Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Today is the 75th Anniversary of the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge! These are a few pictures of the bridge I've taken myself...



This is the view out of Spare Oom! I like looking out my window and seeing one of our famous landmarks...that is, when it's not enshrouded by fog. :)


Taken from the top of Twin Peaks. That's the Marin Headlands across the bay (and the large mountain to the left is Mt. Tamalpais). The strip of houses between the two bits of green (the Presidio to the north, Golden Gate Park to to the south) is my neighborhood of the Richmond.


My favorite picture I've taken of the bridge so far. We crossed about half of it last year on a gorgeously clear but windy day.


My other favorite picture, this one taken from Battery Spencer, which is just above and to the west of the bridge.

I'll be putting up the new writing schedule later today, but thought I'd share the 'before' picture of a completely clean calendar (with my word-a-day calendar showing an appropriate entry).

[Hmm. Come to find out, if I pull the pictures directly from the new camera without using the software, they end up staying in the 2:3 ratio. I'll have to remember that. The software isn't as good as the Olympus software was, but it'll do. I was hoping some of these would come out as the widescreen that they are, but they didn't. Learn from my mistakes, I guess.]

So! emmalyon and I walked up to the Legion of Honor Museum this morning to check out the Pissarro's People and Artistic San Francisco exhibitions, and to get some exercise in as well--it's a bit short of a mile away and all uphill. There's some great views from up there, as well as on the way up if you take El Camino Del Mar past the golf course.


Looking across the foggy opening of the bay, towards the mountains of Marin, as well as the Golden Gate Bridge.


The Legion of Honor Museum. This should have been a widescreen shot but due to my uploading mistake, it's merely just a bit warped on the edges. Ah well.


The single spire of the Main Building at USF Lone Mountain campus, a construction crane, and the twin spires of St. Ignatius Church, semi-hidden in the fog.

Yeah, we weren't entirely sure what to make of it either. Especially when the man was yelling across the street at someone, and the pig started getting fussy and squealing.

We flew up to Seattle for the long weekend as a sort of mini-vacation, and had quite a bit of fun. It's a lovely city to visit--on a good day the summer weather is very similar to how it is here, and it's very easy to get to and from Seattle-Tacoma Airport. Highly suggested.

I'd made a mental note that we weren't even twenty-four hours into our trip and I'd already declared it awesome. I'll say part of it was due to the view from the airplane, being that I lucked out and got a window seat. In the span of two hours, we flew over Mt. Shasta (California's fifth highest peak and a New Age mecca), passed by Crater Lake (a place I've always wanted to see/visit since hearing about it in college), saw Mt Hood nearby (Oregon's highest point) passed near Mount St. Helens (which was unexpected!) and saw exactly how enormous Mt. Rainier is (at 14,411 ft). Pure awesome, seeing all those geographical wonders one right after the other.

We landed just as the sun was setting so the sky was a gorgeous dark blue and creating a sepia haze over the land and all the streetlights were coming on. By the time we caught a cab it was getting dark, so Seattle came into view just as the stars were coming out. It was quite stunning to see. We got to our hotel (Five stars to the Hotel Monaco on 4th and Spring Streets--Kimpton once again came through with an excellent place to stay) and crashed, with no real plan in mind for the next day, other than checking out Pike Place Market, maybe finding a yarn store and a nifty bookstore, and taking pictures. We weren't planning on heading up to the top of the Space Needle, but it wasn't too far so we could at least walk to it. The only other addition to the short list was the fantastically modern Central Library, which was right across the street from us. Yes, we're nerds.

And it just occurred to me now, that with the random coffee we had in Seattle, not once did we actually have any from Starbucks. :p

So! Without further ado, here are some nifty pictures for your enjoyment of our mini-vacation!

( Pictures of the Emerald City )

So yes...I would DEFINITELY visit that city again! :)

emmalyon and I took a walk in Golden Gate Park today, starting from the de Young Museum and making our way down to Spreckels Lake (roughly about 2.5 miles), and of course, we took our cameras with us.

I've already posted pictures taken at the Rose Garden over at my Tumblr site, but thought I'd add a few here as well. Enjoy!

( Saturday in the Park, I think it was the 11th of June )

And one for good measure...

When we left the park near 36th Avenue, we jumped on the 5 Fulton back up to 6th Avenue (pretty much back to where we started!), then jumped on the 44 to go get something to eat on Clement. The bus dropped us off in front of Green Apple Books, which is always a dangerous thing for us, though we were good and avoided its temptations. However, we couldn't pass up taking a picture of this bit of silliness:




So, all told, with the walk in the park plus walking home from where we stopped for lunch (Pizza Orgasmica), we must have walked total at least three and a half miles today. No wonder we're both sleepy!

So yes! Yesterday we drove down to San Mateo for the Bay Area Maker Faire and had quite a fun time. Many strange and silly (and nerdy and intellectual) things were to be seen. So without further ado, pictures from the geekfest below the cut!

( Warning: Science (and Other Weird Things) Ahead )

So yes...quite a lot of things seen and done, played with or eaten (yes, we had funnel cake!), and it was a hell of a lot of fun. So much so that I was dead tired by the time we got home! It was well worth it, though...lots of silly, geeky fun.

After quite a few off-days of weird weather or nice-but-cold sunny days, it looks like we're about to finally hit a stretch of warm spring days here in town. Can't complain there! So once we finally decide to get off our butts and get out of the house, we'll be doing a bit of walking, because hey--why waste a perfectly nice day? And yes, I will be bringing my camera, so expect to see a Tumblr post o' pix pretty soon!

This weekend is also when I finally (FINALLY!) finish polishing up the A Division of Souls synopsis, make one quick glance at the two first chapters, and email them off to dancinghorse for a critique. I want to get that done by tomorrow, because I've made her wait much too long for it. I suppose I have a few typical writerly worries--that the synopsis is a bit too long, yet it is a large novel with a lot going on...that this story could either be a brilliant multi-character event, or just an overcrowded mess...but at this point I'm just shutting that voice up and going with my instincts. I think it's a good story worth trying out, and I'm going to stay with that.

Other than that...we both were convinced most of this week that we had something scheduled or wanted to do, but for the life of us, we couldn't remember what it was, if anything. We have a few things going on in the next few weeks--a Mahler concert at the SF Symphony, the Maker Faire, and BayCon--but nothing this weekend. So! Looks like we'll have to make do with just relaxing and having a bit of fun. :)

I've been lazy and not put any pictures up here at LJ, but I've put up a few at my Tumblr site (which you can find here, which conveniently has the same name as my LJ). I may put up some later. But for now?



As stated earlier, I bought Steinbeck's Cannery Row in Cannery Row (specifically, at the Monterey Bay Aquarium at the head of said Row), and thereafter had lunch at Cannery Row Brewing Company. Thought I'd offer picture proof above. :)

Absolutely gorgeous blue sky today, taken at Lake and 29th Avenue.