Dan Schmidt has been an internet friend for a number of months now. When he first emailed me (last August maybe?), he was inquiring about the Spoon rarities collection I have. Instantly scoring points in my book for having great taste in music, his points only increased when I saw that he also was a Designer and incredible Painter to boot! Including having recently painted the cover of the Heartless Bastards CD, which at the time was one of my favorite new bands. Awesome.

So over the last couple months he & I have IM’d, emailed, swapped music, discussed the Design world and shared our various projects we’re working on, etc. He’s even one of the few people I’ve iSighted with besides my Mom & Sister. There’s not many people who have iSight or web cams it seems, so it was cool to say hello that way, too.

Last month he’d mentioned coming out here some time in February & then a few weeks back he IM’s me & says he’s flying in! I look at the calendar & realize we have tickets to Jeff Tweedy that night – and it just happens to be that Dan is the biggest Jeff Tweedy/Wilco fan ever, so he was pretty stoked when I was able to score him a ticket to the sold out show for the first night of his quick trip to SF! awww yaaaa!

So last Thursday night (after my “other Willow” encounter) Ali, him & I had a yummy dinner @ the Curbside Cafe,and then hit the (awesome) show @ the Fillmore. The Tweedy show was soooo good and I’m really stoked I was there for Dan’s virgin experience of the legendary Fillmore Theatre!

Me, Ali & Dan before the show

We were all in such good spirits we couldn’t resist having one last drink @ the Hemlock afterwards. Such a fun night!!

Friday I worked all day (uh, work that is sadly gone now, but we’ll disregard that!), and so since Dan had to leave early Sunday morning we met up for a quick breakfast on Saturday morning before his Uncle came to visit him for the remainder of the day.

We had a yummy breakfast at one of my favorite breakfast spots, Just For You Cafe, and then realized we had a little more time before his Uncle arrived, so we headed over to my place to hang out. It was a GORGEOUS day – boy how I wish it was that warm this weekend! It’s rainy & super cold! – so we luxuriously sat out on my deck, literally breaking a sweat in the 65+ degrees, blue sky sunshine. SO nice!

After realizing his Uncle was going to be later than he thought, I was like “Well, let’s do something!” It was his last day here, and although I needed to work (but considering Monday’s PBHD failure, it’s good that I didn’t!), I couldn’t just leave him alone in the Mission. We had to go on an adventure! So we did: First going up to Twin Peaks, a lookout point that in my 9.5 years living here I’ve only been to ONCE – about 9 years ago! ha! It was a gorgeous clear day & I got a lot of cool shots of the city.

Then, since Dan’s from Cincinnati, Ohio, it was clear we needed to make a trip to the beach! I actually hardly go to the beach myself, so it was a great reason to go out & watch the waves. And on such a beautiful day, too!

Really cool meeting you in person, Dan! I felt really comfortable with you instantly, like we’re old friends, and was so glad we were able to have some unexpected adventures on Saturday. Yay for Internet Friends!

View my Photo Album of his visit | Ali’s Blog Post & Photos | Dan’s Blog Post

Oh ya, and Dan – this is for you! (be sure to scroll right)

One more cool shot, and the original to that cropped panoramic, can be found in this album.

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Hey check it out – I designed a t-shirt that says ‘i <3 my internet friends‘:

I <3 my internet friends!

If you have internet friends too, click the photo to check out the WilloToons store & buy a t-shirt!