Semper Wakey Wakey
Aug. 30th, 2008 07:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdymonkeyIt's 0800 hours.
How do I know this? Because the sound of a canned bugle playing "Reveille" just drifted in the window from the USMC/Naval Reserve Center that's barely a block from my place. It's not annoyingly loud or anything, it's just part of the ambient street sounds of what is otherwise a pretty quiet neighborhood. I rather like it and I'll certainly take that over members of The Deaf Generation blazing up Willow Avenue with painfully loud sound systems cranked to 11.
Steve, the downstairs tenant with the shiny Harley and lavishly inked forearms, is a Coastie. I discovered this one morning when he was taking out the trash in uniform. He has a nice, short commute - I can see Coast Guard Island in the channel between Alameda and Oakland from my bedroom window.
When I took this apartment a couple of years ago, I didn't really know much about Alameda. The rent was right, I liked the neighborhood. It's just inevitable that a history buff begins to look further.
When Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was made in the 1980s, Alameda Naval Air Station was still an active base. Interestingly, the carrier USS Enterprise was in the Pacific during this period and I found an article indicating it had run aground in San Francisco Bay while returning from deployment right around the time that movie was being made. (Other movie trivia - the film's so called "Cetacean Institute" scenes were filmed at Monterey Bay Aquarium, some three hours south of San Francisco. Oh for a transporter!)
We don't keep nuclear wessels here any more: the NAS was decommissioned eleven years ago. Now the Mythbusters blow things up on the old airstrip, when the antiques fair isn't planted on it. People are living in some of the former officers' housing and several of the old hangars are being used by local businesses - St. George Distilleries/Hangar One Vodka, Rosenbloom Cellars, the Bladium Sports Complex. I take taiko classes in the old Officer's Club. A lot of old buildings stand empty and neglected. There are plans for more development on what is now referred to as Alameda Point, but with the economy in its present state, not much seems to be happening at the moment.
(Geez, all this because of "Reveille.")
How do I know this? Because the sound of a canned bugle playing "Reveille" just drifted in the window from the USMC/Naval Reserve Center that's barely a block from my place. It's not annoyingly loud or anything, it's just part of the ambient street sounds of what is otherwise a pretty quiet neighborhood. I rather like it and I'll certainly take that over members of The Deaf Generation blazing up Willow Avenue with painfully loud sound systems cranked to 11.
Steve, the downstairs tenant with the shiny Harley and lavishly inked forearms, is a Coastie. I discovered this one morning when he was taking out the trash in uniform. He has a nice, short commute - I can see Coast Guard Island in the channel between Alameda and Oakland from my bedroom window.
When I took this apartment a couple of years ago, I didn't really know much about Alameda. The rent was right, I liked the neighborhood. It's just inevitable that a history buff begins to look further.
When Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was made in the 1980s, Alameda Naval Air Station was still an active base. Interestingly, the carrier USS Enterprise was in the Pacific during this period and I found an article indicating it had run aground in San Francisco Bay while returning from deployment right around the time that movie was being made. (Other movie trivia - the film's so called "Cetacean Institute" scenes were filmed at Monterey Bay Aquarium, some three hours south of San Francisco. Oh for a transporter!)
We don't keep nuclear wessels here any more: the NAS was decommissioned eleven years ago. Now the Mythbusters blow things up on the old airstrip, when the antiques fair isn't planted on it. People are living in some of the former officers' housing and several of the old hangars are being used by local businesses - St. George Distilleries/Hangar One Vodka, Rosenbloom Cellars, the Bladium Sports Complex. I take taiko classes in the old Officer's Club. A lot of old buildings stand empty and neglected. There are plans for more development on what is now referred to as Alameda Point, but with the economy in its present state, not much seems to be happening at the moment.
(Geez, all this because of "Reveille.")
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-30 04:41 pm (UTC)I think I heard they have swing dances ocasionally there too.
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Date: 2008-08-31 12:24 am (UTC)I also need to set aside a day to take my camera out and do an architectural shoot - there are some beautiful old homes here.
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Date: 2008-08-30 05:51 pm (UTC)Timing is Everything
Date: 2008-08-31 03:16 am (UTC)BTW, did you know most of the whale scenes were special effects (not real whales) at least that is what I recall being told.