Here’s a classic photo, from the collection of Steven Garrity, taken in San Francsico:

It could be a promotion slick for a new wacky sitcom, a sort of “dot com Odd Couple.”

Notice the similarity to this classic photo of George Burns and Gracie Allen:

The Formosa Tea House is open in their new location at 186 Prince Street (making Prince St. into a sort of “Eddie’s Lunch-Formosa Corridor”). Rumours are that the old location, on University Ave., will become a new sushi place, run by the same sushi chef that serves the Atlantic Superstore.

I’ve had lunch twice at the new Formosa. The space is big and bright and very nicely laid out; the decor is sort of “hunting lodge meets Taiwan” which is better than it sounds. There’s a new page of non-snacks on the menu, of which the “Rice Topping” is my favourite: it’s a melange of vegetables and mushrooms over rice. Very tasty, and very, very filling (you don’t need to order anything else). The Lemon Ice Tea is as good as ever.

More and more we are living in a very culinarily well-served city here in Charlottetown. It’s especially heartening to see businesses like the Formosa and Interlude base their operations on full-time residents rather than the tourist trade; it means they’re around for the long haul.

When we left our story, I was tucking in for the night at the Pan Pacific Hotel in San Francisco.

The Pan Pacific is an expensive hotel — rooms are regularly in the $200+ range per night. I found a $149/night rate through their website, and this was my impetus for staying. The hotel’s expense, however, isn’t in things that I value: a stunning atrium, a television in the bathroom, with marble on the floors, a two-line speakerphone. In other words, it’s all about prestige and feeling important, rather than utility. The bed was vaguely uncomfortable. The staff, while capable, didn’t exceed my expectations. The soap was mediocre.

All of which suggests to me that vacuous “business class” hotels are best avoided, in favour of smaller, cheaper, more lively hotels. Ironically, like the King George down the hill where I spent the first two nights, and where my happy colleagues at silverorange remained. Live and learn.

Tuesday morning was consumed with various in-room business activities — a spot on the CBC with Matt about Super Tuesday, a conference call with Yankee, answering some email — after which I checked my bag and headed out into The City for my last day in the sun.

Tuesday was an amazing day, weather-wise. Probably 18 degrees at its best, sunny and cloudless.

I caught the Muni Metro (San Francisco’s other subway, the one that’s not BART) down to Irving Street and, by complete coincidence, ended up across the street from the oddly-named Tart to Tart, the place where Oliver and Sophie and I had cake and WiFi on Monday. I grabbed a bagel at Noah’s, a juice at Jamba Juice and then walked around the neighbourhood, which was a nice mix of business and residential, much in the same style as Mont Royal in brother Steve’s Montreal neighbourhood. I grabbed a quick (and delicious) burger at Darla’s (with very good iced tea, and world class service) and then walked up through Golden Gate Park to the Haight.

Walking up Haight to Ashbury, I encountered a peculiar sort of cabal: groups of young people, many with tough looking dogs at their side, roamed the streets. My assumption was that many of these kids stepped on a bus in Boise or Butte or Burlington with a one way ticket to the San Francisco, headed to Haight and Ashbury, and, once there, had no idea what to do other than wander around looking for enlightenment. I wish them luck.

I walked along Haight to Castro, down to Market, and then stopped in at Flax for a refill of superfluous art and design gear. While I was checking out, Daniel, broken off from the silverorange pack during their driving tour of the rich and famous of Sunnyvale, phoned to invite me to dinner, and we rendezvoused shortly thereafter for another try at Thai Ginger.

A short final wander around the Apple Store and environs, a walk down Market to the Ferry Terminal Building and a trolley ride back, a quick glass of wine and we headed down to the BART to ride to the airport.

As timing had it, taking BART would have seen us arriving in the suburbs of the airport at 10:00 p.m. for a 10:20 p.m. flight, so we hightailed it out of the BART station and hailed a taxi, which got us there in under 20 minutes.

We tracked down the silverorange mother ship, checked through security, and then settled in for a long night of air travel.

As luck would have it, I was assigned a seat with no neighbours, so I was able to stretch out and almost sleep (it’s hard to sleep on three uneven and vaguely objectionable seat cushions, but I did a pretty good job nonetheless). We arrived in Toronto at 6:01 a.m. (planes aren’t allowed to land there before 6:00 a.m., which forced us to delay departure in San Francisco), wandered around catatonic until our flight to Charlottetown and arrived, beaten down and sleepy, around noon.

I spent the following 18 hours in variations of sleepiness, and now, two days later, appear to have fully recovered from jet lag.

End analysis: warm is better than cold; snow has no redeeming qualities; San Francisco is a nice, comfortable, manageable city; I need more Thai food in my life; the silverorange boys are good travel mates. It was good to spend time with Johnny and Jodi (soon to be Islanders) and with Oliver and Sophie (soon to be North Carolinians). And it’s good to be home.

I’m due in New York City in April to do some RedHat Linux juggling; we’re planning a family convoy to Yankee in July; and, with luck, by fall we will have passports again, and will head off somewhere for more maximum fun.

My how I do love to travel.

Okay, I’m willing to accept the whole “Magic Ninety Three dot One” thing. I don’t like it, but it’s hard to be critical of a techo-posturing when it’s happening inside the soul-free puffery that is “Great Lite Rock Hits.”

But it appears, at least from the evidence presented on a brief listen to the Halifax CBC afternoon show, that there might be a movement afoot to rebrand CBC Radio One as “CBC Radio Dot One.”

I’m hoping against hope that this was a momentary slip or two by a green host, and not an across-the-board change.

Last night on Compass, Hon. Mitch Murphy, the Provincial Treasurer, engaged in open speculation about his plans for dealing with the provincial deficit. One of the trial balloons he sent up was a new health care premium. Used in some other provinces already, this is a monthly or yearly fee, sometimes income-geared, that is charged as a separate fee to every citizen in return for health care privileges.

I don’t think this is a good idea.

I’m all for paying for health care, and perhaps more than most families, I’m in a position, after the birth of a child, and three major operations for our family in two years, to appreciate the value of having high quality, well-funded health care at our disposal.

I don’t have any problem paying more for health care. As long as the system is well-regulated, available to all, and is client-centred, I’ll contribute happily.

But introducing a health care premium is going to complicate my life, and the lives of my fellow citizens. Needlessly. It’s going to require an entirely new bureaucracy to maintain. We’re all going to have to remember to pay our premiums, and staff will have to be in place to send out invoices, process payments, chase down non-payers. There are going to have to be systems in place at the doctor’s office to handle people who haven’t paid their premiums: do they get denied access? And so on.

All of this seems like a waste when we already have an effective, well-maintained system of filing, collection, and enforcement through the income tax system. A simple administrative change to the provincial income tax rate could achieve the same increase in revenue, without the need to introduce an entirely new level of bureaucracy.

So, Minister Murphy, please consider this as feedback to your trial balloon: charge me more for health care, but do it simply by increasing my taxes. Please.

Edward Hasbrouck provides a helpful update on Amazing Race 5. I can’t wait.

When Steven gets slashdotted, servers catch on fire and pagers go off all over town. When I get slashdotted, nobody notices (including me). This is the price I pay for discussing obselete technology.

Just finished an interesting conference call: Johnny was dialed in to the Reinvented Asterisk server via the VoicePulse DID number in Peterborough, New Hampshire from his home in Vancouver. My colleagues at Yankee did the same thing. I dialed in to the Reinvented toll-free number to get to the Asterisk server. And our colleague Steve dialed directly into Yankee’s office.

Six people. Two countries. Four locations. Worked like a dream, with excellent voice quality.

I just finished taping a segment for CBC Prince Edward Island’s Main Street from here in San Francisco on the “Super Tuesday” primary that’s taking place here, and in 9 other states, today. It should air between four and six in Prince Edward Island.

Next stop, November.

An abbreviated report tonight, as exhaustion fades me quickly soon.

Up at the crack of dawn. Sophie and Oliver find they are moving to North Carolina. Pick up Sophie at UC Davis and head, in the rain, into Berkeley to the chocolate factory. Much chocolate consumed, and I decide that 70% cacao is now my personal minimum. Indian fast food for lunch. Into the hills for verdant memories of [friend, not son] Oliver’s childhood. Across the Bay Bridge for supplementary chocolate and wardriving with my iBook and Sophie’s Pocket PC (very cool). Rendezvous with silverorange boys and two browser savants from the Mozilla Foundation for dinner at the Betelnut on Union St. (recommended by Ian).

Taxi to the hotel. Settle in, only to be summoned to the promise of fun by Dan. Drive Nick to the airport. Only small fun. Drive around in suburbia: many big box stores and fast food restaurants, but little fun. Daniel and I get hit with the bowling bolt at the same time, and we undertake a short but very complicated diversion into alley location, which ultimately fails, but is somewhat fun. Back to hotel. Deep sigh and resignation to sleep rather than Big Fun. Have to live purely on the residual joie de vivre of the futility of it all.

At the Pan Pacific now, tucking in for the night. Tomorrow my last dash of warm coastal freedom before the insane redeye return to snow, snow, snow.