Winter Weather

Winter Weather, originally uploaded by Kirk Howard.

Right after a early afternoon down-pour at work

Holiday Message...

Fire, Fire...

Fire, Fire..., originally uploaded by Kirk Howard.

When I arrived at work on Thursday December 4th, there were several fire trucks and fire personnel running around the front of the Ferry Building.

I kept walking to the front entrance expecting some official person to halt my progress into the building and explain that it wasn’t safe to enter due impart that a large brokerage firm had caught fire, because someone had left a portable heater on too close to something flammable and burnt the office down… Nope nothing, nothing was said. Matter of fact, they were all hopping onto the trucks and driving off.

As I got to my desk I heard the sirens blaring past the building towards the water. I guess they had the wrong building after all. From what I could tell something triggered the fire alarm in the World Trade building at the end of the pier. This building has essentially been unoccupied by tenets for sometime. I figured it was a rat living in the old restaurant that set off the alarm.

This is the shot I took of the activity.

Sunrise Fog

Sunrise Fog, originally uploaded by Kirk Howard.

As Magellan pointed out last night, I have been slacking on my Office Windows Post....

Here you go Magellan this one is for you... Taken November 13, 2008...

October Twenty First...

Here is a series of images I took on Oct. 21st. @ 7:10 AM. With smoke from the fires and a little inland valley smog blow out to sea by light Diablo wind, we get a incredible sunrise.

USS Unknown is now the former USS Tripoli (LPH-10)

USS Unknown is now the former USS Tripoli (LPH-10), originally uploaded by Kirk Howard.

Can anyone identify this old surplus Navy Vessel? It looks like they are pushing it back to the Benicia Mothball Fleet.

Post a comment if you can identify this vessel.
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Udated 10/21/08:

I found out what this ship is or was. It is the USS Tripoli. She was towed into San Francisco from Hawaii on Friday 10/17. I owe thanks to the San Francisco Citizen bolg for the identification.

LPH-10 an Iwo Jima class amphibious assault ship. Launched on 31 July 1965, commissioned on 6 August 1966. Following three months fitting out at Philadelphia, the amphibious assault ship put to sea on 6 November 1966, bound for the west coast. She transited the Panama Canal at mid-month and arrived at her home port, San Diego, on 22 November 1966.

She was decommissioned in 1995 and as of 2004, she was on loan to the Army, but remained laid up at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. In December 2006, the ship was towed to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where it now has a high-tech role as a launch platform with the nation's developing ballistic missile defense program. Three times the ship was towed some 100 miles off shore and used to launch small ballistic missiles, which are then intercepted by Terminal High Altitude Area Defense Missiles, test-fired from the Pacific Missile Range Facility. The last test in the series was performed October 26, when the ship fired a "scud-like" missile, which was successfully intercepted.

The ship will be towed back to the San Francisco Bay Area for the winter. Kaua'i lacks a suitable land-based launch site, and the costs of building one would far exceed the approximately $600,000 per year it costs to use the old warship, so the vessel will return to Pearl Harbor for a second series of tests in late spring 2008

Morning Tower...

Morning Tower, originally uploaded by Kirk Howard.

Oakland Bay Bridge Tower and Reflection in the calm morning water.

Another beautiful morning on the Bay (7:03 AM). Couldn’t resist taking a picture of the “Magic Hour” just before the sun crest the East Bay Hills.