jeremyrandall / blog /

I love hardware stores. I find it kind of amazing that they have so many fun, interesting, cool and unexpected items; that I can buy a single bolt or enough wiring and pipes to do up an entire house. There are three hardware stores near my apartment — four if you count the one that is on the next hill over. I like going to them and looking for project ideas. Sometimes it’s just hooks or picture hangers, sometimes it’s shelves or organizers, sometimes it’s a new idea for lighting or electrical projects and sometimes it’s coming up with a creative way to make toys and inventions out of common household items. I really like coming up with ways to store and organize things, clean, decorate, try new lighting or just manage the recycling and trash better. I like to do things that enhance my apartment without adding clutter, of course.

Last week I went to the hardware store and found a bunch of fastening gear for a home project I was finishing up. It usually takes me a couple trips since I tend to figure some of it as I go. That’s why the hardware store two blocks from my place is a good starting point. Of course it’s certainly no burden to walk another five or seven blocks to see if I can find the right items at one of the other two nearby stores (the fourth hardware store is eleven or twelve blocks away, which is still along a regular walking route, but doesn’t have the same “in my neighborhood” feel).

There are coffee shops and restaurants, a movie theater that plays indie flicks and a Good Vibes near my house and my hardware stores. Plus an odd grocery store that has fancy individual cakes (which I get once in a blue moon for a treat to share). Almost all of them are local businesses, not chains. I love my neighborhood.

This morning we went to the hardware stores and found hooks and tape, light bulb sensor switches, chains and ropes and odds and ends to finish up the projects we started from the bag of items we bought a couple weeks ago. Rubber dipping proved to be an interesting way to add a handle to an existing item. Arts and crafts day for grownups, with a nap thrown in for good measure. It was a gorgeous sunny day, just like yesterday when we walked along the Wharf and rode the cable car back up the hill. I never rode the cable cars before I started living near them with a monthly Muni pass; they get the tourists to pay five dollars one-way, no transfers.

I love August in the Bay Area. The weather is great, there’s lots to do and the sun comes up early and goes down late. It’s my favorite month.

We took the ferry out Angel Island a couple weeks ago to go hiking. I had done the perimeter road in the past, but this was the first time I had climbed to the top. I’m usually an urban hiker, but there are trees and dirt trails just a boat ride away. We plowed up the hill like billy goats; the view was gorgeous at the top. We sat and ate our energy bars and drank our protein drinks, then headed down the other side and back to the ferry boat. Walker, hiker, urban foot-transit enthusiast. I chuckle when I see the Segway groups near Aquatic Park; do we really need vehicles that mimic walking?

It’s slowing down here. The crowds at the Wharf and Union Square are thinning out. I guess the kids are back in school or something. September and October are greats months here too, especially for the locals. I’m done with today’s chores, cleaning my apartment, screwing in hooks, taking things out and adding things in. Until the next hike to the hardware stores, of course.

Social networking

I like Facebook. I like the clean interface. I like the way you can post snarky little status updates. I like that all of my friends are showing up there, and I can read their snarky little status updates. I’m amused that some people never change; sometimes I find that disappointing too. I even kind of like all the weird applications and add-ons. They’re generally silly, but being able to spend a few seconds sending someone a virtual gift or hug, a comment or a link makes keeping in touch both amazingly easy and remarkably effective. It kind of goes in waves for me. Someone may see my status update and that causes them to send a message. We go back an forth a couple lines at a time, and feel re-connected, caught up. I’ve had old co-workers, friends from organizations, friends from high school and even friends from junior high and elementary school get back in touch.

“Jeremy is feeling enamored with a major social networking site.”

Changing attitudes about finite resources

I get the impression that people — regular people — are genuinely changing their attitudes about energy, gas, oil, finite resources. Around the blogosphere people are writing about different fuels, new energy technologies, wanting governments to seek alternatives to oil. People seem to be accepting that it costs actual money to drive a large vehicle down the road, that maybe that’s not the best thing to be doing, and that there are other options that make more sense environmentally and economically.

Walkable cities are healthy cities

I read in the newspaper today that San Francisco has been rated the most walkable city in the United States. Yes, even with the hills. Maybe especially with the hills. I was walking up the hill to my apartment the other day and, as I got to the top, I remembered how hard that hill was the first time I went to see the apartment, and noted how easy it is now. I’m a Billy Goat.

Is ‘blogoshpere’ a real word?

I’m sort of amazed by all the blogs. People are writing about so many things… some are interesting to me… some are not… some are cleaver, insightful, delightful… some are not. This blog is interesting… maybe not.

Muni, Muni, Muni

I like it when Muni employees show a sense of humor. I heard this on the PA system at Montgomery Station this morning:

“Muni custodian, Muni custodian. Your services are needed at Van Ness Station. We have an extremely serious situation at Van Ness that needs your attention. We have a coffee spill.”

We sat on top of the hill last night, looking West out over the Sunset District. The Sunset is huge — geographically, if not demographically. It stretches out toward the ocean, a grid of rectangular blocks and two or three story duplexes and apartment buildings. Restaurants, shops, oil change places, fabric stores, gas stations, supermarkets, parks, schools, churches. There are even a couple big windmills if you know where to look. I know where to look for lots of things out here.

We can see the lights from the cars on 19th Ave as they cross into the park and disappear around the curve through the trees. This is the quiet side of the city.

The Sunset District is peach colored at night. The buildings have distinct colors during the day, but now everything is just uniformly peach. It’s the streetlights. Sodium-something-or-other lamps, I try to explain. I think they use those lamps to limit light pollution. I think I remember learning that when I was a kid. There’s a metropolitan area of something like seven million people stretching behind us; the light pollution isn’t being stopped at all.

“It’s like being home,” she said. I think we both felt like we were wandering for a long time until we found this place.

I’d been on top of this hill before. I can’t remember when, but it was hazy, daytime and I had climbed up the hill and collected a little bit of the rock at the top. That piece of rock sat on my bookshelf for years.

“It’s Greywacke.” Darryl, the geology professor at City College, had told us that all of the rock making up the hills of San Francisco is Greywacke.

I left the Sunset more than five years ago. I was on my way down then. When I first arrived I was full of excitement and potential. Just a kid, new to the big city, ready to make my dreams come true. When I left the Sunset, I had been holed up alone in the back of an apartment for years. I had long since thrown out all of my furniture, boarded up the front windows and ceased to exist on the inside.

I’ve lived on the other side of the city for years now, alive and existing on the inside, alive and existing on the outside, too. And I just sort of forgot about the Sunset until I started coming out to her neighborhood. My old neighborhood.

It started slowly and built up, memories leading to feelings. At first it was just nice to see the old places, the restaurants, the streetcars rumbling down Judah, the way the sky looks really blue when it’s not foggy. Riding to work on the N-Judah has been making me smile, even when it’s crowded and I have to stand all the way to Montgomery.

Last night I went to a meeting at 19th Ave and Judah before we met up, and the memories of the past started coming in, in huge waves. The way the streetlights bathe the concrete below in muted light, the sound of the streetcars rumbling up and down the hills and the way the dusk settles over the neighborhood made me think of the fog and the haze of my past, the cloudy memories and the self-destructive behavior. Of the smoke. And the escape. Thank God for the escape.

I hadn’t been past 19th Ave more than a handful of times in the last five years. Two days ago I had some time for myself so I rode to the end of the N line, walked the trail along beach, watched the sunset and laughed at the dogs playing at Fort Funston. I had to switch buses at the mall to get back. Past the college and the bookstores, the big parking lots and the students horsing around on the Muni platform.

It’s strange to see the old places where things were bad and to be back again when things are good. The good is sustainable now. I’m whole now. I’m present now. I’m here now.

“It is like being home,” I replied, with a smile.

It’s 2008!

For the last day of 2007 I went to work, met up with a lunch group, came home, did laundry, called someone and made a date, took a nap and then took the bus to the Castro area to attend two New Year’s Eve parties. I met some fun new folks and marked the new year with close friends and an intimate late night. Then I walked home, enjoying the exercise, the cool breeze and the city lights. The Transamerica building is blinking its regular red light; the multicolored holiday light has been retired until next year. The holidays are over (except for having today, New Year’s Day, off, I suppose) and it’s time to dive back in to the regular day to day.

2007 was a big year for me; I have a lot of optimism about 2008. Out with the old, in with the new, positive choices, making progress.

On another note, my Mac is at the Apple Store getting a new hard drive, under warranty. I hope it’s back soon!

This week it has been raining. Not a lot, but a little each day. The skies have been dark and down pouring, light and drizzling, clear and foggy with winds and calms and some stars poking out last night as I was walking past Huntington Park on Nob Hill. This catches my attention; I never see stars in the sky anymore. I was on my way back from dropping off a car (from one of the local car share companies/organizations) after dropping off a friend.

On the way back to the garage I had a few minutes before my car was due, so I crested the hill, over the cable car tracks (you can catch air, not that I necessarily recommend doing so), saw the beam flash from the lighthouse on Alcatraz across the dark water.

Late night San Francisco is a place of dangerously fast moving cabs running red lights and generally terrorizing the denizens of the dark. But not the one in front of me on Polk Street. That cab is moving slowly and with intent, scanning the bars and clubs for an outstretched hand and another fare.

Still a few more minutes until my reservation is up. I should have been in bed a couple hours ago; I could have put this sedan away and gone to sleep right after dropping off my friend, but I hate to waste my alloted car time. Next, a stop at the 24 hour supermarket for the toiletries I forgot to buy earlier when I walked to the pharmacy. Three giggling girls are at the checkout counter and the cashier is doing something to make them laugh. I see he is twirling a toilet plunger before dropping it into a bag and handing it to one of them. If I had been behind them in line I would not have been able to resist asking what happened that made them buy a plunger in the wee hours of the morning. I mean, I pretty much know what happened, but maybe the story would have been more interesting or exotic than just that. At this time of night, who knows what might happen.

The store’s parking lot exits on a one-way street, so I find myself going down, then over, then up, then back to California Street to glide into the garage. I am exhausted and delirious and happy and content. The wind and drizzle hit my face, my sweatshirt flaps behind me in the breeze. Three blocks, two stairs, one elevator ride, two locks, one stop in the bathroom and a crawl into bed.

Something very exciting happened yesterday: the new IKEA catalog landed in my mailbox. Say what you will about IKEA furniture — it’s cheap, it’s “dorm like,” whatever — I love the stuff. Some of Most of Nearly all of my furniture is from IKEA and I like that it’s light and contemporary. They have so much stuff it’s easy to find things that work even if you’re an “armchair designer” like me. And IKEA, as a company, professes to be environmentally responsible.

Now my apartment is rather small, so I don’t really buy new furniture much, but changing things up, adding little lamps and things really helps keep me from getting bored in my little space. I go through the IKEA catalog, the DWR catalog, the Pottery Barn catalog, Apartment Therapy’s site and similar catalogs and publications, looking for ideas, subtle things I can change, artsy projects that I can embark upon. My goal is always to avoid adding clutter and keep things tasteful and interesting, with a little whimsy thrown in. Yes, I said whimsy; whimsy is important.

This morning I heard some banging downstairs; I had heard that the unit downstairs was going to be renovated, and sure enough, painting and tiling was in full swing. I had never seen the unit below and it was interesting to compare. We have the same exterior wall layout, but that’s about it. The unit downstairs has walls separating the kitchen, living area and the closet and bathroom areas, whereas mine had those walls removed at some point and it’s a fairly open space. The built-in cabinetry and moldings downstairs are lovely and seeing them made me feel sad that my place no longer has those charms. But I much prefer a light open space to smaller individual rooms. When I lived in one of those “railroad” apartments, where all the rooms were off a long main hallway, things felt constricted. I would like to reinstall molding and re-tile my bathroom someday; the molding in particular would add back some of the missing architectural detail.

The building I live in is interesting, in and of itself. It was built in 1913 and has the standard San Francisco facade with bay windows and fire escapes. The elevator is an open-cage Otis and, from what I’ve found on the web, it’s of an even earlier vintage. I suppose they found it used and resuscitated it when the building was under construction. I think this whole block was built then, part of the rebirth after the 1906 earthquake. We have steam heat and old-fashioned radiators, which are now powered by a brand new gas-fired steam boiler in the basement; it replaced the cast iron monstrosity that finally wore out this year.

Update: Okay, well, I went to IKEA and bought an Ektorp loveseat; it’s the one that is comfortable to sit on and the covers can be switched off for different colors and patterns. So, one of the old chairs has been mothballed to the basement.

A lovely day in The City.

A cable car Westbound on California Street, heading up Nob Hill from the Financial District.

A view of the bay from Larkin and Francisco.

The North side of Nob Hill, from Russian Hill. I live on the other side of this hill.

I met up with someone cool the other day who writes a couple of blogs. One is more professional and one is more personal. We talked a bit about posting life details in a public forum and the implications. I have written here before how the public/private blog balance is a challenge (perhaps I should just blog about that all the time). I like the idea of posting a lot of interesting things about myself (since I am so goddamn interesting, of course) but I know that striking a balance is important. I believe my caution is appropriate, yet I find myself envious of the people who do feel to write more about their lives. I guess my final take, though, is that I’d rather interact with people in real life who want to get to know me than to post everything on a blog and then exist only as a virtual being. Deep, huh?

On another note, I find it completely annoying when people do nothing but complain in their blogs. C’mon people, stop complaining and go do something to improve your lives! But I digress.

My love affair with San Francisco continues. I shared with someone the other day that I am “living my dream,” here, no matter how cliche that sounds. I am really grateful for that.

We’ve had some overly warm days, but once the wind picks up and the fog starts to roll in it cools down and is really pleasant, at least to me. I’ve been here long enough that I a sweatshirt serves as enough of a jacket to keep me comfortable even when it is in fact chilly.

I’ve been riding cable cars more often now that I get a FastPass routinely each month. Sometimes I will do a long walk toward the Embarcadero and take a cable car home, sometimes I just go for a ride because they’re there and they’re cool.

I was mugged a few months ago and since then I’ve stopped carrying a backpack. Which means I don’t routinely carry a camera with me anymore. I’m really missing taking pictures when I’m out and about. I think it may be time to get another backpack (too bad those “man purses” are so ridiculous) and get a new camera. Probably a good excuse anyway since it’s been a long time since I bought a digital camera and the quality is sure to be a lot higher. I’m planning to get a bunch of my existing photos up on Flickr soon and then start building the collection with new material.

Unfortunately the camera in my new-ish phone takes pictures of considerably worse quality than even my several-year-old digital camera. Some shots from the camera phone:

This Southbound cable car has just come up the steep hill from the Fisherman’s Wharf area; the curvy part of Lombard street drops off in the background with North Beach and the bay visible.

This Northbound cable car is about to drop down the steep hill to the Fisherman’s Wharf area.

The busy part of California Street facing West toward Polk Gulch.

I’m off to work shortly, after the holiday yesterday.

I rode the T-Third a week or two ago (whichever week was the first one of regular service). It was so slow; I couldn’t believe how long it took to get back on to King Street after passing the Fourth Street Bridge. I read the next day in the paper that the delays were caused by an automatic safety system that would stop the T if the J was at the other platform across the street. The article went on to say that further problems were caused by people running from one platform to the other — across the street — since they had no way to know if the next train would be a T at one platform or a J at the other.

Oh, this is so Muni.

So, first of all, why are there two platforms? One platform is on the T line and the other is basically a one block spur that the J stops at. Why not have all trains stop at the platform which is on the active track? The other platform should have been removed when the T was built to avoid this very issue. It seems like such a simple thing for the transit engineers (Muni does have some, right?) to have thought about.

Secondly, why would the safety device stop trains that are passing through on what is essentially a mainline when there is a train pulled in to the aforementioned one block spur? How about having the parked J trains be “automatically stopped” — which they are anyway — when a T train is making its way through, mid-route?

I rode it again over the weekend. Once a T arrived (25 minutes waiting) it was not bad. It sort of just meanders out to Sunnydale at a moderate pace. It’s interesting to see the areas served. I suspect the next round of redevelopment and gentrification will really heat up from Mission Bay to Cesar Chavez. I’m not sure about the immediate prospects for the more “industrial” areas between Cesar Chavez and the end of the line.

Personally, I’d like to see new Muni rail lines serving denser parts of The City, such as the Geary corridor and the Van Ness/Polk Gulch corridor.

I didn’t have a proper camera when I was wandering around Russian Hill this morning, but I snapped a couple shots from my phone. They’re not great, but I liked the mood conveyed of a chilly, crisp clear day above The City.

I just finished watching the entire first Tales of The City series on DVD. I think the last time I watched it was something like eight years ago. It totally reminded me, again, of my own sense of awe when I first moved to SF and how naive I was. Mary Ann Singleton is a character that resonates. I keep meaning to track down Macondray Lane, the street that was the model for Barbary Lane, but haven’t done so yet.

I’ve also been meaning to take another walk around the steps on Telegraph Hill since I finally watched The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.

There’s something about wandering SF on a weekday, away from work and the crowds, that I find particularly relaxing. Since I’ve moved to Nob Hill I’ve found myself exploring Russian Hill and North Beach more than I ever have before.

Another topic, of much excitement (to me at least), is the “new to me” steam radiator installed in my apartment. The previous one was an unusual “baseboard” configuration and didn’t work right. This one is a regular old cast-iron vertical unit that looks cool and actually works. Everything old becomes new, right? I’ve learned way more than I ever expected to about single pipe steam heating systems.

Critical Mass:

Market Street:

Critical Mass:

Turtle Fountain:

It’s been a busy time for me lately. The main thing is that I’ve moved. I’m now living up toward Nob Hill. In my nearly ten years in San Francisco, I’ve lived in the Outer Sunset, then in two different places in Noe Valley, then in a highrise in the Civic Center area. Now I’m back in a traditional flat partway up the hill.

Over the years I’ve consistently moved from less dense to more dense neighborhoods. Today my walk to and from BART each day looks like something from the quintessential San Francisco portrayed in movies and on TV. I pass tall buildings and mid-rise Victorians and Edwardians. I go up and down steep hills with cable cars clanging past. I pass stores and clubs, big and small. I can either pass hordes of tourists or stroll down slightly quieter streets depending on which corners I turn at.

I’m much more centrally located now. It’s a short walk up to the top of Nob Hill or down to Polk Gulch. Russian Hill, Chinatown, North Beach and the Tenderloin are not far away. Views of the bridge or views of the bay are close at hand, though, unfortunately, not right outside my window. I feel lucky to still be here in this city that I’ve always wanted to live in, and I plan to stay awhile and continue to put down roots.

I’ve written some of my views supporting dense urban development, car sharing and public transit systems here before. Check out SF Cityscape for a wealth of information, and snitty commentary, on Bay Area transit issues and adsurdities.

Update: they removed their own articles and simply link to other sites now. Still useful, but not as interesting (or snarky) as it used to be.

Sunrise the other day:

Like most of North America, San Francisco has been a lot warmer than usual this week. Tonight the fog machine kicked in and started cooling things down. It comes over the hills from the ocean side, eventually closing in the downtown area:

A closeup of the fog rolling over Alamo Square and in to Hayes Valley:

And passing around San Francisco City Hall:

The three “fog shots” were taken on the opposite side of the building from my apartment.

Tomorrow is another Spare the Air day, so transit here in the Bay Area, inlcuding BART, will be free.

I haven’t owned a car for a few years now, though I did have a motorcycle up until a bit less than a year ago. At that time I made a conscious choice that my transit needs were going to be met through walking, pubic transit, bicycling and occasionally renting a car, in that order. I wanted to make some changes in my life to benefit my health; making walking my primary mode of transportation has been a big part of that and I feel great for it.

Each morning I jump on a BART train to go to work and each evening I do the same to get home. Perhaps one of these days I’ll change jobs to work within walking distance of my home here in San Francisco. I work on the other side of the bay from SF, which is a less common commute than the other way around. But for now I use the time on the train to read, listen to music or just zone out or nap.

I’ve been a member of one of the car sharing services here for awhile now. These services, which include City Car Share, ZipCar and FlexCar, are membership based and allow folks to use cars by the hour or by the day for a fixed price that includes gas, insurance, parking and maintenance. It’s just pay and go with real time reservations online and an electronic card key to open the car. The rate is about $9.50 an hour. I like that I can just figure an all-inclusive cost for a car — when I need it — instead of all of those “variable costs” of actually owning a vehicle. Living in The City, it’s convenient for those occasional times when I need to pick up something too big to carry home on foot — like to buy a bookcase or something like that.

I really believe that these kinds of solutions allow us to make better choices when it comes to saving energy, reducing polution and saving space. I know this is the most cliche thing ever, but I believe that if everyone did a little it would make a huge difference.

On a slightly more personal level, tonight I did my grocery shopping, got everything put away, did the dishes, vacuumed (yes I have some carpet at home, even though I prefer the hardwood floors!), recycled the latest pile of magazines, looked over some bills and generally just cleaned my apartment. I like to start out my week with things organized and tidy; it makes me feel sort of relaxed and ready to take on the new week.

I’m always amazed by the muted roar, for lack of a better term, that comes up from the street during parades. And of all the parades in San Francisco each year, Pride has to be the biggest.

I’ve been going back and forth from the street to home; seeing the parade in person and watching on TV as it streams past outside my window. I think it’s great to see families with their kids, police and government, media, corporations, medical organizations, religious groups and regular people from different places and walks of life celebrating diversity and love and hope. That is what progress is about, in my opinion!

Tomorrow has been declared the first Spare the Air Day of 2006. 25 bay area transit agencies will be free all day. This includes Muni, BART, AC Transit, Caltrain, SamTrans, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and Golden Gate Transit busses and ferries.

One of my favorite unique music sources is SomaFM (somafm.org), which describes itself as, “Listener-supported, commercial-free, underground/alternative radio broadcasting from San Francisco.” It’s run by Rusty, a guy I worked with back in the “tech TV” days; they play about ten streaming electronic music stations, including three new offerings. I’m sure my attempts at description won’t do it justice, especially since I’m not really dialed in to all the different electronic music genres. I just know that I like more ambient, reflective, dark, middle-of-the-night-when-the-city-is-quiet types of selections. Whatever that means.

I’m currently listening to one of the new streams, called “Space Station Soma.”

My friend Ryan runs a show at 9pm on Monday nights via 90hz.org. 90hz is not on the air full time like SOMAFM; they offer scheduled programming run by, as far as I can tell, a volunteer crew.