Castro Point/Magnum Force

Last weekend was another weekend of taking the kayak out. This time around though I stuck closer to home and headed out North Richmond after the morning marine layer had lifted. A few weeks prior I had been on a date and the conversation had turned to various Dirty Harry films and SF Bay locations. I had oddly been struck that I had no idea where the ending of Magnum Force had been shot. The near ending of the film takes place aboard two WWII era light carriers (CVE's) and at the time I remembered that you could make out bridge in the background.

I think the consensus of the conversation had been that it was shot around Pier 54 in SF, but it seemed odd and I actually thought it had shot up in Suisson Bay area with one of those bridges in the background. So after the date I came home and did a lot of internet searching and found that it had been shot in Richmond area. It turns out that few military based BBS boards had hit the subject and tracked down two CVE's in question ("USS Badoeng Strait (CVE-166)" and "USS Rabaul (CVE-121" to be exact). Both had been stricken and sent to Richmond to be scrapped at this time.

The Pier in question (Point Richmond Pier 90)had been abandoned some time later and and over the decades since had collapsed. On one of the BBS boards it was indicated that collapsed pier was actually still findable depending on tide level and could be seen via google maps of the area. The area in question is just due north of San Rafeal/Richmond Bridge and part of it had been opened as a state park. I had actually once kayaked the area several months prior but had no idea of it's background at the time.

Anyway, so last weekend I took the kayak out to re-explore this area. I easily found the old pier, or what was left of it. Landing at the base of the pier wasn't that easy due to all the rocks and that it was all fenced off too (not open to the public). I kind of expected the state park rangers to show up and kick me out too. Oh well. The rest of the trip was kind of boring and the wind was kind of killer too, so kayak never tracked well in the water always wanting to veer starboard or larboard depending on where I was in the water. I also kept having my left foot fall a sleep. Ugh, which sucks.

Kayaking Hunters Point

With the nicer weather and a long weekend I tempted by the bay and pulled the kayak out of storage and headed over to Islias channel in SF to take the kayak out for few hours on the water. I circled the small bay getting my bearings and expecting my left foot to fall asleep (it always does). So after about 15 minutes of paddling I had to put in and let the blood get back into my leg again

After I could feel my foot again I headed straight out of Islais channel, past piers 80, 90 and 94, pulling south past pier 96 where the US navy parks SS Petersburg (reserve fleet). I've pasted this ship once before about a ear ago and I've never seen anyone on board. I did keep my minimum distance away as I pasted it. But I did stop to take a few photos from the new to me Nikonos. From what I've read, the SS Petersburg is a refueling ship that the Navy has owned since the mid 60's.

The next leg of the trip took me across Lash Lighter and Indian Basin. I'm not that fond of this part of the paddle generally due to the west to east winds that take toll on my paddling. But I guess I was lucky as the winds were not that strong as a whole and about 20 minutes later I had passed across and rounded into the old SF Bay Navy yards.

At the very norther end of the base is a set of 3 dry docks that used to handle repairs on Destroyer, cruisers and submarines. None of the dry docks are in great shape these days and the long caisson that would normally have been in front of the three docks looks to have sunk with noticeable holes in it. Oh well. After exploring the larger of the three I had a near mile paddle to Point Avisadero to explore another set of dry docks

The Point Avisadero dry docks (a pair of them) are tad bit older and larger then the three I had passed earlier having been build around the time of WWI. The sizes of the two dry docks are noticeably larger as they were built with battle ships and large liners in mind. Architecturally they are also different. They are built almost as reversed pyramids with large steps along each side of the dock. I'd visited these two about a year ago and had planned this time around to try and exit the kayak and do a little bit of exploring. Unfortunately i had timed my visit badly and the tide hadn't rolled in as much as I need it too and I couldn't tie the boat off and exit without swimming. Ugh.

The next leg of the paddle would take me to the last of the Hunter point dry docks and past the large Gantry crane that looms above the base. This wasn't quite another mile of paddling, but did open me up to some of those west to east winds I hate so much when I paddle. I made my way around the large docks that straddle the last of the big dry docks. Back in the day you could park aircraft carriers on these docks and park a Enterprise in the dry dock in question. But today they long abandoned and kind of lonely

The caisson for this lat dry dock was actually located at the rear and it looked like tide was far enough in that I could leave the kayak and start to explore. After finding a spot to tie of and exit the boat I poked my head above edge of the dock I caught what I was afraid to see, about a 100 yards away was a small parking lot filled with cars and trucks. If I had left I would easily have been seen and caught. Ugh. Anyway, dropped back down and used the time to reload the camera. I also used the stop to fill back up on water.

The reverse trip back to Islais channel was rather uneventful, other then reversal in the wind around pier 94 which pushed me back into the SS Petersburg. So by the time I was back at the landing exhaustion was pretty the point of order. It took me another 30 minutes to load up the boat to the Element and I was off to find some food and caffeine. The paddle took me about 3 hours and was just less then 8 miles of paddling.

Oakland Festival of Book

So last weekend I made my way over to Oakland for Oakland Festival of Books in the Frank Ogawa Plaza. Up until visiting the Frank Ogawa plaze, I had no idea who Frank Ogawa was. So now I know that he was a local Oakland politician, but really other then that, no idea (BTW That's a bust of Frank above). Anyway I was mainly interested in going due to presentation by an old acquaintance (and I do mean acquaintance) from my AMIA days. His presentation was showing various home movies that showed state of Oakland over the years entitled Lost Landscapes of Oakland. Year and years ago I used to regularly go to AMIA annual meeting and have to say that catching any of Rick's presentations was always a treat. So the chance to catch a new presentation was definitely a treat, but it also turned out he had cut it down to match the schedule of festival, so now of course I want to see the full presentation. Oh well (Rick and Alex below)

The second presentation I caught was with Ben Fong-Torres who is best known outside of bay area as the guy at Rolling stone in movie "Almost Famous". Actually before the presentation that was all I knew of him. As you can tell most of my interest in the festival wasn't really book related, but mostly history based. I blame that stupid BA I have History for it. Oh well. Anway more at Ben Fong-Torres

I spent the rest of my time attempting some street photography, which is aquward to say the least to me. You can see some of those photos below.

Leica m240 + 35mm f2 biogon in the atrium of Oakland City Hall

Leica M240 + 28mm f2.8 Canon in ltm

Aquward shot again from the M240 and 35mm f2 Biogon

C'est La Vie in BW at the SF Leica Store

So last Thursday night I went on Sf to catch the gallery opening of Vladimir Panasenko, a long time street photographer of many many years who primary can be found on Market street" in Sf taking photos or the world around him. Up until a few weeks ago I had never heard of him let alone seen his work. After a few google searches I quickly figured out that 1)that his work was a lot better then mine (duh). 2) he's been shooting for a few decades. 3) His work is pretty raw, meaning he doesn't suger coat his work in any way shape or form. 4) What the hell did he do to those M2 Leica's he shoots on?

As usual I brought along a camera, actually it was 2. I didn't shoot too much this time around, but mainly wanted to shoot the rest of a roll I had in the M3 and wanted to use my favorite unused lens the MS Optical 50mm f1.1 Sonnetar. I was able to shoot a few cells after getting off BART and running into a pretty decent violin player at work Busking in BART atrium. 10 minutes later I was SF Leica and run into a few faces I knew. After a 5 or so minutes I had a chance to see two of Vlad's M2's that the gallery had on display. Vlad apparently likes de-chrome his Leica's and then modify them and the lenses he uses. Most of the time he he shoots as quickly as possible, so this means zone shooting. He also added a small timming belts to the lenses so he he can feel the modified belts for distance. It oddly made sense. He also liked to modify and name his cameras and the two he had on display were "Mickey and Minnie." Afterwards it was time to see the silver gelatine prints. All were full frame and in groupings of subjects. So the first group was "women at work" series of street shots with most shot on various 50mm lenses. His work was very good, but didn't quite reach technical level of Winogrand. Winogrand's ability to get close and use wider angle lenses brought more of sense of intimacy to his work, while the longer 50mm work had more of a hunt feel to it. That also having been said, Vlad was far daring when it came to subject matter and wasn't afraid to show life along Market street as dirty as he could find it. From very out of the closet gay S&M partners out for a stroll, to drug addicts and prostitution.

Afterwards a few of us took in a drinks at Irish Bank just down the street. For more info try Here or better yet, go into SF Leica and see the prints

Spring Scoot 21

So last year due to work I had to skip Twist and Play's Spring Scoot 20. I know I missed out on wee bit of fun, so I made sure to get the time off I needed to years well ahead of schedule so I could make #21. I even spent the previous weekend re-registering my Vespa 180 and doing a boat load of maintenance on it. One of the things I discovered was that it appeared my carburetor had become warped as the slide would stay open every time I kicked over the scooter and gave it a wee bit of gas. Ugh, Paddy to the rescue with a newly used carb days before I left. Disaster avoided. Anyway, the drive up to Portand was nice (see earlier post about Crater Lake) fun as a whole and I arrived Thursday night. Friday I spent with family, but as precaution I unloaded the Rally and stored on the side porch. Later on I wanted to make sure the carb wasn't going to have any additional problems I tried firing up the scooter. On the second kick the kickstart didn't return. Ugh. After looking into it I had partially stripped the kickstart lever and without another leaver I wasn't sure if I had bent the kick start quadrant. Ugh. This meant that would have to spend the weekend bump starting my scooter everywhere I rode. Great, this weekend looking great. Ugh. Anyway I bump started teh scooter and no problems with gas flow or the carburetor. I also double checked tire pressure since the rents had a bike pump, so come 7:30ish I was good to ride from SE Portland over to Club 21 and get started with my weekend plans and after a bump start I was on my way.

The initial ride across town was fairly easy and uneventful. Pulling into Club 21's parking lot I was somewhat surprised the very large turn out, espcially as it was lightly raining and Portland was expecting even more rain. Bravo, I for one tend avoid the rain and riding, especially for really long rides, but the night's rides were set to be in town and I was fine with that. I parked and killed the engine and headed into the bar, where I immediately ran into most everyone I knew from Sacramento. After about an hour were off across east portland to another location was the rain began to fall. The ride itself took nearly no deturs so we all arrived at new bar and we all made a bee line to the bar. Much of the rest of the night was spent here, but after about 1/2 the folks headed home, a number of us headed off to Sassy's for another Portland adventure in strips clubs. While I made my way over with the main group, I didn't stay that long. While I always enjoy Portland strip clubs with other scooterists, I'm also old and by 1am I was starting to feel tired and shagged out. So I headed back to the family compound, which wasn't that far from this place.

Saturday morning the meet up was up in Kenton hood of Portland. Oddly enough the day started off with a bit of sunshine and as such the amount of scooters present was actually quite large. Breakfast was was quick, so their was oddly enough a lot of socializing sent to the streets. I for one ran into quite a number of folks I hadn't seen in years or since I left Portland for the Bay area. By noon though everyone was ready to get on the road again hitting up much of what Portland has to offer in the way of strip clubs and motorcycle businesses with the ride ending up at Yur's out in East portland for a BBQ. Unfortunately for me, I had to head back home before the BBQ so I could get my eyes/glasses taken care of (it's a long story). So I missed this part of the weekends festivities.

So after having to wait an extra hour to see my eye doctor I made it home and prep'd for the evening activities. While the day had been rather dry, by the evening it was wet again, so the ride over to west portland was wet, but fine for me. I think that the only negative thing was having my gloves soak threw and having slightly cold fingers. Although I left kind of on the late side, I was one of the first to arrive. So a little dinner was in order and drinking began. After an hour or so most of the nights riders had arrived and first of the three bands got started behind a pool table. The rest of the evening was a rather unfocues for me as I had a bit to drink. Either way I had long ride home dodging dipshits in downtown Portland.

Sunday morning was quick trip up to NE Portland for another brunch, which was quick for me. This was followed by undrunken Soupcan working the audience for the raffle, which was mildly amusing, but if it had a been a drunken Soupcan, it would have been . . . umm . . . something more? I for one was happy to spend teh rest of the morning socializing and shooting photos out front. That's just the way I roll. Anyway I'd already done the falls ride a few times on the past so I headed back home after the ride out. Lunch was with the rents and by late afternoon I had loaded the Element and was heading off to Edgefield for the next day's worth of festivities. Of course, what goes on the Edgefield stays at the Edgefield. Oddly enough this was the first year in many years someone wasn't kicked out.

Anyway, I spent the better part of the weekend taking way too many photos, you can find them at here

Crater Lake Part I

I've wanted to visit Crater Lake in winter for a few years now. As a matter right before Xmass last year I attempted to do so. I spent two days traveling to Portland and made mad rush up the mountain only to find it snowing and visibility reduced to about 50'. Ugh. So when I was planning out my next trip to Portland for Spring Scoot I asked for 2 more days off so I could try it again. This time around, I had a bit of success (WOO HOO!). Anyway, I made it up to Klamath Falls the night before and found a pretty inexpensive hotel for the night. The next morning at 5am I was on the road to the top. Before leaving I checked the weather forecast and it said sunny and 21 degrees. Hells yes! I was on. I stopped for gas, but forgot about any form of breakfast. Hell I forgot about food (not an easy thing for a fat kid like me too). Anyway, but 6am I was up at the rim and tromping around. The first thing problem I had was the sun hadn't quite come out, so it was a wee bit colder then 21 degrees. 15 minutes out and I was happy go back to the car and get proper gloves as I couldn't feel my own fingers at this point and the sun was finally beginning to see the light of day

for the next 2 hours I headed north west along the rim and snowed in road to get more photo opportunities. After an hour, the M7's meter system started to act wonky as if either the battery was dying or something was going wrong, either way I stopped using it and relied on the m240 and Xpan. My beat Xpan preformed remarkably btw. The H240 developed oil spots across the morning on the sensor. Ugh. Anyway, my first hike was on rather flat road and only some hiking into deeper snow. I ran into two other hikers along the way, one who had hiked out the night before and another who had driven up that night and simply gotten the trail about an hour before me.

After about an hour two I found my stomach rumbling a bit and headed back to the parking lot and hoping to find the restaurant at the lodge open ended in disappointment. Ugh, I did have a 2 bottles of water in the car, so headed back to the parking lot to quench my stomach rumbling. Afterwards I headed the opposite direction towards the south east of the park.

Here I found the snow deeper and somewhat more slushy, I was OK with it, as I had decent clothing on and wasn't too worried about it. I ended up climbing up most of Garfield peak when My stomach started to tell me that fat kid needs to eat. Along the way back I started to feel water making it's way into my left boot, oddly enough at no point did I feel my feet begin to get cold along the way.

Anyway the trip back to the car was fairly easy other then finding my waxed jeans had also soaked threw after all the deeper snow tromping. I changed at the car into shorts and tennis shoes as my hiking time as up. I was also pretty famished and really wanted to get back on the road to get something to eat. This was 11am and to my surprise the lodge had finally opened. I got a few odd looks about the shorts and tennis shoes, but hell my tummmy was happy either way

Anyway, here are some of the digital color shots I took along the way. I of course forgot to shoot any detail shots as I was engrossed on wider scenery. I should have B&W film stuff in the coming week. Enjoy

The Take Away: This American Life's "Good Guys Story 1

So I've been a long listener to NPR's weekly show "this American Life" for many many years. I've actually listened to every single story they've broadcasted over the years, mainly because it's a very good show, and because when I'm doing cataloging work, it keeps me sane. Anyway, for their March 20th show they did story about "Good Guys" and as a interesting lead into the show they did a story specifically about "The Good Guy Discount." The story goes into the ins and outs of actually asking for and expecting a discount on every day things you and I buy every day. The basics are "I'm a good guy, you're a good guy, any chance you can pass a long a good guy discount to me over this sale?" It actually took nearly a year for the producers over at This American Life to actually do the story. The main producer found the whole idea "smarmy" from the start, mainly because you're really asking a total stranger to do and give you a big favor while costing yourself money/work/time over a small transaction to start with. Deep down, this isn't really the behavior that a good guy should be doing. Or maybe it's just moxy? Anyway the story tries out the premise at several different places and in most cases, they get a no. Basically it's not so much a no, but a "we don't do discounts unless they are advertized. 5 No's in a row, plus they go back and ask store folks about it. Most simply don't give it, or it's just not open to most people. They try mom and pop stores as well as chain stores. It's small sample, but you get the idea, but they get one yes in 5 tries and it's a single %5 discount. At the end of the story they straight up saying we shouldn't try this, partually due to what a real good guy is, and what a good guy's real behavior should be.

Anyway, take a listen for yourself
This American Life - Good Guys
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/551/good-guys-2015

Now skip forward to today and I'm at lunch and I'm overhearing a very loud conversation about the story in question. I was shocked to hear what I did, which was 180 of what they were saying. They only heard and understood that if you ask retailers for a good guy discount, you could be saving money. Oy vay, I hate people.

Anyway, here's a photo I took the other evening in berkeley