The Sidewalk Speaks . . .

Walk #37

Holy cannoli, today involved a lot of physical activity! After my morning run, Eva and I headed over to Sports Basement where she was teaching a free yoga class. (Yay free!) The class was awesome. It was one of those classes where you feel all relaxed and zen afterwards but the next day you wake up hurting in places you didn't know existed.

After yoga, we were feeling a bit ambitious and decided to do a bit of walking. Nothing too exciting, just a bit of a basket weave between 16th and 24th. Potrero, Hampshire, York, Bryant, Florida, Alabama. As always in the Mission, beautiful murals pop up here and there...

And so do the terrifying space monkeys (11:15):

The trouble with going north/south over streets I've walked east/west is a repeat in mispelled street stamps. So while I came across 17ht and Flori'd'a, again, it was a little disappointing to not find anything new. Alas.

Near the end of my adventure, I got this message from the street. I thought it was pretty sweet.

Indeed, I do.

Total mileage: 8.67

Same Old Thing I Did Last Week

Walk # 35

Another gorgeous day in San Francisco, another walk through the streets. There was lots of excitement on today's adventure which started from work on Hyde, not to be confused with:

Of course, there was this:

I think I need to start keeping a tally of: Incorrect Spelling vs. Missing Letters vs. Correct Letters, Wrong Order vs. Correct Letters, Wrong Direction vs. Numbers as Letters (not including ones as I's because those are far too rampant). 1 point for Correct Letters, Wrong Order. All those consonants in the middle sort of freak me out.

Before heading down to the water, I got this awesome view (opposite from yesterday's Bay Bridge view.)

Descending Hyde Street, I witnessed one of the scariest things I've ever seen. Minding my own business waiting to cross the street, I heard honking and turned to see one car sideswipe another and I watched as the car

bounced off and FLIPPED OVER landing UPSIDE DOWN!! I stood there like an idiot for a second before I

realized I needed to be calling 911. (Shout out to the 911 operators who were super nice and the first responders who were there in less than 90 seconds. Phenomenal.) Luckily, several other citizens whose brains work faster (and apparently weren't afraid of the potential mess that could have been in the car) rushed over to help the driver who managed to get out of the car and was stumbling around. I've seen overturned cars before, but never seen one actually over turn, and I've never seen an overturned car on a residential city street! How fast was he going to flip that car over?!?! CRAZY! I tried to help the police as much as I could but they wanted details I didn't have so I left it to the driver of a third car who saw it all. (I know, I know - SUPER low class to snap the photo and even lower class to post it. BUT in my defense, there was no blood and there was no immediate danger. And you can see everyone talking to the police about what happened trying to be helpful. And the car is upside down! On Bay Street!! I know, I know, I'm a horrible person . . . )

Needless to say, the whole experience was a little jarring and certainly changed the tone of my walk. I took Hyde to Jefferson, crossed through Maritime Park, to Polk, up a wee bit to Lombard which I followed all the way to the Presidio. I wanted to bust out some side streets or more of the Marina but I lost a lot of time and it was getting dark.

I turned from Lombard to Lyon until Bay and this stunning San Francisco landmark.

I ended my adventure my wiggling my way to MJ's house for dinner.

Total mileage: 5.79

Come On Get Happy!

Walk #21.1 and 21.2 (must be allowed to drink and walk now)

So I've been changing my route to and from work just a little bit at a time. Things usually don't get too exciting but yesterday, walking home along Grove, I felt the need to move in here. With a window like that, how could you not get happy? Or want to sing all day with your family. I love me some David Cassidy! (And secretly, I love Danny Bonaduce.)

Today, I walked home along Turk which was pretty uneventful until I got close to USF where there was a lot of hustle and bustle now that the semester is in full swing. Then much to my excitement I found a treasure on TamalpAis Terrace.

What is up with the 'i' /'1' phenomenon? It's turning up everywhere!! Is it too hard to carry around the 'i' stamper and the '1' stamper? Or is the 'i' lost in the truck and you're too lazy to look for it and figure no one will notice? I'm more and more surprised the 'E' / '3' situation doesn't show up more. Also, street stampin' man, don't think I didn't notice you missed the third 'A'. I've got my eyes on you . . .

(p.s. mini shout out to Jessamyn on this one!)

Donna Martin Graduates!!

Walk #14.1, 14.2, 14.3 and 14.4

Happy 9.02.10 Day!

The playlist for today's walk includes Color Me Badd, Amy Grant, Ace of Base, Lisa Loeb, and The Heights. Ah, the 90's.

In honor of this historic day, I decided to make not one, but two roundtrips between home and work. Good times.

To work, I started out in the traditional way, including:

The second most photographed homes in America. I just never get tired of this view. Whatever did happen to predictability? Anyway, on from the show of my childhood back to the show of my tweens...

At the Painted Ladies, I turned down Steiner to follow Grove all the way into

work. As this is turning into a totally TV related post, these posters made me

pretty excited for the new seasons to start. My name is Hildoug, and I'm

a Gleek.

I'm also a geek for this:

I know this is a little bit of a stretch, but come on! We can all agree that the letter "I" in Octavia is totally a number "1"

Don't believe me? Well I walked back home along Ivy (which is basically an ally) and it proved that Octavia can indeed

be spelled correctly with an "I"

It also proved that Octavians like to keep things colorful.

After a brief stint at home, I took Page all the way to Market to get to the theater and Hayes back home.

Total Mileage: 9.21 (AWESOME!)

I leave you with the greatest moment in television history: