:: BerDerp™ ::

[the camera is broke again, I was saving these pics from August 2008 for a possible interview with Deborah & Marcia (who owns this ride) but that never materialized — so let’s do this.]

introducing Donkey Frog, a ’71 Buick Riviera “Boattail”, ridin on a pair of  dem chrome tennis shoes

she actually started out white believe it or not.

Froggy’s exterior was done by House of Kolor and Kal Koncepts

i think the funniest thing about this pic below is, since it was taken on Friday before the rally, it was just parked right out front of the Fairmont for hours in broad daylight. I can only imagine what new Fairmont “well-to-doers” arriving for check-in must have thought when they saw this riser parked outside their 4-star hotel

Finally, here’s a pic on one of the owner’s phone showing a 30″ vs 24″ … pffft.

last but not least, here is Donkey Frog at a SEMA auto-show sporting the driver side with the rims you see above and the passenger side with these clear, polycarbonate compound rims that GE Polymershapes and Doug McGoon came up with – Doug runs MHT Wheels.  About 18 months ago these rims would run you about $25 -30K a piece. 

ribbit!

up, down, left..right??

just playin with the tilt.

today during lunch Plug1 & I took a nice leisurely foto-ramble, swinging over to Fisherman’s Wharf, and lo’ & behold we spotted a 40lb ‘gator bread creation being hauled by one of the Master Baker’s from Boudin.

off he goes…

we never did find out where he was going.

what?! wait! where’s the ship pics!?

[sorry no ship pics – just some historical nuggets]

this is just a glimpse of the many buried ships that have been found or are speculating to be located in San Francisco’s Financial District, Embarcadero, and even Levi’s Plaza (which was uncovered in 1978 and still lies beneath the plaza). Click here for a map showing location of some 47 ships in the downtown – waterfront area, where the original shoreline was at First and Market Street and even all the way over at Sansome and California.

here in this first picture, albeit an “any-corner-USA” shot, we look at the location where if we go 35 feet underground the remains of Othello would be found. She measured at 200′ feet long when she was unearthed in 1994 while construction of a tunnel was taking place.  Historians documented an 18-foot high section of a wooden hull that was sheathed in copper. Of course once they gathered as much information as possible they just bored right through her. This discovery places it right near the start of where the Mission Street wharf was once located.

Next,  at this intersection lies below the remains of the passenger-cargo ships, the Trescott and also the ship Byron.  Here you can find a listing of passengers that left the East Coast, on board the Trescott, bound for San Francisco in 1849.  Additionally for the Trescott we find that a William Lord Stevens wrote a journal of his voyage on the Trescott also in 1849. I am speculating that perhaps he was on board that listing in the first link of this paragraph — after all it does say “16 others not listed” on the passenger roll call. just a theory.

you can actually view that logbook – albeit sorta hard to read and written entirely in verse – by clicking here.

1849 was undoubtedly a busy year for the San Francisco harbor — during this year alone over 800 ships arrived at the ports carrying some 40,000 passengers. 

i could not find any info on the ship Byron other than what was located at the SF Genealogy site