Category: San Francisco

Game 1 – Game On!

It may be time for Primal Scream therapy.

As a long-suffering San Francisco Giants fan, it’s hard to wrap my tiny mind around my Giants being back in the post season.

The last time I watched my team in the post season, it was 2003 and Pudge Rodriguez (then with the Marlins) was counting coup over the body of JT Snow, laid flat across home plate, the last out of the fifth game of the first round.

It aches.

The year before that, in 2002, I watched my team go to the seventh game of the World Series…and lose.

That’s more of a soul searing pain.

So while I’m very happy my lowly Giants have made it to the postseason once more, it’s not without some trepidation on my part.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Fool me three times? Welcome to Giants fandom. Here’s your orange gear and your Costco pack of Prilosec.

This one is going to burn.

Last night was Game 1 against the Atlanta Braves, our old nemesis. The Giants history with the Braves is deep. Bobby Cox, in his retirement year, still has plenty in the tank and a good bullpen. Even plagued by injuries, the Braves are a team to be taken seriously.

At 6:37pm, The Good Man and I turned on the radio, dug into our positions on the couch, and held on for dear life while Tim Lincecum (nicknamed The Freak) blithely struck out 14 hitters and the Giants won the game 1-0.

Aaaaaaaaaaaagh!

Whew. Good. Ok. Got that pent up energy out.

Now. On to Game 2.

May this delicious agony last a very long time.


AP Photo by Ben Margot, from ESPN.com

This post is not only about fandom, it also fulfills a Theme Thursday challenge.

My Magnetic Personality

For years I have told friends that I am a “freak magnet,” and for years, I’ve had them tell me, “Oh, don’t be silly! Everyone says that.”

Then we go out to a bar or a dance club or a restaurant and sure enough, the wackiest person in the room will find their way to me like a moth to a flame.

I don’t head out to the bars and clubs much anymore, so I think I’ve grown a little soft in my ability to head off the loo-loos who inevitably end up sitting next to me.

Wednesday this week, I got invited to a “customer appreciation event” associated with my job.

Well, ok. Appreciate me!

It was a HUGE event with piles of free food, an endless flow of free booze and lots and lots of live musical entertainment.

While I had a gosh dang good time, I was always aware of the fact that I was having a gosh dang good time along with my boss and several coworkers.

I had a few glasses of wine then switched to water about two hours before my anticipated departure time.

At the end of the evening my boss, coworkers and I parted ways at the shuttle busses. The various busses were on different routes to take people back to their hotels and parking in different parts of the city.

Sadly, my route was the most popular, so I stood in a very long line for about forty-five minutes. People were yelling at each other for cutting in line, being snotty and aggressive, and generally at the end of their tether.

I practiced my meditation and art of being calm while I waited my way to the front of the line. Finally I got on a bus and found a seat.

And here’s where my magnetic personality comes in.

The drunkest, largest male human I may have ever encountered stumbled his way onto the shuttle, looked over his seating opportunities, and flung himself into the seat next to me.

Then passed out.

Hey, fine. I’m down with that. It will make for a quiet ride.

Oh nooo. That would be too easy.

As the bus jerked to a start, The Mountain next to me woke up and began making those burping, choking sounds.

“Dude,” I said, forcefully, “are you going to throw up?”

He looked at me somberly and nodded.

“THEN GET OFF THE BUS!” I hollered.

Well. He was at that stage of drunk where all your bones have gone gelatinous, and was unable to stand. Or move. Or do much of anything other than….

Begin vomiting.

He at least had the grace to vomit toward the aisle and not on me.

However…this is where I lost my mind.

I’d been up for a 7am meeting, working hard all day, celebrating heavily all night, and at 1:00 in the morning, wedged in at the window seat next to a vomit breathing dragon, I’d lost my sense of humor.

“Somebody help me! This guy is throwing up!” I yelled to my fellow travelers.

I heard someone go “Ew.” But that was all.

So I tried again, “Help me! Please! This guy needs to get off the bus! He’s throwing up all over the place!”

The bus driver walked down the aisle, saw the guy throwing up, make a “yuck” face and turned around and went back to the front of the bus.

“Are you serious?!? You aren’t going to help me!?!” I yelled at his retreating back.

I was ignored.

So I ratcheted up my freak out and began yelling with renewed energy.

Finally, the guy who appeared to be the friend of Captain Puke came over and in the most condescending way possible asked, “Are you ok?”

“NO!” I replied.

“Do you want out of that seat?”

“YES!” I replied.

So he grabbed my arm and tugged and I pushed off with my legs and we sort of drag vaulted me over the top of the now passed out guy.

An incredible gentleman in the back of the bus stood up and told me that back home in Chicago he commutes to work every day on a bus, and was used to standing. He gave up his seat for me. I thanked him profusely.

When we finally arrived at our destination, as we exited the chartered shuttle bus, we all filed past Barf Boy. He was still passed out in the seat, vomit all down his front.

His friend…the guy that told me what a “good guy” his friend was as he dragged me out of the seat?

He left the unconscious man on the bus.

Fabulous.

What a talent I have, attracting the elite of the world to sit next to me.

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.

An Unexpected Convergence of the Universe

Had a weird day yesterday.

Well, most of my days are weird. Yesterday was especially so.

I was working in the studio and painting up a storm. Since The Good Man was out and about, I took the opportunity to turn on the oldies country station I like. 104.7 out of Albuquerque does an internet stream.

It’s a great station for classic country stuff. I try to spare The Good Man from my country music as much as I can. All for the sake of the marriage and things like that….

So as I painted, on the radio came Merle Haggard, and George Strait, a little Ray Price and even a stab at some Garth Brooks (the old stuff).

Well, it didn’t take but a minute, and I was vacuumed up into the Wayback Machine. I found myself struggling with heart pangs that were hard to ignore.

It doesn’t help that I’m also reading a Max Evan’s book right now. In it, he describes horses and New Mexico plains and mountains…

Well, it’s more than a girl can take.

I tried to fight off the homesick but it started to hurt deep inside.

So I called up my best friend.

“You either gotta come get me out of this wayback machine or you gotta get in here with me,” I left on her voicemail.

She called back quick. “Open the hatch, I’m coming in!” she said.

So being the kind of friend that you keep around for some twenty plus years, she talked me down and reminded me that I’m just a couple weeks from actually *being* in New Mexico again. So could I just hold out a bit?

Feeling a lot better, I hung up the phone and turned off the radio.

Then the Good Man came home and all was right in my world again.

About an hour later, I heard my iPhone buzz.

I picked it up to see that my old boss from Sandia Labs was pinging me. She is a dear friend and the best boss I’ve ever had. She told me that she and her boss (who was my first manager at Sandia and is also a good friend and a fine Aggie alum) were having drinks while out on a business trip.
Their conversation had turned to stories about, well, me.

She was recounting a few of them via text messages (we had a lot of fun back in those days…the mid-90’s) and she said, “That was the best time I’ve ever had at work. We should never have let you go to the Bay Area.”

And damnit all if that sharp pang didn’t come right back to my heart.

Now I keep in touch with my former amazing Boss Lady, but we haven’t spoken a lot in the past year (other than to congratulate her on a recent marriage).

Sort of out of nowhere, on a day when I’m homesick anyway, there she was relating stories of a great time in my life back when I lived in Albuquerque.

And I seized up a little.

It was weird how all these events came together on one day.

So I talked it over with The Good Man. I told him I’m afraid of forgetting who I am and where I come from. He suggested that just that fear alone may keep it from being so.

He asked, “Do you want to move back?”

And I said, “No, because I think I’d yearn for San Francisco if I left!”

Over the weekend, we went to see a theater show, “The Tosca Project,” that was so San Francisco and the heart of North Beach that I love profoundly, that it was moving and deeply gratifying to my soul.

The thought of being far away from the soul of that City is a sad thought.

Sometimes I’m a girl caught between all the Karens that make up who I am.

I don’t have any answers. I figure I’m just going to have a very high electrical bill this month, what with all this constant use of the Wayback Machine (it’s not Energy Star rated…..)