Stanford Football game

Last Saturday I was invited to the Stanford Vs Washington State Football Game. American football is the game we call gridiron.

To be honest, it was a bit boring. The game is played for 4 quarters of 15 minutes, unfortunately it took 2 hours to get to half time. This was because they would start the game, run forward, get knocked to the ground, mill around for 5 to 10 minutes and do it all again. The other annoy 'cheat' was that there were 12 men on the field and 88 substitutes ! They had 6 seperate teams for different styles of play, depending if they were on offense or defence.

The Stanford team mascot is a ... tree.

Really, it's a tree.




And they sell "Fear the Tree" T shirts ...


Molly, Chrissie and Sheera.


The players running out. See what I mean by lots of substitutes. The consensus among the girls was that there were some nice butts on the team. I was begining to suspect that they weren't here for the football. ;)


Warming up.


Facing off.


Almost caught.


Some of the cheerleaders from past years had been invited back to perform. I think she was most excited that she still fitted in her costume.


The throw.


The sneak.




The touchdown.


Thanks again to Molly for the invite.

And the result.

Damn.

I'll have to go back.

;)

Rain !!

First time that I've seen rain in San Francisco. Just a light drizzle.



and it's cold. ;(

Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival.

I went with an American friend, Molly, to the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival. We went the scenic way. Map here.

Of course, there were pumpkins. The largest winner was 1,535 pounds, just under 700 kg !!


Molly and the pumpkins, and her pumpkin hat.


Molly was kind enough to take a photo of me and the pumpkins. (Sorry, she didn't have a spare pumpkin hat.)


We tried some pumpkin cheesecake. It was a curious mixture of a slight pumpkin taste and the usual cheesy cheesecake taste but not sweet enough for a cheesecake.


There were a lot of stalls. I lost count of the number of photography stalls, there must have been about 2 dozen.


Farmer Mike was back for his 25th year of pumpkin carving.


His main carving was of Mastermind from some 3d movie that was being promoted. The whole festival was a bit too commercial.


We ate some calamari. There was no pumpkin in it.


There was a crazy Asian dude dancing around in front of the camera, singing into the mic to promote CW Bay Area which is a local TV station.


We walked back up the row of stalls and then head south towards a pub for lunch. We stopped at the Ritz Carlton day spa, that was located in the middle of a golf course.






Favorite photo.


I wouldn't mind one of those houses either, the cliff was just behind me.


The cliffs were rugged too.


A cart pulled up in front of us with a bride and groom on boad ready for their photos.


Personally I thought they were a little close to the cliff.


But the resulting photo would have been awesome.


As I said, rugged cliffs.


With an interesting geological feature at their base.


I love the juxtaposition of the bride, the bikini girl and the indifferent crowd.


We then walked around the other side of the point and looked north. It reminded me a little of looking into Lorne.


Another funny sign. They apparently went up after the Thailand one.


We finally made it to Duarte's Taven for a late lunch ...


Molly still had her pumpkin hat on.


Crab and artichoke omlet. Yum !


Went for a wander around Pescadero after lunch.






We then headed back to home and I stopped to take a misty mountain shot on the way.


Thanks again to Molly for great day.

Blue Angels Airshow

John and I went to the airshow that was part of Fleet Week.

The first plane was a solo and he just flew around and did a couple of different manoverves. The plane is the F-18 Hornet.








One last fly past the bridge and it was on to the next one.


The next one was a pair of helicopters that flew past and dropped a couple of scuba divers in the water. Unfortunately they were too far away for me to get a good photo of.


There were a pair of F-16 Fighting Falcons on next.


They were fairly boring.


Next up was Tim Weber from Geico, who flipped his aircraft around the sky.


He was a bit too far away and we walked closer.


Next were the Patriots who were colourful but lacklustre.








They were flying in the Aero L-39 Albatros, a Czechoslovakian jet trainer.






There was another aerobatics demonstration.


A flyby by a United 747.


Then a quick performance by "Fat Albert", the Blue Angels support aircraft.








And onto the Blue Angels themselves.




They were amazing precise and very, very close together.


The other two were doing flyby in between stunts by the main four.










My favourite photo.




They got lower than any of the other aircraft.


Second favorite photo.




Pulling some serious g-forces.














Not the Blue Angels. (Pelican Angels ?!?)






One last group flyby and the show was over.




We rode back to John's and went for a walk to see the ship nearby.


And a couple of the serious gentlemen getting their photos taken with a terrorist tourist.


The light on the Bay bridge was good.


And the ship now had it's fairy lights on.


Lots more photos here, if you haven't had enough. ;)