San Diego Firehouse Museum Photos

One of the the nice things about San Diego is making new discoveries, or remembering things you may have forgotten. This is the case with the San Diego Firehouse Museum. A few weeks ago, as Deinna and I were going downtown, we crossed Columbia Street and I saw the Museum. I realized that it's one of the places I had heard about but never visited. This past Friday Deinna was looking for a place to try out her new Nikon D90 camera. So, we packed the gear and were off. Our friends Gary and Julie's son, Greg, was on duty at the museum that day. Greg is volunteer Firefighter at Deerhorn Valley in Jamul.















Located at 1572 Columbia St. San Diego CA
Here is the map LINK.





















































































From models to the real thing below, the Firehouse has a wide collection of fire related items on display.














1903 American LaFrance "Metropolitan Steamer 1991" built for Milwaukee WI. Steam cylinders 9" stroke-9-3/4' bore. Pump Cylinders 9" stroke- 5-3/4" bore. Allegedly pump 1100 gpm. Weighed 8200 lbs., less fuel & water. It burned bituminus coal, or "Cannel Coal", and was drawn by 3 horses, accompanied by a hose/fuel wagon.














The fire box on the "Metropolitan Steamer 1991".













































The caption on this photo reads: "This Firehouse occupied the site since 1916. Girolomo Navarra, Jerome's grandfather, bought the building in 1921 which became the original location for Jerome's Furniture Warehouse. Girolomo's son Jim, Jerome's father, would arrive once a week to haul away the manure produced by the horses that pulled the fire engine.




















The fire pole for sliding down is located on the opposite wall, but after a quick trip down, you must climb back up.















Hand-drawn fire hose cart, circa 1852, used in the Thames Shipyard, New London, CT.
On loan from the Maritime Museum Association of San Diego, CA.



























The "Dispatchers Console".
Alarms were received from an Alarm Pull Box on the street. The Dispatcher took the information and relayed the Box number to the Fire Stations.



























The Harden 6 inch Grenade. Thrown to extinguish fire.
Here is a LINK for more information.







































Waiting for the next alarm.












































Located at the rear of the building is a 50 foot high drying tower, for drying the fire hose.















Captain Kevin McWalters takes this "Seagrave" out for exercise. It had received an oil change earlier in the week.

Greg Gorton watches as the truck departs.

Tecate Dental trips

In the middle of June, Deinna told me she had made a dental appointment. Nothing new, except the appointment was with a Dr. Gabriel Adame, in Tecate B.C., Mexico! Tecate is located about 22 miles from Jamul. It's a 30 minute trip from our home, southeast on highway 94 to the Tecate turn off on Hwy 188, or Tecate Road.
I'm by no means a fan of going to the dentist. I have disliked it since my childhood. Many of our friends have been going to Dr. Adame for years. (SITE LINK HERE) So, with my bag of fears bundled up, I drove Deinna to Tecate. We parked in a dirt lot, (in Tecate, California) which was within 300 yards of the border, paid $5.00 for the day, grabbed our passports (now required to get back in the USA) and made our way to the border crossing.










































After entering Mexico, you turn left and walk parallel to the US Border for 2 blocks, turn left again and you're at the dentist's office. Since I was there anyway, I decided to have them look at my teeth. I had to have an X-ray taken. At the end of the visit I paid $5.00 - and that was for the X-Ray. The waiting room was made up of 95% Americans, who came from all over to have their dental work done here.
















After the dental visit, we stopped in this restaurant for lunch. Not only challenged by the language, we also had no pesos. We finally figured out the cost and came up with enough dollars to pay and not require any change.

We got our food and sat down to eat, and within 5 minutes met the owner of the restaurant who spoke perfect English. I asked him how old this building was and inquired about the domed ceiling. He told us that the ceiling was only 5 years old and was done by one man and a helper. He built it up from each corner, a little at a time, and in one week finished not only this one, but an identical one right along side of the one pictured.

After lunch we walked to the square.














































So much unemployment - one of the favorite pastimes is a friendly game of dominoes with your buddies under the trees in the town plaza.



Tecate beer chairs - the plant is located just a few blocks away.























































Passports in hand, we head back to the USA.

Photos - Running the Numbers

Running the Numbers II
Portraits of global mass culture

Digital artist looks at how much we consume photographically.

View Chis Jordan's Web Site HERE then click on Running the Numbers II.


From his web site:
This new series looks at mass phenomena that occur on a global scale. Similarly to the first Running the Numbers series, each image portrays a specific quantity of something: the number of tuna fished from the world's oceans every fifteen minutes, for example. But this time the statistics are global in scale, rather than specifically American.

Finding meaning in global mass phenomena can be difficult because the phenomena themselves are invisible, spread across the earth in millions of separate places. There is no Mount Everest of waste that we can make a pilgrimage to and behold the sobering aggregate of our discarded stuff, seeing and feeling it viscerally with our senses.

Fire Photos from Spain

Fires around the Mediterranean

From the BIG PICTURE , check out the fires in Spain HERE. Seems like California is not alone in the never ending battle.

National City Heritage Days August 2, 2009

Car collectors and automotive enthusiasts gathered at National City’s Kimball Park for the Eighteenth Annual Automobile Heritage Day on Sunday, August 2nd in National City. Automobile Heritage Day celebrates the City’s rich automotive history. The event is free to the public and started with a parade at 9:00 a.m. at Papa Gallo’s on Cleveland Ave. and 20th Street, and ended at Kimball Park behind City Hall at National City Blvd and Civic Center Drive. The car show was from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

Photographic Quote for the day

If your a fan of the the old west or the Starz Encore channel that shows old western movies you may have heard of or seen Bob Boze Bells. He does true facts stories on the the western channel between movies and publishes "True West Magazine". Currently he is working on 10,000 bad images, a self assigned project. This could be a good photo project! Check out his blog and artwork project HERE.

Here is the quote from his site.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Pots And Pans?
A photographer is invited to a friends dinner party. He brings along some new images to show his host. The host looks at the photos and exclaims, "These are wonderful! You must have a very good camera." The photographer says thank you and the evening continues. After dinner, the photographer turns to his host and remarks, "The food was wonderful, you must own some very good pots and pans."