just in case you’ve been in william hurt’s isolation tank from ‘altered states’ for the last week, san francisco is all abuzz about the possibility of snow over the next 48 hours. and guess what? few neighborhoods in the city are as well-placed as sunnyside to view what might be a once-in-a-generation event.

that’s because we’re only a 36-teresita muni bus ride from mount davidson, which at 928 feet is the highest peak in san francisco. and since projections have an inch of snow falling on elevations near 1000 feet, this could mean a very special weekend for some local kids … and adults!

and then there is the very exciting, if admittedly remote, notion of snow atop the roof of the sunnyside conservatory. if it comes to be, you can bet i’ll be there with my ancient digital camera, and maybe i’ll see you out there, too.

in any event, it’s going to be uncommonly cold out here in the outside lands, west of twin peaks. better bundle up!

whether or not you’re happy your little local borders will remain open despite the chain’s bankruptcy filing and resultant closures around town, if you live in the outside lands you should be annoyed (and not surprised) that most media outlets ignored this little factoid.

in their coverage, both ktvu and the chronicle focused on closures elsewhere in the city, and even went so far as to mention locations on the peninsula and in the south bay which will also survive the restructuring.

i have mixed feelings about borders as a chain, and this location in particular; nothing especially negative, nothing especially sentimental. it occurred to me over the holiday season that this stonestown anchor could go away soon, and honestly, i’m not sure what would replace it in that space, in this economy. and that would be some high-profile ugliness.

so for now, i’ll continue to justify hours spent thumbing through magazines and books that i’ll never buy by spending about $20 a year on beagle calendars.

you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs, and starting this weekend, muni will start crackin’ on desperately needed traffic improvements at the civil engineering singularity known as st. francis circle.

and while the ends likely (likely) justify the means, boy, is this gonna HURT. you can see SOME of the damage here on muni’s site, let’s review a couple of highlights:

• no more k or m trains running outbound beyond west portal. get ready for shuttle bus fun. yay.
• this one actually doesn’t seem to be in the pdf muni provides for the project, but at the recent sunnyside neighborhood association meeting, supervisor sean elsbernd said that traffic running east up sloat will have an interesting time getting to portola. you’ll be detoured to the right on junipero serra and guided somehow through some funky u-turn. or something. i believe the chanting of some incantation is necessary. “expecto trafficum!”
• riders know that the 23-monterey loses all sense of time and schedule as it travels both eastbound and westbound through the black hole of st. francis circle. the seven-day-a-week project will no doubt compound this.
• muni states “some stop changes” will occur as a result, but doesn’t elaborate. i guess specificity isn’t their thing, man. if you use muni in this area, give yourself some extra time to navigate your new temporary reality.
• general chaos.
• admiral anarchy.
• cap’n crunch.

all this, as elsbernd reminded, just in time for the stern grove concert season.

i strongly advise checking out muni’s pdf, and avoiding punching your monitor in response. and just like my pop used to say before a good spankerin’, “it’s for your own good.”

once again, muni is letting me know it hates me.

maybe it hates you, too.

you can still see the marks from the beating we took last year from reduction in bus service in our neighborhood just within the last few months, and now starting tomorrow, may 8, we’re getting more.

the 23-monterey, left unscathed during the last round of cuts, will run less frequently, going from every 15 minutes to every 20 minutes, according to muni. if you ride the 23 during the rush hour, though, you know this figure is bs, anyway. if two 23s run shorter than 20 minutes betwixt each other, it’s by accident. so whatever.

what’s gonna chafe my hide is that the last outbound 23, which already runs out at the non-night-owl-friendly hour of 1230(ish)am, will now go out an hour earlier.

the fledgling 36-teresita was already on a bare-bones schedule, so its frequency (which is not bloody often), will remain unchanged. however, it too will send out its last outbound even earlier than its present 1130pm run, retreating now to 930. 930! i can’t imagine any other non-shuttle line that ends so early.

thankfully, the j remains the same. and believe me, these last few months since the 26 was eliminated, i’ve conditioned myself to walk farther in the wee hours. i just don’t know how long this can go on before some thieving magpie spots me and my ipod. funny how i didn’t worry about that so much when i was 315 lbs. oh well.

okay, winter’s over, and this bear has groggily emerged from his cave to see what’s going on. and whattayaknow? something fun just around the corner – the st. finn barr parents club is hosting its fourth annual wine tasting & sale saturday, april 17 at goode hall, 415 edna st., on the corner of hearst and edna.

admission is just five bucks, including complimentary wine glass. the event runs from 3:30 to 6:30pm, and proceeds go to benefit st. finn barr catholic school.

for more information, call (415) 333-1800.

UPDATE: flyer is above, and a peek at the wine lists/order forms below.

congratulations to jon and adrienne at friends of monterey boulevard on securing a grant to improve pedestrian conditions along my street, which happens to be monterey blvd. great work, guys!

i’m psyched about the installation of the type of “we live here” banners we’ve seen in other high-traffic areas of the city, something that was a dream of mine for a while when i met the fomb’ers, and discovered they were actually working to make it happen.

jonathan says there will also be research into how to make what is unfortunately a mini-freeway into something more livable.

Working with the pedestrian advocates at Walk San Francisco we will also conduct detailed surveys of pedestrian conditions at the intersections of Foerster, Edna and Detroit.  The first two intersections are key crossings for children walking to Sunnyside Elementary, while the intersection at Detroit is a mid-block crossing. We will count pedestrian volumes, document conflict points and needs, look at the number of near misses, to provide an analysis of both pedestrian and driver behavior.

We will also  circulate and manage a public survey of neighborhood residents to determine community needs and desires as well as perceived problems regarding Monterey Boulevard. We will then compile all of the results in a final report.

i know that there are some, myself included, who aren’t quite as anti-car as fomb. but i tend to agree with most of what they propose, and moreover, i know that it was that same activist spirit that drove the freeway revolt that saved this city from being turned into a big, ugly mess of freeways.

oh boy! the sun came out for the first time in days today, if only just for a bit before the fog crept back in. but it was nice to have a dry day, so i went over to the conservatory to try to get a shot that would somehow speak to this joyous occasion.

sad to say, this is no joke. news yesterday from ingleside station capt. david lazar:

Last week I mentioned a burglary in Miraloma Park on Juanita Way. Over the weekend, a construction site on the 700 block of Foerster was burglarized.

Today, there was a burglary attempt on Dalewood and actual burglary on Melrose. When the officers arrived on scene at the Melrose location, the suspects were fleeing in their getaway car, nearly running one of the officers over.

The vehicle involved in today’s incident is described as a black Buick with tinted window. We obtained a partial license plate of 5YB…. Our Station Investigations Team is working on this case.

Please feel free to call the station if you have information or our anonymous tip line, 587-8984. Please phone the police if you see this vehicle in your neighborhood.

and from the sunnyside park families email list:

There have been gangs of thieves working free standing houses and neighborhoods up Teresita and Westwood heights to St Francis woods, and it looks like they tried to start working this area, and hopefully the police response will scare and keep them away.

Although disconcerting, a neighbors’ good eye and quick call to police, and the massive police response, should be a deterent to thieves considering working this neighborhood.   When they find neighborhoods they can work the word spreads amongst the thieves, and when they try something and get disrupted like yesterday the word will spread that this is not an easy target area.

i get the creepiest feeling i saw this buick creeping around monterey and detroit the other day. gah. anyway, keep an eye out and we’ll badger these baddies away.

so i went out into our glorious neighborhood hoping to catch the spirit of the season, but these were the best my poor old digital camera can do. i didn’t get some of the more spectacular displays, but here ya go.

following the previous night’s major buzzkill (see below), it was sweet to see the sun come out, along with the gav (erm, his honor, the mayor), for the truly glorious opening of our neighborhood jewel, the newly renovated sunnyside conservatory.

a who’s who of sunnyside movers and shakers, along with regular folk like you and me (!), were treated to a redux worthy of the historic site. the designers have achieved a nice balance between acknowledging the conservatory’s storied past and creating a fully functional and rentable space for locals to use for events ranging from community activities to private parties.

i got there a bit late, but from what i hear and saw, the gav got a kick out of the new spot and rock starred it up a bit with a crowd clearly flattered he was spending a sunny saturday in sunnyside.

he was generous with the pics, and it took him longer to leave than most assumed he would spend there in total, but i chose to take my time with the mayor as an opportunity to promote this site! because i am a whore.

turns out local photog bill wilson caught the moment:

check out bill’s photo album from the day.

it was super to see the people i’ve met in the past year since launching this blog, particularly the friends of monterey blvd. with a full-on setup that attracted a lot of attention from locals curious about those “slow down!” signs. one lady construed it as a general zen comment, which was fine with the fomb’ers!

all in all, a great day in the ‘hood.