In Retrospect, Bringing the Laptop Was a Bad Idea

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I took BART up to The City today to attend a World Fantasy Convention 2009 meeting. Because I got off to a late start, I had to the choice of getting to the razor-repair place before the meeting or having breakfast; I choose the latter for health reasons. Not much I can say about the meeting other than "it was a con committee meeting and we talked about a lot of organizational stuff, some of which affects me." After the meeting, I started walking down Market Street toward 5th when a streetcar happened to come along. As a Muni transfer is good for 90 minutes, I figured I could get two rides out of the system, so I paid my $1.50 (soon to be $2) and hopped on for the short trip. I then walked down to the appliance-repair place on Folsom Street.
As I sort of figured, the cost of replacing the battery on my razor -- it's soldered in to the chassis and is not something you can casually replace like a watch battery -- plus the cost of replacing the razor heads (which were due for replacement) plus the cost of another $10 BART fare in a few days to come get the razor when they'd finished working on it exceeded the cost of buying a new comparable model that uses the same lotion cartridges, so I bought a new razor from them. They offered to dispose of the old razor (the battery is supposed to be separately removed and disposed of as battery waste), and I rather thoughtlessly said yes. This was a mistake about which I didn't remember until later. It's possible to pick up the replacement batteries fairly cheaply online, and Lisa said that she'd wanted to take a crack at soldering a replacement if my trip to the repair shop didn't work out. I'm kicking myself now about that and hope that Lisa doesn't kick me too much about it when I admit to the brain cramp. The repair shop guy said that when the batteries start to wear out on that model, the motor usually fails not too long afterward, so maybe it's not a huge loss in any event, but it bugs me nonetheless. The now-discarded razor did last four years, which may not be too bad a run, although the razor before than went ten as I recall and still runs at need.
I then had lunch and decided to walk down Market toward the Ferry Building and the Embarcadero, planning to catch the next streetcar going my way. I got nearly all the way to Pier 39 before one came along, while eight went the other direction. Sheesh. And when one did come along, it only went about three stops before getting to Pier 39 and the end of the line. By then my transfer had run out, and I had the choice of paying another $1.50 or walking back downtown. I walked. I walked a lot. Right now there's over 11,000 steps on my pedometer. My blood sugar an hour after a big plate of pasta was a mere 78, so I didn't feel guilty at all about getting a venti Mocha at Starbucks, where I'm finally online for the first time since I got up here. That briefcase with the computer including the spare battery is heavy, and really there was no point in my having brought it along, but it does give me a chance to record my thoughts while I'm still thinking about it before tonight's SF in SF reading.
At one point I thought I might just go back to Fremont, but once I was up here and after all that time spent walking, I figured I might as well stay up here until the SF in SF event tonight and get "full value" from my travel day.
The people in this Starbucks are mopping the floor and looking anxiously at me, with ten minutes to closing, so I'll shut down here and get a move on.