Giant Balls of the Day

In the spirt of the Christmas Tree of the Day posts I present Giant (Christmas) Balls of the Day. Tomorrow there will be a new giant ball picture. 

Christmas Tree of the Day

Slow going on the photo editing from the other night. I did manage to get a handful more up on flickr. Here is the best of today's images. Besides this makes it easy to put up a little bit of content and stay merry and bright. This is the tree in front of the Ritz Carlton Hotel. 

Taking Pictures

I took a walk down California Street tonight taking pictures of the Christmas lights. I finally got a decent picture of the tree in front of the Bank of America Building. I've got some more. I'll try get them up to my Flickr account tomorrow. 

Car Number 60

I had a pretty active day but not a lot to report. I did my first Christmas shopping which included four different trips to two different H&M's. I had to go do a second interview at our Embarcadero Store and forgot something I was supposed to bring with me. I had to go back home to get it and that entailed multiple trips up and down the California line. The coolest thing about that was my last trip home I rode on Cable Car number 60 for the first time. It is the newest cable car in the world having been built in 2003 by Muni in their shops. It is a beautiful car, easily the best woodwork in the stable. Here is a link to a picture of it from last Christmas. It is decorated in the same manner this year. In case you haven't noticed. I love cable cars.

Skating Out of the House

So yesterday I found myself about to spend another day off without leaving my apartment. I've decided since coming back from vacation to avoid this as much as possible. So I put on my shoes and walked down to the Cable Car Stop and rode up to the top of the hill. There I switched to the California line and ended up down at the Embarcadero. I was happy to find that the ice skating rink has been set up at Justin Herman Plaza and people were out skating on a Wednesday afternoon. While I didn't join them today I'm making it a plan to get back down there at least once this season. It looks like fun and I haven't skated in years. I snapped this picture with my phone. I think I'm going to have to return with a real camera next time.

Election Day

I'm going to the polls in San Francisco for the first time today. Last year I forgot to file a change of address so I trekked down to Redwood City for my Congressional Vote. In what is supposed to be record low turnout in San Francisco I'll be voting on a variety of citywide issues. Here is my scorecard. Of course, it may be December before we know the results.

A - No
B - No
C - Yes
D - Yes
E - No
F - Yes
G - Yes
H - No
I - No
J - Yes
K - No
Mayor - Yes
District Attorney - No
Sheriff - No

San Francisco Pride Parade

I took the day off to take pictures of the Pride Parade. The first 15 are up on my Flickr page with more to come. I took over 400 pictures and about 10 short videos. I'll be spending the next week or two working on getting more posted.

My camera proved to be a little annoying with all the action going on. The processing delay seems to be over a second so it was difficult to get multiple shots. I've already got my eye on next year's tax return for a new camera. This year will be all about figuring out what features I want and need. A better auto focus comes to mind. I thought for sure that I had got this shot of my California State Senator, Carole Midgen (I-80 Pinball Wizard). My camera decided to focus on the building behind her. Disappointing.

More Fun Stuff I Missed

I have not been much of a shutterbug lately. Yesterday I added a new San Francisco event that I failed to get pictures of. The Great Gorilla Run is a 4.3 mile event that was started in London in 2003 to raise money and awareness for the endangered Central African Mountain Gorilla. What makes this event interesting is that the participants run the race dressed as Gorillas. I may not have been there but the Chronicle was and took some pictures.

Some Good News From the Zoo

This morning Karen emailed me this story from the SFGate about the new habitat for the grizzly bears opening at the San Francisco Zoo. The new diggs sound great. I'm happy for the bears. They put on the best show last time I was there. Here is a few seconds of video I took of the bears when I was at the zoo in April.

Weekend to Thrill at the Castro Theater

The Castro Theater is doing a Classic Bond Memorial Day Weekend. Last night John and I saw Dr. No and Goldfinger. Richard "Jaws" Kiel was there signing autographs and giving out headlocks. This was my first visit back to the Castro since moving to the city. I used to the Stanford Theater for old movies at least once a week but have cut down my theater visits in this last year. I've been priced out. $20 to take my self to the movies with popcorn and a drink (an integral part of the movie going experience for me) just seems like a harsh deal. It's all a matter of scale. $10 at the Stanford gets you two movies large popcorn and a large drink. At that price I was going around fifty times a year. Twice that (or more) for a movie in the city and I'm going about 10 times a year. Movie houses are getting less than half of what I'm willing to pay them because their price per viewing is so high. For $25 bucks Netflix sends about 30 movies a month to my house. That's just a better use of the old resources.

Anyway the movies were great. There was a live stunt show on top of the movie from The Stunt People. Actually they were pretty good. Overall a very entertaining evening. I'd never seen either on the big screen and the Castro has a very big screen. Tonight my favorite Bond, "From Russia With Love" is playing. I just might hop on muni after work. We'll see.

Zombies Invade Union Square

I spent most of my day off yesterday at home. When I did venture out it was to the west to see Pirates on Van Ness. So for the first time in over a week I was not in Union Square at all during the day. So I missed this years Zombie Invasion. Crave has the story of the invasion hitting the Apple store with some pretty good pictures. I did venture by the Apple store on my way home from the movies (I'm agonizing over buying a mighty mouse). On my way back up the hill I passed a guy whose face was covered in blood talking with another guy on Stockton. I remember thinking, "I hope the zombies are in town or that guy really needs to go to hospital".

Sad News From the San Francisco Zoo

Last month I wrote about my visit to the zoo on one of those cold overcast days San Francisco is known for. The zoo was a little sad that day with most of the animals opting to stay indoors to escape the damp and the cold. It was also my first trip to the zoo since the elephant had died. I guess to me seeing the elephants just seems to be an essential part of a zoo trip. There were a few highlights to the day. The bears put on a hell of a show, playing a rousing game of tag. The lions decided that it was the right time for some afternoon delight. We joined the crowd late but the hippos were having the time of their lives just by getting hosed down. Word came yesterday that Puddles the zoos longtime elder hippo died after not adapting to temporary housing as they moved to expand the hippo habitat. Puddles had been at the zoo for forty-three years. That's older than me so he was there when I took my first trips to the zoo some thirty-four years ago. Sad news.