Category Archives: Photography

Sitting Quietly

I went out into the back yard, it was very pleasant. When I went out, all of the critters and birds fled, but as I sat still for a while, they started to come back.

Over behind the pergola, this little dude popped his head up to keep his eye on me. It’s like he thought that I couldn’t see him. Okay, I’ll play along.

Then when it was time for me to go in, I quietly stood up. The birds that had come back fled again, and this little dude started doing that ear piercing, squirrel version of “DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!

Jeez Louise, dude! I’m twenty feet away, I’m old, I’m slow, and all I did was stand up. Chillax!

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Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography

No Context For You – May 20th

Nibbled to death by ducks.

No one close to us has died recently, no one in the family has a terminal disease, our house isn’t on fire, so many folks have it so much worse…

And yet.

When every news cycle gets worse, when the bumpy, rough road turns out to be endless, when what should be a shelter turns out to be a prison…

“Never give up, never surrender!” is a great tagline for a movie character, but in real life things are messier.

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Filed under Paul, Photography

Celestial Wonders, Both Natural & Manmade

First the celestial. After dark right now, the 14% illuminated waxing crescent Moon is just a bright sliver up there next to really bright Jupiter to its upper left and really, REALLY bright Venus to its lower right.

The two sorta bright stars side-by-side above the moon are Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini.

An hour earlier, right at sunset, SpaceX launched out of Vandenberg and I wasn’t sure if it would be dark enough to see the rocket or not. It was close, but I was able to follow the exhaust plume for a couple of minutes.

It was pretty easy to follow with binoculars, but the iPhone camera didn’t pick up as much detail because the contrast between the plume and the background sunset sky was very low.

But for the briefest of moments, I was able to capture both the rocket plume (just to the left of center and just above the tree) and the crescent Moon (upper right corner). Not too shabby!

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space, Sunsets

Big Mama

I am not a herpatoligist, I in fact know diddly squat about lizards. Except that I like having them in the yard (so long as they’re non-venomous) because they’re fun and cute.

That having been said, I believe this to be one big, chonky, seriously gravid mama lizard.

She was hanging on the wall next to the pergola as I was refilling the birdseed feeders this evening around sunset.

There are hundreds of previous photos of Western fence lizards on this site over the past thirteen years from this yard, the previous yard, and the one before that. All of them are skinny, slender, straight bodies. This one is not, the exact opposite in fact – and I think that’s because she’s about to lay a clutch of eggs somewhere underneath this bush.

Watch for a slew of teeny, tiny, baby lizards in the near future.

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Filed under Critters, Photography

I’ve Seen Worse!

Soooooo out of gas right now. This getting old thing is for the freakin’ birds.

Nonetheless, I did get a fair number of things done today. Not everything on the list, for sure, but far more than I expected to.

It’s that marathon training in the end. Just keep moving. One foot in front of the other. Don’t stop. Don’t think, it can only hurt the team.

Okay, that last one’s from “Bull Durham,” but to be fair there’s a ton of excellent life advice in that as well.

On to Monday…

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets

Rest Stop

Like many non-profit organizations, ALS Network (where I’m the Senior Director of Finance & Administration) puts on a series of public events that serve as both a forum to educate and foster public awareness and engagement, as well as doing some fundraising to benefit our programs. Most of these are annual events – today’s event in Thousand Oaks was the 10th annual occurance. (My posts and pictures from the 2024 and 2025 events can also be found in the site archives.)

A big part of this event is the bike riding, a 25-mile route and a 40-mile route. Both pass by a site about 15 miles from the main event, where we set up a rest stop and aid station where there are restrooms, water, snacks, bike repairs, first aid, and so on. This year, The Long-Suffering Wife and I were given the assignment of holding down the fort at the rest stop.

The super observant amongst you will notice that we’ve moved the event back two weeks on the calendar. The early May dates tended to be cool, cloudy, and even rainy.

The mid May day today was almost perfect. Sunny, a little breeze, mid 70’s.

Only one first aid need, fortunately, and nothing too serious. A good time was had by all.

Then it was the long drive home and “back up the hill” to Hesperia.

Now, one day to salvage from the weekend to try to recharge. Isn’t there a three-day weekend coming up here some time this month? I’m desperate.

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Filed under ALS Network, Photography

Proof Of Life – May 14th

Tunes to get me through a day of Hell (where “Hell” is defined as 18+ hours of data entry, account reconciliations, auditing figures, and printing reports, plus some annoying payroll and IT nonsense)

  • Supertramp – “Breakfast In America”
  • Hamilton soundtrack (I think it’s been three or four months since I’ve listened to this – gotta stop doing THAT!)
  • Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack
  • Le Mis soundtrack

I also most highly recommend getting a really good pair of noise-cancelling headphones – these are from Bose and worth every penny.

Some might recommend not looking like you’re having a stroke when taking selfies, but that ship has obviously sailed.

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Filed under Music, Photography

Proof Of Life – May 12th

One piece of good news about something that’s been worrying you can make a world of difference in a day which would otherwise have you seriously questioning all of the life choices that brought you to this point. Thank goodness for that good (-ish) news.

I want to reach a point where “it can’t get any more hectic and stressed,” but the gods take that as a challenge. The joys of home ownership. After being driven partially insane by a beeping noise every 31.6 seconds, I finally tracked it down to a low battery alarm with the battery backup system on the garage door opener. Fine, I know that I’m busier than God, but how hard can this be to open up and replace the battery? (Turns out once you find the helpful YouTube video with this exact same unit, it will be a five minute task. I hope!) But first you have to find out what kind of battery. So I went looking for an online manual, for which I need to know the exact model number, or at least the series. Turns out LiftMaster makes a ton of different models. But I’m stubborn (which is very similar to being pig-headed) so that’s done, the battery’s here, and as soon as I have five minutes I’ll try to get rid of that freakin’ beeping sound. Maybe Saturday? Oh, crap, I’m at a work event all day Saturday. Sunday?

May is one of those months for me. Board meetings and Committee meetings and grant reports and some of our tax returns and licencing reporting are all due. Audit is starting, our community and fundraising events are starting, and it’s DEADLINES A GO-GO!

I need a nap.

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Filed under Forever Home, Paul, Photography

I Miss Texans

To be clear, I don’t miss “Texas” all that much, although there are things that I like about it. But the WW2 training aircraft referred to as “Texans” or “Harvards” (the British variant) or “SNJs” used to fly right over our house on their training flights out of Van Nuys Airport. And I could see them (and occasionally fly in one) at the CAF SoCal Wing. Out here in the High Desert, none of that happens.

But I have photos, as always, to share.

I might need to find an airshow. Right after I drive a stake through some critical deadlines. So…never.

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Filed under Airshows, Flying, Photography

Splooty Patootie

Exhausted from hours of chasing around baby squirrel kitts and keeping them out of trouble (yeah, right!) in temperatures pushing 90ºF, one of the adult squirrels collapsed into a full sploot (it’s a real word!) on the cool patio cement in the shade outside of our living room door.

It sort of half looked up when it heard me open the shutters on the door to take the picture, but unless I was going to actually come out and possibly step on them, it wasn’t moving. I left the poor, poor thing to its well-earned break.

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Filed under Critters, Forever Home, Photography