Questions, and Answers, from the man himself
The "Family Restroom" on the basement floor of Bloomingdales in the Westfield mall is a single toilet lockable room, with a fairly irregular/low volume traffic pattern. It's hidden just behind the kids' clothing section (walk past the TV/game stations, take a right, and it's right in front of you, next to a water fountain.
What public restroom in San Francisco affords the most privacy to its users?
Windsurfing has definitely taken a solid back seat to kiteboarding, so it is actually a bit more of a challenge than it was, say, 10 years ago.
That said, one of the best places to learn is Boardsports School in Alameda, CA: http://boardsportsschool.com/win…
Located in the middle of Alameda's Crown Memorial Beach, Boardsports is a great place to learn a wide variety of surf-related sports (including the aforementioned kiteboarding, and stand-up paddle boarding) – the combination of the enclosed bay, plus a water depth of no greater than 5-6 feet even a few hundred yards from shore makes for an ideal training ground.
The main difficulty, in fact, is the irregularity of available wind power as compared to a coastal launch point. Still, it's a rare weekend that you won't find windsurfers and kiteboarders in abundance here, zipping back and forth, learning various tricks, and just generally having a good time.
Tell them Dean sent you, and watch their puzzled look as they haven't a clue what you mean.
For poetry, it's hard to beat the classic "Lights" by co-poets (coets?) Steven Perry and Neil Schon.
While it's a genuine pleasure to read alone or aloud to a group of friends, there are many readily available recorded recitations on CD and in digital formats that really show off the lyric intensity and intellectual beauty of the piece… It's also one of the few poems about San Francisco that I seem to randomly hear with regularity on local radio stations, or during San Francisco Giants home games.
What are great pieces of prose or poetry that take place in San Francisco?
The irony in this question is palpable, since "The Wolf" itself was a replacement for a popular "adult hits" format known as KMAX in early 2007(*).
The simplest answer is this: terrestrial radio shares many of the revenue generation problems that newspapers have, in large part due to the Internet. Because of this, station management and owner(s) are left constantly chasing the hot format of the moment… As each radio market rebalances over time, the numbers start to look good for jumping ship on whatever the station is currently running, and going with something new. This isn't true of every station necessarily, so you're left with stalwarts like KFOG and the like… But for a station like 95.7, which has already swapped formats and received an initial ratings bump, doing so again doesn't seem like that bad an idea.
Plus, let's face it – sports radio is primarily focused on American Men's sports, and SF recently brought home a World Series championship… Between that and the still-fresh Barry Bonds case, you have a lot of sports fans chomping at the bit to give their two cents on air. There's also a possibility that someone is seeing dollar signs in the America's Cup, which isn't that far off…
So, long story short, the answer is: the radio business is about making money from advertising. Your favored format, country music, was simply not as lucrative in the eyes of station management compared to sports talk radio.
(*) For a full history of the many format swaps of the identity-confused station sitting at 95.7 on your radio dial, try the excellent Wikipedia entry here:
I definitely concur that Hackers and Founders tends to be great as a "hang out" style event – don't go with expectations or a goal in mind, it's very much about meeting interesting folks, probably more than a little tech/startup heavy for mere social gatherings.
From there, it really is going to depend a lot on personal interest – you can meet all kinds of interesting people, in a context you don't understand/appreciate, and not mesh well with the group/individuals as a result. For example, if you really hate hiking and camping, it's going to be really hard for those meetup groups to enjoy YOUR company, even if you appreciate theirs. 😉
That said, one great way to meet interesting people is to look through the available interest categories, find some interesting groups, and start reading up on their members/organizers. Ask a question or two. Then attend those events where you would have an interest in the topic/theme even if you were the only one in attendance, and then revel in all the bonus cool people who show up.
One other great place to look is in the meetup.com forums. Especially the organizer forums – you can very quickly identify like minds or just fascinating ones based on how they discuss/query/argue various topics within a given topic area, locale, etc.
deano.com 