Well, on Ansel Avenue here in Alameda it is anyway. Our own tree has not flowered yet (it was later last year too).
As ever when trying to get photos of flowers, the second I get the camera out (in this case the Nokia N95), the wind picks up making it much harder to get good macro shots. Still, given the wind and the fact that I was only using a mobile phone camera, this came out OK I thought.
It had never occurred to me before, but I was standing looking at one of the DPT Trucks the other day while waiting for the bus, and I noticed that in addition to its correct expansion (Dept. of Parking and Traffic), DPT could also mean Dept. of Parking Tickets – which is basically what they do.
This was the boat home last night. Top speed: drifting forwards. Seems that Encinal sprung a leak yesterday afternoon (not good on a boat), so they brought out the replacements. Old Blue apparently is well named, and only just managed a gentle drifting speed across the bay to Alameda – taking roughly twice as long as Encinal.
This morning, her sister ship Oski did the first run, and Bay Monarch did the 7:15am run. That’s right: two ships needed to replace the Encinal. Even then, we got in to San Francisco so late that I’m here at Starbucks waiting for the 9am bus.
Tied up right next to the Alameda ferry terminal on Main Street is the mega-yacht Ulysses. She is 192′ long and able to house 14 guests in 7 staterooms, in addition to a crew of nine.
Interestingly, she has an unusual history. Just prior to being launched from the New Orleans shipyard that built her, she was almost totally destroyed by fire. After buying her remains from the insurance company, her original owner, New Zealand businessman Graeme Hart, had her taken to Brisbane, Australia and refitted totally.
Now she is in Alameda, California, at the Bay Ship yard, along with another ship from the Trinity stable: Pangaea.
So, the metal woman & child were taken away a while back, and then a few weeks later the space was filled by a giant, metal spider. What more can I say about that? Personally, I don’t think I like the spider as much as the mother & child… it just seems more ominous.
One of two new restaurants in the city, next to each other and both owned by the same person. The other one, which is a little further along the waterfront towards the bridge, is called Waterbar. Haven’t eaten at either yet, but thought I’d grab a quick pic the other day since the morning was so beautiful.
The only downside I can see to these two buildings is that they have ruined the view from one of my favourite SF restaurants, Palomino.
A week ago it was raining and generally wet around the bay area. This weekend though has been magnificent; the sun has been out both days, and yesterday was even warm in the evening. Perhaps Spring is here 🙂
I also heard on this week’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher that Mitt Romney had dropped out of the circus, so I guess I wasn’t the only one offended by his use of daily recorded messages!
I have a couple of Devicescape updates for everybody tonight (and I’ll also post some more photos soon, but you can check most of those out in my Flickr stream anyway.
Nokia Videos
The video to the right is a video shot by our friends at Nokia that shows Devicescape logging in automatically at a T-Mobile hotspot. Here’s another one shot at San Jose airport.
Both of these videos used the T-Mobile network, but Devicescape also works on most of the other hotspot networks you’ll find around the world.
SF New “Mobile” Tech
The other thing I wanted to mention was that I presented at SF New “Mobile” Tech last night here in San Francisco. If you were there, thanks for coming (especially all the folks who already had Devicescape running on their devices).
We’re heading into winter now. It has been darker when I wake up to head into work, and the sun is much lower in the sky. That makes for some interesting photos like this one where the sun makes the bridge seem as though it is burning white hot and melting into the bay beneath it. Or perhaps I’m just imagining it.
Flickr has a special event going where they are collecting photos taken on May 5, 2007 into a pool called 24 hours of Flickr. As it happens, I was out and about in San Francisco that day and have a lot of photos that I could submit. I’ve uploaded the ones I like best to my Flickr stream, but I’m having trouble selecting the one to submit.
Strauss (shown right) is my current favourite, but if you like one of the others better please leave me a comment (here or in Flickr).