UoG

Stands for "Uncle of Groom." That's the hat I wore, or more precisely what appeared on my nametag, for much of this weekend as B. and I joined in while by far our eldest remaining unattached nephew and his bride took over much of San Francisco to celebrate getting hitched.

We all stayed in an elegant-modern high-rise hotel near Union Square, taking hired buses-in-the-shape-of-cable-cars to the events. (I'd seen these tourist buses around the city before, but had never ridden in one, preferring the real cable cars when I wanted the experience.) The rehearsal dinner was at a seafood restaurant in Ghirardelli Square, and, for the ceremony itself, plus receptions both fore and aft, dinner, and the party that ran till who knows when (because we bailed after the wedding cake) the couple hired the Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. The whole thing. (They're both minor Google honchi, and thus among those who can afford such munificence.) The post-ceremony reception was down amidst the Steinhart Aquarium. Big and ugly fish competed for attention with hors d'oeuvres. None of this meant that the wireless microphones at the ceremony worked properly: there's some techy lesson in that.

A string quartet played as we waited for the ceremony to begin. They were not quite ready for prime time. They played Bach, Tchaikovsky, and (of course) Pachelbel's Canon. As the bride walked down the aisle, they played something I didn't recognize but which made most of the attendees laugh. I was told later it was called "The Final Countdown".

Saturday morning and afternoon, while busy for some, was downtime for others, so I took my brother-in-law the FoG over to Sears - the restaurant, not the department store - just a block away for a late breakfast. We walked it off for a bit via Chinatown, then I ventured down through the Powell Street cable car terminus crowds - tourists, tourists everywhere / nor any stop to think - to BART for a quick trip to Borderlands for part of the Wesley Chu/Helene Wecker event. I'd read part of Wecker's The Golem and the Jinni on B's Kindle already and was reminded that I want to finish it.

So it's been a long and tiring weekend, but the couple look blissfully happy, they expressed their emotional feelings eloquently (especially remembering that they're both engineers), we wish them the best, and we'll see them again at his brother's wedding in November if not sooner.