Hannu & Barking

This trip got off to a delayed start, due to our hometown airline (AW)havingone of their mission critical systems down for 12 hours on Thursday. It wastotal caos at the airport, all flights were cancelled and over 1000 peoplespent the night enjoying the Phoenix airport. I was supposed to interview agentlemen in San Francisco whom had flown in that afternoon. I missed him,he spent the night in a nice hotel and enjoyed a great fish dinner-all onAmerican Golf.I was able to get out the next morning and met my old buddy Rey Javier fromWorldCom for lunch at the M&M taven and Grill. It was great seeing Rey andpaying for his lunch.That evening I took Cal train down the penninsula and met my friend HannuHaarma. Beer and popcorn made for a more enjoyable train ride. We had aniceevening at the Elephant Bar & Grill in Burlingame.The 30 oz. Sierra Nevadas that Hannu poured down me put me to sleep overtheSan Mateo bridge while the great orienteer guided us home to San Ramone.The next morning we picked up my old friend and roomate Eric Redmond inHalfMoon Bay and drove the coast to Santa Cruz and stopped at Niesen Mark statepark for a 13 mile hike in the Redwoods. This is a beautiful park. We hikedto a spot where we had excellent views of Monterey Bay.After returning to the Redmond Estate we were treated to San Miguel beersandsnacks. Joal Redmond recommended Ketch Joann's casual (hole in the wall)seafront restaraunt and we were quite pleased with her recommendation. Thefood and atmosphere was excellent. It was a fun place; however not everyone in the restaraunt wanted to have fun:For some reason, one of the waitresses objected to my mode ofcommunicationsand lectured me on the rudeness of a barking gesture.When I explained to her that it was a friendly bark and that barking was anexcellent way to communicate she again repeated '"you know that a barkinggesture is rude".I then explained to her that we should all respect other species besidesthehuman species and their mode of communications. She again repeated thatbarking is a rude communications gesture. My only option at this point wastoalso get on my high horse and explain that good customer service andpracticing tolerance meant acceptance of a customer that barked. She heldfast. Another waitress intervened and said that she would be delighted toserve barking customers. Sooo we continued to try to have fun when anotheruptight lady in the booth next to us leaned over and interupted Hannu'srapiddescription of the scenery on Venice beach with "Sir, you are very loud andscaring my little boy"! The little spoiled brat didn't look scared to me?Hannu is a gentle soul, how could he scare anyone?In spite of these rude people's behavior we had a great dinner and numerousNegro Modello cervezas.Hannu again navigated us over the bridge to safety.