Today I failed to find something scavenger-hunt-y at Lobos Creek Valley, but to make up for that I found a Presidio Field Note.
2025-08-05T17:06:41.974475
Some things I saw on my morning exercise walk in #SanFrancisco 's Golden Gate Park.
fnnch's light-up Solar Arch got moved to a new spot. Back when it was on the east end of the park, walkers on Stanyan after dark would get surprised to see this lit-up thing shining through the trees. Now that it's in the new spot, I guess nighttime walkers on Fulton can have the same experience. (Not shown in the photo: an impressive caravan of trucks installing porta-potties for tomorrow's marathon. I couldn't fit the whole caravan into one picture, sorry.)
Naga the Sea Serpent is still taking shape. I waited around a little while for bubbles, but none seemed to be forthcoming. Something to look forward to, I guess.
Some tires with (Mayan-style?) art painted on in gold. I dunno what these are; didn't spot anything obvious on the Golden Mile web site. I'm not sure whether the big orange barriers mean this artwork is still being installed; or are meant to keep tomorrow's endorphin-addled marathoners from bumbling into them.
2025-07-26T18:14:56.174870
My library lets me use PressReader, a collection of magazines and puzzles, including a daily cryptic crossword. Maybe your library does, too. (The magazine selection seems weird to me, mostly European? Does Italy really need its own version of Wired? I gave up on the magazines and went back to the puzzle section.) Thanks to Bunnytown for pointing this out.
2025-07-21T23:21:14.715355
I continue to check my little dashboard of #SanFrancisco COVID numbers each morning to figure out whether I'm okay drinking coffee inside a cafe with friends or should insist we take it outside. Some good news: lately, SF's COVID-in-wastewater level has gone (and stayed) below the "pretty-safe" line. That means that of the three numbers I track, two of them look pretty-safe; the third, as I blogged a few days ago, looks maybe-scary-or-maybe-inaccurate.
Things in SF seem not-bad-could-be-better right now, COVID-wise. It was kind of unnerving to read that article a few days back saying that COVID levels in the SF Bay metropolitan area are high. When I look at the Cal Suwers dashboard, I wonder if that article was based on data from a couple of weeks back and maybe it took a while to get published? (The article was based on data from WastewaterSCAN, which I think is a subset of the data that shows up in Cal Suwers, which might also explain some difference?) Anyhow, I'm going to go hang out in a cafe. Here's hoping I don't catch that "razor blade throat" COVID variant, its nickname sounds unpleasant (though I guess I shouldn't overfocus on the nickname vs the risk of long-term heart, lung, and brain problems).
2025-07-20T16:00:24.036354
I found some more of those "Field Notes" little boxes in the #SanFrancisco Presidio like I blogged about a couple of weeks ago.
My friends were very patient as I dragged them from our strolling-route to seek and photo these little boxes. Why was I so determined? OK, I found one of these boxes years ago. It was obviously one of many; but I had no idea where to find the others. I kinda kept an eye out for other little boxes when I was in the Presidio. But they don't stand out. The one I spotted years ago was on top of a wooden fence; a little wooden box on top of a wooden fence…You more would think "why does that fencepost look funny" than "here is a mysterious hidden treasure." I suspected that I was blundering past these things without noticing them.
So this mystery had been bubbling away on a back burner of my brain for years. When my parents found that map almost-but-not-quite showed where to find more of the things, I perked up. And when that not-quite-map led me to the actual-true-map, I figured I should go find a few just to confirm that the mystery was really-truly solved.
Special bonus: on the way to the Field Note at the Presidio Main Base, I stumbled upon a Curry Up Now food truck. One of their food trucks used to come to my neighborhood once a week, but that was years ago. I missed their food, but not enough to go across town to wherever their trucks go nowadays. But I've always kept an eye out for their trucks. There was the time I spotted one at Fort Mason when I was on my way somewhere; and so when I was done, I came back to Fort Mason, but the truck was gone by then: Devastating. And there was the time I was walking to a political rally at Civic Center, but spotted one of their food trucks driving north on Van Ness. So I thought "I guess #TheResistance will have to get along without me for the next few minutes" and I detoured to follow the food truck in case it stopped nearby; but instead it (unsurprisingly) outpaced me, soon out of view and I gave up on following it and thus my revolutionary fervor was restored. Today's burrito was thus both spontaneous and long-anticipated.
2025-07-21T00:06:16.847654
I continue to check my little dashboard of #SanFrancisco COVID numbers each morning to figure out whether it's safer to socialize at a bar vs an outdoor softball field. You might recall that a couple of weeks ago, I reported that SF's test positivity % had zoomed up recently. And looking at the purple line on today's data, you might still say "yep, it zoomed up, waffled a bit, and then zoomed up further." And then you might wonder, Why did Larry draw a big red circle around part of the graph? tl;dr I jumped the gun on saying "The purple line is over the 'pretty-safe' level!"
Why the circle? I blogged about that test positivity % when it crossed the "pretty-safe" line, that line about halfway up the graph. But as more data trickled in over the course of the next couple of weeks, we scrounged up more old tests. For example, if you checked the stats about tests collected in San Francisco on June 25, 2025,
On June 30th, you'd say, "We don't have data yet."
On July 1st, you'd say, "Wow! 11/229 positive (sick) tests! Sound the klaxons, it's really bad!!!"
On July 9th, you'd say, "Oh? 11/375? I guess the paperwork got stuck for some negative (healthy) tests."
On July 10th, you'd say, "Oh? 12/682? Uh, can we turn off those klaxons? Apparently things were only â
as bad as I thought."
On July 14th, you'd say, "Oh? 12/684? It's been over three weeks. Will this number ever settle down?"
Apparently the lovely people who process the "paperwork" for these tests are overwhelmed. They quickly process the positive tests; I bet those are more urgent. "Hurry up and prescribe this sick person some meds!" But it seems like the negative tests can linger in a pile on someone's desk for weeks. I graphed how long it took for the data to trickle in about tests administered in San Francisco June 20th-29th. It seems folks can process the paperwork for ~200 tests quickly; but if there were a lot more tests on some day, that data is gonna be "stuck in the pipeline" for more than a week.
Anyhow, when I look at my little dashboard today, the purple line is very high. Does that mean the level is really that high? 𤡠Who knows? Ask me again in a month.
Meanwhile, I foolishly decided to participate in softball practice. I stumbled and fell once and my bruises are still healing a week later. In hindsight, I wish I'd met up with those people at the bar instead.
2025-07-16T18:57:21.418902
Things I noticed on my mid-day outing in #SanFrancisco:
- The Krakenwagen art car ambulance was parked across the street from the DMV. It was spewing soap bubbles, though there didn't seem to be anyone inside and this didn't seem to have anything to do with anything else going on in the area at the time.
- A ⨠chalk mark by the #HashHouseHarriers, who play elaborate games of follow the leader involving many such sidewalk marks.
- A big rubber duck mural by street artist fnnch, which had nothing to do with anything else going on in the area at the time, but which you may recall is visible from the little parking garage across the street.
2025-07-12T20:43:19.576631
updated phraser again
I have once again updated the phraser word and phrase lists. They use fresher data from Wikipedia, fan wikis, crossword constructors, and the chat transcript from Houthi Small Group; so if some future puzzles solve to the phrase "we are currently clean on opsec," you'll be ready.
2025-07-09T17:16:35.264808
Today, I walked to El Polin Spring in San Francisco's Presidio and looked in a hidden Field Note. Thus I completed â of one of 22 Fun Things to do in your National Park. While in the area, I glimpsed a hummingbird, and completed an entire Fun Thing to do in your National Park.
![the box, open, reveals some interpretive text about berries: Summertime is well known for berries and the berries we eat all come from wild ancestors. Around El Polin Spring there are many native berries: elderberries (tiny red clusters), thimbleberries (large soft leaves), snowberries (white), twinberries, wild strawberries, California blackberries and more. Even poison oak has berries! See how many different kinds you can notice. [Note: Not all berries are safe for humans to eat!]](https://lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/importable/2025/field-notes-open.jpg)
I was following a map, but really following my memory. The Presidio Trust publishes an activity map for kids, Adventures in the Presidio. Page 2 of that linked pdf is a map encouraging you to find Hidden Field Notes (inside wooden blocks perched on fence posts and stumps). There was a little picture of what to look for: a little box held together by a hinge. When I saw that, I realized I'd already spotted one of those Hidden Field Notes, near El Polin Spring. The activity map had a box with a note: "glimpse a hummingbird at El Polin Spring". I leaped to the conclusion: This map was showing me where to find Hidden Field Notes. Or maybe geocaches; somewhere else on the map, it mentioned geocaches. This seemed kinda sketchy; if I hadn't already known about this little box in El Polin Spring, that would have been a darned large area to search; the map location wasn't even that close to real thing, seeming to indicate a place west of Inspiration Point. Some friends of my mom tried to use this map to find a box north of Mountain Lake Park; it didn't go well; the map seems to suggest you should hop over a padlocked gate and walk along an unused, overgrown dirt road that's more of a gully than a road in some places.
Now that I'm home, I looked over the map more closely and I think I figured it out.
Hey mom, tell your friends: the "map" doesn't show wooden boxes. It's basically an activity list sketched onto a map.
You aren't expected to go to the places marked on the map; that's good since some are in the Pacific, on a golf course,
on private property…
There is a separate map of the wooden boxes, a.k.a. Field Notes: Behold the map. The map activity list also mentions GeoCaches;
the Presidio does have some GeoCaches, but they're not shown on this map activity list. There's a geocache
on the north side of Mountain Lake Park, but not near the mark on the map activity list. (That geocaching.com site I linked to has maps; you need to have
an account and be logged in to see them.)
A clearer, albeit much-less-pretty guide to kids' activities in the Presidio: Self-Guided Adventures.
2025-07-05T21:17:13.401139
[Update: Though this blog post says the test% is above the "pretty-safe" line, as more data trickled in, that was no longer the case. As of a couple of weeks later, data about late June was still trickling through the pipeline. If you asked me "Is the test% level above or below the 'pretty-safe' line?" I'd say: I dunno; but it was below the "pretty-safe" line in early July.]
I continue to check my little dashboard of #SanFrancisco COVID numbers each morning to figure out whether visiting the comic book shop in person is a nice excuse for an errand or the moment my doctor will pinpoint, asking "You gave yourself long-term heart problems by picking up a funnybook about a barbarian with a talking axe?" Lately, one of the numbers I track has whooshed up from pretty-safe to not-so-safe, so that now â of the numbers I track are not-so-safe:
San Francisco's COVID test positivity recently went up steeply…and then slowed down. Maybe it's peaking and will fall again? (That would be nice.) Maybe it's just pausing a bit before zooming up again? (I hope not.)
I'm still doing indoor errands. But I remember at least one person mostly made their go/no-go decisions based on % test positivity; I bet they're staying home these days. And people who make go/no-go decisions based on wastewater data have maybe been staying home for a while.
2025-07-16T19:02:08.192880
