Sev on the Confabulate email list asked what was the Big Deal with the photos of the truck that I posted yesterday.
In our last exciting episode Sev exclaimed:
> I don’t get it – Whats the big deal?
> I see this as some excellent kick-ass driving.
> What am I missing here?
The big deal which may have not come across in the picture or the descriptions is this:
The truck was totally blocking the road when I got there (which means he’d been there for a little while) and I watched for another ten minutes while he backed and filled trying to get lined up with the door.
The people trying to drive on the street were not happy. Hell, the people on the sidewalk on both sides of the street were having trouble.
I was very glad that I wasn’t trying to back that thing in. (Not that I could or would even attempt it.)
The driver was not having a good time.
Additionally, the conference is running shuttles between the hotels and the conference. I rode one yesterday and this morning. (It’s a nice walk from my hotel to the conference, but my feet are killing me.)
Anyway, what do you think of when you hear “hotel shuttle”? Not a full-sized tour bus I bet.
Holy cow. I would not want to drive one of these behemoths through San Francisco either. I sat right behind the driver on both trips and man-o-man. Tight corners, lots of traffic, lots of city buses (and most of them are the long flex-in-the-middle kind) and lots of pedestrians.
San Francisco is a busy place and driving in downtown is very hectic. And if you don’t know what the downtown area looks like, it’s very messy.
Take a look at this: Link to Google Map of the Area
My hotel is near Union Square. The conference is in Moscone Center. Take a look at the streets around here. They dead end. They are one ways. Market St. cuts though at a diagonal. Streets run down the middle of blocks and stop after a block and a half. It’s very messy. And I like it. 🙂
