Song of the Day: Go Into the Water / Fansong (Dethklok)

I've got a bad habit of getting an album and only listening to a song or two on one side. When I first bought Rush's "Moving Pictures" in 1987, it was just for the one song: 'Tom Sawyer'. I'd slap the tape in my player, rewind to the beginning of the song, and play only that song. It took a couple of years to get into the rest of the album--and with each new song I couldn't believe I'd waited so long, because each one was awesome. Now "Moving Pictures" is a favorite and I'm on my 3rd tape and 3rd CD (I don't know how I wore the music off a CD, but I did--sounds cooler than "they just deteriorated with age").

There's a long list of other bands and albums: I've listened to the first side of Alice In Chains' "Facelift," Def Leppard's "On Through the Night," the first few songs of Metallica's "Pantload" "Load."

That said, it's only taken a few months for me to get into the first Dethklok disc ("The Dethalbum"). There's not a bad track on it. Some are more awesome than others, but today's song, "Go Into the Water," is glorious. The guitars are incredible, especially those Brian May-like harmonies. Reminds me of Metallica when they were still in the music business.



The video (from the deluxe edition Dethalbum II DVD) includes "Fansong" as a hidden "bonus" track.

Pic of the Day: Forgotten Scumbag Still Whining

...and makes Hurricane Sandy all about him:

I wish the hurricane hadn't happened when it did because it gave the president a chance to look presidential.

 A hurricane that killed people and caused billions in damage hurt the MittBot's chances at winning!

The Wonkette link above will take you to some excellent snark and the CNN video clip of this entitled backpfeingesicht. "Burlivesleftnut" comments, "Hurricane Butthurt."

Road Trip: San Francisco! Pt. 3--The Bites!

Yeah, this is me being lame, trying to rhyme with Part 2--The Flights! Maybe I should go back to Part 1--The Airports and rename it "The Plights" or "The Smites."

Nah. Too trite.

There weren't any complimentary peanuts or crackers on any of the flights, just soft drinks. A canned Coke is a canned Coke, even at 33,000 feet. No food here, and that'll save some reviewing time.

4/28/2013 Sunday:
First place I dined was Tommy's Joynt at the corner of Van Ness Avenue and Geary. We had to park up near the end of the block on Geary (nice downhill slope for me to deal with). I didn't even notice the eye-catching livery on the building's north side (late evening and worn out from all the airport stuff). As you enter from the corner (didn't see the door on Geary, either), you've got a long cafeteria-style serving area on the right. The bar dominates the left wall. Plenty of warm, dark wood. Beer signs all over the place. Small without feeling crowded. As a bonus for Monty Python fans, there's a little "Watney's Red Barrel" display hanging just next to the bar.

I wish I'd been able to stay in SF longer so I could explore the Joynt's menu. I had the BBQ brisket dinner platter (mashed potatoes, hard roll and a salad). Good portions for the price (about 10 bucks, plus a Coke). Very tasty! It was served with what looks like a thin brown gravy but has a tangy BBQ sauce flavor. I'd definitely eat here again and again.

4/29/2013 Monday:
We ran some errands early in the day and didn't do breakfast until maybe 10:30 am. Thanks to the Lex and Terry morning radio show, I've been hearing praises of In-N-Out Burger for years. We stopped at the one near Millbrae Avenue and Rollins Rd in Millbrae.

I went with a straight-up #2 combo (double cheeseburger, fries, Coke). I'd put them in the same league with Wendy's, Steak 'N' Shake, or Whataburger as far as flavor and quality--basically mid-range as far as burgers, but high as far as fast food joints go (for comparison, Burger King, McDonald's, and Krystal are on the bottom tier; Tops and SteakOut are on top). Huge portions. Good fries. It wasn't an earth-shaking experience, but I'd go occasionally if there were one in Pensacola.

We spent the rest of the day driving all over SF proper. Had a Slurpee at the only 7-11 I've seen since 1999 (there are none in Northwest Florida; they were taken over by Circle K).

Dinner was from Sorabol, a food court restaurant at the Tanforan mall in San Bruno. Korean. Pretty typical Asian-style menu (rice, vegetables, bite-size cuts of beef, pork or chicken). Lots of food for a decent price. The bourbon chicken was very good.

There was a Jollibee next door to Sorabol. I later learned that it's supposed to be Filipino--but from reviews around the Interwebs, actual Filipinos eat elsewhere. The only reason I even remembered this place was #3 on their menu: a plate of spaghetti with sauce...and a fried chicken drumstick.

We'd intended to see the "Evil Dead" remake in the nearby theater, but neither of us thought we'd make it through without falling asleep. Back to the apartment.

4/30/2013 Tuesday:
My host had to go to work. He spent a good 6 hours on that. I sat around (glad to not be walking or climbing in and out of my host's Miata) and munched on my leftover dinner. Bleah. No microwave or cookware. The rice had hardened and the noodles had taken on a rubbery consistency. Bleah, again.

We lunched at the Broadway Grill a few miles from the apartment at Broadway & Capuchino. What?! Not fast food?! Nope. Not a formal place, but tony enough that prices are noted discreetly on the menu next to the entrees ("21" without the distracting dollar sign; don't be fooled by the Web version). The room is big, two stories high, with an open and roomy feel to it.

I had the Steak Frites (the classy name for "steak and fries"). And a Coke (no classy name). Moderate portions. Good steak. A bit pricey, perhaps, for a low-budget kind of guy (that's a classy way of saying "broke").

More running around, this time in Haight-Ashbury.

Dinner was a medium pizza from Village Host, a couple of blocks east of the Broadway Grill (Broadway & Laguna). Casual sports-bar vibe, but without TV's covering every wall. Wood-warmed and comfortable, maybe louder on a big game night but plenty quiet for conversation. There's an arcade room at the back with a vintage Ms. Pac Man/Galaga sit-down game. The only interesting stand-up had a dozen or so classics such as Joust, Defender, and Vanguard.

Rating the usual pizza joints, I'd put Domino's dead last, then CiCi's, Little Caesar's, Hungry Howie's, Pizza Hut, and Papa John's. Village Host would come in around Howie's or the Hut.


5/1/13 Wednesday:
Alcatraz day! We did breakfast in the little cafe/gift shop near the ferry landing. Some kind of turkey & ham wrap, and too pricey. I ate half of it and stored the rest away for later.

Alcatraz ate the morning; the California Academy of Sciences (CAOS! heh.) ate the afternoon. We infiltrated a Popeye's for a late lunch.

We went back to the Broadway Grill to see their Dean Martin impersonator *ahem* Tribute Artist. Once he wrapped up, we went up the street to Village Host again and demolished a large.

5/2/13 Thursday:
Back to the airport for my long-ass ride back to Pensacola. With the flights (Frisco to Charlotte, then to Pensacola) and the layover in Charlotte I was looking at 10 hours. I had the other half of that wrap from the Alcatraz pier cafe for breakfast. That was it until I hit Charlotte, found out my flight had been canceled, and that I was being put up in a hotel for the night.

The Hilton's Omaha Steakhouse is simply made of awesome. Granted, my rosy outlook thereupon is a likely side effect of low blood sugar. Don't care. I was seated in the lounge. There was just enough light to read, the booth seat was terribly comfortable, and service was fast. I ordered a burger, since a steak would be more work than I wanted. If that wasn't the best damn burger I've ever had, it had to be close. On that short list of burger places, Omaha is at the top, above SteakOut, which is my go-to for damn good burgers.

It tasted like steak.

I don't know what McDonald's does to their patties, but they do not taste like steak. Maybe it's their seasoning (he said, being diplomatic), or the cooking method (he added diplomatically).

Whatever it was, there was just enough burger in all the right places and the price was very reasonable ($13 plus tax) for a steakhouse. No bacon. Why, why, WHY would I pollute a good burger with bacon?

Pic of the Day: Dolphins!

Probably the coolest thing I've ever done. About 10 years ago, I took my kayak out on the Gulf just east of Fort Pickens. Mid-spring, gorgeous day, pretty calm. I was a few hundred feet offshore and looking out at deeper water where a pod of dolphins were working their way westward, smoothly breaking the surface to grab a breath and rolling under again without much of a splash. There were nearly a dozen of them.

Then I heard a blowing sound behind me, toward the shoreline, and turned to see three of them maybe 20 feet away.

Pic of the Day: Columbus Tower, San Francisco

I snagged a shot of San Francisco's Columbus Tower without realizing that I was a half-block from a "Star Trek IV" filming location, near the intersection of Kearny, Columbus and Pacific.

Dig that JJ Abrams lens flare in the Google Earth shot! That makes it more Trekkie! (Trekish? Treklike? Trekalicious? Trekadelic?)


Right here:



Man, that music sucks.

The building's got an interesting history. It was home to Caesar's, the restaurant credited with creating the Caesar salad. Francis Ford Coppola bought the place in the 1970s and made it home to his American Zoetrope production company.

Pic of the Day: Six Forts, Decades of Advancement

(clockwise from upper left: Ft. Pickens; Ft. Pike/Macomb; Ft. McRee; Advanced Redoubt of Ft. Barrancas; Ft. Point; Ft. Jefferson)

I don't really give much thought to which forts I pick as CAD projects. As it turns out, I've got three of the earliest Third System forts--Pike, Pickens & McRee--and three of the last, the Redoubt, Jefferson and Point.

The Third System commenced in the wake of the War of 1812. The U.S. had learned a painful lesson about protecting its harbors and rivers from enemy ships. Since we didn't like the British anymore, we got French experts to help build strong and modern brick and stone defenses that were unbeatable at the time. The first was little pie-shaped Fort Pike (commenced 1819, completed 1827) guarding the Rigolets Pass into Lake Pontchartrain. This was the first of five forts controlling access to New Orleans and the Mississippi River.

Fort Pickens was the first of four forts guarding Pensacola's harbor and navy yard. Building commenced in 1829 and wrapped up in 1834. Almost immediately thereafter, engineers got to work on the smaller Fort McRee (1834 to 1839), putting it across the channel from Pickens to develop a withering crossfire on enemy ships.

As soon as McRee was done, Fort Barrancas was commenced in 1839 and finished in 1847; a smaller supporting structure, the Advanced Redoubt (1845-1870), was built a few hundred yards to the north. Together they controlled the landward approaches to the navy yard peninsula.

Forts Barrancas and its Redoubt show the evolution of American fortification away from the bulkier and massive (and more elaborate) Fort Pickens toward simpler construction. Curtain walls, casemate arches  and bastions were pared down to essentials. Solid brick walls gave way to inner and outer brick facings with concrete poured between them for strength.

Fort Jefferson (1846-1874) exemplifies this leaner approach to construction. It covers a larger area, is taller, has longer walls, and was designed for more guns than Fort Pickens, but uses 75% as many bricks (16 million vs. 21.5 million).

Fort Point (1853-1861) is comparable in size to Forts Pike and McRee but could mount more guns (126, compared to Pike's 43 and McRee's 110). This was the only such fort built on the West Coast.

Pic of the Day: Fort Point CAD project

I got tired of sorting through and tagging all the pics I took in San Francisco. Decided to draw Fort Point instead.

This little fort's the only one of its type on the West Coast, commenced in 1853 and still under construction when the South's little tantrum began in 1861. Its closest brush with battle at the time was when a Southern ship captain headed toward the Golden Gate only to learn from a passing British ship in August 1865 that he'd missed the war entirely.

Wasn't there a "Gilligan's Island" episode based on that?

Anyway, I went all the way to San Francisco planning to visit the fort and some of the batteries nearby. Saw Alcatraz, Coit Tower, that big red bridge (can't remember what it's called...smaller than I'd expected) and some other stuff, and Fort Point.

Very nice parking lot. Smallish. Fence was kind of rusty. Barbed wire was a nice touch. Closed except on weekends.

This was a Monday. Heh.

At least the National Park Service had their scheduling make more sense than the rubes in Louisiana who made Fort Pike open only on weekdays. Their fence was prettier.

Still, I got close enough to Fort Point to touch and get some pictures. Well, actually only six out of 20 were of the fort. The rest are scenery from the fort. Turns out those six pics did help a little, but not as much as oh, say, actually being in the fort and loading my camera card up.

Here at home I did a good bit of Google-Fu, grabbed a couple hundred megs' worth of photos, and found 3D Virtual Design Technology's website. The company uses laser scanning and surveying to build a computer model of a structure for restoration or renovation (for example).

On the one hand I'd love to have a laser scanning system. Saves a lot of time I'd otherwise use in taking measurements manually. All the hard work's done. But I can't really see myself settling for that. I'd miss out on spending hours just wandering from spot to spot, taking detail photos and sketching, learning about the place. I don't want to miss out on that by making things quicker.

Besides, I've learned so much about how these old forts were built by studying them that when I'm stumped on a project there's at least one other fort I've been to that has some similar structures.

Armed with the plans I found at 3DVDT and a couple of Historic Structure Reports put together by the National Park Service, I ended up with this:

Took five days and two scrapped attempts. The 3DVDT pics don't have enough resolution to make out dimensions and the Structure Reports don't have any technical drawings, but one of them has a writeup of the fort's condition and includes enough measurements that I was able to throw out the second (and horribly inaccurate) version and start again.

Between these, all those photos and the drawing I did of Fort Jefferson (which has some similarities), I'm more than happy with the result. Six "Third System" (1820-1867) forts in CAD...only 36 more to go according to FortWiki.