Category Archives: Photography

January 6, 2026 · 22:57

Fast, Lacy Clouds

It was a matter of layers.

I was wondering what made that straight line splitting the lower layer of lacy clouds – probably a small plane, but it could be something natural. Or a really freakin’ huge bird…

The solid clouds were pretty stationary, and up at probably 3,000′ or so. The thin, lacy ones were much lower, probably about 1,000 feet or so, and moving like a bat out of Hell toward the north.

Keep looking up! Keep your eyes and your soul open to some of the ordinary and beautiful things up there.

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January 5, 2026 · 23:40

Proof Of Life – January 05th

THERE WAS A GIANT, YELLOW BALL OF LIGHT IN THE SKY TODAY, ALL DAY LONG!

There were still a few clouds floating around, but for the most part there were lots of blue areas and the giant yellow ball of light. When I stood in the yellow light it was warm and comfortable.

When I stood in the yellow, warm light I didn’t want to curl up in bed and cry any more. (Okay, let’s get real, two seconds of reading the news made me want to curl up and cry, yellow warm light or not, but that’s a different topic.)

Maybe if we say nice things and make small sacrifices on a rudimentary altar, nothing fancy, just a chicken or two, then the giant yellow ball of warm light will come back tomorrow.

It will be my friend. I think I will name him “Ra.”

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January 3, 2026 · 23:55

Why Is There Brain Freeze?

Especially when you’re eating ice cream. Ice cream is by definition a perfect good. How come it can be turned into a nightmare, a horrible, painful thing by brain freeze?

This is proof to me that there is no kind, benovolent, loving, omnipotent God or Creator. There may be a Creator, or we may be in a simulation of some sort, but there’s no omnipotence involved. There are any number of errors or bugs in the system.

On the ultimate scale of horrors, the top billing of course goes to things like childhood cancer or worms that have their larva grow in your eyeballs and blind you for life. Not to mention the existance and ongoing lack of consequences for a whole raft of current US politicians. Despite all of the press it gets in Bible, we’re not seeing nearly enough smiting these days.

But having had a busy, stressful day and persevering and getting things accomplished and rewarding yourself with some quality ice cream, only to be BLINDED by unstoppable pain after like three bites, that’s gotta be up there on the list. And it’s very personal. (Not that eyeball larva isn’t…)

I’d like to talk to the manager, please!

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Moral Outrage, Paul, Photography, Politics, Religion

January 2, 2026 · 23:52

Random Old Photos – January 02nd

Oh, god, this office. The guy who was in this office. The stories behind him being hired, and then being fired six months later. The stories I could tell if the statute of limitations on slander ever expires. But isn’t the truth an absolute defense against slander?

I was telling someone about this guy and my experiences with him just the other day. Maybe that subconscious trigger led me to this set of pictures when I was looking for something random to share.

Or, he’s haunting me. Could go either way.

Frankly, if I’m going to be haunted, I would prefer someone much different. More succubussy, for starters.

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Filed under Paul, Photography

January 1, 2026 · 23:57

2026 Arrives

First of all, my undying thanks to everyone who continues to follow this site and my photos and writing and blaterationings. I appreciate all of the likes, comments, and suggestions, and will always appreciate any and all feedback.

We got a bit of a break from the rain, but while I was out refilling the bird feeders it was drizzling with the sun out, which means rainbows. It wasn’t the brightest one in the world, but you can see the arc out there.

To the south you couldn’t QUITE see the mountain under the clouds, except for a couple of spots where, if you look really close…

The clouds were rolling through FAST, with chunks falling down from the base, indicative of some serious turbulence up there. A good day to not be flying.

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Weather

December 31, 2025 · 22:46

2005 Was Like Sirius

To be clear, 2005 for me was like Sirius the star, the astronomical object, not Sirius the satellite music service.

Sirius (the star) is the brightest star (other than the Sun) as seen from Earth, over twice as bright as the second brightest (Canopus). It’s been known for thousands and thousands of years since it’s so prominent. It’s the “Dog Star” and when it appears as the morning star it’s the beginning of summer and the “dog days.” Lots of interesting facts about Sirius and it’s history.

Despite being known and prominent for centuries, it wasn’t until 1844 that astronomers noted that it’s part of a binary star system. The huge, bright star we see is now known as “Sirius A” – there’s a much smaller, much dimmer white dwarf which can only be seen with a good sized telescope that’s known now as “Sirius B.”

This is where I make the comparison to 2025.

“Sirius A” = all of the pain and bullshit that was the world (Russia vs Ukraine, etm…) and US politics (the rigged and stolen Presidential election that no one seems to care about, the Mango Manchurian Candidate and all of his disgusting actions and idiotic, psychotic rantings and misinformation, the billionaires who bought Congress and the Supreme Court, the Epstein files, the National Guard in our cities, ICE, Brain-Worm Bobby and his [literally] insane health policies, and on and on and on and one, etm…)

“Sirius B” = our Forever Home, finding it after years of searching, getting the purchase done, getting the move (more or less) done, and still being amazed on a daily basis that we own and live in such a COOL place!

Given the enormous difference in magnitude between the two, it almost seems inappropriate or embarrassing to be so pleased about the house, given the enormity of the suffering and death around the world and in our country. Yet, on an individual level, it really shouldn’t be ignored or lost in the chaos. Yes, big picture, it’s a tiny thing compared to the potential end of US democracy or the start of the Second US Civil War, but it’s a HUGE freakin’ thing in our personal lives.

So, it reminded me of Sirius.

What about 2026? Well, as I might have hinted at, I think Trump should be in jail for the rest of his life, or tried and executed for high treason, and then we need to find a way to sweep the GOP and our illegitimate Supreme Court out of power and change the rules so this can never happen again. I suspect there might be more than enough bribery, perjury, embezzlement, and other crimes in there to put a LOT of the GOP into cells next to Trump’s. Time to clean house and take our country back. (I wish I knew how to do that, but that’s above my pay grade. I’m open to suggestions.)

That’s the biggest day in, day out, universal objective for the new year, but there’s the usual on a personal level as well. There are always things that I can and want to do better, and since I’ll be hitting one of those “red-letter” birthdays in March, as always I need to do a better job of taking care of myself physically.

We’ll see. The intentions are good. The spirit is strong, but the body is weak.

Stupid body. (And holy guacamole, Batman! That’s a metric shit ton of grey hair. 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯)

I hope all y’all get through the New Years’ celebrations safely and in one piece. I’m sure you all have your own list of things to be aware of and improve on where possible – best of luck to you all and may the odds be ever in your favor.

If nothing else, “Project Hail Mary” hits theaters in March. How bad can a year be with that coming out to look forward to? (He asks innocently, fully understanding that he’s probably tempting the Fates with such a statement.)

I’ll see all y’all on the other side.

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Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Paul, Photography, Politics

December 30, 2025 · 22:52

Mountain Under The Cloud Deck

Solid overcast today as the next storm moves in overnight, but for a few minutes this morning there was a perfectly positioned thin spot that let some sunlight in to illuminate Mount San Antonio and its fresh layer of snow.

With everything else darker around it, the effect was stunning.

The new incoming storm isn’t supposed to deliver nearly as much rain as last week’s storm did, but we’re still being warned of possible flash flooding and mudslides below the burn scar areas from earlier this year. (We’re not in one of those areas.) I’m not too worried about this one personally, but it will be damp and cold pretty much every day for the next week.

Probably no ice cream trucks showing up for a few days. And anyone camping out on the sidewalk for the Rose Parade in Pasadena down the hill might be miserable. But we’ll be warm and cozy here – not going anywhere!

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December 29, 2025 · 23:05

Sunday Morning Mountain

For years we have gone out to breakfast on Sunday mornings, followed by our major weekly trip to the grocery store. COVID put a hitch in our getalong for a while (we ordered breakfast to go and I went shopping by myself to get in and get out) but now we’re getting back to that routine in Hesperia. It’s nice.

A couple of the places we go are about five miles away, near the post office, so it’s a good chance to also swing by and clean out the PO Box. The place we went this last Sunday is right near the Main Street overpass of the BNSF mainline railroad tracks, which might be one of the taller structures in the area. And it was the first day after the clouds had finally cleared out following the Christmas storm.

While we were waiting for breakfast to get cooked and served, I took a short hike.

That’s the back (north) side of Mount San Antonio, known better as “Old Baldy.”

With several inches of fresh snow, it was beautiful! Too bad that with several major mountain roads closed and washed out by the flooding, no one could get up to the ski resorts there.

While I was up there for five minutes, I also got to see two freight trains, seen here just before they meet going in opposite directions. The one on the left is headed down into Cajon Pass and down the hill into the Los Angeles area rail yards, while the one on the right has just come up the hill and is headed to points east. The main line goes through Barstow, Flagstaff, Kansas City, Fort Madison, and Chicago.

Later, from a lower point of view, i.e., atop the fence surrounding the flood control basin near where I took last night’s pictures of the Christmas lights hanging over the back yard wall, you can see the mountain rising about twenty miles to the southwest of the Forever Home.

I’m thinking we won’t get tired of that view any time soon.

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December 28, 2025 · 23:29

Which House Is Ours?

As mentioned a couple of times, our street, as lovely as it is (and is really *IS*), is one street of seven in our subdivision, with none of the other streets ever being developed, leaving nothing but empty, graded, ready for construction lots for the last couple of decades. Weird, but it is what it is.

As I mentioned earlier this weekend, because of that, there’s nothing but dirt and weeds on the other side of our back wall, so I started hanging extra Christmas lights on the other side of the back wall. Theoretically I guess that would be in someone else’s yard if they ever built a house on that lot, but they haven’t, so I put lights up that can be seen when you come off of the main street into the back way into the subdivision.

Tonight I walked the two blocks down to the corner where the back entrance is and looked back toward the line of back yard walls on our street. Guess which house is ours!

I think it looks great. As I’ve said, next year I want to extend it out about twenty feet to both sides along the brick wall, and add a couple more loops below these. It will be amazing!

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Forever Home, Photography

December 26, 2025 · 23:39

Hesperia Christmas Lights 2025 – Day Five

The back yard – a new frontier!

I’ve always put 99% of the lights up in the front yard where they could be seen by the neighbors and passers by. Yes, I want to show them off! That last 1% went round the sides of the roofline to give a bit of a 3-D sense and something to look at while you’re coming at the house from the side. To give the whole light display some depth.

And so it’s been this year, although with the huge driveway on one side and the garage doors on the side, it’s more like 75% in front and 25% on the one side. No worries, it looks good.

But the Forever Home doesn’t have anything in back of it, no neighbors, no houses, just several vacant, graded pads where houses have never been built. You can sort of see it from the intersection with the main road a block away, and you can see it clearly as you turn off of the main road and come toward our street. The pergola with all of the bird feeders sticks up above the cinder block wall.

And that’s a canvas that I had to start putting lights on this year.

As seen from the house, there are a couple of strings of lights hanging down from the support posts of the pergola. EASY to put up and support, no hooks or hangars or anything else needed. And with the low-power LED lights, you can have thousands of lights in a single string going back and forth.

What you can’t see from this view are the first (top) string running right along the top beam of the pergola and facing outward, and the fourth and fifth arcs of lights, which hang down on the outside of the wall so that they’re visible only from the outside.

(I am SOOOOOOO glad that I didn’t drop my phone over the wall taking this picture, leaning way out.)

I now have the rest of the lights that can fit onto this one string and next year I want to add another loop or two hanging below these two, then I want to extend the loops out from the top of the cinder block wall on either side of the pergola. I think it will look amazing and bright and colorful for anyone coming into the subdivision off of the back entrance from the main road.

As always…

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Forever Home, Memes, Photography