Perhaps Sue Logris is right about the gods not wanting me to head west. I somehow lost my house keys and Ben's car keys between security at JFK and my front door. That made my seemingly fantastic plan to store a huge bag at the airport and pick it up (in Ben's car) the next day fall apart. And my first day here (during which I had to drag said bag from BART to my house) can best be described by a guy chatting on his cell at the North berkeley station: "Dude, it's like Noah's Arc out here."