Here comes the Sun!

So, if you live in Northern California, you understand how grateful I was to see the sun today. It has been raining non-stop for the past few weeks - which makes for great snow in the Sierras and removes the threat of a summer with a drought... but also makes me have some ants in my pants.

So today after work I got on my bike and rode around Golden Gate Park and down to Ocean Beach. Here are some interesting tidbits of (probably) useless information...

First, these are Bison. No joke. In Golden Gate Park there is a Bison Padlock - its where the Bison live of course. According to this article, (a 2008 SF Gate Bison Article), the herd might be on its way to dying out - since they are currently lacking a male to help get things going. Which, I think I'm ok with. It appears that the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department pays for the Bison, and the SF Zoo takes care of them. Bad budgets are closing parks, shutting down community centers, and changing my local libraries' hours to 1pm-5pm and closed on Mondays. So, if we loose the Bison, I think it will be ok. Maybe SF Rec and Parks could sell some Bison Burgers to raise some $$$ ?

I continued past the Bison to the Tulip Garden. It was named after a former queen of the Netherlands, who helped get one of two windmills to the Park. Read more here: Who the hell is Queen Wilhelmina?
But the tulips are beautiful right now, and the windmill is always impressive...

I do like that SFPD has put up some riot fences - there are no riots allowed in the tulip gardens. So if that's what you were thinking, too bad.

Finally, I made my way down to Ocean Beach. The Great Highway (Highway 1) was closed in the south bound direction. This is because when it is stormy here, the road falls apart. Sand dunes sweep in and retake the road, puddles abound and don't dry up. I guess this is better than other sections of this highway which just fall into the ocean when it rains... Highway 1 falls into the ocean.

So, I'll leave this blog with a video of me riding my bike on the Great Highway, sans cars. You'll see me almost crash when I hit a pothole. Maybe the Bison Burger $ could be used to help repair the road?!

Second one is better, shows off the view a bit more. But no potholes in this one.

Don't Super Size Me

The photo below was taken the other night in the Haight District. I realize now its hard to see/read what's going on in the photo :(  Sorry about that. The iPhone photo didn't turn out quite as well as I thought it would.

However, hopefully you can see what's going on.  It says "CONSUMERISM" in pink chalk with an arrow pointing up the steps to McDonald's. I'll try to make it bigger here:

The idea that someone just happened to have a piece of (pink!) chalk on their person and just happened to walk by McDonald's and have the thought to write this on the ground blows my mind. Really, who carries around pink chalk? Standard white I might be able to believe, but pink?

Also, does this pink chalk writer know how big McDonald's is? 

According to one of their many websites (no joke, check it out. One would assume McD's would run McDonalds.com.  But no. McDonald's runs a bunch of different websites, including "365 Black" where they "celebrate African-American culture and achievement every day of the year" and "My InspirAsian" that celebrates Asian cultures. Read more here: McDonald's Many Websites)

Anyway, according to their website "aboutmcdonalds.com" - "McDonald's is the leading global food service retailer with more than 32,000 local restaurants serving more than 60 million people in 117 countries each day". That's big. Sorry pink chalk person, I'm not sure if you're one sidewalk demonstration (in temporary sidewalk chalk) will have a much of an impact. But I applaud your attempt.  

The Hand that used to Rock the Cradle

The other night my BF (who, by the way, does not follow this blog.....yet) and I were out having some delicious sushi (btw - I wonder how long it will take him to see that I wrote that about him). Anyway, out at sushi, we walked by this:

An empty car seat in a dirty doorway. Where is the baby? Where are the parents?

I guess I should be happy that there was no actual baby in the car seat. Because then it would require me to take more action than an iPhone photo and a blog post. But I digress.

I do see all sorts of crazy discarded items. But this is an actual nice car seat, that probably some parent would have been happy to use. But not anymore. Once it hit the SF street corner, it immediately became un-usable for baby consumption. Sorry babies, no more car seat for you - you'll just have to go car-seat-less now.

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles (& way too many cones)

Last weekend, my friend Angela and I took a trip down to Arizona - it was nice to get out of the city and go some place warm.

Upon our return, I was, once again, reminded of the strange city I live in....

We flew in and out of SFO (San Francisco Airport), and then took BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport, for you none Bay Area peps) to my car which was parked at the Milbrae BART station... (hence the title, Planes, Trains & Automobiles).

But the fact that we took 3 different modes of transportation that day wasn't the most humorous part of our travels. The photo I took shows how many cones were lined along the "out of service" BART line. Apparently the folks at BART are very concerned that someone might try to board a train, so to discourage passengers from doing so, they have lined EVERY inch of the platform with bright orange cones, along with automated announcements that this platform is out of service.

But don't worry, should you need to board a train here, they've left the black squares (where the train door's are supposed to line up) open and free of cones.

A final thought to ponder... if every 3rd cone was removed, say by a passenger looking to score some free cones, would anyone really notice? If not, I may have to uh, take another trip to the BART airport station next weekend....

the Last of the Pumpkins

I'm calling this blog post "the Last of the Pumpkins" because I believe this COULD be the last pumpkin left in San Francisco. I took this photo while waiting at a stop light on Fell Street. In February.

That's right. This pumpkin managed to survive through the months of October, November, December and January, and now had made its way to its current resting spot, a tree on Fell.

How it managed to not get carved, smashed, or made into a pie for the last 4 months is unknown. Nor why someone thought this tree would be appropriate pumpkin resting spot... but never the less, here it is. Congratulations pumpkin, for being the Last of the Pumpkins (kinda of like the Last of the Mohicans).

My Weird City - First Blog!

Hello blog readers!

So glad you have chosen to spend some of your precious time reading about my life...and my weird city. I was inspired lately to do more creative writing...I figured a blog would be easy, painless, and hopefully, entertaining.  Since I live and work in one of the more interesting cities in the U.S., I figured it would be great to write about what I see, do, and experience while being here. San Francisco is so great (most of the time) and usually you can look around and find something incredibly funny (or at least, something I find incredibly funny. You may just think its humorous, interesting, or perhaps even gross).

I started with the picture above, since its nice and tame. Just a shot of the city while driving on the Bay Bridge. Enjoy this weather while you can - its never 70 degrees and sunny here!

Check back weekly for new posts and photos of things I see in My Weird City.