A Day in Pictures

Riding down to the Peninsula

In the Bay Area, "The Peninsula" commonly refers to the southern sea-ward spit of land that has San Francisco at its tip and everything southward to San Jose.

Its also very often foggy and cold on the Peninsula, which is why flying into SFO is often an adventure in flying in circles and a jacket is left behind at your own risk.

I had an appointment on the peninsula and a session to go to in San Francisco, several hours apart.. so me and my companion decided to fill the hours inbetween the two with a drive down the Pacific coast...



Bright, sunshiney East Bay day in The Republic of Berkeley.

I know they pride themselves as being Cause Central and a Cradle of Free Speech.. but sometimes- cant they just stop the noise? Sheesh.





I take a lot of pictures of Beetles...







.. and dogs.



And then across the lesser known, but more important Bridge of the East Bay.. the Bay Bridge into San Francisco.







The Wall of fog over the Peninsula, shrouding the peaks of San Fran








Beetles, beetles, beetles.

Then, meeting done, southward down El Camino Real (which goes all the way south to LA)..



The signs are in chinese and filipino ...




Traffic.. my companion (born and raised in the Bay Area) complained that the ride down that road was so "suburbia".

Reminded him of where he grew up.






but then we crossed over the mountain ridge and headed toward Pacifica, which is where the fog greeted us..













I had wanted to see some of the coastal scenery as depicted in the comic strip "Same Difference", but there was no escaping the fog.











No one out but a lone fisherman and a surfer in the cold, cold Pacific waters...


































Then on back down the road (Highway 1)









Oh yeah, passing a pasture.... guess what these are?







Yup. Llamas. And there were a coupla emu's in the distance too.

*shrug* California. Dont ask why.



On our way down to Half-Moon Bay.. I saw



MONEY SHOT!



Which the telephone lines ruined. Gah.





That was as much as Half-Moon Bay we could see.

On the way back we saw..



Hey. Fresh eggs. Cheap. We thought.

Yeah, the fugger tried to charge 3 bucks for a dozen. Right.

Must think Im from the Bay Area or sumthin.

We got him down to six bucks for 36. Damned skippy Im from New York.

The little farm was interesting, as well as *pung* smelling strongly of shit. Geese, horse, chicken and..



Turkey shit.

"Betsy" wanted to kick my ass.








I stayed in the car.

How rustic was this lil place?

This rustic..














The guy told me the farm was from the early 30's.

I believe him.







So, back up the road to San Francisco



Passing the "Ono Hawaiian Grill" :-)



This is for the island folks, somewhere in the Pacifica area.



Back into the city.. traffic again



A biker chica.



"Mokey"'s car.. driven by an elderly chinese man. Okie.

And then to The Exploratorium, where the YlEM forum (proonounced EYE-Lem) was holding a session on Mathematics and Art.



As in my high school math classes, I was pretty soon fast asleep.

Until this guy started talkin.

This is Carlo Sequin, professor of Computer Sciences at Cal-Berkeley..

Its ironic to be takin pictures of the guy who developed the first CCD camera at Bell Labs, the direct descendant of which I was using to take pictures of HIM 35 years later.

His hobby, making abstact physical sculptures out of mathematical theorems.









After his talk, people came over to the table, handling the precision carved shapes..







It was interesting to see the shape and texture of peoples hands handling the sculptures.























And then the presentation resumed, segueing into a talk about Literature, Mathematics and Dreams, asking -- "Are art and dreams truly random, or does mathematics apply?"











One of my favorite flicks. And that raised the question in my mind.. are dreams and reality truly random?

I dont think anybody really knows...



As this day proves.