Vacation to California - Bay Area

I haven't had time to update since my vacation over Labor Day weekend. These pictures were taken over a series of days on my vacation to San Jose, and the Bay Area in California.

These pictures were taken on the first day of my trip, which was August 31st. I decided to check out the neighborhood where I once lived in San Jose and I took a few pictures of my old apartment and other neighborhood memories. These are just a few shots of the area that I really liked.



These pictures were taken September 1st at Santa Clara Mission Cemetery.



These were taken September 3rd in multiple places. We drove down to Santa Cruz, and finding it was way too busy, we decided to just continue our drive up highway 1 toward Half Moon Bay. We stopped at a really nice beach along the way. I was hoping it was one I had once visited that had a nice view to the ocean through a sort of cave. It wasn't that beach, but this beach had another smaller cave which you could see the beach through. The first four pictures are along Highway 1 just north of Santa Cruz. The other two were later that night in Colma at the Woodlawn Cemetery (the final resting place of Emperor Norton).



This last picture was taken on the last full day in California during my vacation. We went into downtown San Jose for food, and found that Tapestry in Talent was going on. We checked out the booths and got some food there, nothing else was open since it was Labor Day. This was taken of a fountain in town that I thought looked nice.

Santa Teresa Park in San Jose, CA

I don't remember when I took these, I only know that I went with a few friends, and the day ended with us picked ticks off of each other...no ticks actually attached themselves to us thankfully..

Japanese Friendship Garden

I got woken up by a friend who wanted to take pictures with me today. That's one of the only ways I can be woken up and not mind waking up for. I'd never been before, so I drove around looking for this place (Japanese Friendship Garden), just to end up going back to my house because I got lost. Apparently it wasn't my fault, where the directions said "arrive at 1300 Senter Rd." it should've said TURN LEFT at Senter Rd. I ended up not paying attention and driving right by it the first time. The second time I found that there was a road called Senter, and thankfully you could only take a left on it.

We found our way there, and get out to try to find it. It's SO hot. We end up going to where there is a sign. There's a birthday or something going on in the middle of the park, so we go to the "museum entrance" just to be weirded out and realize this doesn't look right. We ask some woman and she points to way in the back of the field. I don't see an opening from where I am, but I guess there is, so we walk that way.

We get there, and the opening to the place is beautiful. I even see a little chipmunk with a piece of acorn in his mouth..a black squirrel too (never seen a black squirrel before). We decide to go right instead of left (everyone was going left) We walked around, and the initial excitement of the opening scene, left me. Then I was just surrounded by bleh, with moments of "oooh that's cool". I guess it was alright. Left kinda early cause it was so hot out, and my brain wasn't functioning because I needed to eat.

I love going out and finding things to take pictures of, but the worst thing about photography, is the picture sorting. I hate being a critic of my own work. I end up deleting a hell of a lot. I guess it's probably a good thing.

I'm starting to think I use my tripod too much too. When I was first starting, I didn't use one, and I feel I got better shots..was more versatile or something. I guess maybe I should only use it if I'm zooming in past 3x. And I have to learn the timer thing. I still haven't decided to learn how to do that, and I'm sure it's very easy. The timer will be like the release cable I can never own.

So I'm sifting through the Friendship Garden pictures, there are so many images floating around my systems, it's crazy. I need to stop so many projects at once. The friendship garden isn't what I expected either. For some reason I thought there were lot's of flowers there. Did I miss them? I don't know, but I guess I'll just check the website again. Maybe there was another park in San Jose that had lot's of flowers.




I'm proud. I did some work on my page, just fixing the links at the bottoms of the pages, but it was work. I finally put up the final Muir Woods page, wonder what took me so long, it took me less than 10 minutes. Oh well. Also getting the zoo ones sorted a bit more. It's going to take a little time, but I'll handle it, and at least I'm getting some where.

Haven't done much work on the friendship garden, because I decided to go back and fix the older stuff first.

I'm tiiiiireed. I have to work at 1 tomorrow, and have to wake up before that because the auction for the lens kit that I want ends tomorrow morning, and I HAVE to win. Yes have to.

Lafayette Street San Jose, CA

I feel slightly disappointed, but not too much .. knowing that the area I was going to shoot tonight, will still be there tomorrow.

After work today, I had decided I wanted to go to this "industrial" part of town. So I called a friend, not wanting to go alone. I bring us to the part of town that was talked about from one of my co-workers a day or so ago. As I'm driving through it, I can't wait to get out and take pictures. We pass a few street people, and my friend says "don't stop there". So I finally find a place to park, get out of the car, and get my tripod. I'm about to set off, and she's like "Uhhh...I don't feel comfortable here." I had specifically told her I had wanted a guy along for this very reason. And I also had asked her numerous times while we were driving through and she was making comments about it being a "bad part" of town. Oh well..

So that idea was scrapped. Then I didn't remember the other place I wanted to go, but I remembered it being a better neighborhood, so we went back to my place, got directions, then headed back out. This place was very easy to find, and was really nice.

I didn't get to take many pictures, due to fences and the fact that people were working. I just took some shots, then we left.
Here are some pictures:

Storms can be fun

Everyone wants me to go outside now. Apparently they want some footage of the lightning going on outside..think I'm gonna be headed to the parking garage heh.

Well that was fun, we went out for almost 2 hours. Tried to get some good pictures of lightning, but not many pictures came out. I took some video which I haven't looked at yet though. Maybe there's something salvageable there too. There is one really strange picture..





I mirrored the image because I couldn't move the camera at all for the shot. It's so unpredictable when the lightning is going to appear, and where. I just had to guess and set the shutter speed at 10-15 second intervals. I missed out on a lot of good pictures, but it's alright. Even though that picture is mirrored because I wanted to make it more complete, it was totally worth my going out. It's kinda scary, to me it looks like a duck with goggles haha and a shirt with a stripe on it. Went up to the hospital parking garage for these.