The poignency of Memorial Day...

On my days off, I often go to Starbucks in the morning. The nearest Starbucks is currently directly across the street from the Golden Gate National Cemetary.

Since I've had a lot of "it's 10pm and I haven't taken any pictures yet" days lately, with the cemetary decorated for tomorrow's festivities, I decided to swing by and take some pics early for a change.

I took about 20 shots, with lots of angular shots of the headstones in neat rows, with thousands of flags. This one caught my eye.

Each stone had a flag lovingly set about a foot in front of it. As I looked down one row of stones, I saw this flag fallen, and went up to put it back. It seemed important to capture the image before I righted the flag, because it spoke to me about loss, sadness, and the randomness of death. The fact that the stone was for an wife and infant daughter of the soldier buried next to them didn't help. I honestly can't say that I've ever seen a "dash" listed the way that it was for the daughter (Oct 25-29, 1965).

I'll put the other pics up on the flickr page.

I Thought Mastadons Were Extinct...

Click for a bigger picture (if you dare!)

Pulling out of the parking lot of the local grocery store, I ended up behind these people. I had to grab my camera and snap a picture cause, well, frankly, I was struck by HOLY CRAP -- THAT'S A BIG DOG!!.

I mean, seriously, this dog has to duck when the car goes through underpasses. He has to affect their mileage. On the bright side, if they do run out of gas, they can ride him home -- better yet, he can pull the car to the nearest station!

Ok, enough really big dog jokes.

There is one more pic on the Flickr page of this guy.

Golden Gate Cemetary Visit ...

I went by the Golden Gate National Cemetary today in search of today's picture.

It is a surreal place. You can see the other pictures I took at the flickr page, where you'll get just a hint of how immense this place is.

This particular picture is of the final resting place of a number of amazing men, leaders and heros each.

The first is Admiral Chester Nimitz -- the highest ranking naval officer in WW2. He was the US signer for the peace treaty that ended the war with Japan. After the war, he made the comment that "Our armament must be adequate to the needs, but our faith is not primarily in these machines of defense but in ourselves." Tons more info can be found at his Wikipedia article.

Another is Leo J. Ryan. For those who don't know, Leo Ryan was a congressman from the Bay Area who went to Guyana to investigate the People's Temple Cult in 1978. He was murdered there by members of the cult just before the infamous "Jonestown" mass suicide. What most people don't know about Ryan is that he went to Watts and taught school after the riots to see first-hand the conditions there. He went to Folsom Prison undercover to see those conditions while serving as the chairman of the committee in the state lesiglature that oversaw prison reform. Wikipedia article here

Also in this picture (though his stone is blurred in the background) is Congressional Medal of Honor winner Vito R. Bertoldo, yet another hero who showed tremendous courage and leadership under fire in World War 2. His citation for the CMOH tells far more than I could add. You can read it here