The Search for the Perfect Coffee Shop - San Francisco Version

While in San Francisco I needed to finish writing the first part of a paper. Papers are the currancy of academia, for those reading this blog that thought "publish or perish" was hyperbolie. It isn't. I enjoy posing and answering interesting questions about the universe and chatting with people about my questions and their questions and coming up with some new questions. Tracking down all the imporant  references for pair instability supernova, not so much.

The only place I have ever been able to write is coffee shops. In fact the bulk of the proposal that won me the FONDECYT fellowship in Chile was written at 2 am in Epoch, which is the bomb when it comes to Austin coffee shops, and happens to be opened all night.

There is a alchemy to the perfect coffee shop. Some elements are required:

* Good coffee and/or a good selection of teas.
* Good internet.
* Decent pastries.
* Some sort of decent food not made from carbohydrates.
* A decent supply of power outlets.

That said, the vibe of a coffee shop is probably the most important. If a place has the wrong vibe I cannot sit there for five hours and contemplate the wonder of the Cosmos, and maybe get some work done. I do understand that people use coffee shops as places to meet up with friends and chat, I have done so myself many many times. However, when you have four different groups over a 90 minute period sitting at the the table next to you and jabbering away it is incredibly hard to write anything you should not delete immediately, let alone send to you collabortors.

Such were the parameters of the great San Francisco coffee shop hunt.

Having exhasted all of my options near my grandmother's in the Outer Sunset, a friend recomended Bernie's in Noe Valley. MUNI accesisble, good coffee, good internet, decent food and the perfect vibe to take ones latte, plug ones computer in and write to your heart's content. At least until your cousin comes to visit with ~ 20 lbs of adorable baby boy who is infinately more entertaining than your Methodology outline.