Okay, we are almost done with the sunset photos from the last time I was in the Bay Area… no, not this time, the last time, before I went back to San Diego for Comic Con, and then, today, came back to the Bay Area to see Hamilton in a few days…

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I mean, technically, I stayed past the sunset to try taking a few pictures of the city lights, so there will be one more post after this one…

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But man, you can’t go wrong with the view of the sun setting over San Francisco Bay, seen from the hills above Berkeley.

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Hey! Get that big, ugly head out of the way! We are trying to see the sunset.

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I guess that one is the last official photo of that particular sunset.

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Or does the sunset include the twilight time after you can’t see the sun anymore, but the sky is still lit up with colors?

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Hey look, there is the Berkeley Marina, where that statue I helped make is standing, and where Big Johnny and I took Willie, my godson, to the most dangerous playground in the world. That seems like a long time ago.

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Berkeley, in the foreground, and San Francisco in the distance.

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Even Oakland looks good at night… ha… sorry, Oakland.

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Okay, we are almost done. One more post of city lights, and a bunch of Comic Con stuff, including some of famous people, and a few random things, with maybe more pictures of whatever it is we do in the Bay Area before we go see the play… and then we are all caught up, and I can go back to doing my regular weird stuff.

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The most adorable couple I saw at Comic Con…

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I know, I am actually back in the Bay Area… after starting in San Diego, going to the Bay Area, going back to San Diego for Comic Con, and now I’m back to see the Hamilton Musical… and I still have pictures from the last time I was in the Bay Area… and Comic Con… and I am going to start making more pictures of this adventure… so… uh…

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The most muscular couple I saw at Comic Con… and no, I am not assuming they are an actual couple, but there are two of them.

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The main thing is that peace has been declared between the Spartans and the Gnomes… thanks to Captain Beard Man!!!

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One great thing about Comic Con is that, if you walk around enough, you will be able to get pictures of strange groupings of costumed people. I don’t know what is going on here, but I know one thing…

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All these people have been practicing their poses at home in front of a mirror.

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Ummmm… okay…

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Yeah…

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That’s a cool costume. I haven’t seen that movie yet.

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That guy does look a little like Captain Kirk… and that has to be his son… pretending he doesn’t know him.

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Yes, I am going back to the Bay Area… I will try not to break it this time…

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Yes, I know, I was in the Bay Area last week. I had to come back to San Diego to go to Comic Con, now, I am going back to see the musical, Hamilton. Seriously, does anybody know what the odds of getting tickets to Hamilton and Comic Con on back-to-back weekends are? Like getting tickets to the World Series and the Superbowl on the same day you won the lottery. I mean, I guess, I don’t do organized sports, but I imagine those tickets are hard to get too.

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I have to split soon…

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I have to jet, boogie, jam, take off, cruise, leave, go, scram, jump, move, blow this popsicle… (or hot dog, if you prefer)… stand, make myself scarce, shuffle, relocate, hie mineself hence, decamp, head out, hit the road, shove off, bail, bolt, book, vamoose, mosey, cut and run, high-tail it, skedaddle, ramble or scoot…

Because… Hamilton tickets!

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Comic Con… where it’s okay to stroke your Wookie in public…

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And is it just me, or is the one on the left wearing hair gel… on its face?

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No, I don’t know what is up with that lady on the left, but I do wonder how one interviews a Wookie for TV. I mean, you can ask a Wookie any question you want to, and it is always going to answer: “Hhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaannnnnngggggg”… which, if you don’t know what a Wokkie sounds like, is a little like a cross between an opera singer clearing their throat and a whale song.

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You need to have a pretty good costume to attract the media at Comic Con.

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You have a lot of competition.

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And it takes a lot to get noticed.

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It is easy to get lost in the crowd… and yes, you have to do a costume prop check, to make sure none of the weapons are real.

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Sometimes, all you need to get filmed… by a very expensive steady cam… is to be a cute kid in a homemade costume.

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If you aren’t cute, young, or rich enough to buy top end costumes, nobody cares if you wear regular clothes.

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But if you do, no amount of body piercings and tattoos is going to get you noticed.

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Comic Con… wait… is that Tony Stark???

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Did you see the actual Robert Downey Jr.???

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No… calm down… it’s just a rubber head.

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And this isn’t the real Iron Man. It isn’t even a real person in a really good Iron Man costume.

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There, you can see the base upon which Iron Man is affixed. And behind him, to the left, you can see the rubber head. But this brings up an interesting point about Comic Con. Sometimes, you can’t tell if you are looking at a real person in a costume, or a display of some sort.

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Is that a guy dressed as an alien predator, or a display? There is no stand under it. I am still not sure which it is… but it didn’t move while I was looking at it… which was sort of creepy.

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Okay, that one has a stand, but it looks exactly like other Wookies I saw wandering around. Maybe that is where they bought their costumes.

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That is a real zombie… well, you know what I mean… fake zombies don’t pose for pictures… I mean, not really.

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They also don’t move around.

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But that zombie behind her… that one is fake.

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The Dalek is fake… or at least it didn’t move all day… not even when a pint-sized Marge Simpson held up a stuffed toy for it to exterminate. Could a real Dalek resist that temptation? I think not.

 

 

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Is there anything better than holding a baby… yes, holding two babies!

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I apologize for the quality of some of these photos. It is hard to take selfies with one hand. You can’t touch the screen to make the camera focus. We went to see our friends today… and the twins!

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Which one is that? I have no idea.

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Thing one or thing two?

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I don’t care, and neither do they.

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I also got to play with my buddy, Olivia! She is an awesome big sister.

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I love that picture. I told her to stand close and look up. Good picture of my size 15 feet, too.

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Joey, giving Olivia the bouncy ride.

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My wife stayed with mom and the kids, while I took Joey to see the Dunkirk movie. It was good.

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But not as good as this.

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Comic Con… because… wait, Comic Con has aircraft carriers???

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No, those are not people wearing aircraft carrier costumes, those are real carriers… San Diego has a big Naval presence… at Comic Con, I saw a lot of navels.

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I walked around the outside of the convention center, to show you the beauty of the location, and to try to give you a sense of the size of the building ‘the Con’ took place in.

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It really was a lovely day… if you like being hot and sweaty.

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There is one taken closer to sea level… or bay level…

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I never did get a photo that captures the size of the convention center.

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But I swear…

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These are the last pictures of knights… fighting with swords…

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But you might still see some Jedi knights… or Batman, the Dark Knight.

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Because… Comic Con!!!

Have you ever wanted to walk up to Princess Leia… and grab her by her buns… no… not those buns… simmer down.

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Some flowers… from my mom’s garden…

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We will take a short interlude from Comic Con and sunsets to look at pretty flowers…

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I like flowers.

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I do lots of posts about flowers. If you like flowers, you should scroll through my entire blog looking for more pictures. You could use the search bar, but you might miss other stuff you like.

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Yes, I know that isn’t a flower… that is a wasp…

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Before you send your kid out into the world, make sure you don’t have them believing the world is a garden full of flowers… without telling them about the thorns… or the wasps…

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Okay, I know, I said we were getting away from sunsets… I lied…

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But these are the very last sunset pictures… well… that I took from my mom’s deck… I still have  a few from the hills above Berkeley, overlooking the San Francisco bay… but look how artsy that photo is.

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It’s fun to play with focal points…

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It makes photos of the same thing completely different.

***NOTE: Since none of you played my guessing game/observational skills test in an earlier post I did about pictures of the sunset from my mom’s deck, I will now tell you the answer.

The photos… every other photo in the post… were taken on two separate days… two days apart… and yet the colors were almost identical… and, now that I think about it, almost the same as the colors in this post. What are the odds of the sky being almost the same color at sunset that many times?

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Comic Con… because… wait… what the heck is that guy in the middle of the picture holding???

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Yes, the one by the steam-punk guy… I don’t think that is an inflatable sword… also, notice the pink Darth Vader helmet over at the lower right.

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Seriously, nobody does photo-ops better than Comic Con.

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I made my way around the group… still trying to figure out how some of them fit in with the Star Wars theme… and also to get a good shot of San Diego bay. It was pretty hot. And humid.

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Way too hot to be wearing a Chewy/Wooky costume.

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I can’t even begin to imagine what that was like.

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But everybody was having fun and… is that a small bunch of samurai over on the left at the rear of the group? I am so confused.

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Meanwhile, just yards away, knights of the non-Jedi variety were still going at it with swords that didn’t glow.

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Uh… did the guy on the left just get his leg chopped off? NO! ‘Tis but a flesh wound! HA!

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Well even zooming in I still can’t tell, but it’s time to move on.

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