I got here early and had to stand outside for about 20 minutes with the others waiting to get in. The first thing I noticed was the weird gritty consistency the concrete at teh entrance had. There were littel sparklies popped up out to give grip. There was also a blackish sand like substance that seemed to collect in the soles of your shoes if you paced too much.

It is ultra hard for a stroller/handicapped person to get in the front. What might have be an alternate to the revolving door was blocked by a PG&E worker. A couple kindly folks helped jam me in and push/pull me through as the stroller skidded sideways through the door.

We finally got in and were able to explore.

In a word, wow. The place is incredible. It’s a photographer’s dream subject, so much substance, flavor, style, and color. I was bummed that even though I left the house with what the camera SAID was a fully charged battery that I got here with one that kept flashing low battey warnings. Not one to tempt fate and lose, I tempered my shooting to hit as many areas as possible instead of stacking shot after shot as I had hoped. We’ll be back again.

I’m writing these entries from the slew of underused public computers on floor 5. 132 in all from the number in the brochure. Maybe 30 or so are being used. I’d like to have gone wireless on my iPaq, but the SSIDs that popped up won’t let me connect. Oh well…

The architecture is amazing. There is an automated belt driven dumb waiter that carreis books and what not between floors. You can get a good look at the entrance off of 4th. The floor on the entry level has poetry, words, and letters in relief on the hard wood. Many differenet langauges are presented.

The inside of the elevators, the escalators, and the stairs are all a very bright lime green, while most of the furniture scattered around is a nice muted orange. The colors play very well off of the exposed steel outside, and teh hardy steel floor that is present throughout much of the building.

One of the coolest features is the spiral. It spans floors 6-9 and allows a user to gradually go from area to area of the collection without needing to use stairs, elevator, or escaltor. You can just slowly spiral down a slightly sloping ramp. All along the way, there are floor mats at each bookcase which show the Dewey Decimal number for a very quick glance at where you are.

The kids area was huge. Kelsey was still asleep so we kind of just cruised through, but there was a play area we might check out if she wakes up before we leave. I have a feeling we’ll be able to spend many an afternoon down here reading, playing, and just hanging out.

We’re off to continue our walk which will take us back to the market where I got early bird parking for the day.