March 2009 - Panoramic Shots

I've discovered a new, free software program from Microsoft for stitching panoramic photos together: Microsoft ICE.

Click on any of these photos for the full-size version.




It actually works pretty good and I've gone back to a bunch of photos taken in the past and created decent panoramic shots out of them.









This is three photos taken in the Marin headlands, facing wast into the Pacific. Feb 2009.






Humboldt County, January 2009










Humboldt County, January 2009.

Below is Elizabeth at a scenic outlook in Redwood National Park, facing west to the Pacific in Humboldt County, January 2009










Lake Tahoe, SugarBowl Ski Resort, March 2009.

February 2009: The 'Beat Poetry" Museum

Just a 14 blocks (and two neighborhoods) from my home due East on Broadway is the 'Beat Poetry' Museum.

How did we end up there?

Elizabeth and I were going to spend part of Valentines weekend running a few errands:


1. Stop by my friend Anup's place, drop off some gear he left at my ski house.
2. check out the Cable Car museum
3. then go to the Gym together.

We ended up drinking wine at Anups and being too late for the Cable Car Museum and too polluted with wine to go to the Gym. (working out is not advisable even with just one or two glasses of wine)

So we went to another free museum in San Francisco that I've been meaning to hit since I moved here AND stys open 'til 10 PM: The Beat Poetry Museum.

It was a bookstore, a clothing store, a Beat Poetry version of the Boston store Newbury Comics, selling posters, books, music, plus a beret-toting clerk who eagerly asked us what we knew about Jack Kerouac. The actual museum is in the back. There was a $5 admission, but we didn't want to be oppressed by 'the man' so we snuck by the ticket-taker-less turnstile.

One interesting thing I saw in there was the 'Six Gallery' reading of The Howl. What made this interesting was that it took place in the Cow Hollow/Marina neighborhood, just a few blocks from my place.

I actually need to go back: I want to find out if there is any place in SF anymore that has 'beat pooetry' readling nights, or 'poetry slams' like some friends of mine were into in Boston.

I bet the guy in the Beret knows.


There was also a theatre, 8 seats in all that had a loop of a documentary playing on a large TV.

It was not a bad museum, it's unique and far more interesting that some of the stuffy art museums around the city.

I gave Elizabeth the obligatory tour of the nearby 'Citylights' bookstore. Yes, I have been to Citylights and I have picked up some excellent fiction novels there. My favorite: Already Dead: A California Gothic I wish the book was searchable on the Citylights website so you could got a copy from them, but it doesn't come up.

January 2009: Trip to Mendocino

Elizabeth and I opted to travel to Humboldt and Mendocino Counties in Far, Far Norther California this weekend, instead of Tahoe.

This was a part of California I've been meaning to visit for some time. Yosemite is also on the list, as are many, many other places.

I contacted a couple in Eureka through Couchsurfing.com and they agreed to host us for a weekend.



I include the map with the driving route because I want to show just how big Norther California is. SF is just the start of northern California. NorCal goes for several hundred more miles further north. And we still had another county that actually borders Oregon that we didn't get near, Del Norte.





We departed late morning on Saturday for the 5 hour drive, stopping at an IHOP in Marin and a couple of grander sites in the mountains, closer to the coast.

We stopped at Riverbend Yineyards in Myers Flats, CA. We had a 'flight' of their white and red wines (a free 1/2 oz tasting of each wine) and picked up two bottles of red wine, one we shared with our Couchsurfing hosts, the other we left with our hosts.

Eureka was a quiet town, even considering it was a small town on a weekend night. It WAS one of the biggest towns in the area, but the nightlife was very understated.

On Sunday we explored the small town of Arcata, the shorline and the Redwood Forests of Redwood National Park. This was WAY better than Muir Woods.

On Sunday night we did another walk on the town, had dinner at a brew-pub and almost went into a live show of some kind, but Elizabeth left her ID at that IHOP in Marin. :-( No Entry for us that night.

On Monday we started back to San Francisco. The only important item on the agenda was the County and town of Mendocino.

Once you get off the main highway, the road to the coast is VERY twisty and hazardous. The road hugs the craziest terrain and the 15 MPH signs are no joke in certain spots.

We saw more hairpin turns in one road that you could see in all of NH, for example.


The last thing we did (aside from stopping at that IHOP to get Elizabeths wallet and ID) was drive through Anderson Valley, south of Mendocino.

At some point, we started seeing vineyard after vineyard after vineyard lining route 128.



They all had signs advertising tasting rooms. Since it was past 4 PM and these places typically shut down around 4:30 or 5, we stopped sooner rather than later at Handley Vineyards. We scored a wine glass for Elizabeths collection and I scored a bottle of champagne that we opened soime weeks later on Valentines day.

January 2009: Our Mexico Trip on YouTube

Yes, all segments of our 2005 trip to the Mayan Ruins of The Yucatan are on Youtube, in Playlist form:



Also, I discovered that YouTube limits palylists to 20 segments, so the second half of the videos are here:

November 2008 - Monterey & Carmel

My buddy Pete from Boston was visiting San Francisco for two back-to-back trade shows. He had the weekend to himself in CA and was interested in doing some kind of road trip. I suggested Montrey & Big Sur as places we could go overnight, see some sights and see some nightlife, too.

My 'Lonely Planet' travel guide for California describes Monterey as having a cool downtown area and a 'Tourist Ghetto' of Cannery Row, made famous by Steinbeck.

The cannery Row area has an unfortunate touristy tackiness to it, complete with a 'Bubba Gump Shrimp Company" restaurant. It felt like Fisherman's wharf in San Francisco. (Not a compliment)

However, since it was raining when we showed up, we had to find some sort of indoor activity, so we hit the much-talked about Aquarium. It was quite a sight. Lot of sharks plus bird habitats, a 40' high kelp forest, sea otter habitats, all focused on the local marine life.

That night we hit the town and met up with Suzanne, who was a travelling consultant. She hung out with us until about 1 AM, when we called it a night.

The next day we lucked out. It was pouring in the morning, but it cleared up by 11 AM, totally blue skies. Pete and I drove around '17 Mile Drive' towards Pebble Beach Golf Resort and onto Carmel. Yes, that place that Clint Eastwood was Mayor of in the 80's.

We stopped by the famous 'Lone Cypress' of Pebble Beach with multi-million-dollar mansions on 5 arce lots. We also saw the 1.2 million-dollar gold-plated cottages in Carmel on 1/16 acre lots.

it was a nice overnight. next time i'll budget enough time to get to big sur.

July 2008: trip back to Massachusetts, plus NY and NH

I just got home from a whirlwind tour of NY and New England. It was a blast.

The two fun adventures I had were both in NH. I spent the first weekend at 'Tubing Trip 2008' a marathon-party at my old ski club in NH.

The second was a Monday hike to the summit of Mt. Monadnock, NH. This became an adventure when it started to downpour as we reached the summit. It was an ordeal to negotiate a 3,000' descent over wet, slippery rocks and trails that had turned into waterslides. We were soaked the the bone at the end. The lobster-bake back at the house was a real treat and then it was off to NYC for a sales call in my companies Downtown Manhattan office. (talk about a change of scenery)








































This video is near the summit. I put the camera away after this clip ended. We were soaked to the bone.

July 4th, 2008 Wildfires & the red sunset

July 4th, 2008. I step out on my balcony to the smell of burning leaves. there are severla hundred wildfires burning around northern california. So many fires that their soot pervades the towns and cities. A thin layer of fine ash coats my truck. I do not bother to wash it as the soot will return.

These three photos, taken from my balcony, are high-resolution. Clicking on any picture will open a hi-res window to view the full image.

There are three photos because I played with the light a little bit on each one.