mad dog in the fog

Down the street from my house…

This story infuriates me. Back in May, officials at San Quentin released a “high control” inmate two days early in the wrong area (San Rafael instead of Southern California) and without any meeting with his parole officer. He took a bus to San Francisco and ended up a few blocks from where I live, where he proceeded to brutally stab a 15-year-old girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He also severely injured one of three good Samaritans who came to her aid. Luckily, the three men were able to apprehend the attacker and he was arrested. The girl surely would have died if these men hadn’t gotten involved. Today, the California inspector general issued a report saying that the officials at San Quentin failed to follow several policies, resulting in this tragic event. Whenever I hear about this story I can’t stop thinking about how easily that could have been me or my wife getting in this guy’s path and suffering the brutal attack. I am also grateful that I have neighbors who put their own lives at risk to help someone who they don’t even know.

KTVU has video of the Police Commission recognizing the three heroes who helped the girl and an update on the girl’s recovery. According to this article that appeared in the Chronicle last month, the family of the 15-year-old is considering a lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

3/28/2008 Update:
The family is now suing the state of California.

The end of an era in San Francisco

More photos here.

We had amazing summer-like weather in SF today. Here are a couple of shots that I took today at Crissy Field…

The dome at the new Westfield SanFrancisco Centre.

It was a beautiful day in San Francisco. The fog has finally lifted along the coast. Here’s a shot from today at Fort Funston…

First, click here or click on the photo shown below. This will take you to Zooomr. Then place your mouse over the photo to find the portals. They appear as rectangular outlines overlaid on the photo. It will take a few seconds for the portal to appear as an image within an image. Clicking on the portal will give you a more detailed view. Do this again on the next photo. Eventually you will get to close-up detail on several San Francisco landmarks such as Coit Tower, Palace of Fine Arts, and Alcatraz.

Note:

It appears that Zooomr portals does not work with Internet Explorer. It works best with Firefox.

Golden Gate Bridge Hosted on Zooomr

It’s always fun to read about a crazed gunman shooting random people at a place that you go to every weekend to walk your dog.8/23 Update:

Here’s an update with details on the shooter and status of the victims.

It’s been brutally foggy in my neighborhood in San Francisco. It’s a city of micro-climates. It can be 52 degrees and foggy where I live (an area called Miraloma Park) and 15 degrees warmer just a couple of miles away.

Rephotographing my neighborhood in San Francisco. The photo on the left is from today. The one on the right is from 1953. That’s Twin Peaks in the background. The neighborhood in the foreground is called Miraloma Park. Best viewed at full size.