The View

On the way to Tilden park on Grizzly Peak Road somebody decided that, in order to really enjoy the view, they should bring some comfortable seating. And they did.


Recliners face San Francisco commiserating in their abandonment.

Urban recycling is one thing. I've been known to pick up recliners left out on the street. But Grizzly Peak is not a place people come looking to trick out their living room. Leaving your heavy upholstered seating on the hill side is just uniquely extravagant, wasteful, and both lazy and a lot of work.

And while I think who ever left their crap out there is a big jerk, reclining back and enjoying the view would have been nice.


Damp upholstery kept me from experiencing what it must have been like for the jerks.

Graffiti Part II

I took my camera to work for a few days this week to try to snap a picture of the Ira Glass graffiti during my BART commute. Unfortunately taking pictures in the semi-dark morning from a moving vehicle doesn't produce the best image quality:



So today I took my camera with me while I did some errands. Behold, in all its focused glory, pictures of the Ira Glass graffiti.





There was quite the array of Graffiti there. It's part gallery, part get-well card.

Miscellaneous

• Flannery's friend gave us a relationship class on tape. We're listening to it now and the woman on the tape is stuck on a rat-tunnel-cheese metaphor. She's hell-bent on yanking us from our cheeseless tunnel. (Which sounds like a problem for which medication might be prescribed.) And now she's just asked us to change the tape. I believe she means tape metaphorically - some sort of repeating behavior pattern, but because the class is on tape I'm not sure what to think. Yet another reason why nobody uses tapes anymore.
  
• While taking the BART to work I see a lot of graffiti go by. Today I saw a the entire wall of a house next to a vacant lot which in huge spray painted letters said Ira Glass. Apparently the hoodlums of West Oakland listen to NPR.
• Clayton's eye is leaking and he's started chewing on his toes. A friend recommended going to the VCA Bay Area Animal hospital, but I can't get through to make an appointment. The first couple times I called it just rang and rang, never to be answered by anyone. When I called again tonight a lady answered and said, "VCA bayarea animalhosip. I'mtonlyoner anjussatech, caniput you on hold?" I said sure and then listened to 5 minutes of hold music and advertisements for pet weight loss food, monthly heart worm medication, and animal acupuncture. I've decided to take my foot fetish feline to Cheshire Cat Clinic instead.
• Welcome to 2009: Where everything is the same except I have to cross out the date a lot.
  

Join the Police, Park Where you Like

I work right across the street from a Starbucks which is always full of people. Every morning there are double-parkers, people parked in driveways, people waiting in the car while their passengers run in for coffee, and then there are people who work for the city: Garbage trucks, utility vehicles, and police - they park in the bus stops.

That drives me nuts. Nobody else parks in the bus stop because you'll get a ticket faster than you can say grande out of order no whip extra foam luke warm iced water. And it will cost you $250. (The ticket, ice water is free.)

Now, in the mornings I can almost see this making sense. Somebody stopping off real quick to get coffee is going to have a hard time finding someplace to easily and legally stow their garbage truck. And ok, lets just, for argument's sake, say that the cops need to be able to jump in the car and drive away quickly if a call comes in, so easing out of a parallel parking spot is going to be too slow. But when it's shortly after 5pm on New Years Eve and there's free parking allllll they way down the block



there's no need to park in the bus stop. Especially not if you are going to sit down inside and sip your coffees.



Sorry for the blurry shot, but you can clearly see the blurry red curb. Car 2012 was pulling away as I was taking the picture and my phone has a sucky camera, especially when the sun is going down. Also, I didn't want to be super obvious about snapping pictures of cop cars. Next time I'll take pictures of the cop car first, then the available parking.