A Bad Start to the Day turned Good

The Ferry Terminal-Jack London Square, Oakland

The ferry boat coming in

Yesterday, I woke up to a transit mess. I got to the BART station to take the first train to San Francisco at 5:16am as my usual. Well, there was a huge fire near the West Oakland station and it damaged the tracks and there was no direct service to San Francisco from the East Bay. I took another train, got off in Downtown Oakland, took a bus and hopped on a ferry to San Francisco from Jack London Square in Oakland. Even though I arrived at work late (they were happy to see me as they did not think I was going to show up) I ended up enjoying the ride over. It was so beautiful, peaceful and with great scenery to look at.

The Coast Guard waiting to board

The wake from the boat

The Bay Bridge from the ferry

Going under the Bay Bridge

San Francisco

Another view of San Francisco

Coming into the Ferry Building

It was a great trip and when I have more time I will take the ferry again in the morning.

Walk at the Convent

Part of the grounds at the Convent

The other day, I was invited to have dinner at a Convent in Fremont. I have been there a couple of times and always enjoy going there. The food is great and scenery of the place is so beautiful I just enjoy walking around and feeling the peace of the place. It is an oasis of calm right outside of a busy world:

Part of the grounds

A fountain in the courtyard

One of the cool things is that there is a lot of history at the place. There are two houses on the property that were once owned by prominent families in the area. They were built in the 1800's and look great today over 100 years later. They have simple names: The Pink House and the White House. They are used for weddings on the property.

The White House

The Pink House

The inside of the Convent is just as pretty. There is stained glass that is from the mid-1800's in the motherhouse. It was rescued from the original house in San Francisco. There is also a small, but lovely chapel inside as well.

Some examples of the stained glass

The view of the chapel

The place is just so beautiful that my pics does not do it justice. It is a little slice of Heaven in a busy world.

Love the Flowers

The trees at the Convent

Getting My Geek On

The inside of Hot Toys II in Newark, CA

The other day I was in the mall with my son. He took me to a store that he thought I would like called Hot Toys II and they sell figurines (like the one above), old sports stuff and anything else they can get. As my son calls me OGWT (Old Geek without technology). I thought some of the stuff was cool:

Love the Hendrix towel

Go Marvel

The funny thing is that he never thought that I had any gamer geek in me until he found my stash of Bloom County and Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers Comics and books. I then reminded him that when he was three it was my stash of Star Wars Episode One toys that he found and decide to open and play with.

Got to like the Bruce Lee action figure

Trading Cards

1988 and 1985 (bottom) Topps rack packs. (Yes, I bought one pack of each)

The Greatest Latin Player Ever

A 1968 Snoopy lunch box.

Random Pics

I guess you can say I like to take pics. Here are some pics that I have taken just randomly. No rhyme or reason just that took a pic of what I liked:

The Sacramento River

A Wells Fargo Stagecoach

The California State Capitol Building -Sacramento

An old Cigar store Indian

A squirrel on the campus of UC Berkeley

The clock tower at UC Berkeley

City Hall-San Francsico

I have always loved the iconic blue Chronicle truck/van

Loved this painting on a doorway

The Giants new favorite player-Melky Cabrera

Contemporary Jewish Museum

The front of the Contemporary Jewish Museum

Sometimes I get lucky in my adventures. I was invited to visit the Contemporary Jewish Museum and I decided to go even though I am not Jewish. I able to walk around the place and got a tour of one of the exhibits they had which was called "Do Not Destroy: Trees, Art, and Jewish Thought.

The front of the building

The reflecting pool outside

One of the things about the museum is that the grounds are beautifully well kept. It adds to the experience of the place. You can spend hours soaking up the sun on a nice day.

This is the Nomadic Grove, which includes wishing trees.

Inside the place is so cool. The architecture is so cool. There is a lot of bricks inside as the building was once a PG&E Power substation that was built in 1907. The museum rehabbed the building and redesigned it for their use. To me the inside is an architecture marvel, but I will admit I do not know much about architecture. I just like what I see.

Part of the inside wall

An old stairwell

One of the cool things is that have a music/sound room. It another architecture marvel (at least to me). When I walked in, they had a thing about relationship and history of African-American-Jewish relations using music. The acoustics in the room were amazing.

The music room

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One of the cool things is that they project on a wall what is playing and the artist along with some facts (above) and also they have individual I-Pads in which you can choose to listen from a pre-programmed list of music (below):

I wasn't allowed to take pictures of the exhibit, but I did sneak one (below):

Hagar in the Desert-Jacques Lipchitz

The museum is a place I need to head back too.

NBA Nation at Carnaval

NBA Nation sponsored by Sprint

This is a quick post. At Carnaval in San Francisco last weekend they had a special section called NBA Nation, It was pretty cool as they had a lot of interactive NBA booths, games and such.

The Warrior Girls

And sometimes current and former NBA players show up and have some fun.

Jeremy Tyler of the Golden St. Warriors

The best player from the Planet Lovertron-Former NBA Player Daryl Dawkins

And Sprite offered $1000 to find the best amateur drunker in the Bay Area with DJ Ro Parrish providing the beats to get the crowd pumped.

Throwing down a dunk

Another one be thrown down

DJ Ro Parrish providing the music