Category Archives: Photography

October 1, 2021 · 23:33

No Context For You – October 01st

How much of what we see, or a better term might be “perceive,” is “real?”

In a historic context, we can travel to ancient lands and see ruins or magnificent architecture that’s 2,000+ years old, or we can go to Disneyland or Las Vegas and see something almost exactly like it, in many ways even more magnificent. “Real” or “fake?”

If you ever have any eye issues you’ll start to see just how personal that distinction can be. I’m dealing with a little issue with floaters and flashes of light, which I’m told is normal and harmless and it will go away on its own soon. How? How will it “go away?” Are they going to give me some pills, or do some sort of surgery, or should I put warm compresses or ice packs (or both) on my eyeballs? No, my brain will just learn to ignore them, they say.

So far all my brain is doing is screaming, “SPIDER!” or “FLY!” or “LIZARD!” or “LOOK OUT!!” about every fifteen seconds, which is not nearly as much fun as it sounds.

Many years ago as my vision started to deteriorate I had laser surgery on my eyes and ended up with “EAGLE VISION!” It was great! I went from being unable to read or see anything at a distance without glasses (“Bats use me as a role model,” to quote a line from a long forgotten 1986 Jeffrey Tambor sitcom that lasted only eleven episodes) to being able to read “Copyright (C) 2004 Acme Eye Chart Company” at the very, very bottom of the sign.

This is sort of the reverse of that and it sucks. Painless (fortunately, ’cause I’m a wussy boy) but annoying as all get out. And they aren’t kidding – “just be patient” is the #1 piece of advice, unless it gets so bad that they put you on the list for an eyeball transplant.

“Just be patient” – HAVE THEY EVER MET ME??!!

So, my eyes might be lying to me, just a bit. It’s like my very own, personal optical illusion, 24/7/365.

But then I start asking questions and trying to troubleshoot it. For example, the flashes of light… I get that I don’t really see them in normal lighting or daylight, but if I go wandering around the yard after dark to try to look at the stars (and boy, take a look around this site for the past several years and look at all of the astrophotography and astronomy and space related stuff there is and you’ll know just how PISSED I am that I’m having real problems with THAT manifestation of this issue!) I’m seeing flashes every time I blink or move my eyes. It’s dark there, the relatively dim flashes stand out. Uh-huh. So why when I close my eyes do I never see flashes. Or when I just cover my eyes with my hands? Only when my eyes are wide open and I’m in a dark location?

Or not when I lay down at night? Maybe it’s a horizontal-vs-vertical thing? Nope, go outside at night, lie down on the sidewalk (it’s okay, the neighbors already know I’m a little odd) and I still see them.

So I ask the nice eye doctor folks about it. And they just smile, and nod, and put notes in my file, AND NEVER ANSWER. Because they don’t know.

This further supports the theory (and just to be clear, I’m joking here, I don’t want this to be the accidental start of another bullshit theory for the anti-vaxxing, science-denying, conspiracy-theory whack jobs to run with) that medicine and science aren’t real at all and this eye thing is a personal punishment from God just to piss me off.

It’s working.

1 Comment

Filed under Health, Photography

September 28, 2021 · 23:28

Random Old Photos – September 28th

No sure quite how “random,” but the truth is I wasn’t even looking for a photo necessarily, and in particular I wasn’t looking for something to use in a “random old photo” post. But I was punching buttons at random-ish on my iPhone, looking for inspiration, and at some point hit something referring to “Your Memories” and it came up with a set of photos from exactly fifteen years ago, September 28, 2006.

Antwerp. I was there with a group of my Pepperdine MBA classmates for the next to last day of our foreign tour to Prague and Brussels. We had traveled to Antwerp by bus (I remember having been up waaaaaay too late the night before and gotten up way too early that morning), had two meetings that were part of our MBA curriculum, had lunch next to the harbor, and then had about an hour to wander around town.

I walked down to the town square and the cathedral, camera in hand of course.

It’s funny what you remember. Just on the right past the crosswalk was a little pharmacy. By this point in the trip I had massive blisters and wanted to find some Band-Aids and  something to kill the pain. The very nice woman in the store spoke no English, I spoke no Dutch, but we figured it out. Curiously, I still have a couple of those Band-Aids, or at least I did the last time I looked.

Not the oddest souvenir I’ve ever brought home, but a contender for the short list.

Fifteen years. It actually turned out to be a melancholy memory. About half of the photos were of classmates, at lunch, in town, on the bus, at dinner afterwards… We’ve gone our separate ways. I still see one or two on FaceBook every now and then and there are a few Christmas cards that get swapped, but that’s it. And I have no idea when I’ll see Europe again. Or if…

1 Comment

Filed under Photography, Travel

September 23, 2021 · 23:56

High-Altitude Smoke

California’s been burning, a LOT. Most of the fires have been up in the Sierras and in Northern and Central California, and I’m sure many if not most of you have heard about Lake Tahoe coming within a hair’s breadth of burning to the ground. A lot of that smoke has ended up Colorado, Utah, and points east, as far as Chicago and Pittsburgh.

But very little has hit the Los Angeles area.

Today that changed, rather suddenly.

Most of the smoke is up at high altitude, so we’re not doing any choking. You can’t smell anything on the ground.

But it sure is orange.

It’s supposed to blow out of here again over the weekend. Say hello to Sheboygan!

1 Comment

Filed under Disasters, Los Angeles, Photography

September 22, 2021 · 23:20

Unwanted Guests

Being where we are and the ecosystem we’re in, we get gophers. Annoying little bastards, they’ll ruin your lawn in weeks if allowed to. Our gardeners deal with them as needed. But this morning…

As soon as I came to a spot in the house where I could see out of the sliding glass doors to the backyard, it was obvious this was no simple visitation from gophers.

It was GOPHERZILLA!!!

The other problem with them, especially since the back yard is on the edge of a sizeable hill, is that if left unchecked the gophers can dig enough holes and tunnels to undermine the stability of the hill. Given enough gophers and a good soaking rain this winter (please, we could REALLY use that rain!) then a chunk of our (rented) house ends up in the downslope neighbor’s back yard and the house gets red-tagged and we’ve got 24 hours to find a new place and move out.

Not my idea of a good time.

So the powers that be have been notified and in a couple of days someone will be out to encouraging the gophers to move to someone else’s yard. In a couple of days.

In the meantime, tomorrow morning might be “interesting.”

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Critters, Photography

September 21, 2021 · 23:21

Random Old Photos – September 21st

The end of summer is here. The autumn equinox is tomorrow, September 22nd, at 15:21 EDT, 12:21 PDT. From there the days get shorter and the nights longer, until we get to December 21, 2021.

Out of curiosity, I looked up where I was on the autumn equinox ten years ago. I figured it would be some random picture around town or more birds, lizards, or dogs. Nope, I was out of the country!

In London, to be precise. I had gone to Southampton for three days of testing on a theoretical procedure for reducing drag on racing yachts. On the way home, the timing was off for getting straight from Southampton to Los Angeles via Heathrow, so I ended up with about twenty hours in London.

Poor, poor me how it worked out that way.

I didn’t get much sleep on that brief layover. There was plenty of time for that in steerage on the flight home.

This picture is from my first stop after a quick nap (I think I left Trafalgar Square about 3 AM according to the date stamp on the pictures.) It was raining, but I wasn’t going to let that slow me down. This was from Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, followed by a quick pass past Royal Albert Hall and the Albert Memorial, the Princess Diana Fountain, then a sprint back to the hotel for my bags and a train ride to Heathrow.

Someday I would like to get to London to visit and roam and stay for at least 24 hours, maybe even 72. It could happen.

2 Comments

Filed under Photography, Travel

September 19, 2021 · 23:07

No Context For You – September 19th

I love color.

In a world that’s increasingly grey, black, white, puce, putty, and bland, I like bold, bright colors and find them in the oddest places.

Someday we’ll get our own house again and I’m going to decorate it so, color-wise, it’s going to be the equivalent of the Weasley house in the Harry Potter books.

Sunglasses will be provided for guests at the door.

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Photography

September 17, 2021 · 23:35

SPICY!!

I eat lots of broccoli, not because I like broccoli, but because I eat a lot of crap that’s “good” for me in my old age, and very little stuff (like ice cream and chocolate and bear claws and cheeseburgers and pizza and… you get the point) that I want to eat. Often to make it taste a little bit less like green, semi-crunchy cardboard, I’ll put a few drops of Sweet Baby Ray’s HOT sauce on it.

A couple nights ago dinner consisted of the aforementioned steamed fresh broccoli, plus a bunch of shrimp. I do love shrimp, and yes, it’s on that list with ice cream and pizza.

But we had no cocktail sauce. An error in my shopping calculations. So I improvised. I already had the Sweet Baby Ray’s out…

Double up the hot sauce on the broccoli, and then really lay it on while coating the shrimp in it.

Thinking about all of that hot sauce on something that my doctor would not approve of to begin with got me thinking. (Which is often not a good thing.)

See the source image

I won’t tell my doctor if you don’t! (And it wasn’t bad – I would have preferred the cocktail sauce, but it beats using ketchup!)

3 Comments

Filed under Health, Paul, Photography

September 14, 2021 · 23:03

They Found Out

When I went to check the mail this afternoon, I started to notice feathers on the lawn as I approached the mailbox. Lots of feathers.

Feathers on the sidewalk. In the flowers. In the dirt.

Feathers on the sidewalk. Feathers in the street for 50 feet or more downwind in the street.

Somewhere nearby, there was a hawk (or an owl) who was going to eat well tonight. And one less mourning dove. (They’re a long, long way from rare.)

WARNING: From here I start to spout off about California and US politics…

So, let’s think about today’s California gubernatorial recall election, where currently, just before 23:00 PDT, the New York Times page is showing the recall failing 66% to 34% with 64% of the votes counted…

Let’s say that the mourning dove was the GOP, sitting fat and sassy, oblivious to reality, believing themselves immune from consequences…

Let’s say that the hawk (or owl) was the people of California, completely fed up with this 100% high grade toxic bullshit that the GQP is pushing…

Like the mourning doves, there’s plenty more where that one came from.

This is where the analogy starts to break down, because the least of those mourning doves is a veritable Rhodes Scholar compared to the GQP’s finest. Comparing the IQ and common sense of a Republican to a mourning dove is an insult to the mourning dove. I had better not be parking my car under any of the wires they perch on.

Case in point, the GQP started releasing web sites yesterday alleged voter fraud that cost them the election. Yep, they were saying that over 24-hours before the actual election. So take their fraud allegation story with a large grain of salt and recognize it as the insane, fascist, undemocratic lie that it is.

The reality that they can’t accept is that there is no massive secret conspiracy to rig the election in favor of the Democrats. The simple fact is that the Republicans are lower than whale shit and folks are no longer believing their lies.

As I’ve noted, my pinned Tweet says:

No need to change that any time soon that I can see.

And finally, to paraphrase a popular joke about lawyers:

What do you call 1,000,000 Republicans buried up their chins in sand?

Not enough sand!

Leave a comment

Filed under Birds, Photography, Politics

September 11, 2021 · 23:44

Purple & Pink

Something related to morning glories, but they’re usually a little more blue.

These have always been more of a lavender color and a much brighter, more vivid shade of purple.

And “morning” glory or not, these prefer the middle of the afternoon to explode with color.

One thing that amazes me is how the blossom colors will vary so widely, even on the same stem or with flowers right next to each other.

They’re also a great draw for the hummingbirds.

It’s amazing what you can see if you keep your eyes open and be open to the experiences around you, even if you’re just dragging the empty trash barrels up from the street!

Leave a comment

Filed under Flowers, Photography

September 10, 2021 · 23:34

Lounging Squirrel – Chapter The Second

Walking through the kitchen to get a soda mid-day. Wait – what’s that out on the porch?

First of all, is it dead? It looks dead… Nope, it twitched. Is it dying? (And please excuse the Dodgers doormat out there. We’re really NOT that sort of people1 But when we moved in the landlord said it had to stay and three years later I still haven’t figured out if he was joking or not.)

I don’t want to move because he’ll bolt, but let’s use the zoom on the iPhone a bit.

Yep, he’s alive, and alert now that he knows I’m here. But he’s not tearing off across the yard and up the tree like he’s training for the Olympics.

This is definitely the closest I’ve ever seen him come up to the house. And he never lounges up on the porch. So what’s up?

When I posted his first lounging photo a few days ago, long-time follower of this blog Jemima Pett thought that it might be because when it got really hot, the concrete in the shade might still be cooler than the air and the critters would do it to stay cooler. That makes sense, but it would still be the first time that I’ve ever seen it. And today wasn’t “stupid hot,” just in the mid 90’s, when we’ve had plenty of days up above 110°, or even 120°. Maybe he was lounging by the pool at the neighbors house on those days, but now they’ve gotten a dog and we’re a pale, pathetic substitute.

I just hope this little beastie doesn’t figure out we’ve got the A/C on inside or he’ll be making a dash for the door when it opens. I don’t even want to think about all of the screaming, crying, and panic that would follow.

2 Comments

Filed under Critters, Photography