Saturday, May 24, 2008

Foster City library




I took my car this morning to Costco in Foster City to get my tires rotated. I bought the tires at the South San Francisco/Daly City location about 2 years ago which includes free rotation and balancing for the lifetime of the tires.

The first time I rotated the tires in SSF/DC, it took about 3.5 hours. I did shop while waiting, but shopping for me at Costco never takes more than an hour. I was able to kill another hour with a magazine to read, but still had another 30 to 60 minutes before my car was ready.

Now knowing I had at least 3 hours to kill, I researched nearby wi-fi spots to Costco locations. The nearest wi-fi in Daly City was the library at Serramonte. But it's about 2 miles away and would require me to sprint across multiple lanes of traffic to get there. Foster City's library was only 2 blocks away from the nearest Costco, so I decided to head there.

It's been probably 15 years since I last visited a public library. The only other public library I've been to in San Mateo county was Millbrae, which was a decent size. Foster City's is much larger. Free wi-fi is all over the library, and there's 6 tables with outlets specifically for plugging in laptops. There's 3 plug-in outlets on each side, so one could conceivably set up an office while there. There's also a few desktop computers with free internet access, and not surprisingly, all of them were occupied.

I left the library after about 2.5 hours. The heating/cooling system was rattling loudly and so was my stomach. I headed back to Costco and picked up a quick lunch. My car was just being worked on, so I spent another half-hour and picked up some cold cuts and cheese. I checked back at the tire center around 2 p.m., immediately got my keys and departed for home.

All in all, a fairly productive day. It was so much better to kill time at the library as opposed to the cemented stoop at Costco's Tire Center.

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