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October 16, 2010, at O'Farrell St. and Mason St., San Francisco.

Hotel Virginia, with a liquor / food store and diner attached. What more could you want?

(No, I didn't stay here either.)

October 16, 2010, at the corner of Eddy St. and Mason St. in San Francisco.

I don't know what it is about San Francisco, but I found the commercial signage to be really cool here, especially on the old hotels, bars and theatres. Some of it is stuck in a bit of a time-warp. So yeah, I took a tons of photos of signs, theatre facades, etc.

And wow, here's something interesting that I just found out from reading the Bristol Hotel Wikipedia Page:

"In 1988 Valerie Solanas, author of the S.C.U.M. Manifesto and attempted assassin of Andy Warhol, died in the SRO Bristol Hotel in San Francisco. Richard Ramirez (a.k.a. Night Stalker) stayed in the same hotel, room 315, during his killing spree in 1985."

No, I didn't stay at the Bristol Hotel.

October 16, 2010, at the corner of Market St. and 5th St. in San Francisco.

Shortly after my arrival in San Francisco, I was walking from the train station to my hostel, taking lots of photos along the way (of course). This section of Market St. is the first somewhat "touristy" area I walked through and, not surprisingly, I got a kick out of the old streetcars they have in service here.

This PCC streetcar is painted in 1938 Philadelphia colours. They apparently have a TTC-coloured streetcar too, and I was watching out for it, but unfortunately never saw it. I was hoping to caption a photo with "TTC PCC in SF CA" (yeah, I'm a geek).

October 16, 2010. I started off this day by walking from my hotel to the Sunnyvale Caltrain station. This photo shows the remnants of an off-ramp from S. Mathilda Ave. down to W. Evelyn Ave., just outside the station.

Apart from my train ride, a few meals, and checking into the hostel, this was a very... long... day... of... walking... But it was well worth it.

Halloween, October 31 2010. Jen and I always carve our own jack-o-lanterns for Halloween, but I don't think ours turned out as artistically awesome as Amanda's tree-pumpkin.

Amanda, our upstairs neighbour Mark's girlfriend, is a tree-nerd who works for LEAF, so this bit of artwork is totally appropriate. The spiral pumpkin is Mark's creation. They also set up a "candy cannon" to shoot chocolate bars down a pipe from our balcony into the kids' candy bags. So much fun. Thanks guys!

A few more photos from Halloween at home are posted here.

October 14, 2010. Crossing the Caltrain tracks at S Mary Ave and W Evelyn Ave in Sunnyvale, California. While walking from my hotel to the office, my timing was always good and I was able to watch the trains come roaring through here in each direction. A couple of days later, I took the Caltrain from Sunnyvale to San Francisco.

October 14, 2010. Electric fence around a construction equipment yard in Sunnyvale, California.

I went to California recently on a work-related trip. Spent Monday to Friday in Sunnyvale and Mountainview (aka "Silicon Valley") mostly doing work stuff. I didn't spend much time looking at actual silicon or exploring deep into any valleys, but I did manage to get out for a few morning walks from the hotel to the office. Of course, I took a few pictures along the way.

I will probably be posting a ton of photos from my trip to California soon, particularly my post-work weekend in San Francisco.

October 10, 2010. Sunset at the Ottawa International Airport. Looking through the airplane window while waiting for takeoff to San Francisco.

October 3, 2010. One more photo from Rail of Light during Nuit Blanche. This photo of the lights on the Wallace Ave. Footbridge was taken from the West Toronto Railpath, looking through the "W" of the Wallace Ave. sign. You can see that sign in this photo.

You can see all of my Rail of Light / Nuit Blanche photos in the complete gallery here.

October 3, 2010.

I've fallen way behind on posting my "daily" photos here. So much to do, so little time...

Here's another one from the Rail of Light exhibit during Nuit Blanche. This is the view from the West Toronto Railpath, underneath the Wallace Ave Footbridge. This gives a good overview of the whole project: Richard Mongiat's light installation on the bridge above the tracks, Jeff Winch's video projection underneath the bridge, and even train-related artwork on the fence by some local kids.

It was actually pretty busy under this bridge with many people coming through to check it out. But the long shutter speed used for this photo just caught some of the "ghosts" walking by.