Now that I've found a place to move to at the beginning of next month, I felt I could take a breather from the hectic pace I've been keeping recently. Happily, this coincided with our first nice weekend weather of the year. Yes, it was sunny and warm for once! So even though I have to start packing, I took the weekend off and played. I didn't even go to the gym!

I did, however, go running on Sunday morning. But it was such a gorgeous day, how could I not? The Marina was full of activity, as grateful San Franciscans went sailing, played volleyball and soccer, or just "snogged" in the sun (an English term which means "making out".)

The yacht marina

In the afternoon, I got myself lunch to go (at Pasta Pomodoro of course) and hiked up Telegraph Hill intending to eat my lunch in the sun, with a view, and then take some photos of the beauty all around me. Last weekend, I'd come here in a misty rain with Brian, before parting ways with him, and I'd discovered some areas I'd never known about. They were beautiful even then, in the rain, so today, under a powder blue sky, I thought I'd be able to get some great photos.

While eating lunch, perched on a wall looking down towards the Financial District, I looked up and noticed the startling clarity with which the Victorians held the light. I could even look through two sets of windows of the one above me to see the blue sky beyond.

Why San Francisco is so beautiful

I took that one photo ... then CRASH - I dropped my Kodak digital camera on the sidewalk, with a crunch of broken glass. I just don't deserve to have nice things, I can be such a klutz sometimes! I'm glad I have my other camera to make do until I can get the Kodak back from repair.

By this time, I was starting to feel lazily sleepy, and, since it was so unexpectedly warm, I took down the top of my jeep, liberating it's back and side-rear windows from the zippers which had retained them in place all through the winter. I decided to go over to Alamo Square and get some sun on my pasty white skin. But you just can't trust the weather here. As I crawled through traffic backed up due to the meagre St. Patrick's Day parade, a cool wind made me wish I'd kept the top up on my jeep. So I abandoned the sun-bathing idea and, instead, parked near the Yerba Buena Gardens, downtown, and spent a warm and happy hour with the New York Times in the sunny, wind-shaded courtyard. I was amazed that, hidden, as I was, by both sunglasses and the newspaper, a kind-faced older man named Paul, from Los Angeles, stopped to say hi, saying he recognized me from my website. It's been happening with increasing regularity recently, and it's always a surprise to me.

In Yerba Buena Gardens

Finally, work and other obligations started to butt in towards evening. I still hadn't made my hotel reservations for the part of my Summer trip where I was planning on touring England. So I buckled down with my Baedekers, and clicked on web-pages until I had my itinerary worked out, and provisional bookings in all the places I planned to stay. What made finding the right hotels particularly difficult was that I had to be sure to get a direct-dial phone in each room so that I will be able to stay in touch with you lot :)

And, despite the glowing weather again this morning, the idyll of the weekend came to a full-stop today as I drove to San Mateo for a full and final week onsite at our customer's office. Armed with my two cell phones, and my pager, I felt like a high-class nerd :)

This project is highly politicized, since it's going to be presented on stage at our national conference next month. Hence a lot of eyes are watching, and the pressure is high. Added to that are the unusual working conditions - I'm expected to complete the project in a matter of weeks, whereas in our usual projects we've barely even written the first set of planning documents by then. I guess I thrive on that kind of pressure - even though I complain about it too :) And I'm deriving a lot of fulfilment from knowing I'm pulling my company's resources together, along with my own handiwork, to give the customer something useful. It's hard to explain to someone who isn't in the software business, but the pleasure of architecting a succesful project must feel a lot like the pleasure a carpenter has in finishing a fine piece of furniture.