Love Fest: Birds Eye View

Just to show you that its more than a little popular, here's an aerial shot of the party outside City Hall....

LoveFest '08

In the spirit of a true San Fransisco experience we donned ridiculous hats and loud shirts and heading to the city for the annual LoveFest parade and party!

A parade of floats hosting various "local" dance DJ's heads down Market Street in the city aroudn lunchtime and ending up outside the City Hall and Civic Center where the floats continue to blare out loud dance music for revellers to soak up amid booze soaked carnage. What more do I need to say!

Gotta love the party.....

Dave

Brews on the Bay 2008

For the last 5 years the San Fransisco Brewers Guild have put on a beer festival to show off the finest of SF many microbrews. Entertaining it is hosted on the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien, a liberty ship built during world war two. Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during the war. They were British in conception but adapted by the U.S., cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by German U-boats, they were purchased for the U.S. fleet and for lend-lease provision to Britain. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,751 Liberties between 1941 and 1945, easily the largest number of ships produced to a single design. Its quite a location for a beer festival I can tell you!

There were 7 or 8 breweries present and despite what you might think about American beer, budwesier being the major export, the ales were both varied and some were really tasty! Ale drinkers of Britain would have been proud and there were views of Alcatraz and guns to mess around once you sampled all of the aforementioned brews!

Happy days!

Dave

Conquering Half Dome!

Half Dome is one of the most well known landmarks in Yosemite National Park and has been photographed many times by Californian icon Ansel Adams. As late as the 1870s, it was considered perfectly inaccessible, but now it can be ascended in several different ways. The easiest way ended being close to a 20 mile round trip after all the extra stomping around between Curry Village and the trailhead. The hiking trail begins in the Valley and culminates in climbing up the somewhat rounded east face with the aid of steel cables. It is 8836 ft above sea level and 4737 ft above the Valley floor which coupled with the 10 mile approach hike makes this a very strenous hike.


Earlier in the summer, myself and three of my friends (L-R, above right; Drew, me, Silvano and Allesandro) duly took up the challenge and can attest that as a day trip it is a stout proposition. The trail runs up the infamous mist trail, that leads to the John Muir trail, over Vernal and Nevada falls and then skirts the base of Half Dome before ascending the east face. We hit the trail around 5:30am and were on top by 10:30am just in time to avoid the overcrowded cables. In all honesty the cables are a little sketchy and I had heard that several people have slipped and fallen to their deaths,. We were not taking any chances and took climbing harnesses so we could clip in to the cables - this was a very shrewd idea as it turns out especially on the way down when there were far more people than was really safe.

Other peak bagged, bring on Mount Shasta next year!

Dave

The BIG 30: More flags, more fun!

So it finally crept up on me, yep you guessed it the big three zero - I am now officially no longer in my twenties! Clearly, theres only one way to cope with the drastic realization that your getting old and thats to embrace your inner youth with a day thrill seeking at an amusement park. Our destination was the Six Flags discovery kingdom in Vallejo, 30 miles north of Berkeley.

Obviously, we did it in true style starting with vodka shots and chocolate cake (thanks to Anne for the baking work there) at 10:30am in the car park. The park is a sort of strange arrangement with lots of animal attractions since it use to be marine world prior to the arrival of rollercoasters some 10-15 years ago. The newest two coasters being absolutely bloody awesome. (1) Vertical velocity (which being nerdy scientists we dubbed V squared), see top left and top right in the photo, is the only 45 degree impulse rollercoaster in the world. The coaster’s track is essentially a large U shape that is loaded at the base and uses a series of linear motors to accelerate the train up each side of the track (0 - 60 mph in 4 seconds). These are similar to those used in the magnetic levitation trains. One side of the track is twisted track and the other side is a perfectly vertical straight track so you get some upside twisting on one end and the sense of weightlessness on the other with acceleration like being in a sports car between the two. (2) Medusa is one of the longest (0.75 miles), highest (150 feet) and fastest (65 mph) coasters in the United States and pulls 4.5 G at the bottom of the first big drop. As a souvenir we purchased (thanks Julie and Dave) the photo from the ride, see above, from the last ride of the day! V for victory!

What a great way to usher in the 3rd decade on planet Earth.
Let the good times roll!

Bay 2 Breakers 2008

The bay to breakers event in San Fransisco is an annual foot race that starts on the BAY close to the Oakland Bay bridge on the East of the city and traverses directly west through the city and golden gate park culminating at the Pacific Ocean where the BREAKERS pound pacific beach. The race attracts close to 100,000 serious runners and almost as many less serious ones! We were, as the photos will confirm, in the less serious category.

It is the longest consecutively running footrace in the world and started in 1912, as a means to lift the City's spirit after the disastrous Earthquake of 1906, which was of magnitude 7.8 on the Richter Scale. Public nudity and open alcohol consumption are prohibited although in reality it was more like the norm. A friend lent me an old bridesmaid dress (thanks Julie) so it seemed wrong not to go as "The Prom Queen" - and it was quite a hit with the other race goers! In order to facilitate extreme amounts of drinking, my friend Drew and I built a rickety old booze truck from a cooler, some pink string and wood plus wheels from home depot. Surprisingly, it lasted pretty well - 6 miles before we lost a wheel, by which point the 60 cans, half a mini-keg and 2 litres of Caipirinha cocktail where significantly depleted to render the crippled cart unnecessary.

Happy Days!

A little, longer lasting fame.

So I had my 15 minutes of fame, but heres a little, more long lasting fame - a photo I took in the summer of 2007 in Nice, France has been included in a online travel guide. Click here and then scroll down to the Port of Nice photograph and low and behold one of the 10 Port of Nice photos has my name on it! Very cool indeed - paparazzi career here I come!