Blogs from San Francisco, California, United States, North America

In the late 1980s, url=https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Memorial-service-set-for-Pi-Day-creator-Larry-Shaw-12206726.php#photo-12531763Larry Shaw, a staff physicist, tinkerer and media specialist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, came up with what may be the world’s nerdiest holiday: Pi Day. Now celebrated globally each March 14, Pi Day salutes the popular mathematical constant pi, an endless decimal representation used in the measurement of a circle whose first three digits are 3.14. What makes pi so intriguing? Divide any circle’s circumference by its diameter and the answer is always pi, no matter the size of the circle. Oh, and to sweeten up the holiday a little more, March 14 is also the birthday of Albert Einstein. Competing for bragging rights on who can recite the most digits is a popular Pi Day activity in many schools. How many digits of p... read more

On Friday, my second trip to the Golden Gate Bridge was struck by a crisis neither of us foresaw, the only selfie stick we had broke. You never really know a crisis until you're in a crisis!! Our trip to the Fine Arts museum now hung in the balance, now dependent on the traditional method of taking selfies; the threat of happy memories blemished by photos with heads chopped off due to short arms and poor camera work was now real. If you take nothing from any of these blogs and there is a strong possibility you won't!!, promise me one thing, at least once in your life go to watch Cirque Du Soleil. This is not Crusty the Clown type characters with endless handkerchiefs in their pockets! These are athletes whom practice 10 -12 hours ... read more

The morning had a slight blip when a chap I asked for directions to the 28 bus misheard me and directed me to the 38, thankfully we managed to get a connecting bus and then the correct one. Our destination the Golden Gate Bridge, though Orangy Red Gate Bridge maybe a more accurate name. Not sure though the tourist board would be able to sell to potential tourists to come visit the Orangy Red bridge. Upon arrival there is an excellent viewing point of the city and a model of the bridge. Apparently it has a 28 foot sway from left to right, in heavy winds, similar to how some of us sway in and out of my driving lane but without wind assistance. The good news is there's walking and cycling lane on the bridge ... read more

The song "City of Chicago" goes "In the City of Chicago As the evening shadows fall. There are people dreaming. Of the hills of Donegal." I can understand why there aren't people dreaming of the hills of San Francisco. They are extremely steep buggers, you know your fitness level or lack of when you tackle one of those. Lombard Street was our first port of call, it claims to have the bendiest street in the world. We had done our quota of hills at this stage, so only looked on from a short distance as cars meandered slowly around the downhill bends. Not to be tried with a hangover and dodgy brakes. Today we got a glimpse of the Golden Bridge, it is actually 3.5 miles outside the city. It is indeed impressive from the distance, ... read more

The worst: Bucket lists are kind of a ghoulish way to go about travel planning. It also puts destinations uncomfortably into weird categories. Which are “bucket lists” and which are “casual travel”? And is it really productive to think of destinations as “bucket list” entries, so they’re so built up in our minds we’re actually disappointed when we arrive? (It’s a real thing–called url=https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/10/paris-syndrome-a-first-class-problem-for-a-first-class-vacation/246743/Paris Syndrome). Get excited about a destination no matter what the reason is for going. A troubling new trend surfaced over the summer, as the New York Times reported–Amazon and other online booksellers were flooded with self-published guidebooks with a mysterious number o... read more