At the corner of Bush and Kearny Streets around 4:50 p.m. yesterday, a man is dialing a number on his cell phone in his right hand. His left arm is outstretched, his index and middle finger are raised, like a victory or peace sign. I was about to crack a joke about him getting better cell reception with his arm raised like that, but then he began waving it frantically. I realized he was trying to hail a cab. After 4:00 p.m. On a Friday. In downtown San Francisco.

That was even funnier than holding his arm up to get better cell reception.

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You may have heard that there was an explosion in an underground transformer in San Francisco's Financial District yesterday. I rarely venture out during the day because I either don't eat lunch at all or I bring it from home (unless there's something out in the kitchen at the office) now that most of my Travel & Entertainment budget goes to AC Transit tickets. So I missed most of the excitement.

By 5:00, some streets had reopened, but traffic was still bad (well, Friday evening it's always bad). The situation was not helped by the platoon of TV vans and satellite trucks that continued to clog the streets and sidewalks, some seven hours after the explosion. Reporters prepped and primped before their next live report from the scene. But what scene? It had been SEVEN HOURS since there was a scene! This was no longer the scene of a breaking news story: It was a media vigil over a hole in the ground (that they couldn't even get to because the immediate area was still cordoned off).

I grew more irritated as I passed by more preening reporters and ducked out of more live shots. Then I saw him. He waited patiently near the KRON van for Vic Lee's next live feed, his sign ("Y-3" was all I could make out) resting on his shoulder. Almost always dressed in a suit and well-worn shoes, these events that attract flocks of news crews to downtown San Francisco are custom-made for him. It seems he's always on the spot ready to appear on camera, his sign usually appearing over some hapless reporter's head, like those really badly composed photos in the family album where Uncle Barney has a telephone pole growing out of his head. Frank Chu can work a camera. And he always makes me smile!