I’m in San Francisco this week on business, and since my friend Scott lives just across the bay in Oakland I decided to come out early so we could hold a Drinking Man’s Bridge Club (or Dottering Man’s Bridge Club as Scott’s spouse Renae likes to say).

It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to see everyone again.

The only member of the DMBC who reads this blog is Craig, so no one else knew that I had changed my diet. So as you can expect, there was little in the way of my food when I got there.

I did avoid beer, but started out with a Vespers Cocktail (gin and vodka) and migrated to 7 and 7 (with diet 7-up of course). Scott served up a tasty pork BBQ with cole slaw, but there was little fruit or salad to be seen.

I ate about half of my pork. I’ve really lost the taste for meat, although I still like the way cooked meat smells.

No, what killed me this weekend were the snacks: salt and sugar. We had pretzels filled with something that tasted like peanut butter, and potato chips that were coated in something that made them taste like a loaded baked potato. And then there were the little “petite” brownies (four pounds of them to be exact). Brownies are little more than sugar and oil, and at 120 calories each, I know I had at least 10.

Scott did get me some fruit and hummus when he went to the market (although the hummus had olive oil which is something I omit from mine) and by Sunday I was able to get mostly back on my diet. My goal is to spend the rest of the week eating as well as I can manage. Without the temptation of snack food, I hope to be back on track by Sunday morning’s weigh in.

Kevin had to leave around 4pm on Sunday, so Scott drove me into the city on his way to taking him to the airport. I’m staying at the Marriott near Union Square:

That’s Union Square down at the bottom of the picture. Whenever I see it I keep thinking of that Gene Hackman movie The Conversation.

They offered me a room on the 29th floor (one down from the top) but I joked about getting a Junior Suite and to my surprise they gave me one down on the 12th floor. I’d rather have the bigger room than the view.