While many of the murals in this cluster are mosaics, there are some painted murals too. I’ve posted shots of some of the other murals (along with those above) to a set at Flickr.

I walked by this scene today at Union Point Park. I daydream about moving onto a boat sometimes, but every time I hear about a boat sinking in the Oakland estuary, I am reminded of the virtues of solid ground—even solid ground which shakes and rolls under our feet every once in a while.

That many of the sunsets from the east side of the lake are beautiful goes without saying, but what has struck me as I’ve photographed them over the months is their wide variety, depending on the season and the clouds and the temperature and presumably other changes in atmospheric conditions. So we sometimes get lurid splashes of color, sometimes golden halos, sometimes ominous skies, and sometimes serene reflected light.

There was no thrilling sunset through this evening’s rain, but last night’s is shown above. To be honest, my camera (or its operator, perhaps) failed to capture the color properly—it was, I think, more violet and less orange, but no less impressive. Possibly the color accuracy could be fixed if I knew more about editing digital photos, but the color as it came out of the camera will have to suffice for now.

Came across this sign at a bike shop in LA. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the neon in action.

No matter the price, it sounds like a better bargain than the “Special Sale! Misfortunes” which are advertised a few blocks away.

I walked the dog past there today, and was glad to see that the treelet has been given new life as The Grateful-Hopeful Tree. Passersby are now asked not only what we are grateful for today, but also what we are hopeful for tomorrow, and a small lamp has been installed, perhaps to help light the way toward that brighter future:

I’m cautiously pessimistic about the future myself, but nonetheless I applaud the tree’s new forward-thinking mindset. I’m reminded of what I heard an irreverent newspaper columnist say when he was told that all the masthead editors were away at a retreat: “A retreat? Never retreat; always advance. Avanti! Avanti!” Whether the future is bright or dim, it is indisputably our destination, so the wry columnists’s exhortation is pretty hard to argue with.