If You Go Two Years In A Row, It's A Tradition

And like that, October is gone. I really enjoy the nights getting cooler, the leaves becoming crisp on ground, the curl of smoke coming out of chimneys. Our last few days of October were full of fun. Last year we went to Arata's Pumpkin Farm for the first time. Jackie, Connor, and I returned again this year.

We are responsible, serious adults

Arata's has an amazing hay bale maze. It's different each year.

It's really, really, really big

This year was colosseum-themed.

You can see the minotaur over Connor's shoulder

We went though twice, saving a group of people who had been stuck in there for two hours on our second run-through. Then we headed to the pumpkin patch to picked out our pumpkins. It's a careful selection each year. We want to be sure to choose shapes that best show off what we are going to carve into them.

The next day was pumpkin carving day. My brother joined us this year and the three of us decided on a Futurama theme. It was kind of funny how that came about; Connor and I decided we wanted to do Futurama, so I called up my brother to let him know and it turned out he had independently decided on the same theme. Jackie's pumpkin was going to live at her place, so she decided to break from theme and go with a classic Frankenstein's monster.

I had been really careful with my pumpkin. When you carve words, you want to be sure not to misspell anything. I showed everyone multiple times throughout the process. At the very end, I asked what everyone thought. Jackie and Christopher agreed that it looked really good. Connor gasped and said, "You spelled Plant Express, not Planet Express." I couldn't believe it! Luckily I had enough space on the pumpkin that I was able to turn the T into an E and add a T at the end. Crisis averted.

Left to right: Jackie's Frankeinstein's monster; Christopher's Bender; My Planet Express logo; Connor's Fry

Mum let us know that the pumpkins were admired by the trick-or-treaters who came by their place. It's always fun to carve our pumpkins. We are already discussing what next year's theme could be.

SF Zinefest 2017

The weekend before last Connor and I went to San Francisco Zine Fest. I'd been trying to go for years, but something always came up. Last year we went to Joe and Emily's wedding. The year before that I realized it had passed exactly one day after it had happened. This year there was nothing standing in my way.

For those of you who don't know what a zine is, it is typically a little self-published magazine someone has made using a copy machine. (I guess there is some controversy over whether or not a book made using a printer or publisher counts. Most of the books we saw had previously been in zine form or on the internet, so the book was more of a compilation.) Zines can be about literally anything. It might have essays on someone's opinion on carrot juice or just have photos of socks. Connor said that if it were possible to walk into the internet, zinefest would be the closest to that experience.

We weren't sure what to expect at zinefest, but after walking into the building the event we were handed a map and wandered our way into the reading room. The reading room had a ton of zines that anyone was welcome to sit down and read.

This is maybe and eighth of what was available to read

Most of the zines in the reading room were from past years and weren't available any more. I took a picture of this one so I could look up the author later, but out turned out that he was tabling and had this for sale.

There was so much to do and see, I'll admit I got rather overwhelmed. I did get to see two people I knew who were tabling: Maia Kobabe and Amy Watson. Maia Kobabe writes fantastic comics about gender identity. I've learned quite a few things, including gender neutral pronouns. (E, em, eir in place of he/she, him/her, their.) Amy Watson is the woman behind 1984 printing. She is the one who printed Lit Knits.

We did come away with some treasures. There were so many different types of zines, but I was more in the mood for comic books.
The top two books are by Andy Warner. I really love his command of the medium, but also I'm a sucker for histories of things you might encounter in every day life. I had heard of his Brief Histories book, but also picked up When We Were Kids just to give it a read. I asked Andy how he ended up making a whole book on everyday objects and he said he had drawn about ten of them, but wasn't getting paid, so he quit. He had made them into a zine and sent them to various comic stores. It just so happened that someone from Picador (the publisher of the book) went into one of these shops, picked up the zine, and loved it so much he asked Andy if he'd like to make a whole book on the topic. Andy said yes. He said it really was an out-of-the-blue opportunity as he hadn't drawn that series for two years at the time of the offer.
We also picked up Liz Prince's book Be Your Own Backing Band. It is a collection of music-related diary comics that had originally been in Razorcake. I really like her comedic timing in her comics.
Finally, we found Slices, by Jaime Crespo. Slices has 40 1-page vignettes of different people who Jaime has run into in his life. He sure has met crazy people!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some more comics to read.

Local Tourists - Angel Island

Mum has wanted to go to Angel Island for an age. I had gone awhile back with Rachael and had since offered to go with Mum, but she wanted to go with Dad or someone who was just as enthusiastic as her. When Connor hear this he told her, "I don't know of anyone more enthusiastic than me!" We hit the tipping point and Dad decided to come along too. So one Saturday, we got up earlier than anyone cared to and drove to San Francisco. It was a misty morning and we enjoyed walking in the ferry building, getting some tea, and waiting for our ferry. The ride out was quite fun and Connor was especially happy. He usually is whenever he's on a boat.

We passed Alcatraz, circled around the back of Angel Island before creeping up, just behind the Tiburon ferry. 

After docking, we searched for a patch. Angel Island is in the middle of a rebranding, so they don't have their own patch just yet. A very helpful lady did let us into the gift shop (that was closed that day) so I could get this patch and took my info for when the Angel Island one becomes available.

The thing Dad had wanted to do the most was visit the detention center. Angel Island was the Ellis Island of the West. This center is where everyone came through when entering the bay. The majority of the immigrants coming through were Chinese. They were not treated well.

Many Chinese carved into the walls. Workers at the detention center assumed it was graffiti and would putty over the words and repaint the walls. As it turned out, the writing was poetry and almost every single wall is covered. I loved how the center had a section where different layers have been lifted so you can see the various states the poems had been in. Most of the walls have the slight dimples of puttied over characters. The museum did a beautiful job explaining the poems and had English translations, although I'm sure they are much more vivid in their original language.

The poems are suppose to be read out in Cantonese for the best effect

After we toured the museum, we headed out and had a look at the bell and memorial walls around the site. Mum had a look inside the bell. I thought she looked silly.

Although we were hungry, we collectively decided to walk to the top of Angel Island before having our picnic lunch. It is quite a climb, but the view is worth it. You can see 360 degrees around you. Dad pointed out that 180 of those degrees were fog. I managed to snap a picture in between the swaths of fog floating by.

As we hiked back down, Mum commented on how she was just about out of water. We ended up passing by some sort of work party in the lower picnic area and they offered us not only water, but cookies as well. Mum was quite pleased on how we seemed to get rewarded for hiking.

We caught our ferry and enjoyed the views as we headed back. Of course that isn't the end of the story...

We didn't know that it was only the last ferry of the day that goes back to the ferry building. The one we were on would go to Pier 39, then Angel Island, then back to Pier 39 before going to the ferry building. We opted to walk the nearly 1.5 miles (2k) back. Needless to say, by the end of the day we were all tired and ready for dinner. But it was a good kind of tired where you feel you earned extra chips and guac.

Local Tourists - Fort Point

You know how when you get back from a really great vacation, you get the post-vacation blues? I got hit hard after spending a glorious week in the Keys. Back to the daily grind.... and no more snorkeling. (Snorkling isn't something you can do in the Califronia Bay Area. Visibility is 0 and anyone who can stand more than 2 minutes in the ocean without going numb should be scientifically studied.) To combat the reality that we probably won't be going to the Keys again any time soon, Connor and I have decided to be local tourists and do some aggressive sight seeing here at home. We started out with Fort Point.

Thank-you to the nice lady who took our picture

I didn't even know Fort Point existed until about a week ago. I was researching a possible hike by the Sutro Baths when I came across it. (I was looking to see where to get a Golden Gate Bridge patch. Who's surprised? Probably no one. It's a new obsession.) And I think I know exactly why. It's located under the Golden Gate Bridge. Unless you are walking along the bay side of the bridge it just isn't very visible.

It was a really neat place to see though. Fort Point was built around the American Civil War to defend the bay. Connor and I noticed that it had many architectural similarities with the Dry Tortugas' Fort Jefferson. The brick arches were laid similarly and the number of levels on the building were identical. Or would have been if Fort Jefferson had been completed.

We ate lunch by Fort Point before deciding to walk across the Golden Gate. It looked like there once was a path from Fort Point to the bridge path. That is closed, so there is a longer route to take instead. We walked 2.6 miles (4k) from Fort Point to the vista point across the other side of the bridge, then another 2.6 miles back. It was a lovely day and we both shed our coats part way through the walk. But we were both ready to sit down after all our exploring.

No fog in Fogust? That would be my storm-like superpowers coming into play.

Through my research, I had found several possible shop locations with patches. The Fort Point gift shop ended up being the only one we went to that we could find what were were looking for. (And that included the Warming Hut and the Golden Gate Pavilion.) We chose a Golden Gate Bridge, Fort Point, and Alcatraz patch. Connor and I have been to Alcatraz independently of knowing each other. I figure we earned it. After walking the bridge, we also picked up a magnet for the fridge and got one of those state park stamps on a bit of paper from the pavilion.

I'm excited about the idea of being a local tourist. There are many places that are within 4 hours of us and could be done as a weekend trip. Has anyone else been doing local tourism? Are there places you've been dying to go but just haven't yet?