When AT&T Park was built on the San Francisco waterfront for the 2000 season, they seized the opportunity to create an area where a well-hit ball could reach the bay, and they named the cove for the fabled Willie McCovey, a feared Giants left-handed slugger who, had he played now, would have made the splash hit a weekly occurrence. Indeed, from the beginning, Barry Bonds made the splash hit his personal spectacle…kayaks lined the Cove cheek-to-jowl... (Read more)

My mother-in-law first suggested I should try driving for Uber. It seemed a dubious proposition…living in Novato, I suspected the economics of driving to San Francisco (where the rides are) might not make it very lucrative. And I shared the opinion that Uber drivers can’t get a job doing anything else. Since that describes me, I became an Uber driver. (Read more)

Hamilton Air Force Base in Novato (decommissioned in 1974 and since repurposed into a vibrant residential neighborhood) is still home to a cluster of wartime concrete bunkers built to store ammunition. Ten of them form a ring around the aptly-named Ammo Hill, and although signs everywhere identify it as Army property and to keep out, the site is easily accessed on foot. (Read more)