Seeding the Civic Center Lawn

The Mountain Dew extreme sports tour held this October in Civic Center Plaza ended up doing quite a bit more damage to the lawns than expected. Under the historically corrupt, incompetent leadership of SF Recreation & Park head Phil Ginsburg in conjunction with Emeryville developer Mark Buell, this should not come as a particular surprise.



Still, the patchy grass in front of City Hall has become something of a minor civic embarrassment, and the department cannot just put in artificial turf like the soccer fields in Golden Gate Park because too many people would start screaming.



Temporary fencing was finally being installed today while another seeding attempt to restore the lawns was taking place.



Though the Mountain Dew Tour is supposed to pay for all this, the finances of the Rec & Park Department are so opaque that it will probably be impossible to know if that is actually the case.

SantaCon 2012 on Polk Street

Lunching at the Bell Tower on Upper Polk Street yesterday afternoon, it soon became apparent that Saturday was SantaCon day in San Francisco.



Unlike last year's unusually warm weather, this year's event was marked by rain and bitter cold...



...which made for some shivering elves and Santas if you weren't dressed in the right costume...



...and contributed to long lines at various bars for liquor and warmth.



It looked like a fun, citywide, anarchic Christmas party for adults.

Coachella Clouds

The last day of the trip to Palm Springs was marked by extraordinary cloud formations on Friday...



...and even the 10,800-foot San Jacinto Mountains couldn't stop weather drifting in from the Pacific coast.



The clouds didn't look quite real.

Gay Resort DUI

Favorite sights in the desert town of Cathedral City include the street sign above next to the bougainvillea.



It spells out Gay Resort Drive, a street name both specific and bizarre.



Around the corner from Gay Resort Drive is a Mexican-American strip mall anchored by a liquor store on the first floor and DUI lawyers on the second, which makes for convenient one-stop shopping.