What’s Going On?

When it comes to baby showers, I tend to think of a bunch of women sitting around a room eating small sandwiches, scones, and sipping tea. However, I attended Adrian and Genese’s baby shower and it was everything except the stereotype. Having not been to a full blown all out baby shower, this shower was probably one of the most entertaining and enjoyable festive celebrations I’ve been to.

What can I say about this party that made it so memorable? Well, for starters, there was a ton of food. No sandwiches and scones at this party, but there was tea available by request. There were a couple of entertaining games that required everyone to participate. The games at the party were to guess the circumference of Adrian and Genese using and cutting a ball of yarn, another game was  to unscramble a list of words that related to child birth, another game for the guys that required them to drink beer through a baby’s bottle, and lastly a game that required people to memorize a tray of baby goods in a limited amount of time and to write them down on a piece of paper in a matter of time also.

Following all the games and eating, Genese opened up all her gifts and it was a joy to see all the fun, creative, and useful gifts that she was able to receive. After the gifts, everyone enjoyed a slice of cake and a nifty egg timer as a shower favor. Overall, everyone had a good time socializing, telling funny stories, reminising, and best of all eating with good company.

Pictures of the baby shower can be seen by clicking on the picture link above. Please feel free to leave me a comment or donation below for the pictures and/or the posting.

Recently, I was called up by a friend to photograph a wake and funeral over the course of two days. During my time at the wake there were many opportunities to sit and reflect while guests trickled in at different times to pay their respects. While sitting in the pews and while photographing various moments to remember I realized that life is short.

Over and over the phrase “life is short” started to mean so much when you experience the loss of someone first hand. The time that we are allowed to live here on this earth should count for something and the people or situations that we come into contact with everyday should mean so much than for one to grumble and complain about somebody or something. Time is limited and we should make life count.

Lately, I’ve been feeling that the everyday things that make me upset and angry should just be left behind and we should rather look beyond the superficial stuff of everyday life and make life happen. Now, I’m not here to say that you should save the planet from ulitimate destruction and feed the hungry till you can’t do it anymore, although that would be great. What I’m saying is that you should live each day as if it were your last.

What is it that you would want to be remembered by or rather what is it that you can leave this world knowing that you did your best in trying to help or accomplish. At the funeral seeing the family mourn the loss of their loved one was a little difficult to see because I too have lost people close to me, but they also celebrated what a remarkable person their friend and family member was to them. Seeing that life was cut short, they felt a little cheated, but they rest assure that the life that was lived will be remembered and forever with them as their lives go on.

Fleet Week 2009 started off Saturday morning with a Parade of Ships. The ships entered under the Golden Gate Bridge at about 11:30am. Leading off the fleet was the USS Green Bay, followed by USCGC Boutwell, then from Canada the HMCS 710 Brandon, HMCS 705 Whitehorse, HMCS 703 Edmonton, and finally followed by SS Jeremiah O’Brien.

This year I was able to board two ships. The two ships that I toured were the USS Green Bay and USCGC Boutwell. The USS Green Bay is a amphibious transport dock ship. The main purpose for this ship is to provide transport of troops and vehicles to sea or land. The ship is capable of landing helicopters and harrier jets. It also can deploy small boats, tanks, armored vehicles, construction vehicles, and even hovercrafts. The home port for the USS Green Bay is in San Diego, CA.

The other ship that I was able to tour was the USCGC Boutwell. The USCGC Boutwell is a Coast Guard Cutter ship that is used to patrol the shores of the United States. The main purpose of this ship is to protect and patrol our shores from enemies foreign and domestic. On board the deck of the ship are two 50 caliber machine guns one on each side of the ship, two 25 caliber machine guns on each side of the ship, one MK-75 76mm machine gun on the bow, and a Phalanx CIWS (Close-in weapon system) at the stern which is an anti-anti-ship missile machine gun that can shoot a wall of lead at possible incoming missiles. The home port for the USCGC Boutwell is Alameda, CA.

Touring both ships took almost three hours total and I did not get a chance to board the Canadian ships. I was a little bit disappointed in not seeing them because Monday was their last day docked here in SF and were headed back home to Canada. Tuesday turned out to be a rainy day and so I doubt if any ships allowed any civilians to board ship. Funny thing as I left the USCGC Boutwell two female shipmates wanted to take a picture of me and I humorously agreed to take it with them.

Pictures of the Fleet Week Naval Ship Tours can be seen by clicking on the picture link above. Please feel free to leave me a comment below for the pictures and/or the posting.

The Italian Heritage Parade is the oldest Italian cultured parade in the United States and is a very entertaining parade at that. This is my first year in attendance and it was very enjoyable. There are lots of parades that go through the streets of San Francisco, but the Italian Heritage Parade has a warm sense of family and friendliness. The parade was held on Sunday during the Columbus Day Weekend and started at Fisherman’s Wharf and continued on Columbus Ave through North Beach ending at Washington Square.

The parade is held during San Francisco’s Fleet Week and the competition is fierce to get people in attendance. Most people I’ve seen at the wharf are tourists from out of town with a good chunk of locals as well. Since the air show is located on the northern end of San Francisco’s waterfront I decided to enjoy my first experience at the parade and attend the Blue Angels following the parade.

The parade was totally filled with lots of laughter and red, white, and green all over. In attendance were high school marching bands, drill teams from high school JROTC groups, festive floats, baton twirlers, politicians, Queen Isabella and her court, other pageant contestants, a few Shiners groups, Columbus Salami, Boudin Bakery, police and fire departments, the NorCal waste management garbage can drill team, horse associations, and many more.

I looked up the history of the Italian Heritage Parade and there are some pretty cool and interesting facts about the parade and their timeline. You can read more about some interesting facts and history of the parade located here.

The Italian Heritage Parade is one that I can’t believe I’ve never attended, but I will be sure to come back for more in the future. The colorful parade and people make this one parade to mark down on your calendars. I hope that next year the weather will cooperate and it will be sunny and warm.

Pictures of the 141st Italian Heritage Parade can be seen by clicking on the picture link above. Please feel free to leave me a comment below for the pictures and/or the posting.

The Fleet Week 2009 Air Show in San Francisco this year was perhaps a slight disappointment from the many years that I’ve been attending. Before you you think that this was a total failure continue reading and I will explain everything. The Blue Angels are by far one of my all time favorite things to see every year and although some of the maneuvers are pretty much routine they always seem to keep me in awe. They are by far one of the most skilled men and women of our Armed Forces that are chosen to be a part of the Navy’s flight demonstration team. However, this year the weather put a damper on the show for Saturday and the Blue Angels had to put an end to their show fairly quickly and ugly conditions on Sunday prevented the Blue Angels to do any maneuvers up into the clouds.

First off, Thursday was a good and sunny day down at the Marina. The Blue Angels including their Hercules C-130 and a few other propeller planes took to the skies over San Francisco. The Blue Angels were doing their typical survey flights over the city to get a general feel of location for how the show will be for Saturday and Sunday. Also present for a little practice were three propeller planes including one bi-plane. The pilots of the four planes were Sean Tucker with Team Oracle, Melissa Pemberton with Melissa Aerobatics, Tim Weber with Geico, and Michael Wiskus with Lucas Oil Pitts. Also joining in a solo practice was Julie Clark with Chevron who has clocked in over 30,000 hours of accident free flying and Airship Ventures which flew a large blimp across the skies.

The next day on Friday, the air show was in full swing for a full complete practice with great sunny skies. The day was exceptional with just beautiful weather and the show was pretty amazing. Like Thursday all of the previously mentioned pilots took part in practice in addition to a couple more demonstrations by a United Airlines 747 and Gregory Colyer who flew the T-33. The great weather allowed for some great images and I am so thankful that I came to the practice on Friday because the next two days were gloomy.

Saturday was a partly cloudy sky with most of the clouds burning off as it passed Marina Green and to the east. Yes I attended on Saturday as well. I told you I love planes and jets, who doesn’t? Saturday is the first official day of the Fleet Week Air Show and boy was it exciting. Planes all over the skies and right over your head makes for one exhilarating day. The show included all the above pilots and planes plus a United States Coast Guard HH-65 helicopter which performed a diver rescue demonstration who dove and was retrieved from the water, the Patriots jet team, and with a couple surprises that were not on the schedule like two F-16s, four T-6A Texan II planes, and a C-17C Globemaster III cargo plane. Ending off the airshow were the Blue Angels which had to cut short their performance due to the fog rolling into the Bay. According to one of the pilots I spoke with the FAA would not allow them to fly without 3 miles of visibility. When I heard that I totally understood because the Blue Angels need pinpoint accuracy when flying at high speeds and all those crazy aero acrobatics.

Later Saturday night the Blue Angels held a “Meet and Greet” for about 45 minutes at Pier 39. There fans could meet up close and personal with the pilots of the F-18s, C-130, and the rest of the crew. I had a chance to get autographs with all of them and they too were happy to answer any questions about the Blue Angels or the Navy. This was the first time I had ever met the Blue Angels first hand and I thought it was a pretty cool experience. Following the “Meet and Greet” there was a live 80s cover band that played all the greatest hits named Fast Times at Pier 39 and further down the waterfront at Pier 3 there were fireworks presented by the Hornblower Cruises and Events.

Sunday was a gloomy day much far worse than Saturday, but the good thing about Sunday was that the air show still went on without a hitch. The show went on despite overcast clouds and light fog. Even more surprising is that the Blue Angels took to the skies with a modified program which made me happy. Still great maneuvers in the sky and some awesome pictures of a high speed low pass by from one of the F-18s that created a cool water vapor bubble effect. On Sunday I had a different vantage point from the other three days, I was at Aquatic Park which is a nice place to watch, but a horrible place to take pictures because of all the obstructions of buildings and boats that are in the harbor. Other than that it was a cool place to be with many people who clapped and gave a bunch of Ohs and Ahs.

Overall, I lied. The air show was great. The weather for the first half was great, but the remaining half the weather wasn’t cooperating at all. The planes and their pilots took to the air with an amazing show. Seeing the giant Airbus A380 was a great sight to see two years ago. I just can’t wait to see what’s in store for next year.

A selection of pictures from the San Francisco Fleet Week 2009 Air Show can be seen by clicking on the picture link above. Please feel free to leave me a comment below for the pictures and/or the posting.

The San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers located within Golden Gate Park is one of oldest buildings in Golden Gate Park that I have never been to before until now. I’ve always grew up walking around Golden Gate Park and I’ve even been to the gardens outside of the greenhouse, but not until recently have I ever been inside the building. The building is a beautiful piece of architecture and I don’t know why I haven’t been here before.

Inside the conservatory there are plants and flowers of all sorts from different regions of the world. There are 5 separate exhibits within the building. There are 4 exhibits that are permanent at the conservatory and they are Lowland Tropics, Highland Tropics, Potted Plants, and Aquatic Plants. The 5th room is a special exhibit room. The theme for this exhibit currently is Edible Expeditions.

In the Edible Expeditions room there are plants from Asia, North America, and South America. There are even some island type fruits from the Pacific. The most delicious looking edible plant there was the pineapple plant and a lychee tree. I was tempted to give these a taste, but of course was not allowed to.

The rest of the buildings exhibits are highly humid and I suggest if you are wanting to check out these rooms that you bring a towel with you on a cool San Francisco day because you will be sweating if you are not use to the temperature change. The most beautiful of orchids are on display all over the four exhibits. If you are a green thumb and you love orchids this is the place to go.

The Conservatory of Flowers is opened Tuesday - Sunday; 9am - 5pm. Tickets are $7 for Adults, $5 for Youth 12-17, Seniors 65+, and students with ID, $2 for Children 5-11, and Free for Children 4 and below. There are discounts available for residents of SF and the first Tuesday of the month admission is Free.

A selection of pictures of the SF Conservatory of Flowers can be seen by clicking on the picture link above. If you would like to see more visit the Conservatory up close and personal. More information can be found following this link. Please feel free to leave me a comment below for the pictures and/or the posting.

LovEvolution 2009 is a dance music parade and festival that happens once a year. Formerly known as Love Fest and Love Parade, LovEvolution is in it’s 6th year and larger than you can imagine. People took to the streets early Saturday morning awaiting the parade of floats, DJs, and dancers. People young and old came out to check out this yearly event and just about the only time in San Francisco that you can come dressed with next to nothing, well in some people’s cases they did just that.

LovEvolution is a week long celebration that started off the week with numerous DJs playing at different clubs throughout the city ending with the LovEvolution parade and festival. The LovEvolution parade started on 2nd and Market Streets and concluded at Civic Center Plaza where a $10 admission fee was charged for the festival. The festival lasted until 8pm where festival goers could enjoy more partying at other after parties located locally with ticket prices ranging up to around $80 per person.

The parade route was completely swamped with people dancing and grooving to the beats that the DJs were throwing out and it was an intensly populated parade that cross traffic was held up for almost a couple hours. No traffic, that I know of, was allowed to cross Market St. due to the large volume of people and as I walked the parade route I noticed people got out of their cars and walked up to the crosswalks to see what was going on. As the floats went down Market St. I was surprised to see big rigs pulling trailers filled with people and huge speakers. There were a couple nifty buses that were outfitted for a party which I thought added a little more character to the parade than the big rigs. Overall, the parade was a great hit amongst people of all ages and I can say is almost like the Bay to Breakers with people dressing up in costumes or skimpy clothing and even with some people that were bare naked.

At the festival the line to get in the Civic Center Plaza was insane. People waited over 30 minutes just to get inside. Once inside it was a mecca of dance music all around. Parade floats were somewhat evenly spaced out throughout the whole area with one fixed stage right in front of City Hall. Directly in the center of the Civic Center Plaza food and drink vendors lined the strip with a few memorabilia vendors scattered throughout. People were a little more rowdy inside as I can imagine as more alcohol and music surrounding was available. It got a little intense inside with a few getting alcohol poisoning, a few riled up enough to destroy public property, and a few having partied so much that they had to sit out for awhile.

In the end, I can only imagine how many showed up to the parade and festival and if I were to put a number on how many guests attended either the parade or the festival I would have to say that number would have to be around 200,000. LovEvolution turned out to be a huge success with a large following. The vision for LovEvoluion is for dance to promote peace, love, unity and respect.

Pictures of LovEvolution can be seen by clicking on the picture link above. Feel free to leave comments below for the pictures and the posting.

The San Francisco’s Asian Peace Officers Association (APOA) Scholarship and Promotional Dinner was held at New Asia Restaurant this year and the banquet was attended by many. The night kicked off with the Pledge of Allegiance and a lion dance performance performed by the SFPD lion dance troupe. Throughout the night the APOA sold raffle tickets to guests with the help of a few pageant contestants from a couple different pageants held here in San Francisco throughout the year.

Raffle tickets were sold for $5 each or $20 for five tickets. Money raised would help in the furthering of the organization and in funding scholarships for students for academic achievement. Other merchandise available for sale and tips from a hosted bar too would go on to help the APOA’s benefit banquet. Some of the prizes for the raffle where a limited edition Jackie Chan doll, expensive bottles of cognac, hotel stays, a brand new phone, gift cards for food or merchandise, and the grand prize was two tickets on Singapore Airlines.

During the banquet various state and local dignitaries came to show their support for the organization and helped in various ways. Keynote speaker for the night was Senator Leland Yee. APOA also wanted to recognize the welcoming of the new Chief of Police George Gascon and to honor the retirement of Chief Heather Fong, which became the very first female chief of police of any metropolitan city in the United States.

Other festivities included the honoring of the promotion to lietenents and sargeants, presentation of scholarship awards, and more raffle drawings.

The evening ended with closing remarks and a VIP After Party.

Pictures of the APOA Dinner can be seen by clicking on the picture link above. Feel free to leave comments below for the pictures and the posting.