A Bridge to Nowhere

Fall...the most stressful time in a Principal's life.  Opening school every year for a Principal is akin to working 12 hour days just putting randomly sized fires out. Most of the time, this is really manageable and lasts just a month, maybe six weeks.  This year the fires have been coming particularly fast and furious and from out of the blue.  Besides all of the changes to the curriculum and to our instructional programs, we have had some extra hiring challenges.  My fellow fire fighter, the assistant principal, accepted a Principal's job three weeks before the opening of school.  A few teachers took leaves for medical reasons, and one of my most trusted teacher leaders took a position at the district office level.  Don't worry, gentle readers, I'm not trying to star in my own Pity Party ("Get down off that cross, Walt, someone else needs the wood for a change..."), rather I'm explaining not only my lack of communication on this fine blog, rather in general I have not been in communicado with any family and friends.  I'm hoping to get back my only moderately poor communication with everyone instead of the absolutely horrific communication as of late.  And with that said, time to report all of my most recent Bay Area adventures.  

At the beginning of August, we stopped by Oakland Pride and I was really impressed with the event.  There was food and drinks, booths, bounce houses, and staged performances.  The Oakland Gay Pride had a small town feel to the event and all in all was much better than San Francisco Gay Pride.
Why?  You might ask...

Oakland Pride is a family event...with a bounce house area - pervs need not apply as everyone had to sign in and out of the kid friendly parts of the festival.

An incredibly diverse crowd...LGBT, every ethnicity and race represented, large, small, Lesbian moms galore, tall, skinny, husky...oh and lots of straight allies.

No parade to suffer through before the festival.  How long is the parade in San Francisco going to get?  I know we want to celebrate the LGBT deaf Tongan cross dressing wheel chair basketball team, but can't we group some of our community together and shorten the parade by about six hours.   I know I'm perilously close to loosing my membership in the ACLU but really people, I support your cause whatever it may be, I just don't want to have to watch a ridiculously long parade.

No under age teenage girls puking in the gutters.  (If you've been to SF Gay Pride you know the ratio is 1 drunk straight girl for every 5 gay participant...that's lots of puke in the gutters!)

Fewer people, less crowds at Oakland's event.

No over crowded BART ride to get to the festival.

Less nudity...that's a plus and minus to be honest.

I'm not suggesting make a special trip to Oakland for our Gay Pride event, but if you're in the 'hood around that time, it might be worth the entrance fee.

The big news the day after the labor day weekend was that the new span of the Bay Bridge opened.  I expected a greater deal of fan fare and although the news stations were there heralding the event, it opened with no ribbon cutting, no ceremonial walk across, and no breaking a champagne bottle on a railing.

The weekend following the opening, we rode bikes as far as was permitted (the bridge spans from Oakland to Treasure Island, but one can't exit to Treasure Island because the old bridge is in the way of what will be the bicycle exit).  I'm sure with the massive amounts of holier-than-thou bicycle bullies we have in this town, that will soon be remedied.

The old span looking as if breathing a long awaited sigh of relief.  

Cest moi!

Yosiell enjoying a brief respite before the ten mile ride home. 

The old span and new span...the old span seems to tower over, I think that is just the camera angle. 

Rusty...marveling at this feat of engineering.  

The bridge is truly beautiful, especially at night.  The lights make this awesome structure seem like one is driving through a cathedral.

Those that know me best are well aware that my fondest wish, besides becoming an alcoholic writer holed up in a cabin completing the great American novel, is to create big dangerous metal sculpture art.  For my birthday, Rusty and Yosiell chipped in for the price of an introduction to welding class at the Crucible, our local fire arts collective and the home away from the Playa for local burning man participants.

Me getting ready to MIG weld. 

My best bead of the day...

The weekend course was really just a taste of different types of welding, specifically MIG, TIG, Stick and Oxyacetylene...As predicted, I absolutely loved it. I'm not particularly good at it but that comes with practice.  I'm seriously considering a longer course to really focus on one type.  We shall see gentle readers, keep posted, big dangerous art may be on the horizon.

And finally, we attended Yosiell's art opening in the Mission.  The show was a big success, Yosiell sold five pieces.  The show is particularly good and the patrons were extremely complimentary.  I'm so glad to see hard work, long hours and dedication pay off.  Yosiell was all smiles after and I'm sure slept like the dead.

a month before the show...organized chaos. 

A mostly done piece (missing the resin pool at the bottom).

A celebration drink and silly head wear before the show.

The artist in repose...

As for me, just continuing on with the serious business of schooling the hormonally challenged youth of our nation.  Another week or two of working Sunday's and I'll be caught up and will be communicating more often.  Thanks gentle readers for your patronage...and your patience.  More updates following soon.