seeing a hillside crowded with goats was an unexpected part of yesterday’s bike ride. I didn’t realize until it was pointed out to me later that they were being used to remove grass and weeds for fire control purposes.
goats chomping down
you can see a clear line between chomped and unchomped areas. wow!
apparently there can be problems with the goats being too effective – they can cause soil erosion and can decimate the population of native plants if the goats are uncontrolled.
Other interesting things I found while searching the interwebs:
these people rent out goats for clearing brush: http://www.goatsrus.com/
the ups and downs of using goats to control fires: http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4663
…
after this, we continued up tunnel road and made a quick descent down claremont ave:
looking down claremont ave
April 24th, 2010
Category: Uncategorized • Author: phil • Comments: No Comments
There’s a whole bike storage area at the Westfield mall in San Francisco! I didn’t know that. Awesome.
April 22nd, 2010
Category: Uncategorized • Author: phil • Comments: No Comments
A friend of mine recently came across some M42 lenses that were being tossed out. He passed them along to me, thinking they might be of use. (Thanks Jesse!) In the box were a pentax takumar 35mm f/3.5 and a 135mm f/3.5. I’ve spoiled myself with fast primes for my cameras, so this is a bit of a departure from what I’d normally use. It’s a 70mm focal length equivalent with the 2x m4/3 multiplier.
I used my M42/C-mount to micro four-thirds adapter with a 9mm and 16mm extension tube to get the flange back distance to match that of a 35mm lens.
Photos of the takumar 35mm f/3.5 on the GF1:
takumar 35mm f/3.5 on the GF1 three quarters view
takumar 35mm f/3.5 on the GF1 front view
takumar 35mm f/3.5 on the GF1 side view
The lens works alright on the camera. It’s not nearly as bulky as the 8mm peleng fisheye. Focusing worked fine and the manual focus magnification helps a lot. With longer lenses (I tried the 135mm f/3.5 for a bit), I’ve noticed that the magnification isn’t very useful because of camera shake.
Photos with the 35mm lens look fine. The effective focal length worked pretty decently. Here are some samples:
OSH water tower, takumar 35mm f/3.5 on a GF1 (@f/3.5)
OSH water tower, takumar 35mm f/3.5 on a GF1 (@f/3.5)
dodge in west berkeley, takumar 35mm f/3.5 on a GF1 (@f/3.5)
April 21st, 2010
Category: Uncategorized • Author: phil • Comments: 1 Comment
a shot from grizzly peak road from a post-work ride on thursday
grizzly peak sky
April 16th, 2010
Category: Uncategorized • Author: phil • Comments: No Comments
we decided to try the kfc doubledown today.
We went to the KFC on 45th and San Pablo in Oakland:
kentucky fried chicken@45th+san pablo
We ordered our sandwiches and inspected them. Mine didn’t look as “disgusting” to me as some reviewers (also check out a little side story here) have described:
kfc double down
but it didn’t look too good either. It tasted super salty, and the flavoring on the chicken totally overwhelmed everything else in the “sandwich” (rox informs me that according to MW, it’s not a sandwich, but a “sandwich” because there is no bread to be found). you could make out a little bit of the cheese via texture and if you tried, you could taste the “colonel’s sauce”. It didn’t taste horrible though. The bacon probably wasn’t necessary – I could hardly tell it was there. I was scared that I’d get sick. but I didn’t.
My friend Israel didn’t have much to say. He just shook his head.
We also got 2 biscuits for 99 cents. Israel got honey and butter to put on the biscuits, but it was actually “buttery spread” and “honey sauce”. 11% real honey!
biscuits with butter and honey?
no! buttery spread and honey sauce!
I saw these three guys walk in.
3 hipsters walk into a kfc
(note: Israel made the astute observation that their menu is basically only combos – no individual sandwiches. Perhaps the margins are just that much higher on the combo meals?)
They were definitely getting double downs – you could tell by their pants and their fixed gear bikes.
fixies three. no brakes = combo meal.
and they did. I can’t blame them though because they were there for the same reason that we were.
April 13th, 2010
Category: Uncategorized • Author: phil • Comments: No Comments
