Category Archives: Photography

A Calm Pool

Some days you have certain priorities and the world has others.

I remain a clam pool amid the chaos, despite the fact that my to-do list didn’t shrink nearly as much as I had hoped for today.

Is there a nice old picture I can share, just as a break from the doom scrolling and endless stream of numbers?

Something I saw online said something like “Take two Bufferin capsules with a cup of Sanka and a glass of Tang and you’ll wake up in 1974 in the back seat of a Buick LeSabre.” I would take that deal, I would love to be back in 1974 and at Center Pond (shown) for a day or two with some dear friends who are no longer with us.

Instead, there’s a yet longer to-do list waiting for tomorrow.

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Travel

June 2025

It feels like I’m on a roller coaster at the top of the first lift hill – you know, that moment where it pauses for a second and lets you look over the edge, and while you’re not accelerating downward just yet, you know it’s coming, coming soon, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it?

May was like a month of setting up a huge set of dominos. Big picture, from an impartial, outside view, most of these upcoming adventures are good things. The search for the Forever Home. Starting to pack and think about the logistics of moving one final time. The annual audit at work. A bunch of other projects at work. Making some deliberate changes to my daily routines and habits (exercise, a trainer, more discipline in self care) to deal with some of the aging and stress issues. Mostly good, just change, and change is always stressful, even when (or perhaps “especially when”) it’s necessary and desireable.

Maybe it’s more like standing in the doorway of an airplane, waiting to do your first jump. You know that you want to do it, you know that it’s going to be a good thing, but it’s still terrifying.

It’s sure looking a lot like after months and months of prep and setting the stage, June is going to be when all of those dominos start to fall, when the roller coaster dives into its first loop, and when I really, really need to see if all of that planning and prep pays off and the parachute opens.

Exciting.

Exhausting.

Terrifying.

So here’s a picture of the DWP building and sunset from the Music Center last night.

As for Robert O’Hara’s new vision of “Hamlet” from yesterday? Someone who’s much more of a student of Shakespeare will need to weigh in. I’m just going to sit here and mutter “WT actual F??!!” over and over a lot.

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Filed under Forever Home, Paul, Photography

Some Whacked Out Danish Prince Dude

Our final performance at the Mark Taper Forum this year (one more at the Ahmanson next month):

To recap, “Green Day’s American Idiot” was wonderful and “Fake It Until You Make It” was…not.

This is a “bold new reimagining” and so on, but Gina Torres is in it as Gertrude, so I’m along for the ride. “Depictions of blood and violence, themes of suicide, substance abuse, strong language, simulated sex acts, and nudity.” What’s not to love?!

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Filed under Entertainment, Los Angeles, Photography

Proof Of Life – May 29th

SOOOOO angry tonight. Or frustrated. Or both.

Our payroll is due tonight and I just found out that they’ve COMPLETELY redesigned their data entry interface with zero warning, and it SUCKS!!! I always thought that the early implementations of QuickBooks Online was the worst program I’ve ever seen or used – this is giving it a run for its money.

The data entry that usually takes 30-45 minutes has already taken over an hour and I’m only a third of the way through it – at this pace it will be 1:30 or 2:00 AM or later before I’m done. And that assumes that there aren’t any more surprises or re-designs or other complications later, like when I want to get a report to verify that I’ve entered all of the data correctly.

WTF were they thinking??!!

Meanwhile, for reasons that make no sense at all to me, I got to thinking about how I don’t know how to stand for pictures without looking incredibly awkward. For example:

This has always been a favorite in this category. Prague, 2006. Calling Dork Central! What exactly am I doing with my arms, and why does it look like they’re both broken?

This is a little better. At least I found something to do with my hands. And these days I’m about 50 pounds lighter, so that helps…

Back to battle with the “new & improved” payroll software or I’ll NEVER get to bed tonight!

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Paul, Photography, Travel

Beautiousness

Between work deadlines, forever home house hunting, preparing to move sooner rather than later, and *LIFE*, I’m overwhelmed enough so that I don’t know the day of the week without checking my watch, the day of the month is iffy at best, and even which month we’re in can be a crap shoot. Given that, it’s no surprise that I’ve lost track completely of what the current phase of the moon is. I sorta remember a full moon a while back, but was it a week ago? Two weeks ago? Closer to three? Who knows!?

Apparently it was about two and a half weeks ago. While doing a lap of the back yard just after sunset, I spotted this:

My first thought was to think “cool!” and move on. I wasn’t going to take a picture or spend another second on it, I’m swamped. (Remember?)

But then I came to my senses. I took the picture specifically to share tonight as a reminder to stop, look around, pay attention to the beauty and wonders that are lurking everywhere. (Can beauty lurk?)

Life’s short. Listen to Ferris Bueller. “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Take time to smell the roses. Or say hello to the crescent moon hanging up there in the sunset clouds.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets

Stained Glass – May 27th

St Michael’s Cathedral in Brussels.

The messages and stories and sentiment might be lost on me – I’ve done my time and I’m not a believer.

But I’m still always drawn to the beauty and craftsmanship that’s lasted for centuries.

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Filed under Art, Photography

A Horsie I Think

Still looking at clouds. I’m usually not that good about seeing shapes in them (for example, some of my finest work is pretty basic, at best) but this one just leapt out at me this evening.

It’s running from left to right, and its head is turned to look at me. See it? Tail, hooves, ears, butt?

Wait, aren’t horse butts called “withers?” Eeeehhhh! 🚨🚨🚨Wrong! 🚨🚨🚨 The shoulders, or highest point on the back, are the withers. So what is the back end called? Just horse butts?

If we’re going to buy a horse property for our Forever Home (we’re NOT!) I’m going to have to learn the lingo.

(It’s apparently “hindquarters,” and the high point of the hindquarters is called the “croup.”)

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets, Weather

501′ Overhead

FAA regulations say that over a populated area if you’re not landing or taking off you need to be at least 500 feet high. We had an LAPD helicopter the other day “orbiting” over a spot about two blocks away (never did figure out what the fuss was about) which meant for about 15 minutes, we had him coming back around right overhead every 60 seconds or so. As low as he could get, so, probably about 501 feet overhead.

Here in our neck of the woods in the big city, between fires, crimes, accidents, rescues, and other emergencies, this happens three or four times a year. There are, of course, areas of the city where this happens three or four times a day. Here, not so much. (That’s a good thing!) How often does it happen elsewhere? In Springfield, Vermont in the 1970’s I don’t think I saw a single helicopter anywhere in five years. Your experience is somewhere between those two extremes.

But it’s a good excuse for me to grab the camera and go look at our personal air show.

Sorry about all of the spots – they’re from dust on the sensor of a decades-plus-old camera. Normally I clean up images I post here using Photoshop, but I just realized that I haven’t re-installed it on this new computer after I got it in March. Another task to add to the punch list for finishing up the install.

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Filed under Flying, Los Angeles, Photography

Dragon Reentry

SpaceX Dragon spacecraft have started splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off of San Diego. Tonight there was a Cargo Dragon coming back from the International Space Station and its track brought it in from the northwest to the southeast, following the California coast and coming right over Los Angeles at about 10″35 PM.

I was thinking of shooting a Facebook Live video, but the Dragon came over Castle Peak a minute or two earlier than I had expected and it was going a LOT faster than I expected. I’m used to seeing ISS going over and it can take close to ten minutes to go from horizon to horizon if it’s going straight overhead. Dragon took 1:29. It was slower after breaking using atmospheric drag, but it was also MUCH lower.

Dragon had a long, colorful tail, not unlike a SpaceX Falcon launch, but missing the exhaust trail that a launch will leave.

These first three pictures were taken about 4-5 seconds apart – that spacecraft was making tracks!

Once it got down toward the southern horizon, somewhere south of Long Beach and near Oceanside, the trail faded as the spacecraft slowed further and the parachutes came out.

But the show wasn’t over. The other thing that was expected since we were nearly right under the path was a sonic boom. As it went over the Dragon was doing WELL over Mach 1, and about 2:34 after the Dragon faded from view, a LOUD Boom-Boom, double sonic boom rattled the windows. Outside it was quite noticable – it was heard even inside the house, as The Long Suffering Wife came out to make sure that I hadn’t tripped and fallen and slammed into the door or wall. No tripping, no crashing, just spacecraft returning to Earth.

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Filed under Photography, Space

Caterpillar Cloud

I came out the front door just around sunset and started the exit rituals. I said hello to the mourning dove hiding in its nest above the door. I said howdy to the medium sized lizard  who was catching the last solar rays on the west-facing front porch. I dropped and gave it a couple of push ups for competition and recognition – it did more, but mine were bigger, so we called it a draw and it scurried off into the bushes.

Then I noticed the isolated and gorgeous catepillar-shaped cloud hanging up there in the sunset sky.

Timing is everything. While it wasn’t going to get pink or orange or truly SPECTACULAR, it was brilliantly white and fluffy and feathery in a darkening sky. It was well above average, and these days that’s worth paying attention to!

If only I had wings to go do barrel rolls around it, through it, touching it, feeling the cold moisture on my face.

But I don’t. *sigh*

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Sunsets, Weather