Haunted Hospital

SFGH Gate, 2011.

This is a picture of the entry gate to the old San Francisco Hospital. According to the Department of Public Health's website, it is the largest acute inpatient and rehabilitation hospital for psychiatric patients in the City. It has stood on this site since 1872. Coupling these facts with its ER and behavioral health facility, this place has to be haunted, right?

The place looks pretty creepy. Parts of the building even sport gargoyles. The City could balance its budget if it created a haunted house here.

Creepy Tree

Creepy Dead Tree, Presidio, 2011.

In honor of Halloween, here's a shot of  a creepy dead tree in the Presidio. This is a few steps from the front door of our office. Though devoid of life, it hosted a nesting pygmy nuthatch two summers ago; it's also a frequent perch for western bluebirds. 

Fort Scott is changing dramatically this fall: people are departing; the bright yellow chairs that brightened it for a year are now gone; and someday this tree will be removed because it is, by many standards, unsightly. 

But,even fog as thick as this will burn off someday.

 

 

From the Balloon Fiesta!

I had a chance to visit Kev, Kim, Esme, and Baby Girl in Albuquerque a few weeks ago. The visit coincided nicely with the 39th-annual Balloon Fiesta, a rather amazing spectacle of nylon and hot gases, at which, incredibly, visitors can walk right among the balloons. We arrived pre-dawn to catch, we hoped, the Dawn Patrol. This is the pre-dawn spectacle, in which a few expert ballooners drift through the still dark sky.

Esme explains ballooning.

Taking advantage of a secret, free parking spot near Balloon Fiesta Park (yes, the event has its own park (that perhaps doubles as a driving range the rest of the year) and its own museum, we arrived to buy some strong coffee that came with a free donut sample. I imagine that if we didn't have 3 1/2 year-old Esme with us, Kev and I would have probably devoured 5 to 10 of these delicious morsels each. 

One lone balloon was being observed in the darkness. Photographers flocked to create choruses of shutter-slaps each time the ballooners blasted the huge torch. It roared to form a beautiful glow in the grounded balloon.  

But Dawn Patrol was not happening; one seasoned (as evidenced by his jacket, covered with patches from worldwide balloon events in years past) member of the crew explained to those who had gathered that the winds were gnarly up high. I can't remember his exact wording, but it sounded like conditions were dangerous a few hundred feet up, and there was no way any balloons would launch that day. He was helpful and friendly, but his tone reflected the serious concern for safety beneath the colorful, fun surface of the event.

Luckily, we did catch the Special Shapes Rodeo. Balloons were still grounded, but operators filled them for the crowd. A voice over the loudspeaker informed us of the widespread origins of many balloon teams: there were a few from Europe, one from Brazil, and of course all over the US. Shapes included this creepy turtle, Smokey Bear, a Darth Vader head, a two-faced clown, a happy saguaro cactus...to name but a few. I'd like to make this a yearly visit.

Watch a few of these videos to grasp the amazing amount of activity at the Fiesta.

Huge Grabby Turtle Balloon, Balloon Fiesta, 2011.

The Big Year

I saw the movie The Big Year yesterday and recommend it very highly for anyone who is a birder or has ever known one. Although it has its moments of Hollywood ridiculousness, I found myself connecting to it on many levels. 

Three different characters all find themselves in pursuit of the same goal -- seeing as many birds as possible in the course of a year in North America. Competition ensues, relationships are tested, and epiphanies are experienced. 

Fractional Roads, Minnesota, 2005.

The relation to the film and this photo? I've never attempted a Big Year, and likely never will; I really just enjoy observing birds and their amazing quirks and adaptations. But I have found myself in some pretty weird places while on the hunt for birds. One of the locations mentioned briefly in the film is the Sax-Zim bog. This is a slam-dunk birding spot to see lots of cool boreal species if you are in the Duluth/Iron Range area. After hearing about the upcoming owl invasion slated to hit the area in '05, I convinced my bosses to send me to a prescribed fire training nearby so that I could bird here. 

At the Duluth airport, I got my first ever snowy owl. I spent some time in the streets of Duluth searching out a Boreal owl, to no avail. Near Sax-Zim were great grey owl (amazing), northern goshawk, northern hawk owl, and a few others. I had also seen some of these birds on a trip two years prior with the Chicago Ornithological Society.

I didn't get any good pictures of birds (someday). But, in a lull of birds, I took this picture, chuckling to myself at the sheer ridiculousness of the street names out here. I was hoping to share that chuckle with someone -- so now I have. Thanks for reading.

Gross Gum Patterns

Spending time in nature leads you to wonder about lots of things. And it leads you to observe patterns, or designs. Cities don't leave much to wonder about. Some of this is intentional -- who wants to wonder how they'll eat next, or where to dispose of waste? I admit that I do spend lots of time wondering when the next bus will come, but this isn't the kind of wondering that's very good for the spirit. 


So it made me happy when I started to notice this unintended pattern in the city. It's pretty yucky, though. (I've been spending time with my 3-year-old niece, can you tell?) 

Gum Pattern at 26th and South Van Ness, SF, 2011.

Sidewalks near convenience stores seem to show the pattern the strongest: gum blobs dropped near the entrance and blackened on the street. The black dots are more dense near the door. Now, it makes me wonder: is this from cigarette smokers who are nearing the entrance of the store, where they will get their fix? Or is it from the store operators themselves, who chew gum to pass the time, then bolt outside and flick their gum for a quick smoke? Or - people leaving the store, just having bought some Ho-Hos and anxious for that first delicious bite?


I've also noticed these patterns around trees that have been planted on the street. People with bad aim, I guess; also the bad judgement to assume that their chewing gum will just naturally incorporate back into the soil at the base of the tree. Isn't it supposed to take seven years to break down in your stomach (citation needed)? It must take even longer just on the street, with no stomach acids to battle.


The study of these patterns, which is clearly needed, should analyze not only the demographics of the gum-tosser, but also the flavor of the discarded gum. Bubble gum or mint? Juicy Fruit? If mint, spear or pepper, or Double? Big League Chew? Not unless you're close to a baseball diamond. 

American Eagle 3

Rincon Annex Eagle, San Francisco, 2011.

This Eagle is one of two greeting visitors to the Rincon Annex. This beautiful 1939 building lies a few minute walk from the Embarcadero. Once built as a Post Office Annex (in what is called the last great WPA project), it's now been redeveloped into a mixed-use residential, commercial, and retail complex. 

The building is well known in the city for its mural depicting 29 historical California scenes. They were created by Russian painter Anton Refregier from 1941-48. Also of interest inside the building is a really cool old phone booth (which, of course, no longer has a phone). I thought I'd gotten a pic of that too, but I think I ran out of film. I guess I'll have to go back. Going further inside this building, you'll find a Chinese restaurant and rather enormous -- maybe 8 stories high? -- indoor waterfall. It falls from the center of the atrium and is more of a sculpture than a natural feature. Water falls from a glass lens, suspended like a cloud, mid-atrium. I feel like usually when I find things like this, I arrive on them 10 years after the water has been shut off because peoples' practicality has overwhelmed their appreciation for the need of art. Not so here, thank goodness.