Category Archives: Photography

May Full Moon Rising

I think it was full moon when I caught this – might have been a day before or a day after, but close enough for government work.

Not the closest or the biggest, or the furthest away or the smallest, just the one that comes 28 days after the last one, so no headlines, no clickbait, no spam about it.

Sometimes you get lucky playing around with the iPhone settings and you get a decent picture. It’s better to be lucky than good!

That’s pretty!

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography

Moon Cloud

Bright moon, full-ish. Might be tonight, might have been last night. Whatever, close enough for government work.

Odd trail of cloud covering it.

The clouds and the moon are 250,000 miles apart, I think it’s just a coincidental alignment. I like to keep an eye open for such things. And then share them.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space, Weather

One Of Those Days – May 12th

Stuck down here, wishing I were up there.

Oh, didn’t notice the irridescent rainbow arc around the Sun until now! That’s nice…

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Weather

Valet Musings

At the Ahmanson last night, dealing with the huge crowds for the Gold House Gala there, we used the valet parking. This is also a considerably easier arrangement for The Long Suffering Wife.

The play, “Life of Pi,” was very good, and the staging and animation of the animal characters was astonishing. We enjoyed ourselves.

When the play was over, the Gala was also letting out. Valet parking had quite the lineup waiting for cars to be delivered. While I expected to wait 20-30 minutes (or more) we only waited maybe ten minutes.

Two observations:

  1. In the long line of limos, Mercedes, Jaguars, BMW’s, and six-figure luxury cars of every description, it was a joy to see our little Hissy, our Honda Fit, pop up. She brought some much needed humility and real world class to the chaos.
  2. It was amazing how long some cars sat there waiting for their owners to pick them up. You turn in your ticket and then wait, so presumably if they show up with your vehicle, you’ve been there for a few minutes or more and are looking for your car so you can leave. Apparently not for the hoity and the toity amongst us. In particular, while waiting for Hissy, a Jaguar pulled up at the curb right in front of us (three lanes of cars moving through) and the valet driver shouted and honked and ran around asking folks to check their tickets for at least five minutes. Meanwhile, one of the three lanes is completely blocked. Suddenly this couple sitting on the benches right next to us startles to their feet and recognizes their car, not three feet away from them. REALLY??!! And then when they walk over and open the doors, NOW they see some friends and stand there blocking the sidewalk (and continue to block 1/3 of the valet lanes) while they schmooze. Really REALLY??!!! The entitlement and cluelessness was AWESOME! Or they were too drunk to recognize their own car and were now going to go get on the LA Freeways at 22:30. Or both.

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Filed under Entertainment, Freakin' Idiots!, Los Angeles, Photography

Ahmanson vs Gala

Back at the Ahmanson. I’ve heard of this production but know almost nothing about it. Should be fun!

Outside it’s busy. “Gold House” is having their gala and they’ve taken over the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the entire plaza between the theaters. Traffic and parking have been affected in turn.

Big money, apparently. Megan Thee Stallion is apparently their GOH tonight (we didn’t see her).

Rich or poor, it’s good to have boatloads of money! Or so I’ve heard.

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Filed under Entertainment, Los Angeles, Photography

Chain Of Rocks Birds

2008, I was visiting my son when he was at Scott AFB outside of St. Louis. He was busy during the day, so I went out to Chain of Rocks Park to spot some big birds. I think I had also just gotten the big telephoto lens so the focus might not be perfect.

Wild turkeys.

Great Egret. Not a mediocre egret, but a GREAT egret.

Great Blue Heron. Love seeing these huge birds. Mainly because I’m not a fish.

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Filed under Birds, Photography, Travel

No Context For You – May 7th

Wednesdays are training nights, when I meet my trainer for an hour of “Functional Strength Training.” Weights (flys), sit ups, weights (curls), push ups, even more weights (combinations) – all to build strength, and it’s really made a difference.

It’s one of those “use it or lose it” things. I’m not doing it to be a body builder or anything, but so that I can still move around and have a normal, relatively active life when others my age are restricted to rockers and wheelchairs.

It would be nice to lose some weight as well, but that’s more of a diet thing.

It would be nice if this had been of more help last Saturday when I was getting my ass kicked by a mountain hiking trail, but that’s endurance, not strength. Related, perhaps, but also different.

It does help me sleep well on Wednesday nights!

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Filed under Health, Photography

Fine Feathered Friends – May 6th

For years the crows have ignored all of the bird seed thrown out into the yard. But the cookies and grapes that have been thrown out recently were a whole different thing. Now that the cookies are gone and I don’t have any grapes to share at the moment, at least one of the crows has put two and two together and gotten “breakfast” as the answer.

This dude’s huge.

Based on size, I thought that it was a raven, but the Merlin app says it’s a crow.

It’s not eating the little seeds, but the sunflower seeds and remaining bits of cookie are fair game.

The squirrels are surpisingly unbothered by this large black critter moving in on their bird seed racket. The juncos, finches, and mourning doves take off like a bat out of hell when the crow shows up, but the squirrels just ignore it.

The critter that DOES pay attention to the crow is the mockingbird. Mortal enemies, the mockingbirds are constantly mobbing it and buzzing it to drive it off. The crow in turn ignores them, but the mockingbirds scare the crap out of the squirrels.

It’s a circle of life thing, I guess.

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Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography

Mexico

It’s Cinco de Mayo. I understand that “holiday” is just for Americans to get drunk and eat tacos (like we really need an excuse!) and is rarely if ever celebrated in Mexico, and it’s NOT “Mexican Independence Day.”

But it did give me an idea for a place to go look back through a ton of amazing pictures.

Cabo San Lucas from just outside the harbor – our ship is on the right.

Can you see the “hidden” pelican flying by?

Cabo was fun to visit as a tourist for a day. I could see spending maybe a week there and doing nothing but sitting on my ass on a beach or by the pool. After that…

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Filed under Birds, Photography, Travel

Wildflowers Along The Trail

While yesterday’s hike was an ordeal (and I’m still practically crippled from the DOMS – Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, but it will go away in a day or two), the spring wildflowers all along the trail were spectacular.

My phone battery died before the first of six-plus miles was done, but before that happened, I grabbed images of these to share:

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Filed under Flowers, Photography