Not only does the firewall at work block my personal email account rendering me virtually cut off from friends and loved ones while at the office, but the blasted ancient IBM ThinkPad T21 I am using is also rejecting my photo card reader. I even called my secret connection in IT Support but it was all for naught. I'll have to burn a CD at home and you'll all have to wait another day for these inexcusably tardy Halloween photos.

Part of San Francisco's charm is its dozens of hills that afford astonishingly varied views from all over the city. On a run the other morning, I discovered a gorgeous lookout near my house, Golden Gate Heights. From up there on that clear morning, I saw a perspective on my city I'd never seen before. Downtown and the Bay Bridge (outside the fog zone) lay to the east, Golden Gate Park and Golden Gate Bridge to the north and an incredibly close vantage point of the expansive Pacific Ocean the the west. I love my new neighborhood. The funky, friendly and foggy neighborhood of the Inner Sunset is home to one of America's best medical schools (UCSF,), a myriad of yummy, inexpensive multi-cultural restaurants, trendy boutiques and cafes, and is a stone's throw from the city's greatest playground, Golden Gate Park.

It's been a tradition since the 60s that on Sundays, thousands of bikers, rollerbladers, walkers and runners flock to the closed main drag of the park to escape whizzing traffic and city commotion for the day. Soccer, ultimate frisbee, football, rollerdancing, drumming, juggling, poi, capoeira, tai chi, swing dancing: whatever your thing, you can find people doing it in the park and feel free to join on in. One dude, the Guru of Rollerskating, David Miles, has been lugging out speakers and his funk, disco and hip-hop records to accompany his skate-dancing on a flat section of pavement in the exact same spot since the late 70s. His following has grown and now he leads dozens of skate events in San Francisco every year in addition to his Sunday tradition in the park. I took a rollerblading lesson from him a couple years ago when I was trying to impress a boy, but ended up cracking my tailbone and swearing off the bloody things. They now sit collecting dust in the garage until another rollerblading boy comes along and presents a challenge.

When I was a kid, my dad, sister and I would rent crummy old rollerskates with mismatched laces and negotiate the hills of JFK Boulevard. We'd make daisychains on the lawn of the Conservatory of Flowers and visit the science museum or the Japanese Tea Garden. A tradition that has endured longer than most any other, my weekend escape into the park continues. This past Sunday, Jai and I borrowed my roommate's bikes and rode the entire length of the park. We watched David doing his roller-thing and critiqued the swing dancers before riding all the way out to Ocean Beach and back. Dude, I love my town.