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I’m nearly done with the huge, but interesting, story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, and have really enjoyed learning about Washington Roebling, the chief engineer, who started his work on the bridge in his early 30’s and saw it through to completion 14 years later. After the bridge was finished, many people had […] For Thanksgiving this year we traveled to Southern California to be with family. But instead of doing the 1-hour flight (with the requisite 2-hrs early to the airport, naked-body-scanning/junk-touching rigamarole), or the 7-hour drive on I-5 (passing in the slow lane, slowing in the fast lane, miles and miles of driving boredom), we decided to […] Saw this ad on BART tonight, and it reminded of my long-time dream to visit all the destinations I could conceivably travel to nonstop from one airport. Ideally, the airport in question would be SFO, but I think the list of nonstops from SFO would be counted in hundreds, if not thousands. So that […] I don’t know exactly why, but sometimes I get a strong desire to ride my bike pretty much as far as I possibly can in a day, preferably on new roads or routes, and ideally not alone. Last Sunday, those three things met in one good, crazy, challenging, and insanely hot bike ride from Berkeley […] Even though it sounds like bragging (and it may well be, although before you envision me living in a mansion on a hilltop, let me clarify that the cottage is, at most, 400 square feet, and one room is practically uninhabitable because it has carpet on the walls!), I have to talk about how amazing […] In my experience, moving is painful, lengthy, tiring, challenging, and exciting. But my move last weekend, from a house in the flat to a cottage in the hills, surpassed even my own expectations. Aside from the interminable number of trips necessary to get my stuff into a truck and from point A to a much-higher-elevation […] yerba buena, an island halfway between oakland and san francisco (some would say halfway between heaven and hell, though which one is the latter is a matter of serious debate) does little besides house the world’s largest bore tunnel (really?) and some high $$$ real estate. today, though, things got crazy on the island. i […] |