AIDS Walk San Francisco 2012

 
SFLGFB - 2012 AIDS Walk San Francisco

Same spot every year -- Checkpoint 1, across from Mallard Lake (near 25th Street entrance to Golden Gate Park).

This riveting video has elicited one whole comment on YouTube, whose sheer enthusiasm and love of music and the band and AIDS Walk just totally overwhelms me:  "I've been in that park."

Waltz of the Segways

Waltz of the Segways 

Silliness at the Conservatory of Flowers at Golden Gate Park.Recorded by Chip and me, edited by me.

Flickr quirk

This has happened to me several times. 

Today was the AIDS Walk 2010 in Golden Gate Park. As has happened for at least ten years if not fifteen, the band played at Checkpoint 1 (the first stop for walkers to get water, food and bathroom breaks).  Our director refers to it as a reverse parade -- we sit on the sidelines and play music while people walk past us.

I took a handful of photos, which I uploaded to Flickr this evening.

Before all 12 photos were finished uploading, one photo had been viewed twice, and another had been viewed once by someone who commented, "Nice image."

This has happened several times, as I said.  When I uploaded some camera toss photos, someone viewed and commented "Cool" on one of the photos before I had a chance to view the photo myself.  And a couple of weeks ago when I was uploading photos from New York, someone from Brasil viewed and favorited two of the photos before all the photos had uploaded.

I know how this happens.  People hang out on the Flickr page that shows the most recent uploads and on the page that shows recent uploads by their Creative Commons licensing, looking for something that looks interesting to them.

But it still kind of weirds me out when someone from Brasil gets to my Flickr photos faster than I can reach them when I've just uploaded them a few seconds before.

Boing Boing Picnic: The Video

Boing Boing Picnic 

I'm not going to add anything to what I said earlier about the picnic.  I'm just going to provide my video evidence that what I said is true.  Doctor Popular was kind enough to allow me to use his music.

Boing Boing Picnic

This afternoon, Boing Boing had its first ever readers' picnic, open to the public, at Doughboy Field in Golden Gate Park.

The good people of Airship Victoria performed tests of a hot helium balloon for a planned Steampunk Dirigible project.

There were balloons (the regular-sized kind), bubbles, gophers, music, magic, a drawing corner, lots of kids, lots of grown-ups, an analog version of Twitter, lots of animated conversations and, best of all, free T-shirts.

My full set of 40 photos can be found in a Flickr set.  

[UPDATE: I have posted my 1-1/2-minute video here on my blog  and here on YouTube.  Also, I found this video taken by attaching a phone to the balloon.]

California Academy of Sciences

We went to the California Academy of Sciences this afternoon for the first time since they reopened in September.

I forgot that this was Martin Luther King Day weekend. Apparently, that means a lot to parents with kids who have a three-day weekend. People literally came from all over the state to go here this weekend. The man in line in front of us was from Irvine, and the woman behind us drove from Sacramento.

The practical upshot is that we waited in line for forty-five minutes before we got into the building.

Another thing I learned. When the AoS website stops selling tickets, it does NOT mean that they are sold out. People were walking up to ticket vending machines and buying tickets and getting in line. So showing up without tickets in hand does not stop one from getting in the door.

The other upshot of the holiday weekend is that two of the biggest attractions at the AoS (the Planetarium and the Rainforest exhibit), the two that require separate tickets, were both sold out. For clarity -- they don't charge separate admission, but because seating is limited, they have to issue tickets to stop people from fighting over who gets in to see them.

The Steinhart Aquarium, on the other hand, was open and available. Very busy, but acheivable.

Would I recommend that people go to the AoS? Yes. Would I recommend that they go on a holiday weekend? Hell, no. Would I recommend that they go on a weekend at all? Probably not.

As always, click on photos to enlarge.