25 posts tagged “san francisco”

Started talking to they guy at Blue Bottle Coffee about the strange and wonderful coffee aparatii they have set up at their new shop on Mint Street.  They have a line of round glassware with coffee siphoning through it, a technique apparently created in Kyoto about 30 years ago.  Then next to those, a large clear case with two large globes of water that filter through some pipes to a set of 4 columns of packed coffee.  I was told that it takes 8 hours for the water to fully drain through the system and create a pot of coffee.  I'm not sure where this technique comes from, but I applaud the complexity!

Sarah snapped a picture of me sampling some of the Kyoto-siphon coffee in a small beaker:

One of the only places to go bowling in the city.  If you're not a serious bowler and want something different to do on a weekday night with your friends, Presdio Bowl is a great place to go.  Located in the beautiful Presidio of San Francisco, they have a good selection of beer, wine and booze, (including Budweiser in bowling pin shaped bottles) as well as all the fried food you could want.

The Presidio is a bit confusing if you've never been there.  However if you can locate the parade ground, the bowling alley is at the very end.

Band!  Or, the beginning of new photos. I just got my new camera this week and I decided to play band paparazzi while Steve, Tiff, Adam and Mark played the recently released, Rock Band.  Here they are on drums, guitar, vocals and bass:

Apparently a big container ship (bigger than the titanic, but smaller than other modern container ships says another article) crashed into one of the Bay Bridge's towers yesterday at 8am.  Now we've got spilled fuel in the bay.

Earlier at SFO...

Just got back from the Polysics show and it was pretty amazing.  The everyone in the band was dressed in orange jumpsuits and moved around like a robot when they weren't rocking out.  The lead singer talked/screamed to the audience a lot and always referred to the city as "San Fran-Fucking-Cisco".  It was probably one of the most awesome shows I've seen in a long time.

I didn't bring my camera in, so I didn't get any pictures, but here's a video for one of the songs they played:

Rock!

A hummingbird flew into my kitchen this morning!  I just bought some new flowers for my back balcony and I guess they attracted this hummingbird more quickly than I expected.  I leave my back door open for the cats and this morning I saw this guy flit inside and hover about 5 feet away from me.  He was too fast for a picture; a quick rotate left, rotate right and then left back through the door.  The cats definitely noticed as well.  I'm a little worried now that I've setup a little hummingbird deathtrap :(

This Labor Day Steve introduced Nick and I to the world of disc golf.  I would probably say before Monday I might have described disc golf as a novelty sport like riding a tiny go-kart with a fez on or keeping a puck sliding on ice by sweeping brooms in front of it; you know, games you make up with your friends when you were a kid.

Disc golf was pretty fun though.  Not that those other things aren't fun but made up games tend to lack structure and complexity which make them boring to play after a few broom whisks.  The course we played on at Golden Gate Park, really felt like a real course.  It took itself seriously and that made the game a lot more fun and more challenging than what I'd imagined.  Each hole had a concrete pad to use as a tee off point.  Each tee off had a small map painted on a stump with the yardage and location of the pin.  There were obviously techniques required in order to play certain holes rather than a slapdash assortment of pins strewn throughout the forest.

There are also several different types of discs you can buy that are better for different situations.  Some will cut right when thrown, some left.  This can be very useful to get around the tree thats between you and the pin.  Some are heavier to be more stable for 'putting'.

It was a great day and at the end of 18 holes we all did well, especially for Nick and my first time.  And, unlike real golf, I wasn't prepared to throw all my clubs into the lake.

Sunday was the yearly always wacky always drunken Bay to Breakers race.  It turns out that this guy:

won the race in just over 34 minutes (Gilbert Okari), but hours later, only halfway through the race, people like this guy didn't seem to care that their time was not even close:

What is going on here?  You guessed it, drunken revalry.  I recently learned that this race has been going on since 1906 when it was started as a way to lift the spirits of earthquake weary San Franciscans with a public event that spanned the entire city.  I have no idea how it got to be the spectical its become today, but it couldn't be better.

I always run into somebody I know at this, despite there being throngs upon throngs of people, and this year I managed to find Nick a.k.a Colonel Sanders along with his favorite fast food Rebecca a.k.a. Wendy:

Every year that I've watched this race its always been from the side lines but this year Col. Sanders and Wendy invited us to join their fast food nation and walk with them to the park.  Its certainly a different perspective and I began to understand why people are willing to create enormous tiki bars built on top of shopping carts loaded with beer kegs;  Its a blast and with enough people and enough beer its easy to push your mobile bar and be part of an always, albeit very slowly, moving party.  Plus you get to see all of San Francisco, dance to different music every block and do all kinds of crazy things during a time of  day you'd normally be sleeping in.

For more photos, check out this album:

I'm trying to catch up on a lot of photos that have been piling up.  Here's a few shots of some great looking 6Aers at the Hotel Utah celebrating some hard work over the previous week.  Its been a long time since we've taken off early to relax a little bit in our office away from the office, and it felt pretty good.