Running Around the Bay
Nov. 13th, 2005 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kevin_standleeI'll be on the road for the next three weekends (Calgary next weekend; Yuba City over Thanksgiving; Portland for SMOFCon), so this was my last chance for running-around errands in the Bay Area for a month.
Cheryl and I went down to Fry's Electronics Fremont store, and while she went to look for books about programming in Delphi, I tried to exchange a copy of Roller Coaster Tycoon that I bought for Lisa at the Fry's in Wilsonville, Oregon last month. Lisa reported that the CD-ROM was making unhappy rumbling noises in the drive, and she gave it back to me when she was here a couple weeks ago. I got similar results in my drive. I don't like the idea of a defective CD shredding inside my CD-ROM drive. Today was the last day I could do something about it, as the receipt says they have a 30-day return period.
Given the way Fry's works, however, I feared that they'd tell me in Fremont that you have to return the item to the same store where you purchased it. Much to my surprise and relief, when I produced the box (in pretty much mint condition) and receipt and said I just wanted to exchange it for a working copy, the returns clerk said "no problem; just go get one off the shelf." Which I did, and after a few minutes I had a fresh copy.
Having come that far south, we went down to Sunnyvale and cleared out the mail from the PO Box, then turned north to San Mateo. I showed Cheryl my new office and the area around it. (I'm considering trying to move back onto the peninsula next year if I can find a place I can afford.) It being lunchtime, we stopped at Celia's Mexican Restaurant, which is in the shopping center near my office. It's better than I thought it would be, and I won't hesitate now to suggest it as a place my department can go for lunch, especially as it's walking distance to the office. After lunch, we explored Piazza's Fine Foods, the high-end grocery store in the same center. I'm glad we ate lunch before going in there, because there is a lot of good stuff in this store. We restrained ourselves to only a couple of kinds of good cheeses and some olives and mushrooms; however, especially if I move over here, I'm going to be eating well by shopping here.
Then it was on to Lee's Comics of San Mateo to look for issues of comics Cheryl is following and reviewing in Emerald City, but they weren't out yet.
Final stop on the Peninsula was Hillsdale Shopping Center, which Cheryl had never seen. The shops here are a somewhat upmarket from the New Park Mall near where we currently live. Cheryl reminded me that it was getting late enough that we wouldn't have time to bake a loaf of bread to go with our planned dinner. There turned out to be two bread places in Hillsdale mall selling nice bread, even though that wasn't why we went there.
On the way back home, we stopped at the Safeway in Newark to check my lottery tickets from the Mega Millions draw. I already heard that nobody had won the Friday draw and that the jackpot was up to $310 Million, but I hadn't looked up the numbers. None of my tickets hit anything at all, which is unsurprising. I bought another $20 worth.
Surprising how tired I am after simply driving around all day.
Cheryl and I went down to Fry's Electronics Fremont store, and while she went to look for books about programming in Delphi, I tried to exchange a copy of Roller Coaster Tycoon that I bought for Lisa at the Fry's in Wilsonville, Oregon last month. Lisa reported that the CD-ROM was making unhappy rumbling noises in the drive, and she gave it back to me when she was here a couple weeks ago. I got similar results in my drive. I don't like the idea of a defective CD shredding inside my CD-ROM drive. Today was the last day I could do something about it, as the receipt says they have a 30-day return period.
Given the way Fry's works, however, I feared that they'd tell me in Fremont that you have to return the item to the same store where you purchased it. Much to my surprise and relief, when I produced the box (in pretty much mint condition) and receipt and said I just wanted to exchange it for a working copy, the returns clerk said "no problem; just go get one off the shelf." Which I did, and after a few minutes I had a fresh copy.
Having come that far south, we went down to Sunnyvale and cleared out the mail from the PO Box, then turned north to San Mateo. I showed Cheryl my new office and the area around it. (I'm considering trying to move back onto the peninsula next year if I can find a place I can afford.) It being lunchtime, we stopped at Celia's Mexican Restaurant, which is in the shopping center near my office. It's better than I thought it would be, and I won't hesitate now to suggest it as a place my department can go for lunch, especially as it's walking distance to the office. After lunch, we explored Piazza's Fine Foods, the high-end grocery store in the same center. I'm glad we ate lunch before going in there, because there is a lot of good stuff in this store. We restrained ourselves to only a couple of kinds of good cheeses and some olives and mushrooms; however, especially if I move over here, I'm going to be eating well by shopping here.
Then it was on to Lee's Comics of San Mateo to look for issues of comics Cheryl is following and reviewing in Emerald City, but they weren't out yet.
Final stop on the Peninsula was Hillsdale Shopping Center, which Cheryl had never seen. The shops here are a somewhat upmarket from the New Park Mall near where we currently live. Cheryl reminded me that it was getting late enough that we wouldn't have time to bake a loaf of bread to go with our planned dinner. There turned out to be two bread places in Hillsdale mall selling nice bread, even though that wasn't why we went there.
On the way back home, we stopped at the Safeway in Newark to check my lottery tickets from the Mega Millions draw. I already heard that nobody had won the Friday draw and that the jackpot was up to $310 Million, but I hadn't looked up the numbers. None of my tickets hit anything at all, which is unsurprising. I bought another $20 worth.
Surprising how tired I am after simply driving around all day.
