Too many deadlines, coming at me like freight trains…
It’s also getting windy, so that won’t help the two huge fires burning up in the mountains. Nowhere near us, but up around Big Bear and down in Orange County it’s getting ugly.
Speaking of ugly, I just noticed how the flags are beating the crap out of the paint on the roof of the Volvo. At 13 years and 90,000 miles, that’s the least of that vehicle’s problems.
Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Weather
While sorting through these and preparing them I was thinking about focus.
In all of my normal photography, especially my astrophotography, getting things into focus is critical.
It’s difficult sometimes in astrophotography to get the focus correct and sharp, and that frustrates me.
But for these pictures, the exact opposite effect is required.
There were many photos where the camera didn’t move or didn’t move enough, so it looks too much like just another picture of Christmas lights.
To tease the “art” out of the situation and light and circumstances, the rules needed to be broken, even shattered.
That in turn reminded me of the Art 101 to Art 103 classes I took as breadth requirements at UC Irvine almost 50 years ago.
“Make Art!” was the assignment every week, with no instructions or guidance and often minimal parameters. Incredibly frustrating at first, incredibly liberating once I “got it.”
A perfect example of how we all need to take that leap of faith every now and then.
We might be surprised by the doors that open up for us.
Filed under Art, Christmas Lights, Photography
Five days past new Moon, 401,500 kilometers away, give or take.
It was just setting, about an hour after sunset. It was still 101°F degrees out after a high of 109°F.
When I was at parent’s orientation for my daughter’s move-in day at UC Davis, they taught us a phrase they use. “One hundred and stupid.” Yeah, we’re there.
My hope is that anyone stupid enough to not recognize that climate change is happening and the planet is warming up to dangerous levels far faster than we ever thought it could will also be stupid enough to not take precautions and will become a Darwin Award nominee sooner rather than later. Good riddance, and then the rest of us can try to do a course correction, or at least try to mitigate the worst of the consequences.
The Moon, 21% illuminated tonight, had the other 79% lit up by “Earthshine,” the reflected sunlight hitting the Moon after bouncing off the Earth. If anyone was living on the Moon, or if anyone had probes or robots sitting there watching us, would they see the Earthshine getting brighter over time as we heat up, more water evaporates, and more clouds form? Would they know what we’re doing to ourselves?
Would they care?
Filed under Astronomy, Climate Change
From 2006, on the power line in the backyard of the old Pomelo house.
“All God’s creatures…,” blah, blah, blah, I get it. WRONG! These critters are butt ugly. And that mouth is FULL of a whole bunch of needle-sharp teeth. Nasty.
I know that because there was an infamous incident where Jesse, our dog, was going berserk in the back yard one night and we went out in the pouring rain and mud to find her howling and wailing at this one or its twin with a half-dozen or so babies clinging to its back. Jesse had it cornered, about knee high on a tree trunk and that mama opossum was way out of her weight class but (of course!) was going to die defending those babies and all of those teeth were on full display. I got to reach in to grab Jesse’s collar and pull her back in the dark, rain, and mud with the insane, stupid dog going nuts six inches from that muzzle full of teeth. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
We haven’t seen one of these up here on top of the hill, but there are a ton of trees and we’re only a mile away from the old house, and there are a couple of open wildlife areas within a mile or five, so I have no doubt that they’re around. If they keep to their own quiet, private places and away from me, I’m more than happy to just let them be.
Ugh!!
Filed under Critters, Photography
In the NFL’s “Super Bowl era” teams have won back-to-back Super Bowls nine times. (Eight teams – the Steelers did it twice.) The most recent occurance, of course, was my beloved KC Chiefs winning the last two years.
No one has ever won three in a row. But the Chiefs have a chance now. They’re actually favorites to pull it off.
Tonight was opening night for this NFL season. We, of course, decorated for the season.
We, of course, also decorated the cars.
The Chiefs started the season well, beating the Ravens in a repeat of last year’s AFC Championship game. It was tight – on the last play of the game the Ravens thought they had scored a touchdown that (with the gimme extra point) would have sent the game to overtime, but video review showed that the receiver came down with just half a toenail on the line and out of bounds. Great fun!
And just before the game was over, there was a launch out of Vandenberg, which I livestreamed on Facebook. (Here!) The rocket shows up above Castle Peak at 2:45, and I think it was pretty much visible (I picked the second stage back up on camera at 5:11) all the way until it disappeared over the horizon to the south. (Here!)
Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography
As with much of the country (and the world these days), it’s been HOT this summer. Here in LA it’s getting up above 100°F for the next couple of days, and I was thinking that it would help to “think cool thoughts.”
That got me to thinking, “When did I last see snow?”
I’m not talking about seeing it on the mountains off in the distance – that happens a couple of times every winter here, even in SoCal. (Mountains going up well over 10,000 feet will help that process. That’s why there are ski resorts within an hour’s drive of downtown LA.) I’m talking about seeing it right there, where I can make a snowball.
The first thing that came to mind was April 2018, when we went to Toronto for the FilkOntario convention and I got inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame.
And then it occured to me that we had actually seen snow falling at a slightly more recent date, even if it hadn’t been enough to stick.
A couple days after Christmas 2018 we were in Kansas City for the Chiefs game (after having been in Seattle for the game there on Christmas Eve) and we saw some flurries. The rest of the weekend was clear(-ish) and just COLD.
So think cool thoughts, know that the snows and fall and flannel will return, and know that 2018 had a LOT of great adventures!
Filed under Fandom, KC Chiefs, Photography, Travel, Weather
No, I don’t have the Christmas lights up.
Yet.
I’m starting to think about end-of-year timing.
It could well work out that we’re closing escrow and moving some time after Halloween.
If that bumps a month or so, we’re at Thanksgiving, which is when I normally put up the lights.
Would I be the first guy to get a 30-day escrow or 45-day escrow instead of a 60-day escrow because of the timing for putting up Christmas lights? Maybe.
Would I really be stupid enough to pack up everything, move to the Forever Home, be unpacking and settling, and then spend hours and hours and days and days putting up Christmas lights?
Yeah, we (unfortunately) know the answer to that one.
So these pictures are from a couple years ago, when I had just gotten the wide-angle “light bucket” lens that I love so much.
Long exposures and a camera spinning on a strap and flying all over the place can give you some spectacular results. I love it!
Filed under Art, Christmas Lights, Photography
And on into September…
Sometimes your phone will even take pictures of that next step, without telling you or without being asked to. Not sure why Skynet became aware at that moment or needed that picture, but something triggered it. Perhaps it was just a random static electrical charge triggering the phone accidentally, caused in turn by cosmic rays entering the atmosphere high over Los Angeles and impacting a memory chip in my phone after first going through my skull and killing the neuron that held the memory of my 3rd grade best friend’s name.
Perhaps.
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography
I’ll see these guys flying about the yard every now and then. There are some wetlands down at the bottom of the hill near where Bell Canyon Creek starts, as well as the Chatsworth Reservoir area about three miles north of us.
But I don’t recall ever having one land or sit still so that I could take pictures of it.
Growing up in Vermont, Illinois, and Kansas I had seen dragonflies plenty of times, but out here in the desert they’re a bit more scarce. So a good luck sighting!
Filed under Critters, Photography
As August ends, I found this little stump-tailed cutie sitting out where the trash bins go.
I’m amazed that I got pictures – it was acting extremely oddly. Specifically, it never moved or made any attempt to run away. I came around the corner behind me, dragging two trash barrels and opening the gate, so normally it would have been halfway across the yard or at least into the vines in a heartbeat. They’re skittish! (It keeps them from being eaten.)
But this dude apparently sat there through all of that, then sat there while I grabbed the first barrel and took three or four steps toward it. When I saw it finally I froze, carefully pulling out my phone. Through all of this it never moved.
I set down the first barrel, then walked behind it another couple of steps so that I was behind it. From the front I could see the beautiful markings on its back and those long toes typical of California fence lizards.
From the back, it was obvious that it was missing a big chunk of its tail. You can see where the stump is starting to grow the rest of the tail back. But even with me walking around, taking pictures, dropping off trash barrels, and so on, it never twitched. I was starting to wonder if it might be hurt, or even dead.
I went back out to the front yard to grab the second trash barrel and it was gone when I got back, so not dead. I also saw it later in the day (the tail makes the ID easy) running along the base of the fence in the dirt and debris from the vines, so it didn’t look very hurt either.
I hope if it needs some of that Neosporin for its tail it will ask. I’ve got plenty!
Filed under Critters, Photography
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