San Francisco: A Trek

Like any other blog post, you can click on any image to get a larger size (no longer uploading full 12 megapixel photos because of download time, but I will include higher resolution 1280px x 850px photos). Also, I may upload a few more SF pics in the future here, or just check out my other photography.

San Jose Diridon Station

After getting approximately six hours of sleep, I jump out of bed at the first sound of the Ready Set. Excited and worried about making the 7:45 bullet to SF (I hadn’t yet looked at the bus schedule) I make my way into the shower, and eventually out the door. at 6:20 I leave my house and catch the 6:30 line 72 to Downtown San Jose. I get to Downtown San Jose around 7:00, which would give me plenty of time to eat breakfast and have some coffee, so I text Maddie Kirkland to see if she came to school [heh] a bit early so that we could stop for coffee. I eventually get her response, but it was alluredy too late, I was already on my way to San Francisco.

I decide to get off the 72 a few stops early to stop for coffee and breakfast at On Fourth: A Novel Café, but I was greeted by closed doors and a sign that read “Closed Monday January 4, 2010″ so I walked to the Starbucks on first and Paseo De San Antonio. (I should have gone to the one on Third and Santa Clara, that would have been a bit closer). Anyway I get a Vanilla Latte and I catch a 6:50 line 64 which arrived at San Jose Diridon Caltrain Station around 7:00. I go to the station and take some pictures of the

San Jose DiridonStation

beautiful fog that blanketed the station. At around 7:15, i decide to get my ticket, and was greeted by two long lines at the ticket machine, of course I wait in the somewhat shorter line. Both machines were somewhat broken, one machine, (the one I was waiting for) only felt like accepting credit cards, and the other machine eventually stopped accepting credit cards. So after a few tries of shoving a $5 bill into the machine, i get in line for the other machine. With my ticket

The 206 Southbound train, which will turn around and run the 7:45 Bullet to San Francisco

in hand, I walk over to the platform to board the bullet at approximately 7:40. (looking at timestamps of pictures, apparently I forgot to fall back an hour). The train leaves the station on time at 7:45. The train speeds away at full speed (80 miles an hour) and continues this pace for a while. Once we Pass Palo Alto Caltrain Station, I learn that the 215 train has been terminated. and Once we pass Redwood City, the train slows to a snail’s pace. Apparently there was some slowpoke jerk train in front of us, and we didn’t have enough room to pass. INCONSIDERATE, the LEAST he could have done was derail for us to pass.

Bay Bridge from the Embarcadero.

My train eventually gets to Hillsdale Station (where Matt gets on) at 8:30, fifteen minutes late. We arrive at King and Fourth at 9:16, 34 minutes late. Here I get out my camera, (as Matt has his out already, I did bring my Pentax K1000 and three lenses, but they were never used) and we begin walking north on King St. which eventually becomes The Embarcadero. We walk through Rincon Park and pass by the Cupid’s Span sculpture.

Rincon Park with Cupid's Arrow

We continue north to Pier 14 (more on SF’s unique numbering system) where we get on and walk to the end, (but no farther than that). After pier 14, we walk to and through The Ferry Building and stumble upon some kewl guy with his Canon 5D mkii and what appeared to be the 24-70 f/4 “L” (could have been the f/2.8, or even a different lens, the hood was too deep to be the 16-35, might have also been the 35 f/1.4 “L” or the 24-105 f/4 “L”, anyway thats beside the point) they had a macbook, a speedlite and a strobe complete with umbrella.

Matthew walking :)

View from Pier 14

:)

The Rock, no not Dwayne Johnson.

notice the booming sea lion population

Anyway, after we leave the Ferry Building, we continue up the Embarcadero to Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39, probably the most touristy place in San Francisco. Here we got robbed of $5 for a lousy sticker, and took photos for tourists (the DSLRs around our necks really gave it away). Once at Pier 39, we notice the sudden decline in the Sea Lion population and come to the conclusion that Salvador was a bit cold and needed a new coat.

might be related to this anti-sea lion propaganda.

We saw a few other DSLRs there, but nothing like the 5Dmkii + “L” lens that we saw at the Ferry Building. We saw a Nikon Blue Striped lens (which after zooming in, i realized to be tape and that he was from the EPA, maybe there is something to this sudden decline in sea lion population, I’ll post before and after shots).

Fish and Chips

After Pier 39, we go out for lunch at this SJSU like joint probably run by current students, they apparently had a problem serving two people at once, so Matt ordered, paid, and got his food, then when they were done spraying Matt’s food (sorry, no one had their camera ready), the guy there was ready to take my order. I mean come on, there were two guys in the kitchen. Matt got Fish and Chips and I got a half Fishwich (which was still pretty huge), it was pretty good :). After lunch we venture into a few “camera shops” on the Embarcadero.

From Pier 39

Oh my you should have seen the shop owner’s face when he saw real cameras around our necks, he nearly jumped us asking what he could do for us. All they had were overpriced bad camerastuffs. there were some Canon “L” lenses, but I sure hope that the number on the boxes weren’t the prices, because the EF 70-200 f2.8 “L” had a four digit number that began with a 9.

Pier 39

Warning, See-Saws ahead :P

Lombard St. HDR

Then we decide we want to visit Alamo Square. I knew there was a famous park in SF for photography of the skyline, and after a few tries on maps and google, I found out where it was and typed it in maps, and we slowly made our way towards Alamo square. (Alamo square is approximately 3 miles from fisherman’s wharf if you take the shortest route, which we didn’t). :) We walked up Lombard Street and stayed there for a good fifteen minutes, afterwards, we walked south on Hyde St., then west on Broadway. According to my 1600 odd photos, nothing too interesting happened between Broadway and Alamo Square, but we walked through the tenderloins, or as I cleverly nicknamed it “the Detroit of San Francisco”…. “we’re in Detroit… drive drive drive, lock the doors, are the doors locked, drive.” Matt did pick up random Christmas trees around.

Some men have arms that can move mountains, he has arms that can move forests.

We were on foot with at least $2000 worth of stuff between the two of us. We drank at a starbucks, an electric bus “derailed upside down, i don’t know how else to say it, the pole thingy connecting it to the overhead wires decided to detach from the wire so the bus lost power. And a really cool car passed us. Oh and we passed a frosted christmas tree.

Finally, we reach Alamo Square at 4:15. My God I have never seen so many photographers in one place in my life, oh wait, no there were a lot of people with cameras july fourth on Treasure Island, but it was a weekday, and there wasn’t anything special about that day. There were six photographers all by each other, two of them had 1D(s?) with the EF 70-200 f/2.8 “L” lens (I could tell by the petal hood), one had a 5D with the EF 70-200 f/2.8″L” and the other three had what was my guess the nikon equivalent. One of them, a Nikon D2x was constantly pointed at Matthew and me. So we decided to look as professional as we could. I turned on my live view and began composing my shot at arms length away. Then i put my camera down and began snapping pictures with my iPhone. I turned around, and the cameras had now been pointed away from us :) aside from that group there was a couple with the red canon EOS neckstrap around their neck, and another guy with a gray one. I’m guessing SF is primarily canon, because at city hall there was a guy with a 50D and the 28-135 IS lens, and at pier 39, there was a

Nikon D2x

40D with an 18-200 lens, and then the 5Dmkii with the studio umbrellas. I did see a few nikons and ONE Pentax [disregarding the one in my bag], i could make out their signature green stripe. Oh and one Olympus DSLR. I have NEVER seen a Sony Alpha camera outside a camera store, shame too, because they’re pretty good cameras, if paired with good optics. Anyway, enough ranting on cameras people buy. It was just beautiful, and the sunset made white balance a nightmare, (hence the black and white). We get some nifty silhouette shots, quite a few of them, probably more than we did of the painted ladies.

Painted Ladies HDR Black and White

HDR Painted Ladies

normalish painted ladies.

Alamo Square Park

Alamo Square Park

what a stud.

San Francisco City Hall

Afterwards, we begin walking to the Caltrain Depot. We reach City hall around 5:00, and I wait in front of city hall for at least 15 minutes waiting for two “douchebag fixie hipsters” I hope you’re reading this, to get out of my shot for HDR, or at least stay still. If they could do their trackstand right, and stay still/not fall, that would have been nice. but no. I ended up not getting that shot, and just moved on. After City Hall, we walked down Market the wrong way. I was like “either my compass is being dumb, or we’re going the wrong way, sure enough the street numbers were getting bigger. So we turned around, and were lucky enough to get all reds on our way back, (great for light trail photography),

Light Trails on Market St.

we probably missed a few lights because our shutters didn’t close in time XD. Then we walked past the United Nations Plaza on Seventh and Market and took some pictures of the fountain there. Afterwards, we get to the Depot just as the second to last Bullet pulled out of the station. Matt gets a sandwich and I get Pineapple Italian Soda (i love pineapple soda :) ). We board the 6:45 bullet to San Jose Diridon, and it leaves on time, (and arrives on time) and I get home. One of the few treks Matthew beats me home. And I get home. And I sleep.

Fountain at the United Nations Plaza

what a pro.

I left my heart in San Francisco

:)

choochoo

Coit Tower

Alcatraz is dangerous

take your broken wings and learn to fly :)... actually don't you'll probably fall and die, I don't want you to die.

lean to the right :)

Ferrari on Lombard St.

mah shadow

telephone!

kewl car :D

Silhouettes.

Alamo Square Park

doggyyyy

City Hall minus the hipsters

:)

blurrr

caltrain

:D sandwich.

meee. photo credits to Matt for this one :)

here's a map of our 10.5 mile journey in SF

and here's a map of my 120 mile expedition to SF

:)

Bike Accidents, Flat Tires, and Captain Crunch Frapp: A Trek

Armani and I had been planning to Visit Notre Dame High School on Friday with others all week. On the bus home yesterday, somehow Sally and I decide to go bike riding down to Morgan Hill. We get off the 522 at Eastridge and transfer onto the 70 that stops somewhat near my house. He then invades my room and steals a piece of orange tape while i get my camera :) we then leave at around 2 o’clock.

salllyyyy :)

I use my bike (obviously) and sally uses my dad’s bike. This is the first time my dad’s bike has ever been ridden outside our cul-de-sac :O, and we really had no idea how it rides. Sally did a great job keeping up with me unlike some people *cough Matt. Anywho, when we found the bike the tire was flat, so I thought, oh hey it’s probably been sitting here for a while, no need to replace the tube, WRONG. Anyway, I fill it up to about 60 PSI and we head off. We head down McLaughlin and take the trail. I decided to take a shortcut across a usually empty street, well today there were cars well I suddenly stop in the middle of the road because some jerk in a white car only sped up when he saw two bikes trying to cross the road. Sally crashes into my rear derailleur (which knocked it out of alignment) he falls off his

sorry about IQ this was taken at 55mm with the kit lens (no tele this time) and it still had to be cropped a bit.

bike and rips his sexy, sexy pants. I help him up, it looked like a nasty fall, but he assures me he’s fine, shaken up, but fine. Well anyway we continue southward until we reach Metcalf Park in South San Jose where we take a water break and swing on some swings. :D. Then some old guy on a bike falls. lalala, we begin to notice that the front tire is a little flatter than when we left. I thought perhaps it would last until Morgan Hill, so we continued ahead instead of turning around, which would have been boring. Anyway, we continue and by our next rest area, the tire issue begins to become an issue, steering becomes sloppy, and the rim begins cutting the tire. Even with the flat front, Sally can still keep pace with me, (impressive). By the time we reach the Jamba Juice in the middle of nowhere, the tire is completely flat and it is impossible to turn without loss of traction. We got to the Jamba Juice where I get mah razzzmatazzzzzzz and sally gets his berry thingy. After that, we go to Starbucks where I get an iced white chocolate mocha, and he proves that there is a Captain Crunch Frapp. After that, we head farther down Cochrane Rd. We reach a gas station where i pay a whole 75¢ to fill up my tires :( then we make a left on Monterey Rd. and take Monterey all the way to the magical bus stop in Downtown Morgan Hill. Mr. Hanson left ND at 3:00, funny how yesterday played out.

Metcalf Park; he was tired.

love of mine

someday you will die

but i'll be close behind

I'll follow you into the dark

captain crunch frapp does exist.

salllly :)

fear is the heart of love

so I never went back

Falling off bikes, Ripping bar tape, and exploding tires: A Trek, sorta.

So this is the first time I’ve ridden my bike to school, I left at 7:05, the time I usually use to catch the bus, but instead of getting to school at 7:50, I got to school at 7:30… and I got bored and waited, and did stuff, not really. Anyway, after school I race Matt on the 22, and win :) and we eat at Mi Tierra on 24 and Santa Clara. After that, Matt rides around on the sidewalk, learning again how to ride a bike. Justin shows up outta nowhere, and we both watch in horror as Matt nearly runs down a few people, and this one guy on a bike. blahblahblah, well he eventually falls (the seat wasnt properly adjusted for him) and destroys one side of my bar tape, (which still isnt entirely off yet), dumb adhesive was stronger than i thought. anyway, we ride down to 28th street where Justin gets something at McDonalds, and takes the 23 going that way [points that way]. Afterwards, Matt hops onto a 522 rapid, and I race him, for the record I was in the lead :) 522 was stuck at a red light, when going down 21st street i hear a loud pop, look behind, and my tire blew clear off the rim :|

I carried my baby home, i never realized how long the walk was when you’re carrying this huge 20lb bike. I eventually drop it off at my grandmas house, and begin making my way past two in the morning, actually it was three, and I was making my way downtown, where we hop on the light rail and get off at Cottle Station to get to Bici Bikes, where I buy orange tape and 27″ tubes [actually 700c tires, but they stretch], we then go to baskin robins, which we now know to have 40 flavors, most of them pretty much the same. Afterwards, we hop onto a 68, then the 72 and we make our way to my place where the bus driver was pretty fond of our singing :)

we stay there forever while singing songs, eating ice cream, feeding fishies, and other scandalous things. Afterwards three minutes the bus is supposed to get to the stop, we leave, with my computer, tool box, and newly acquired bike parts. We see a bus coming, and frantically flail our arms, and the bus driver stops at not the stop.

Morgan Hill, A Screaming Hell-Hole: A Trek [by bike!]

If you live in Morgan Hill, my apologies, that was your choice, not mine. :)

Plus, you may clicky on all of the images to see it full sized, and perhaps eventually, some of these may end up on my daily photoblog http://awesomobob.aminus3.com

First off, we start the day biking down McLaughlin, then Yerba Buena Rd. After passing the Velodrome, we, Brian and I, bike down the Coyote Creek Trail, of course, he has this spiffy road bike and he does this a lot and is in better shape than me, and I have this old mountain bike thingy. Anyway, we bike down the trail for about seven miles, where we stop for water, and ride swings for a bit, then tried riding the whale thingy, which was WAY to small for anything but toddlers. Of course, Brian, being the gentleman he is is keeping a slow pace for me, (even with his slow pace, i’m still struggling to keep up, we averaged about 15mph for that trip) he would then take off in bursts of at least 25mph and leave me behind, only to let me catch up after a half mile or so. We kept this up for a bit. After a while, we finally reached the end of the trail that took us to Anderson Lake, just outside of Morgan Hill. We looked around for the lake, but couldnt find it, so we stopped in this rest area and tried to contact Miller. We left him this kewl 5 minute voicemail. Then we realized Matt Lau is actually home from vacation. After that, we move on, and I stop, get off my bike. Off the side of the trail was this hawk eating a squirrel. It was pretty cool to say the least. blahblahblah, afterwards, we bike down Cochrane Rd. and stop at this thing in the middle of nowhere for nom noms. We find a Quiznos and eat :). (i’m more of a togos person though -.-).

After eating nom noms, we head over to Starbucks and i get my usual, (this time without the bajillion extra shots of expresso they gave me that one time), i now have 26¢ left. They gave me a coupon for today for any grande drink for $2 before 2 P.M., thanks, it was like 1:30 and I was broke anyway. We sit in starbucks for a while and converse of many things from shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings, and whether or not pigs had wings. We then get back on Cochrane Rd. and make a left on Monterey Highway. Brian picked up some speed and my brakes became un-aligned and my chain was making interesting noises. So after I caught up to him, I pulled over and inspected my chain. Here I hear a woshing sound, and sure enough, Brian’s bike had 9 or 10 thorns/rocks/other sharp objects in his tires. his front tire was wooshing, then he pulls out  rock out of his back tire, and that became woshing. Boy did we make good time to the bus stop on the remaining air in his tires. We averaged about 25mph and got to downtown Morgan Hill in about three or four minutes. I then remembered that under some overpass there was a bunch of crap on the road. Poor Brian, he had just got his bike back from the shop too. We hop on the 68, then the 72, and last i saw him, I was waving him good by as the bus drove off.

epic picture of an epic fail bike ramp

show off, him with his super light bike :(

a hawk with a dead squirrel in tow.

hes giving me that look

lamee.

macro of thing in tire

more macro of different thing in tire.

Alviso: A Trek

Llike any other post, you can click on the images for their full size :).

and if you go soon, you can see some [edited] photos on my daily photoblog here

Ah, so at approximately 12:15 Matthew and I head from San Jose City College to the Fruitdale Light Rail Station, we arrive at the light rail station at about 12:25, five minutes before the northbound 12:30 train.

photo credits to matt

We hop onto the train and ride it for about 45 minutes and at around 1:15 we get off the train and walk up Lafayette St., this time in the right direction (north towards Alviso). We loose sidewalk almost immediately, but continue forward. We then pass “restricted government property” with signs posted every few hundred feet that said,

cinco passing on the other hand...

“no trespassing” with metal fences and barbed wire bordering land that no one in the right mind would enter, its just barren, dead, and ugly. Who knows what they were trying to prevent the public from seeing, maybe they have ufos there, who knows… anyway, shortly after we pass under highway 237 where a military C5 Galaxy, took off from

c5 Galaxy

Moffett Federal Airfield flying to who knows where with who knows what in its belly. My dad says they only use the C5 to transport classified hardware to and from Lockheed Martin or NASA, for everything else theres the Russian Antonov 225 which is apparently cheaper to fly from Russia to Moffett than it is to fly the C5…. hmmm. Anyway, after passing 237, it wasn’t long before we got to Alviso, we passed a few run down shacks, visited Afghanistan, and stood on railroad tracks.

Railroad Tracks Leading into Alviso and Drawbridge

Afghanistan

Afghanistan

After passing through, we walk by DCP’s proposed new Alviso Campus, which looks like its in an EXCELLENT part of town, perfect place to start a 6-12 school because the town of Alviso is just bustling with eager 6-12 graders. Anyway after that, we walked through I guess what you call downtown Alviso, and had lunch at this interesting

Maria Elena's Restaurant

Mexican Restaurant though it looked horrid and pretty run down from the outside, with what appeared to be saran wrap for windows, it looked quite nice on the inside. The restaurant had that charming “small town in Mexico” feel to it. Alviso’s population of about 1600 is 3/4 hispanic, so go figure. We were the only Asians in the restaurant, which give you a good idea at how authentic the restaurant was, its hard to find mexicans at Chevy’s or El Grullo, anywhere but the kitchen, but thats a different story. The Salsa was amazinggg :))) and whatever Matt ordered was pretty good too, we had fun with my new 430ex ii flash bouncing it off of every solid colored surface we could find in the restaurant, probably irritating the locals, but I’m sure the restaurant owners didnt mind, I mean this is probably the first time “foreigners” came in their restaurant in quite some time.

the amazing salsa, chips, and eh, me.

The inside of Maria Elena's

Matt's food, with the flash bounced off the yellow wall

Oh No! Salsa on my Polarizing Filter... Please=Por Favor

Anyway, after eating lunch, we head north along Gold Street, then turn left on Elizabeth where we run into a train, and this interesting ex-grocery store and a kewl amtrak train.

Laine's Grocery Store, 70 years later

seconds later, an amtrak train sped by, this picture was accidently over exposed by two stops, but was saved through RAW post processing

This building was built prior to 1865 when it was used as a general store owned by the Tilden Family until 1912, during the 1930s, it was a saloon, dance hall, and site of a secret Chinese lottery.  and from 1940 to 1960 the building was used as a grocery store owned by Willis Laine who lived next door.  (http://www.sanjose.com/underbelly/unbelly/Alviso/structure.html)

another picture saved by RAW post processing this one was grossly underexposed by two stops

After having the amtrak whizz by us sounding its loud horns as the conductor probably saw us with our cameras on the tracks XD we head down Elizabeth Street. You’re probably wondering why all my pictures had to be saved through post processing, “no its not because I suck at [photography], its because I suck as a human being” (blink 182). I had my camera set up to AEB, auto exposure bracketing, where it takes one picture that is properly exposed, a picture that is overexposed by two stops and underexposed by two stops, I use this setting for taking HDR pictures (which didnt look all that great) or when lighting is tricky, (ie. dark building and light sky, etc.).

Bayside Canning Co.

Anyway, we then head down Elizabeth Street and walk by the former Bayside Canning Company building, 73 years later. In the early 1900s it was the third largest cannery in the world, just behind Libby and DelMonte. After that, we walk up Hope St. for about

What used to be a dock from Alviso's Marina

a half mile, to the entrance of the Alviso Marina, which now, houses only a few abandoned boats that haven’t seen the water in quite some time, the marina itself is now overrun with grass as tall as Matt and myself. Alviso is such an interesting place. After walking through the former marina, we then walk along the levees that border the salt ponds, and the sloughs. After walking along the sloughs, and taking pretty pictures, we head back and make the last bus out of Alviso. Getting to downtown around 7:20, allowing Matthew to hopefully make the 7:30 northbound train. Here are a few images to amuse you :)

Like a scene from Planet Earth, with the backdrop of the Alviso Marina

An Amtrak Train traveling along the slough, the backdrop makes it look like it can be anywhere from the San Francisco Bay to Lake Mead in the Nevada Desert

another planet earth-like scene

a crane with an abandoned Catalina 22 in the foreground

an abandoned Catalina 22

a kewl crane barge

... at least it has a new motor

The ever graceful seagull

matthew not with his camera pressed to his face for some reason,

still no movement,

...yet our call gets forwarded to some far away place and our parts had to come in the mail from New Jersey

a map of our 23 mile excursion

:)

photoblog

is moved here

http://awesomobob.aminus3.com/

4th of July

im too tired to go through all my pictures, took ~800ish? yeah,

well, my tripod fell over, bringing with it, my expensive DSLR, well, anyway, i’ll look into how much it is to get it fixed, but i can live with the damages, its just a scratch on the screen, and a bent hot shoe, well anyway, i’m not going to go through all my pictures, but heres one to keep you occupied,

the City by the Bay

Black and White

Juxtapose

Some Old Car

Friday: A Day in Pictures.

I miss my macbook, I’m using my Windows Box, meaning postprocessing is at a minimum here,

tweet

wheee

tweet

daisyyy

aloevera

rain? dew? no, sprinklers!

prettyyy

The Things People Google

unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 24 hours, like patrick star, (almost wrote stump), you now know that the king of pop, is no more,

And as much as i could go on and on about how tragic his last few years were, i’d rather not, and get to what i wanted to say…

heres a list of a few terms people google to find my blog, sorry to dissapoint you if you googled one of these.

“sunny meadow me on”

“vignette sexy”

“ventral tegmental area love”

“the swine flu song”

“rough sex”

“sexyback dance”

“mountain lions hunting deer”

“mark leberknight”

and, “Forest Gump”