Travels with Derek

[Graphics Heavy Post Alert]

Derek knows San Francisco very well. And apart from his habit of walking very fast up hills he makes for an excellent tour guide.  Today we started down at the harbour.

Ferry boat and the "other" bridge

View from the pier

Posing bird

Tugs

Pier amusements

Fancy boat - and no, it didn't hit the jetty

The famous Lombard Street

View from Coit Tower

Another view

Bridge and Bay

They had some great murals in the tower

I like this place

There are a few more on Flickr

Fraught Software

Some software is what I call "Fraught". By this I mean that it is somewhat unstable, but just useful enough to make it worth living with the problems it causes. Early versions of PowerPoint were like this. They let you create great slides, but they also had a habit of crashing when you thought about saving your deck. At one point I suspected that they might have some form of mind reading ability.

Anyhoo, PowerPoint is now solid, and very good at recovering if anything bad does happen. Photoshop Elements is however fraught. It does what I want, it has a very sensible and useful range of features and it didn't cost me too much. And every now and then it tips over, the most recent one giving me the blood curdling message "Can't open the catalogue". As the catalogue is the file that ties everything else together, this could well be a bad thing as it would have meant re-importing and categorising everything. Fortunately, after a reboot and a fifteen minute repair session we are now back on the rails again, but I'll always be slightly on edge when I use the program. I hope at some point Adobe can get around to un-fraughting the code.

Down and Flat in San Francisco

I blame the jetlag. That and an over-confidence in the abilities of lithium ions. Anyhoo, whatever the cause it resulted in me not bothering to charge the camera battery last night, on the eve of our walk around SF, with the opportunity, nay obligation, to take hundreds of pictures. So, of course, ten shots into the trip everything shuts down and the camera becomes a paperweight. Wah.

Fortunately we were on our way to Best Buy, and I had intended to get a new battery at some point anyway, so I would have a spare in case this kind of thing happens. Yes, they do have a battery. It won't be fully charged, but it beats the heck out of nothing. And they also sell travel chargers at a sensible price. And Nigel, once he hears my sorry story, is even willing to plug the charger in for a few minutes to get me back on the road.

Go and buy lots of things from this man.

This was service above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks very much for that. And so it was off for a coffee at the local diner.

They have everlasting coffee cups here

Artistic use of mirror on way to bridge

The money shot

The view from the beach

Playtime

These folks asked Derek to take a picture with their camera.

Just a few kites

Game Developers Conference in SF

This is a graphics heavy post. Rob is on his travels again...

Up bright and early today to catch the 6:20 am flight out of Humberside Airport for San Francisco. It's a tough life. But mostly OK, right up to the point where I tip wine all over my travel documents on the plane. I also managed to fill one of my shoes with the drink of the chap sat next to me. I offered to let him finish it off from there, but he demurred.

So it was a squelchy walk through Homeland Security and into the land of the free. I had a plan to buy an 80 Gbyte Zune. I bought a little (30G) one last year, and I liked it so much that I planned to get another one as soon as we arrived. Bad things plans. They let the gods know what you are thinking of doing..... The first blow was that my favourite shop in SF, Comp USA, was closing. Really closing. I could have bought a yard of shop counter if I'd wanted, but no Zunes. After some research I've discovered that these devices are pretty darned popular over here. Everywhere I've tried so far has been out of stock. Derek and I went for a walk to find BestBuy, we didn't find the shop, but I took the big camera, and grabbed some snaps.

Funny thing photography. I've got a little camera that will take great photographs just by pointing it in the general direction of the scene and pressing the button. The big camera is a bit more tricky. However, once you have taken the picture and spent some time in Photoshop you can come up with some really nice results.

I just like the car

..and another car

..and a fire engine

I think their turn lights are broken

Lovely colours

..what happens if you point a wide angle lens up in the air

Fine Diner

More pictures tomorrow, or today, or whenever.

Haircut Sir?

Had my hair cut today. Not a thing I do lightly, or often for that matter. Still, it needed doing. I'm not that keen on being the one in the family with the longest locks. Don't think number one wife and number one daughter are that keen either. Anyhoo, my head is now much lighter, and washing my hair takes a lot less time.

I was amazed by the amount of my hair that was left on the floor after my cut. It put me in mind of a wizard wheeze, where you dump a huge pile of hair behind the chair of your victim as they have their trim. Then watch their face when they stand up and see how much has been removed.....