Did the Suicidal Nut Job Change Your Day?

I apologize for that headline, the man being referenced is officially "mentally unstable," it was cruel and heartless of me to refer to him as a nut job. It seems in response to family issues he took his SUV, armed with red flashing lights (security guard) onto the Bay Bridge early this morning. He then stopped in traffic, got out with a handgun and a cell phone and proceeded to call police and a radio station, his actions caused the bridge traffic to be shut down for several hours. He eventually threw the gun into the bay and surrendered to police.

Tens of thousands of commuters had their days changed. Workers were late to the office, students missed classes, dentist appointments had to be rescheduled, someone leaving San Francisco in a U-Haul truck intent on moving back to the midwest felt the hand of the god of traffic telling them not to go. I missed breakfast with my friend M who was coming over from the City, she eventually just gave up and turned back. I took an uncommonly early shower but I got the text message while still dripping and nekkid, so at least I didn't waste a change of clean underwear. I just put on a just laundered cotton writing outfit and went back to my current story and vowed once again to have my big mental break with reality while out in the forest alone. 

If you have an existential crisis in the woods, does anyone hear your soul searching?

Two notes for locals and architectural historians:

Note #1: Yes this did happen Thursday morning, not actually today. But I already had a post up on Thursday and I really hate to double-dip.

Note #2: Did you take a close look at the photo up there at the top? Notice anything missing? The shot is from 1935 during the construction of the Bay Bridge and not only are there still a few lights to be installed, the double deck of the bridge itself had not yet been bolted into place. And commuters thought Thursday morning was a tough ride.

Atlas Shrugged

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. 

Please excuse the lame, stale joke set-up but you gotta love the punch line. If you remember I wrote a post about six weeks ago on the subject of the 100 Best Novels; I was shocked and a touch dismayed to find the reader's poll portion of that survey topped by Atlas Shrugged. In fact the top ten reader's choice novels included four Ayn Rand books, three L. Ron Hubbard pieces of gibberish plus To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984 and, of course, The Lord of the Rings.


I stumbled on the quote/joke the same day I heard that several independent film makers have actually banned together and have filmed what they intent to become the Atlas Shrugged trilogy, well at least part I. Paul Johansson is directing and playing the lead as John Galt, which conjures images of Dancing With Wolves. Part I of AS is scheduled for release in 2011.


For years Hollywood has looked for a way to bring Atlas Shrugged to the big screen, thankfully if it was going to happen at least it is being done my independent filmmakers rather than a big studio. I really don't expect much from the attempt, remember the several attempts to make Dune into a motion picture. There is a theme to both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead but will it really take two hours or six to delivered the singular idea that it's everyone for themselves?


Hmm, maybe I am wrong here, big Hollywood studios are really good at taking two hours to make one obvious statement. But enough pummeling on individualism, truth, justice and the Amerikan way as depicted by Hollywood.


I am looking out on a stunning orange sky over the SF Bay and the Pacific beyond. I would like to remind my bay area friends that anyone with a good camera and a decent lens or two is welcome to come by over the next month or so, the sunset is slowly creeping towards the Golden Gate and I would really like to have some decent pictures to share here. I will buy dinner, you like Thai?






--
opening quote found on kfmonkey.blogs

Winter Window Weather

For those not familiar with San Francisco weather, I have been waiting for the fog since I moved in six months ago. While the imagery outside my windows remains spectacular, my very first night living with the view was in mid-March or right around the spring equinox. The sun was moving slowly north of the Golden Gate and the famous San Francisco fog was in its dry season. Now as another equinox approaches the fog is returning.

Last evening at sunset the silver bluffs had piled into the Bay like a thick blanket, the Marin headlands to the north had been overwhelmed, the waters of the bay were smothered in a twenty foot high layer with eruptions as high as 100 or more feet. A novice viewer would have supposed an island under those peaks but Alcatraz, Treassure and Angel were far off, these were just billows of happenstance. The City itself still stood out over the lower fog bank much like the picture above, but it floated alone in the gauzy mixture that I know is only a preview of many grey-white winter scenes to come. 

Today surprisingly broke in dull light but fog-less, the rain that was predicted to slide down from the north never arrived. It is as though a bubble has descended on the Bay and nowhere outside of this hazy scene exists, that somewhere just over the hills the world dissolves into a tommy-knocker nothingness. An interesting winter has been announced.

San Francisco Salt

Those colorful waters pictured above can often be seen during final approach to the San Francisco and Oakland airports. They are salt ponds, part of the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. The ponds actually produce salt for a wide range of commercial uses. The vibrant hues have to do with the aquatic life that thrives on the ever increasing salinity levels as the ponds dry and concentrate in the sun.

The refuge is over 30,000 acres of protected wetlands around the southern perimeter of San Francisco Bay. Millions of birds, over 250 species, use the area permanently or during migration. Included within the refuge are 9,000 acres operated by Cargill Salt. They use the Bay salt water and a vast network of drying/concentrating ponds to process salt naturally using solar energy to slowly leech the salt from the ocean water. In the process higher and higher concentrations of salinity are achieved in the evaporation ponds, this process gives rise to marine life in the form of brine shrimp and blue-green algae, which attract a wider range of marine birds than would not be attracted to the uniform concentration of naturally occurring ocean water. It is one of these algaes, Dunaliella, that changes to the brilliant red or vermillion color when the salt content of the water reaches high levels.

Eventually, the water is baked away by the sun and the salt and other minerals are harvested. Commercial uses include: road salt, home soft water conditioners and eventually after a final cleansing process -- table salt. If you have Diamond Crystal salt in your kitchen, this is where it comes from.

Cargill has an interesting virtual tour of the process on its website.

If you happen to live in the Bay Area or are in town for a conference, you can visit the Wildlife Refuge and tour the salt ponds.

Out My Window

Images from week one in the new apartment. Again I promise from this point on, only utterly spectacular shots or anything a visiting telephoto lens might capture.

The daylight shots really don't do the reality justice. The view of San Francisco is overwhelmingly distracting.

You can click on any of these for a truly spectacular view.
---

photo credits: me

A Room With a View

There are some visuals that just can't be captured with a still camera. The Grand Canyon comes to mind, the Taj Mahal, any ocean at any time and the view from the windows in my new apartment. The shot above was the closest I could find but it is only a fractional glimpse of what I get to see every day.

Let me just swivel you through my daily view. If I lift my head up from this computer and look straight out of the six foot windows that cover the entire west facing side of the living room, I see centered in my view - the Golden Gate Bridge.

The photo above was taken from the Berkeley hills, that cluster of buildings in the foreground is the UCB campus. The hills are about six miles from the edge of the SF Bay, the apartment is nestled in a tree filled neighborhood less than two miles from the water. Nestled is really not the best descriptor since I am on the eighth floor facing due west with all the building between me and the water less than four stories. I have an unobstructed panoramic view.

The Golden Gate Bridge is another nine miles over the Bay, you can see the two towers in the picture above but, of course, it ain't the same. If I look just a fractional head turn to the south, I see the east section of the Bay Bridge running out to Treasure Island and then the west struts that jog back south to San Francisco. The downtown sky scrapers poke above the island in the foreground, I have a direct view of Russian Hill and the north side neighborhoods of SF out to the Presidio and south approach to the Golden Gate.

To the north, I can see Sausalito, Tiburon and much of the North Bay beyond the Richmond Bridge. The view south would be blocked by the end of the living room but no... that is where the sun room begins with another wall of windows. On the east side of the Bay I can see as far south as downtown Oakland and then with the sea level South Bay taking over, I have a clear view of the mountains that snake down the pennisula and wrap around San Jose and the Silicon Valley.

All of this in the lower third of my view with massive sky above. I have already seen storms crash in through the narrows of the Golden Gate; fog creep up and over the hills and envelope San Francisco; and well, the sunsets will be massive distractions. I promise not to turn the blog into a exercise in solar imagery.

The real question will be whether I have to turn my desk around and face away from all of this visual glory, there is work to be done. But occasionally I will offer you glimpses of my daily visual tableau.

By the way, if you come to visit and you have a good camera with a long range lens, please pack it. I will offer some long range shots from my mini-digital but it was acquired to get headshots of poker players in card rooms and not for vistas like what I am going to enjoy right now!

First night rainy sunset over the Golden Gate.