Bay to Breakers 2007

Today was the annual Bay to Breakers race, a 7.46 mile trek from the bay to the ocean. Every year, tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of people come out in costume to participate in this event. Some typical costumes: a rolling tiki bar (with bartenders and kegs inside), the Mona Lisa, jailbirds, super heroes, doctors (proctologist with funny names), cartoon characters, naked people, a group of Elvis impersonators, a school of Salmon that swim "upstream" from the end of the race to the beginning, the bacon delivery guy, and thousands of other brilliant, witty, and creative costumes. Of course it's San Francisco, so many of the costumes are plays on words, like the Deli Lama (a monk with lunch meat all over him). It's an affair that should not be missed. Even if you don't want to make the trek, grab a lawn chair or someones front steps and park yourself there for a few hours to watch the madness. People watching doesn't get any better than this.. (pics from past years..)




This year, instead of participating in this festive event, I was here:


Okay, not in that machine specifically, but in an MRI machine just like it! (Seriously, that room has such a magnetic force, it would have swallowed my camera whole!) If you haven't had the pleasure of having one, they lay you down on a tray and slide you into a narrow tunnel (the diameter is roughly the size of my shoulders), you lay still for 20 minutes, you hear loud buzzing sounds, they pull you out, inject you with some magnetic solution, stick you back in and zap you for another 10 minutes. It's not so bad if you have ear plugs and are not claustrophobic. Hopefully this machine will give me the answers to the lingering back pain question. Come ON big bad machine. Do your stuff.