i got back into boston at 7:30 this morning. i hardly slept on the redeye flight from san francisco, made more difficult by the man sitting next to me who had no sense of personal space and elbows me in the ribs a few times while i was trying to catch some sleep. i stared him down at one point, was nearly about to explode into violence. he disappeared soon after that, relocated himself elsewhere. at least i had a window seat, and could use the cabin wall of the plane as a hard pillow. an emergency door was located directly behind me so i couldn't tilt back my seat, forced in an uncomfortable sitting position for 5+ hours.

i didn't think i was very tired, and was happy to learn that i could still watch my 2am east coast broadcast of "king of the hill" on the cartoon network. however, i soon drifted off into sleep, waking up intermittently to either look out the window, check our status on the google flight map, or do a little channel surfing. by then most of the on-air networks were broadcasting their late night infomercials (many of which i'm already seen unfortunately).

the best part of a vacation is coming back home. in san francisco my attention was always on because everything was new and unknown. back in boston, returning to the familiar, i could finally let my guard down. i was relaxed, picked up my luggage, got on the silver line, and made my way home. it was still early and on a saturday morning no less, so there was hardly any people. temperature in boston was brisk but the sky was clear. frost coated windshields as i exhaled plumes of condensation.

i'm glad i had the foresight to tidy up before i left, as the welcoming sight of a clean house greeted me when i stepped inside. it took but just a single minute for me to make a mess of it though when i unpacked my backpack in the living room. i threw all my dirty traveling clothes into the washer and took a shower. i made some oatmeal for breakfast before falling asleep in bed watching television. i had nothing else going on today other than recovery so i made the best of it, waking up sometime around 6:00.

my 3rd party off-shoe camera cord arrived from my hong kong source this week while i was gone. i clipped on my external flash to make sure it was working. now i need to shop for a bracket to get this setup to work.

the final tally from my san francisco trip is 4217 photos with 2 videos. hopefully within the next few days i'll uploaded more snapshots and do some write-up. besides the photos, the only other souvenirs i've brought back are a handful of beach rocks, a few pine cones, a single chiton seashell, some eucalyptus pods, and a box of incense purchased from a few head shops on haight street.