I think it was full moon when I caught this – might have been a day before or a day after, but close enough for government work.
Not the closest or the biggest, or the furthest away or the smallest, just the one that comes 28 days after the last one, so no headlines, no clickbait, no spam about it.
Sometimes you get lucky playing around with the iPhone settings and you get a decent picture. It’s better to be lucky than good!
That’s pretty!
Filed under Astronomy, Photography
For Christmas, I got myself one of the Oura 4 rings (size 13, if you want to buy jewelry for me for some unknown reason) for $399.99. It’s worth it, I like it, I’m very much into tracking my fitness and health parameters these days (being as that I have become and Olde Phart and am officially Phalling Apart) and between the Oura and my Apple Watch, I have lots of good data to work with.
But in today’s “NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!” moment…
The only surprise is that my “usual” day only has 90 minutes of “stress.” How high is that freaking borderline set?
Bright moon, full-ish. Might be tonight, might have been last night. Whatever, close enough for government work.
Odd trail of cloud covering it.
The clouds and the moon are 250,000 miles apart, I think it’s just a coincidental alignment. I like to keep an eye open for such things. And then share them.
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space, Weather
Stuck down here, wishing I were up there.
Oh, didn’t notice the irridescent rainbow arc around the Sun until now! That’s nice…
Filed under Paul, Photography, Weather
At the Ahmanson last night, dealing with the huge crowds for the Gold House Gala there, we used the valet parking. This is also a considerably easier arrangement for The Long Suffering Wife.
The play, “Life of Pi,” was very good, and the staging and animation of the animal characters was astonishing. We enjoyed ourselves.
When the play was over, the Gala was also letting out. Valet parking had quite the lineup waiting for cars to be delivered. While I expected to wait 20-30 minutes (or more) we only waited maybe ten minutes.
Two observations:
Filed under Entertainment, Freakin' Idiots!, Los Angeles, Photography
Back at the Ahmanson. I’ve heard of this production but know almost nothing about it. Should be fun!
Outside it’s busy. “Gold House” is having their gala and they’ve taken over the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the entire plaza between the theaters. Traffic and parking have been affected in turn.
Big money, apparently. Megan Thee Stallion is apparently their GOH tonight (we didn’t see her).
Rich or poor, it’s good to have boatloads of money! Or so I’ve heard.
Filed under Entertainment, Los Angeles, Photography
We’re about an hour into the ±4 hour window for the uncontrolled re-entry of the Russian Venus probe Kosmos-482. No doubt you’ve heard all of the frenzied hype about it – if you’ve been reading this site any time in the last 12+ years, you know my opinion of the mainstream media, their handling of science and fact, and the hysterical hype that they love to shovel over something inconsequential.
The final couple of orbits are over water the vast majority of the time:
Image: SatTrackCam.blogspot.com
and nowhere near the US. Excellent odds that it’s going to splash in the next hour or two.
But if we’re invoking chaos and gremlins and playful demigods such as Puck or Loki, hanging on just a little bit to make to take into that last orbit and then sailing a bit northwest puts it coming down near the Virginia and Maryland areas where there’s this huge White House occupied by an orange troll…
The gods could do the funniest thing!
Yeah, I know that orbital mechanics doesn’t work that way, and I’m a firm believer in science, engineering, reality, and so on. That’s why they would call it an “act of God,” am I right?
Filed under Politics, Silly Shit, Space
2008, I was visiting my son when he was at Scott AFB outside of St. Louis. He was busy during the day, so I went out to Chain of Rocks Park to spot some big birds. I think I had also just gotten the big telephoto lens so the focus might not be perfect.
Wild turkeys.
Great Egret. Not a mediocre egret, but a GREAT egret.
Great Blue Heron. Love seeing these huge birds. Mainly because I’m not a fish.
Filed under Birds, Photography, Travel
Wednesdays are training nights, when I meet my trainer for an hour of “Functional Strength Training.” Weights (flys), sit ups, weights (curls), push ups, even more weights (combinations) – all to build strength, and it’s really made a difference.
It’s one of those “use it or lose it” things. I’m not doing it to be a body builder or anything, but so that I can still move around and have a normal, relatively active life when others my age are restricted to rockers and wheelchairs.
It would be nice to lose some weight as well, but that’s more of a diet thing.
It would be nice if this had been of more help last Saturday when I was getting my ass kicked by a mountain hiking trail, but that’s endurance, not strength. Related, perhaps, but also different.
It does help me sleep well on Wednesday nights!
Filed under Health, Photography
For years the crows have ignored all of the bird seed thrown out into the yard. But the cookies and grapes that have been thrown out recently were a whole different thing. Now that the cookies are gone and I don’t have any grapes to share at the moment, at least one of the crows has put two and two together and gotten “breakfast” as the answer.
This dude’s huge.
Based on size, I thought that it was a raven, but the Merlin app says it’s a crow.
It’s not eating the little seeds, but the sunflower seeds and remaining bits of cookie are fair game.
The squirrels are surpisingly unbothered by this large black critter moving in on their bird seed racket. The juncos, finches, and mourning doves take off like a bat out of hell when the crow shows up, but the squirrels just ignore it.
The critter that DOES pay attention to the crow is the mockingbird. Mortal enemies, the mockingbirds are constantly mobbing it and buzzing it to drive it off. The crow in turn ignores them, but the mockingbirds scare the crap out of the squirrels.
It’s a circle of life thing, I guess.
Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography
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We Love The Stars Too Fondly 