Took a day trip to NYC to see my friend in a play and snapped this shot of a weathered seat cushion on the Harlem train.
I’ve never been much of a soccer fan. Growing up it was the only sport I was halfway decent at, but I hated playing it. I did enjoy watching the World Cup though and surprisingly really enjoyed the live game this past week when I went to see the LA Galaxy vs FC Dallas. The match was a playoff game so maybe there was more intensity in the air than usual, but the crowd was great and the atmosphere was really cool. David Beckham and Landon Donovan were noticeably better than everyone else on the “pitch”, but LA still managed to loose badly.
I was in San Diego for work and decided to grab a hotel downtown. After a quick dinner in Horton Plaza I finished up some work in the hotel room then headed out for a walk to relax and get some air. Snapped these two shots in and around Little Italy (which is absolutely dead at night).
Walking through downtown San Diego this building facade caught my eye. At a certain point in my life I had an unhealthy obsession with root beer. I made a habit of buying bottled root beers and identifying the ingredient mixes laced with more vanilla than wintergreen. A&W quickly became my go to cheap root beer (hands down the best of the normal stuff). I argued at the time that of all the vices one could have root beer was relatively harmless. While my argument was/is sound I sort of just up and stopped drinking soda all together about a year ago, without much reason other than I just did.
Aside from the root beer theme I also liked the vintage signage. Got me wondering how long the walls had been there as the Hires & Dr. Pepper brands date back more than a 100yrs.
Headed south on the 101 departing from San Francisco early in the morning hoping to reach LA by dinner time. The drive is fantastic and there is a lot to look at along the way. Multiple times on the drive I felt compelled to stop and take some pictures but I really only did that once, stopping to get gas and wasting a few minutes driving down a service road. Really liked the color stripes contrasted by the sky at a farm called ‘Crinklaw Ranch’ and the Taqueria sign also caught my eye right next to the gas station.
Went to a fantastic wedding near Mt. Hood in Oregon. It was my first time ever in the northwest and the trip was entirely too short. I spent less than 24 hrs total in the state which included about an hour bus ride each way from downtown portland to the mountain area.
Drove up to San Francisco for a wedding and made it much earlier than I anticipated. As a result I was able to crash the bachelor party and grab a few “shots of people taking shots” at Ireland’s 32 (one of many Irish bars in SF I learned).
Walking around Venice with a camera is never a bad plan. There is always something going on. These are just two random shots. First a seagull with herpes and the second a few surfers just off the pier – ascending in age, descending in hair (scratch that and reverse it).
Took a walk down to the Venice Boardwalk and came across a hotdog eating contest. Couldn’t find Kobayashi or EaterX on the stage, but was able to snap a photo of this dude scarfing down some hotdogs. Big crowd there, there was a secondary body building event on the same stage a bit later, but I didn’t stick around for it.
Took a walk down to the Venice Pier and snapped a bunch of photos with a zoom lens.
When I was growing up the concept of a skatepark for kids was completely out of question. Instead skaters had to make do in parking lots and urban areas. So, the Venice Skatepark is sort of interesting for me every time I walk past it since its littered with little kids flying around. Seems like access to the skate park is as easy as wearing a brightly colored shirt.
The Star of India is a 1863 sail boat parked in the San Diego. Interesting fact = the ship has sailed around the world 21 times (“Round the world and back again, that is the sailors way”)
The new Sony building in San Diego is impressive, definitely stands out in the midst of Rancho Bernardo’s corporate tech industrial park.
Scored a ticket to the 2010 MLB Allstar Game in Anaheim. The game lacked firepower, but the pitching was pretty good and the atmosphere was cool. This time it counted.
