Sooooo my days working in California were up in Silicon Valley – home of the young, self-righteous male nerd.  Now, I’m as much of a nerd-lover as the next “trying to be hipster while maintaining a Corporate life” gal, but I like my nerds ironic and modest.  I do NOT like nerds who are flat out socially inept and self-involved.  This brand was the latter.

My entire hotel was populated with two generations of male nerds (ALL MALE.  Females apparently do not know how to thrive in the software industry, based on empirical evidence gathered at my hotel.  Like, seriously.  I was, like, the ONLY chick in the entire restaurant/lobby/what-have-you.)  The “first generation” dot-com nerd from the Gen X era, and the “second generation” web 2.0+ nerd.  Let me lay this out for you:

1st Gen Nerd:Used to have a goatee, play hacky sack, and wear Mudhoney T-Shirts.  Got rich in software.  Totally sold out to The Man, and now drives a Mybach and drinks $500.00 bottles of wine at lunch.   Looks over at Natalie with a “what is that GIRL doing here?” expression.

2nd Gen Nerd:Is currently pitching a start-up Social Networking or Web 2.0+ venture with 1st Gen Nerd.  Wears khakis from Banana Republic with an unbuttoned-at-the top dress shirt, with a horrible, horrible, horrible pair of “gasoline lens” Oakleys on the top of his head.  Looks over at Natalie with a “what is that GIRL doing here?” expression.

While I was quietly sitting on the terrace eating my oatmeal…

…I had to endure multiple three-person conversations that went something like this:

1st Gen Nerd #1:   Introducer
1st Gen Nerd #2:   Potential Investor
2nd Gen Nerd:      Seeking Investor

1st Gen Nerd #1: “Hi there “So-and-so”, nice to see you again?  How did that embedded synapse glitch end up working out?  Last year it was such a huge problem!  HA HA HA!  Anyways, This is “so-and-so”, he’s VP of Ball-licking at “Hypercompuglobalmeganet”.

2nd Gen Nerd:HA HA HA.  YES.  Programming is so hilarious and interesting.  Anyways, hello so-and-so, it’s so nice to meet you.  I believe you know my acquaintance “so-and-so”, he’s Vice President of Innovative Innovations and Other Inspiring Words at “Websiteandwebsiterelateditems”.

1st Gen Nerd #2: HA HA HA.  Yes.  “So-and-so” and I are friends.  Our wives shop together with our millions of dollars.  I hear around the Valley that your new project is getting a lot of attention. 

2nd Gen Nerd: Yes, I really think it’s the next Facebook/Twitter/Groupon/Linkedin/Generic Social Networking reference.  Can I pull out my MacBook Pro and take you through a programming simulation at this restaurant, next to this girl who is clearly trying to enjoy herself?

1st Gen Nerd #2: Of course!  Please talk loudly and use a lot of programming references that are really esoteric so that we look smart in front of this stranger.

2nd Gen Nerd:  HA HA HA.  Yes.  Programming is hilarious and interesting.  Let us begin!  First, I utilized an embedded codec template that is much more elegant on the back-end due to less keystrokes blahblahblahblahblah, etc.

So that was awesome.

It was actually so bad and annoying that one night I chose to stay in my room and eat a cylinder of treat-sized candy bars for dinner. 

Well…. let’s be honest.  I probably would have eaten the cylinder of treat-sized candy bars regardless.  But still.  I was annoyed. 

Other than that, Palo Alto was very cute.  The downtown area was adorable – like a rich-man’s Main Street  (you know… a Main Street with designer yogurt places and a Restoration Hardware).  Plus, I got up every morning in the PERFECT weather and did laps in the pool.  It made me very happy.  Especially when I was done my laps and the sun was rising and I got to sit in the hot tub for 10 minutes before the crushing duty of work started to descend:

So, I was very excited when the work week ended and I was able to leave the hotel and head to San Francisco.   As I was pulling out of the hotel, I saw this sick bike:

I mean, that’s neither here nor there, but it was a cute bike and it looked so cute standing up against the wall with the valet tag on it. 

Anyways.  So I got picked up by a friend who lives in San Fran – he GENEROUSLY drove me from Silicon Valley to San Fran on Friday afternoon when the traffic SUCKED.

Check out that fog.  That’s San Francisco.  Foggy as hell.

I checked into the new hotel, chucked my stuff and got ready to enjoy my vacation (read: DRINK.).

Them San Francisconians love their sake.  Sake, sake, everywhere:

I decided to do as the Romans do and ordered the Black Raspberry Sake. 

It tasted reaaaaal sweet.  Like I drank vodka and a Jolly Rancher and burped it back up.  I decided enough was enough and went back to beer.

Then, we went to Tsunami, a sushi place that was a last minute decision, but actually very tasty. 

So, full of Sushi, and a little bit of sake, and a lottle bit of beer, we teetered down to an Ethopian Restaurant down the street that apparently turns into a cool hipster bar at night.  It was actually really cool.  The Whiskerman likes to hang out in the girl’s bathroom.

As the night progressed, I think we were all feeling a little tired and ready to leave, when I big ol’ fistfight broke out behind us – apparently two guys who had just met got into a fight about a pool game.  So one guy, like, pummeled his face and threw him right at our table (well, right at one of the girls at our table, who was fortunately not hurt), THEN, started kicking him on the floor right next to us.  Craziness.

AND the cockus spilled our beer:

Of course I made the compulsory “What a dick”, and “Why do guys have to fight like frigging coked-out shit-heads?” comments… truth is… it’s always kinda exciting to be around a fight when it breaks out.  I have never been in a fistfight because I am a total coward and, well, I don’t get very mad very often…

…but I think I have a pretty heafty amount of surpressed rage that would release in an electric display of rotating punches should the opportunity arise…

Stay tuned tomorrow, when my weekend REALLY starts.  I drink a LOT of beer, get called a man by a homeless dude, AND I stain my clothes with something gross-looking.