Category: Life in San Francisco

Posted on

This Place It Is A Changin’…

For some reason there’s a cafe on Taraval Street between 27th and 28th that can’t seem to stay in business for more than about three months. It’s not in that bad a location, but the awning and the name every few months with very little changing on the inside. The free wifi even has the same name as went it first opened about 5 years ago.

The name kept changing from Mocha 101 to Green Cafe to now Rolling Out. The names have changed so much that I can’t even remember most of them now. There’s always a few people in there, but not like some of the other cafes that have people lined up and sitting outside. The staff stayed the same for awhile but now I’ve noticed different people at the register. The inside is almost exactly the same as when it open so all this just seems funny to me.

I don’t know if the place changes hands or if the owner is just very into redecorating. The menu has changed a little bit, now focusing on sweeter treats and sandwiches made with homemade bread. At $4.75 a pop that’s not too bad a price considering I’ve seen sandwiches going for $6.50 closer down to me.

I’m not sure what it is in general with Taraval street, but there’s always a high turnover in businesses on the street unless you get farther out towards the beach where little changes. Unless you’re a gas station or 7-11 or El Burrito Express you can’t expect to stay in business very long on Taraval.

I just wonder why that is?

[ad#AdBrite]

Posted on

Healthy San Francisco

Gavin Newson was loved and then hated after he left, but I have to admit that I approve of one thing he did — Healthy San Francisco. I was wary at first because it started by only serving the residents of Chinatown and then moved out into the Mission, but now it includes Brown and Toland which is an excellent health care facility that has several locations around the city and has saved my life a couple of times.

Because of that I have what is called a pre-existing condition. Most people in the 40’s do and because of that when you need to buy health insurance for yourself you usually get turned down or you are offered a plan at a grossly inflated rate. Because of this I applied and was given the San Francisco Health Plan which is a part of Healthy San Francisco. While it turns out that I can’t keep the same doctor I had with Brown and Toland I did get a very well respected doctor who’s right around the corner from him and I have zero co-pay on my visits.

I had a job once where the owner of the company called health insurance a crap shoot. Maybe you’ll need it, maybe you won’t. Nowadays from my experience when you are approaching your 40’s something starts to go wrong with you and you’ll need some kind of medication. Your blood pressure goes up, your cholesterol goes hay-wire. It’s not a crap shoot, but a necessity. You’ll need it and as you get older you’ll need it more. It kind of sucks to get old even though you can be more active as you’re older.

Healthy San Francisco is a good thing. Our insurance prior to being accepted would be costing us around $1500/month and even my doctor’s jaw dropped at that. That doesn’t include co-pays and medications, etc. Incidentally if you are on any forms of generic medications I highly recommend you look into Walgreen’s plan that for $35/year will give your family access to more than 400 generic meds for $12 for three months. It’s a great deal during these times.

Speaking of which, with the economy slowly coming back I’m seeing more part-time work than full time because it’s cheaper to pay two people to do one person’s job than it is to pay one person with benefits and it gives you them a run around the city’s law that employer’s have to provide health benefits. I am at least seeing more jobs offering benefits in San Francisco now and that’s a good thing. I do miss my old doctor, but once I get a job that offers real benefits I’ll transition back to him. The funny thing is that most of the benefits I’ve had in the past have had deductibles on the medications before you started getting them cheaper. One of the medications I take that is widely prescribed costs $120 until you’ve reached the deductible and then it drops down to $30. With the San Francisco Health Plan it’s free. Now if my doctor could add himself to the San Francisco Health Plan I’d be in a perfect world for my health.

[ad#AdBrite]

Posted on

Sec. 486 M.P.C.

I saw a sign today that made me want to run home to the internet and do a search. It was in regards to Sec. 486 M.P.C. A law which forbids the feeding of wildlife in San Francisco. This sign listed some of the wildlife and I realized that I have been in violation of this law many time, but luckily I haven’t in the past 10 years so I think I’m past the statue of limitations.

I used to love many years ago to go to the arboretum and sit on a bench and wait until the squirrels would run up my legs for me to hand them a peanut [hint, they prefer walnuts]. I love my time as a teenager when the raccoons would walk up to me in my back yard and take an egg from my hand. I was not one to ever feed pigeons, though there were a couple of times when a friendly one would walk up and i’d toss a bit of something to them. Seagulls are definitely off my list as they are food thieves and don’t need to be fed ever. I have tossed some old bread to the ducks at Stowe Lake though.

At the zoo, when I was a kid they used to sell mackerel bits to toss to the seals, but I suppose that didn’t fall under Sec. 486 M.P.C. then or there was some kind of special dispensation. I know that feeding squirrels isn’t really that good for them, but in a way it disappoints me as I will not have the chance to take my daughter to Japanese Tea Garden or Arboretum and show her how much fun it is when a squirrel takes a nut from your hand. I’m not sure I’d want to help her feed a raccoon as they can turn on you sometimes and there is always that rabies thing you have to think of.

I guess the goats and sheep at the zoo are considered domestic animals since they sell alfalfa pellets for them that you can purchase for 50¢ and feed to them. My daughter enjoys this a lot so I guess that’ll have to do. I definitely will add skunks to the menu of animals not to fee, though I admit I have done that before in San Francisco as well as the odd possum I’ve seen. While I’ve encounter a couple of coyote’s in San Francisco, I’ve never fed one preferring to stay safely in my car. I have fed old bread to the Buffalos in the park way back when they could  walk up to the fence, but those days have passed. I even remember back to the days as a kid when they sold zoo chow at the zoo and I would be throwing the pellets at the bears who would lean back and hold up their hind legs to get you to perform for them so they could get the treats.

I guess the times are a changing when the department of public works posts a phone number you can call to report offenders. I wonder now what the fine is for feeding a nut to a squirrel?

Posted on

Holy Crap! My Dad is Elmo, Ernie AND Grover!

I have from an early age had an ear for voices. I could listen to many voices and then imitate them. When our daughter was born she like many kids loved Sesame Street and I started to pick up a few of the voices. Cookie Monster was my first that I got pretty well, but Elmo, Ernie and Grover are my best. Kermit, I mastered years ago and usually used that voice with rather inappropriate phrases that Kermit or the FCC wouldn’t allow.

Now having a daughter who is autistic you have to find a few ways to motivate her that are different than other kids. She has a hard time getting up in the mornings because she goes to sleep at 7:30pm and is out like a log until 7am. We are blessed in many ways by this.

When we go up in the morning and put on her music that’s one way to get her attention, but if daddy suddenly starts singing along in the same voice she immediately starts to get up and jump around. Sometimes my wife will yell down to me that our daughter needs XXX insert the Sesame Street character of your choice that I can imitate. I get kind of a chuckle out of this and come up and start singing.

Now, thankfully, I don’t look like any of the muppets and the funny part was when I saw the guy who does the voice of Elmo. He’s a big old hulk of a black man. You wouldn’t expect the Elmo voice to come out of his mouth and when he did the voice it was just so weird it was really funny. I did have a chance back in the 70’s when I was working at the California Academy of Sciences during a Laserium show, were pretty much everyone was on some form of illegal substance, to introduce the show using an Animal puppet from Dr. Teeth and the Electric Band. In case you forget Animal was the drummer. I got some good laughs from that one.

I already do voiceover work so maybe doing character voices for cartoons might be an option for me. I’ll have to check that out this year, but for right now, singing rubber ducky or Elmo’s song for daughter gives me enough of a treat.

Posted on

Looking Back on 2011

This will be my last post for 2011. I felt it would be a good time to reflect back on the year. It was a tough year for most of us. I only had 3 months of work this year, but I managed to keep it all together. I’ve discovered new forms of earning money as a freelancer such as taskrabbit.com and I was almost selected as the best political blog in San Francisco by SF Weekly.

Politics: We had a mayoral race where Mayor Ed Lee who said he wasn’t going to run, but did and then won caused a stir. Supervisor John Avalos had a good run in the race he’s someone to keep an eye on in the future. Oddly enough, I have never really been into politics so this year was a surprising one for me.

Wackiness: We had lots of coverage of the nude guys in the Castro. It seemed like every week there were tastefully[?] posted pictures on sfgate.com. I’m still not too sure about it all, but I don’t travel to the Castro much.

Steve Jobs: Yes, I love Apple computers and fact that they lost the person who brought them back from the brink of death in the 90’s was a sad time indeed. Apple looks like it’s holding up well after the passage of one of the greatest CEO’s of all time.

Post PC World: Tablet computing changed the way we live and it will get even better. I’d like to take the time to thank all of you who contributed to my being able to get an iPad for my austistic daughter. She’s coming along quite well with it, so once again thank you all for your support.

Autism: I’ve learned a lot about children with special needs and the support system that the SFUSD offers for them. Thanks to Kara, Alexis, Kate, Rosie, Mari and Kari who helped her improve through the year. You’ve all become friends and I consider you a part of my family.

Republicans: Thank you for giving me a reason to laugh. While I don’t agree with all of your views you need to pull it together and identify with the Americans you want to represent. You are showing yourselves to the world as an out of date dying old man. Someone will pull the plug on you shortly. Tony Hall is the only Republican I can say I have any respect for.

Leland Yee: Thank you for giving me the publicity I never asked for. Your love of shark fin soup and my hatred of shark finning gave me a reason to write and helped me become a finalist as the best political blog in SF. Let’s have coffee at the Tennesse Grill.

Westside Hipsters™: Yes, I coined that term after many meet ups with friends at the Java Beach Cafe at the foot of Judah. Everyone had a laptop, tablet, smartphone and we’re having informal meetings regarding their business start ups they were working on or just networking in think tank mode to figure out which mobile app would be the next big thing to code. Unlike the Mission Hipsters, these guys worked and drank beer better than Pabst Blue Ribbon.

SF Bloggers: I finally got to meet some of these people and I have to say that I’m in a good crowd with Ocean Beach Bulletin and N Judah Chronicles. I’m planning on making sure I can meet more of them in 2012.

Money: Never had enough of it, but somehow I managed to get through the year. I don’t know how I did it, but I did. Unemployment helped a bit as did the three months of real work I had, but I guess I had someone watching over me and dropping freelance work just when I needed it.

My Wife: So doesn’t like attention so I always refer to her as my wife. She kept me from going crazy and has always stood by me for the past 15 years, so to her I have to give the biggest thanks.

And to all my readers if you’re dumb enough to drive on New Year’s Eve and get yourself smashed call AAA’s Tipsy Tow at 1-800-AAA-HELP. They’ll tow your car and you home for free and you don’t need to be a AAA member.

Posted on

Merry Christmas To All!

[imagebrowser id=7]Every year I get into the holiday spirit early, but this year it took me awhile. Twas the night before Christmas Eve and I had to take a trip to 34th and Quintara to get in the mood. There’s a guy who owns the corner house that for every holiday puts up a display for everyone to see. Whether it’s Valentine’s day or St. Patrick’s day he does up the house, but Christmas is his biggest time of the year.

I have no idea what his name is, but tomorrow I’m going to knock on his door and introduce myself to him. Cars that drive by his house slow down and people bring their kids to have their pictures taken in front of the house. His house is so magically Christmasy that even during the day it looks beautiful. Why he hasn’t been written up in the paper yet is beyond me, but I’m hoping someone from the Chronicle or Examiner or even SF Weekly will stop by and interview him.

He works hard to do what he does and i feel he should be acknowledged for it. We take our daughter down every Christmas and Halloween [the two biggest times for this houses decorations] just to see that WOW look on her face. He is the Santa for all the kids that need something more than the mall Santa’s. He doesn’t get paid to do this, but he does it anyway. That’s a rare thing in this day and age and I feel he needs to be recognized for it.

If you get a chance, definitely go by and see his house. It is a wonderful Christmas tradition that is non-sectarian like the Christmas’ I knew as a kid. In honor of his work, I did a little work tonight and put together a video tribute to his house and it’s decorations. I hope you enjoy it and drive by and see his place. He and his wife are doing a great community service for what they are doing and they deserve an award. My video is the best I have to offer so far. I’ve included a slideshow at the top from pics I took last year and this year. While I can’t give a gift to all of my readers I hope you’ll all accept this. Enjoy!

[Ad#Adbrite]

Posted on

Autism vs. The iPad: Part II

As you read before we had a little mishap with the iPad and it was replaced for free by Apple. The day it was replaced we searched for a case that would keep it protected no matter want and we decided on the Survivor by Griffin Technology. I watched their video of their case with the iPhone and searched for reviews and figured that if the case was considered military grade in the US and UK it could hold up to a moderately autistic child.

Well I was right and I’m glad now. In the three days it took to get the case we’ve been keeping a watchful eye on our little spud to make sure she didn’t throw it or bash it again. Well, it turns out that our over protectiveness only encouraged her to do so. Nothing really terrible, but if we moved toward her in a preemptive strike to keep her from damaging it she knew and would try and toss it.

Luckily we have quick hands and got it before any damage occurred. Now about the case. It’s really good. It’s a polycarbonate housing that’s strong and I liked it because it took me awhile to get it apart so her getting it out of the case will be difficult. The polycarbonate case is covered with a silicon/teflon outer soft cover with flaps covering all of the access ports. This would be great in the sands of Iraq, but what I liked most is that it muted the sound a bit which our daughter like to turn up full blast. This isn’t a problem when you hold it in your hands, but when it’s flat on a table the sound ricochets off the table and is amplified by about 30db making it very loud and annoying whenever there’s an elmo video playing.

Watch the video below. It’s a great case and I found it online for $39.95. It’s a bit thicker than the iPad or iPhone, but it’s worth it for the practically hermetic seal it gives to the iPad. While for some people $499 isn’t too high a price to have to replace, if you have a young kid you’ll want a strong case to protect it so that you can keep your iPad for as long as possible.

[Ad#Adbrite]

Posted on

Tsunami’s vs. San Francisco

I was watching tv last night and the topics of tsunami’s came up again as it has frequently since the Japanese earthquake/tsunami. We in San Francisco have it pretty good if we’re hit by a tsunami and let me tell you why.

First we’re pretty hilly on the coast. Our natural seawall at the beach is about 20 ft. high. That means that the tsunami that hit Japan would possibly leave a few puddles if there was enough force to push it up and over the sea wall. For the most part it would swirl around into the bay weakening its force and the SOMA area with it’s 10 ft high piers would get the worse of it which still wouldn’t be much.

My house is roughly 213 ft above sea level so we would need a huge tsunami wave to cause any damage to our house from a wave hitting the coast. The worst problem we might have is from the storm drains overflowing. There have been times of high rain that the storm drains can’t handle the amount of water so the you’ll see man hole covers lifted up under the pressure and water pouring out and down the streets. Since the water can’t go back into the drains you will literally get  rivers of water flowing downhill to the beach where it collects at the sand dunes without enough power to flow over and even then there might only be a few inches gathered.

The photo included with this post is all CGI and since it exists in someone’s photoshop mind and has yet to be documented we don’t have much to worry about. A tsunami in San Francisco would come from our storm drains before it would come from the sea. Alameda on the other hand, beware.

Posted on

Does A Raccoon Sh*t At The Zoo?

Friday was all about the lack of seagulls so it seems fitting to talk about raccoons today. We made a trip to the zoo over the weekend and while we didn’t see any raccoons, not even in cages there was evidence of them everywhere in the zoo by the small piles of raccoon crap that was everywhere.

How do I know it came from a raccoon? They’re everywhere in San Francisco, I’ve even seen them at night in the financial district. I’ve had a family of them living in my backyard that I used to feed sometimes when they’d come out in the evenings. I know feeding raccoons isn’t the smartest thing to do, but because I’ve been around a lot of them I know what their feces look like. Some of you might remember my article on the horrid sounds of raccoon sex I had written before.

Now when I said they were everywhere at the zoo, I mean everywhere once you’ve given up your ticket and gotten in. I’m actually oddly surprised that no one’s written about this before because unless you know what you’re looking at you may not notice which was obvious by all the flattened patties as we were walking around the zoo.

Actually, the children’s playground was pretty clean as is the entrance where you buy your tickets so the SF Zoo must know that there is tons of raccoon crap since raccoons don’t have any fear of sand or children’s play toys. On the other hand feral cats would use the sand in the area like a giant litter box. I know this because I had a sandbox in my backyard when I was a kid and ended up having to change it over to a large planter box because the cats were using it as a litter box. But I digress…

Walking the zoo you have to be especially careful when walking from the sea lion exhibit to the kangaroo and wallaby exhibits. The reason is that the trees planted there drop acorns that help to disguise the raccoon poop making it harder to avoid stepping in it. I actually saw a little kid trip and fall and luckily didn’t face plant into a steaming pile, but his hand did hit it giving him some lubrication to his fall and boom — face plant. His parents were more concerned at first with the raccoon crap all over their son than whether or not he had actually gotten hurt. Luckily we had some wet ones they were giving out free at the children’s zoo, so I came to their rescue and told them what it was. I’m sure the zoo officials got an earful on their way out, especially after I told them that it’s all over the place and you have to watch out for it.

So does a raccoon sh*t at the zoo? Yes and they do it everywhere.

Now on to the sea gulls. You’ll find plenty of them at the zoo and they are like a mafia crime family. All the food areas at the zoo need to have some notice about this as I see someone get hit every time. My daughter dropped a bagel and bang, there was sea gull casually walking up to it and didn’t even back away when i picked it up. I tore a piece off after I gave the bagel back to my daughter and the sea gull walked casually along with us as we started our walk. I suppose he was not yet a made man in the sea gull mafia family yet so he had to play it cool.

Eventually I tossed him his crumb so he got his vig and walked off. This was one of the nice encounters with a sea gull at the zoo. My wife once ordered a burger and didn’t hold it in close to her body and once again, bang the sea gull took it right out of her hand. Incidentally, if this happens to you don’t bother going back and telling the people that you were just attacked by a sea gull as they will just tell you that you should have been more careful. I can see it happen before it does and it’s usually the people with food on trays who like to hold the tray out in front of them or hold their food up around shoulder height. Why they do this, I don’t know, but the zoo should have some signs warning them like the sign warning people of flying gorilla poop when you’re leaning over the fence staring at the gorillas.

Don’t leave any open food out at the zoo because a sea gull will swoop down for a quick smash and grab. The sea gull mafia is ruthless and I have even seen them fly into the middle of a group of people at a table and steal food. I think the lesser squirrel mafia of the zoo is in cahoots with the sea gulls as I saw a family who left their cart outside the petting zoo with an open bag of chips come out to find the squirrels had swarmed into the open bag and were running off with the contents.

So in short, Zoo, food, sea gulls, squirrels, watch your back.

[ad#AdBrite]

Posted on

Where Have All The Seagulls Gone?

When I was a kid seagulls were everywhere in the city. You could find them more easily than pigeons. They were all over the place. When you’d be out in the school yard eating your lunch you have to watch out that you wouldn’t be attack by one of San Francisco’s dragons of the west trying to steal your sandwich out of your hand. Now you have to go to the zoo to have that experience.

Now the seagulls have been replaced by crows and ravens. Sure we had them before, but they were hard to find. Now they’re all over the place. They’ve replaced the seagulls that used to knock the lids of your garbage bins and rifle through your trash on garbage day. They sit on the electric wires looking down at you as you walk by giving you the feeling that you’re walking through a live version of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.

The ravens are the eeriest of the two because they’re so big. If you go to the Randall Junior Museum you can see one up close and they’re bigger than the chickens that you’d cook up for dinner. Hell, the ravens are bigger than my old fat cat and they just sit there staring you down all the time.

I remember the first time I ever saw ravens in the wild was back in the 80’s and I was walking home from my girlfriend’s house late one night and happened to see a block of ice sitting in the middle of the street and there were two huge raven’s sitting there pecking away at the ice. As I walked by they stopped and looked directly at me and after I passed went back to their pecking. It was odd in a way because to brought to my mind Odin who had two ravens who sat on his shoulders named Huginn and Munnin. I don’t know why that got pulled out of the deep dark recesses of my brain, but it was late at night and seeing them pecking away at the bifrost just left me with an odd kind of feeling. At least they didn’t come at me like the seagulls and try and roll me for any food I might have on me.

So I’m sure there’s an Ornithologist that reads this blog every once in awhile and I ask you now, where have all the seagulls gone?

[ad#AdBrite]