Stoxjock, your story brings back some cool memories for me as well. I went out to the Bay area in '99 with my cousin; Cisco bought out a startup he was with. We were from the St. Louis area, his PhD advisor at Wash U. started a little company based on a chip design he created and he took the whole team out to San Jose while working the deal with Cisco. I eventually walked away with some stock, but that's long been gone.
Back then San Francisco was pristine - we went everywhere at all hours of the day and night without any worries. I don't recall seeing any homeless then, at least not groups of them. Muir woods was a favorite hangout, Whale watching expeditions, riding the trolley cars, Fisherman's Wharf, scenic Lombard Street, Ghirardelli chocolate company, crusing the Pacific Coast Highway down through Monterey (and over to Salinas) - read a lot of Steinbeck growing up and had to see Cannery Row. I walked the Golden Gate Bridge in late Spring, at that altitude with the winds off the ocean and bay you get an idea of where the Twain misquote may have originated ("the coldest Winter I ever spent was a Summer in San Francisco"). The only time I remember feeling more chill down to the bone was in the middle of Winter in an Iowa cornfield with nothing to block the wind.
Anyway, I returned after seeing the housing costs as well, my cousin bought a $350K house that was smaller than (and with about a third of the yard) what I was able to get back home for about a quarter of what he paid. Congrats to your daughter!
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