plip blog » Bikes

Oakland & SF Photos, Coffee and Scotch Whiskey

mrjones — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:33:50 +0000

Ok, this'll be a good ramble. In order of the photos below, first up is the PG&E embarcadero substation. Huge buildings that have no windows are not for humans. They seem to always be for some utility company. Weird and cool looking. Next up is a shot of a late I made at work. Microfoam is looking good, latte art, not so much. We'll get there, just you wait and see. Next up, the shocking truth about the price of a bottle of decent scotch. The first is Eddie's Liquors which has a bottle for $70. Then Trador Joe's has the same bottle for $37. Shocking! After than is the 411 30th building in oakland. Some what unassuming until you check out the details (art deco?) of the lobby. I love this old stuff.

Last night I did a ride from our house, through downtown oakland, through china town, past laney, all the way south down to the park street bridge, all the way around alameda, and the double back almost the same way you came. Along the way I went through the defunct airforce base. The next photo after 411 30th shots are the HUGE doors (no street view) on the base. I love 'em! On the way back I stumbled upon The Hotel Oakland. Woah! This building is 1 square block and looks like it's from New York city. It's on 13th off of Broadway, who knew?! Wikipedia suggests it's on the list of Alameda County Historical Landmarks and some random site has this history:

"A residence and health center for the elderly. The building housed the finest hotel in Oakland until it went out of business in the Great Depression; in 1943 it became an army hospital and by the 1960s a VA hospital. From 1963 to 1979 it was vacant, before being reborn into its current use."

Lastly, a sunset shot of the good ol tribune tower. Hi Modern Cafe!

WordPress Exploit, Fog, Fruit, Plants and Plates

mrjones — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 18:40:18 +0000

Here's a random collection of items that happened over the last 10 or so days.

My friend's blog got hacked! This is because of a WordPress exploit that allows a user to create an admin user and log into your blog. They can then upload random stuffs to do all sorts of nasties. Your best bet is to first check that your blog hasn't been hacked and then upgrade to the latest version. Sadly, if you've already been hacked, the new admin user in there and upgrading won't boot this user. Plip has upgraded as we weren't hacked, but we lost our Plipish theme. That'll come back soon, promise.

Our friend from twtitw joined us for a commute on the Ferry to SF. It's a lovely way to commute, they take bicycles and sometimes you get spooky fog! Then, when you get to SF, you're at the ferry building where you can get tasty treats. See pics below.

I was commuting home from a friends house on Wednesday night and there was a big sign that said "Wet plates ahead". Just before there was one that said "Dirty Knives on Left" and after one said "Sporks in Road".

Our fave famers market still has strawberries. OMG, do they! Look at this huge one. Can you believe it's organic?

With the sunlight fading sooner and sooner each night, I'm going for more and more sunset rides. Here's another pic for the latest on Thursday night.

Finally, our venus fly trap is blooming! Fun.

Photos: Food, Bikes, Sunsets and Stars

mrjones — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:11:45 +0000

The other night we made fried okra. Tasty! This past Sunday I went for another sunseterific MTB ride in Tilden and Wildcat parks. Since taking some initial photos, I've since figured how to take long 60 second photos. We got stars on film; this is a first for me since back in my analog film days. Enjoy!

Wonderful Bike Lane Signs

mrjones — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:28:04 +0000

My sweetie and I were on our way out to the California Academy of Sciences and took the good ol' wiggle up to Fell to get to the pan handle. Just before Divisadero on Fell there was the well known 'bike lane' symbol. But someone had added a smile and antlers. It made my day.

Secret Jumps of Tunnel

mrjones — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:21:50 +0000

If you ride off road, you're always looking for new ways to get from point A to point B and stay on the dirt. Today is Thursday which means that it's leave work early and ride day! H and K and I were exploring off of Tunnel and found a full on hidden BMX track. I never road BMX as a kid, which makes my MTB skills a bit lacking. BMX skills or no, none of actually road this track. 4' tall jumps with a 5' gap? No thanks!

Fixed Gear + Slipped Chain = Thankful for Brake

mrjones — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 22:10:27 +0000

I know a lot of the fixie purists don't ride with a front brake and just use their mad skidding skills to slalom their wait through traffic and sudden stops. However, the other day I was headed back from a trip up to the Oakland hills, hit a big bump and had my chain come off. Now, arguably, my bad mechanic skills are to blame, or possibly my non-horizontal drop outs I'm running with the eccentric hub, but I was very thankful to have a front brake!