Monday, September 24

I've started using google maps to calculate my mileage because the computers on both my commuter and carbon bike seem to be slowly dying.  On the list to replace.  I've been guessing with with my mileage and guessing very conservatively at that.  My mileage totals are going to be going up sharply even though my routes aren't going to change.  Also, I generally don't note that I bike home every day for lunch to check on the dogs.

This morning I took Corbett to Clayton to Frederick to Stanyon into the Park and then around Stow Lake and down MLK to the ocean.  I headed up towards the Cliff House and stopped to take a few pictures:

Me with beach

The North Windmill in Golden Gate Park

Sutro Baths:

It was a gorgeous, gorgeous morning!  I headed Seal Rock to Clement and then up into the Palace of the Legion of Honor and then down lake to Arguello to California to Commonwealth to Euclid to Presidio to Post and into the Financial District.

Sunday, September 23

The weather was a little nicer on Sunday so I got out on my bike and headed down the Peninsula.  I rode 18th St to Valencia to Tiffany to 29th to San Jose Ave to Arlington to Richland to Murray.  This beautiful Victorian is at Murray and Richland.  It's seen better days but who hasn't??

I went through Saint Mary's Park and then over the footbridge over 280 and then up Cambridge into McLaren Park.  This house is a puzzle:

It's definitely on park grounds.  It seems a lot older than anything else in the park.  And when I tried to approach it a woman yelled at me to turn around.  Why??  All we need is somebody dressed up as the ghost of Jerry Garcia to scare people away while they look for John McLaren's treasure and maybe Scooby and the Gang will show up.  I continued up to Mansell and Visitacion where the view was pretty but a little foggy:

Then I wnet down Mansell to Persia to Dublin to Russia to Moscow to Geneva to Alemany.  This is the far away view of the City College Science Building from Alemany.  It's Bauhausilicious.

I continued down Alemany to Sagamore to Brotherhood Way where I photographed this sculpture.  There's a very similar one to it in Fort Mason Park and I thought it was of Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise:

But no!  It's by Benny Bufano.  You can read more about him here.  I think I like his work a little better now that I'm realizing it's completely unrelated to Freakshow Cruise and his Stepford Wife.  I made my way around Lake Merced and then took Skyline to Millbrae.  It was really foggy up there so I didn't get any good pictures.  I turned onto Hillcrest where I got a great view of the International Terminal and a Quantas 747-400 at the gate:

Look it's a Southwest 737!  For a new entrant I see a lot of their planes at SFO:

I also saw this Lufthansa 747-400 taking off:

I made my way down to the foot of Millbrae Ave and hung out for a while watching planes take off.  Check out this cool Alaska 737 that's painted like a fish.  It reminded me of the Alaska MD-83 that nosedived into the Pacific Ocean off Pt Mugu in 2000 that you can read more about here.  Probably not what they intended:

A Singapre 777-200ER heading off for Seoul before continuing on to Singapore.  I tooj this flight in 2000 when I went to Korea for my brother's wedding.  The aircraft was an A340-300 then.  Much cooler looking than the ubiquitous 777 today.

A Delta 767:

The tide had gone out at the park and the birds were busily snacking on whatever it is that lives in the mud:

Cool corporate jet landing:

An American MD80:

A United 777 or 767.  I think 777:

An Airtran 737

A SkyWest turbo prop.  I've met a SkyWest flight attendent.  And he was C-R-A-Z-Y!  Even by my standards.

Another view of the salt marsh surrounding the airport:

Three shots of a Frontier Airbus coming in for a landing:

A parallel landing--  those two planes are not landing on the same runway:

I left the park and got a close view of this United 737 as I headed North up McDonnell Road:

I continued up McDonnell to San Bruno Ave and then headed up that.  Millbrae and South San Francisco are cute little towns with little downtown areas that you might like to visit.  San Bruno, conversely, is kind of dumpy.  Maybe the new BART station will change that.  Because it needs to work on that.  I followed San Bruno Ave to Cherry where I found this cool building that made me forget all about how crappy the rest of the town was:

And I even got a great shot of an Air China 747-400 headed for Taipei:

I took Cherry to Sneath and then headed into the Golden Gate National Cemetery.  There were stern signs saying no tourists, no biking, no jogging, and no picnics.  I didn't want to end up at Gitmo so I just took a few pics at the entrance and left:

I made my way back up to Skyline and came back into town.  The weather was much nicer at Ocean Beach than down on the peninsula and the Surferlicious surfers were everwhere:

I headed up Taravel. I got this pretty peek of Saint Cecilia's from Taravel at 19th Ave:

I continued up Taravel to Dewey to 7th Ave to Clarendon.  These goats are hard at work on the Laguna Honda Hospital Grounds clearing away brush.  I'm just guessing that after this meal about half of them were heroin addicts:

I took Clarendon to Twin Peaks to 17th to Roosevelt to Levant to States and then into the dog park because Sofi and Rufus were playing there.  I love Sofi. She's so sweet.  But she can totally administer the smack down if Rufus tries to play to hard with her.  Old School.

My legs in shadow with Rufus.  As you can see, I have legs that go all the way down to my ankles and even then they're only resting.

Here's Sofi showing him who's boss:

We headed home for dinner.  Our bathing suits for our trip to Hawaii arrived!  They must have been delivered to a neighbor because we just got them.  Jeff's looks great on him but mine is a little snug so I'm going to need to lose a little weight before I go.  Lousy metabolism.  After dinner, Rufus was totally wiped out thanks to my girl Sofi.  This is why she's my favorite:

Total bike mileage:   46.8

Saturday, September 22

I woke up at 5AM to lightning.  I thought about it, decided "no biking for me!", and went back to bed.  By the time I finally rolled out of bed at 7:30 (what am I a rock star??) the rain still hadn't stopped.  We went to the grocery store and then took Rufus to the vet to get weighed so they would know what size heartwork pill to give him.  He's at 45 pounds, less than I thought he would be.  After we got back I had to get my hair cut and I decided to incorporate a long walk into it.  Jeff dropped me off in the Panhandle and I walked Masonic to Presidio.  This is the exterior of the Muni building on Presdio at Post:

I headed up Presidio into the Presidio.  This is the view towards the ocean and you can make out the big dome of the synagogue on Arguello:

I walked throught the Presidio and ended up on Lyon St.  This is the view down the beautiful Lyon St. Steps towards the Marina:

Say hello to Senator Feinstein:

I started walking down Broadway.  The view is really pretty.  This is the view north:

You can see the Transamerica Pyramid peeking out over Russian Hill:

And another view down to the Marina.  I rode up this hill last week!

I made my way over to Fillmore St and got on Bush and started heading downtown.  This house on Sutter is either really old or was built in an old fashioned style.  It looks 1870's to me:

I took Bush down to Van Ness where I encountered a curious mix of protest and exercise.  This demonstration is on the move:

I walked down Sutter to Grant to get my hair cut.  Which took forever as usual.  But it takes a long time to make me beautiful. A looooonnnggg time.  After I left I went to the new Barney's on Stockton.  I don't know that I was impressed.  It isn't a large store.  And it's kind of warren-like with each of the floors stuffed with merchandise and the stairs of the three upper floors are kind of hard to find.  It has a small, anemic beauty section in the basement that has Sensai stuff in it which is nice.  Sensai is a Kanebo brand (their most expensive line I think) and I'm fascinated by Japanese skin care.  But it was swarmed by vulturish shoppers hungry for beauty and I dared not pick up a tester lest I lose a finger or two.  So I headed upstairs.  The staircase that links basement with the first and mezzanine floors if breathtaking.  It looks beautful, it feels beautiful, and it's fun to walk on.

The mezzanine level has womens shoes on it.  Some of them resembed medieval torture devices.  I chuckled at the miu miu ballet flats.  Didn't all those photos of drug addled Amy Winehouse's blood stained ballet sliipers effectively kill that trend??  But I love her.  And I even love her loser druggy "I'll slash my wrists if you leave me" husband Blake.  And I don't think it's clear if he was making that threat to her or to the bag of heroin that she was holding.  I remember making a similar threat to a bag of donuts once at Bob's Donuts on Polk Street.  That's when I knew I'd hit rock bottom.

I kept moving up towards the men's department.  There's a great view up O'Farrell from the staircase on the third floor:

I don't know about the men's department.  I do know that every fag in San Francisco who's tryin' too hard was there trying to fashion victim themselves into pseudo-notoriety.  There was some nice stuff there, but you have to wonder who's really wearing all this stuff in San Francisco outside of east coast transaplants and the guy from the Givenchy counter at Saks Fifth Avenue.  It seems like Rolo comes a lot closer to showing clothes that people here are actually wearing.  Here's the view of the building as I left.  It looks a lot like the old FAO Schwartz sign.  I wonder if that's accidental.

I headed over to my friend Wilfredo's house to walk his dog for him.  Clancy is such a love but I forgot to get a picture!  He looks like the monseter from Where the Wild Things Are.  Then I went home and dinner and went to bed.  Beauty is exhausting.

Friday, September 21

After work I headed out Geary to Polk to Sutter to Fillmore to Sacramento to Arguello to Lake.  I turned out in the 20's and went over to the Holy Virgin Cathedral at Geary and 25th Avenue.  There's not a lot like it in San Francisco and it's highly detailed:

The Holy Virgin:

And her back up singers:

I headed into Golden Gate Park and came out in the Haight.  I took Frederick to Cole to Carmel to Corbett home.  It started raining (!) right after I got home but it didn't last very long and I managed to get the dogs out for a walk before it started up again.  Total bike mileage:  30

Friday, September 21

It was a lot warmer this morning than yesterday.  I rode out Corbett to Portola to Woodside to Dewey to Taravel and then I got on Santiago at 14th ave and took that to the ocean.  It's so different than Taravel even though it's jsut one street away.  I got on the bike path at Ocean Beach and I'm glad I did because the place was teeming with surferlicious surfers.  I totally felt like a chester taking pics of them but there you go....

And the view of to Marin Headlands from the ocean:  

And me enjoying that view:

I rode in through Golden Gate Park and rode out at the Rose Garden and rode Cabrillo to McAllister to Parker to Golden Gate.  I then proceeded to get pulled over by a cop for blowing through stop signs on Golden Gate.  Ouch!  He threatened to give me a $204 ticket and apparently it's points on your drivers license as well.  Luckily I just got a warning.  Although the cops can be kind of prickly about stuff like this in Marin, this is the first I've heard of it in San Francisco.  I kind of assumed that nobody would hassle me unless I had a submachine gun in one hand and a hypodermic in the other.  But he was totally right and I need to be more mindful of stop signs.  I continued down Golden Gate without further incident and then rode into work.

Over lunch I headed into Japantown to go to the Shiseido store.  This cool building is at the corner of Laguna and Sutter:

I totally made the Shiseido lady cry by inquiring about the whereabouts of the dog who was usually at the store who , I found out, is unfortunately no longer with us.  I took this photo of him about a month ago.  Poor baby:

Thursday, September 20

I headed off after work up Columbus into North Beach.  This fantastic mural is painted on a building on Columbus.  It's a little kitchy but I love it anyway.  All it's missing is a gigantic me waving to San Francisco.....

This is Saint Francis of Assisi on Columbus at Vallejo.  It's always the poor cousin to Saints Peter and Paul just down the street which is so much nicer.  But then again those two really seem to care an awful lot about decor.  I'm just sayin....

I continued down into Fisherman's Wharf and got this shot across Aquatic Park to Alcatraz and Angel islands:

I went over Fort Mason and into the Marina.  This fabulous 50's motel is on Laguna and Greenwich:

I made my way over to Allyne Park on Green at Gough.  It's much larger than it seems to be from the street and seems to be a popular dog destination:

This one looks like Mimi!  Without all the rage and the biting, of course.

The park has a little garden area that faces Green Street:

I took Green back to Octavia to Union to Pierce and then started climbing.  This fabulous building is on Pierce at Union.  It's so cool and so incredibly detailed:

This fantastic house was up a block on Pierce.  It looks maybe 1870's to me....  It was probably originally on a much larger piece of land and also much closer to the water since the Marina is mostly filled in:

And look at the detail:

This is the view from Pierce and Broadway.  As you can see, I did a lot of climbing to get there:

I took Pierce to Jackson to Scott to Duboce to Castro to 17th and then home.  Total bike mileage:  30

Thursday, September 20

It was still pretty cool this morning but thankfully not as windy as last night.  I rode out Cobett to Portola to Woodside to Dewey to Taravel to 15th Ave and then down to Vincente and Saint Cecilia's .  I'm fascinated by the ornate bell tower at Saint Cecilia's because it's so beautiful and so intricately detailed:

Then I continued down Vicente to the ocean and came up the Great Highway to Geary and up to the Palace of the Legion of Honor, which as usual looked glorius:

This is me with the Lincoln Park golf course behind me:

Then I continued down into Seacliff where I got a nice shot of the Golden Gate Bridge:

from there I headed dwon into the Presdio.  This is a view to the SW taken from just above Crissy Field:

And the Palace of Fine Arts from the same vantage point:

I rode around the Presidio and left via the Lombard gate and then took Greenwich to Steiner to Green Street.  This house must be late 1860's or early 1870's which makes it very old and very unusual for San Francisco because it's got a Mansard roof.  They're working on it and I hope when they're done they will be able to do better than the white on white color palette it's currently in.  I think the left half of the building (over the garage) isn't original and neither is the porch over the front door.

It's also highly detailed.  What a gem!

I continued on Green to Polk to Broadway, through the Broadway Tunnel, which is totally scary (eek!!!) on the
bike even though it's a bike route, to Columbus and then into work.

Wednesday, September 19

It's starting to get light a lot later in the morning so it's been hard to take AM ride pics.  I took Corbett to Portola to Woodside to Dewey to Taravel and then down to the coast.  It was blustery and cool and the ocean was angry looking:

The I continued up the Great Highway to Geary to Palace of the Legion of Honor then down to Lake to Arguello to Clay to Fillmore to Post and into the Financial District.

After work I headed out Sutter to Fillmore to Sacramento to Arguello and into Golden Gate Park.  This is the monument to Britney Spear's nanny bravely setting out to find clothes for her neglected charges. 

  

OK maybe it's a monument to frontier mothers.  But I like my dedication better.  From there I headed over to Stow Lake which looked very pretty in the late afternoon sun:

The Chinese Pavilion:

I headed out to Ocean Beach and started headomg south.  It was VERY windy and I was getting sandblasted (literally!) the whole time.  I saw a British Airways 747-400 taking off for Heathrow:

This is me on the Great Highway:

I continued down towards Lake Merced.  The churning ocean even managed to scare off the surfers!

Then I headed down to Lake Merced.  Away from the coast, the wind wasn't so gusty and the lake was calm:

Some rowers out on the lake:

I took Winston under the Stonestown Galleria and into the Ingleside.  Very pretty when it isn't foggy.  Which isn't all that often:

Then I headed over to Ocean.  This coffee shop is in the coolest building:

Then I continued into City College for my class and then Foerster to Teresita to Portola to Evelyn to Corbett home.  Total bike mileage:  35.

Tuesday, September 18

I didn't have a whole lot of time after work so I rode up Columbus into Fishermans Wharf and then into Fort Mason.  These two Pomeranians were out for a stroll and have clearly had it with all the paparazzi:

I made my way over to Fillmore street and started heading south.  Here is the ginormous hill going out of the Marina:

Here I am looking delighted to be climbing it:

This is from Vallejo looking back into the Marina:

This is the hill I still have in front of me:

This is a Vedantic Society of Norther California founded in 1900.  You can read more about it here and here. 

This is the view from Broadway looking back at the Marina:

I continued down Fillmore into the shopping area:

This great building with the neat curved facade is really hard to photgraph will all the wires:

Shu Uemura:  temple to pretty:

I headed crossed Geary and went through the project-y part of Fillmore which is becoming gentrified and increasingly Korean which is really nice but there was still no shortage of sketchy dudes on the street as I went by. I continued up to the former Sacred Heart Church which has been decomissioned.  The school is still used but the chuch is empty I think. 

Fillmore Street ends at Duboce St.  This beautiful apartment building is at Fillmore and Duboce:

and the detail:

Then I headed home to walk dogs.  Jeff wasn't home when I got home and Mimi really wanted to go so I took both of them for a very long walk instead of taking Rufus to the dog park and then both of them for a short walk. Rufus was ill behaved but he's getting better.  It's just that so many things are so interesting and potentially delicious.  Then I went home for dinner and then I went to bed.  Total Bike mileage:  28

Tuesday, September 18

I got up and rode Corbett to Portola to Woodside to Dewey to Taravel and then down to the coast.  I rode up the great highway and came up on Cabrillo. There's a pretty plaza at the foot of Cabrillo across from the beach:

Then I took Cabrillo to Arguello to McAllister to Parker to Golden Gate.  The YMCA building on Golden Gate has certainly seen better days:

I used to go to the gym there but it was very run down and generally crappy but I'm sure it's still a fun place to stay: