This tale of an attempted home break-in was posted this morning on the Bernalsafe mailing list. It’s a reminder about the importance of vigilance, and keeping an eye out for one another in our glamorous little neighborhood. Let’s be careful out there! (Reposted by permission.)

Sunday, Jan 2nd two young males attempted to break-in to our house in the middle of the day. It was around 1pm and my neighbor saw two males lingering on our corner, checking in the windows and touching the door-knob.

She watched them prepare, make sure no one was home, move their car into our driveway, pick up a knife and prepare to go in the window. Thankfully she was extra-alert (as all good neighbors are) and called 911. She remained on the phone with the police until they arrived and apprehended the two young men.

This is especially concerning since it happened in the middle of the day on a fairly busy street. Our house is on the corner of Anderson and Eugenia, so fairly exposed.

We were so thankful that no one was hurt and no property was damaged, but obviously still shaken by the attempt. Just wanted all neighbors to know and remember to take whatever precautions you can.

Photo: Burgled from the Internets

Last weekend on the Huffington Post, Toan Lam, the founder of GoInspireGo.com, published an article and video about Herman Travis, an unemployed construction worker who delivers food to 60 elderly Bernal Heights residents who live along the west side of Holly Park:

Travis partnered up with the S.F. Food Bank to make this do-good deed possible. For the past three years, a truck has dropped off 1,300 pounds of food at the Holly Courts low-income housing complex where he lives. A handful of volunteers help Travis sort and pack brown paper grocery bags. He loads his cart and off he goes, on his three-hour mission to feed his neighbors.

“I don’t know how we would express it, except for saying that we would be completely lost without him,” Bebe Castaine, 81, said.

But besides feeding their stomachs, he also feeds their spirits. Everyone who answers the door beams with excitement, the smiles overflow.

“He spoils me rotten by coming to my door. And he’s always positive, he’s always got something nice to say. So I enjoy him,” said 93-year-old Millie Sheehy, who smiles wide and giggles like a schoolgirl when her “No. 1” drops by.

Here’s the video:

They’re on the hunt to find a new ED at BHNC.

Even if you don’t plan to apply, the job description provides an interesting peek inside the organization:

Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center (“BHNC”) is a membership-based nonprofit organization founded in 1978. BHNC works to preserve and enhance the ethnic, cultural, and economic diversity of Bernal Heights and surrounding neighborhoods. It promotes community action to build a just and equitable community for all. BHNC focuses on the needs of people with low and moderate incomes. The organization works to accomplish its mission by developing affordable housing throughout San Francisco; providing linguistically and culturally responsive services to the community’s most vulnerable adults, seniors, youth, and their families, and developing leaders; organizing and empowering our tenants, clients, members, and allies to advocate for their needs and for the needs of the community.

BNHC’s annual operating budget is approximately $2.5 million, and its affiliated housing corporations have an aggregate operating budget of $5 million, in addition to the BHNC operating budget. The organizations have combined assets of approximately $48 million, and operating reserves of approximately $460,000. Funding for BHNC comes from a variety of sources including approximately:

• 35% from government sources;
• 30% from foundations and corporations;
• 4% from membership and individuals;
• 4% from special events; and
• 27% from earned income and other sources, including a significant amount of in-kind contributions, primarily from volunteer hours.

Photo: Dennis Yang

Will the “dashing architect” who had a conversation outside Wild Side West last week please pick up the white courtesy phone?

Hi, I met you outside of Wildside West on the night before New Years Eve. We discussed raw denim, architecture firms, etc. I felt like we had a connection, but I stupidly forgot to get your number. I would love to reconnect and go out some time. This is my first foray into Craigslist “missed connections,” but I am putting my faith into modern social networking. Here goes nothing!

Photo: Lindsay & Ashleigh

Happy Holidays from all of us at Bernalwood.

We’ll be taking it slow during the week ahead, with reduced posting volume until the New Year. Hope you’ll be taking it slow too. Enjoy the season, and enjoy the neighborhood!

Photo: Precita Avenue, by Telstar Logistics

In case you missed it, here are two local views of last night’s lunar eclipse, which looked haunting and spooky through the occasional clouds that passed over Bernal Heights.

Photos: Top, Bhautik Joshi. Bottom, Cassidy Curtis

Burrito Justice, the uppity chief spokesperson for the uppity La Lenguans, has created a pleasing new map of San Francisco that brings linear order to our nonlinear city and geographic clarity to anyone who simply has a hard time keeping track of which neighborhood is which:

After at least 300 interations, behold a poster of my San Francisco map — if neighborhoods were islands, and streets canals.

Order on Zazzle — 23″ x 23″ for $25, 15″ x 15″ for $16. 11″ x 11″ for $11.

Still time to ship for Christmas! (Or start a tradition of giving maps in the New Year!)

Here’s a close-up of the most attractive and interesting part, Bernal Heights:

Note also that the map indicates La Lengua has chosen to align itself as a contiguous vassal of The Mission, when in fact it is a contiguous vassal of Bernalwood. Must be some sort of mistake.

Did anyone notice a spaceship hovering over Precita Avenue, just west of Folsom? (There’s been no mention of it among the excitable crowd at bernalsafe.) And if so, did you happen to see it beam a Christmas tree into this apartment?

The residents of this place have displayed their trippy blacklit Close Encounters of the Christmas Kind tree for the last several years, and it gets a little bit better every year.

To fully appreciate it, however, you really must see it in motion. So here’s a sidewalk video of the 2010 Edition, for your extraterrestrial enjoyment:

To everyone and anyone who helps maintain that fantastic stone labyrinth up on Bernal Hill… Respect!

Image: Telstar Logistics

The Bernal Heights Collective is a dispensary that operates from a storefront on 29th Street, just west of Mission. Given the location, it should properly be called the La Lengua Collective, but we’ll let that that drop for now.

Harder to ignore are the vivid photos of the merchandise BHC posts on its website. Prop 19 might have failed at the polls, but the BHC website is a fascinating document, and a salient reminder that we live in interesting times.

Yet not only does the Bernal Heights Collective publish eye-popping online galleries of their product inventory, but if you’re on the hunt for stocking stuffers that will be a big hit (no pun intended) with the family back home in Oklahoma, consider picking up a few of BHC’s wholesome-looking knit hats, aka “Bernal Beanies.”

Or perhaps a sporty t-shirt that’s perfect for playing a few sets of tennis at the club?

All this, and more, from our eponymous weedmonger. They’ve got souvenirs of San Francisco your kinfolk will cherish for generations!

Meet Brady Bear, the “King of Bernal Heights.”

Who made him king? I didn’t vote for him!

This is the sort of unfortunate thing that happens when you give a dog a blog:

I’m the king of Bernal Heights .. HEAR ME … arf.

It was just another beautiful day in San Francisco. Mommy & daddy decided to take me along for their hike at Bernal Heights Park. It’s on Bernal Heights Blvd if you ever want to go check it out. I sniffed .. I mean, I met tons of other doggies. We all smelled each other’s butts. That’s how we get to know each other. It would be weird if humans did that…

Anyway, I’m glad it’s still winter.. but today felt like spring! It was breezy and warm. We went on a 45 minute hike on Bernal Hill. The view was magnificent! We saw the  downtown skyline, golden gate bridge .. just about every neighborhood in dear San Francisco. Oh, did you know San Francisco was named the 2nd most beautiful city in the WORLD?! Holy moly….. I think it should be #1! Whatever Paris is…. that made it to the top.