Day 5 - San Francisco

Today Jon and I had to make a decision on what to do on our final day in the Bay Area -- go to the Napa Valley or to see redwoods, which the guidebook told us we could find at Muir Woods in Marin County. The redwoods won out because I convinced Jon that you can see vineyards anywhere in the world, but California is the only place on Earth with redwood trees.



We rented a car, and in only 10 minutes or so we got onto this bridge which you may have seen in movies that take place in San Francisco.




Fortunately the only four-legged critters we saw were deer and a chipmunk.



The sun was shining brightly and making some nice shadowy contrasts.





These redwoods could be as tall as 35 stories, and are 800 years old. We learned that the red in their trunks comes from tannic acid, the same stuff that makes their bark invulnerable and keeps them alive forever.


This is actually a Douglas fir.










It turned out to be a way better trip than Napa would have been, because the high temperature was something like 90 in Napa and 75 in the Muir Woods. This is the result of something called "microclimates," which is the one word used to explain every single weather event in San Francisco.

Day 4 - San Francisco

This morning I decided to wear my new pink shoes from Chinatown.



But, today was all about Alcatraz and cable cars.



We rode the famous San Francisco Powell/Hyde cable car to get to Fisherman's Wharf so we could take the ferry to the famous prison. On the ferry I was feeling a little motion sick so I took a picture of myself to see if I could see myself turning green.

I discovered instead that I was turning redder. Since we've been here, San Franciscans have been experiencing unusually sunny weather. I have to remember to wear sunblock tomorrow otherwise I'm going to look like a tomato.

I don't have much to say about Alcatraz so I'll show you.




Tomorrow we're renting a car and driving out to John C. Muir woods to see the enormous redwoods and then spending some time in Sausolito. I really like it out here. California is pretty and San Francisco doesn't have any humidity. The air feels clean and fresh.

Day 3 San Francisco

We woke up relatively early and walked to the beach so we could get a glimpse of the Pacific Ocean at Ocean Beach.


Then we backtracked a couple of blocks and visited the San Francisco Zoo. We all sorts of animals which is always fun but they were mostly sleeping or chilling out because most animals are active in the evening. The only animal we didn't really get to see was the Chimpanzee because he was hiding under a green blanket.






We had lunch at a little beach shacky kind of place and then went and met up with our host Lloyd Ackerman for the Giant's game. We had a really great time at the game. The stadium is beautiful. It's designed to help control the wind so the balls don't go flying all over the place. Also, the way the stadium is design you get a perfect few of the Bay. If you have a chance to see a game here, definitely do it. We had GREAT seats, one level up and behind home plate. You can see every play in its entirety from these seats. It was a truly fun experience.

Here are Jon and me posing at the game with Mr. Ackerman.

Old St. Mary's

San Francisco's oldest catholic church is Old St. Mary's on the corner of California Street and Grand (I think it's Grand) Anyway, Jon and I went it to check it out after our lunch at Far East and when we saw there was a wedding just beginning we decided to stay for a little while and observce. We observed the bride's family filling up one side of the church while the groom's filled the other and we observed a special guest. When I saw him I told Jon, "Hey isn't that a guy a Californian mayor?" Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown sat on the groom's side of the church. He is not pictured here. I stopped taking pictures of the church when it got close to the start of the wedding.

Day 2 San Francisco

On our second day, we started our adventure with a quick bite at the famous Mel's Diner (although I think it wasn't the original location used in American Graffiti). It was very "retro 50's" inside. There was a jukebox and cool art on the walls. We ate very lightly because we were headed toward Chinatown and expected to eat well while there.




We walked over to California Street and rode a cable car down to Chinatown.


While in Chinatown we saw interesting things including these giant wooden penis sculptures.


this cool sign for an insurance company


and the Store With Beautiful Things.


Of course we saw the famous Chinatown Gate published in all the literature about San Francisco. Here is Jon sitting in front of one of the lions. The lion's eyes are dusted with some kind of day glow powder and give the appearance of glowing which I think is a nice touch.


We had some lunch at a restaurant called Far East where we dined on Chow Fun and Chow Mein which is not pictured here because we ate it quickly after ordering from the menu I'm holding in my hand.


We ended our day time adventure in Union Square where we admired the palm trees and surrounding buildings.


Honorable mentions from yesterday go to The Transamerica Building in downtown San Francisco and the little boxes of Parasite Pals I saw in one of the shops.

Day 1 San Francisco

We are blessed this trip because we get to stay with friends. Our tour of San Francisco started the moment our hostess found us at the airport. We were treated to beautiful views of city from every angle. One of the first attractions we saw was the Legion of Honor which has been converted into a museum. From there we could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. On the grounds of the Legion of Honor is Holocaust Memorial sculpture by George Segal. It is the most moving memorial I've seen.

I enjoy seeing flowers and trees I've never seen before when I travel. Here is one near the memorial that looks like a sunny sideup egg.


And here are pictures of Michelle Ackerman and I standing in front of the Legion of Honor.


We drove over to Alamo Park where we got to see that famous row of Victorian Houses - which, thanks to years of watching Full House, I thought were much bigger than they actually were. They really are quite lovely but when you're actually looking at them in person there not as impressive as you might think. We speculated that living there is probably a huge burden.




Note that if you go to Alamo Park the hillside from where you view the houses gets very muddy. When I got to the car I discovered my sneakers were caked with mud.

After Alamo Park we went to Twin Peaks and saw even more beautiful views. If you look closely you can the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance.



That night, we had dinner at Fresca, Peruvian food. My dining experience took the form of a salad with sliced, seasoned steak.

We slept well on Friday night.

San Francisco

Tomorrow we are leaving for San Francisco. Our flight leaves at 7:15 am. That's very early. We should probably be at the airport by 6 am which means we will most likely leave our house at 5:15 am. Whew.

This week has been tough at work. A three day week when you have a lot of work to do isn't always the best thing. I put myself under a lot of pressure to be the most efficient I could be and today it was too much. I snapped. I yelled at this stupid dispatcher at W**** Messenger Service in Long Island. I need these boxes to be picked up tomorrow afternoon in Long Island and delivered to my office in the city. The printer who did this rush job for us didn't know how many boxes out brochures are going to fit into because they were still cutting and folding everything, so we estimated 12 -- but that estimate wasn't good enough for the messenger service. No. THEY NEEDED TO KNOW THE EXACT NUMBER OF BOXES PLUS THEIR TOTAL WEIGHT AND DIMENSION. So, I was good. I hadn't quite lost it yet. I called the printer back and asked what the dimensions were and they laughed and said "WE DON'T KNOW." So I called back and told the messenger service it's about 12 boxes give or take and described the job to her. She repeated that she needed the exact measurements, blah blah blah, so I WENT OFF ON HER ASS and told her that SHE'S THE EXPERT. SHE DELIVERS PACKAGES ALL DAY LONG. COULDN'T SHE FIGURE OUT WITH THE PRINTER HOW MANY BOXES THE PRINT JOB WOULD END UP BEING?

It went on like that for about a minute, cried for about 4 minutes. I went to the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, brushed my teeth and gathered myself. Then I returned to my desk and called the messenger service back. Someone different answered the phone. Without apologizing I asked them to send a van and told them the job would be about 12 boxes give or take and made sure the job went through. Oh yeah. . .then the printer decided to inform me, NOW THAT THE JOB IS FINISHED BEING PRINTED THAT THE JOB IS C.O.D. and asked me how I wanted to pay for it. That did it for me. I had to call my boss who left early so he could be with his wife at the hospital because she had been in a car accident earlier today (she's okay).

So naturally I felt like a failure but my boss made me feel better and told me that this company was being very unprofessional, and that he knew they had never mentioned anything about a C.O.D. payment, and that this is a sleazy practice that some companies engage in as a mild form of blackmail to make sure they get paid for a first job, or something like that. I felt bad because I didn't want to leave something unresolved like that but he was cool about it. So . . . I guess I really deserve to go away in the morning on a nice trip to San Francisco where I've never been before.

I've been to Santa Cruz and Monterey and Carmel but not San Francisco.

I can't wait. Hee hee.

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Olympics 2012

I just read at Finishing the Hat that NYC lost the big for the 2012 Olympics. I share Hat's sentiment of relief that the Olympics are not coming here. The traffic would have been awful; Time Square would have collapsed from the weight of the lemmings/tourists who have to see that god awful signs; every night the news would run stories about the sad and unfortunate deaths of Romanian/Chinese/Spanish/whateverish pixiesque gymnasts by unusual circumstances - e.g. bricks falling off building edifices. We would probably have gotten stuck with awful, modern buildings built for the occasion like that horrible stadium in Montreal. No. I'm not sorry we didn't get the Olympics. Besides, enough people know about New York City already. It's not like we any more publicity.

ValeFly

This morning at work, my boss asked me to run downstairs to get coffees for everyone. Riding in the elevator I notice a fly above the doors, just sitting there rubbing it's legs together. Suddenly I was in the middle of my own sci-fi movie where the elevator was a teleportation device that scrambled my DNA with the fly's and I emerged as an entirely new creature. This little fantasy lasted exactly 1. 5 minutes, the exact time it took to get from the fifth floor to the first. I bought 3 coffees and one Coca Cola for the guy who thinks he's being healthy by not drinking coffee.

Flowers for you

Astoria Patriotics

4th of July Weekend

Long weekends are good but never long enough. Spent it taking it easy mostly except for the cleaning and the working out. Had dinner with loved ones on Sunday night at a nice restaurant called Citrus on the Upper West. Citrus boasts fusion cuisine - Latin influences and Japanese style. Notice the beautifully backlit sushi bar. It seems that backlit sushi bars are the wave of the future. This backlighting trend seems to have been going on since Disney started backlighting their Broadway productions. It is nice though.

Last night we watched the Macy's fireworks from my friend's rooftop. Those were pretty nice. The members of the party including myself were wishing for the quick removal of the Citicorp building which seems a blight on the landscape on occasions such as the 4th.


On the way home I snapped off the last of many patriotic shots I took this weekend. This image, although not unique amongst the many storefront window paintings I saw of our national symbol, seemed the most poignant because I shot it one hour before the three day weekend was officially over. Happy Independence Day.