[OT] I'm back from San Francisco...

[Gizzard]

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Ahh, to have been born in an earlier time. I would have been known as "The Man Who Escaped from Alcatraz", instead of "The Man who can Drink an Entire Bottle of Scotch".
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Well, next time you are here you can try starting your own legend by swimming out *to* Alcatraz. Not only will you be enshrined as "The Man Who Escaped To Alcatraz", but you will save the $10 the ferry over costs.

Glad you had a good time.

 

[Forlorn]

If I ever get to the Frisco area, I really want to go and see the Winchester house. Too bad I've never seen a floorplan, or I'd use it as an adventure setting.

Colonel,
Couple of things to note if your up for heading to the Winchester Myster house. One, its not in San Francisco (never call it Frisco while there, the locals hate that and you will picked out imediately as a tourist) its in San Jose, actually I live about 10 miles from it and my gaming group is 1 exit away from it. So if you ask nicely I will look and see if I can find a floor plan of it for you. Its a fun place, Mrs. Winchester was really wacked out. If you do make down here try and make it so there is a friday the 13th when you'll be here and you can go on their flashlight tours, those are fun.

Come to think of it I might just have to use the house in one of my own games. Funny how you never think of the local landmarks.

 

[Quickbeam]

Welcome back T-Bill!!

I proposed to my wife after an evening picnic in Golden Gate Park. We spent three days in and about San Francisco, then another three in Napa Valley, and wrapped our little trip up in Monterey. Lovely places, all of them.

BTW, like you, we were told repeatedly how vital a trip to Alcatraz was...and I'm glad we followed the advice given. I would have never imagined what an incredible experience touring an old prison could be.

 

[coyote6]

[re: Winchester Mystery House]
If you do make down here try and make it so there is a friday the 13th when you'll be here and you can go on their flashlight tours, those are fun.

Or Halloween. They always seem to have flashlight tours on or around (e.g., the weekend before) Halloween, too.

Never did get to one -- they were inevitably on a night when I had Too Much To Do the next day. :-/ However, I have been before, and it's quite the trippy domicile.

TB -- SF might be chilly, but it never gets Really Cold (it's all the cool moist air from the ocean that makes it feel really cold), and rarely gets too hot, either. The Monterey-Salinas area has a similar climate; my roommate at SJSU was from SF, and every weekend it was at all hot in San Jose, we'd both flee back to our respective hometowns, to escape the heat. Heat bad! Mild good!

 

[grodog]

If I ever get to the Frisco area, I really want to go and see the Winchester house. Too bad I've never seen a floorplan, or I'd use it as an adventure setting.

Col., I live about 5 minutes from the Winchester mansion, and it is fabulous! You can check it out virtually at http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Alas, I've talked to the curator of the museum/mansion, who advises me that no maps exist. There are various problems with mapping the building using a variety of methods, apparently. I was sorely disappointed that find that I couldn't buy a map of the site when I first visted in 1998 :-/ Supposedly the staff have crude maps available, since you literally can get lost while running around the place, but thus far I haven't been able to get one yet....

I've been working up some notes on making it into one of Zagig Yragerne's villas, away from the City of Greyhawk.

I've also considered working there for a little while, to get a better feel of what it's like, make my own map, etc., etc.

Anyhow, if you ever get the chance to visit the Winchester Mystery House, do so. It's great!

 

[Teflon Billy]

Welcome back T.B.,

How was the traffic in San Fran? Did you get in any Cabs?

Traffic was not bad at all, and we took 3 cabs.

Two of them were fantastic guys shilling all kinds of stuff to do in the city (and being pretty funny about it; one of them had a prety good spiel about how L.A did, in fact, "suck")

the third guy was a total dud. We flagged him outside the Sir Francis Drake hotel and asked him to take us to City Lights.

He didn't seem to have a clear idea what we were talking about, much less where it actually was.

He dropped us about a block from where he picked us up and expected me to pay the 2.50 on the meter. I didn't.

Why do you ask about cabs?

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Colonel,
Couple of things to note if your up for heading to the Winchester Myster house. One, its not in San Francisco (never call it Frisco while there, the locals hate that and you will picked out imediately as a tourist) its in San Jose, actually I live about 10 miles from it and my gaming group is 1 exit away from it. So if you ask nicely I will look and see if I can find a floor plan of it for you. Its a fun place, Mrs. Winchester was really wacked out. If you do make down here try and make it so there is a friday the 13th when you'll be here and you can go on their flashlight tours, those are fun.

Come to think of it I might just have to use the house in one of my own games. Funny how you never think of the local landmarks.

Well, I knew it wasn't in Fris- uh, SF , but it's close enough for an outlander like me. For example, I'm technically not in Cleveland, I'm some 25 miles from downtown, but nobody has ever heard of where I'm from, so I just say I'm from Cleveland.

I've heard elsewhere that there are no floorplans for the house (at least, none available), which kind of adds to the mystique. Using it in a game, perhaps drawing up a random room chart might be a good way to handle it, labelling each entry according to the rooms that you see on those Discovery Channel specials. Or, in your fortunate case, use actual experience in the House to make up such a chart.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Col., I live about 5 minutes from the Winchester mansion, and it is fabulous! You can check it out virtually at http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/

Alas, I've talked to the curator of the museum/mansion, who advises me that no maps exist. There are various problems with mapping the building using a variety of methods, apparently. I was sorely disappointed that find that I couldn't buy a map of the site when I first visted in 1998 :-/ Supposedly the staff have crude maps available, since you literally can get lost while running around the place, but thus far I haven't been able to get one yet....

I've been working up some notes on making it into one of Zagig Yragerne's villas, away from the City of Greyhawk.

I've also considered working there for a little while, to get a better feel of what it's like, make my own map, etc., etc.

Anyhow, if you ever get the chance to visit the Winchester Mystery House, do so. It's great!

Thanks for the info! Y'know, my brother has gone to SF on business several times, and I can never convince him to go to the House so he can tell me about it or pick up a souvenir or two.

5 minutes away? That would be fantastic! I lived, for a while, near (about 5 minutes away from) the Air Force Museum and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (home of Hangar 18 and the Area 51 of its day) in Dayton, and I went to the Museum as often as I could. The base I only went to a couple of times, since I didn't really have any business there except those couple of times (I wish I'd had the chance to see Hangar 18, even if it's empty!). Anyway, I really like having such close access to tourist spots like that - I'm a sucker for landmarks and such. Especially odd ones.

 

[Kichwas]

Yeah, actually I guess te waters are pretty cold.

In fact the whole place was prety cold for being "Sunny California" (tm)

That's the big joke really...

California is not what people think it is climate wise.
Those blond bikini babes and such only exist in the last hundred or so miles of the southern half of the state. LA's got too much pollution and gangs for most of it's beaches.

Go inland to central CA and it's like living in an oven... including the smoke (or smog in this case).

I rather thought it was warm for the time of year these past few weeks but I was born here.

By the way; what's a Krispy Kreme donut?

 

[Teflon Billy]

...By the way; what's a Krispy Kreme donut?

It's, well, a donut