Croix de Mount Davis? 19 Innings of Oakland Athletics Baseball

While I will always be a Giants fan and earned my Croix de Candlestick buttons for surviving extra innings during a night game at Candlestick, it's amazing to see how the Oakland A's can pull off a difficult feat very early this morning.

From 7PM to 1:40AM, the Oakland Athletics and Los Angeles Angels played 19 innings of baseball until a two run home run finally ended the game with Oakland winning 10 to 8.  While 19 innings did not make the Major League record books for longest game ever, it did make Oakland A's history.

While the hardcore fans did stay for all the fun at the Colosseum, it's too bad some had to leave in the middle of the game because the last BART trains were to arrive at the station to take people back home.  With the game finishing near 2AM, I hope people were able to get a taxicab or get a ride from someone to get home, or wait a couple of extra hours for BART service to reopen this morning.

Lastly, for those who attended the game and survived 19 innings wouldn't it be nice if the Athletics gave their fans something to cherish for their loyal attendance of 19 innings?  If the Giants can give out the Croix de Candlestick, how about a Croix de Mount Davis for those Oakland fans?

If you are not familiar with Mount Davis, it's that structure in the top photo that blocks the view of the Oakland Hills skyline.  Some gave it the nickname "Mount Davis" because Al Davis moved the Raiders to Oakland and there was a need to add more seating; the top deck is so steep and tall that it's rare to find stadium seating that high anymore.

The Death of Casual Carpool: $2.50 on the Bay Bridge

The free rides across the Bay Bridge during rush hours for those who have three or more passengers in their vehicle ends on July 1, 2010.

The Bay Area Toll Authority approved a hike on the Bay Area bridges for all regular can go up to $6, and carpools now will pay $2.50. Really? $2.50?

Here's why charging carpools is so stupid:

1. The need for tolltakers in the booths, and why should the tolltakers handle quarters? It will also slow down the smooth traffic.
   
2. Requiring Fastrak? That'll be a pain in the ass to regulate. Not every commuter uses Fastrak and waits in line at the plaza to pay their toll.
   
3. The death of casual carpool is the worst problem because it's been tradition that carpooling is always FREE and slugs are NEVER supposed to give money to the driver for a faster commute.

I thought San Francisco was going to hell with the bad Muni service, but toll hikes? Screw you BATA.

Bay Bridge reopened at 6:30AM Tuesday

Good morning!

Thanks to the hard working folks of CC Meyers, the Bay Bridge reopened at 6:30AM today.

What a relief!

That also means you can take advantage of the great Giants game bargains for tonight, including $6 game tickets for the upper deck (no, not the crappy seats).

Akit's Furlough Adventure #3: Oakland's Rockridge District

Other than someone rigging the poll at the last minute, the winner for "furlough adventure" #3 is Oakland's Rockridge District.

Rockridge is a popular commercial district with independently owned restaurants and shops and is easily accessible by BART. It is also easily accessible from Cal Berkeley because AC Transit's 51 bus line passes right through there.

Let's take a little photo tour, shall we?

Before my journey out to that area, I stopped at Powell BART for an unhealthy breakfast. My doctor is going to kill me. I wonder why the Burger King restaurants I visit doesn't serve "turbo" coffee?


Since the public was suffering during the Bay Bridge closure, I was one of the lucky ones to get a free chocolate square as part of a promo.


It took about 30 minutes to get there and I got there way too early. Not everything was open.


Yep... way too early. Zachary's was not even open yet. Zachary's is one of the best pizza places in the entire Bay Area and is famous for their super deep dish pizzas, known to take up to 30 minutes to bake. If you eat it there and there's no open tables, you place your pizza order and when your name is called for a table, your pizza will be there in no time. You can also order to-go deep dish pizzas, including ones that are half-baked so you can cook it later.


Hey! It's the controversial Oakland parking meters! You remember them in the news, right? Oakland parking meter maids are running around giving tickets to anyone whose meter has no time left, even if you are just paying for your meter voucher. It's profitable and pisses a ton of people off.


After touring around Rockridge district, I killed some time at the Cal Academy of Sciences. Amazingly, it was not even crowded! I got a nice seat to view the Philippine coral reef tank, and there was even planetarium tickets available.

See the entire slideshow:

Translink on BART? They claim they are ready in June

Interesting... very interesting. After a mob of people from our Facebook group went out just yesterday (Sunday) to conduct a test run of the Translink card on San Francisco Muni vehicles and stations, the local media releases word that BART will be on the Translink program in early June.

The MTC reports that BART should have their software updgrades to the gates installed by May 5th and will conduct approximately 30 days of testing (as claimed by BART PR man Lynton Johnson). BART claims they will have approximately 1,000 people from their EZ Rider pool in their "slow rollout."

If BART is ready to go within 30 days, this means that it should be ready for public use in very early June of this year! Translink cardholders rejoice! We now have a new option to get around the Bay Area, and now we can truly connect Muni, AC Transit, Golden Gate Transit (w/service that goes to El Cerrito Del Norte BART), and BART as one big program.

But there are some interesting and curious questions to ask BART and Translink:

1. Will BART ticket machines be capable to add e-cash on Translink cards?
2. Will BART in-person ticket vendors have Translink add funds machines so us Commuter Check folks can claim our checks without visiting the AC Transit ticket office?
3. Will BART be using a separate e-cash "purse" since they offer a 6.25 percent discount for the "high value" tickets they regularly sell now?
   
4. If Muni passholders use BART, say from Balboa Park (SF) to North Berkeley, will the pass be allowed and only be charged the segment from West Oakland (first non-SF stop) to North Berkeley? Or will passengers have to get off at Embarcadero to tag-off, and re-enter the system to save money?
5. Will BART issue the e-transfers for the discount rides for the other Translink connected agencies? AC Transit for 25 cent discount, VTA bus (via Fremont station) for unknown discount, Muni for 25 cent discount to/from, and free ride on Muni (28, 28L, and 54) to/from Daly City?
   
6. The article in the Chronicle is not too clear. Will BART have full-rollout of Translink after 30 (or so) days after the test run on May 5th?
7. Why are you still selling EZ Rider cards when Translink will take-over this process?
   

Next up???? Caltrain??? Rumor has it they will be doing a tag-on/tag-off system where if you tag your card at the station, you are charged the maximum fare. Once you exit the system, you tag-off to be charged the appropriate amount depending on the zones you traveled. They may also be considering an "unfortunate incident" option where if your train is delayed (especially due to the number of suicides and accidents), you can tag-off at the same station you tagged-in and get a full refund.

Lastly: SF Appeal published an article about the Translink group trip on Muni! Thanks to writer and photographer Matt Baume and editor Eve Batey!

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums - Hilarious Screen Capture

This came from KPIX/CBS 5's "Eye on Blogs" where editor Brittney Gilbert made a posting showing a YouTube video of Mayor Ron Dellums talking to citizens about the riot in Oakland due to the police involved shooting and death of a passenger at the Fruitvale BART platform.

Whoever made this YouTube video chose the perfect screenshot of Dellums. Doesn't he look kinda high or drunk? Makes me want to use this on some of my username photos.

I don't usually blog about other Bay Area cities, but this is one exception since Dellums looks totally funny. And if you don't know who Ron Dellums is, join the club. It seems many people don't like the guy, and people on the SFgate comment boards likes to make fun of him.

My List of City Slogans of the San Francisco Bay Area

The Chronicle did a funny article about odd slogans that is used around the SF Bay Area. For example, San Francisco: "The city that knows how."

So here's my list of local Bay Area cities. If you don't understand what it means, you don't read the news or live in the Bay Area:

• San Francisco: ""Home" of disgraced ex-supervisor Ed Jew."
• San Francisco: "Muni sucks."
• San Francisco: "Blaming problems on the Mayor on a daily basis."
• San Francisco: "We've got bums."
• San Francisco: "Locals hate tourists. Get off the Cable Car and don't visit Pier 39."
  
• Berkeley: "Smokin' weed and the know it all Cal students sleeping in trees."
  
• Burlingame: "That's our international airport! Why did San Francisco claim it?"
  
• Oakland: "Who the hell is Mayor Ron Dellums?"
• Oakland: "Birthplace of Kaiser Permanente, damn that's creepy."
  
• San Jose: "Kickin' San Francisco's butt on a daily basis."
• San Jose: "Home of silicone valleys... we do boob jobs instead of making computer chips these days."
  
• Daly City: "We still use plastic bags and styrofoam boxes."
• Daly City: "Lower sales tax rate and we've got TARGET!"
  
• Sausalito: "Small town, expensive toll bridge nearby."
• Milpitas: "Outlet shopping galore."
• Emeryville: "Sold out to IKEA."

Want a job? One Screwed Up Application Process for the Oakland Fire Department

There were 8,000 people waiting in hand with applications to turn-in for the Oakland Fire Department today, but there were only 23 positions available. The job can pay an average of $100,000 per year, and the department dropped the EMT training requirement to apply.

But what a shame when it came to accepting applications for the job as a firefighter today. They only took 1,000 applications, which only gave you about a 12 to 13 percent chance to even submit your application for just the chance for consideration.

Just watching the news about this problem is sad, some people camped out for days for the opportunity to turn-in their application, but things flipped around when it turned out that there was no official line that day, and people were picked at "random" to be the one of the 1,000 applicants to turn-in their paperwork.

I really criticize this idea of picking people at "random" to take applications. There could be the problem that people were chosen because maybe one of the officials picking the applicants had connections, like they are a friend. Another idea is that this could have been racially or gender motivated, meaning that the fire department did this "random" picking by choosing the 1,000 applicants based on satisfying a male to female ratio or by race, which is technically against the law.

As a consequence of their "random" policy, there were very qualified people in line with previous fire department, EMT, or public safety experience that did not even have an opportunity to apply, versus the regular joes without any training or experience. If I were to hire people for a fire department, I would accept all applications and take the people with the most experience.

I don't understand how the Oakland Fire Department could have not been better organized for this event. Many HR departments just do the easy way: establish a window of time of when the application needs to be turned-in, and accept every single application. After reviewing every application, they should review every single one and filter out the ones that are improperly filled-out, not qualified based on education, etc. More than likely, they would hire the ones with past experience or have taken college classes on the science of firefighting (available at community colleges).

Hey Oakland Fire Department! FUCK YOU! Yo mayor, fire the Chief Daniel Ferrell and the person in charge of HR.

Alameda County's Garbage Strike Woes

Alameda County (the East Bay) has been hit hard by a garbage worker lockout by trash mega giant Waste Management. News reports show that some Oakland residents have not had their trash picked-up for over a week and there is worry of infestation of animals, rodents, and flies spreading diseases around.

What makes me concerned is that the workers were locked-out, and were not planning to strike. Their contract was up and the workers were to go negotiate out a deal with management, but instead, WM's management decides to lock them out and get "scab" workers to pick-up the trash.

First of all, the scab workers aint really doing their job right, especially if they cannot pick-up the trash like 10 days LATE.

Second, why in the world would management lock the employees out when it could have been dealt with easily without a lockout?

Waste Management's solution for now is that citizens can transport their trash to their local dump collection site. But the irony of dropping off your trash at one Waste Management site is that they are only open on WEEKENDS and you have to dump your trash in 35 gallon trash bags. Well damn, you piss people off with those two rules and you scab workers don't pick-up the trash? What a shame. And how about the people that don't have a vehicle to get their garbage there? I don't think any AC Transit operator will allow a citizen to transport stinky trash on the bus!

Let's summarize my rants:
Stop the lockout, and get the workers on NOW.
If you can't stop the lockout, get the scabs to work overtime and even do it at night.
Every citizen should refuse to pay their garbage bill in protest of shitty service.
Waste Management in Alameda County is history.

Vacations... why so expensive?

I've been looking for a great vacation to spend on, but I'm realizing that some of the best vacations are way too expensive!

Here's an example: San Francisco flight to Disney World, with basic (and I mean cheapest) on-site hotel accommodations, meal plan, and park tickets for $1,300. What am I? Rich? Plus, there are very few direct flights from SFO or even Oakland to Orlando. I would have to do an evening flight the day before check-in just so that I can even enjoy my park tickets. If I were to fly direct, I would not arrive until 9PM!

Disneyland, strangely is just a couple of hundred dollars less, with flight from SFO or OAK to Orange County, with five days hotel at a next door hotel, 5 days park tickets, meals, and a shuttle to get me from the airport and back.

I don't know if I want to go back to Vegas soon, even though they gave me two free nights at a choice of my hotel. I would spend more in gambling in two days for the same amount I could be having fun punching Mickey Mouse.

I can't afford a cruise! A nice ten-dayer without flight is about $2,000 or with a friend would be $1,400 for the cheapest room.

Help! Can't someone find me a vacation worth less than $900 with a decent hotel, nice location, with airfare?

Let's summarize my rants:
Vacations, way too pricey
I can't afford to fly too far
I prefer not to gamble