As the clock finally struck to 12:10, the iconic hospital building at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital finally came down with a thunderous implosion. It marks the beginning of SunCal’s redevelopment plans for the site after being in limbo brought in by Lehman Brother’s bankruptcy, beginning with community action legally binding the corporate giant to maintain the lots with security and culminating with the destruction of the hospital building.

But at the far end of the site, the former Officer’s Club lies unattended, alone. It’s one of the only remaining buildings left standing and one from its era as a golf course. The developers plan on retrofitting and renovating the grand Spanish style house by replacing it’s heating and cooling systems, adding in new electrical lines stolen by copper thieves and fixing its leaky roof. The 10 million dollar renovation could start as soon as next year, depending on what the courts say in the bankruptcy cases and what the market looks like. Pat Keliher, the project manager from SunCal, says they’re commtted to preserving the building.

Thing is, no one knows what the building will be used for. City Councilmember Larry Reid says the building will house a new community center filled with agencies located only in Downtown Oakland. But as Keliher admits, he doesn’t know what will be in store for the building.

“It has to be financially viable”, says Keliher. “This has to be figured out in a conversation between us and the City.”

Area resident Don Mitchell says people in the community want the building preserved as it was a venue for weddings and community functions during the base’s life. But he argues that if it isn’t financially viable in the future, SunCal “ought to just tear it down”.

Keliher admits the preservation of the Officer’s Club is part of a bigger move to maintain some of the history that took place at Oak Knoll. As part of that package, new hiking trails will be added around the property and a creek that ran through the base will be restored, costing suncal another estimated $6 Million. Along the creek, placards with memorials and exercise stations will commemorate those who served at the former base.

As part of the total use of the 167 acres, Keliher says it be of mixed use. Plans include a shopping center, single family homes and affordable housing. The federal Credit Union and the Seneca Center will remain on site.

View more photos at The East Bay Express

View a video of the implosion at Youtube

After a 6 million dollar contribution by Measure B voters to Chabot College, renovations are nearly wrapping up for Applied Technology division classrooms. And while fixes in Building 1400 are still a bit far from being complete, instructor Ashley Long is already reaping the rewards of a brand new classroom. He teaches the advanced level machining courses that deal with the 3d manufacturing with metal, but up until this past summer his classes were still being taught in the crowded machining areas of building 1400 where half his class would have to sit behind machinery unable to even see half of his class.

But after being a month overdue, Long’s new classroom is as state-of-the-art as it gets.

“I couldn’t see anybody, when I would sit down I couldn’t see any of the students, and they couldn’t see me. Now with me in the back here, I could look while I talk to them and have them follow along on the screen,” says Long while describing his old classroom in building 1400. “It’s turned out really great, better than I could hope for.”

Located in the back of the 1600 building, the new machining classrooms have some of the latest in manufacturing industry technology available and in use around major companies in the western United States. The newest addition to the arsenal of tools is a several hundred thousand dollar lathe that is able to use all three dimensions of movement to carve and construct complex pieces of metal. To compliment the added hardware, brand new computers loaded with new CAD software is being used to teach students on the programming methods needed to accurately carve out blocks of meal into new parts, such as a head gasket.

The real world application, says Long, has lead to a high rate of success for students in the manufacturing industry and he often gets calls from local companies seeking new employees.

“I had an alum student come in the other night, at the place where he works at they have 11 of our previous students working and they’re looking for a couple more. So he comes in ….and he looks around and says ‘Hey this is great! I may have to take another couple classes!” says Long.

According to Applied Technology and Business Dean Tom Clark, the renovations for the division’s class areas have totaled up to 5 million, with another 1.4 million already committed to further improvements. The newer equipment in the machining classrooms had been financially secured over the past five years and offer the most current standards in tooling.

Students who’ve been at Chabot College for the past few years may have noticed the overwhelming amount of renovations occurring at any given moment as facilities are modernized with funds gathered from Measure B. The latest in this new round of reconstruction will result in the closure of building 1200, where classes have already been rerouted and starting in October, the building will be cordoned off to the public.

Thanks to the elimination of the major hallways that intersected the building, more rehearsal and band classrooms will be added to the building’s plan. The savings in space will allow for more rooms and added space for the Jazz and the Band room, where space will be almost doubled. The Lecture and Recital hall at the end of 1200 will upgraded with newer tech and newer decorations. The Piano room will also benefit from these rearrangements, the current room is much too small for smaller pianos and the new one will be able to hold spaces for up to 30 pianos.

A new, modern recording studio will be added in a new extension to the building that will be built in part of the loading dock parking lot. It’ll be a completely new building, says School of the Arts Dean Gary Carter and the school plans on bringing industry artists to record there so students can get industry experience.

The Little Theater will also finally get its own lobby and dressing rooms for actors performing on stage.

“This is a dramatic and drastic improvement for our music students,” says Carter.

But classroom modernization isn’t the only big thing coming to building 1200. As part of a campus wide art installation, a new human quilt piece will be installed on façade of the Little Theater entrance. It’s part of a 10 piece set going up around Chabot, and one of three winners chosen by the campus to be displayed under a new public art initiative.

“The work of art is called ‘Homecoming’”, says Zuliani. “But it won’t happen right away because the construction is going to block off access. That’ll be one of the later pieces to be installed.

Marisol Ponce / Hispanic:
I pretty much am concerned about how the media portrays my ethnic group. I am Mexican and most people when they write about Mexico they talk about how they take jobs and immigration. But people don’t usually write about the good things that they do.

Rachel / White:
I don’t think the media focuses enough on community outreach. I definitely don’t think the media depicts women very well in our society also there’s a lot of stigma towards ethnicity in the media. And I think it shouldn’t be like that.

Lorraine / Philippino
See, most Filipino girls when they’re out of high school people want them to be a nurse or see them as an RN. So I took that role, but that’s cause my parents they’re both nurses, it makes sense but that’s the type of stereotype people put out.

Derrick / Chinese
I feel like there isn’t much talk about colleges and how budget cuts are and what not. I know they talk a little bit about it, but not enough. So, we just have to inform all the students that we need more classes and to cut from somewhere else.

Anna / Mexican
And I guess media is talking about all the killings that are happening in all the [Mexican] states and the drug cartels and all that stuff. I guess it can be pretty upsetting to the people who live here because they migrated.

Joanna / South American
They don’t really talk about Chile unless there’s a disaster. They don’t really talk about any other government besides their own on the news, so it’s kind of fishy. It kind of sucks, because all of my family is down there and we’re the only ones here and it doesn’t give us enough information about the country and the only time we get any news is when there’s an earthquake or a tsunami or something like that. It kind of sucks. It’s kind of like that with all the other governments unless we’re infiltrating them, you know what I mean?

Brandon Davis / White:
I’m getting tired of seeing too many white people in the government. It’s big faces, the same people in the government over and over, I don’t like that. So diversity would be better.

Brandon Ekholm / White
I don’t think there’s enough coverage about Europe. They are not saying what’s happening in Ireland or Scotland, that really grinds my gears.
What’s going in Ireland?
I don’t know, that’s why I want to find out.

Jeffrey / Mexican and Nicaraguenese
I feel that the media doesn’t do enough to show enough of a positive outlook on latinos. Theres a lot of stigma towards particular ethnicities.

Andy / Chinese
They never write about the elections in China.

The Bay Area has a nation-wide reputation for being a progressive land devoid of old time American fashions. People wouldn’t watch NASCAR, it’s far too dirty for the environment and instead of having a moonshiner’s tradition, Marijuana is grown by the thousands. But even as car culture and street racing continues to fall under scrutiny, it would seem out of place that in the Mecca of American Liberalism a place where old fashioned vehicular carnage once operated out in the open.

Baylands Raceway in Fremont began its life in the 40s as a small airport, but after Union Pacific bought the land Baylands Raceway soon opened. The site had a ¼ mile drag racing strip as well as a racing oval like the one found at the former Altamont Speedway. It attracted racers from all over the Bay and even served as a venue for some record breaking runs.

Dave Evans was an on and off regular at Baylands from 1970 and onward until its closure in 1988. He’s also an employee at Vic Hubbard Auto Supply, a performance parts store that’s existed in Hayward since 1949.

“I’d say a higher percentage of people in the immediate Bay Area, we got a lot of people from across the Bay too,” says Evans. “Everyone went on a regular basis, even if it was a Wednesday night.”

For all of its years in existence and loyal supporters, conditions at Baylands remained largely the same as they were in decades before. The vehicle pits area were mainly gravel instead of pavement, and conditions seemed to deteriorate despite the attempts by the management to maintain the strip. It all came to a head when the NHRA pulled their sponsorship from Baylands due to unsafe conditions at the track. Without the support of the NHRA, Baylands fell even more into disrepair and when it came time to renegotiate the lease with land owners Union Pacific, the management team decided it wasn’t cost-effective to keep the dragstrip open.

“Baylands went away quietly and rapidly. No major press releases or noise were generated,” says Georgia Siepel, former management employee at Baylands and current Sears Point (Infineon) Raceway employee.

Today the space once occupied by Baylands Raceway is unmarked; nothing but weeds and rubble occupy it, the ground too contaminated for use. And the trend continues, in 2008 the Altamont Raceway closed down for good after nearly 40 years of operations. Even the Sports Car Club of America’s San Francisco Region chapter is having trouble finding venues to host its cost-effective autocross events, saying “they’re only going to keep disappearing.”

“It’d be easy to say, ‘Let’s take all of these street racing guys that are out there doing sideshows and stuff, and give them some place to go’, but I’m not sure that would occur,” says Evans.

A day of infamy for all East Coasters as chairs fell, cars shook and a child cried. Meanwhile, later that night, Bay Area residents had a smaller three-point-something earthquake that they later shrugged off.

DISCLAIMER: Due to other life circumstances and issues, I was not able to upload these photos after the party. It’s been an unexpectedly busy month and a half. Sorry!

So in October, Swag has it’s anniversary party with Labyrinth under the Mask in SF. The venue was slick, had multiple floors of music (the drum and bass/dubstep room was in a basement!), art installations and even an art car from Burning Man.

Awesome vibes throughout the whole, except for that DJ who got mad at me for getting his photo (sorry man!). Below are most of the pictures from the party, I have over 200 more to upload and available on a cd or email.

I still have some more to upload, for now enjoy!

I had the chance to test out my Canon 1D classic in a situation it’d needed to be the best at: car action! Despite being a small Norcal3S car meet, I convinced the guys at the meet to hop on the freeway and let me shoot their cars. The results, well, are awesome.

David’s 1st Generation 3000GT n/a

Tey’s ’92 3000GT VR4 (work in progess!)

Drew’s 91 Stealth TWIN TURBO!

The cars

You can view more at Norcal3s.com!

About a week before getting my Canon 1D, I was asked to take pictures at Hella Debaucherous. Borrowing the loaner Rebel XTi I suited up and took the rebel for one last glorious photo shoot. Do I miss the poor old Rebel workhorse? Not a bit. But these photos kinda remind me of a simpler time. Either way it was a great night, and it’s awesome to know there’s a great venue on this side of the Bay Area.

Kudos to the bar people and promoters!