Fireworks! Kaboom! Zoweee!
Thank you to the ghods of baseball. Beautiful.
I’d’ve snapped pics but the camera is um. dyspeptic when it comes to fireworks.
I wish there was a service that could nudge me when there are upcoming fireworks displays.
There were =no= boats out on the bay for tonight’s ‘works. We might’ve walked down to the piers if we’d known they were happenin’.
“Well? Did you climb?” Arleen asked. …
Back on July 4th, I wrote both here and on Twitter about the primo closeby viewing spot: the roof of the building next door. To get to it I’d have to climb up onto our roof, step across to the neighbors’ roof and then reverse the process (after dark) to get back to safety.
Did I finally in the end do it?
No.
I’m not terrific with heights to begin with. I’m not terrified, exactly. I just have lousy balance and a vivid imagination (and a fear of winding face smack on the ground).
The maneuver is relatively easy for someone with a good head for heights, which I don’t have, but my situation is made even less comfortable by my imagination, which has me tripping clumsily, losing my balance and falling into the lightwell between the buildings and landing, body broken, five stories down with no way to get out of the lightwell except to have rescuers on the roof with ropes to haul me back out.
Um. So, no.
I had climbed up on our roof while it was still light out. From there to the neighbor’s roof is (relatively) easy peasy and shivered me timbers. I had a nerve wracking time turning around and backing down the high ladder that had taken me to the rooftop to begin with.
I did watch from the north-facing bedroom window. For the major part of the fireworks, the view was okay, more than okay being as I was watching from within the safety of my place.
If you look carefully at the pictures, you can see the buildings to the west of us that block views of the fireworks, you can see a glowing blob on the left side of the picture which is a blurry Alcatraz, you can see a zillion lights from the thousands (it seems, at least) of boats that are out in the Bay for the fireworks, and you can see our neighbors’ fire escape, which also blocks the fireworks views a bit.
The roof really is a cleaner more spectacular view, but …
The fireworks barge, however, was drifting east, probably due to an incoming tide. As the show went on, I had to crane my head further and further to the west (left) to keep the fireworks in view.
Finally, our neighbors’ building blocked the view so much that I went out onto the deck (on the east side of the same level) and craned my head east and watched as the barge and its fireworks slowly came into better view. My view was pretty good for the finale. Not as good as the view his nibs and one of the neighbors were having from the roof, but good enough for this scaredy cat.
We watched legal and illegal fireworks on the Embarcadero and the east edge of town, on Treasure Island and Yerba Buena and at points in the East Bay for another hour or so before calling it a night.
This week’s visitor has its Fourth of July flags flying.
Still trying to decide whether to try climbing on the roof to watch the fireworks this year. Last year I chickened out when I saw how far the drop down from the edge was. No railings!
254 homes destroyed. According to the Stanford update, all of the camp staff members with houses in the area came through with houses intact.
Cause of fire: illegal campfire in an area where campfires are never never ever allowed.
Some times you just have to wonder.
I was at the Mayor’s confab on Saturday re Muni and other public transportation issues. The meeting was pure theatre. Some interesting points were made. Some points seem lost to the assembled. I was impressed with Nat Ford, new executive director of the Municipal Transportation Agency.
At one point in the meeting, Gavin asked the city staff present, “How many of you rode public transportation here.” A sizable number raised their hands. The follow up question, which wasn’t asked, is “How many of you didn’t ride public transportation here, and why not?”
As an example of parochialism and selective deafness, an inability to hear what people are saying (Why were so many people along the 9X and 30 routes thrilled to death with the thought of the Central Subway?) I note the following in The N-Judah Chronicles.
Greg writes, “There were many ironies surrounding this meeting – from the chaotic traffic mess on Stockton Street I ran into, trying to get back to Market St. to …”
I just had to comment (and I did but being as the comments over there are vetted before they’re posted, my oh-so-marvelous words seem to have been ash-canned, alas …):
I walked home (call it Union and Montgomery) from the meeting and had no problem with traffic or issues or problems.
Chaotic traffic messes on Stockton are the norm. Those issues were brought up at the meeting. Big surprise? Problems on the 30 and the 9X? Who knew?
Those in the nose know the Stockton issues and avoid Stockton or just deal with it.
Welcome to our world. Sorry the out of district folks had a problem.
The only transit line that I’ve ridden that can get almost as bad as the 30 Stockton going up Stockton is the 14 Mission going up Mission. I do realize that everyone has their pet peeves about public transit, but to say there was a chaotic traffic mess on Stockton after the meeting (like there isn’t a chaotic traffic mess on Stockton most any day most any time of the day?) just shows how deaf some people at that meeting were to attendee comments re the 30 Stockton, the 9X, the 45 and the 41.
Traffic from North Beach through Chinatown toward downtown and further is a mess, people. Add some more buses. Run shuttles through the Stockton corridor. Do something.
I’m just glad I can catch the buses at Washington Square Park because the folks who get on in Chinatown get squished in tighter than you’d think possible, with few straps or poles to hang onto. Not pretty.
Bumped into one of our local Realtors last night at the annual Best of the Bay Area fundraiser/party/see-and-be-seen.
We’d last seen Jeffrey at an open house down the way on Sunday. We’d poked through the place. Three units. Top unit is vacant and has been rehabbed. We introduced ourselves to a new tenant/neighbor who moved in less than a month ago into the middle unit. Tenant/neighbor works at Linden Labs and can walk to work. His unit is in a more original state than the vacant upper unit. We didn’t see the bottom unit.
Last night Jeffrey told us the place we’d been through was in escrow.
$1.395m.
Eight days on the market before getting a signed offer.
Downturn anyone?
StumbleUpon – SalT’s StumbleUpon Web site reviews
Since I started with StumbleUpon umpty ump (March 17, 2004) years ago, I’ve rated 1777 sites and, must admit, sometimes spend months without checking in. These days I not only put links on my blog but also put links on Tumblr and links on del.icio.us and, sometimes, on StumbleUpon.
I’m not dutiful about my StumbleUpon duties.
Obviously. …
Just came across starspirit, who has rated 124,289 sites.
Zounds. Even gmc has only rated 17962 but then he’s been busy building SU into something eBay wanted to buy.
Interesting app especially now. Everyone’s weirded out about “them” knowing where we are and what we’re up to. Sure! Use Plazes! Tell the world!
“You have no privacy. Get over it.” as Scott McNealy famously said a few years back.
Check out the TechCrunch article from earlier this month — Plazes CEO Busted By His Own Product — for a sample of what’s in store.
The fire’s jumped the fire break and is down at Emerald Bay Road. Propane tanks exploding. All hell and all that breaking loose. Fire folks are evacuating Tallac Village.
Or, being a girl, I could’ve been named for Ichabod Ebenezer Fiske’s grandmother — Mehitable Fiske.
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