Redbull Soapbox Race - Dolores Park, SF

On Sunday, my roommate and I decided to check out what this Red Bull soapbox race was all about. Turns out that about 60,000 other people wanted to find out what it was all about too. It was another awesome October afternoon in San Francisco. Click on the picture for a link to more images.

Monday at the Palace

Monday at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco- quite the October weather we are having. Anyone interested in visiting San Francisco should definitely come in October. It has been one of the nicest times of the year here and there are not a ton of tourists everywhere. Monday temperature was between 70-75F with a nice little breeze to cool you off from sitting in the sun. This panoramic was 3 images combined in Photoshop.

Sunday Morning Wake-up Call

We were woken up this morning by our smoke detectors going off. But for us this usually means nothing- as they are very sensitive and go off anytime someone cooks something on the stove or in the oven without turning on the stove's hood fan. So as usually we fanned them off until they went off. The only problem was that no one was cooking, and they came back on again.
So, after a few minutes we went outside to visually inspect what was going on. Was someone BBQing in the backyard? No. We walk around out front to fine visible smoke appearing from in between our house and our neighbors house in an area that we could not fully see or get to. This is when we decided to call the fire department.
Within minutes there were two fire trucks outside and I was flagging them down.. (a total of 5 trucks ended up coming). Things were rather hecktic at first as the firemen were trying to figure out where this smoke was coming from. It seemed to be coming from a room or area that was not accessible. The fire chief was inspecting things and determined that to reach where the fire was from both sides, one of our walls would have to be demolished- the fire was partially located withing a small crawlspace underneath the main staircase to the apartment. So they took an axe to a wall in our hallway and made a nice sized hole (enough for a person to get through). From there they put out the small fire. All in all an interesting morning. Luckily, there was not much damage and no one was injured. I like to think that Aaron and I helped avoiding a serious situation by reacting quickly.

More (lower quality) pics HERE.

**EDIT: I just realized that I did not list the cause of this fire. It was determined by the fire chief to have been caused by someone dropping cigarette butts off the side of the stairwell and in between the houses. These butts landed on some garbage and leaves and such and ignited the fire- which luckily did not spread far before fire fighters arrived and were able to put it out. Thanks again to the SFFD for being quick to respond and extinguish the fire.

Buena Vista Terrace

One of my favorite spots to walk to from my house on a nice sunny afternoon is Buena Vista Terrace and Buena Vista Park. Living in a centralized locating in San Francisco, I consider myself lucky to have so many different sites within walking distance. I am close to many parks, shopping, awesome restaurants, and great places to socialize (bars). This photo is a shot (actually two images combined for a verticle panoramic) of one of my favorite homes in my nearby area. It is located on Buena Vista Terrace and is not only next to the park, but is has stunning views of SF, the bay, the bay bridge, and you can even see the top of the Golden Gate bridge peaking out in the opposite direction. This house must be worth multiple millions.

behind the scenes - Canon 5D MKII

I posted a little while ago about the new Canon 5D coming out. Here's a behind the scenes video of the shoot that Vincent Laforet made with it.
Can you tell which shots are from the 5D? I hope so.

A quiet Sunday in downtown SF?

On Sunday, Jocelyn had the day off and we walked from my place to the embarcadero to go see Man on Wire, an excellent documentary. It was surprisingly quiet downtown. I'm used to only being down there during the week with the hustle and bustle of the work crowd. But it was actually relaxing to be down there on a quiet Sunday- a nice change of pace.


Playing chess on Market Street near Civic Center. For money?


An empty Embarcadero Center. It was nice to sit here and relax a bit in the sun.


Quiet buildings stand alone with no one in them.


Empty MUNI ride back home.