Once while playing golf, a friend who faced a shot challenged by foliage said, “Trees are 90% air.” Of course, his next shot clanked off a sturdy oak and landed behind where he had just swung. Oaks full of leaves seem sturdy. Oaks bereft of leaves seem delicate. An intricate web of twigs spread out in search of the sun.
Joe
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Naked Oak. Novato, CA.
The weather forecast was interesting: clear and sunny with big waves on the coast. It was a Saturday so off I went to Pacifica. Only four miles away if you could only drive straight over the coastal range, but, alas, you can’t. Twenty minutes up Skyline to Sharp Park and down to the fishing pier. The weather guessers were right for a change. Sunny, clear and big waves.
The surf was pounding the sea wall and the crabbers on the pier were getting quite a sight as the waves reached near eye level. Even the seagulls were enjoying the show. The waves were blowing spray all over and booming and crashing and shaking everything in sight. Just another lovely day in paradise as a friend who lives in town likes to say.
The one thing that did catch my eye was the surfers… not the human ones… too rough for them. Some of the seagulls apparently enjoy gliding along the edge of the big waves and coasting on the updraft. They’d go around and around catching the big waves just for fun.
Good shooting!
Joe
See the weekly photo challenge here.
Sunrise? Are you kidding me? Sunrise and night owl do not compute. I have about 1000 sunset shots for every sunrise shot in my portfolio. So, there was this one day in 2013 that I woke up early and saw that it was going to be a rare day with good character in the sky (broken clouds). In the part of the Bay Area where I live we get sun with clear but hazy skies or fog and not much rain lately. Hence, few character building clouds.
One nice thing about where I live… It’s about four miles to the Pacific Ocean and about three miles to the San Francisco Bay. The sun sets over the Pacific and rises up out of the Bay… or so I’m lead to believe as I’ve only seen it happen once or twice in the nearly 40 years I’ve lived here and those times may have been part of a dream.
I do have photographic evidence of my capturing a sunrise if you can trust EXIF data. I’ve included a few shots as evidence in this possible case of mistaken identity.
Now if you want a real challenge… check out the triptych. Sunrise, noon and sunset taken on the same day at the same spot in Rockaway Beach, Pacifica, California. Don’t know what possessed me, but give it a try and let me see your results. Good shooting! Joe
OH YEAH: Most recent employment stats for the SF Bay Area right here!
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Whether aloft, floating on air, or floating on a sea of waves… it’s always good to rise above, gain some perspective and see things a little differently.
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Life has seemed a blur lately. I shouldn’t skip my annual eye doc appointment!
See the weekly photo challenge here.
Find the updated single-family home price trends and employment trends here. It’s a busy time in the good old San Francisco Bay Area. The economies of communities surrounding the bay are in overdrive while things are a little less peachy once you get farther from the muddy waters of the center of the Tech universe.
Are there many $30 million listings in your neighborhood?
How’s growth outside of the Bay Area?
A month ago the Bay Area labor market appeared to have flatlined. Now! To the Moon, Alice! (Alert: Honeymooners reference)
See the latest summary here.
Top Statistics Statewide – January 2015
Unemployment Rate: 6.9% | -0.2
Labor Force: 18,936,200 | +22,500
Employment: 17,620,300 | +54,000
Unemployment: 1,315,900 | -31,500
Non Farm Jobs: 15,928,000 | +67,300
UI Initial Claims: 239,200 | -6,900
Source: Ca EDD
New Highrises Dot Downtown San Francisco
This week Michelle W. gave us a photo challenge to… “wow us with punchy pops of orange.”
I know you’ve seen this structure. It’s steel and concrete. It spans a windy straight that’s about 300 feet deep under the surface of the bay. No, it’s not golden. It’s orangy (International Orange or so they say). It looks red a lot of the time unless it needs paint and then it looks rusty. Been there?
See the Weekly Photo Challenge here.
This week Krista gave us a photo challenge to provide a graphic representation of Reward.
This story starts one summer in the mid-1960s. I was a kid living in a small town in South Jersey. I was about to cross a two-lane highway (eleven-year-olds did that by themselves a generation ago) and had to wait for a motorcycle to go by. It was a big “boxer” a horizontally opposed BMW twin-cylinder touring motorcycle. It seemed to float by effortlessly. I said to myself (remember I was alone crossing that two-lane highway), someday I’m going to have one of those! And, now I do.
Last summer I took a trip over the Sonora and Tioga Passes in the Eastern Sierras with a group of 16 other motorcyclists. We spent one night at Mono Lake (Lee Vining), which is a place I’ve always wanted to visit. I have to admit that the Eastern Sierras are much different than the Tahoe Basin where I’ve spent much more time. Different but no less spectacular. If you’ve worked hard and want to reward yourself, take a trip to the Eastern Sierras, Mono Lake and, oh yeah, stop by that place called Yosemite Valley, too!
See the Weekly Photo Challenge here.
The real estate markets have become fickle beasts. Capital markets bubble and burst taking it out on the little guy. January is a fickle month, too. We saw very few home sales in January in the San Francisco Bay Area relative to the long-term average. Median prices drooped along with sales volume. It’s not possible to predict what the balance of 2015 will be like but it sure got off to a rocky start. Median prices in eight of the nine counties were lower in January than the average of the prior six months. See the median price trends for the nine Bay Area Counties here.
Urban Living, Columbia Park, San Francisco, CA
 | Donna H on State of Mind |
JN Real Estate Valuation Services 