Blogging/Partying in the Bay Area

I'm in San Francisco right now, staying at the Triton Hotel, just across from the entrance to Chinatown. Had a pretty good night's sleep after partying it up with the SF office of our ad agency last night. Our two offices took over a place called Bruno's, which is funky and eclectic with several small lounges on the premises.

All I can say is I'm surprised I don't have a hangover right now. I drank about 10 Grey Gooses with various mixers: tonic, cranberry, grapefruit juice, or Rockstar. For my last drink, however, I forced down a 16-ounce bottle of mineral water.

At about 11 pm, I hopped onto our designated shuttle back to the hotel. Then I called the fiancé and she directed me, ala The Matrix, to the nearest ramen shop. I don't know this city very well as it's been about 8 years since my last visit here. Well, that's not counting my recent training session at the company's interactive agency here in SF last month.

On that visit, I spent over my per diem amount of $75-$100 and got in a little bit of heat over it. How much did I spend? Well, the bill came to $111. That got the accounting folks in a bit of a tizzy. The IT guy, who regularly travels between LA and SF and stays at the W Hotel in LA, says he can stay at the nicest hotels as long as he doesn't overspend his per diem. Go figure, huh? But in his case, he often goes to Quiznos, which tends to make the accounting folks very pleased.

So, next time I do some sort of business travel for the company, I'm opting for the W Hotel, but either eating fast food or expensing only a small portion of my bill. The IT guy, by the way, sits right next to the accounting department in the office. I ended up brown-nosing the accounting folks last night and I think everything's all smoothed over now.

Anyway, this isn't the most interesting entry I've ever written. I ended up at Katana-ya for ramen last night. I highly do not recommend this place. It's packed, but tiny, and I have my suspicion that Japanese folks go there regularly to cure their homesickness. But they probably don't go there for the ramen. It hit the spot, though, and probably cured any potential hangover.

Today, I'm going to walk through Chinatown and grab some tea before stopping into the interactive agency and possibly doing some work. Then it's back to LA before sunset.