Orange and Black

In case you had not heard, the San Francisco Giants won the World Series this week.

Now, from my understanding, it's been a long time since SF last had any sort of championship sports title. And the Giants themselves (correct me if I'm wrong) haven't won a World Series as long as they've been in SF, well over 50 years.

So the city went a little nuts, you could say. Today, there was a ticker tape parade to celebrate, and as luck would have it the route started along the street on which I work. We weren't allowed to shut the office down completely for a couple hours — it's earnings period still, and we're a big office so it would be hard to forward to anyone for a major period of time — but we were allowed a little extra strictly-scheduled break to slip down and watch the festivities.


The players got to ride by in their own cable car vehicles.

I'm not a sports fan myself, but it was hard not to get caught up in the excitement. From where I was sitting 39 stories up I could hear the screaming and cheering and blowing of vuvuzelas (the darned South Africans have infected the world now). It was kind of hard to concentrate on work when the rest of the immediate vicinity was busy taking the day off, and I dashed downstairs the minute it was time for my break — call me a bumpkin, but I do kind of like a parade.


Confetti being blown out of cannons


People walking in the aftermath

This is as close as I got. Right outside my building. The crowd was intense:



Not sure how well you can hear it, but they're playing (and people are singing along with) "Lights" by Journey. This and the smattering of other songs selected to play with the floats highlights one big fact: San Francisco is seriously lacking in the well-known contemporary ballads. Does it say that we're past our peak, when the bulk of the songs still played about the city are from the 1980s? I'm thinking it's time for an SF-Song Renaissance. Who's with me?