June 28, 2026 · 22:19

99%+ Full

We’re within 24 hours now, with the exact time of the full Moon being 16:57 PDT tomorrow. The Moon will still be down below the horizon then for me, but those of you in Europe and on the East Coast can catch it.

For now, this is the closest it will get, rising at 99.4%+ full.

Having the foreground mountains on the horizon contribute to the “moonrise illusion,” making the moon look much larger than it is when it’s high overhead.

Also FYI, if you ever wonder why I hate AI and things like Copilot, when I first asked just now what the exact time for the next full Moon was, it told me “March 14, 2026.” Um… No! Then I asked for the exact percentage illuminated as of the time I took these pictures about two hours ago – CoPilot told me “The moon is currently about 76% illuminated.” There’s not a lot of subtlety or nuance in those questions, but CoPilot got them 100% WRONG, like, not even order of magnitude wrong. In this case I knew instantly that the answers had to be 100% bullshit and untrustworthy, but what about folks who might not be as in touch with the current status of our planetary neighbors, or me if I’m asking a question about something that I’m not as familiar with?

Go look at the Moon tomorrow night at sunset. It will be lovely. And never, EVER believe anything that AI tells you.

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Filed under AI, Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets

June 27, 2026 · 22:52

Getting Our Kicks

Today was The Long-Suffering Wife’s birthday (Happy Birthday! 🥳🎁🎂🍾❤️) and she wanted to go see the local Route 66 Museum. So, we did!

Route 66 is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and the Victor Valley area is one of many places in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois that it passed through. The primary highway from Chicago to Los Angeles before the interstate highway system was built post-WWII, it’s still a nostalgic icon for many.

So many artifacts and bits and pieces! It was great. Souveniers were bought. We’ll be back.

A good birthday was had by all.

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Filed under Photography, Ronnie

June 26, 2026 · 23:33

Faux Full

The Moon tends to look full when it’s still two or three days short – yet another lunar optical illusion.

Tonight we’re still 69-hours (three days) from the full phase, which will occur at about 16:57 PDT on Monday evening, June 29th.

Until then? Close enough for government work!

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets

June 25, 2026 · 22:20

Judgement

We do not have a cat.

We will not be getting a cat.

The “cat distribution system” is NOT operating in our yard.

We have a cool, shady back yard where a neighbor’s cat can lounge and watch birds and squirrels. Or terrorize them. Po-TAY-toe, po-TAH-toe…

We’ve seen it three or four times in the last month. Always lounging.

It shows no sign of wanting any attention or a new home. If I open the door or even turn the handle, it’s off like a shot.

Meanwhile, I’ve committed the ultimate sin by waking it from it’s splooty nap. There it is – the slittled eyes, the stare, the attitude, the judgement.

I’m sorry! I’ll go have myself flogged now and it will never happen again!

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Filed under Cats, Critters, Photography

June 24, 2026 · 23:12

Shoot Quick – You Might Hit Something

Yesterday I was walking through the kitchen as I usually do and I thought it was odd that there were no small birds visible near the feeders, no squirrels or pigeons on the ground – but there was a large bird on the back wall, over in the corner. Not a raven, but maybe…

I knew it would be gone if I opened the door, so I walked over to the breakfast nook windows while pulling out my phone and thumbing it on. Those windows have plantation shutters on them, but they were mostly tilted open, so I didn’t try to swing the shutters open or otherwise open them. I got the camera  app open on the phone and saw the bird launch just as I got to the window.

QUICK! Through the shutters, one shot, hoping I got lucky. I got a good look at the bird, definately a red-tailed hawk – and it was back this afternoon circling low over the dirt lots behind our house. (No pictures today.)

But yesterday…

Confirmed!

Be ready. Shoot quick. You might get lucky and hit something.

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Filed under Birds, Forever Home, Photography

June 23, 2026 · 22:43

A Magnificent Sunset Out Of Nowhere

After weeks and weeks of “clear and a gazillion” conditions, I was surprised to get a “Red Flag Warning” from the National Weather Service. A chance of thunderstorms, rain, high winds, and dry lightning that could spark brush fires.

Okay! The weather app went from 0.00% chance of rain to 15%. I was not holding my breath waiting for the gully washer, despite the fact that we started to pick up some clouds over the mountains. Then the clouds got thicker and started moving west.

Right about sundown…

It was unusual in that it wasn’t colored from north to south, pole to pole, but just in one narrow little spot. There might have been more clouds down over LA or Antelope Valley that were blocking all of the sunset rays except for through one little hole in the clouds. But the display it left on this end! WOW!

No enhancements, no editing, no filters, no effects. This is straight out of the phone, exactly the way it looked.

There were spots, like here on the right, where rain was falling, but it’s “virga,” rain that never hits the ground, evaporating before it can get there since it’s falling into such dry air.

The longer I looked, the more vibrant it looked.

I was out moving back and forth between the front yard and the back, taking pictures and trying to get the bird seed feeders refilled before it got dark. But every time I hung a feeder I had to stop with that task and start taking pictures again.

The birds were impatient (they have brains that are theeeeeeees small…) but I finally got it done.

From there it was time to grab The Long-Suffering Wife so she could see, and sit out in front to watch it finally peak and fade.

So with all of the clouds, grey or crimson, I wasn’t going to be seeing the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, or Mercury tonight. But this was a pretty great trade off. It’s acceptable. I’ll take it!

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather

June 22, 2026 · 23:58

Proof Of Life – June 22nd

Watching the LOTR movies after watching World Cup soccer all day, every time we wander into some castle or fortress where there’s a bunch of statues, I wonder why the statues doen’t all have orange traffic cones on top of them.

My brain is weird.

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Silly Shit

June 21, 2026 · 23:42

Proof Of Life – June 21st

I’m enjoying the World Cup matches, but I feel my brain melting and brain cells dying from the collection of truly STUPID ads. Gambling apps, which are simply evil incarnate. Royal Match & Candy Crush & all of their endless copycats, which are lower than whale shit in terms of redeeming value. Lotions and potions to cure non-existant conditions and make us miraculously all more beautiful, less wrinkled, in better shape, and with better hair. Lawyer ads that make all of the other ads look like film classics from Scorsese or Spielberg. And the worst of all, Scientology ads.

Normally I won’t watch shows that attract those kinds of ads – I figure if the advertisers are targeting that demographic, and I desperately want to avoid being part of that demographic, I’ll just move along and watch something else. I’m a little bit baffled to see the soccer games being targeted by these ads, but figuring the whys and wherefores of that one is above my pay grade.

It does help a lot to watch the Spanish networks. I know enough Spanish to pick up about one word in twenty, and they talk REALLY fast, but I can follow the game from the level of screaming and in the end that’s all that really counts. They may be having some ads for really stupid stuff (telanovas?) but I can just ignore them and let ignorance be bliss.

Which, in the bigger picture, is not a bad strategy. With everything going on in politics and the psychotic lunatics running our country into the ground, ignorance has a lot of appeal.

Hell is not being able to turn away and accept that ignorance, while also not being able to change anything or fix any of the problems.

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Politics, Sports

June 20, 2026 · 23:37

Happy Solstice 2026

In about two hours as I write this, at 01:21 AM PDT on Sunday, June 21st (08:24 UTC), we’ll be at the summer solstice, where the Sun appears at it’s most northern point and the hours of daylight are at their maximum in the Northern Hemisphere and at their shortest in the Southern Hemisphere.

I spent much of the day making plans and reservations for July. Since we’ve been up here in Hesperia, we haven’t been to an Angels game in Anaheim, and we haven’t seen fireworks. With the upcoming July 4th weekend, we’re going to go down the hill for the entire three-day, three-game series against the Red Sox, with fireworks every night.

July 21st will be our 25th wedding anniversary for the Long-Suffering Wife and me, we’re looking at a couple of days in Las Vegas (where we went on our honeymoon) to celebrate.

And July 22nd is the one-year anniversary of us closing escrow and moving into our Forever Home, that we’re still in love with. Not sure how to “celebrate” that – maybe by finishing up some of the still pending unpacking tasks…

What else can the next six weeks hold in terms of celebrations and joyous occasions? I can think of a couple of my wish list, for which we have multiple bottles of champagne chilling 24/7/365. C’mon Fates, let’s make it happen!!!

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Filed under Paul, Photography

June 19, 2026 · 22:50

Today’s Backyard Mystery

Out on the pergola I have a lounge chair to plotz in. It’s fairly heavy, and it’s normally a foot or so from the edge with the back against the cinder blocks and one of the support posts for the pergola to block it from sliding. Plus, the floor isn’t smooth, it’s ribbed with the planks that make up the floor. The short version is that it’s not that easy to move, even when I want to move it.

This morning everything was normal at 9:00-ish when I went out for breakfast. But about 10:45, it was cattywampus.

No harm, but my brain immediately went to, “What moved it?” Up here the wind is always a suspect, but the winds were calm. I hadn’t heard any of the wind chimes going off, and none of the other lawn chairs or anything else in the back yard had been disturbed.

No way that the squirrels could have pushed it or moved it, even if all dozen of them had pushed at once. And they were out there looking at it like they were wondering what was going on also.

Birds? The biggest we normally see are the pigeons, but they’re always on the turf, not on the chairs. What’s on the chairs are the sparrows and wrens, but they’re all way too small.

I guess it might have been one of the ravens, if it was on the back or the arm and pushed off hard to get airborne. Or a big hawk. An eagle? I haven’t seen them, but I know they’re in the area.

An earthquake will eventually toss everything around, and probably topple the pergola and break all of our windows and worse, but that obviously didn’t happen.

One of these days we’ll probably have a Great Dane and they’re quite capable, but we don’t have one yet. There’s a stray cat that is seen now and then, but again, they’re not that big.

Remember the potential triffid growing about ten feet away on the left? So far it’s my most likely candidate, if it IS a triffid and not an onion of some sort. It’s exercising its mobility and muscles and tossing furniture about willy nilly.

Or maybe we have a back yard poltergeist.

It’s a mystery.

 

 

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography