laundry day II

weird stuff

We spent some time wandering around this store in Sunnyvale called "Weird Stuff," that is basically a warehouse for aging technology. You can buy twenty-year-old laptops for $5, a scoop of nuts and bolts for fifty cents, and I purchased two packages of ten cryogenic vials (plastic test tubes with caps) for $1 a bag.

There were bins of these circuit boards, which I think were power supplies for older computers. I thought they were very pretty. They are so detailed and specific, with all the different numbers and colors yet they were so mass-produced and now in this bin for $5-$10 each.

ikebana

Over the weekend, my aunt's Ikebana school held its biennial floral show. Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arranging. The show was at this community center in Cupertino and the demonstration room was so packed we couldn't even get in.

boating

Last week I took the ferry to Sausalito for the first time ev-ar. It costs $8.25 one way in cash, $5.15 with this new Clipper deal that I need to investigate. It really fascinates me that some people take the ferry every day as part of their commutes.



I think I need more boating time in my life.

world series

The World Series starts tonight!

We ended up watching the last few innings of Game 6 of the Giants-Phillies at Kennedy's in North Beach Saturday evening. It was very exciting.

the go team

The trip to Yosemite was brought to you by this man and this electric pony:

barkin' up the trees

The bark that covers these trees in Yosemite is cool, maybe even as cool as the red bark covering the manzanita trees. It is all layered and flaky and about three inches deep.

manzanita

I love these trees, too--although some people prefer to call them 'bushes' over 'small trees.' I always thought that this reddish-brown stuff covering them was some sort of tree sap or resin, but it is actually their bark. You learn something new every day!

startling juxtapositions

One minute, we were enjoying a picnic in Yosemite. The next minute, we were in the middle of a wedding.



Few images are as stressful as a bride on a cell phone with this look on her face. In the middle of a forest.

el capitan

Yosemite is very beautiful. I think it is very odd that this is one of its biggest attractions, El Capitan:

triple wind

I do love wind farms. This is the wind farm in the Altamont Pass on 580.

These look like first-generation turbines:



And these look like their newer cousins in Indiana:

s'mores!

One of my favorite things about being in nature is eating the most artificial things, like flaming marshmallows.

love of trees

I love the trees that fill the hillsides of Coulterville, California, in Mariposa County. I think they are some kind of elder, and did a little bit of investigation online. Are they acer negundo californicums? I don't know.

renovations

I have some very noisy roommates this week. It's strange to see people outside your fourth-floor window.

stealth shooter

On the trigger in Chicago.

working weekends

Rose's in Wicker Park, Chicago.

family gallery

Kids look like a lot of work.

dashing through Santiago

When I went to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile last year, I had two eight-hour layovers in Santiago. That's just enough time to run into the city for an afternoon of good wandering, punctuated by a good meal.



This was shot in the Brazilian neighborhood.

pool for one

Heads up, San Francisco: it's going to hit 94 degrees today!

fleet week II

Spectators enjoying Fleet Week.

Fleet Week

This past week was Fleet Week in San Francisco. All day long, low-flying jets circled the peninsula. It was so loud in the apartment that conversations halted, and outside car alarms went off when the planes came low.



I shot this from a 16th-floor apartment in the Marina.

sunday props

I just want to say that shooting football is incredibly difficult. I only managed to shoot three photos all night of someone carrying the ball, and this was one of them. I think of all those photos in the sports section of the Chicago Tribune...and my hat goes off to them. My proverbial hat.

rah rah rah

I shot a high school football game last Friday in Wheaton, Illinois. It was a pretty big game--the reigning state champions (Wheaton Warrenville South) v. their rivals (Wheaton Warrenville North). It was only the second football I've ever been to. I found the cheerleaders sort of fascinating.

my favorite place in NYC

This is my favorite view in all of New York City. It's the Renwick Smallpox Hospital on Roosevelt Island, the narrow strip of land in the East River between Manhattan and Queens. Behind the hospital, you can see the 59th Street bridge, which spans the island but there isn't an exit, which is weird. You can't drive to the island; you can only gain access to it on the subway (F) or the endlessly fascinating funicular.



This photo was taken in February, 2009. The ruins of the hospital were under renovation for the preparation of South Point Park. (Last I heard, it was going to be turned into a café.) My friend and I sneaked in to shoot this photo just as the sun was rising, and we had the entire tip of the island to ourselves. It was a truly amazing feeling to be alone on an island wedged between two boroughs.

Richard Serra

I ended up seeing a lot of Richard Serra this past year--his work, not the man himself. I am consistently surprised at how much I love his work. I saw his wood sculptures at both the MoMA in New York and the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and both times I was overwhelmed by a sense of reverence for space, time, and nature. And I am not usually into "stuff like that."

This is a piece of his that I saw at the Reina Sofia in Madrid. Again, completely in awe of it. Why? I don't really have a vocabulary to talk about sculpture. All I can say is that I went back to see it after I was done looking at the Guernica.



Here is a detail of the metal:

ah, ze french

The beach in Biarritz, France.

phantom jet

I'm hoping for some clear skies today! This is a shot from a Christmas Eve flight to Singapore in 2008. I'd never seen the plane's shadow like that before.

the red door

I can't believe I left Buenos Aires more than two months ago. And that I'm moving back to San Francisco tomorrow.

a time for reflection

I really miss the café culture of Buenos Aires. This was one of the cafés I usually stopped at in San Telmo, El Federale. You could sit there for hours, undisturbed, and sometimes I intended to...but would get distracted by thoughts of my bed.

thanks for waiting

All I can think about lately is how much I miss this man and how excited I am to see him soon. Here he is, making me pasta at my parents' house:



We all know how much I love a man who can make pasta. I just think mine is so much cuter. Yay!

petanque players

Happy October! All of my camera bodies are at Canon for repair right now. I finally got around to processing some of these mediocre petanque shots from Madrigal de Las Altas Torres. Petanque is like bocce ball. And they play it for hours.



What a boys' club, right?