Tejon Pass, Tanker Truck & Giovanni Arnolfini

A rather ordinary view of a stainless steel tanker at a gas station 4,166 feet up in the Tejon_Pass, which is the start of a precipitous descent from the Tehachapi range to the Central Valley of California to the northwest. What may be interesting is that (1) the still photo was taken with a small video camcorder with a 3 megapixel imager, (2) the reflected image on the tanker side would suggest a flat desert landscape rather than the surrounding mountains, or even the photographer in a rented SUV, and (3) if you are ever driving on a freeway behind one of these polished steel tankers, the image reflected on the convex, oval-shaped rear panel of the tank can be disorienting, providing a wide-angle and distorted view of your own vehicle, as in a funhouse mirror, or the mirror shown in the back of the famous painting by Jan van Eyck called "The Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife". The Arnolfini_Portrait

Pictures from Past Travels

Vienna - Stadtbahn passenger

Heidelberg - The Hotel Ritter

Heidelberg - The Castle Entrance

Heidelberg - The River Neckar

Horseback riding

Just south of San Francisco, on a promontory overlooking the Pacific Ocean, with the Marin hills in the distance, and not a shred of fog to hide the view, a young woman rides her horse on a bridle way through the ice plants. To the right, behind the power pole, a container ship from the Far East heads towards the Golden Gate bound for the vast terminal complex in Oakland, across the Bay. A few clouds dot the late afternoon sky, and for a change there is no wind.

Pilobolus

Someone sent me this link a while back. An amazingly talented ensemble, no?

The Excelsior

[click to enlarge]

A view from the top of Faxon Street in The Excelsior neighborhood of San Francisco. Like many another street in the City, this one is so steep that residents' cars have to be parked at right angles to the curb [the one I'm standing on; the opposite curb has a 'No Parking at Any Time' sign]; this as a precaution against brake failure and runaways. In the background is Mt. Davidson, with the large cross visible on its peak, where Easter sunrise services are held. Some of your conservative talk show hosts may decry the left-wing liberal politics of the Board of Supervisors, same-sex marriage, sanctuary for illegal immigration, the homeless population, and various bizarre Barbary Coast aspects of this great city, but the majority who live here would not want to live anywhere else.

Especially on a day like this.

A Look Backward

This gives us a little peek back into an earlier era. The scene is Fourth Avenue in San Mateo, California, 1985. The time is about 6:45am. This is where I took the early morning bus to work in San Francisco. The Chevron gas station is no longer there, and neither is the Mobil station across the street. (I'm still here, thank Heaven.)

This Belongs to Us

Cloud Shadows

An Abode of Good Cheer

Drove up to Golden Gate Heights in The Inner Sunset neighborhood of San Francisco, just before the fog came in from the ocean a mile or so away. Saw this house, whose striking paint job cannot help but attract the attention of anyone passing by. Whoever lives here must be of a lighthearted and cheery temperament, I suspect.

The Japanese Maple

Visitacion Views

Being it was such a lovely day, I drove in to San Francisco. Had my camcorder with me, could take stills, and here are a couple of them.

In the distance are the towers of downtown San Francisco. The big blocky building is, of course, the Bank of America, and next to it, the Transamerica Pyramid.


A view up a dead-end street off of Arleta Avenue in the Visitacion Valley. I'd call it your typical San Francisco townscape, with all the stret signs and jam-packed parking, and the pastel-colored houses.

The Leaves Turn

A New Day?

The nation made its choice yesterday, and we have a new President. Senator Barack Obama, the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, is to be our new Chief Executive. We wish him every success in his administration.

He ran on a platform of change, and the people no doubt expects that there soon will come the promised changes. We trust that the changes will include real movement away from partisan intransigence, from profligate spending programs and deficits,and movement towards governance from the center, which has always been where our country longs to be.

A Leica shot

This is from a colorslide taken in 1984 with my Leica IIIf with a f/3.5 Elmar lens. There's something about a Leica lens photo that's quite distinctive, photographers say. I think so too.

Now I must get me down to our polling station to cast my ballot in what pundits call one of the 'the transformational elections' of all time in this country. We shall see.