Cellpic Sunday — 05/28/23

John Steiner, the blogger behind Journeys With Johnbo, has this prompt he calls Cellpic Sunday in which he asks us to post a photo that was taken with a cellphone, tablet, or another mobile device. I thought this might be fun so I decided to join in.

This photo of Pier 39 in San Francisco shows a pier that is jam packed with sea lions and some seals. I took this snap with my iPhone 8 Plus in October 2019, almost four years ago. What you can’t appreciate by looking at a photo of all of these sea lions is the din raised by their barking. It was loud and almost constant.

If you wish to participate in this fun cellphone photo prompt, please click on the link to John’s post at the top of my post to see his photo and to read his instructions.

WDP — Weather Extremes

Daily writing prompt
How do you feel about cold weather?

One of the reasons my wife and I moved from New England to San Francisco in 2010 was because of the weather. New England summers are hot and muggy. New England winters are frigid and snowy. In contrast, San Francisco summers are relatively cool and dry, and San Francisco winters can be wet, but they are mild. Snow in the city of San Francisco is almost unheard of.

We no longer live in San Francisco. In 2020 we moved to the East Bay to a town about 35 miles east of San Francisco. It’s climate, though, is very different from San Francisco’s. The summers here are hot, hot, hot. I’m talking about a lot of days at or above 100°F. Fortunately, it’s typically a dry heat, so it’s not as oppressive as it is back east, when the humidity is close to 100%. The winters here are colder than in San Francisco, but not nearly as cold as they are in New England. It rarely gets below freezing (32°F) where we live.

Okay, yeah, I hear you. I haven’t answered the question. So let me do that. I prefer cold weather to hot weather. When the weather is cold, you can dress for it — jackets, scarves, sweaters, hats, gloves, etc. — to keep warm. But in the summer, when it’s really hot and muggy, short of staying inside an air conditioned building, there’s not much you can do to escape the heat and humidity. Sure, can strip naked, but you’d be likely to get arrested for doing so in most places.

Of course if I lived in the upper Midwest, I might have a different answer. I lived in Chicago for three years and when the temperatures dipped down to forty below zero before windchill, which they did a few times while I lived there, I didn’t like that one bit.

But I’m okay with the snowless, relatively mild winters here in the coastal regions of Northern California.

WDP — Last Live Performance

Daily writing prompt
What was the last live performance you saw?

When we lived in San Francisco, we belonged to an organization, BroadwaySF. It would bring anywhere from six to eight Broadway shows (plays and musicals) each season to San Francisco. As subscribers, we were guaranteed seats and we regularly purchased six tickets for each show.

The last one we saw was the musical “Anastasia” in September 2019.

We also used to enjoy going to a lot of local live performances by artists we loved, including Billy Joel, Jackson Brown, Don Henley, Peter Frampton, Sting, Steely Dan, and even Randy Rainbow.

We didn’t renew our BroadwaySF membership for the 2020 season because we knew we’d be moving to the East Bay in early 2020, but still planned on going into the city to see at least some of the performances.

And then the pandemic hit, and everything shut down, including BroadwaySF. I believe it has since started sponsoring live performances again, but we are done with going to live venues, even outdoor ones, because people are crowded in. And despite what everyone says, people are still contracting COVID.

So going to live performances, be they shows or music concerts, are over for us, I’m sad to say.

Cellpic Sunday — 4/30/23

John Steiner, the blogger behind Journeys With Johnbo, has this prompt he calls Cellpic Sunday in which he asks us to post a photo that was taken with a cellphone, tablet, or another mobile device. I thought this might be fun so I decided to join in.

John’s Cellpic Sunday today featured a photo of a memorial to the unknown soldier in Rome that was dedicated about 100 years ago. I decided to feature a structure that was built around the same time in San Francisco, The Palace of Fine Arts.

The Palace of Fine Arts is a monumental structure located in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, originally constructed for the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition to exhibit works of art. Completely rebuilt from 1964 to 1974, it is the only structure from the exposition that survives on site. Today it’s available corporate events, private galas, trade shows, weddings, and other events.

I took a bunch of iPhone photos of the Palace of Fine Arts when my wife’s brother and his wife came to visit us in May of 2016, but this was the only photo I could find without them or my wife in it. They’re all camera shy.

If you wish to participate in this fun cellphone photo prompt, please click on the link to John’s post at the top of my post to see his photo and to read his instructions.

Cellpic Sunday — 4/9/23

John Steiner, the blogger behind Journeys With Johnbo, has this prompt he calls Cellpic Sunday in which he asks us to post a photo that was taken with a cellphone, tablet, or another mobile device. I thought this might be fun so I decided to join in.

This is a photo I took with my iPhone on February 2, 2013 at Bueno Vista Park in San Francisco. I can’t pass an interesting-looking tree without taking a snapshot of it.

I think it was the bare, tall trunk with the large, lonely, green canopy of leaves on top that intrigued me. That, and the outcropping on the left of the trunk. I couldn’t tell if it was cut down or maybe came down from a lightning strike. It was a bit of a mystery. But that’s why I took the photo.

If you wish to participate in this fun cellphone photo prompt, please click on the link to John’s post at the top of my post to see his photo and to read his instructions.