymore because she doesn't work there!).  But honestly there's probably nothing wrong per se with the cheap whey powders at Trader Joe's, if that's more your speed.  It beats stopping by McDonalds!  

Day 39 - Hillsboro, OR - 27 Miles

Today I got back out on my bike.  It felt amazing.  I rode with a group of older folks, and they were at just the right speed for me - a bit of a challenge without dropping me.  Cycling is everything life should be.  It was a gorgeous, sunny day, just the right temperature (probably low 60s).  The bike responded beautifully; I hadn't taken this one out on too many long trips yet.  The feeling of legs pumping on the gears, smoothly rolling over country roads is, in my highly biased opinion, one of the finest things that you can do on this earth.  And when you're done, the food tastes so so good!

Day 38 - Government Camp, OR - Club Sandwich

A lot of amazing things happened this weekend.  It was the Adventurous Young Mazamas Winter Weekend, and I ended up rock climbing at Smith Rock, snowshoeing at Bennet Pass, cross country skiing at Trillium Lake.  But forget all that - I had an *amazing club sandwich* at this place called Charlie’s in Government Camp.  One of the guys there was from Germany, so we had to explain the “club sandwich” concept to him.  This one was exactly the way it should be.  The bread, white bread, was toasted to perfection, with some caramelization from light butter. Then there was fresh crispy bacon, turkey, ham, lettuce and tomato, Tillamook cheddar and mayo, cut into quarters, put together into triple deckers, then stuck together with long toothpicks.  It was perfection.  As I rode around this great country of ours, I learned that when you’re in a town you don’t know, the key is to order the club sandwich.  Every diner makes one, and it’s kind of the way I judge a place, now.  Forget hamburgers; that’s boring and greasy.  It’s all about the club sandwich.

I will leave you with the wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_sandwich.  That’s a pretty good looking club sandwich, right there.

Day 36 - Terrebonne, OR - Smith Rock Part 3

Today I went outdoor rock climbing at Smith Rock.  I've been twice before to go climbing, and also been hiking a few times.  I can't say much that others haven't said; it's breathtaking, and an absolute exemplar for what the desert part of the Pacific Northwest looks like at its best.  Wide open spaces, as they say.  From a climbing standpoint, we've progressed to being able to handle the very beginner routes.  I got all the way up a complete pitch for the first time in my life.  Granted, it was a 5.4, an extremely easy route, but hey, I made it!  Yay me!  I also made it about halfway up a 5.8 before I chickened out.  One of the things that I like about rock climbing outdoors is that, for me, it's a very humbling experience.  I kind of stink at it, which is honestly fun.  I'm used to sticking to things I'm good at, so to try something that I'm just not very good at it and persistently keep at it is a fun challenge.  It builds character, as my Dad would say.  Enjoy the pictures!

Day 35 - Bend, OR - Seafood Sensation

OK, I love Subway, OK?  I mean, I've talked about that before.  One of the things that you realize, when you love Subway, is the weird way that they stock products.  Oh, they all have ham, and tomatoes, and white bread.  But when you get off into the weeds, Subway gets a little odd.  They've taken to calling it "local favorites".  I've seen things like jalapeno cheese bread or breakfast sausage or bread backed with sunflower seeds.  But one of my favorites is the Seafood Sensation.  It's kind of a weird mix of fake crab and mayonnaise and I'm sure 90% of people find it disgusting but I love the crap out of it.  I found one a long time ago in SF that had it back when I wasn't eating red meat and I used to get one almost every day.  It was the one at the top of the hill inside UCSF and I would ride over there, up the hill, take the elevator just to get to that delicious seafood sub.  I'm sitting in the Subway on Columbia in Bend, where they have this odd little thing.  It's the only one I've ever found in Oregon.  And it's a nice Subway, with some open space and some nice picnic tables in the sun.  You'd like it.

It's the small victories in life, people.

Day 34 - Redding, CA - Wishy-Washy

Forgive me, please, for all this organizational and psychological talk.  I've been in the car for 15+ hours over the last 24, with another 5 to go, and I've been listening to *shudder* a lot of talk radio, because there's just not much else to do.  And I've noticed something that bothers me.  Today I was listening to some Senator on the subject of some candidate's position on immigration.  It was pointed out to this person that the two of them used to disagree on some policy issue related to immigration and the guy basically said "Yeah, that's true, we used to disagree, but the other guy thought about, and after a while he changed his mind.  After all, immigration is a really complicated issue."  And you know what, that seemed perfectly reasonable to me.

There's been a lot of talk lately about "character" in politics.  And that's well and good; I would guess we all want somebody with character, whatever that is.  But character doesn't mean sticking to your guns no matter what.  We don't elect platforms, we elect people.  And that goes for business, school and nonprofits too.  I *want* somebody who, if confronted with evidence to the contrary, is big enough to change their mind.  That seems like a really good thing to have in someone in power.  Yeah, I guess there is a balance here.  I mean, I want to trust that somebody has a spine and can stick up for what they believe in (which hopefully is something close to what I believe in).  At the same time, I'm OK giving up some control to that person.  When I get a plumber to come out to the house I don't tell him how to fix a leak; I assume he knows more about that than I do.  I watch him, though, and make sure that what he's doing seems reasonable and is fixing the problem.  If he starts drilling holes in the wall I ask questions.  But, in general, he's the plumber and I'm not and there's a reason I hired the guy.  If he said he was going to fix it with a U-pipe and then realizes he needs a T-pipe I might ask questions (especially if it costs more) but I'm not going to insist he use that U-pipe even though it's now obviously not the right solution to the problem.

So yeah, go ahead, flip flop.  It's called changing your mind and it's a very adult thing to do.

Day 33 - San Francisco, CA - Our Old Apartment

As I write this, I'm sitting - well, laying because there's nothing to sit on - in my old apartment in San Francisco.  My old roommate, Jade, who now holds the lease on the apartment was kind enough to let me stay here tonight so I could pick up the last of my belongings.  Time is a really weird thing.  I'm reminded suddenly of that old Barenaked Ladies song that goes "This is where we used to live".  There are a lot of memories here.  This is where I originally moved in with my old girlfriend Kimberly, who I hear is now married and has a kid.  I lived here for a while with random roommates and had some weird experiences.  Then my brother moved in for a while.  We used to sit and watch Mystery Science Theater on my TV in the room I'm now in.  The TV is still hanging on the wall because everybody forgot how to remove it.  I guess it's just going to stay here now.  I had a lot of negative experiences here, and it's easy to get sad, but what remains are the positive ones, like the time I had a party while the front room was temporarily vacant and I turned it into a dance floor and played music all night.  Even some of the bad memories feel good with the passage of time, like the time I had my ex-girlfriend over to a party and we broke up just a few days later after I had spent the night sitting on her doorstep (don't ask).  I remember so many trips jogging from this apartment, all around the city but often just through Golden Gate Park.  These are the steps that I walked up and down three or four times right before I had some old Chinese lady take my picture, the day I left to go on my epic bike ride.  I always knew, of course, that I would leave this place someday.  But now that day is here and it feels weird.  It's a life well lived, in a sense, but in another sense things feel so empty because of my lack of relationships with those people.  I'd like to reach out to all those people that shared those experiences with me and share a laugh about them, but almost all of them are completely out of my life.  That's what I'm left with about San Francisco - the impression of a pile of experiences, but nothing that really adds up to much.  Just a set of disjointed stories.  But they still have incredible emotional impact.  Sitting with my cat in my lap.  The Estonian woman who shared my bed for only one night.  Lying alone at night, staring up at the wall wondering what I should do.  The place up the street that sold 3 bottles of wine for $10, or the other place that sold hummus and some odd but incredibly tasty dish of carmelized onions.  Walking home from my MBA classes carrying my giant stuffed dog, and having my picture taken with it in the middle of the street by my classmates.  Speaking of classmates, playing flip cup with them in the halls.

But, again, all those people are gone.  They're not dead, I guess, but they may as well be.  All those memories are now only in my own mind.  And, if I'm lucky, in photographs.  I can't be too sad.  There are too many good things.  But still, I think tonight I may cry a bit.

Bye, SF.  I'll be back, but it's you who will have changed.