Category Archives: Photography

August 1, 2025 · 23:46

Well, Wasn’t THAT One Hell Of A Month??!!

July 1st, what? We’re opening escrow? Gee, it’s a great house, I’m glad that The Long Suffering Wife loves it, as do I, but really?! A 21-day escrow?

August 1st, we’ve been in here eleven days and all is still pretty much chaos, boxes almost everywhere, and yet… There’s a lot more order and organization that there was after the previous move, seven years ago. I still have to empty the rest of the contents of the two PODS storage units, but that’s progress for another day. Today I finished emptying out the second UHaul truck of this week. While my hands and arms and legs and back and butt and shoulders are all pretty much one giant cramp 24/7/365, I am feeling a certain sense of accomplishment. Despite my current age and condition (i.e., “I am WAAAAAY too old for this shit!”) it is getting done.

And the sky here! Instead of having a street light right in front of the house and then about every third house all up and down the street and being in the middle of a brightly lit metropolitan area that’s in the top twenty or so on the planet, we have just two, one at each end of our cul-de-sac, at least three or four houses away. And our street and subdivision is located in an area that’s about 1/20 as densely populated as Los Angeles. As a result, YOU CAN SEE THE STARS! It’s not a “Bortle 1” location by any means, but a Bortle 6.4 location is tons better than a Bortle 8.4 location, and from here Bortle 4 locations are less than an hour’s drive away.

Just with my cell phone camera, looking out my front door toward the southwest tonight, the quarter Moon was setting over the palm tree, and to the left above the garage room you can clearly see the stars at the “head” of Scorpius. (Go ahead, click on the image, I’m giving you the uncompressed file and it’s amazing!)

Antares is the brightest star (second from the left edge) with the “head” coming down vertically to the right near the center of this image. (Click! Click! See all of the detail!)

Wait until I get my telescope put back together. (“Funny” story there with the movers…)

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Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography

July 31, 2025 · 23:31

Forever Home – July 31st

I moved to Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley (or just “The Valley”) almost 40 years ago, and I’ve lived almost 35 of those 40 years in two houses that are within a mile of each other. I know those areas and streets like the back of my hand, and that’s a long, long time. Today I drove away.

I understand that I’ll be back, occasionally, infrequently, as the desire and requirements arise to visit the office or to visit old friends or collect mail from the PO Box that we’ve had for 35+ years (and still have). But on a daily basis, going to one of those two houses? Nope, today was it. The last of all of the “stuff” is out and at the new Forever Home.

You know, if I didn’t have almost 70 years of accumulated CRAP stored, you could almost fit two cars in there!

In an almost perfectly orchestrated “LA Moment” as I was stuck in horrible, dragging, pathetically slow traffic on the freeway, I was listening to “JACK-FM” on the radio. I used to listen to it all the time, but it’s been years now since I’ve tuned it in since I almost always am listening instead to SiriusXM satellite radio. But the moving vans have only AM or FM, so JACK was the best option. Then, Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom” comes on and I’ve got it cranked to the max. I’ve got the windows rolled up and I’m on the freeway at a standstill so who could it be bothering? 😇Suddenly, as we get to the first chorus, where the countdown comes in, I see the guy in front of me in a covertible Mercedes hold up his arm and in perfect synchronicity, stick up his fingers “FOUR!” “THREE!” “TWO!” “ONE!” “Earth below us / Drifting, falling…” I was doing it too (of course!) but quickly rolled down the window and stuck my arm out for the second chorus. It was perfect!

About 45 minutes later, while I was still stuck in traffic in a 15′ boat anchor somewhere around Pasadena, we got treated to Genesis’ “In The Air Tonight.” Still on incredibly loud. I’m guessing that my drop-top Mercedes friend was halfway to Las Vegas by that point, but I want to believe (nay, I HAVE TO BELIEVE) that we were still kindred spirits at the 3:40 solo drum break, pounding on our respective steering wheels like brothers from different mothers.

It was an LA sortof thing. Adios!

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Filed under Forever Home, Los Angeles, Photography

July 30, 2025 · 23:54

Forever Home – July 30th

I finally found the bathroom scale in the mountain of boxes.

I was hoping that all of the activity from the last couple of weeks would have a positive effect. I’m down about eight pounds! NOT a program I would recommend.

My Apple phone has noticed!

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Filed under Forever Home, Health, Photography

July 29, 2025 · 23:01

Forever Home – July 29th

Every muscle and joint in my body is in agony.

But the sunset gradient is exquisite!

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

July 28, 2025 · 23:13

Forever Home – July 28th

Finally – I got to view a sunset at our new home in the High Desert.

No trio of tall palm trees any more. Lots of trees, but they’re lower and block less of the view. Can you spot the four-day old crescent moon? Click on the image to see it full sized. It’s there!

There it is, a little more zoomed in.

Looking the other way, across the back yard wall, we get that “purple mountain’s majesty” thing going on. The Golden Hour. With high-tension power lines everywhere, carrying electricity from Boulder Dam to Los Angeles.

A half hour later it’s more purples and blues than oranges and yellow, and it’s getting cold quickly. It may be 87º during the day, but it drops into the high sixties fast once the Sun’s down!

Welome home!

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Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

July 27, 2025 · 21:12

Forever Home – July 27th

I missed posting last night. It’s called “total exhaustion,” and “Paul can’t estimate how long packing and moving will take within an order of magnitude!”

Here’s the crescent moon tonight.

I’ll bet it looks amazing from our new house in the High Desert, but I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see. I’m obviously still at the old house, packing yet another truck full of stuff.

It’s an “adventure!!” One I wish would come to an end and let me get back to a boring routine. “Mundane” has become a short-term life goal!

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Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography

July 25, 2025 · 23:00

Forever Home – July 25th

The movers were in and out quickly today, done by noon. Now we just have to open all of the boxes, unload the PODS, make another trip to the old house tomorrow to clean up the loose ends, and then try to search for a new normal and something resembling a routine.

The sunrises here are amazing – a pity that they happen at 05:45!

I am deleting emails from Zillow as fast as I can, with the desktop computer set back up online and no need to try to do everything on the phone. It’s the little things…

Like cancelling emails from Zillow. No need every again.

Like turning on the phone’s setting to send unknown callers to voice mail.

Things aren’t normal yet, but you can see it from here.

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

July 24, 2025 · 23:29

Forever Home – July 24th

One final morning waking up at the West Hills home where we’ve been living for the past 7+ years.

Tonight, after yet another exhausting and very long day, I’m at home in our Forever Home. It’s a little odd still since all of the furniture and dishes and clothing and STUFF is in various trucks and containers and storage, but we’ll be pulling things back into shape starting tomorrow.

Today was a good news day. The PODS containers got picked up and delivered successfully. Tomorrow I start to unpack.

The movers showed up and got all of the “big stuff” into their trucks, and they’ll be here delivering and re-assembling starting at 07:00.

The holes in the front yard which exposed the septic system for inspection ten days ago got filled back in and the landscaping was (more or less) repaired.

Tomorrow I also need to get my office and computers back online. Yes, I know I’m an “addict” to my electronic access, but it’s really a pain trying to do tasks that take 45 seconds on my desktop but 45 minutes to do on my phone with a really slow connection.

And as tired as I am, I took five minutes to go out in the back, look at the stars, and listen to the trains about a mile away. There’s so much less light pollution here. It’s not Joshua Tree or Bryce, but it’s a BIG step up from Los Angeles!

To tomorrow.

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Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Panorama, Photography

July 23, 2025 · 23:06

Forever Home – July 23rd (I think)

Zillow, probably my most used website for the last four or five years, says our dream house was sold yesterday. Fortunately, I have loan docs (and a mortgage) that says it was to us.

Today the “fun” began. PODS was scheduled to pick up their two containers, ready or not, at 07:30. Unfortunately at 07:15 they sent a message canceling that pickup and rescheduling for tomorrow. Since I had been up until 04:30 making sure that both units were fully packed and ready to go, I had bad words to say.

I try really hard not to yell at customer service folks on the phone since that doesn’t motivate them to want to help or problem solve and they’re not the ones who caused the problem, but when it takes five calls to get through to an actual human and then all I get is a “shit happens” attitude, it’s hard to be the adult in the conversation.

They SWEAR our PODS will get picked up tomorrow. Let’s hope so.

The next crisis of home ownership was the water, which got turned off, despite the fact that I filled out paperwork online last weekend. Now they need the recorded Trust Deed before they can begin service.

What? Is there a problem in Hesperia with people setting up payment accounts for properties they don’t own or rent? I must be missing something…

Get that document from the escrow officer, send it over, we’re set? Well, do I want the water turned on TODAY? There’s a $90 charge for same-day service…

Interesting setup arrangement… How many folks say, “No, I’ll save the $90 and just live without water in my brand new house for a week or two?”

Paid. The Long-Suffering Wife has water.

I spent my day on less than three hours of sleep packing more & getting ready for the “real” movers to show up at 08:00 tomorrow. Another case of simply doing the best I can and learning to let go of the self-imposed stress.

If I have to make another trip back down here on the weekend to tie up loose ends, then I’ll have to. Stressing myself into a stroke or heart attack won’t let me enjoy the Dream Forever Home.

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography

July 22, 2025 · 23:20

Forever Home – July 22nd

We are home owners!

And dealing with getting the internet connected (critical since I’m still working from home) and finishing up packing and preparation for the movers tomorrow and Thursday has me plumbing depths of exhaustion that I didn’t know existed.

Of course, when we got there, it was immediately obvious that there was still an ongoing issue with the septic inspection. They need to get this back to the original condition!

And tonight, back at the old place, packing, I have no internet or TV other than my two bars of 5G on my phone. Just as well, fewer distractions!

Happy, happy!!!

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography