Frisco Vista

Travels in virtual NoCal

• Critiquing the Asian : The museum provides a forum for discussion
• Autumn exhibits bring the bling : What’s up next
• Top 7 hikes in Marin County : Happy trails to you
• Cyclists get a new path : Across the Benicia Bridge
• Burrito Justice : Cool SF site, good photos
• Eating for the farmers : Event Sept. 1
• Farm fresh to you : On that subject, how about some fresh produce?
• California Wine Month : I’ll drink to that

Today’s image of shafts of sunlight cutting through tall redwoods along a Muir Woods hiking trail comes from vgm8383′s photostream. This is an HDR (high dynamic range) photo — a technique that combines multiple exposures to give a greater range of tonal detail. It worked pretty well in this instance because Muir Woods is surprisingly dark (test it with a light meter if you don’t believe me), and the light is very green.

This image of the presidio in 1887 comes from the public library’s historical photographs collection. Of interest are the small trees (today a large grove or forest) that punctuate the landscape. It is easy from this photo to picture how spare the sandy Pacific reaches of the city once were. The photograph is attributed to the U.S.Army Signal Corps; on the back is written the following:

PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO, 1887. This photograph was taken facing west and shows the Presidio Boulevard approach to the Post. The trees, planted in 1882 when Major General Irwin McDowell was Commander of the Western Department, today cover the hillsides.

Travels in virtual NoCal

• Eating near the Asian Art Museum : Good Vietnamese options near Civic Center
• 250 things to do in San Francisco (pdf) : At what point to lists get so big as to be useless?
• Using SF to rally opposition to stimulus spending : We’re a reliable target
• San Francisco 1941 : A Flickr photo set
• Pasquale Iannetti indicted : For selling fake Miró prints
• Eater SF demotes Oliveto : From 3.5 to  2 stars

We’ve all read the stories about the University of California’s budget problems. High adminstrator salaries. Tightening the screws on the grunt laborers who do all the actual work. Furlough days for teachers. Raising student fees. Etc.

Okay, now guess how much just one of the schools in the system is paying to just one athletic coach. The coach in question is Jeff Tedford, who coaches men’s football on the Berkeley campus.

Okay, I won’t make you guess. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Tedford is paid $1,850,000 per year. If I know Cal, and football, he probably gets a bunch of perks on top of that.

If that’s not obscene I don’t know what is.

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Image from by Tracy O’s photostream

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Recently we were out canoeing on the Napa-Sonoma Marsh. The tide was very strong, however, and we got a good workout paddling against it. In fact, as we navigated one slough we saw signs that other boaters before us had been overpowered by the tides and succumbed, never to regain civilization. Above a ghostlike figure restlessly haunts a wrecked craft.

Of course, boaters have been washing up stranded and meeting grizzly ends all over the greater Bay Area — the captain of the vessel below, if he surveyed at all, must have been forced to wade out through the muck. Why are our waterways so treacherous?

Travels in virtual NoCal

• “Gap founder’s amazing art collection may leave San Francisco” : Plus, death panels will execute seniors (the Fisher press campaign rolls out)
• Max Klinger at the Legion : “The exhibit is small but beautifully planned”
• Burning Man says all your photos are ours : But only for the next 70 years
• Visualizing the Hayward Fault : From Sheffeld Village
• Hawks reign of terror continues : Now Ocean Beach feels their wrath

Photos of the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog are a genre unto themselves. This fine example comes from jrodmanjr’s photostream

This photo of the San Francisco skyline was taken from a rooftop on Potrero Hill.

Virtual NoCal

• At the Shipyard : A history of Burning Man
• SFMOMApreparing for celebration of its 75th year : “a pioneering force in art worldwide and an unparalleled destination for the people of the San Francisco Bay Area” might be a little strong, but still …
• San Francisco’s graffiti : More “character-driven” than elsewhere?
• Using SF to rally opposition to stimulus spending : We’re a reliable target for the right (and proud of it)
• Culture on a budget : Free museum admissions by the bay
• Tenderloin : The movie

There was a time when San Francisco’s Mitchell brothers were considered by many to be hip, heroes of the counterculture. Today, as a result of the direction their lives took, they are more likely to be perceived as examples of the degradations of porn.

But I’ve seen worse. Just the past weekend. In my own backyard.

I mean, the Mitchells weren’t cannibals, as far as I know. Apparently the same can’t be said for Cooper’s hawks. Four of the birds have been inhabiting my backyard this summer. They must have hatched from the same nest this spring. They got big fast, and our squirrels and finches have been looking nervous, keeping a wary lookout. These fierce birds squeeze their prey to death with their sharp viselike talons.

So this weekend I went out back and found that now we have three Cooper’s hawks — one of them was feasting on another. After I took the picture above it picked up the dead bird and flew away with it, as if it were but a single feather.

Not exactly a bambi moment.