It was the Labor Day holiday today in the United States (so: no work), marking the unofficial end of summer. Back to school for the kids this week (finally), and back on the road for me. I took a late flight out to San Francisco. Our workshop starts too early in the morning for me to make it in with a morning flight. I took a taxi from San Francisco airport for the 14 miles or so to get me to the hotel in Fisherman’s Wharf. Kind of too late to take BART, and the Embarcadero station is still 2 or 3 miles away from the hotel.
Here’s our approach to San Francisco International airport. That’s the Bay Bridge, with Yuerba Buena Island (not really visible) and Treasure Island to the left of the bridge. The other lights in the water on the right are from anchored ships. The bright diagonal street in the foreground that runs ‘parallel’ to the Bridge, is Market Street.
CNN mentions the photographs of Chris Forsyth, a 20-year old Montreal resident in an article, and I loved to check them out. Hey, I have even been to a few.
I am making a note of this subway station called Stadion in Stockholm for my trip there some time in the next two to three years. (Take the subway to see another subway station : I like it!).Here’s the Überseequartier station in Hamburg, by Hafencity. It took this picture in April this year. It looks brand spanking new with all the gleaming surfaces, but I see the station has been open since November 2012.
We’re taxiing out to the runway at San Francisco airport, and I am admiring the hulking frame of the Air France A380, about to depart for its 10h 35m flight to Paris.
Since I was in the City by the Bay all week, I could simply catch the BART train to the airport today.
There must have been many thousands of late summer visitors from overseas in San Francisco, because the security line to the gates at the International Terminal was the longest I had ever seen it. I could use my pre-check status and use the expedited line, and it took barely three minutes to breeze through.
Here’s my ride to the office on Thursday morning. Street car 1058 is painted in the Chicago Transit Authority’s “green hornet” livery. Chicago ran PCC streetcars from 1936 to 1958, and at one time had the largest PCC fleet ever purchased new by one city–683 cars.
Lombard Street runs along the eastern segment in the Russian Hill neighborhood.Here is an early evening view from the top of the crooked section of Lombard Street (it’s nicely paved with brick all the way down). I believe that’s the straight section of Lombard Street in the distance, running by the hilltop on the right with Coit Tower at its top.Just an interesting apartment or condo building that I walked by. The homes in the neighborhood are eclectic : all a little different, or Victorian, or unusual.
There was a picture of Lombard Street (‘the world’s crookedest street’, with its 8 hairpin turns in one street block), in my hotel room. And since it was just a few blocks away from the hotel, I had to go check it out.
Here’s my fancy Japanese ‘bento’ box lunch that I bought in the Ferry Building in the Embarcadero.My street car to the office this morning was built in 1946. The car’s exterior commemorates Washington DC, which operated PCC streetcars from 1937 to 1962. The car was acquired by San Francisco’s Muni from New Jersey Transit, Newark, NJ, in 2004.
I’m staying in the Marriott at Fisherman’s Wharf here in San Francisco .. so I can take the Line F street car to the office in the morning, and back again in the evening.
The weather here is cool, some 55°F/ 12°C in the mornings. I was ready and like a good ‘boy scout’ checked the weather forecast before I came out here and packed my thicker jacket.
San Francisco Bay was foggy this morning, and so our flight down was delayed by an hour. (I start on another new project this week). The summer crowds at the airport are thinning out, but still lots of families traveling. Next to me on the flight was a dad and his 6 or 7-year old son. The kid pulled a big stuffed elephant and a teddy bear out of his backpack as he settled into his seat, and then he was ready to go.
We had just arrived at SFO’s International Terminal. This very purple plane is from Wow! the low-fare airline from Iceland, offers direct flights to Reykjavik, for as low as $399 return.This is the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Embarcadero Station, my stop from the airport. The BART platform is the one all the way down, and that is a Muni train approaching on the right. If San Francisco was in Germany, the BART platform would be the S-bahn (the regional train), and the Muni line would be the U-bahn (the city’s underground train).
Another week at the project office is done. Our short project – adding some extensions and improvements to the big work management solution we had previously built over 12 months – is almost done. We are testing the improvements for the ‘August Release’.
The project office is in San Ramon, over on the east side of the Bay. It is a little shorter to drive across the dreary Hayward-San Mateo Bridge instead of the Bay Bridge to the north, to get to San Francisco airport.Is it a fish? Is it a plane? Our Alaska Airlines 737 at the gate at San Francisco airport’s International Terminal, shortly before we boarded.
I took the No 10 bus & Light Rail train out to Seattle-Tacoma airport again this morning, to fly to San Francisco. The airports are still crammed with summer travellers for a few more weeks until it is back-to-school time. A good thing I was flying Alaska Airlines : it was a bad day for Delta Airlines’ operations with a catastrophic failure in its computer system. (From the NBC News website : ‘Tens of thousands of Delta passengers around the world were stranded Monday after a power outage at its Atlanta headquarters caused a global computer failure that halted all flights’.).
‘Welcome aboard’ says the lettering, just as I’m stepping into the Alaska Airlines plane at Seattle-Tacoma airport. I lucked out with an upgrade and sat up front today.
The No 10 bus that I am on, is taking me to the Capitol Hill train station. The bus looks like the one in the picture. (It’s an ‘all-electric trolley bus’).Here’s Capitol Hill train station, with a southbound train on the left and a northbound train on the right. (I’m about to get onto the southbound one to the airport).
Hey! I took the early evening flight out to San Francisco today, and could take the light rail train from my Capitol Hill neighborhood to the airport.
We had just landed at San Francisco airport. Here’s a London-bound British Air 747 at the gate, and in the distance with the striped tail-fin is an Air France jetliner.
Alas, when I had arrived at San Francisco airport, it was the end of public transportation. I rented a car, since there is no easy way to get from my hotel to the project office.
I stayed over this Thursday night since I traveled out only on Tuesday morning. I was very happy to step onto the airplane and yay! .. I even had an open seat next to me. It feels like luxury flying up front in first class these days if one happens to have an open seat.
Here’s the western section of the Bay Bridge. I’m on Interstate 80 and heading in to the city of San Francisco; the airport is south of the city.Here’s the International Terminal at SFO with All Nippon Airlines, Air China and United jets at the gates.We’re about to bank to the right, to fly over downtown Seattle on the way to land at Seattle-Tacoma airport to the south of the city. There is a lot to see in this picture if one knows what to look for: the tall black Columbia tower; the white dome of the Space Needle just below the cloud; Lake Washington and its two bridges; Washington State ferries (big white specks), and even a cruise ship on the edge of the water by downtown.
It was a gloomy, gray July morning in Seattle, and there was a low cloud ceiling in San Francisco. We were put on a ground stop of an hour before we took off, but at the time of our arrival the sky was blue and the clouds rapidly disappearing.
Here’s the blue sky of San Francisco airport at our arrival at 10 am. Check out the new ‘flared’ control tower on the left. The old one is visible in the middle of the picture.
(Yes, that’s a ‘Hotel California’ reference). Our Alaska Airlines ‘bird’ had a broken part last night, and the ground crew proceeded to tell us the flight was delayed from 4.00 pm to 4.30, then to 5.00, then to 7.00, then to 9.00, 9.30, and come 9.30, one more delay to 10.30. Several other flights to Seattle and Portland had already taken off by that time. We finally boarded at 10.45, wheels up at 11.00 and arrived in Seattle at 1.00 am. The veteran flyers all agreed that this was very unusual, and that they should have probably canceled the flight altogether by early evening. But with all the airplanes completely full for the morning with the 4th of July holiday weekend upon us, I guess there was no spare plane available, even on Friday morning. Anyway : made it home safe, even though it took a little longer than usual, is that not right? Then the delay really does not matter much.
The Qantas Airlines 747 parked on the tarmac at SFO’s International Terminal. In the background there is a little (by comparison) 737 from Alaska Airlines.That’s Emirates Airlines on the far right; eventually it would leave for Dubai. The plane in the center is from tiny French airline XL Airways. (Only 7 planes in their fleet).This Virgin Atlantic (I think it’s a 777), is heading out to London Heathrow. I resisted the temptation to inquire from some of the passengers what they thought of the Brexit vote!.. and here’s a British Airways Airbus A380 heading out to take off over San Francisco Bay in the background. It is also headed for London Heathrow. Reports in the press are now starting to appear, that says that Airbus may stop making the A380. Forbes on June 6 : ‘Airbus A380: The Death Watch Begins’.
I made my way to San Francisco this morning for work. At this time of the year, the airports are full of summer travelers – and lots of people that are not sure where to go, or what to do at the security checkpoint. In a way I envy them, the infrequent travelers!
We are coming in to land at San Francisco airport, with this nice view of the San Mateo bridge across the Bay. The bridge is the longest bridge in California (7 miles). This version of the bridge opened in 1967, and was an upgrade of what used to be the 1929 San Francisco Bay toll bridge.
I took a late-ish flight out Wednesday night .. had to allow time to get back to the airport from the East Bay. Luckily for me, I get to stand in the really short (TSA) security lines at Seattle and San Francisco every time I travel. So the long, long security line waits (2 hrs+ in some), do not really happen to me. Why are the lines so long, since surely there are not that many more travelers from just a year or two ago? There is more than one reason. 1. Back in 2008 when jet fuel was very expensive, airlines started charging for checking bags. They still do – and now more people hold on to their bags (to put in the overhead bin), and that slows down the security check points. 2. Not as many people as the TSA agency had hoped, has signed up for the expedited pre-cleared security lines at airports. 3. Back in 2013, as part of a bipartisan budget deal, 60 cents out of the $5.60 security fee for each flight, now goes into the Treasury instead of paying for screeners and new equipment. (Great, so my part of my travel expenses is used to pay down the national debt, each time I fly). 4. (Comment from Gail Collins writing in the New York Times). ‘The airlines have maximized profits by making travel as miserable as possible. The Boeing Company found a way to cram 14 more seats into its largest twin-engine jetliner by reducing the size of the lavatories. Bloomberg quoted a Boeing official as reporting that “the market reaction has been good — really positive.” We presume the market in question does not involve the actual passengers.
We just pushing back from the gate at the international terminal, about 8.40 pm on Wednesday night. That’s a Japan Airlines Boeing 777 and a Qantas 747 that are keeping each other company, nose to nose.
We worked late on Tuesday to prepare for our big presentation on Wednesday, and it was completely dark by the time I was out at the Ferry Building for the short ride out to the Waterfront where my hotel was.
Here is a night-time view of the San Francisco Ferry Building... (this is Wednesday morning) : I love the striking crimson red of street car #1061. It was built in 1948 by St.Louis Car Co. for Philadelphia Transportation Co. and has been running in San Francisco since 1992. The red is a tribute to the Pacific Electric Southern California.
The ‘stop request’ sign in street car 1807 still shows the Italian.
Here’s the street car that ran me out to the downtown office this morning (from Fisherman’s Wharf). I see that I stated incorrectly in a previous blog post that these street cars were made in Italy : they were not. These models were designed by Cleveland street railway commissioner Peter Witt, and built in the USA in the late 1920s. The street cars were then exported to world cities such as Toronto, Mexico City, Madrid, and three Italian cities, Naples, Turin, and Milan. Ten of these street cars were then bought many decades later by the City of San Francisco in 1998.
The Milan 1807 street car was built in 1928 in the USA, and exported to Milan. This type of car is named for Cleveland street railway commissioner Peter Witt, who designed it for his Ohio city around 1915.
I only had half of my weekend to spend in Seattle. I left early this morning, so Sunday found me already back in San Francisco, and in the office. I am working with a proposal team to finalize our materials for a presentation on Wednesday, and we needed all the time we could find before then.
Here’s the BART train arriving at the airport. The train is very convenient, more so than a taxi (does not get stuck in traffic). A rental car for going to the city would be the worst option : driving in a strange city, and parking in a parking garage runs $34 or more for a day.My colleague stays in the Hyatt by the our offices (the building with the sloped exterior). On the left is the Embarcadero Four office block, and that is the Bay Bridge in the distance.
The street car that took me to downtown to the office this morning is Italian-made, No 1893. It may have done service in Milan in the 1970s, since it said ‘29 posti a sedere‘ (29 seats) inside above its slatted wooden benches, and a ‘uscita’ (exit) by the back door. Check out this animated map from web site nextmuni.com, that shows the where the street cars are at any point in time, here.
Correction : these street cars are called Peter Witt-type street cars, and were designed and built in the USA. This street car has Italian signage because it was exported to Milan, and did some service there, before it was bought many decades later in 1998 by the City of San Francisco.
The website nextmuni.com shows the street car positions in real time on an animated map. This is the F line that runs along Market Street and along the Embarcadero.
The Marina district is named after the San Francisco Marina on the shoreline. There is also a strip of green lawn called the Marina Green between the water and the built-up area. Buildings in the Marina district have suffered damage to earthquakes on more than one occasion the last century or so, but as Wikipedia notes : physically, the neighborhood appears to have changed very little since its construction in the 1920s.
Four of us from work went to an Italian restaurant in the Marina district tonight, and I did the very San Francisco thing of taking an ‘Uber pool’ ride home. (Smart phone app used to summon a driver, shown on the map with his name and his car, as well as whom you will share your ride with, what the cost is, and what the estimated arrival time of the car is. Wow! That’s a whole lot of technology coming together!).
This is the view of Pier 1 (far right), Pier 3 and Pier 5 along the Embarcadero, from the conference room we met in today, from the 20th floor in the Embarcadero Three building. The container ship in the background is probably on its way to the port of Oakland a little further into San Francisco Bay.I love this 1920s Art Deco entrance to one of the condominium buildings in the Marina district. Not all of the buildings have entrances as nice as this one!
Here are pictures from my day in San Francisco outside of working at the office.
I’m a little late running out for lunch : the clock tower on the Ferry Building shows a quarter to one. The unofficial lunch time for office grunts like me is 12 noon to one.This is around 7.00 pm, and Street Car 1040 is going to take me from the Ferry Building to Fisherman’s Wharf where my hotel is. [From Wikipedia} This is a special streetcar in several ways. No. 1040 is the very last of almost 5,000 PCC streetcars manufactured in North America. It was delivered to Muni in 1952, completing an order of 25 PCCs from the venerable St. Louis Car Company. Of all the single-end PCCs in Muni’s current active fleet, it is the only one that has worked in San Francisco its entire life.This is a sunset scene around 8 pm at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, located next to the Fisherman’s Wharf.And Ghirardelli Square is right there as well. In 1893, Italy-born Domingo Ghirardelli purchased the entire city block in order to make it into the headquarters of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company. The block houses some 40 specialty shops and restaurants, and parts of it were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
