We returned on Sunday from a few days in San Francisco, where Meda attended her major professional conference of the year, the annual meetings of the American Society of Criminology. It was, I’m told, the largest meeting they’ve had, with over 3,000 participants.

It meant that we were in downtown San Francisco for several days. Meda always has a very full schedule at these ASC meetings. This year she had multiple presentations, as well as endless meetings with current or potential co-authors on articles and books. It means that we’re in a different place but don’t really have the time to get out and around.

But we generally still get in our early morning walks. Walking in the early morning in the city is quite a different experience than we’re used to. City streets are a world away from the beach in Kaaawa. Maybe farther.

Dawn was certainly a different beast in the city than here in Kaaawa. No colors, no vast horizon. Sound of traffic instead of surf.

But there were some interesting moments. I grabbed the camera when we came across this scene outside of Tiffany & Co., somewhere in the heart of downtown San Francisco. I’m not sure what the story was. At first I thought he was waiting to deliver the morning’s cash to the store but, looking at it later, I’m not so sure about that. In any case, just an early morning moment in the city.

We are probably too cheap to really enjoy getting to know a city like San Francisco. We declined invitations to go out for dinner if getting to the restaurant required a taxi ride. Actually, we ended up getting takeout from a small Thai restaurant just a couple of blocks away and bringing it back to the room on two nights. Wine from one of the many nearby Walgreens stores topped off the meals.

I tried to see some art. As members of both the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the Contemporary Museum, we’ve got four different networks offering reciprocal access to mainland art museums. Unfortunately, none included San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, which was just around the corner from the conference hotel. Unfortunately, the regular $18 admission charge was out of my range, and I never made it over to the de Young Museum on this trip, where we do get free reciprocal admission.

Duke stayed at the vet while we were gone. He was tested while there, and unfortunately we still don’t have his diabetes under control. It’s better, but not controlled yet. So he’ll have to go back for another 12-hour test on Sunday. We hope for the test.