Category Archives: Christmas Lights

November 8, 2024 · 23:34

Happy Place Panorama

It would be nice to get back again this year, but that’s unlikely. One trip a year is about all I can get away with.

Enjoy the full-sized file – click on it and blow it up. My son’s truck with the flags is over to the left.

For this weekend, there’s more work, more deadlines (I can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel? Ish?) and taking down the Halloween decorations.

It’s also getting close to decision time and I know where it’s going, I’m just not happy about it. (Just add it to the list…) I had really hoped to be putting up a ton of Christmas lights at the Forever Home this year and setting the place up to make it easy to put up a ton of lights every year in the future. That’s also very unlikely to happen, so in two weeks it will be time to start decorating here, at the rental house again. I’m also coming up on the end of my current set of weight training lessons, which I was also hoping would be the last one because I would be living elsewhere, but again…

So frustrated. So tired. It’s that whole middle-of-the-marathon feeling and the only way out is through.

One foot in front of the other. You too?

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Forever Home, KC Chiefs, Panorama, Photography

September 26, 2024 · 23:46

Halloween’s Coming

Is it me? Is it this year? Are people needing to escape reality starting weeks earlier than normal? (I blame politics – if that’s not a reason these days to escape reality, I don’t know what is!) Are the Halloween decorations starting weeks and weeks earlier than in all previous years?

We’ve got a fair number of houses in the neighborhood that go all out for Halloween, the same way I go a bit over the top for Christmas lights. But that has normally meant that three weeks or so, maybe around October 7-10th, we would see the decorations going up.

This year I saw the first big displays going up around September 15th. Of course, there have been Halloween candy displays in the supermarkets since July 5th, that’s “normal.” But today I noticed a dozen more houses that have their full displays up.

Again, when we were at the Pomelo house, a half block from the local elementary school, on flat ground, on a more prominent street, and at a place where we had been for decades, we would put out the telescopes, put up some decorations, and sit out there handing out candy and letting folks take a look at whatever was up in the sky that night. These days, nowhere near a school or anything other than more houses, at the top of a freakishly large and steep hill, we probably won’t bring out the scopes or doing anything else, no matter what all of the folks at the bottom of the hill are doing. I think we’ve had something like five Trick or Treaters show up at our house in six years.

Another thing to keep in mind when we’re finalizing our search for The Forever Home. Next year. I don’t see that happening in any sort of time frame for this year.

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Forever Home, Photography

September 8, 2024 · 23:34

Playing With Cameras & Christmas Lights – Part Deux

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.

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Filed under Art, Christmas Lights, Photography

September 3, 2024 · 23:25

Playing With Cameras & Christmas Lights

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!

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Filed under Art, Christmas Lights, Photography

January 27, 2024 · 23:32

View From The Edge Of The Roof

The Christmas lights are down.

There were no falls off of ladders. There were no falls off of the roof. There were no ladders (large or small, but more notably the former) tipping over onto my head. (Narrator voice – “These are all things that have happened in the past, but we do not speak of them.”)

I did get a nice view from the edge of the roof, looking to the north-west-ish, toward Simi Valley (just beyond those hills just to the left of the tall trees next to our driveway) and Ventura County (just beyond all of the other hills on the left and center).

As always when working near the roofline at this corner of the house, I’m extremely cautious and careful about the power line coming in.

No touchy the sparky ‘spoldy wire!

Next year – in the forever home!

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Filed under Castle Willett, Christmas Lights, Photography

January 26, 2024 · 23:36

Trailing Bits Of 2023

We’re close to the end of January, but there are still loose ends and fiddly bits left to deal with from 2023. You might have noticed that it’s been just a tad crazed here in terms of time commitments for the past few months, but with a whole slew of big deadlines met for both me individually and for the amazing team that I’m lucky enough to be a part of, this will be the first weekend in a while where I can “relax.”

If by “relax” you mean “dive into the stacks and stacks of housework and life things that have been shoved onto the back burner since Thanksgiving.” No pressure!

I think that the 2023 Christmas cards will remain unsent. I’ve kept thinking up clever lines for the seasonal letter to explain why the cards came out just before Christmas, or just after, or just after the New Year, or for MLK day, or now for the 20th anniversary of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers landing on Mars… But let’s face it, that’s several days of work and while deadlines have been met, I’m not on vacation. There’s a serious chance that “later” at this point means I would be lucky to get those cards in the mail by Valentine’s Day. The cards and postage and everything else got purchased – but they’ll all save for next year. Maybe with a little bit better planning I can get them out on a more timely basis.

The Christmas lights got turned off last weekend (or was it two weeks ago? yeah, I think maybe…) but they still need to get taken down. Last weekend was both pouring rain and eyeball deep in budget final drafts. Tomorrow is suppose to actually be sort of nice. Nice before a series of storms move in and both of the next two upcoming weekends look rainy, so tomorrow those lights come down.

We’ll know on Sunday if my beloved Chiefs are going to our fourth Super Bowl in five years and also if we’re having a Super Bowl party in two weeks. If we are, the preparations need to get underway.

So… “Relaxed.” But it’s a completely different sort of busy and stress. A lot of grunt labor, not mental gymnastics and detailed financial analysis. Put on some tunes, see if I can get my earbuds to stay in, make sure I don’t fall off of any ladders.

And as for the last couple of years, while taking down the Christmas lights and packing them away, I’ll be wondering if I’ll be re-arranging them and putting them up next year outside of our “forever home.”

We can hope.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Christmas Lights, Photography

December 28, 2023 · 23:49

Haze

Not clear, but less cloudy. Last night and tomorrow morning it’s fog, pea soup off the coast. But for now, you can see the brighter stars and Jupiter through it.

The house looks nice, the (a couple days past) full moon is rising, and way up at the top right you can see Orion. (You’ll probably have to click on the image to blow it up to full-sized.) But with this exposure, with the iPhone exposing for the bright moon and Christmas lights, you can only see the brightest stars in Orion.

If you take the Christmas lights out of the picture (again, click on it to see it full-sized) you can see a lot more of Orion. In the “sword” you can see the Orion Nebula (the middle “star”) and you can see even the dimmer stars in the “neck” of Orion. You can clearly see the red tint to Betelgeuse (left shoulder) and the blue hue to Rigel (right foot). But between the haze, the city’s light pollution, and the bright moonlight being scattered around, that’s about it.

It beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick! But I still want to see what shows up on a clear, dark night.

Another goal for 2024.

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Filed under Astronomy, Christmas Lights, Photography

December 27, 2023 · 23:45

What Comes After Boxing Day?

I mean, besides December 27th. That much I had figured out. So I googled it and was told, “Wednesday.”

Not quite what I had in mind.

Wikipedia pulls up a long list of historical events which I’ve never heard of, births of people who I’ve (mostly) never heard of, and deaths of people who I’ve (mostly) never heard of.

And there are mentions of some government holidays in New Zealand and the Phillipines? Okay.

I think I’m back to “Payroll’s Due” and month-end data entry and budget calculations.

Year end 2023, hitting 2024 on the dead run.

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Deep Thoughts

December 26, 2023 · 23:32

Boxing Day 2023

With a full moon rising in back of the house.

 

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Filed under Astronomy, Christmas Lights, Photography

December 25, 2023 · 20:53

Christmas 2023

Want to see a Christmas miracle?

I know that it MUST happen more than once every fifty years, but it’s the first time that I’ve ever seen this freeway congestion map 100% green everywhere, all the way from Tijuana to Tulare, Santa Maria to Palm Springs.

We made it all the way from our house to LAX and back in less than 90 minutes. Granted it was O’Dark Thirty on Christmas morning, but still…

I hope it was a wonderful holiday for you if you celebrate!

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Los Angeles, Photography