I don't even know where to start. Firstly, New Year's eve was kinda anti-climatic, because of all the new coverage for every other time zone on the planet that came before us. Also, there was all that fear of rioting (hence the boarded up windows all over downtown as a precaution), but no riots happened. No power failures, no computer glitches, no plane crashes. Boo! But the fireworks were quite cool, and so was the critical mass ride.  ^ site map

Here we are downtown with 250,000 of our closest friends about 10 minutes before midnight.

Curtis on new years eve day in front of the boarded-up old navy. Starbucks boarded up, but hired artists to decorate their plywood. Macy's and Sac's 5th painted their wood complimentary colors, and none of it was necessary.

<< Critical mass riding down market street after riding through the castro. About 1,000 riders joined in at the ride's peak.

Critical Mass is a bicycle advocacy/anarchy group that rides through the streets of San Fran the last friday of each month, thwarting traffic and raising awareness of cycling as a way to get around. It was Kelly's third ride, and Brian's first. We had a blast.

<< brian trying to hold a spot in the crowd. It was total insanity.

The fireworks arrive. More than we've ever seen in our lives. It was pretty darned spectacular.

<< the fireworks display was impressive, and i have high standards being from the Couve!

fred and nadine were with us for part of the evening, as was curtis, but we lost each other in the massive crowd. luckily we found each other on our way back home.

curtis ran into a group of english boys he'd met several nights earlier and they all stopped by for a little while to regroup before going out dancing. it's great having people over, we were too messed up to go dancing with them, though.