Adventure time with Mike: More photos and a painted house

04/10 - Welcome to Fall.

What a summer. The house painting job is essentially done, and I've been reflecting on its effect on me and how it mirrored my attitude in France about coming back to California and the job search.

I grossly underestimated both, in hindsight. I thought each would be a bit easier to do, and quicker. But what really happened was that I put too much pressure on myself and suffered for it. I paralyzed myself with both via the fear of failure.

The accompanying anxiety was unexpected. The frustrations, the anger, the emptiness, the hopelessness.

The Depression.

A veritable roller coaster of emotions.

By no means am I past it. I'm still seeing the therapist once per week as well as giving my time to the animal shelter and senior center.

While working today around the house and reinstalling the down-spouts, I accepted a sort of bitter truth. We need work more than work needs us.

I hate work and have never liked going to a job. But, work keeps me sane. If nothing else, work provides the mind with a distraction from the shit popping off within it during non-work hours.

For me, travel provides that distraction and it's something I truly enjoy. Without it for much of the past several months since June, there has been little to distract myself from the chaotic cacophony of crap inside my own head.

Writing has become a rare practice. Photography, however, seems to serve as a temporary distraction; It pulls me out of that funk. Adventures with the camera usually end up highly enjoyable, such as during a recent trip through San Jose and later Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island.

To get the above shot of the Bay Bridge and San Francisco, I did a bit of trespassing in what seemed to be a United States Coast Guard compound at the top of Yerba Buena. With the camera in one hand and the tripod in the other, I cautiously stepped through the gate with a sign that clearly read, "USCG vehicles only."

After a period of caution and being as quiet as possible, I found the spot I was looking for. I waded through some tall, dry grass, climbed down through a large, rusty hole in the chain-link fence and sat down on a wooden board most likely put there by a fellow photographer long ago, and set up my tripod.

As I sat on that spot directly above the noisy gauntlet known as I-80 (with a small handful of other photographers stationed around me), I watched the sky change from bright orange directly after sunset to the inky blackness of night. The City itself lit up. I saw colorful reflections of the buildings in the bay. The Bay Bridge became a living, breathing organism made of light.

I was there for at least an hour. Time slips away with the camera. Needless to say, I'm glad I stayed that long.

05/10 - I badly miss France. But the photography continues. Here are a few more shots I'd like to share with you all.