More Chronicle Adventures

It's Monday which means back to work (thankfully). I am starting to get my bearings inside the SF Chronicle building and I keep finding out about other locations we service which are nearby. Today I got to go to the Chronicle office in the City Hall building!
Sagar, one of the network guys here (and a fellow contractor I found out today) was working a ticket in tandem with me for loss of network connectivity and he was planning to go down to take a look so I asked if I could join him. He was glad to have the company and the extra hands and brain. It's about six blocks to that building from the one on Mission where I work. An interesting fact for all my Floridian friends - shade matters a lot more here. In the shade of the tall buildings at 10AM, it was rather chilly and I was glad to have my leather, but as soon as we broke free of the shade, the 62 degree temperature was perfect sans jacket.

We entered the building which is gorgeous inside and out and had to go through a metal detector. Then we entered the main area of the building which is really ornate and beautiful.




While Sagar was troubleshooting, I stepped outside to make a phone call. Check out how awesomely old school their doors are:


They were the same inside as well. Very Bewitched, don't you think? Darren would be happy to call that his office door!

Once we fixed the issue, we were on our way for the walk back to the office. As we left the building and stopped for coffee, we couldn't help but notice the HUGE and decidedly odd looking sculpture nearby.

It's hard to see in that picture, but trust me it's big and weird. We decided to walk back via a different route which was fine with me, and on the way we stopped to get a closer look.


Here is some information about the statue:

Three-story, 15-ton "Three Heads Six Arms," by artist Zhang Huan in Civic Center Plaza. Three Heads Six Arms was inspired by Zhang's discovery of the fingers of ancient, partially-destroyed Buddhist sculptures on sale in a Tibetan market in the wake of China's Cultural Revolution. The fingers of Buddhist deities are full of different spiritual meanings depending on what gestures they are making. Zhang felt that combining these desecrated parts would alleviate the pain their destruction caused, so he created one large deity based upon the fragments he had come upon in that Tibetan market so long ago.

I read the plaque at the statue and it sounded more like these were actual remnants of destroyed Buddhist monuments but now I'm thinking he based the idea upon actual fragments he found. The point of the piece is unity and that seems like a good reason to make art. There's always something new and interesting happening in my life lately and that's a good thing!