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upper Mission Valley bikeride
Saturday, April 3 1999
Kim had to work a double shift at the Victoria Rose, so I was left with an unprecedented span of time during which I could do pretty much anything I wanted. I decided to go on a bicycle-propelled shopping spree far up Mission Valley in the vicinity of I-15. Not only was I bike propelled, but I was also wind-propelled. The westerly winds howling off the ocean pushed me effortlessly eastward, even providing some welcome assist as I climbed over some of hills far up the valley.
I wanted to buy a bigger hard drive for my computer. Every year or so I buy a new one, always about twice the size as the one I bought the year before. Here's an overview of the drives I've bought, with estimated prices:
| year |
size |
price |
type |
| 1991 |
120 MB |
~$340 |
SCSI Macintosh |
| 1993 |
205 MB |
~$320 |
SCSI Macintosh |
| 1995 |
512 MB |
~$300 |
SCSI Macintosh |
1996 |
1 GB |
~$300 |
SCSI Macintosh |
| 1997 |
2 GB |
~$250 |
IDE PC |
| 1998 |
4.4 GB |
~$250 |
IDE PC |
Sticking with this pattern, I wanted a 10 gigabyte drive, but I expected to pay only about $200. My first attempt at securing such a device was at a shopping center a little to the east of my workplace. It was one of those expansive dismal strip developments, fronted by acres of parking lot much like Barrack's Road Shopping Center in Charlottesville, Virginia (about which I've written extensively). The only meaningful difference was the presence of palm trees. Patrons even seemed to drive with the exact same degree of frustration. The guy in charge at the Renaissance Computers claimed he couldn't "touch" a price I quoted for a ten Gig Western Digital. So I continued eastward until civilization began to dwindle away. The hills rose up before me, but so did the thickening clouds. A few drops of rain finally convinced me to begin my climb westward against the incredible gravity of the wind.
I bought the 10 Gig hard drive at Mission Gorge Computer Outlet. It cost me about $195 (including tax) and the transaction was handled by an attractive heavily-pierced young woman, not the sort one expects to find working in such a place. I put the hard drive in my pocket (so much storage, so little volume!) and continued westward.
Fighting the wind proved too much for me, so I eventually caught the Trolley and rode it to Old Town. I was in the back with a bunch of black teenage girls of various sizes, shapes and hues. They were animatedly talking boy talk with each other and occasionally shooting me intimidating and vaguely flirting glances, though I knew that if I reciprocated they'd demand, "what are you looking at?" All the teenagers I met today were intimidating in precisely this kind of way. Eventually some boys their own age got on and then a veil of shyness seemed to suppress the hormonal impulses evident earlier.
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