News item: friend Victor Frost, after prevailing in 14 complaints against him under Palo Alto’s sit-lie ordinance (aka the ‘Victor Frost law’) was finally ordered to stand trial by a County judge who refused to throw out the Palo Alto ordinance on discrimination grounds.
The judge found that, while enforcement may have been discriminatory in practice, the City had no intent to discriminate when it made the law. A fine point, to be sure.
Victor will get his day in Court, and a jury trial at that. Trust me, Victor can present well when he chooses to. And the judge left open the door for an appeal on First Amendment grounds…
The sky today, in between bursts of showers, offered that amazing glow that has enthralled artists since time immemorial. I first noticed the light while trolling Menlo Oaks Drive for an apparently-erroneously reported fallen tree – I thought it might make a nice weather shot for InMenlo.
All the oaks appeared to be upright on that very pretty street, and their mossy limbs made a wonderful tangle when viewed from Bay Road.
The cloud cover had made what a studio photographer would call a ’soft box’, basically a large diffuser placed between the light source (the sun, in this case) and the subject. Where studio soft boxes are measured in feet, today’s sky would measure in the hundreds of square miles. The light was exquisite.
As luck would have it, I was filing my pictures from the InMenlo satellite office at (the new) Peet’s, when in walked Steve, from Palo Alto (pictured here). You have got to love this delightfully battered mug with its sparkling eyes and smile shining through. It took a little coaxing, but eventually we cajoled Steve out of the warm confines and onto the sidewalk near a neutral background, for an open-sky portrait.
Readers with a photo bent may recall that another Palo Altan, Victor Frost, was my guinea pig for the open-sky project. We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for other likely suspects as the forecast continues to promise overcast skies…
by cg on February 27, 2010
Two mile (plus) walk, omelettes at Mike’s, two-person team coverage of an ad hoc InMenlo story catch – such was our morning. The big event was a stop at Ladera Nursery for the first plants for our long-awaited and just-finished new vegetable garden. Gardener Felipé Bustos and carpenter David Sanchez have done a great job – I’m really pleased.
We put in chard, romaine lettuce and snap peas and will be filling in plants at weekly intervals this year, to try and supply continuous fresh salads and vegetables from here on out. Dinner and a movie with a hot blonde completed this lovely day…
by cg on February 25, 2010
Tuesday found us downtown, in pouring rain, running an errand near the local Le Boulanger, the bakery and café chain, known here for it’s good, inexpensive lunches and equally good, free, completely open WiFi network. Whole virtual corporations use the place as their downtown Menlo Park conference room – the booths on the west end are particularly popular. As I prepared to make the dash from car to lunch, I noticed that Le Boulanger’s regular street person, an African-American man, was braving the rain to hold down his usual lunchtime perch – a low retaining wall – with umbrella and even a plastic wrap over his cardboard sign.
Like the woman I blogged yesterday, I find myself unaware of his name or story. But unlike Tuesday’s subject, he and I have interacted. Frequently when I have approached the door, particularly in days past, when I was even more of a mobility trainwreck than I now am, he would leap from his post and open the café’s heavy door, seeing me safely in. There were hard days as I first began reclaiming my life when this grace was deeply appreciated.
I’ve always meant to reciprocate, perhaps with a few dollars, but somehow the opportunity never presented itself. Though I was never his benefactor, he was often mine. Nowadays that I’m walking better and opening my own doors, he lets me do it, though he often enough nods and returns my observations about the weather and other small talk. I’d very much like to make a connection, but something tells me to take this slowly…
by cg on February 17, 2010
It’s true, we’ve been a bit lax on gulker.com’s updates lately. Part of it is that I’m busy blogging for InMenlo, where I have to please a tough editor (get me rewrite!) with both words and pictures. InMenlo is also growing rapidly, and great post ideas are beginning to flow as our community network grows, which is keeping me busy. I like it, but don’t tell the editor – she’ll just send me out on more assignments.
Indeed, I’ve noted a couple of times how much I love being back out on the streets taking pictures and interviewing people, though I am much slower than I once was, if only because I walk so much more haltingly than was once the case. Nevertheless, I’ve managed to put together lightweight gear that makes the most of what capabilities I have. More importantly I’ve had to adjust my style, and expectations. I’m more static than I once was, which means planning and thinking through pictures beforehand. As I work more, I’m developing a few techniques that are manageable and result in (hopefully) compelling pictures.
A small Olympus digital voice recorder has joined my camera bag, a new friend that goes along with my Nikon, capturing the chatter as I try to put my photo subjects at ease. With my Bose headphones on, I now write posts and edit pictures from wherever there’s WiFi. I started this post at Peet’s then moved to the patio at gulker.com World HQ after a dense morning fog lifted, revealing the sun, and now, a balmy afternoon…
by cg on February 13, 2010
We’re spending this weekend at Cavallo Point, the hotel situated on the site of Fort Baker, now a National Recreation Area, beautifully located on the north shore of the Golden Gate, literally in the shadow of the bridge (at sunset anyway).
Linda and I stumbled upon this place shortly after it opened, when I attended the Going Green conference here a few years back. The restaurant, Murray Circle, has just improved year after year, and we find ourselves lured back to a spot that’s a short drive but a psychic world away from Menlo Park.
Today we had the additional lure of Grace, the granddaughter, whose parents brought her over for a jaunt through the Discovery Museum, a toddler paradise that’s part of the recreation area, complete with its own tot-sized Golden Gate Bridge. We’re both, fundimentally, just vegging here, and loving every minute…
by cg on February 10, 2010
Question I’ve been asking myself all evening. Since blog’s departure, indeed since before blog’s departure, we’ve had these evenings when a fatigued moi slumps into the chair at World HQ and can’t think of a thing to write about except to repeat the doubtless-fascinating tedium of his full day blogging for InMenlo, dealing with plumbing problems, et al.
We did, today, take our first HDR photo, inspired by the very nice efforts of our friend Scott Loftesness. Like most other professions, photographers are now dependent on the software in their bag – not just the lenses…
by cg on February 8, 2010
We continued, this morning, to work from Peet’s coffee house, Menlo Park’s all-but-the-cheapest satellite office space (Le Boulanger is slightly cheaper but the WiFi has been broken for awhile).
For $2.60 (cup of coffee, own mug is $1.60; refill for $1.00) we got a small table and 2 hours of fast, stable WiFi – enough time to move a 3-photo layout over from Mobile Me to InMenlo and write some notes that will later be a Valentine’s post, after a little editorial polishing.
We also caught up our email, both personal and InMenlo, while three women at the adjacent table were busy planning a new food product launch. Wired mag has an article this month about how easy it is to productize things, even if you’re a garage operation, but my table mates were way ahead of the curve. Two women had a tasty snack that they were whipping up in their kitchen, much to the delight of their family and friends and a growing word-of-mouth audience.
The third woman was an expert at taking tasty, appealing items from the kitchen to the food plant and thence to distribution via the likes of Costco and Trader Joe’s. She even had advice on ways to offload the financial risk from the entrepreneurs to organizations with deeper pockets while retaining control of the product and potential profits. Yet another fascinating Peet’s overheard conversation…
True, there are those of us, particularly among my peers, who don’t particularly like seeing another birthday roll around, especially since we hit 40 or so. But for some, me for example, birthdays are a treasure, something we look forward to.