I enjoy looking up when I'm out walking. It gives the spine a gentle stretch and prevents the onset of that painful syndrome, Photographer's Armpits. Here are some recent results from looking vertical. As always, click on the thumbnail photos to see something larger.
I visit Sam's Log Cabin two or three times a month. Open for breakfast and lunch, it's on San Pablo Avenue in Albany, a small town next to Berkeley. The building really is a log cabin, built around the 1930s, I think. Decades ago, you could order log cabins from a catalog, genuine modular housing. Scott told me there's maybe one more in the Bay Area still standing, he heard it's in downtown Oakland. Sam's is a family operation, friendly and informal. That reminds me of the first time I visited Sam's Log Cabin. Scott stopped me at the cash register and said, "We run an informal joint here, mister, take your tuxedo someplace else."
If all you do is walk in and sit down and look at your menu and eat your food, you're going to miss the ceiling art installation. There's a string of egg beaters hanging near the skylights. A couple of dozen, some of them no doubt quite old. The object hanging in the top of the photo is a wind chime. I could not get a good angle to shoot all the egg beaters, but they're up there. Anyway, it's a simple art display, and attractive. And they're relevant to the art of cooking. Less relevant, let's say, would be a display of two dozen hand grenades from around the world. Or maybe two dozen pruning shears. Yes, the egg beaters are fine, and safe.
If you visit Safeway or any other store that sells helium-filled balloons, you will have noticed that some of them get away. The Safeway employee -usually somebody from the flowers section who also fills the birthday and anniversary balloons- hands the balloon string to the customer, where it slips out of the fingers and hits the ceiling. For the next couple of days, the balloon hovers out of sight from most customers.
This balloon, I guess, is a dragonfly. Or maybe a mosquito. Maybe when it's done feeding on human blood, the wings turn completely red. Guess it gave customers the creeps. Nobody was shopping on that aisle. One woman said it looked demonic, like an angel with the head of an insect. I had visited the aisle to buy condiments, but decided there was enough at home. Plus, I always carry a couple of the tiny mustard packs in my wallet.
There's a big construction project at the University of California-Berkeley near Soda Hall. Somebody said they're installing a coin-operated particle accelerator. I photographed a white crane as it hovered above Soda Hall from the other side of the street. This was not the most enjoyable experience. I had to crane my head way back to get the shot, which was the wrong way to move the neck and spine. Gave me a bad case of Photographer's Thumbs, but it's over now.
This may be a double-vertical vision thing here. You look up to notice the sunflowers over your head, and then you look above the flowers to notice the interesting clouds. I photographed this in merry old Emeryville.



