Caught some of the SF soapbox derby this weekend. It was pretty intense having about 60,000 people in your backyard! Mission Dolores park, where it was held, is literally a block from my house. It was cool, they had a bunch of big screens set up in the park where you could watch from the grass in the sunshine, or you could try to wrestle your way into the sidelines and catch the soapboxes as they whizzed by.
I have some short vids of some of them...if you wait till the very end you can sort of see the soapboxes pop over the jump, yes, that's right, they set up a jump! It wasn't huge, but it's sort of funny to see these boxy things go over it.
The one that looked like the Death Star:
The pirate ship:
The hamster wheel (the guy on the right sort of flies off when they hit the jump):
Plus, here's pix of the taco truck one: Not only did it have a pinata hood ornament, they threw tortillas out the back!
And the baseball with orange smoke:
In other exciting news, I got a record player! It's a vintage Emerson. Thank you eBay. It has a cool velvet table and a Bakelite arm. Plus it uses tubes, so it has a sweet, warm sound. I love it. Also, check out the coolest cappuccino design yet! my happy ghost face morning :)
Tune back in about 3 or 4 weeks after my recovery from Jerry and I's trip to India!
Got out of town this past weekend with Jeremy. First stop, was actually in town - gotcha! Actually, I just wanna give Brenda's a bonjour for some delicious (rich) french soul food to kick start the day... those are chocolate filled beignetsin front of us!
Then, for real, we got outta town and headed to Swank Family Farms - home of the CORN MAZE! As well as...the goat walk ooooo, and the pedal karts! yay, pedal yourself around and pay for it! weeee! (sarcasm here) The excitement for the labyrinth & corn maze is killing me no really, get me in there! All the magnificent corn! The labyrinth had some strange '8' chamber configuration that had plaques set up which Jeremy and I determined was some strange way to get you to join the new church of unity. Either way, at stage 8, there were sunflowers and bumblebees! So we jumped around. Me all awkward-like and Jeremy all kung-fu-ish So, the labyrinth of the circle of life or whatever they were preaching was completely different then the maze! Can you believe it?!!?! We could hardly stand it, and became so enthralled with all the stalks of corn, we called some friends to come and hang out! Genevieve and Saffron! We got sick of all their making out, so we moved on to other ventures awaiting us in the corn maze. Like husk-hair! and husk-stache! Then I had to pee really bad, so we left the maze,bought pumpkins then headed out to the Mystery Spot For those of you who aren't privy to knowledge of the mystery spot, since I wasn't until my coworkers told me about it, the lowdown is that it is "a gravitational anomaly located in the redwood forests just outside of Santa Cruz, California. It is a circular area of effect around 150 feet or 46 meters in diameter." Basically you go here and experience this 17 degree lean while in the house itself, which resides in the center of the circular area. We really did feel heavy and lightheaded while we were there, which is a common occurrence they warn you about. You can't make this stuff up. Here's me trying to demonstrate the rolling 'up' of my lip balm. I think it would have been easier with a ball, but you can still see it appear to roll up the plank, especially towards the end.
Afterwards, we headed into Santa Cruz & ate at a wonderful Indonesian restaurant called Batik Cafe. Had some amazing chai called Bandrek that the owner makes fresh daily. I would give up coffee if I could drink that every day. So amazing, and caffeine free! Then to finish off a wonderful day, we hunkered down at The Red Room, drank $6.25 manhattans on the rocks, and chatted with the bartenders who were awesome.
Sunday morning we enjoyed a massage/jacuzzi at the Well Within Spa, stopped in to buy records at Metamusic before eating at the Walnut Ave Cafe and checked out the Antique St. Fair - where Jeremy found even more records and some cloth napkins. Then we hit up the boardwalk, and somehow I managed to not take any photos (???!!!) but it was fun, believe me. Before heading out, we went down to Natural Bridges State Beach. Santa Cruz has a really nice coast line, and it was a beautiful walk to the beach and tide pools. The rocks looked like pieces of wood I poked a starfish We even got to catch some of the sunset The cool birds cliff club in full force Ok, I made that up, but it was fun to see them all perched on the cliff like that. Then, due to the fact that Jeremy harbors the same need as I do to fit as much in as possible, we ran over to the Long Marine Lab. Here they have whale bones! Check it out, they were pretty cool. This one is more well known, as Ms. Blue. Discovered in 1979, which is the largest blue whale skeleton on display in the world! Weekend aways are fun, but alas, they never quite turn into the week, month, year you always want them to!
This past weekend, Jeremy and I hit up the 44th Annual SF Library Book Sale. He got somewhere around 20 books and 4 maps for $35 and I got about 7 books for $15. It was pretty awesome.
On Sunday, I tried to go to the festivities for the opening of the new Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, I knew I wouldn't be able to get in opening weekend, but I was hoping to catch some of the fun happening around the park. I rode up to the SF Bike Coalition's bike check & ended up becoming a member! I had thought about it, but hadn't really planned on it for Sunday, but better now then never! Then, as an added bonus I got 2 free tix to see the Chihuly glass exhibit at the De Young museum on its last day! I gave away my extra ticket to someone waiting in line, it felt good to pass along the good deed!
Anyways, enough blah blah, here are some of my pix from the exhibit. These ones were inspired by Indian baskets I really like these, which I think were called 'weeds' They reminded me of those Christmas logs with the candle in em. I think I could use one of these chandeliers in my room I liked how they did this room, the color reflecting off the walls was really awesome Check out the mating squids! There were also cherubs, starfish and other fun things to find I loved the green and black striping on these guys ...and the hidden yellow and orange one here
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. The De Young Museum is pretty intense, architecturally. It was designed by Herzog & de Meuron who also designed Beijing's Olympic Stadium. So, it's pretty interesting. It also houses American art from the 17th through the 20th centuries, and art of the native Americas, Africa, and the Pacific. So I decided to poke around and make use of my free ticket.
These were made out of sugar (and plywood, aluminum foil, shellac and a couple other items) They were done by an Australian artist named Timothy Horn These were outside in the courtyard, I didn't have a chance to get a close view (Raea, these totally made me think of you!) I found this painting extremely realistic, altho it doesn't really translate well via my digital camera Then, this thing was just sort of cool looking
