Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

I moved my planned PTO day from Friday to today and headed up to San Francisco again. As it happens, from where I'm staying across from Karina Station on the VTA light rail system, the scheduled trip time to San Francisco is only one minute longer if I go north from Karina to Mountain View than if I go south to San Jose Diridon. In both cases, I end up catching express train 703 to San Francisco.

I got started slightly earlier than I actually needed to go, and consequently arrived at Mountain View earlier than planned. I figured that I had enough time to go get a coffee. I very nearly botched up my trip, though, by misreading the distance to the nearest place that was open. It was about twice as far as I thought, and consequently I was really worried I was going to miss that train to San Francisco. I made it, but with literally zero minutes to spare. That is, by the time I got back to Mountain View Station, the train was just pulling up to the stop, and that's bad because it meant I had to go around the gate (which you're not supposed to do) as the northbound platform is on the opposite side of the station from which I was coming. I made it, but just barely.

Similarly, when I got to San Francisco, I just barely made it to the Muni platform as the T train was rolling in. When I exited the station (I went the correct direction this time) at Union Square, the 38R was already pulling away. There was a regular 38 bus right behind it, which stops about every two blocks it seems, but I got out to the consulate nearly an hour before they opened.



There were only a few people ahead of me today, although of course I still had to wait until they opened. Even so, there were simply fewer people total, both ahead of and behind me, and the consulate even opened a few minutes early. Thanks to my previous experience up here earlier this week, I knew to go straight to Window 1 and to queue immediately, which meant there were only five people ahead of me.

It didn't take as long as I expected to get to the head of the queue, but after that I lost a few places in line because I had to go use the restroom first. After than I returned to the cashier queue to pay the $185 visa processing fee (credit card payment only). This seemed to take a long time, but it may have been just because some of the people ahead of me had complicated situations. When my turn came, it took only three or four minutes to process my payment and give me my passport.



So at 9:45 AM, only thirty minutes after they actually opened the door and only fifteen minutes after the nominal opening time, I found myself once again outside and in possession of my passport, which now has a Chinese visitor visa inside of it. That's pretty good. The process still seemed pretty slow, though, considering how few people were in front of me.



A 38R bus showed up only a couple of minutes after I left the consulate, and I presently once again found myself downtown, where I hastily snapped photos of this and another PCC car at 4th & Market. I then realized that if I hot-footed it down to the Muni platform, I might be able to catch the 10:38 Caltrain departure, rather than having to wait an hour. I made it with about three minutes to spare. Whew!



Having done my sums correctly on how much time I would have for lunch, I could take my time over this "wet" burrito from El Metate. I enjoyed it immensely, but my blood sugar readings tell me that it's a good thing I won't be able to come back here for a long time.

I did not have to rush to catch the train from Belmont, and the light rail from Mountain View left just as I boarded it. As with my last trip this way, I stopped at Fair Oaks and got some groceries (for what should be the last time on this long trip). I had to run to catch the next light rail train, but otherwise it was routine to change trains at Baypointe and return to the hotel, where I was happy to relax in the air conditioning.

So that was the second of the two things I came to the Bay Area to do. I'd leave tomorrow, but that would cost another day of PTO (which is running a little low), an early-departure fee, and a more expensive flight. I might as well use these final couple of hotel nights to take it relatively easy and relax before I fly home on Sunday morning. And there are IHG bonus points galore accruing to my account. Not enough, unfortunately, to stay at the Crowne Plaza Glasgow during the 2024 Worldcon on points. I have almost 200,000 points in my IHG account, but the Crowne Plaza is showing a staggering 95,000 points/night cost for the dates of the Worldcon. (By comparison, the HIX in which I'm staying would cost only 21K points for tomorrow night, and the Holiday Inn down the street is an even more affordable 18K points.) Oh, well, that's not surprising given that the IHG site currently is quoting US$673/night for that hotel. I hope the convention rate isn't that expensive!