There are places on the planet where it is damn near impossible to take a bad picture, no matter your equipment, skill level, or whatever. I’m sure there are folks who somehow do manage to screw it up, but they’re in a different class from us mere mortals.
For example:
The Grand Canyon at sunset.
Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Travel
Sometimes it’s the simple things that you look right past that can be beautiful and amazing if you just take a second to look.
Take the second.
Make the second.
It’s worth it.
You’re not going to sleep tonight thinking, “DAMN! I wish I had kept hurrying and hadn’t stopped to look at those clouds!”
Filed under Photography, Weather
See it up there on the roof? Shiny and new. Silent. As it’s supposed to be.
We’ve had a LOT of wind the last couple of months and somewhere along the line both of our turbine vents blew a bearing or two. While they’ve still been spinning with the strong winds, they’ve been making a horrific racket.
Our landlord finally got around to replacing them, so now they’re shiny, spinning, and blessedly silent.
With the sun setting into the coast fog moving in from Malibu (the “May gray” as it’s known around here, until it turns into “June gloom”) it shines as it spins, much like the waxy leaves on the palm trees across the street, thrashing about in the breezes.
Just another mid-May day in SoCal.
Filed under Photography, Weather
The good news is that it was a little one. M3.4 with the epicenter about ten miles from us. At 08:05 I was at that point in waking up where I was trying to get just enough brain cells functional to figure out if I could go back to sleep for ten minutes or not. Then the room moved.
Sort of like a small fender bender. Two tiny shakes, enough to make the bed wiggle and the house creak, enough to know what it was. And then it was done.
It’s been a few years since I’ve felt one. This was just a reminder, something to reinvigorate the brain cells that remember that night over twenty-nine years ago when I was trying to scramble in the dark as everything flew and moved and swayed and tipped, trying to get back to the house to my kids’ bedrooms. Would there be another shake, then another? Was this a foreshock of something big?
Nope. Just a reminder.
Duly noted.
I’m reminded.
Back to dealing with Monday. The internet’s out at the office. My office computer’s down. I’ve got reports that were due Friday-ish and they really, REALLY need to be done today.
Blah.
Blah.
Blah.
No horrible death and destruction. No multi-billion dollar disaster. No world-class metropolitan area reduced to rubble.
Not today.
Filed under Disasters
Last year was “thin” for roses – not getting any water will do that. They’re on a drip system, but even that was cut back to two days a week with the water rationing measures in place in SoCal.
This year, after near record rainfall over the winter, rain STILL coming very late in the year and well past the end of the rainy season, and use of the sprinklers again authorized when it’s not raining:
There are still a couple of little holdouts there in the middle, but I have faith that they’ll get their act together and start contributing soon. Or maybe they’re holding out for all of the others to bloom and fade so that they can then have the stage to themselves.
Roses are so tempremental!
Filed under Castle Willett, Flowers, Photography
We’ve seen a lot of great plays over the last several years at the Ahmanson. “2:22” earlier this year was great. “Come From Away” last year was unbelievable.
Coming up later this year are some more that I’m really looking forward to. “Into The Woods,” for example. And while nothing’s official for next year, there are lots of interesting rumors and possibilities.
But tonight? Tonight, at long last, is the one I’ve been waiting for since about 2020.
Over 50 years ago (jeez freaking Louise, that CAN’T be right…but it is) we read the play and listened to the soundtrack in an American Studies class when I was a junior in high school. I was in love.
Then there were plans to do a production of our own as our Senior Play. I wanted the primary part of John Adams so badly that it hurt. I practiced and memorized and listened to the soundtrack hundreds of times … and we did “Harvey” instead. (I played Dr. Chumley, it was a tremendous amount of fun. But it wasn’t “1776.”)
I’ve since seen it once on stage, probably 20+ years ago at a small theater production in Hollywood. Then this revival hit Broadway a few years back and I’ve been waiting. It was supposed to be here in the 2020-2021 season, but that got canceled due to COVID.
But tonight…
“I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress! And, by God, I have had this Congress!”
If our lead is suddenly ill at show time, put me in Coach!
Filed under Entertainment, Los Angeles, Paul
A pair of rose buds made me think about “potential” a few days ago. Now that potential is coming to fruition.
The roses go from buds filled with potential to gloriously beautiful flowers just by existing, although I’m sure there’s more to it that behind the scenes in the operation of the Universe. For you and I, the potential’s a little harder to conver to glory and beauty.
If only it was as easy as the roses make it seem.
Filed under Flowers, Photography
We got a fair amount of rain last night, which is almost unheard of for Los Angeles in May. Yet I missed the really good stuff, the heavy rain. It moved through while I was spending “quality time” with a new dentist.
Everything was soaked, but off to the east was a humongous thunderstorm cell.
It also appears that I need to clean the lens on the wide angle lens on my iPhone. Or there’s a huge circular alien mother ship that snuck in out of the sun…
Then it was off to the office for a bit.
I found out later that not only was there lightning out there, but down in Compton there were two F0 tornadoes.
All day there were showers all around, but we didn’t get anything other than great clouds.
No rainbows – I guess that would be getting greedy. But it’s good to be greedy sometimes.
All week it’s been in the high 60’s and low 70’s, but by the weekend the warm weather will be back. I’m ready for summer.
Filed under Photography, Weather
This plant went off all of a sudden and there were seven bright pink and white flowers with another threatening to pop.
As with the old kid’s joke, these were “broses” – they had “B”s in them!
Filed under Flowers, Photography
Hazy, hot, humid. The Mississippi River at flood stage with St. Louis in the distance.
The structure is one of two water intakes for some local municipality’s water supply. Possibly St. Louis, possibly not.
The viewpoint is from somewhere out on the Chain of Rocks Bridge, an old car bridge from the late 1920’s which was where Route 66 crossed the Mississippi River. It’s now part of a trail system along the Mississippi for hiking and biking, strictly pedestrian traffic only.
If I lived in the St. Louis area, I suspect I would be hiking and biking a lot of those trails.
Filed under Photography, Travel
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We Love The Stars Too Fondly 