For Kerry Ann, a tour of San Francisco from a real lifelong San Franciscan local who takes friends on his patented tour and gladly dedicates this one to Kerry Ann. I took all the photos myself.

#forkerryann #forkerryanne #forkerry Welcome to San Francisco, Kerry Ann. Near the geographical center of the city stands Twin Peaks. It is preserved as a public park with commanding views of almost the entire city. Here you are looking northeast and can see the bright and broad street, our main drag, Market Street, leading to downtown and the financial district. The cozy neighborhoods in the foreground are Upper Market on the left, and the Castro (yes, that Castro! :) on the right.

OK, I didn't take this one. Here we are, in all our 7 mile x 7 mile glory. The roughly triangular park at the city's top center is Park Presidio, a former military base, and you can see the Golden Gate bridge leaping northward from it. Just to the left of Park Presidio is Point Lobos / Seal Rocks. Below it, at middle left, the huge rectangle is Golden Gate Park. Below GGP, on the lower left, is Lake Merced, our only remaining natural lake. We will use it for emergency water when the earthquake hits. Our left edge is Ocean Beach, nothing but beautiful ocean until you hit Japan. Upper right is downtown. From downtown, you can see the Oakland Bay Bridge going straight for Yerba Buena (Spanish for "Good Herb"), a natural island to which the Navy attached that octagonal island as a military base. Between that, and the Golden Gate Bridge, you can see Alcatraz.

Our left edge, Ocean Beach, much beloved by surfers and a very fine dining spot for Great White sharks, who only deign to dine on the finest of surfer meat. :) Even our sharks are gourmands. At extreme left you can see the trees that shelter the San Francisco Zoo, near Lake Merced. The sand berm that divides the beach from the city is raised because there's a sewer tunnel of some kind underneath it. The berm also helps, a little, to shield us from blowing sand. If you could look further to the right, you'd see Point Lobos and Seal Rocks.

A meadow in Golden Gate Park. They have picnic tables with bbq grills set up for people to just amble in and have themselves a day in the sun, like my wife and I did this day.

Let me take you and your husband out to Giorgio's, best pizza in my neighborhood (The Richmond, next to Golden Gate park) and local date night hot spot for kids from Washington High, my alma mater. This is the place I took my wife on our first date. Get the calzone KerryAnn, it's good.

I'm going for the you-are-there feeling in this picture. This is in the Sunset district, the large hood immediately south of Golden Gate Park, whose trees you can see at the end of this street. This is a typical inner Sunset street, houses all different colors but all making at least a respectful reference to our Victorian style.

Union Square last Christmas. It was dedicated in the 1800s to celebrate / support (not sure which) the Union of the States, as opposed to the Confederacy. The cable car travels right part the square, which is surrounded by fru fru shops. You can see the temporary ice rink, obviously, and the tree. What you might not be able to spot are these large heart-shaped sculptures, covered with beautiful artistic paintings as an homage to Tony Bennett's "I left my heart in San Francisco".

The Richmond district sits between Golden Gate Park and The Presidio. This is Geary, the main drag. There are tons of Chinese restaurants and little businesses here. This was a couple of weeks ago, I was leaving the bank and noticed the pretty clouds.

Tropical birds in SF? Yes! At the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate park, an approximately 6-storey glass sphere contains a rainforest, complete with unspeakably humid weather, butterflies, birds, lizards, snakes; everything. It feels like walking into the movie Pandora. The Academy has displays on astronomy, complete with a vertigo-inducing planetarium, geology, evolution, rocks, earthquakes, and much more.

It also houses a spectacular aquarium, with many huge tanks and many windows like this one, looking out onto various marine and river environments. There is a simulacrum of the Amazon river, with huge windows looking out onto rotting logs and bizarre river fish. One part even has alligators, one of them an albino one.

This is the African Hall. It contains dioramas showing lions, hyenas, and ... giraffes!

Here we are sorta near the Pacific Heights area (where Mrs Doubtfire was set), looking down on the Marina neighborhood. The Marina suffered the most during the '89 quake because, as you can see, it is flatland. The reason for that is that all the rubble from the 1906 earthquake and fire was dumped off our north shore, and a neighborhood was built upon it. It's landfill. Therefore, it shakes like a bowl of jelly during a quake. Nevertheless, it is our most hip, trendy, trust fund baby, wealthy neighborhood and boasts excellent restaurants and heart-breakingly charming architecture. In the '89 quake, a whole house's facade of bricks fell just a few feet in front of me, with much tonnage and profound impact.

Downtown SF, technically this is SOMA (South of Market Street). It used to be skid row 30 or 40 years ago but has become slowly gentrified and tech-ified. That's Market Street, going left-to-right, at the end of this street. The weird square atop that building used to be a rotating restaurant. It was one of my go-to places to take visiting friends. They shut it down because it became too expensive to fix the rotating mechanism. See that brick building on the right? We're going inside next.

From the brick building you can see the Oakland / Bay Bridge slamming into Yerba Buena island.

Even paradise has its painful moments. During a commute home, the light rail vehicle dumped us out early and told us to wait for the next train. At least I get to show you Sunset Boulevard, going left-to-right in this picture. It connects Golden Gate Park with Lake Merced. If you really care to go blind looking at the satellite picture, it's the green vertical line in the left third of the image. It's six lanes surrounded by a very wide area filled with grass and trees. Way at the very end of the line? The pacific ocean.

This is the boundary between the Mission District (burritos!!!!) and the Castro. It holds Dolores park, which used to be pretty empty when I was a kid but is now filled every sunny weekend with techies enjoying the weather. Here my wife and I are enjoying the Blue Angels show, when a squadron of jet fighters buzz the city and make everything shake in a very thrilling way.

A cute, very quiet cul-de-sac street overlooking the Mission. Way in the back, the rounded facade in front of the brick building is the new Zuckerberg wing of the SF General Hospital. Mark Zuckerberg lives in the area, and donated the new wing.

The old and the new. That foreground building probably dates from the early 20th, if not 19th, century. Meanwhile, we have the cold precision of the new. I vote for the former, personally. This is in SOMA, near the jailhouse. When it was built, the cost overruns were so huge that our local wag, the revered Herb Caen, dubbed it "The Glamor Slammer". All very apropos, since the jail is not in this picture, but I thought I'd throw that in for local color. :)

Just any old corner in downtown SF. I can practically hear Petula Clark singing "Downtown" when I look at this picture. Yes, with that reference, I am dating myself. But I always say, if you're not willing to date yourself then nobody else will date you.

A quiet little retreat deep inside Golden Gate Park. Officially, it is inside the Arboretum section, sort of a museum of plants and trees where you can see different plants from all over the world. Technically, this is a Japanese-style moon-watching garden. It is situated so you can see the moon coming up among the trees. I had a neighbor and friend whom I taught martial arts, and we used to jog to this spot which we used as a dojo to practice our skillz. :)

I run the unofficial alumni association for Washington High, and we former classmates decided to go on a photography jaunt around the arboretum. The organizer, now a professional photographer, told us to use black and white when the flowers had contrasting colors, so here is my attempt.

What, you tought I wouldn't take you to the Golden Gate Bridge? What kind of monster do you take me for? :) Beyond the bridge is the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, a vast wild land with many, many fine attractions worthy of a post all their own. You could take a day trip to Mount Tamalpais, or to Point Reyes, or to Sausalito. I proposed to my wife on Mt Tam at sunset.

From one of the taller vantage points in downtown, here is everything from the ferry building at lower left, to Berkeley and Oakland in the hazy distance, to the Bay Bridge on the right.

The wonderfully old-west / Victorian architechture of the Mission neighborhood. I thought you might like to see a number of shots showing what it's like to just be standing here, on a sidewalk, enjoying the night air and strolling down the sidewalk. This is me going on a burrito mission one dusk a few weeks ago.

And here we are almost back at the beginning again. Obviously I have only scratched the surface, as there is more to see and do than you can shake a banana at. This is the Great Highway, going left to right, which hugs Ocean Beach and faces the endless sea. The Great Highway forms part of the Pan-American Highway which goes from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. As you see this, I hope you can almost smell the clean salt air. And what lies just over the street?

Goodnight from San Francisco.

Cat tax. This is our much-beloved and ironically-named Bruiser. He has cancer, too. As you can see, he lost one front leg to it. We hoped the cancer was gone for good, but it returned. He is a very loving cat full of personality who nevertheless seems to be sticking around for the long haul. Bruiser sends his heartfelt wishes for your well-being and he hopes that you and yours will see San Francisco for yourselves one day.