These were actually taken back on January 19th. That was a warm day which turned into a balmy evening. The temperature was unusual for the day and so were the atmospheric conditions. People gathered at the top of Twin Peaks to watch the sunset, and had the added treat of a rising full moon at the same time.
It’s about 4:30 in the afternoon. The van in the distance on the right parked two minutes ago. Never have I seen so few cars on the street. It is Day Two of PG&E’s gas line replacement project. The work crew is parking steel plates over holes they’ve excavated at the opposite cross street, and they have staged a lot of equipment on my block, including a hill of asphalt. Through all the inconvenience, I hope more good comes out of it in the form of repaving streets in the neighborhood.
This replacement project was born from the religion Pacific Gas and Electric got when one of their main natural gas transmission lines ruptured in San Bruno, California. The resulting explosion and fire took the lives of eight people, destroyed 38 houses and ruined the life of a neighborhood. It also shredded any credibility the utility had as far as assessing the condition of their gas delivery system. So when a check of their records showed a type of brittle plastic pipe, prone to cracking, was used in a mid-70′s replacement project in my neighborhood, they developed a program to replace them again. Immediately. And so the hobbyhorses went up the day after Christmas, announcing no parking on the street from 7:00 Am to 5:00 PM every day except Sunday, for 30 days. PG&E will replace the lines from the street to the meters in the homes. Upon request they will move the meter from inside the home and place it outside. I have made that request.
According to City-data.com, there are about 1500 full-service restaurants in San Francisco. The last listing I found of active permits to serve food in fixed locations in San Francisco numbered 3500. This is little down from ten years ago, but it will still take nine and a half years to eat your way through them every day. My friend John G. and I sampled Bullhead this past weekend, an eclectic establishment in West Portal where old and new restaurants line the tracked street. West Portal borders St. Francis Wood and Forest Hill, both tony neighborhoods. A lot of history is tucked away on this side of the city, but for right now I’ll stop with a picture.
Yes, we'd like fries with that. And Sapporos.
There’s something for everyone in West Portal – banks, toy stores, bakeries. Three streetcar lines. A Starbucks that always – always! – has a cop stopping in for coffee. Quick access to 280, a straight shot to the beach, lots of trees, and Mediterreanean views. Hidden treasures include Stern Grove and a big Safeway on Taraval.
I came home from work last Tuesday to find these lining both sides of my street.
Pacific Gas and Electric prepares to invade my street.
The utility identified several neighborhoods in San Francisco with old, unstable PVC pipes connecting homes to their main delivery lines. These pipes are prone to cracking, raising the spectre of all sorts of unpleasant events, and must be replaced. This work has already started in my hood, as PG&E goes block by block doing the job. It involves sidewise drilling under the sidewalk and front yard to minimize the damage to the pathway and people’s front yards. A hole is dug in the street or sidewalk to make the connection to the main, and another excavation made for the house connection. PG&E will repair all the destroyed concrete. At some future point they will also repave the street but not until all the work in the immediate neighborhood is done.
Like many SF homes, my gas meter is in an alcove just inside the garage with a sight window in the wall so the meter reader can read the meter. That’s unnecessary since I allowed PG&E to install a Smart reader on the gas meter earlier this year. I’d already gotten one for the electric meter just before I installed solar panels. (I don’t worry about the radiation dangers. I’m surrounded by so many radio signals from transmitting devices the FCC might require me to issue warning notices to my neighbors.) But I am taking this opportunity to have PG&E move the meter to the outside of the house. If I do it while they are making this improvement, they will bear all the cost of the work. I will get a dangerous interface outside of my walls, and will reclaim a little space under the stairs. It also means my yard will be torn up a little more than it would be otherwise. Fortunately it is mostly dirt, and it will mean more replanting than re-paving.
A household four doors down from me has five cars. At any given time two are parked on the paved-over front yard and the rest on the street. The garage is not used for cars. It will be interesting logistical project when the work hits their house.
Holiday season is upon us and all sorts of activities are on the season schedules in San Francicso. One of those is SantaCon, an event that got its start in San Francisco in 2004 and looks like this.
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The other is eating out, and that was made possible last Saturday night by the return of MotoDad from Germany. He had already put in a request for a steak dinner, and so after a brief dalliance with Harris’ we went to Alfred’s, set in the middle of an alley just outside of Chinatown. It turned out to be a great choice; not as crowded as the Van Ness steakhouses and not as loud as the meat market that is Izzy’s. We had a big expansive table and he steaks were delivered with just the right amount of doneness. I went a little cray with a Bernaise sauce that had perfect consistency, though it could have used fresher herbs, and a polenta that was smooth with great texture. MotoDad ordered a German beer nd I asked for the house martini, which arrived as a chilled glass and a glass shaker filled with the makings. The waiter did the necessary, poured enough of the shaker’s content into the glass to bring it a fingernail’s width from the rim, set the shaker on the table and walked away. I easily coaxed two more glasses from what was left, and the evening was perfect in every other way. Neither of us finished our steaks, bringing them home in paper bags.
A picture lasts longer.
You just knew this was going to be the next thing to happen after the pot clubs set up shop.
Now the food giants are in the game
I had planned out the first three days of my vacation starting with Friday. Yes, I was still at work on Friday, but in this business you have to plan for getaway day else you’re liable to be trapped by someone else’s last-minute emergency. “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part” is a great retort, but if the ultimate responsibility lies with you to provide the result it isn’t much comfort.
I won’t get into the details of the day. It’s enough to say the day started well and ended in overtime. I had ridden my bicycle in that morning, getting a late start from home. Because of that, I planned to cruise in so as not to arrive too sweaty. Despite those good intentions I was led astray by the traffic conditions. I really tried to be good, but all it takes is one rider who doesn’t anticipate traffic down the street and one truck that turns first and signals later, and there it goes: me pedaling faster to stay in front of the crainium-vacant and barking at the hearing-impaired-by-iPod.
My point for riding in was to participate in the Ride. It was the last Friday of the month, the weather was fine, and it would be a great way to start my week off of exploring and relaxing. Unfortunately, I didn’t leave until 6:45 and by the time I hit the street, the plaza was empty and the Riders had gone. I was not dispirited, though. I rode up Market Street, asking likely folks along the way if the group had passed this way. A couple of times I ran across people who needed directions. They didn’t ask but you can tell just by how they stand agog at streets that don’t line up across intersections, and even if thy come close, don’t have the same name on either side of Market. Usually I try to help, but I was selfish today and didn’t volunteer time.
I came upon a small cluster of people helping one person fix a flat tire on a bicycle. That was a sure sign the Ride was somewhere near by – no one ever is left to fix a bike by themselves. Someone helps work on the bike, and someone watches for traffic. One of them pointed up the street and there was the tail end of the group, climbing the hill up to Haight Street.
The Ride gets a lot of bad press, but the message gets lost in the action. Sometimes, the message is best told by a picture:
The mobile quick-fix guy
This guy is actually a Muni inspector. He rides a bicycle around at rush hour triaging broken-down Muni buses. The operator is on the sidewalk making a call.
What will be reported is this scene in the opposite direction:
The intersection of Haight and Stanyan.
They cheered a hovering helicopter that lit us up with its spotlight.
Police copter or news copter? The illumination provides anonymity.
We made our way down to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Warren Hellman’s annual gift of music in Golden Gate Park.
The entrance from John F. Kennedy Boulevard
The event organizers provide parking for thousands of bicycles. All the racks were full.
Racks further up the Drive.
I lingered here too long and lost the group. I rode back up Cabrillo and through the Park to the Inner Sunset, and up 7th to Portola. I stopped at Tower Market to buy makings for salad. I rearranged my backpack and rolled down dark and twisty O’Shaughnessy back home. I still had four hours or so of work to do, but I decided later to park it all until Sunday night and get on with the weekend. And so it was.
