I have returned from my trip to the San Fransisco area and I have to say it was a good time. The girlfriend, family, and I were able to check out Oakland, Berkeley, the Napa/Sonoma Wine Country, and San Fransisco itself. We even made it as far south as Monterrey.

I learned several things during my time out there. First things first, there is no place for a vegan to eat in Sonoma. Napa wasn’t much better but it did have a very, very excellent vegetarian/vegan restaurant, Ubuntu. In Monterrey we a very good vegetarian friend place, called Tillie Gorts. Easily though the best dinning was in Berkeley and San Fransisco. We went to the local chain Herbivore, in both Berkeley and San Fransisco. And, easily, the best place to eat in the whole trip was Millennium. Expensive but extremely tasty.

I was amazed by the sheer number of book stores, especially used bookstores at fair prices. I was able to find a couple of older books that I’ve been looking for (Chants Democratic & The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution) along with a new book that had flown under my radar at home (A History of Histories).

When I was in San Fransisco I was able to hit up two very excellent comic shops, Isotope and Comix Experience. Both are utterly great stores; open, accessible, and very well-stocked. The staffs of both were very friendly (I was able to meet Brian Hibbs of Savage Critics but was too sheepish to really talk to him). Both stores set a great example for other comics stores to follow. I would really wish for a store with the sort of atmosphere of Isotope to open in the DC/VA/MD area. It would be a dream.

With the trip recap out of the way, in the next few days expect to see more from me here. With graduation out of the way and a lot more free time on my hands I hope to really get back to business with this whole blogging thing.

But, of course, we’ll see.