Author Archives: John

Changing Ends

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Well, Monday morning and BART is making up for being incident-free last week by announcing:

There is another train that needs to be ??? and we’re single tracking. What I’m going to do now is I’m going to have to change ends and go back at the other end, pull the … pull it the other way and then eventually we are change ends again then go to SFO so there will be a minor delay for that.

And sure enough, just after making that announcement, he ran through the train to get to the back and drove us back into Colma station (that we had just left). Then, to minimise the delay, another driver got in the front and drove us out again. The original driver walked back through the train, and was back at the controls before we arrived at San Bruno.

San Francisco Ferry Building

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Justin Herman PlazaAnother shot from the same day as the previous two. This one shows the large, water-filled art installation in Justin Herman Plaza with the Ferry Building’s clock tower protruding from it (OK, really it is just behind it).

Big Sky San Francisco

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Big Sky San FranciscoTaken a while back, on one of my ferry crossings between Alameda and San Francisco. The sky was what caught my attention, and it just made the Bay Bridge and the city look so small in comparison. A reminder of just how insignificant even the larger human achievements really are compared to mother nature!

San Francisco TechConnect

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Spent a while down at the ferry building again tonight, and used the free wireless access at the ferry building courtesy of SF TechConnect. Unfortunately, I didn’t see the “acceptance” screen until I was closing the laptop ready to jump on the ferry. Guess their captive portal is not very captive 🙂

The connection is not bad though, and it was quite pleasant sitting out by the water and writing emails.

Protect Your System Against Viruses

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Wash Your HandsThe sign shown was fixed to the mirror in the bathroom of the training building on the Microsoft campus I was in for a seminar last week. It is good to see that they still have a sense of humour when it comes to their poor track record with Windoze virus infections.

Sorry about the photo quality; it was a quick grab using the cell phone.

Building 27

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Building 27Outside the hotel I’m staying in for a couple of days is this sign. The hotel itself is pretty basic, but will do for a couple of nights. They have wireless access (flat rate of $4.99 for the length of your stay), though last night it had ping times of over 400ms and kept dropping me. Seems to be better this morning.

Just around the corner are a couple of strip malls, in one of which I discovered The Teapot Vegetarian House restaurant. The food was not bad, though I have been to better places in the bay area.

Heart Graffiti

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Heart GraffitiThursday evening, crossing the plaza at the Emabarcadero in San Francisco, I walked past one of the hearts I had photographed a week or so back. As I glanced over it, I noticed something different. Somebody had spray painted a graffiti tag onto the heart.

I’m sure whoever did it thinks they are very cool; I think it is just sad. There are graffiti artists out there who produce real art, and brighten up places. Then there are the fools that can only manage to tag objects, or other people’s art works. These people are the graffiti-world’s equivalent of the script-kiddies; with no real abilities of their own, they resort to causing damage instead.