My garden is full of green tomatoes.

We went to Farmer's Market this morning.

We went to a friend's house for a BBQ dinner. We went to a local butcher shop to find something to grill. We found this pinata hanging from the ceilin.g. We didn't buy it. This thing just looks sad.

We did an early-morning walk around the Saturn and Vulcan stairs. These are the Saturn stairs.

Today, we got locked inside the Columbarium.

When we got there, the door was open and Louis Armstrong was playing on the sound system. We wandered around and then discovered that we had been locked inside.

This is more of the Columbarium.

This is a gladiola in my garden. This time of year, there is always something new blooming in my garden.

We spent the day in Colma, city of dead people. This seemed appropriate after the Columbarium trip earlier in the week.

We stopped by Emperor Norton's grave.

Then we went to Lowe's which is actually in San Bruno, not Colma. We spent a lot of time and a lot of money in Lowe's. At one point, the PA system announced a "code 3 in lumber. All trained employees please report." Now the ambulance chaser in me wants to know what a "Code 3" is according to Lowe's.

The big purchase of the day was a new grill to replace my dead one. We managed to fit it onto the back of my del Sol which sometimes doubles as a pickup truck.

Today, I took my car in for service. They told me to change the oil more often, as they always tell me. I really should change the oil more often. I took them pictures of the grill on the back of the car. They laughed.

This picture is the new grill facing off with the old grill.

This is a smaller building squished among the bigger buildings in San Francisco's Financial District.

Today, we broke in the new grill with portabello mushrooms, red pepper, corn from Farmer's Market with lime & cilantro.

This afternoon, I went to a party where the woman who tried to get me to knit her a cheap hat ("but my birthday is coming") tried to convince me she believes in supporting artists who create hand crafted things. I might be able to knit a simple sweater on big needles in something like 50 hours. At today's minimum wage (not a living wage, the legal minimum wage), that's $337, not including the cost of the yarn. She isn't willing to pay for the cost of the labor, unless the labor is paid at sweatshop rates. She kept pressing me to tell her about a craft fair where they would sell hand knit sweaters. I think she should go to WalMart. They will sell her something at a price she's willing to pay. That's the value she puts on hand knit items.

Yes, this is a hot topic for me. I think my knitting is worth something. I don't like having someone repeatedly cut down the value of what I do. I am also bothered by her sense of entitlement. When she tried to get me to knit her the hat, she seemed to think I should be flattered to be asked to knit something, even though she was looking to pay less than $30 for a hat that would take at least 2 hours to make, if I learned how to crochet and got fast at it. If I knit the hat (instead of crocheting) she wanted, I'd guess it would take closer to 5-6 hours. I was offended, not flattered, at being asked to knit for less than $6/hour.

This is the cat in the garden.

Today, we took a walk around the Marina, looking at tile installations.

One of my neighbors has a rooster. I know this because I hear it crowing every morning. It's true. Roosters really do greet the dawn by making noise. I'm generally up at dawn so this isn't a big deal. The rooster is also a fair distance away. I can't tell exactly where it is. A loud truck on the freeway would drown out the rooster sound.

Still, I find this amusing. I live in urban San Francisco yet I hear a rooster every morning at dawn.

We took a train trip to LA. We took the train because trains are cool, not because trains are an efficient means of passenger transportation, because they're not. This was one LONG trip. The train was also late which meant we didn't get much of a view of the coast.

Most visitors to LA go to see the stars or maybe an amusement park. We spent our day in LA at the Coroner's Gift Shop, the La Brea Tar Pits and the Museum of Jurassic Technology.

This is the outside of the Museum of Jurassic Technology. I highly recomment a visit to this place. While the point may not be immediately obvious, the effect on how you view the world should be long term.

These are sculptures done by one of my neighbors. I think of them as the old children.

It's almost that time of year when my garden overflows with tomatoes.

I'd finished this sweater a while ago but I'd bound the neck off too tightly. I had to rip out the mohair (yes, that was painful) and redo the neck.

The highlight of the day was going to the grocery store. We saw that 101 was a mess so we took city streets where we had a view of the fire climbing the hill towards the cars stuck in bridge traffic on 101. I'm glad we didn't take 101.

The fire was out by the time we returned from the store.

This is a store in Visitacion Valley. The architecture is art deco but the painting style reminds me of a Mission area mural.

CalTrain is my commute. This is the time of day when I try to relax on the train and maybe even take a nap. Unfortunately, tonight, I ended up in a car with a bunch of cackling teenage girls.

All around, this was a bad transit day. The Bullet train was a few minutes late in the morning which affected my later connections. Well, it's still much better than driving.

This is part of the short walk between stations on my morning commute.

When I stepped off the Light Rail, I was surprised to find myself surrounded by a dozen men in Catholic priest shirts. The odd thing was that I didn't recognize any of them. I think they may have been the real thing.

Later, I realized that there is some sort of Catholic family convention going on this week at the San Jose Convention Center.

I had more bad transit luck on the way home when CalTrain did an 'emergency stop' when they almost hit someone. They missed which is good because the train always wins. Still, they had to stop the train as fast as a train can stop which isn't very fast. I could feel the momentum of the brakes being applied. Trains have a great deal of mass which I always knew but tonight, I got the first hand experience of feeling that mass trying to stop fast.

This is another view taken from the window of CalTrain.

This is the Guadalupe River, part of my morning commute.

This was a bad week for transit. There was some sort of wreck with Light Rail tonight so the trains near my office were doing single tracks. Fortunately, I can take either a north or southbound train. I took the one that showed up first, the northbound train. This put me in Mountain View in time to catch the last bullet train back to San Francisco.

I used to have a hard rule to never take a train that might contain Giants fans. Tonight, I was reminded of the reasons for that rule. On nights that the Giants have a home game, I need to work late. Commmuting with drunk and loud Giants fans isn't much fun. I'd rather get home later and have a more peaceful ride.

Today, I went to my Buddhist Study Group in the afternoon. Then I met up with the Paul Ruben's Day adventurers. Many people were dressed as Pee Wee Herman. I had my picture taken with Frank Chu. Next, we went to see the last showing of the Lifesize MouseTrap.

I knit a hat. This hat will be transformed through felting.

The yarn is Reynold's Lite Lopi.

This is the fog arriving over the Bayshore train station.

This morning, on Light Rail, I heard one woman shouting to another woman to not go shopping before the two of them could go shopping together on the weekend. Yeah, that's how I want to spend my weekend: in a mall.

Once again, I failed to understand the mystery that is the route of the DASH shuttle. I walked to the train station. Walking is more reliable and almost as fast. Then again, I've only been able to find this mysterious shuttle once so I don't have much data from which to make a generalization on travel time. The shuttle doesn't appear when the printed map says it should. Stops that exist one day are mysteriously gone (sign covered in brown paper) the next. I tried talking with two drivers about the DASH route and was unable to find out what the actual stops might be.

I give up. It's easier to walk.

Tonight, my walk took my by the Caravan, a fine San Jose Dive Bar.

When I arrived at the train station, I saw a very large women wearing a flannel poncho. I think this is not a good idea. Ponchos don't look good on anyone, especially those of larger frames.

This morning, I saw the traffic cone man. This was a large man dressed in a bright orange jump suit. He looked like a traffic cone. He had a breakfast hot dog. I've heard of breakfast burritos but never a breakfast hot dog. I have to wonder where he found a hot dog at 8:30am.

This is what happened to the hat after three trips through the washing machine.

I've said this before and I still believe there ought to be a law: anyone who inflicts their cell phone conversations upon the captive audience on public transportation should at least be required to have inteesting conversations. The woman sitting behind me on CalTrain tonight liked to talk on the phone...but not about anything interesting. One (or both?) of us needs a life.

This is The Cat.

That's a police car hiding at the end of the street.

I didn't realize my morning commute would be disrupted by the San Jose Grand Prix. My Light Rail connection completely broken as they opened and closed stations and re-routed the trains. I went home by way of Mountain View.

Today, I went to LambtownUSA in Dixon. This sheep looks almost evil to me. It certainly doesn't look cuddly and cute as sheep are supposed to look.

Someone was amused that the petting zoo was across the road from the cooking demonstrations.

For me, the hillight of the event was 'Mutton Bustin' where they put a small child on a sheep and tell it to hang on. They give the kids helmets. Other than that, it's the kid & the sheep. The sheep don't seem to be very happy with something on their back. The sheep's goal is to dislodge the child. The child's goal is to hang on. I guess this is like watching WWF except this wasn't scripted. I saw about a 25% attrition rate among the kids. They would see what was actually involved and refuse to be put on top of a sheep.

Tonight's movie was Incubus, a movie filmed entirely in Esperanto, starring Willinan Shatner. You can imagine how horrible it was. Actually, maybe you can't. It was pretty awful. Imagine Shatner emoting in another language that sounds vaguely Italian.

I obviously have too much time on my hands if I'm wasting my time reading blogs like the one I read this morning. I was reading a blog from someone I know who has a history of making passes at my SO and who started sleeping with the SO of a friend while the friend was in the hospital. From my own experience and my friend's, I know this woman pursues partnered people. Yet in last month's blog entries (I don't read her blog very often), she seems to be going on and on about how she tries to stay away from guys who are "clearly hooked up." uhh..in my experience, she behaves in exactly the opposite manner. I think she isn't the person she thinks she is ... or who she represents herself to be.

Today, I went to the SF Opera's Costume Sale. I spent $80 on four dresses which was much less than I thought I would spend. The costume sale isn't a great place for bargain. It's a place for one-of-a-kind costumes.

Comments I received when I tried the dresses on at home:

"That doesn't look horrible." and "That makes you look like a Klingon." Evidently, these dresses don't make me look fat. They make me look "not horrible" and "like a Klingon."