Category: travel

Un-Henged

Here is Alison as we bike back from Stonehenge to our Landmark Trust apartment in nearby Salisbury. It’s about a 10 mile trip. We are taking the carriage paths back from the World Heritage site because it is adjacent to a very busy highway that is pretty unpleasant to bike along. The carriage and foot paths, on the other hand, wend through the obvious burial mounds, as ancient as Stonehenge, that sit on the hills surrounding the monument. To either side are flocks of sheep that graze over those grassy mounds and keep this southern edge of the Salisbury Plain treeless and open.

PRESIDIO HABITATS

From: Sanford, Jody Subject: CONFIRMATION: Guided Walk of Art and the Park with Presidio Habitats Curator – Saturday, February 26, at 11 am Date: February 22, 2011 10:41:40 AM PST Thanks for registering for the Guided Walk of Art and the Park with the Presidio Habitats Curator, which is a special program of the Presidio Habitats Exhibition. This email confirms your reservation. The event will be held on Saturday, February 26, from 11 am to 1 pm. Please meet at the Presidio Habitats Exhibition Hall at Fort Scott. Driving and transit directions are located on the website here: http://www.presidio.gov/experiences/habitats/. We hope that this walk will occur as scheduled. However, rain is currently predicted for Saturday. We will be monitoring the weather forecast throughout the week. If we anticipate heavy rain on Saturday morning, we will send an email cancelling this walk. We will make the determination by 3 pm on Friday, February 25.

Actually, it was a totally beautiful day, about 45° but seeming like 60 in the bright sun. About 50 folks attended, about equal MF, ages 50 and up, including women with gnarly walking sticks. My guess is these are retired folks who love to walk in the Presidio on a regular basis, just like me, but my walks have been confined to the Crissy Field area. Cheryl Haines, curator of Presidio Habitats, took me (and others) on a walk to view the projects. Quite illuminating on a dazzling day. (tweet). She’s a nice looking woman in her 50s, very stylishly dressed, and the owner of Haines Gallery. She works with outdoor oriented artists (Goldsworthy and his ilk) and felt like she was well established and wanted to give something back, so she set up the For Site Foundation to do educational public art projects.

The FOR-SITE Foundation (established 2003) is dedicated to the creation and understanding of art about place. This pragmatic program supports the creation of a new work for exhibition in collaboration with partner museums on the West Coast. Past residency and exhibition included Richard at SFMOMA; Cornelia Parker at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; Pae White at New Langton Arts and Mark Dion at the Oakland Museum.

I signed on for this walk because I had been to the Presidio Habitats Exhibition Hall, read the brochures and viewed a couple of the installations but frankly, didn’t get it. Cheryl Haines described it as, “…our little project in the Presidio about the animals who live here.” A (famous) artist would be found to conceptualize a habitat for such animal — Gray Fox, or Screeching Owl — for example. Very cool, very illuminating and a perfect excuse for a walk on this dazzlingly beautiful day. Continue reading “PRESIDIO HABITATS” →

22,222.2

In the New York Times Magazine, about once a month, a spread called DOMAINS appears, about where and how a certain well known person lives. Morning routine, Always in fridge, Gadget she can live without, Prized possession, are some of the questions posed. The reader can then think about his answers and thereby relate. My Prized Possession is my Yamaha Riva Z125 motor scooter. It is unrivaled for getting around the streets and hills of San Francisco, and parking is a breeze.

The yellow stickers are parking permits. I can park in un-metered spaces nearly anywhere in the city for $24 a year.

I’ve had it for as long as we’ve lived in San Francisco, over 15 years, and except for about 20 (a couple trips to Sausalito), the miles are all San Francisco miles.

I moved here alone in the spring of 1992 while Carol finished her school year at the Preschool Experience in Newton. I had a job and a flat, but no car, no bike, no bed. I rented a Mustang convertible for a week in order to explore my new city and bring home a futon.

Some notes from my journal recount early learning experiences:
Commute to 6 Federal Street:
Monday April 13, 1992
Bus 41 Union to Columbus to Montgomery to Clay to Beale & Howard – 30 minutes – walk 13 minutes. Turns corner at Clay and Montgomery, better? Looks a little longer on the map, but would surely be a nicer walk.
Home – Bus 45 caught on Third Street under overpass, about a 5 minute walk. Overall, about 45 minutes.

Tuesday April 14
Bus 45 Union to Stockton. Slower, through Chinatown. Longish walk from Fourth and Market.

Wednesday April 15
Bus 41 to Montgomery and Clay. Walk 22 minutes.

Stopped at a stoplight on Columbus Ave, I looked out my bus window to see a woman in a skirt and high heels on a motor scooter. By gosh, if she can handle a scooter, so can I. Continue reading “22,222.2” →

Snapshot

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I found one of the the elusive Flushing (Queens, NY) Xinjiang Bbq Meat Carts! Two lamb,  one beef, $3, and very good.

I have heard lots of stuff from adventurous NYers about the food in Flushing, including these street vendors selling “Authentic Xinjian BBQ” or what we normally think of as kebabs. So now that I’m back in NYC for a few days of bidnes, I went out to check it out.
Continue reading “Snapshot” →

So Damn Lucky

Times Square Looking South

When Dad called to ask how he could un-freeze his iMac I was about 100 feet from the Times Square North picture, walking up to 45th Street and turning east into a full-blown street fair (apparently the ‘Times Square Holiday Fair‘) complete with gift and food vendors. It was unclear what the celebration was (if any), but I moved to the sidewalk to avoid the crowd and head toward my destination.

Times Square Looking North

Continue reading “So Damn Lucky” →

Enroute To New York

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A scene from the bus to Boston, South Station, where I will board the Amtrak Acela for New York. (You may be able to read the list of this month’s bus movies. Evan Almighty just got done playing.) I left my house @ 6:50am and expect to arrive @ 3:45pm in Penn Station. Flying from Bangor (very expensive and no direct flights — last time I did I flew to Detroit then NYC) or Portland (a two hour drive each way and less flexibility for times) require more trade-offs for time saved. So if a rapid arrival is not the only priority, this is the best way out of the wilds of Maine and into Metro US…and you may notice that this is a popular option: the bus is full. I got the LAST seat in Augusta.

FEESHY FEESHY FEESHY FISH

It took me a moment to acclimate when my alarm went off at 5am Thursday. WTF? Then I recalled that in a moment of drunken haze at the party last night I had accepted Kelly’s boss’ invitation to join them on an all day deep sea fishing trip. We were in Sandestin FL (on the panhandle dangerously near Alabama) for Kelly’s company incentive, and since spouses had no formal agenda, I had planned to just hit the beach on Thursday. The VP for Kelly’s division cornered me at the reception on Wednesday night and suggested it would be a good idea to join them on their fishing trip the next day. Kelly gave me a look that said I should agree. That’s where it all began.

As I tottered around in the dark getting ready, I quickly realized that my pins were a bit wobbly from the previous evening’s festivities. “This should be real fucking interesting” I said aloud as I slipped into my board shorts and hoodie. Had I ever been seasick? Not that I recalled…and a trauma like that usually will leave an emotional mark. I could already see the whitecaps reflected by the waning moon from our 14th floor balcony. Yeah…real fucking interesting.

I made it down to the parking garage and met Otis and Charlie, just as Jamie pulled in to pick us up. Two others who had confirmed were bailing out, so the my share of the day’s expenses just bumped by $150. This day better turn out to be fucking awesome or I will be cranky, I thought to myself.
Continue reading “FEESHY FEESHY FEESHY FISH” →