Is Christine O’Donnell serious? Back to school with the lot of you.

“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” O’Donnell asked him.

When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O’Donnell asked: “You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?”

My God, this country is fucked.

The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

View all my reviews

Looking good there, Sky., originally uploaded by Dave Schumaker.

What a great thing to wake up to this morning! Beautiful altocumulus clouds above San Francisco.

Check out a flickr gallery featuring more shots from around SF this morning here.

“If the Giants win the World Series, I’ll give you this hat.”

I was 7 years old and we were on a family camping trip with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in Southern California. Really, it was more like pseudo-camping — there were motorhomes and such involved, but all the kids got to sleep in tents.

It was a Saturday night in October of 1989 and the San Francisco Giants were playing against the Chicago Cubs in the third game of the National League Championship series. The series was tied at one game a piece.

Someone had a television on in their motorhome and had turned it around so those of us on nearby picnic tables could watch. Since we all had grown up or lived in Southern California, I don’t think anyone there was entirely interested in the game — my cousins were California Angels fans and I had decided to like the Los Angeles Dodgers. The game was probably on more for background noise.

One of my uncles was wearing a Giants hat that evening. I don’t think he really cared for the Giants, or even liked baseball for that matter. But for some reason, he was still wearing it.

I remember my initial impressions of the hat though. It looked absolutely sinister! Maybe it a combination of the colors (black and orange) and the fact that it was October and Halloween was approaching. But I think I kind of loved it.

So, my uncle made me an offer. If the Giants went on to win the World Series, he would give me his hat.

I thought it was an awesome deal!

Unbeknownst to me at the time, my recent newfound love of baseball and the responsibilities of being a Los Angeles Dodgers fan (who had won the World Series the year prior) would be diametrically opposed to everything related to that sinister looking hat.

The Giants would eventually go on to play against the Oakland Atheletics in the 1989 World Series, famous for two things: the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake occurred during the middle of the series and the fact that the Giants would be swept by the Athletics in four games.

A few months later, during a family Christmas party, I saw my uncle and remembered that sinister looking hat. For some reason, it still tugged at my heart. I asked him what he did with it.

“Oh, that thing? I threw it away.”

And just like that, I threw away the chance for me to ever become a Giants fan.

My love for the Dodgers would continue to blossom, and when I eventually moved to San Francisco 15 years later, it would be one of the few things besides my friends and family that I would still stubbornly cling to that were from Southern California.

I love living here in San Francisco. However, when I see that hat, I still think it looks sinister. But now it’s for different, more nefarious, and even loathsome reasons.

Mini Me, originally uploaded by Dave Schumaker.

Hah, I was a rough looking kid!

Probably mad that my John Deere broke down or something.

Here are some photos I shot during yesterday’s air show practice for Fleet Week 2010 here in San Francisco. For this year’s show, I rented a gigantic 400mm lens from BorrowLenses.com. You can see the full set here.

How crazy was this 400mm lens? Check out this photo of myself and Marcie Lynn (a fantastic Bay Area photographer).

photo by Scott Johnston

It’s Fleet Week 2010 here in San Francisco. And so begins four days of jets flying over San Francisco, to the excitement of some and the ire of others!

I took this photo from the top of our office building in SOMA today with a Nikkor 400mm f/2.8 lens. The thing weighs more than I do.

Looking forward to scoring some more ridiculous shots with it.

Via our internal team chat this morning at work. You think there’d be more Project Runway fans around, since we all appreciate good design here.

Last week, I was in Boston to help setup our latest gdgt live event (recap soon). I landed in Boston at 7AM on Tuesday and left at around 7PM on Thursday.

For the 60 hours or so that I was in Boston, here’s a heat map of the locations I visited, based on my Foursquare checkins.

Generated using Where Do You Go.

I’m currently somewhere over New York state, flying Virgin America back from Boston (where we had our gdgt live event last night). I only brought my iPad with me on this trip. Which is painful, because Civilization V is currently out!

So, I wanted to see if it was even possible to play. Are you ready for this mark of desperation?

Civ V running on Windows 7. In a Parallels for OS X virtual machine. Via a VNC client on my iPhone. What?! So, what happened? Screen shots below!

Yes?

Yes.

YES!

NOOOOO!