Record heat in San Francisco

The classic San Franciscan tradition of complaining whenever temperatures goes above 80 is one I disagree with because as I’ve said before, it does the body good to have some variations in the weather. This past Labor Day weekend however, was beyond anything we’ve seen before.

For two consecutive days, the temperature for much of the daytime was in the 100s, and in the night hours the scale never dropped below 80. San Francisco simply doesn’t experience Fahrenheit in the triple digits, and the infrastructure is not built for it, namely the utter lack of central air-conditioning in homes. I’ve live in hot climes before, and it’s eminently bearable if the home is air-conditioned because that limits the amount of exposure to only the hours people are outside. Lacking conditioned air whist the mercury is in the 100s, we were basically hot and sweating for the entire day, right through to bedtime. 

I can’t remember the last time it felt too sweltering to fall asleep, but now sadly I’ve got a fresh place-marker in my memory. 

Thankfully, this recent bout of high heat occurred during the weekend (it’s significantly cooler today), which afforded me to leisurely do absolutely nothing but watch automotive videos on Youtube - as planned. I watched it all on the tablet, of course, cause it was indeed best to avoid turning on the iMac lest adding to the already sauna-like room temperature. Thanks to the heat, I was able/forced to to properly honor the spirit of Labor Day. 

If San Francisco is to see more and more of these 100 degree day weather - climate change or whatever - I think it prudent to finally invest in that portable per-room air conditioning machine. Perhaps soon, since San Francisco haven’t even got to its traditional ‘Indian Summer’ of late September and early October.

I shall gladly and unashamedly complain about 100 degree temperatures.  

Labor Day plans

For those of us working in education, Labor Day is quite possibly the most welcomed public holiday on the calendar. The fall semester has just started, and everything is a mess, hectic, with about a millions things on the to-do list. The first few weeks of a new semester is the busiest time of the year, and Labor Day provides the perfect respite, even if only for a little while. This year the holiday arrives on the third week of classes - next Monday - and I’m beyond ready to shut off the mind for the long weekend. 

And I do mean shutting off the mind. In recent years I’ve been so caught up with productivity and being productive that I’ve essentially given up most of life’s frivolous (to me) pursuits. For example, I don’t play video games nor watch television shows anymore (Mondays are awkward when everyone’s discussing Game of Thrones). Abstaining from both have given me the time to study Korean and read a solid book/novel every two weeks. It’s wonderful, don’t get me wrong, and I’m not about to go backwards, but I think it does the mental state lots of good to schedule back some mindless fun into the mix. 

So here’s what I’m going to do all Labor Day weekend: belatedly watch all the saved automotive related videos on Youtube. 

Well, maybe not entirely: perhaps on Saturday I’ll still get in some photo-editing work. Can’t help it. 

High megapixel cameras are awesome

High-megapixel count cameras are not superfluous, and I’ve come to absolutely adore my Sony A7R2. 

There was a time when megapixels in digital cameras finally got into the 20s, I thought “this is it, we can’t possibly need anymore than that.” Indeed, with the best mobile phone displays barely broaching 10 megapixels and instagram downsampling uploads to 1080x1080, Mid-20s megapixel cameras ought to suffice quite nicely for many years to come. Unless a professional and shoot to print/adverts, the average consumer of content haven’t got the medium to fully appreciate all the million of dots a photograph. 

I’ve held onto the above paradigm for the longest time, even as Nikon released the 36 megapixel D800 and Canon came out with the 50 megapixel 5Ds. Niche machines for a niche consumer; I was fully content with my 24 megapixel Sony A5100. 

Enter the 42 megapixel Sony A7R2. I finally made the jump to a full-frame sensor, and since I’ve moved from Canon to Sony, the logical step-up within the alpha family is the A7R2. It’s been a revelation ever since. 

42 megapixels is simply glorious. it’s so detailed that I can zoom in tightly anywhere on an A7R2 produced photo and it’s like looking at yet another capture. Creative cropping can be freely done; I’m no longer limited by the reach of my modest zoom lens. A photograph taken full-resolution at 70mm can be turned into an equivalent of 200mm at around 16 megapixels. It’s absolutely magic and cheating/cheap at the same time. 

Making the jump to high-megapixel have given me a sense freshness and excitement akin to making the jump to proper lenses with four-figure price tags. Photo optics are a truly wonderful science. 

Hurricane Harvey

In a game between man and Mother Nature, the latter always wins.

I’m simply horrified and disheartened at the destruction Hurricane Harvey has done to Houston and its surrounding area. It’s utterly unbelievable that there can be enough rain in such a short amount of time to flood a city up to the height of traffic lights. Most swimming pools haven’t got water that deep. Whilst countless people are stranded with flooded homes, at least the city was seemingly well prepared for the catastrophe, and therefore the casualties are but a handful. 

God bless the brave and heroic first-responders, volunteers, and journalists canvassing the area to rescue, tender, and bring us the news, respectively, and sometimes not so mutually exclusive.

As I sit here in San Francisco, I can’t help but think what would it be like when the big disasters hits home. By the virtue of sitting on an active fault-line and being surrounded by water on three sides, it’s a matter of when, not if. While the house we live in is built after new seismic regulations so it should withstand quite the shake if it were to occur, a tsunami coming in from the Pacific Ocean would be bedlam, and unavoidable. 

Evacuations? Our traffic system can’t handle the vehicle load on a good day; imagine all near million of us trying to leave this 7x7 square-mile space all at once. It’s practically impossible, I reckon. 

All of this reminds me, I’d better get started on that emergency kit we’ve all procrastinated on. 

Weather variations forge a strong body

Sometimes I wonder if all this constant good weather in San Francisco is actually a detriment to my health.

In this perpetually air-conditioned weather of ours, San Francisco doesn’t really enjoy temperature extremes. The joke is there’s but one season (that one sliver of mild chill between autumn and winter) here and it’s absolutely true. Therefore, whenever we leave for other cities with proper weather variations, we can’t handle it. Anything above 75 is too hot, and anything under 50 is too cold.

But variations, and enduring ups and downs, is what forges a strong body and mind. After all, that’s the principle on why and how we exercise. Temperature extremes, too, ought to have a similarly positive effect on the human body. Through the unbearable hot and humid summers and withering colds of winter, the body gets hardened and sharpened, as does the mind. If global warming is indeed real then the citizens of Phoenix Arizona have a leg up on all of us in dealing with the heat.

If I were to ever move out of the city, I think I’d prefer a city/country with proper four-seasonal weather. I may and probably will hate it the first year, but just like wishing death upon exercise the first time I truly dedicated to working-out, weather fluctuations are simply a thing to get used to.  

Downsides of driving a Mazda Miata

Taylor Swift has a new album coming out this November, and my ear chambers are ready for the magnificence. Red and 1989 was such spectacular standouts that I expect no less greatness from reputation, though someone please explain to me why the letter r isn’t capitalized in the album cover.

One of the downsides to owning a minuscule car as the Mazda Miata is that other drivers in modern behemoths such as the typical sports-utility-vehicle or Toyota Camry absolutely cannot see me alongside them. Worse, because of the MX-5 diminutive size, I can hide completely in another car’s blindspot, where even with an over-the-shoulder check the other driver cannot see me at all. I’ve lost count on how many moments I had to do emergency evasive maneuver simply due to people merging directly into me. 

Perhaps a 2,300 odd pound car isn’t meant to be daily-driven when the average vehicle weights nearly 1,000 pounds heavier. Needlessly to say, I run a dash-cam - as the Russians do - at all times, though I’m not sure how useful the camera footage would be if I’m squashed dead by another car. The Miata is a convertible, after all. 

Excellent choice of car, Healy. Simply masterful. 

Solar eclipse and Giants game

Yesterday was interesting.

In the morning hours there was the big happening with the solar eclipse going on. Sadly, us San Franciscans are infinitely familiar with the sun being blocked due to the constant fog so it wasn’t too huge a deal. Of course, it was immensely foggy on the west side of the city where I work, so there was no hope of seeing the actual thing, though I’m sure my ocular faculties were thankfully spared the solar intensity. Not suppose to look at the sun during a solar eclipse? But I look at the sun all the time!

Shoutout to NASA for having a killer live-feed from Oregon though. Nothing like a solar eclipse to remind me just how amazing the universe and our solar system is, and what a golden coincidence it is that these three circular objects are spaced at just the correct distance apart for the moon to perfectly cover the sun. Even those not of the religious milieu would appreciate that perhaps only a supreme entity in the sky could conjure up such magical geometry. I had chills when the moon began to move off to the left and that first blip of sunlight started to dash through the temporary darkness in the most beautiful of rays.

In the evening I attended the first Giants game of the season, which is quite the contrast to the earlier parts of this decade where I’d go to about two dozens worth of games per season. Oh how have priorities change. The Giants have been awful this year, and in commensurate the attendance levels at games have reflected that as well. I’ve not seen the ballpark so empty since the mid 2000s. Bandwagoning or not, you can’t blame people for staying home when your product no longer provide joy and excitement. 

A positive though is that I was able to score tickets really inexpensively. With the Giants being in the doldrums of the major leagues, me and my friends can finally go watch games live without having to think of the wallet. It’s wonderful. I wouldn’t mind if the team continue their bad steak for quite a while longer; we’ve already got three championships, a few losing seasons isn’t going to hurt too much.