Got lucky...Initially approved yesterday morning. Checked, and the first available appointment at SFO was January 2018 at like 10 PM at night. Checked some other offices but nothing that really worked (there was a Seattle appointment available when I transit there on my way to Europe in September, but my layover is a little over an hour and I don't want to risk that, and not sure if I could do a SDC).
Kept checking for maybe 10 minutes at the SFO office and an appointment for TODAY opened up. Grabbed it immediately.
I did not see any available August appointments at that time, so not sure. But I'm happy and about to get on the road to get this over with.