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.