Category: Bay Area

Propagation of the Species

I work across the street from a public park that borders on marshlands, very near the actual Bay. The proximity of water and the tasty grasses in the marsh entice lots of birds to come visit and stay.

Among others, we have egrets, herons, spoonbills and sandpipers. All so elegant and beautiful.

Here’s a rather grainy shot of a snowy egret, one of my favorite birds. This one usually keeps a beady eye on everyone walking by:

Many of the birds that we get in our beautiful marshes are on the endangered or near endangered species lists.

So it’s good we have a nice habitat here for them.

That said, ya wanna know what bird isn’t on any endangered list and is pretty much in zero danger of extinction?

Geese.

@#$%ing Canada Geese.

Or, as I like to call them, feathered poop factories.

Taken with my iPhone, this is by a walking trail:

That’s not even a small portion of the inventory.

Here’s a wider shot:

Again, to the left and right of this frame there are at least this same number if not more geese.

The one in the center of that photo charged at me, hissing, so I didn’t take any more photos.

The geese eat grass, lots and lots of grass, then they process it internally and drop the leftovers right in the middle of the walking trails.

Their drop offs equal the size of the leavings of a large dog. Only a whole lot greener.

Just. Ew.

This morning coming into work, there was a goose right in the middle of the driveway (which is a long narrow single car path). The goose moved neither right nor left, but strutted right down the center of the lane. I counted ten cars in line behind while Mr. Goose waddled his way into the day.

I was in car number eleven.

These cranky birds have certainly figured out how to continue the prosperity of their species. In a big way.

My elderly uncle, unfortunately now deceased, used to shoot bottle rockets at the Canada geese that befouled the walkway in front of his house in Indiana.

They sort of frown on that here in California, don’t they?

All photos by Karen Fayeth. Click on any photo to see a larger size.

Continuing on a Theme…

Perhaps fitting given my post from over the weekend, I read an article today in CNN with the title: “Homesickness isn’t really about ‘home’“

Oh really?

The article is aimed at parents of new college students and tries to help worried folks get through it. For example, the article recommends that at the first sign of acute homesickness, parents might refrain from swooping and taking the kids back home.

I think that makes sense. The transition from home to college is a big one, and kids have to find their own way.

But because I’m me, and I’m here to talk about me, let’s see how this might or might not apply to my situation.

I recently had a profound bout of homesickness for New Mexico. (Refresh your memory here)

From the article: …”homesickness is defined as ‘distress and functional impairment caused by an actual or anticipated separation from home and attachment objects such as parents.'”

Um. I moved to the Bay Area thirteen years ago. This isn’t about a new or anticipated separation.

I left my folk’s home for college about twenty two years ago, so that’s not it either.

And to be honest, I’m not sure I can rightly call New Mexico home anymore. It’s where I was raised. It’s where I’m from. It’s who I am. But I have to say that where I live now is probably best defined as home.

“…it stems from our instinctive need for love, protection and security — feelings and qualities usually associated with home.”

Yeah. But here’s the weird thing, I have a happy home. I have an amazing husband and with him I feel loved and safe every day. I have up days and down days, but taken on the average, I’m pretty content with my life. So what’s up with that?

I also know that if I didn’t live in the Bay Area, I’d suffer a profound bout of homesickness for my Bay Area home. I’d miss the amazing art and culture and the family I have made here.

“‘Yet despite the way it’s coined, homesickness isn’t necessarily about home. And neither is it exactly an illness, experts said.'”

It’s not? Then how come I *long* to sit in the kitchen of my best friend’s home, deveining green chiles, cussing and discussing and laughing with her kids? I get a pain in the center of my chest so bad it’s sometimes hard to breathe.

If that’s not a sickness, I don’t know what is.

I’m a woman torn between my two homes. I am a New Mexican. I am part of the Bay Area. I’m both. Maybe I’m neither.

I’m still caught somewhere halfway in between. (Where would that be? Barstow? Cuz ain’t no way I’m calling Barstow home, let me tell you THAT right now.)

I guess I’m what one might call blessed. Blessed to know two distinct geographic regions of the country where I have family and love and kinship and all the things that make life worth living.

So I’m still going to call it homesickness, no disrespect to the authors of the study.

Then I’m going to recycle my not very sophisticated image because it’s the best visual representation I can manage to convey how I feel.

Learning The Language In a Foreign Country

So yeah. The new job. Good job. VERY good job. Great folks. Super team.

Like it. A lot.

However….

(Because you *knew* there was going to be a however)

This is a pretty old school type of company. Because they are so old fashioned, I’ve discovered in my short time here that the straight faced usage of corporate buzz-words is rampant.

Rampant. (just needed to emphasize that)

I would imagine these days that one couldn’t work anywhere and NOT run across the ol’ popular buzzwords, but it’s especially bad here.

“Low hanging fruit,” for example, is one of my all time least favorite expressions. I first heard it back in 1994 in Albuquerque. Yes, I remember the moment I first heard this ridiculous phrase, because I had an immediate “why would you say that” reaction to it.

Guess what I hear just about daily here in the Bay Area in 2010? Yep.

“Think outside the box” still has life.

“Think inside the box” is fairly new, and it’s bandied about a bit. It means, roughly, the old way may not be so bad anymore. (Funny how, in a financial crisis, everyone turns back to the textbooks as a way to bail themselves out.)

“That’s powerful” is one I wish wasn’t taking on life, but it is. Example: “We wrote up the workflow for that process and posted it on line. It’s very powerful.”

Yeah. No.

My super executive boss type guy dropped a “let’s form a Tiger Team” on me two days ago.

Ok. Remember Tiger Teams? I do. It was the year 1997 and I worked for Lockheed. We paid an outside consultant A LOT of money to help us form a Tiger Team to figure out why every meeting we had descended into yelling at each other.

Turns out, we were just a team of very strong personalities from vastly different disciplines (procurement, engineering, marketing, etc) and the only way we could ever get anywhere was by arguing.

So the term “Tiger Team” really makes me twitch.

But by god, I’m on a newly formed Tiger Team here at work.

There is a new bit of jargon that seems to be catching on. I hate it. Oh I hate it. Almost as much as I hate “low hanging fruit.”

Ready for it?

The phrase is….”set it and forget it.”

As in, “With that new reporting software, you can just set it and forget it. It’s so great!”

Or

“Now that we’ve established pricing on that product, we can’t just set it and forget it. We have to keep checking the demand reports.”

So let me just say that while I’m a longtime fan of Ron Popeil and his Ronco commercials, I fully blame him for bringing this atrocity into my life.

Business people are seriously using a phrase from a dagblam infomercial for a @#$%ing chicken roaster!

Why? Why does this show up at my conference table?!?!?!?

The Good Man says he heard this phrase in use a few years back, and I believe him. It’s new to me and I sure as heck don’t want to set it, and now that everyone is using it, there’s no possible way I *can* forget it.

I guess “set it and forget it” is just a new square added to the buzzword bingo playing card.

There’d better be good prizes, because at this job, I’m gonna be winning (or is it losing) every day!

Lessons in Night Photography

About a year ago, I took a wonderful class taught by teacher, friend and mentor, Marty Springer.

As part of the course, we did an evening of night photography.

I struggled mightily with the class. It made no sense. Why shoot photos at night? Where is the light that’s so fun to play with?

And manual mode? I have to shoot in manual mode? Gah!

So I listened to Marty and she was very patient and I really just didn’t get it. I got a few good photos from that night, but most were sad, weird and blurry.

Recently, I checked out a book from the library by popular photography author Harold Davis. It’s called Creative Night: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques.

Harold doesn’t say anything different from what Marty taught me. He just said it again. For some reason, it stuck this time.

This weekend The Good Man took me out to Fort Baker in celebration of our second anniversary.

Turns out there is a pier at Fort Baker that affords perfect unblocked views of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I told my partner in crime, “oh we’re coming back here tonight.”

One rule of night photography is that you need a friend to go along to be your lookout. Setting up the camera takes a bit of concentration and exposures take a long time. As photographer, you get a bit focused. Having someone to keep the weirdos away is always a good idea.

The Good Man wasn’t in love with the idea of going out to a pier at 9:00 at night, but I was insistent. As many husbands have done in the face of insistent wives, he came along for the ride with only a few “hmphs” and snorting sounds.

City born and raised husband was geared up and ready to take on trouble from any kooks hanging out down at the pier.

Turns out, the only trouble we would have was from a large family of skunks dining at the trash dumpster nearby.

Let me tell you, both City Boy and Country Girl were equally cautious about those damn skunks.

The word “whooooa” was uttered a lot.

That said…the night journey was WELL worth the trip.

If only for this photo.

Others from the weekend available on my Flickr.

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Lessons in Night Photography text and images by Karen Fayeth are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Let All Who Pass Here Know

So let’s say you and the spouse are talking, and you say “Hey honey, why don’t we gather up the kids and make a trip to that happenin’ place, San Francisco, Californey.”

Why, it’s an end-of-summer vacation destination.

And so you book the airline and find a hotel and plan your visit.

On behalf of the Bay Area, there’s a few things we’d like you to know.

1) First, thank you. We are happy to have you come and visit! Please, spend your hard earned dollars in our economy. We could use the help.

2) We have some of the best food anywhere. Please stay away from the chain restaurants and try a local place. You’ll be glad you did.

3) Everyone appreciates how difficult it is to navigate our geographically limited city located at the end of a peninsula, so don’t be a’feared to ask for directions. Most locals have been lost here a few times too.

4) No one calls it “Frisco.” Maybe a few people call it “San Fran.” You could probably get by with an “S.F.” Refer to San Francisco as “The City” and you’ll be doing just fine.

5) Bring your camera and don’t be shy about taking snaps. It’s hard to take a bad photo.

6) Oh, and lastly and most importantly, this is what the weather is like in August:

Just for reference, the exif data on this photograph reports it was taken at 12:08:14 pm on Sunday, August 8, 2010. In case you can’t tell, that’s part of the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.

I’m just sayin’.

Don’t pack your shorts, tshirts and a pair of flip-flops for a trip to “sunny California.” Pack pants, socks and a jacket. You’ll be glad you did.

Also, know this…San Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities you’ll ever know.

Come on out ya’ll! Enjoy! We’re happy to have ya!

Photos by Karen Fayeth taken from the Marin side of the bridge. Many, many tourists were endured in the making of these and many other photographs.

(What all this language below means is that I took and I own the photographs posted here. If you’d like to borrow them, you have to do me the favor of giving me credit for the photo and posting a link back to this page. That’s all. Fair enough? I think so.)

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Word and images in this blog post titled “Let All Who Pass Here Know” by Karen Fayeth is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.