Sun-Spangled Sunday

On a sun-spangled Sunday, I went into the office to give my imprimatur to some reports that the staff had drafted. The new internal control procedures (thank you, Enron, and Congress, too, for devising a solution which would make Rube Goldberg proud) require that I sign off not only on the final but the early versions of reports.

Union Pacific stores freight cars at South City station.

I drove up to South San Francisco (South City to the locals) and parked the car. Bay Bridge construction, Fleet Week, the 49ers game at Candlestick/3Com/Monster/Whatever Park, and the golf tournament at San Francisco’s renovated Harding Park, in which every big name on the men’s tour was playing, made it the wrong day to drive. The train runs hourly on Sundays and was standing room only with families heading up to San Francisco for the festivities. We piled off the train and into the San Francisco Municipal railway’s light railcar to Market Street’s Embarcadero Station, one block from the office.

No one else was on my floor, bespeaking well of my colleagues’ intelligence, efficiency, and priorities, so there were no in-office distractions. But today it was especially hard not to look out the window as the crowds gathered for Fleet Week and the Blue Angels buzzed by every 15 minutes.

Blue Angel over Angel Island.

Fireboat joins the party.

Vessels of all shapes and sizes gather near Alcatraz.