Horse Lady

I know what you're thinking... and yes that is a lady dressed in a latex horse outfit with blinders on.

Sweet House

Saw this out the front window. Must be a nice place to live. You can even drag it behind the car.

A New Career

I found my life goal. I want to stack rocks for money in Sausalito like this guy.

Overall Guy

We see this guy everyday so we thought we would finally get a picture. He wears the same outfit everyday. I'm not sure if he has one outfit or many of the same.

Kindle

New technology has gone full circle... Yes she is reading the Kindle with a magnifying glass.

Defenstration Building

Yesterday we decided to do the 49 mile scenic drive through San Francisco. One of the sights was of this building (not in the original drive). It seemed pretty strange. Apparently defenstration means "to be thrown out of the window". I looked online and I guess they are going to tear the building down. It was interesting to see.

It's Bacon TIme

Saw this watch at a store in Noe Valley. Thought it went along with my earlier bacon post.

Here comes the bride....

No, no it's not what you're thinking.

We spent the past weekend house sitting in the suburbs, soaking up the sunshine and listening to the grass grow. It's so easy to forget what quiet sounds like! When we got back on Sunday afternoon we went to grab dinner and saw this:

If it's a little hard to tell, this is a bridal party having their picture taken in front of a mural. Who cares? you might ask. Well this is no ordinary mural-it's the mural on one of the main wall of a building we manage! We're basically famous

In case you're interested, the mural actually is a little bit famous. It was painted by Mona Caron, and has won several awards. Check it out here: http://www.monacaron.com/galleries/MSR-unv-gallery/welcome.html

Sorry Nothing New

Sorry that there have been no new updates. We have been busy around here and it has been very cold lately, so we haven't been walking around outside as much to get any pictures. It hasn't broken 60 in the last 2 weeks, or 70 in the last 6 weeks. So hopefully it will warm up and then we can start taking some more new pictures.

Prop 8

Today it was decided that banning gay marriage would be unconstitutional. Whatever your politics may be, this was a very big event here in the Castro. My original hope was to go down to City Hall and see all of the gay couples get married-but they aren't doing any same-sex marriages yet, due to the appeals process

There was, however a huge march on Market street (about 2 blocks from our apartment). People were talking about how nice it was to be marching in celebration, instead of protest! Lots of fun to watch while at our local farmer's market :-)

August 1 Adventure

To start of this month we got to clean the sidewalk in front of the building. We heard a loud thud sound and looked out the window and noticed a homeless person had knocked over his grocery cart in front of our apartment. His stuff was spilled everywhere. Instead of picking it up, he just fought with himself and blaming the "other person" that it was his fault. After all the arguing with himself he just left everything behind. There was a humidifier (interesting item to have when you are homeless) and many pillow. When we woke up the next morning, most of the items were gone other than a few papers and one pillow. Not sure who came and got it, but we got the pleasure of the cleaning the rest of it up.

Bacon Wave

Saw this at Ross today. What is better than bacon? Of course microwaving it. Everything is always better microwaved instead of put in an over or toasted right? Microwaved bread, microwaved pizza, microwaved steak. The list goes on...

Taj Mahal Boathouse

We saw this at the marina in Sausalito. We later found out that this is actually a boat house. I think we should move here.

People of Safeway

We usually see some interesting characters in our local safeway. We can't usually get a picture with the people looking, but luckily this guy could be facing the other way. Not sure if he is wearing a sweater... or just the tank top.

The Dump

This really isn't involved with the Castro, but we had to haul out about 1000 pounds worth of trash to the bay area dump. This was a new experience with us. Not sure we have ever seen trash piled this high before.

Apartments

This is not really anything weird, but over the weekend we were just looking at apartments for rent for fun. We were actually in the apartment in the picture above which is to the left of the Castro theater. Very cool place and only $2500 a month for a 3 bedroom. To me, this sounded like a steal for SF. Anyway, I'm sure the place is gone now.

Ape Do Good

I thought I would post 2 back to back since it has been a while since there has been an update. Saw this store while walking through the mission. Seems like a very professional title...

Hardware store Nuns

While grabbing some paint, we saw some people that apparently needed to clean up the church...

First of all, we have been really busy and have been neglecting the blog, but more pictures to come!

So this evening we were walking home from running errands. As we were walking a homeless man was walking near us. Suddenly, after grumbling something about how dare we talk so close to him, he lunged at us-and started chasing us-yelling. I started yelling, and I think Jon let out a couple of explatives. I bee-lined across the street and hid behind a gay couple who had heard me yelling. Jon (being the more level-headed one) was already on the phone calling the police to report the man and to make sure he wasn't coming back. After thanking my fellow San Franciscians for seeing me through my panic, we went and looked for the man, who had apparently headed down Market street scaring more people. When the cops showed up they were very understanding, and went to look for the guy where we saw him last. A woman who had seen the incident even offered to describe him.

The reality is, homelessness is more common than anyone likes to see. It's sad, and (sometimes) really scary. I hope the police find him, but only so that he can get help. Needless to say-tomorrow we'll be making shopping trip to pick up some MACE!

Lamb Chop

Some friends were visiting from out of town so we thought we would get some crepes near 16th and market and sit outside. As we were sitting, we saw a white van pull up. It seemed a little weird, but then out from the van came a guy with white makeup and a lamp outfit. We asked where he was going and in a high pitch voice responded that he was going to a friends house. He then said I bet you never would have expected to see lamb chop tonight, especially in a white van. That's true, although I was expecting something strange to happen.

Rainbow Cookie

These were being made at the local bakery during gay pride.

Not Vegan

Saw this at the store. I thought I had thought of this first... guess not. Not that I eat meat anyway.

Book

Why not just adjust your religion to how you feel?

Vending Machine

I remember when they started putting ipods in vending machines. But doesn't this seem to just take it one step too far?

Nice Suit

This wasn't really in the Castro, but I just thought these were some great outfits overall.

Happy 4th of July!

*nudity warning*

Yesterday we were out walking in the neighborhood running errands. I looked across the street and saw three naked men. Where could they possibly be going? Was there a nudist festival that we just hadn't heard about?

We crossed the street, and passed them. I asked if they had a destination. Oh you know just going to grab a cup of coffee at Peets. Naked.

Later I asked a police man if it is legal to be nude in public in San Francisco. He said that the law is being decided on in court right now, so police can't do anything to public streakers. Not that I wanted the police to do anything, I had just always thought nudity was not legal in public. That's San Francisco for you! Happy 4th of July everybody!

Again...sorry about photo quality. I did have my camera with me but just felt too awkward photographing random naked guys. Maybe I'll get over that?

Technology

I'm not sure if this is new or just new to me, but I thought it was interesting. An escalator just for shopping carts. Seen it at bed bath and beyond and home depot so far.

Seems a bit cold out...

For these outfits...

Nice Backpack

These two made matching backpacks for the walk. They were very popular with others and taking pictures with people all night. At one point they even used their backpacks as giant seats.

A sign you don't see many places outside of SF

The Boy with 2 Moms

Pride

These lovely...ladies were roaming Market street during the pride celebration having their photos taken left and right. I was clearly dressed all wrong-left my leopard catsuit at home...damn.

Dyke Walk

Here is the view down 16th street from Market of the dyke walk. There were a lot of interesting things going on. We accidentally forgot to bring a camera to the actual parade, but more pictures from the weekend are coming.

Five dollars....

to anyone who can venture a guess at what this store could possibly sell?

Gay Accent

I don't have much else to say other than this must go with the kit on the previous post.

Getting Used to a new city

Found this set at a mall yesterday near Union Square. It is the "grow up to be gay" gift set. Sorry the picture is so small; it was taken on my phone. I will try to see if I can get it to be enlarged. One thing that happened yesterday was while we sold a few things on craigslist. A guy called and told me that his name was Belk and that it was spelled B-E-L-K. After confirming that he wanted the item, he asked me if I had spelled his name correctly. I just said sure and he said he would be over in about 15 minutes. After waiting an hour a guy was standing at the door and it was Belk. After not understanding what he was trying to sell I sold him the item and he left. About 10 minutes later I get a call from Belk asking if I am still there and he is still interested in the items. I told him that he already bought them from me and he said that he did not and that he would be back in ten minutes. He might have been a bit confused, and we did not see him again.

Cleaning out the closet

Sorry about the iPhone quality picture, we're working on carrying our real cameras with us more often.

So today we took care of chores, mostly just busy work and finishing up the unpacking process (it may never actually end). One of the chores today was to drop off a few bags of clothes at the closest thrift shop. The name is kindof cute-tongue in cheek, but what was really notable is the FREE HIV TESTING sign. The thrift store itself is also directly attached to a pharmacy. So you decide to do a little shopping, maybe pick up a cool pair of vintage boots, and get a free test for a deadly autoimmune disease, then pick up your prescription all in the same place? Now why didn't I think of that...

Special Edition To Kick Off Gay Parade

This weekend kicks off the gay parade and dyke walk so I'm sure there will be quite a few pictures to grab. It will be hard to pick just one for the day. They have started setting up and talking about it around town. Today's picture is a newspaper cover that I saw at the corner news stand. I guess this is what it would look like if the Brady Bunch were gay.

Oil Wrestling

We were walking down Market street as we heard some voices over a megaphone and a crowd was gathered around at what looked like a new gay bar opening. We wanted to see what there was to see, so we filed over to the opening. There were about 12 men standing in just brief style underwear shouting for everyone to come over. There was a mattress that was covered in oil and then two men went over and started wrestling each other on this mattress in the middle of the market street sidewalk. As this was happening, the guy with the microphone started trying to line up the next set of men to wrestle. This was a new one to me. I didn't have my camera with me, so I had to take this picture using my phone, so sorry about the small picture. If you look past all of the people taking pictures, you can see the wrestling.

Evening walk

We've been taking walks in the evenings to explore our neighborhood and new ones.

Tonight on Castro Street, right near the Harvey Milk camera store I saw this sign and couldn't resist looking like a tourist and snapping a picture.

The Mystery Box

Yesterday we had a large crate and did not know what to do with it. We thought about putting a "free" sign on it, but we thought we would make it more interesting. We labeled it as "free mystery box" to see how people would react. After a few minutes we had people coming by and taking pictures with the mystery box. One couple came by and the guy's response was "Hey, do we need a mystery box?" A few people were afraid that someone was going pop out of the box and scare them, as if this has been a common thing nearby. Another man said "Mystery box?? I'm all over this". Nobody took it for a couple hours. At around 1 in the morning a few drunk people came through the area and decided they needed a mystery box and they carried it off. There should be some good pictures to come as this weekend is not only the gay pride parade, but the dyke walk on Saturday.

Monkey in the Window

We just had internet installed so hopefully we will get some pictures posted on the site. Eventually when everything gets put away we will try to get the Castro picture of the day, but it may be the picture of the week in the beginning. Here is picture 1.

Last Day of Work

Today was my last day of work and one of my coworkers suggested keeping a journal or blog of what it will be like living in The Castro District as a straight couple. I thought I would give it a shot and see how it goes. My girlfriend and I are leaving Tempe, AZ for San Francisco next week. I will not update until we have arrived.