Man, there was a lot of smoke being produced by that little Ford Fiesta today down in the Financial District.
See?
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And here’s the video:
And here’s some more from the other day in Potero Hill.
And here’s another one from Potrero Hill:
That award would have to go to the official seal of the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
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Sam the Eagle has his talons sunk into the Earth’s northern polar region and he aint letting go.
This state of this overflowing garbage can is fairly typical in the more urban areas of Golden Gate Park. But what’s it filled with? Some of it looks exactly like the junk mail I get, and there are other pieces from Amazon.com and UPS. The thing is that we’re talking “household garbage,” the stuff that belongs in your own trash.
So, what’s stopping the City and County of San Francisco from digging through this can like a starving raccoon and issuing citations to the addressees of these items? That’s the way they do it in Washington D.C., anyway. Even throwing away something small, like a used airline ticket, can get you a citation in next week’s mail.
This isn’t an unusual thing in GGP, it’s not during a street festival or the Bay to Breakers, it’s just another day. Click to expand:
If you want to reduce junk mail in the first place, here’s an article from the Chronicle that gives some pointers (but they don’t list their own number) (but actually calling that number and opting out doesn’t seem to have much effect anyway) (but oh well).
On it goes.
The thing you’ve got to realize, is that sometimes things just happen. It’s not your fault, it’s not anyone else’s fault, it’s just, you know, things happen. Kind of like the time spokesmodel and romance novel cover-boy Fabio got hit in the face with a bird when he was on a roller coaster. Whose fault was that?
That’s something to ponder when you consider the whining of some of the passengers of famous Flight 1549, piloted by Bay Area local Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. You see, they gots to get more money than they’ve gotten so far from U.S. Airways
Of course, the airline isn’t done talking with people yet:
“US Airways Vice President Jim Olson says that an insurance claims specialist is contacting passengers and that they’ll be reimbursed for expenses or losses above $5,000. The airline wants to ensure no passenger is “losing money for the inconvenience or anything lost during the accident,” he says”
But that doesn’t stem the whining. Obviously, this was a traumatic event, but unless passengers want to allege something about defective engines (as Geraldo Rivera seems to be doing) or negligent bird vigilance by somebody, then maybe these passengers should be happy to take the five G’s, file any additional claims and then move on with their lives.
Just saying.
An old story:
A grandmother is sitting at the beach, watching her young grandson play in the water. Suddenly, an enormous wave crashes over the boy’s head, and when it recedes, the boy is gone, washed out to sea. Frantic, the grandmother cries out to God, “Lord, what has my grandson done to deserve this? Please bring him back to me, and I’ll forever be grateful to you!” Moments later, another enormous wave crashes against the shoreline, returning the boy to the beach, soaked but unharmed. He begins happily digging in the sand, oblivious to what just occurred. The grandmother looks at the boy, then raises her head to the sky. She shouts, “He had a hat!”
Today, this tale could be updated by replacing the word “hat” with Blackberry, or cell phone, PSP, whatever.
Oh well.
Well this was the scene at the recent inauguration of Barack Obama in D.C. a few days back. O is in the lower right corner, but who else is in there? Feel free to click on the image once or twice and peek around. It’s 3000 pixels wide so you’ll be sure to get a good look.
Spoiler alert:
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From left to right: San Francisco First Lady Jennifer Siebel (with hat), Magic Johnson, Mayor Gavin Newsom (avec camera), California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (looking bad-ass, like he just killed a guy), US Airways pilot Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III, US Airways pilot Jeff Skiles, and a cast of thousands – just one big cozy family.
Airline pilot and local Contra Costa County webmaster (www.safetyreliability.com!, that’s his URL, srsly) really pulled the fat out of the fire today by properly ditching his crippled Airbus 320 into the Hudson River. Will he make an appearance at the upcoming Obama Presidential Inaugural Celebration or State of the Union address? (Signs point to YES.)
This former USAF fighter pilot will be soon be the talk of his small East Bay hometown: Danville, CA . [Update: It's happened already - the MSM has staked out his family's "spacious house" and talked to the neighbors, so the fam is hiding out in the dark, sustaining themselves on take-out fast food delivered by friends. Well, here he is, the man with "twinkly, fatherly eyes"]
www.safetyreliability.com The eye twinkling here is assisted by on-camera flash catchlights and Photoshop’s unsharp mask (USM) function, set at 20, 60, 0. Click to expand
Did he or co-pilot Jeff Skiles of Oregon, Wisconsin press the Airbus 320 “ditch button?” Maybe. That jet certainly floated like a cork for a while. Apparently, “pressing the guarded “DITCHING” button causes the pressurization system to send a “CLOSE” command to:
thereby making the aircraft fuselage as watertight as possible and hopefully enabling it to stay afloat long enough for everyone to get out before it sinks.” The More You Know… Hey Boeing, do you have something simple like this?
It appears ”Sully” did a masterful job all around, especially when you consider the fact that the temperature of the water was “likely much colder” than 20 degrees(!), per WCBS. (You know, some captains don’t always go the extra mile for passengers when the ship is going down.)
N106US from less eventful times, in its old livery. Via Drewski2112 Click to enlarge.
And speaking of safety, has any large (100 passengers or so and up) commercial jet airplane gotten in a crash that killed a paying passenger in America since the end of 2001? I can’t think of any flights where that’s happened. Good for us. The trend is our our friend, isn’t it? Of course, the fashion these days is having large jets with just two engines (instead of three or four). When you’re heading into a flock of birds, it would probably be nicer to have more engines than less, but this kind of thing is a fairly rare occurance.
Now, San Francisco’s SFO has had its fair share of birdstrike victims, including Virgin America Flight 837 (yes Air Colbert, named after Stephen Colbert) and, speaking of Virgin Airlines, a Virgin Boeing 747 back in 1995. Let’s hope the growing geese population of the Bay Area doesn’t start hanging out at airports. But let’s leave that issue for another day.
Today, it’s three cheers for old-school, safe, reliable, Facebook.com cover-boy, possible nominee for U.S. Senate representing New York Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger III!
[Update: For some odd reason, a colossal number of people are searching Google right now using the terms "sullenberger jewish?" and "wesley sullenburger jew." I don't know the answer, but the question itself must be, in the words of famous local playwright Josh Kornbluth, "Good for the Jews".]
