Neighbor’s Second Hand Smoke Seeps Into San Jose Condo « CBS San Francisco

NOT COOL IN THE LEAST BIT!

Neighbor’s Second Hand Smoke Seeps Into San Jose Condo « CBS San Francisco.

Neighbor’s Second Hand Smoke Seeps Into San Jose Condo

February 7, 2011 10:05 PM

 

(AP)

SAN JOSE (CBS 5) — A San Jose woman who invested in a luxurycondominium is unable to live in her unit, overcome by her neighbor’s secondhand smoke.

It’s one of the crown jewels of downtown San Jose’s redevelopment: The Axis, a luxury residential high-rise.

But Yllka Masada dons a respirator to take CBS 5 on a tour of her unit. She has temporarily moved out because she said every time her neighbor lights up, her condo fills with smoke.

It has been happening ever since she moved in last summer. “Many times I slept here on the floor like this, facing the door to the deck,” Masada said.

READ MORE

 

 

7 Strolls That Say ‘San Francisco’ « CBS San Francisco

SF , we are Spoiled! Our back yard is a play ground. After living in San Francisco for many years, it’s nice to revisit some of the spots they may have influenced you to move the SF in the first place. And there’s no better way to do it than on foot. So , uhhh hmmm ( couch potato) put the cheese puffs down and get a walkin’ .

Seven Strolls That Say ‘San Francisco’

I THINK I CAN I THINK I CAN I THINK I CAN I THINK I CAN I THINK I CAN I THINK I CAN

I CAN

San Francisco is a walker’s town, best seen up close, personal and on foot. Here are seven classic San Francisco locations that — provided you’re in reasonably good shape — will reward your investment of time and shoe leather.

 

photo credit: James Irwin/CBS San Francisco

 

1) Golden Gate Bridge to Crissy Field and Fort Point

An artistic as well as engineering triumph, the Golden Gate Bridge on a sunny day is a thrilling sight and it’s free and open to walkers during daylight hours. From the south (San Francisco) vista parking lot you can walk onto the bridge itself or, if you’re not keen on heights (and wind), take a short, winding path to the base of the hill and either turn east toward the Warming Hut Cafeand gift shop at Crissy Field or walk northwest along Marine Drive to historic Fort Point directly under the bridge, which was built soon after the Gold Rush by U.S. Army engineers to protect the entrance to the bay.

 

photo credit: James Irwin/CBS San Francisco

 

2) Lombard Street to Aquatic Park
Technically it’s only the *second* crookedest street in San Francisco but the hairpin-turning stretch of Lombard Street, between Hyde and Leavenworth, is first and foremost on many tourists’ gotta-see lists. From the intersection at Hyde you can get a good look at the snaking line of cars crawling down Lombard toward Coit Tower on the horizon. Turn north and either hike down the steep section of Hyde Street to Aquatic Park or hop aboard a cable car for the brief but bracing ride (which will likely cost you the full $5 fare if the conductor is an enforcer). The ride ends across the street from the famous Buena Vista Cafe, a San Francisco institution where Irish Coffee was introduced to America. Also worthwhile: a visit to the tall ship Balclutha on the Hyde Street Pier, one of several maritime museums in the immediate area, and Ghirardelli Square.

 

photo credit: James Irwin/CBS San Francisco

 

3) Fisherman’s Wharf
Fisherman’s Wharf gets a bum rap from snooty locals. While it’s true there is much here to avoid, The Wharf also affords many pleasures and shouldn’t be ignored. From the Hyde Street Pier, an easy 3-block stroll along Jefferson Street, past fishing boats, restaurants (and one good blues bar) gets you to the crab stands along Taylor Street at Pier 45. Forget Rice-a-Roni, it’s cracked Dungeness crab right out of the pot, served with fresh sourdough bread, that’s the real San Francisco treat. Local crab season begins mid November and ends in late spring, so summer visitors will be eating crab from Oregon, Washington and Alaska. Nearby attractions:Musee Mecanique, Boudin Sourdough Bakery, Fishermen’s Grotto #9, USS Pampanito (submarine), S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien (liberty ship), Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum, Wax Museum, Pier 39, Aquarium of the Bay

 

photo credit: James Irwin/CBS San Francisco

 

4) North Beach / Chinatown
If you were somehow forced to stay in just one San Francisco district for a whole year you’d be lucky if it were this one. From the corner of Columbus Ave. and Broadway where San Francisco’s ‘Little Italy’ meets Chinatown, there’s more to see and do (and drink) here than you can experience in a week, much less a walk. With a street map in your pocket for security, just start hiking up and down Columbus Ave., Grant Ave., Stockton Street — plus as many alleys and side streets as you’ve got the stamina for. Places to look for include City Lights Bookstore, Vesuvio,Tosca Cafe, The Saloon, Caffe Trieste, Saints Peter and Paul Church, Bimbo’s 365, Condor Club, Empress of China, Spec’s saloon, Portsmouth Square, Waverly Place and — if you’re ready for a steep climb up Telegraph Hill — Coit Tower.

 

photo credit: James Irwin/CBS San Francisco

 

5) Union Square and Market Street
Union Square is the hub of the San Francisco shopping, hotel and theater districts. Here’s a meandering route you can follow to get a feel for the place. From the intersection of Powell and Market, go north on Powell, turn left (west) on Geary, then north on Jones, east on Post, walk all the way to Market Street and turn right (southwest) and then right (north) onto Kearny for a few paces then left (west) at Maiden Lane and back to Union Square. On this route you’ll pass: the Powell-Market cable car turntable, the Gold Dust lounge, the St. Francis Hotel, Lefty O’Doul’s restaurant, the Curran Theatre, the Clift Hotel, Gump’s, Lotta’s Fountain, Biscuits & Blues, Ruby Skye.

 

photo credit: James Irwin/CBS San Francisco

 

6) Castro Street to Mission Dolores
Though the idea of a ‘gay mecca’ seems almost quaint nowadays, The Castro still qualifies. Starting at its intersection with Market Street walk south on Castro Street past San Francisco’s best-loved movie palace toward 19th St., making short, one-block sidetrips at 18th. Turn left (east) on 19th St, and go four blocks to — and through — Mission Dolores Park. On the far side of the park you’ll emerge onto Dolores Street. Turn left (north) go two blocks to Old Mission Dolores, built in 1776, adjacent to the more modern Basilica. At 16th Street you can either turn west and head back to Market Street or turn right (east) and explore the Mission District if you have plenty of time. Don’t miss: Twin Peaks Tavern, Castro Theatre, Cliff’s Variety, Mission Dolores

 

photo credit: James Irwin/CBS San Francisco

 

7) Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park is vast but its most popular attractions are conveniently close together. Starting at the Conservatory of Flowers, a historic botanical museum, a short walk along John F. Kennedy Drive to Music Concourse Drive gets you to the two boldest expressions of 21st century museum architecture San Francisco has to offer — the California Academy of Sciences and the deYoung Museum of art. Nearby is the Japanese Tea Garden, a venerable and colorful GG Park attraction since 1894.

Seven Strolls That Say ‘San Francisco’ « CBS San Francisco.

Targeting Gay Men in Russia; HIV PSAS

The trouble the campaign is facing is within the wording or the implied intent. For example, ” In the first spot, a ‘hockey helmet’ metaphor is used, suggesting it would be wise to use protection. In the second, a man approaches another man on a bed and a security alarm goes off with each approach, until the man on the bed reaches for a condom in his pocket, suggesting that HIV (or the threat of it) is a weapon ( towleroad.com)”. I say HIV is a weapon and our community still hasn’t grabbed it by the reins and got a hold of it. Inappropriate behavior and disrespect of self prevails. So, I say try any angle you can to metaphorically beat it into the gays that WE STILL NEED TO BE SAFE. DUH!

Read more: http://www.towleroad.com/2011/02/watch-russia-launches-hiv-prevention-psas-aimed-at-gay-men.html#ixzz1DKdTr3v4

 

 

Russia Launches HIV Prevention PSAs Aimed at Gay Men

Read more: http://www.towleroad.com/2011/02/watch-russia-launches-hiv-prevention-psas-aimed-at-gay-men.html#ixzz1DKbP7f72

Dedication to My Readers:You make loving fun

Ahhh, you know it feels good! Readership from around the globe has skyrocketed. Thanks for all your support and comments. Keep a watchful eye on Accidental Bear Blog in 2011, mucho mas( for you illiterates, much more) to come. XOXO

S.F. Plans Gay Walk of Fame, Unlike Your Saturday Morning Walk of Shame

Hooray for gays

S.F. Plans Gay Walk of Fame

By Neal Broverman via www.advocate.com

– Bevan Dufty

Taking a cue from Hollywood, San Francisco’s predominantly gay Castro District is preparing to install a Rainbow Honor Walk that recognizes LGBT notables like Oscar Wilde and Frida Kahlo.

Work is expected to start this year on the sidewalk plaques, which will be installed on Market and Castro streets. The first 20 people to be honored have been chosen by local residents and merchants, and while they include people like Sylvester James and Allen Ginsberg, Harvey Milk’s name is not on that list. Bevan Dufty, the gay city supervisor who represents the Castro, says Milk is already honored throughout the Castro — including having a public plaza named for him — and there’s no reason he can’t be added in the future.

“I can’t imagine that he wouldn’t be included in the next 20 individuals,” Dufty tells The Advocate. “Harvey is our legacy in the Castro.” Dufty says Milk would be proud of the diverse group of people, such as Kahlo and James, being honored by the people of the Castro.

Dufty is running for mayor of San Francisco this year — he says he’s raised $125,000 already and is preparing for a Victory Fund campaign training event in Las Vegas later this month.

“I got the biggest present when [state senator] Mark Leno decided not to run for mayor,” Dufty says with a laugh. Aside from his LGBT voter base, Dufty is “working on building a base that includes the Westside, Republican voters, and the Chinese and Latino communities, and demonstrating my proven ability to build city services when our budget is challenging.”

Gratuitous Hunk of Day (minus coat)

Yvan Rodic – Copenhagen, February, 2nd & 3rd, 2011

SF Kaiser half-marathon runner dies near finish

Dr. Honey Bear

A few years back an article caught my attention about HOW BAD training for a marathon is, let alone the race itself. The strain , wear and tear on the body is comparable to a heart attack or mild stroke. Apparently running marathons isn’t such a good idea.

 

 

 

VIA www.sfgate.com

A runner collapsed near the finish line of the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Half Marathon in Golden Gate Park on Sunday and died despite efforts of bystanders and race participants to revive him, witnesses said.

A Fire Department dispatcher confirmed the death of an adult male at the race, but additional information about the man was not immediately available.

Witnesses described a slow and confused response by race officials when the man first collapsed on an unseasonably warm day that hit 80 degrees. Two witnesses said it took about 20 minutes from that point before paramedics arrived.

The San Francisco medical examiner could not be reached, and calls and e-mails on Sunday to Kaiser Permanente and RhodyCo Productions, the company that produced the race, were not immediately returned.

“In an event that size with that staff, it’s ridiculous to take that long to have paramedics arrive,” said Neil Fraser, head coach and co-owner of a triathlon and sports training company who was at the finish line waiting for some of his athletes when the man collapsed.

Sunday’s race marked the 28th running of the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Half Marathon and 5K Fun Run, and the event was sold out with 10,000 participants, the race website said.

When the runner collapsed, someone pointed it out to the announcer at the finish line, who called over the loudspeaker for medical staff, witnesses said. But it took repeated calls before any staff arrived, and ultimately runners and spectators began performing CPR, witnesses said.

“Finally a woman came up and started yelling at (the announcer), ‘You need to start pleading for anyone to help. We need a doctor,’ ” said Kwesi Graves, 29, of Noe Valley, who had been at the finish line waiting for his wife. “You would think with a half marathon and a sunny day, they would have some medical staff there, but there just was no one around.”

Just moments after the man collapsed at the finish line near the western edge of the park, Graves said, the announcer also called for medical help for two other runners farther up the course, which ran through Golden Gate Park and along the Great Highway.

Fraser, 41, said it was baffling that it was “a medically supported sporting event, and they didn’t even have a doctor on staff” at the finish.

“I’ve been doing this for 10 years, but even at the small events there’s an ambulance at the finish line,” Fraser said. “I don’t know where they were (today).”

Race producer RhodyCo says on its website that is has produced more than 390 major events with 1.4 million participants in its first 27 years.

Once paramedics were called, Fraser said, the crew drove by, then returned later. A fire dispatcher said they were alternately given three different locations for the incident.

“You want to give someone a fair chance to live,” Graves said. “Who knows? If there was medical staff right there at the finish line …”

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/06/BAOM1HJLKG.DTL#ixzz1DJcJRJ7r

Apparently running marathons isn’t such a good idea <READ ARTICLE>

A Letter to Christina Aguilera; Don’t Sweat It

Christina Aguilera singing about the home of the brave, to the best of her memory. (AP)

Don’t sweat it you, you flubbed up “the song” (who cares). I don’t know the words to the American Anthem either ( so I attached them below ) Although I am not a fan of your music, I am a huge fan of your talent! So, at the end of the day you have that sensational voice, a career and a child. The millions of fans who noticed your flub are most likely illiterate, hugely unsuccessful and watching the game on a small tv with bunny ears in their garage.

So Ms Aguilera, DONT SWEAT IT!

Thanks for reading,

Accidental Bear

The Star Spangled Banner

In 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote the poem, Defense of Fort McHenry. The poem was later put to the tune of (John Stafford Smith’s song) The Anacreontic Song, modified somewhat, and retitled The Star Spangled Banner. Congress proclaimed The Star Spangled Banner the U.S. National Anthem in 1931.

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen thro’ the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov’d homes and the war’s desolation;
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Read Article  via Washington Post linked for details:

In the wake of the Christina Aguilera/national anthem debacle, take our ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ quiz

LGBT Egyptians, Another level of Despair

When we aren’t to busy thinking that America is the center of the Universe and how Fab ( Rupaul, shaking finger) we are here in the privileged USA, we realize damn, we have it good in retrospect! I think that if “we” even knew half the struggle our gay brothers and sisters around the world go through, our community would be much more untied and not such bitches.

What Protests Mean for LGBT Egyptians

By Advocate.com Editors

Michelangelo Signorile talks with activist and scholar Rasha Moumneh about the protests in Egypt and what they mean for LGBT rights throughout the country.

Moumneh, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who focuses on LGBT and women’s rights, says that while there have been crackdowns in Egypt — most notably in 2001, when 52 men were arrested on board a floating gay nightclub called the Queen Boat — Egypt’s laws against homosexuality are vague.

“Egypt does not have an antisodomy law,” she says. “What they do have is a sort of generalized debauchery law. The problem with that law is that the interpretation is less to individual judges — it’s an extremely elastic law. So you have all sorts of quote-unquote moral crimes being prosecuted under that law.”

She says in Egypt, she doesn’t think there’s a concerted effort to target gay people — what happens to LGBT people in Egypt is indicative of what’s happening all over the region.

“These crackdowns usually happen … when the government wants to flex its moral muscle. When they want to show they’re still in control, that they’re still the savior of Egyptian society.”

She says it’s very difficult to tell how these protests will affect LGBT rights in the country moving forward. She said there is a growing attitude among young people to “open up more space toward personal freedoms.”

Listen here.

Gay Jersey Shore Spawn

LGBT hopefuls, is a term used for those auditioning and makes me laugh. Hopeful, really? Hopeful to be given as much free alcohol as possible,  drunk bitch fights, catty domestics fight over dirty dishes, hopefully a good crying scene while on the phone with your boyfriend to tell him you cheated, hopeful to get a hot tub full of queens picked up at dive gay bar. Maybe a new breed of gay slang like original Jersey Shores ; Grenade! GLT!

Dozens Audition for Gay Jersey Shore Spawn

LGBT hopefuls crowded into an open casting call Saturday night for a reality TV series inspired by Jersey Shore.

By Advocate.com Editors

Dozens of LGBT hopefuls crowded the open casting call Saturday night for a new reality TV series inspired by MTV’s Jersey Shore.

The Associated Pressreports on the action at Club In or Out in southern New Jersey, where aspiring stars from as far away as Washington, D.C., competed for the chance to appear in the show. Tentatively calledUnder the Boardwalk, the program will focus on a group of LGBT people living in a beach house in Atlantic City for a summer.

According to the AP, many of the hopefuls focused on modeling themselves after a Jersey Shore cast member, but series creator Kate Siegel insisted that imitation was not the point.

“We’re not looking to create a gay version of the Jersey Shore or to find ‘the gay Snooki,’” said the straight 22-year-old Princeton student. “And in no way will this be anything that has a negative effect on the LGBT community. We’re hoping for anything compelling, because you never know what’s going to walk through the door,” she said.

Other auditions are planned for New York, Philadelphia, and Atlantic City.

Cock Fight Interrupted

Shameful! Humans can be so despicable. I would like to see the people in charge of running this cock fighting operation put in a room, knives and razors tied to their hands and feet and then prodded and poke to anger and provoke violent behavior and forced to fight till there death. I still don’t think I would be able to throw down a debt, jump around cheering for a ‘winner’. Thats because I am human.

Animal control officers bust cock fighting ring along Sacramento river

SACRAMENTO, CA – Six men were arrested and dozens of birds seized Sunday when deputies from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s department raided an illegal cockfighting operation at a home on River Road, authorities said.

A spokesman for the sheriff’s department said dozens of people ran from the home when deputies raided the home just before noon Sunday.

Staffers from Sacramento County Animal Control and the Humane Society followed the deputies into the home, where they found dozens of birds injured or already dead, and were able to save about 50 birds.

The six men arrested at the home were booked on charges of cruelty to animals.

News10/KXTV