Saturday, July 4th, 2009
Tonight’s Fourth of July fireworks show had a fairly high fog ceiling, so it would have to rate as better than average. Better than last year anyway, but not as good as 2007.
Here’s an excellent eight-second exposure of the northern waterfront show from Lafayette Park in Specific Whites Pacific Heights. Click to expand:
via bendjsf
And here’s a real-time shot of the same show from Twin Peaks:
Everything is done double – that’s the way they do it. Here’s a double double:
But this is what happens when the fireworks get too high – you can only see the bottom halves sometimes due to the fog:
Let’s look across the Bay over at Sausalito. That’s USF in the foreground:
Now here are some illegal explosions in San Francisco. This was an impressive burst above the northern Mission district:
And here’s Mission Bay / Dogpatch with Alameda / Oakland in the background – very nice:
The Mission and points south all had lots of illegal fireworks booming:
Oh noes, it’s a flare, shooting high above Twin Peaks…
…and then landing somewhere in the Castro District:
And there you have it.
Tags: 2007, 2008, 2009, 3rd, 511, aquatic park, at&t park, ave, avenue, Bay, bay area, bernal heights, bicycles, bike, blanket, bus, cable cars, chapel, clouds, coit tower, county, Crissy Field, district, film, fire works, fired up, firework, fireworks, fishermans, fishermans wharf, fishermen's wharf, flare, fog, forecast, fort mason, forth, foruth of july, fourth, ft. mason, herb caen, hunters point, hyde, Ignatius Heights, illegal, Jefferson, july, lower, marin, marina green, mission, movie, Muni, Municipal Pier, Oakland, pacific heights, park, parking, photographs, photos, pier 39, potrero hill, presidio. telegraph hill, prohibidado, prohibited, russian hill, San Francisco, sausalito, SFPD, street, transit, twin peaks, university of san francisco, USF, van ness, walking, way, weather, wharf, youtube
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Friday, July 3rd, 2009
When they tell you “Fog could shroud S.F. fireworks“ up in Fishermans Wharf at 9:30 PM on the Fourth of July 2009, what they really mean is Fog WILL shroud S.F. fireworks, barring some Act of God, or Gaia, or Whomever.
Sometimes the weather is good, sometimes not. This year, not.
Check it out from 2008. Click to expand:
Eliya via Flickr
This is by no means the worst case scenario. So when they talk about special low-level fireworks and let’s cross our fingers, they’re spinning. And spinning is just the polite term for lying. So, what do you do? Head on over to the Mission District, where they’ll have oodles of Yelp-rated, illegal, illicit, MUY PRO HI BI DA DO (now I say that in Spanish because that’s how exotic and not allowed it is) fireworks, fog-free, for free. Just check out this screen saver album from 2007.
Of course, you can always go with the flow and follow the madding crowd northward into la niebla, le brouillard. And who knows, maybe it will be clear the way it was in 2007. Thusly:
This is the view you had from Crissy Field on 7-4-2007 – those lights at the bottom have something to do with Fishermans Wharf.
But dude, don’t drive up there. Even if they didn’t block off the streets and you already had a parking space waiting for you, you’d still have to drive out of there in a traffic jam when the show’s over at 10:00 PM. Of course, you could always hang out at all the places that will be open up in the Wharf after the show, but maybe you’d be better off driving into the City with your bikes in tow and parking South of the 101 near the Giants’ AT&T Park. Then you could ride up the flat, flat Embarcadero (on the sidewalk – it’s legal) back and forth.
Can you dig the colors, man?
But if that doesn’t pan out, you could follow the cable cars on Hyde (that’s the one north-south street they don’t block off, in my experience) and drop off the brood. Whatever you do, stay off of Van Ness. Or you could BART it to the Embarcadero Station and then hoof it up to Pier 39. But forget about MUNI, ’cause walking would be faster.
And most likely it will be foggy anyway, you’ve been warned.
Dress warm. Panthers out.
Fourth of July Waterfront Celebration
Saturday, July 4, 2009
1:00 PM to 9:30 PM
“PIER 39 invites you to enjoy a fun-filled Independence Day celebration. Rock out with ‘Take 2′ from 1-4pm followed by San Francisco’s favorite 80’s cover band, ‘Tainted Love’ from 6-9:30pm. Immediately after the entertainment look to the sky as the City of San Francisco lights up the night with it’s Firework’s Spectacular, accompanied by a musical simulcast from KISS FM 98.1. PIER 39 has the best viewing area on the bay! In addition, 39 of PIER 39’s businesses will remain open after the fireworks so that guests can miss the traffic, enjoy the PIER, have a drink, get a bite to eat, and shop. Click here for the list of locations open after the fireworks. Sponsored by Crystal Geyser ALPINE SPRING WATER, DeLoach Vineyards, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, The San Francisco Examiner, Tawain Tourism and Asus.”
Tags: 2007, 2008, 2009, 511, aquatic park, at&t park, ave, avenue, bay area, bicycles, bike, blanket, bus, cable cars, clouds, coit tower, Crissy Field, district, film, fire works, fired up, firework, fireworks, fishermans, fishermans wharf, fishermen's wharf, fog, forecast, fort mason, forth, foruth of july, fourth, ft. mason, herb caen, hyde, illegal, Jefferson, july, marin, marina green, mission, movie, Muni, Municipal Pier, of july, pacific heights, park, parking, photographs, photos, pier 39, presidio. telegraph hill, prohibidado, prohibited, russian hill, San Francisco, SFPD, street, transit, van ness, walking, way, weather, wharf, youtube
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Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
Mark your calendars:
“Baseball’s Perfect Address” Hosts Inaugural Half Marathon. Giants Enterprises announced today that it has partnered with San Francisco-based sports management and marketing firm Evolve Sports to produce a first-of-its-kind road race to be held in June 2010. The “Giant Race” consists of a half marathon, a 5K, and a kids “Final Mile.” The course will lead runners through San Francisco’s historic streets and finish on the field at AT&T Park, “baseball’s perfect address” and home of the San Francisco Giants.
Sweet photo from mtmont via Flickr
GIANTS ENTERPRISES JOINS
WITH EVOLVE SPORTS TO PRODUCE 2010 ROAD RACE
“Baseball’s Perfect Address” Hosts Inaugural Half Marathon
Giants Enterprises announced today that it has partnered with San Francisco-based sports management and marketing firm Evolve Sports to
produce a first-of-its-kind road race to be held in June 2010. The “Giant Race” consists of a half marathon, a 5K, and a kids “Final Mile.” The course will lead runners through San Francisco’s historic streets and finish on the field at AT&T Park, “baseball’s perfect address” and home of the San Francisco Giants.
Recognized as one of the most innovative groups of its kind in all of professional sports, Giants Enterprises has produced numerous events in and around AT&T Park, including seven Emerald Bowls, AMA Supercross, Opera at the Park, AVP Pro Beach Volleyball, Mavericks Surf Contest live webcast viewing events, concerts for bands such as the Rolling Stones, Green Day, the Dave Matthews Band, and Kenny Chesney, and hosted multiple runs of Cirque du Soleil. For its part, Evolve Sports represents the interests of world-class professional athletes, owns and produces the Dean Karnazes Silicon Valley Marathon® and holds an ownership stake in the world-famous Mavericks Surf Contest®.
More deets after the jump:
(more…)
Tags: 2010, at&t, at&t park, Baseball’s Perfect Address, enterprises, evolve sports, giants, Half, Half Marathon, june, marathon, park, San Francisco, San Francisco Giants, soma
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Sunday, May 31st, 2009
They went and built a kayak shelter and everything at Mission Bay, so the least you can do is get on down there and try it out.
Maybe you can catch a home run ball or something.
Tags: at&t park, baseball, bridge, kayak, mission creek, outdoors, paddle, San Francisco, sports, stadium, ucsf
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Saturday, November 1st, 2008
If you want the short version of what happened last night, take a look at Dave Golden’s great high-ISO photos with his Nikon on Flickr (which would not be possible to produce with Nikon digital equipment even just a few years ago) and this early report on SFGate and this rather negative take from KPIX. And see street party suppressor David Perry point of view here.
Or you can have the long version:
First, let’s travel back in time to San Francisco Halloween Past. It looked like this, with huge crowds in the Castro District:
Click to expand.
See the huge crowd?
Even crosstown rivals the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders managed to get along:
But the word crowd starts with the letter “C” and that rhymes with “T” and that stands for Trouble.
So now in 2008, Halloween in San Francisco is officially cancelled, or not, depending you look at it. Last night we had this, a police effort to keep traffic moving through the Castro. At this, the SFPD generally succeeded. Because the spice must flow, you know:
Read all about it here, which reads like the official blog of the City and County of San Francisco. Now, of course you can still see what the old Halloween looked like, before the NIMBY homeowners of the Castro got their way, but just not as much of it.
Honoring the late Yves Saint Laurent:
Credit cards! Now, those can be scary, especially these days.
And speaking of scary, how does evidence of falling gas prices scare potential alernative vehicle investors?
Per reports, about 30 people were arrested in the Castro are for being drunk in public.
Anyway, that was unofficial San Francisco Halloween in the Castro. Some people didn’t show because they listened to the white men here.
As for Official San Francisco Halloween in Parking Lot A:
You could watch Godzilla for free with a handful of others…”
…or listen to a perfectly viable Latin jazz band with a couple hundred of others.
Turnout was about what you’d expect to get in a dark parking lot with heavy police presence.
Speaking of which, the city’s official free party is a magnet for young people and all the assorted trouble young people get into to. You can’t sneak in, so you have to go through a Super Bowl style security cattle chute. So the criminal element circles around the parking lot, attracted and yet repelled.
Add it all up, and the Castro area comes out ahead as far as personal safety is concerned. Next ranked would be inside the perimeter of Parking Lot A. Last ranked would be the area surrounding Parking Lot A. If you charged a cover, then you’d keep out the riff raff, but then why would people come?
A brief police detention on 3rd Street, just outside the official party near AT&T Park.
Possession of eggs on Halloween is not yet a crime, at least not yet, anyway.
Akit brings it all home for us on his blog.
On it goes.
Happy Halloween. See you next year in the Castro!
Tags: 2006, 2008, arrests, at&t park, costumes, david parry, david perry, halloween, home, market, parking lot, police, San Francisco, SFPD, street
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