Annalog

It’s wonderful to see athletes energetically moving around and excited fans jumping and cheering. After a week of dreary weather I was a bit lethargic. This game was the perfect Saturday morning boost.

I’m playing a bit of catch-up on my blog. Every Saturday I head to the Berkeley farmers’ market at Center and MLK for my weekly dose of veggies. And here we have a perfect specimen. Romanesco!

It’s important to know where to look for the perfect image on a night out on the town with regulars. Regulars at the local college bar can join the Mug Club.

I remember the front page of The Washington Post when the Clinton-Lewinksy scandal first broke in January 1998. I was nine years old. Twelve years later—hard to believe it’s been so long—I can still remember those front page images and headlines, the torrent of articles and TV broadcasts. All news about domestic and foreign policy was cast to the back pages of newspapers. The sex scandal dominated newspaper issues and television broadcasts. (more…)

It’s been nearly three days of crazy storms in Berkeley—one minute there’s hail, the next the sky’s still, then sheets of rain. It’s hard to imagine that water’s ever scarce on days like this. We may not be able to stop the rainstorms, but we can control our use of water. So to repeat the sage wisdom we learned in kindergarten: don’t forget to turn off the faucet if you’re not using the water.

Today is my last first day of school, a fact that got me thinking about what I’ve learned in the last 18 years. The one lesson that keeps coming back to me is from my first day of pre-k. I learned to tie my shoes. One of my fellow classmates sat down next to me as my parents looked on and demonstrated how to make bunny ears with my laces.

Nearly two decades, hundreds of classes and thousands of hours later, I’m finishing up my last year at UC Berkeley. It’s just four months before I “walk,” the newfangled term for graduating, and I find myself trying to remembering the basics: knowing my left hand from my right hand, never littering and remembering to tie my shoes before setting out. Maybe I shouldn’t be so definite that today is my last first day. There’s always graduate and professional school.

The late afternoon sky after this morning’s unexpectedly strong storms was a beautiful blue with touches of pink. I look the BART to the city and then a Muni bus to Haight-Ashbury, the center of the late 60s, early 70s flower power movement in San Francisco. A brief minute to look up at the sky. I could have been anywhere.

I went to Haas Pavilion for the fourth day in a row, this time to cover the Cal women’s gymnastic competition against Arizona State University. The light in the gym is usually difficult to deal with, but my new camera deftly handled it.

Ah! Saturday morning at the farmers’ market followed by collegiate basketball. The Cal women’s team played Pac-10 team Washington State University at Haas Pavilion and won 75-68.

After work in San Francisco I commuted back to the East Bay and headed to Haas Pavilion to photograph the Cal men’s gymnastic team compete against Stanford. I love to photograph the pommel horse event, and it just so happens that Cal is historically quite good at it.