Greg has very enthusiastically mentioned his hip new bike lights, and after pedalling 'round town with him last night, I picked up a set of the new Cateyes. They are small, but bright. Their claim to fame is that they mount almost anywhere, with elasticized cords that cinch around a bicycle frame, through a helmet vent, on a handlebar, et cetera. And they're magnetically-activated, which is, well, a gimmick. But they sure are convenient.
Being seen is the hardest part of cycling in a city. Car drivers rarely look to the side, where a cyclist is likely to be riding between parked and moving traffic; nor are cyclists especially visible, as most municipalities have no regulation concerning bike illumination.
San Francisco's Department of Parking and Traffic publish a brochure showing how to light up, and have been promoting cycle safety on the side of buses, ironically enough.
A few years ago the SFPD nailed me as I was pedalling up Steiner past Herman. Their cruiser didn't stop at the stop sign controlling westbound traffic on Herman, and nearly collided with me as I travelled north on Steiner. They pulled me over, asked for ID, and started to write a citation for not having (of all things) side reflectors (I was sporting both front and rear LEDs). And just as the officer was getting to the meat of the ticket, a call came over the radio. The officer glared at me as the radio sqwaked, and tossed my ID back at me. "Lucky for you we've got bigger fish to fry!" he said as he jumped back into the car and roared away.
The esseffessist nails one of the other good things about MUNI when they proudly show off the view from the N Judah as it exits the Market St. Subway and turns down Embarcadero.
Gorgeous.
... but this is all for naught given MUNI's latest plan: raise fares and cut service (what a winning combination!).
I've already written to my supervisor.
I will happily support a higher fare for the same level of service. I will not suffer higher fares for cuts in service. MUNI service is so bare-bones as it is, I ca'n't imagine less. Even though I live on a corner with 4 bus lines, I usually walk down to Civic Center. The 25 minutes is equivalent to the wait and ride on a 6/66/7/71[L], even at 7.25.
Oh yes: Rescue MUNI is a great resource.
While walking down to the bus this morning, I stopped in at the bank. I asked the cashier for some dollar coins, but she ruefully held out a hand filled with dingy Sacagaweas, and said, "How about some fifty-cents instead?" Good suggestion. I happily came away with a pocket full of JFK half-dollar pieces.
Stencil Revolution has an awesome gallery, great forums, and cut-the-crap tutorials.
Caltrain are adding more express service, but addressed the press with the headline "... more bullet trains to help fiscal crisis:
Caltrain Adding Two More Bullet Trains to Help Fiscal CrisisCaltrain will begin operating two more of its popular Baby Bullet trains May 2 to generate revenue as quickly as possible to help offset a fiscal crisis that threatens the survival of the rail line.
Responding to requests for an express train later in the morning and earlier in the afternoon, the additional Bullets will depart San Francisco at 8:11 a.m. and San Jose at 3:47 p.m.
Take ones with the schedule will be available later this month; the schedule also will be on this website by Monday, April 18. The two trains will make the same stops as Caltrain’s other reverse-peak Baby Bullet trains: San Francisco, 22nd Street (San Francisco), Millbrae, Hillsdale (San Mateo), Palo Alto, Mountain View and San Jose Diridon.
The two trains are being rushed into the Caltrain line-up two months ahead of a planned schedule change in July in the hope that they will chip away at Caltrain’s looming deficit.
Since they were introduced in June 2004, Caltrain’s 10 Baby Bullet trains have been extremely popular, most of them operating at capacity. Not only that, they generate nearly twice as much revenue as local trains, which make all local stops.
If service continues without significant changes, Caltrain will have to close a projected deficit of $13.6 million. Caltrain’s policy board, which includes three members each from agencies in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, faces the formidable challenge of finding ways to close the deficit.
Caltrain does not have a dedicated funding source of its own and gets about 30 percent of its revenue from passenger fares and the remainder as subsidies from the three member agencies.
"If I needed to build a 3,000-hole golf course on Mars, this is the man I'd call." Has to be the best endorsement ever. This article chronicles the adventure of laying fiber across three continents, under the ocean, and the amazing convolutions political and mechanical therein.
Cody wrote about a run-in with the law when he took a photograph of the new Mint. On the heels of the MTA's attempt to ban photography in the subways, this caused me alarm. The ever-present threat of terrorism, once domestic (viz., Eric Rudolph, who has just pleaded guilty to several bombings around Atlanta in the late '90s), now shadowy and international, has become a blanket excuse for ad-hoc delineation of the rights described in the First, Fourth, Sixth, and Ninth Amendments.
So I took a stroll past the Mint this afternoon, and while I did so, took some snaps. Within thirty seconds (four frames!), two unmarked white cars pulled up in front of me, and a magisterial officer stepped out of one:
Paul Cochlin, but I might be mis-spelling his family name. He surprised me by addressing me politely. He asked if I was taking photographs of that building, and I said Yes. He told me that it was a Federal Building, and that he was responsible for its security. He also said that it was not against the law to photograph the building, but that anyone taking photographs of this particular building aroused curiosity. He asked for ID, which I declined to present. He told me that he could not detain or arrest me, but then asked why I was taking pictures. I told him that I lived nearby, and am interested in how the neighbourhood looks. He nodded and said that was a common response (ha! that's what digital cameras have done: elevated sloppy graff and urban blight to art!). We then stood there and chatted for several minutes about the history of the building (I feigned that I didn't know the history of the New Mint), and he said that the corner down near the Duboce Yard was once a Standard Oil filling station. He was courteous yet firm: exactly the sort of clear-headed security officer I'd want guarding important installations. He also had a badge and a gun, and identified himself. I'm still uncomfortable that photographing a Federal building draws so much attention.
The "new" San Francisco Mint (plenty photos online) currently produces only proof coins, according to a numismatic web site.
Graff memorials for JP II:
http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2005/04/12/remembering_the_pope_streetstyle.php;
http://www.taleoftwocities.org/2005/04/pope-moves-to-spanish-harlem.php (name-checked by CNN);
http://www.curbed.com/archives/2005/04/11/pope_john_paul_ii_in_the_les.php.
jimg and I have a newfound ritual: Burgermeister wings each Monday (half-price!). Although on occasion we are stymied: we arrive too late, and others have devoured all the wings. This time we were momentarily adrift, and walking south'ards across Market, when we decided to jump in a cab and head to Giordano Bros., where we enjoyed Pittsburgh-style sammiches and reminisced with proprietor Jeff about all the greasy-spoons and bars we knew in Da Burgh: Chiefs, Silky's, Denny's (jimg's favourite), Mitchell's, and the late, much-lamented Chiodo's.
Amazon now produces a concordance for each book for which it has digitized content; it also has a short list of "statistically improbable phrases", which amount to hapax legomena. Amusingly, the wikipedia entry suggests that a googlewhack is the modern-day equivalent.
Liz sent a bar of the most delicious chocolate from the city that makes the most fantastic chocolates. A bar of Blanxart xocolata negra came in the post, and I carried it with me everywhere. At the café, the man sitting at the adjacent table asked if the beautiful wrapper was letterpress; I don't know, but it certainly has that look. Yum. And yum.
Over the past few days, I've been sick abed and working the page-turners: P.G. Wodehouse (the Jeeves Omnibus, including "Carry On, Jeeves" and "The Inimitable Jeeves"; I wish I had some Blandings books handy); John Grisham ("The Chamber"); Stephen King ("Pet Sematary"); Dorothy Sayers ("Clouds of Witness"); and a very, very unwieldy paperback ed. of Cervantes' "Don Quixote".
Anna and I walked down to the main library and I read through a stack of shorter Jean Merrill books, but, alas, "The Pushcart War" was unavailable. For a public library, the SFPL has a dearth of available popular titles, and its small collection is oddly scattered to the branch libraries. I find this library system creepy for its inability to hang on to copies of books: of 10 copies of "The Pushcart War", not a single copy was available for circulation, and only one was actually checked out. To its credit, the SFPL has a netflix-like reservation system, and I can even choose the branch to which desired titles will go for my convenience.