Not bad for a Thursday evening get-Claire-to-nap walk

Roller Derby!

Rather than see a movie, go to a bar or other typical outing, Matt and I joined a BGI friend and her husband for the Roller Derby Championships at Cow Palace one Saturday night. The night featured matches with the San Francisco Bay Bombers, Brooklyn Red Devils and LA Firebirds. Big surprise, hometown Bombers left as the champions.

None of us had any idea what we were in for, so we arrived, got some beers and popcorn and settled into our seats. We promptly whipped out an iPhone to look up the "rules" of Roller Derby and never quite figured out what was going on. I think that's the point? The people watching, however, was superb.

The gals were pretty entertained but the boys, I think, would have preferred an alternate plan for the night. An experience, all the same.

Cliffside Hang Gliding

No, I did not go hang gliding, fun as that would be. But I did see hordes of them one blustery Saturday afternoon when at a dog park with Sunapee. I was heading back from Target and needed to tire out the puppy before he drove me truly nuts over the weekend while Matt was in Tahoe. It was a chilly and very windy day, especially on the coast. I stopped at Fort Funston, a part of the Golden Gate National Parks, which many describe as doggy heaven for its off leash policy, trails, beach access, you name it.

On my approach I noticed the hang gliders and I was wondering where they were coming from. Turns out, the park is heaven for them too, with the high cliff parking lot and windy nature of the coast.

Seeing this was just an added bonus to my errands!

Thoughts on Weather Forecasts

Every morning when I'm getting ready for work, I have the Today show on to distract me and gain some knowledge on current events. Like most people, I zero in on the weather forecast portion so I can be prepared for the day.

Why am I writing about this? Well, because weather forecasts on Bay Area stations are so very odd. Rather than showing expected highs and lows for the next 7 days in a graphic like the rest of the country, they show coastal and inland temperatures. Today's temperature range was 55-92 (give or take a degree). Yes, that's a nearly 40 degree range. So, if you're watching this channel, you have to take an educated guess of your actual temperature.

Further, given the size of the region, they will show a map with expected temperatures in the different cities and towns. This is all well and good except San Francisco gets one number. The challenge is to guess if this one number is an average? for the bay side? ocean side? middle? in the heights? in a valley? It's a wonder I don't carry an extra large bag to hold all the layers I might need in a day.

That said, I'm happy to live here with its weather oddities any day.

Jews for Jesus?

Add this to the odd things you see in San Francisco, I just passed 4 people sporting "Jews for Jesus" t-shirts on the Embarcadero Muni station. Too bad they were too busy paying their fare to hand me a flier, as now I'm curious.

July 4th Hiking

To get away from the fog on July 4th, we headed up to Mill Valley with Toby, Steve, Brian and Sunapee for a 6.5 mile hike up in the foothills of Mt. Tam. It was the first hike for "The Pee" and he was a trooper. He did occasionally express his desire to stop and lie down in the shade but he marched on.

Baker beach

Wednesday was a beautiful day so we took Sunapee to Baker Beach where Brian met us to enjoy the sunset, people watch, enjoy a beer and tire out the puppy.

One of Sunapee's favorite items for fetch is this giant flexible frisbee. It's about 3x the size of his head. He usually grabs it from the center and we wonder how he can find his way back to us without the aid of sight.

Watching the puppy with the sun at our backs. The shot always makes me think of a Steely Dan album.

Dirty puppy.

Sunapee at Crissy Field

I took a long weekend (2 days off) to enjoy a relaxing time while Matt had a vacation between regular school and summer school. We took advantage of the great weather to play with Sunapee on the beach and tire him out. He is improving on his fetch skills (he is a retriever after all) and he loved the sand and fresh air.

Unfortunately, the next day we tried this at Baker Beach, with its rougher surf as it is full-on ocean, not sheltered bay, and this orange rubber stick was washed away for the sea lions to fetch.

Let's Go Mets Go

We hit the Giants - Mets game last night with a friend who grew up in Queens. Matt temporarily quieted his inner Yankees fandom and joined Shuja in rooting on Pedro and the Mets. We both thought of brother-in-law John and his long-standing Mets alliance. I had flashbacks watching Pedro pitch and a new experience seeing him at bat (where he had 2 hits, drove in a run and scored once).


Pedro in action
It really is a neat stadium. So very much nicer than the Oakland Coliseum. It is, however, amazing just how much advertising can fit in one place. Just about every square inch is covered - right down to the cup holders in front of each seat.

Red Sox in Oakland

While Smith friend Brooke was in town, we took the opportunity Sunday to see the Sox play (and sadly lose to) the A's with Matt, fellow Sox fan Brian, and Canadian Chris. It was a perfect day to sit in a ballpark and enjoy an overpriced beer & a hot dog.

Minor Detail

This is the door to Wunder Brewing Company on 9th Ave, as of Monday. I like the big OPEN sign.

A Midafternoon Field Trip

I've been walking by this construction site for over a year now on my way to work. In August, our friend Greg started working on the project when he moved back to the Bay Area from Oregon. We had dinner with Greg and Katie last week and he mentioned his plan to take Katie up to the top. I inquired if that ability extended beyond spouses. It does. So Friday afternoon, I took a field trip away from my cube to 60 stories up.
Greg tells us this will be (is now?) the tallest concrete building in SF; the fourth tallest overall in the city.

The $12M view (the 4 penthouses sold for $12M each - this includes 4 external walls only - the buyers then bring in their own architect to design the condo as they want it).

This is the ride from floor 25 to 57:
Here I should have waved down to my colleagues in the BGI headquarters.


I was decked out. Yes, it was extremely windy up there.

Extreme Sailing

Add this to the list of reasons I love my job. BGI (via its iShares business) sponsors a sailing event called "iShares Cup" which involves something called "Extreme 40". Basically, it's high speed sailboats that race in small waterways that are visible by large groups of people, generally in large cities (see all the videos here). The skipper of the iShares boat calls it the NASCAR of sailing.

Although there haven't been any of these events in the US, the iShares boat came to San Francisco for a week of corporate events where some BGIers and BGI clients had the opportunity to ride. The sponsorship group had a "thank you" day for people who had helped them with the materials for this event - which is how I found myself all decked out and on the Bay.

My colleague took this shot of the boat while I was on it. We all expected this to be a bit frightening, but really it was the best part of the sail - being up on one pontoon with each gust!


Here I am preparing to board the sailboat from the "chaser boat". They had provided all of us with ski-suit like jumpsuits & jackets and of course life jackets (all iShares emblazoned). This is key, because everyone definitely got soaked by many, many waves.


Our cruising spot for the afternoon was the area between the Bay Bridge and a bit south of AT&T Park, where the Giants had their home opener. To add to the fun, we could hear the fans cheering (we pretended it was for us, of course).

Grinning my way off the boat. The ride was too short! The boat then sailed to Alameda where it was craned out of the bay, disassembled and placed in a cargo container to be sent back to Europe.


For all the pictures, click here.

Land's End Again

To wrap up the Fujinagas' visit to San Francisco, we went for a walk at Land's End while Matt ran the same. It is by far my new favorite place to walk or run. It was a great day and a good way for Betsy & Evan to prepare for a flight (short tho it is to LA).