September 1

Here's the Temple of Joy before it burned.

I have a few more Burning Man pix up here.

Here's random art on the playa, a giant bull & a duck.

Everyone who went to Burning Man this year and came home with pictures certainly came home with something of the Temple of Joy burning. I did.

After the return home, the rental car is DUSTY. Playa-dust coats everything in the worst possible way.

It's Action Monkey & a Church of Elvis t-shirt.

Unfortunately, the 24 hour coin operated Church of Elvis is no more. :-(

I took this picture at Dive Bar, on my way home after hearing a pre-Vatican II priest talk about original sin. I am glad I heard what he had to say. Still, it made me angry and sad that there is a huge, powerful institution out there telling people that people are bad from birth & there is Something Wrong with them.This seems like a very painful way to go through life.

I went to a spoken word performance thing in the East Bay.

Bringing the tipi poles back...the last bit of Burning Man stuff to make it home....

In the morning, I went to Farmer's Market & then home for brunch with friends. Then off to talk with another friend & pick up the tipi poles.

Taken from the #24 bus on our way to dinner with a group in the Castro....

I had my hands photographed today. Zen Hospice was looking for hands to photograph for some promotional materials. My hands have scars so I got picked for one of the shoots.

In the evening, I went to my investment club meeting in Cupertino.

It was a very warm night. We climbed Bernal Hill & looked at the city lights.

This has to be the funniest 'found bunny' sign I've ever seen. Maybe what they found wasn't really a bunny. Maybe it's a larvae for a giant monster. That picture looks more like a slug with legs than a rabbit.

We went to Home Depot for another unpleasant shopping experience.

In the evening, I went to my knitting group.

And even later, I ended up at Zeigeist at a larger group gathering.

Look what I found on eBay!

I think it's haunting my house now, though...I need to make it go away.

This is the downstairs room at Jezebel's...it would be a cool place to hang out & have a drink EXCEPT for the extremely unpleasant "people in black" who hang out here.We left them to their own unpleasant little world.

Jonell's was MUCH more fun.

This is an alley in Chinatown. I see that "don't dump anything" warning sign is really doing something, eh?

Now I can't remember where I was when I took this picture...it's a long street, a path somewhere...I went to the East Bay that evening for dinner with friends but I can't remember where this image was taken...wait. Now I remember...it's right off Mission, some street between Mission & Valencia. This was on the way back from trying to find the wall dancers. While the dance performance was about a hotel that burned at 16th & Valencia the actual performance was happening elsewhere...

Maybe this is what happens to trees that are allowed to grow instead of being 'pruned'.

Here are the wall dancers...we only caught a short bit of the show. Next weekend, we go see the whole thing. What we saw looked very interesting.

An evening walk around Nob Hill & Chinatown...this was the fountain at the top of Nob Hill. We then walked the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral. Then we went to Buddha Lounge & watched a bartender have some real fun with a birthday boy.

View from Jack Early Park - a very tiny, hidden park in San Francisco.

See the giant cruise ship at port?

We tried to go to the pouring of these commemorative plaques but the bronze was still heating. It had another 40 minutes to go so we headed for Chinatown, instead to search for the pig truck (no luck) and cryptography game books (some luck).

This is the blanket knitting project, still in process. Now it has its own basket. I'll be done when I run out of wool. Now that I have all the wool in a basket, that makes it easy to tell how much further I have to go.

Tire swing being delivered to a new home...after a strange night of much waiting & some fun.

I started the day at a friend's housewarming brunch. Later in the afternoon, I went to this event...

Flyaway Productions doing the wall dances on the side of a 3 story MUNI building.

The last band...Attaboy & Burke

Later in the day (when the sun was up) knitters gathered at my house. We knit. And wound wool into center pull balls.

This was taken inside a hidden place in the garden at Wild Side West, a bar up the hill from my house. It's a wonderful place to take a sandwich from up the street, get a beer & then go hang out in the garden.

This is me in a 'mood' I guess...it was a fun night at Dive Bar, this time at the Buddha Lounge with a 'secret spy' theme. I dressed my best Mata Hari.

Fog along Union Street in North Beach

Inside the Pampanito, a WWII submarine.

I went to the 10th Anniversary of Critical Mass. So did thousands of cyclists and at least five news vans. This is a reporter standing on the roof of his van giving his evening news report.

Earlier in the day, I went to Home Depot, one of the outer circles of Hell...4.5 hours & almost $700 later, we finally escaped, having endured yammering chipmunks on the PA system, pop music that was never popular, a lack of stock or anyone to help find more stock. For this horrible experience, we got to pay much higher prices than the old hardware store near my house, the one that is no more because Home Depot moved in. :-(

I went to an all day meditation retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

I packed up all my stuff & headed out to the meditation retreat: zafu, zabutan, shawl, blanket, warm clothes (sweats, jacket, hat & gloves) in case it got cold, my usual bag (camera, wallet). I was quite loaded up on my way out the door. I guess it takes a lot of baggage to get enlightened.

This is my favorite traffic sign.

Things heard at the How Berkeley Can You Be parade in response to the Seoul Food (dog meat restaurants) float:

"They must have taken over the old Doggy Diner restaurants"

"I was hungry. Now I'm disgusted."

"It's a Dog Eat Dog world" said by a man feeding a Puppy Pop to his dalmation

"They say they are for animal welfare" said in a mystified tone of voice

A brochure for the Seoul Food restaurants along with a chunck of goat (aka dog meat) that had been roasted on the grill.

Animal Control got called to investigate whether real dogs were being roasted. I wonder if the call to Animal Control came from someone looking to write their own story in their own paper...

This is before the construction begins...