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.

Tea and (e) books, originally uploaded by Dave Schumaker.

I’m living the total yuppy life style here! What you don’t see is that I’m holding a triple double soy mocha frappuccino latte in each hand.

Where Muni turnstiles go to die…, originally uploaded by Dave Schumaker.

SF Muni is in the process of upgrading the turnstiles in all their underground stations. Here, a pile of old turnstiles sits abandoned in a corner of Powell Station.

Interestingly enough, while taking this photo, the newly installed turnstiles (which have weird, automatic gates) were out of order.

Decided to try and tackle Paradise Loop today. By far the longest cycling ride I’ve yet gone on. 45 miles later, I’m ready to pass out.

Here’s the route as recorded by Runmeter on my iPhone 4.

Here are some of the raw statistics output from Runmeter:

Ride Time: 4:46:04
Stopped Time: 23:23
Distance: 45.41 miles
Average: 9.52 miles/h
Fastest Speed: 28.06 miles/h
Climb: 1916 feet
Calories: 2272

A little slower than I’d like, but hey! There were some hills toward the end of the ride (coming out of Sausalito and approaching the Golden Gate Bridge) that were rough for me to deal with. Made it though!

Now, every joint in my body is sore.

Finally, here are a few photos from the ride.

Last night’s explosion of a PG&E natural gas line in San Bruno was a horrifying experience. One can’t imagine what that must be like to lose your home, possessions, memories, and potentially even family in a heartbeat.

In addition to the sad news from San Bruno, this morning, there was news of minor explosion in a PG&E vault in San Francisco.

Another one?

Let’s take a stroll through recent history of vault explosions in San Francisco.

Vault fire at Polk and O’Farrell in June 2009

Aug 2005 – Vault explosion at Post and Kearny
Jun 2008 – Underground explosion shakes SF Financial District
Jun 2009 – Underground explosion at Polk and O’Farrell
Jul 2009 – Underground explosion at 4th and Market
Jan 2010 – Underground vault fire at Geary and Jones
Jun 2010 – Vault explosion in Pac Heights
Sep 2010 – Vault fire at Sutter and Montgomery
Mar 2011 – Underground Explosion Closes Post And Grant

After the explosion in 2005, PG&E decided to check all 550 underground vaults in San Francisco. Check out this article from the SF Chronicle. Sounds like they did a great job.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. will begin inspecting about 550 underground electric vaults in San Francisco today following a power transformer explosion last week that critically injured a woman.

According to company officials, the inspection is expected to take five weeks and will focus first on 150 transformers that have not been inspected this year.

An explosion in an underground vault at Post and Kearny streets Friday shot a tower of flame into the air, blowing a manhole cover 30 feet, burning a pedestrian and setting the awnings of the Polo Ralph Lauren store on fire.

(I took the above photo today at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — I love Lightroom 3!)

We’ll be there, covering it live. Follow along at gdgt on Wednesday at 10AM Pacific.

Don’t get me wrong. I complain about the weather as much as anyone else, but the tweets flowing from my fellow San Francisco citizens in the past few days are kind of amazing in both quantity and content.

A few from my friends.

Maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised at this — but I’m kind of in awe that biking home from downtown San Francisco (entirely uphill, mind you) is faster than taking a bus.

GPS info riding my bike:

GPS info while riding the bus:

Here are the times:
* Bike – 2.64 miles in ~18 minutes, 8.62 mph average.
* Bus – 2.35 miles in ~20 minutes, 7.06 mph average.

(It might seem like I’m cherry picking, but I’ve recorded data from a number of different days. The bicycle is always faster!)

Times recorded using Runmeter for the iPhone.

Slowly but surely, we’re moving ever closer to equality for all. There’s still a lot left to do, but it’s encouraging.

I know, I wrote about this a few days ago. But the weather is seriously bumming me out! I’m happy to have gotten out of the city this weekend (more on that in a later update).

But seriously, this is basically the view from our apartment window, my office, the bus, walking to the grocery store, or even taking a shower.