Tag: photos

  • Stanford University’s Hoover Tower

    Recently I had a chance to visit Hoover Tower at Stanford University, which I hadn’t been to the top of since I was a kid. From the top of the tower you can see not only the campus below but as the as far as the bay if you squint a little. The tower’s design…

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  • The Bay Lights, version 3

    It seems like just yesterday that The Bay Lights first illuminated San Francisco’s Bay Bridge. But it wasn’t yesterday; it was thirteen years ago. Crazy, right? Since the original temporary installation was first switched on, it was removed and replaced with a more permanent version that lasted about a decade. As of Friday evening the…

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  • Gas station explosion at 16th. and Guerrero

    The noxious odor of burning gasoline filled the cold winter air tonight in the area around 16th. and Guerrero streets in San Francisco’s Mission District in the aftermath of the explosion of a gas station’s underground tank. According to Mission Local the explosion occurred just after 4:30 PM. The Shell gas station had been closed…

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  • Aura at Grace Cathedral

    Next to a cable car line on top of San Francisco’s Nob Hill sits Grace Cathedral, a relatively modern church that looks like a scaled-down version of Paris’ Notre Dame. I arrived on a recent evening to see AURA by Moment Factory. Clocking in at just under an hour, AURA is a projection-mapped light show…

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  • In remembrance: KitKat, the bodega cat of 16th and Valencia

    Nearly six years ago I broke the exciting news right here on this very blog that Randa’s Market, the hole in the wall liquor store next to Roxie Theater, had adopted a cat. During the years since, KitKat — who I later learned was a “he” despite one employee’s initial insistence to the contrary —…

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  • I visited a robot sushi bar

    I don’t make it out to Stonestown Galleria — the mall on the west side of the city — very often these days. But when I do shop at Stonestown I’m always surprised at how much it’s changed since I lived out there. Gone are the Macy’s and Nordstrom, now there’s a Target and a…

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  • The mermaid sculpture on the Embarcadero

    The giant statue of a woman outside the Ferry Building, R-Evolution, is being joined by a whole set of temporary outdoor statues. First up is a mermaid statue named Coralee. This is by the same artist who created Tara Mechani, which was on display at Patricia’s Green about six years ago. There’s something about this…

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  • Ferry Building drone light show

    This evening drones lit up the sky behind the Ferry Building along with projections on the building’s tower. All of this was part of a drone light show sponsored by something called Gamma for this year’s Tech Week. While there was no question this was an advertisement — the enormous QR codes were a dead…

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  • How I pack and travel light

    Sometimes people ask how I travel for several days, weeks, or even a month with nothing more than one backpack. In this post I explain my methodology. Hint: it involves laundry. Traveling with minimal luggage isn’t something I ever set out to do because it was “trendy” or whatever. Like many people I kept bringing…

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  • Los Angeles 2025 wrap-up and stray observations

    After flying into Los Angeles via the Burbank airport, my first two stops didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. First up was the Old Zoo in Griffith Park. It’s kind of depressing to imagine any animal larger than a mouse feeling at home here. The park itself was also partly roped off for construction,…

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