Category Archives: Photography

Nature’s Popcorn Dritter Teil

Yesterday, after I saw the tiny dude from the previous post, I went walking around the back yard and spotted another tiny dude.

This guy was not nearly as calm as the first one, skittering and running like hell when I was still twenty feet or more away.

He got off of the grass and onto the dirt very quickly, letting his natural camaflouge work for him.

If I hadn’t seen him skitter over there, I’m not sure I would have noticed him as I walked by if he didn’t move.

He only waited a few seconds before moving to make his escape over the edge and down the hill, even though I had frozen.

Not sure why he thought I was such a threat. I think it has something to do with the “popcorn” title and the idea that everything and everyone is trying to eat you.

And there he goes, just the tip of his tail left! Total time of the encounter, from first picture to last? Twenty-eight seconds.


Tomorrow, with luck, an adventure!

As many times as I’ve talked about going up the coast about 150 miles to Vandenberg to see a launch, it’s never quite worked out. But tomorrow, the final Delta IV Heavy launches from the west coast (there are two more scheduled from Florida before the rocket is discontinued and replaced with the Vulcan rocket) and my schedule is otherwise clear. No super critical work deadlines, no more Wing activities for the CAF, no travel, no Chiefs game – “no obligations.”

So, footloose & fancy free, I plan to wander up the coast to Lompoc, see if I can find a wide spot off of the road near the base entrance or on the beach if it’s open and not foggy, and watch a really freakin’ big rocket take off.

I’ll let you know how it goes…

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Filed under Critters, Photography, Space, Travel

Nature’s Popcorn Part Deux

Here’s the same little guy as the other day but with the “big” camera and lens. (Canon DSLR with a 300mm telephoto lense instead of an iPhone 13 Pro Max.)

I don’t know if it’s because I was coming up behind him or not, but I got a lot closer than I did two days ago.

Or maybe it’s just that he had a really good, warm spot and didn’t want to leave if he didn’t have to.

Once he saw me, he kept me in his sights. Lots of side eye.

As long as I moved really, really slowly (and stayed at least seven to eight feet away) he was sorta okay.

That board he’s on is about a half-inch thick (maybe 1.5 centimeters).

That gives you a good scale. He’s not very big at all.

Still bigger than when I first saw him (and his siblings) a week or so ago.

Just hanging out, trying to learn to balance, both physcially on the edge of the board, and in terms of threat assessment, balancing the need to be in the sun and warm vs. being exposed to predators.

Ah, he’s lifting his tail, bringing it out of the shade and into the sunlight. For warmth, or as a prelude to flight?

It was flight. He was off in an instant into the brown grass and essentially invisble.

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Filed under Critters, Photography

Nature’s Popcorn

That’s a phrase I’ve heard Dr. Earyn McGee use more than once on Twitter referring to tiny baby fence lizards. (Also, tomorrow’s Wednesday, so a reminder that Dr. McGee runs the best “game” on Twitter on Wednesday nights. At 17:00 PT you can get her picture of the week with a lizard in there somewhere and try to #FindThatLizard. When you do, let folks know with the #FoundThatLizard hashtag, with the answer revealed at 21:00 PT. It’s fantastic!)

Well, we’ve had another hatching. We got back from Chicago two weeks ago and I’ve noticed them all over the dry dirt of the back yard. Most aren’t more than an inch or two inches long. You almost don’t see them so much as you see their shadows as they skitter for cover.

She calls them that (I believe) because they hatch by the dozens, but the vast majority of them don’t survive long. They get eaten pretty quickly by birds, other lizards, and anything else fast enough to catch them.

Don’t underestimate that speed. The reason these pictures are marginal is because they’re taken from 20+ feet away with my iPhone on full digital zoom. If I get any closer, POOF!! They’re scattering at Warp Nine.

Maybe one or two of them will win the Darwin lottery and make it to a spot in the front yard under the car, as front door dragon, or big boy of the back yard next year.

 

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In Search Of A Little Green

We started restrictions on lawn watering back in June (or was it May?) and between that and several solid weeks of 100+ºF days every single day, the back yard has taken a beating.

But abour ten days ago, just after we got back from Chicago, there were some hurricane remnants wandering through and we got a tiny bit of rain here. Other places out in the mountains and deserts inland, out beyond Palm Springs and into Nevada and Arizona, some isolated spots got enough rain to cause some flash flooding and mudslides, but here we got maybe 0.2 inches of rain over a 24-hour stretch.

Plus, since then it’s been mostly in the mid-80’s every day instead of 100+.

Did it help?

I’m going to go with a resounding, “Maybe?”

I’m not sure how much of it is wishful thinking and how much is actual recovery, but it seems to be a tiny little bit more green than it was.

I’m not talking about those tall, long desert grasses on the right, it’s the standard issue monoculture lawn grass on the left hand side of that barrier that I’m wondering about. Maybe? In spots? Kinda?

At this point, I would be happy to have the lawn hanging on in a “less dead” state than even bothering to hope for “thriving.” Let’s manage our expectations, folks.

This would be another benefit to owning our home instead of renting. If we owned I would be ripping out the wanna be putting green and putting in some low water, desert vegitation and flowers, along with some succulents, cactus, rocks, pathways, and lots of fancy gravel or decomposed granite in between everything. It would look great, be very low maintenance, and have ultra low water requirements. Maybe a bench or two, a birdbath, some bird feeders…

I think we’ll probably be out of the drought via natural causes and a couple of consecutive El Niño years before the owner will be doing that. Brown and dusty might be the new norm. With just the slightest, semi-hallucinatory bit of green mixed in…

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Filed under Castle Willett, Photography, Weather

And A New Week Is Upon Us

My usual Monday phrase at work for every informal email or text is “Happy Monday!”

I’ve made it quite clear to everyone else on the team that this is 1% a “fake it ’til you make it” philosophy and 99% utter sarcasm. If they ever detect even one part per billion of sincerity in there I am to be immediately institutionalized and given a full course of rabies shots.

It is what it is.

Here, have a random picture of some plants in my back yard as I was dropping my phone while out futzing and getting soaked in the middle of the night tonight.

Happy Monday Eve!

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Filed under Farce, Photography

The Same Way Bricks Don’t

It’s truly astonishing how big these jets are.

Coming out of LAX, even at over 10,000 feet and almost 300 knots, it looks freakishly large. Yet it just seems to float there, as Douglas Adams said, the same way bricks don’t.

Airbus 380. Impressive.

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Filed under Flying, Photography

No Context For You – September 16th

While I know where and when the picture was taken, I don’t know what it is, what it does, or whose sneaker that is.

I’m pretty sure it’s not mine.

In other not-so-riveting news, you may noticed that after two weeks of writing for Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction prompts (here and here, and I liked them a lot), this is the third week in a row where there hasn’t been one.

The first reason is simple – Chuck’s been busier than god (he might have been at Worldcon or Dragoncon or both) and we haven’t gotten new prompts for the last three weeks. Not that I’m in any way blaming, it’s a volunteer space that Chuck provides to begin with, so I’m more than happy with whatever we can get. But if he doesn’t do the prompt…

Secondly, given what my schedule has been like for the past month between deadlines at work (which we met – I do sincerely LOVE being on one of those “highly functioning teams” that they taught us about in the Pepperdine MBA program!) and the trip to Chicago for Worldcon, I don’t see any way that I could have squeezed in time to write in those three weeks. So I guess it all worked out.

Finally, are there other “Flash Fiction” prompts out there that are open to whoever wants to jump in? If you know of any, please point me to the sites in the comments. I want and need to be writing, it’s time to open up my options!

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Filed under Photography, Writing

Happiness Is Only One Line Showing On A COVID Quick Test

You know – sort of like this!

We tested when we got home from our Chicago/Chambana trip, and then again five days later. We’re good!

I pretty much don’t go out at all still, or at least compared to pre-COVID days it’s much less than 10% as much. A lot of that is working from home instead of going into the office, but also going to sporting events, the CAF hangar, concerts, movies, shopping, and so on.

And when I do go out, I’m masked. Period.

And I’m fully vaxxed, including two boosters, and I’ll be getting the bivalent booster as soon as I can, which should be soon.

I’m still just astonished that everyone isn’t doing that. When the zombie apocalypse comes, we don’t have a prayer if the response to COVID is any indication.

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Filed under Health, Photography, Travel

Random Old Photos – September 12th

Escewing photos from the day of the iconic campus builidings, I like this one of the odd bare tree with red flowers and no leaves. I was visiting my daughter at UC Irvine, 16 years ago, 26 years after I graduated from there.

Time is weird, man.

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NFL Week #1

And we’re off! My beloved Chiefs did well, opening on the road in Arizona and soundly thumping the Cardinals, 44-21 (but it wasn’t that close…).

The house has been appropriately decorated with the addition of this year’s Chiefs Kingdom flag.

We’re going to need a bigger living room…

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