Starting with a performance at the Mark Taper Forum.
A MUCH smaller space than the Ahmanson.
And while it might again be pushing 100°F in The Valley, down here in Downtown after sunset it’s downright chilly.
Category Archives: Photography
Timing Is Everything
We’re getting some moisture in, which on top of the late summer/early fall heat wave (it was 111°F here the other day and it’s not supposed to cool off into the 80’s until at least Thursday next week) means it’s humid and we’re getting some high, chunky clouds.
I came out for air and brief walk just a couple minutes after sunset and there was still just a touch of some spectacular sunset color right at the horizon. But everything above that was no longer illuminated and was just gray and lumpy.
The security camera confirms that just ten minutes before this, there was a lot of color in the clouds. Maybe not the best ever, but pretty good.
No way to go back, no way to get a second chance tonight, no time machine. No Tardis, not even that huge black & white spiral thingie that I was talking about the other day from “The Time Tunnel.” As they say, timing is everything in life.
Fortunately, the Sun will rise tomorrow. Presumably, so will I, and tomorrow evening there will be another chance. I’ll try to be more mindful of what’s going on outside.
Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather
You Can’t Take A Bad Picture Here – October 10th
A spectacular shrine in Kyoto, Japan. Fushimi Inari.
I spent half a day climbing the mountain and wandering the pathways. I could have spent ten times that. I would love to be able to go to someplace like this whenever I need to stop thinking and just be.
Filed under Photography, Travel
Fumbly Fingers
I’m not as dexterous at 68 as I was at 18 (not news, not a surprise) and when I’m getting out of my Functional Strength Training session and just trying to walk and breathe at the same time (my trainer made me HURT today, which I guess is what I pay him for…), my fingers can get a bit more fumbly than usual.
Given the time stamp, I believe this is the back of the driver’s seat in the Volvo C70. Given the size and dimensions, I think it might have been taken with my watch, not my phone. (Can the Apple Watch take pictures? Maybe it just triggered the iPhone to take a picture?) Given everything, I would have been trying to stop the Workout app on my phone, but God alone knows what button or icon or combination I hit.
The good news is that I now have a suggestion for a new Olympic event, sort of an Ultra Modern Pentathalon! Combine a half hour of shoulder work, a half hour of leg work, fifteen minutes of push ups, a 5K race, finishing with solving a Rubic’s Cube. Strength, endurance, and dexterity when you’re ready to drop. What’s not to love?
Filed under Health, Paul, Photography
Modern Day Catherdrals
With some of the most magnificent modern architecture in the world being on display with our sports stadiums, I’ve heard it said that they are our modern-day cathedrals, the equivalent of Notre Dame in Paris and St. Paul’s in London.
Given the way we worship our sports teams and players, that might be more true on a couple of different levels.
SoFi Stadium is covered with this translucent film to keep everything dry, but it’s open at the ends and sides, so if we really get a storm it might be dry-ish.
Still, it’s gorgeous and geometrically intricate and amazing. That’s a LOT of steel and concrete in very delicate balance, fighting off gravity.
The pillars, the curves of the structure, seemingly defying gravity. A much different vibe than Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. Much more sterile and cold.
Hovering up near the top, I couldn’t help but wonder how many calculations were done and what their models and assumptions were regarding earthquakes. The Newport-Inglewood Fault system runs all over this area, from the Newport Beach area up along the coast to the UCLA – Century City area. It’s now believed to be capable of delivering an earthquake in the M7.5 range, which is massive. Aside from all of the other damage that would cause to houses, businesses, utilities, highways, and highrise office buildings, I was wondering where the breaking point is here – in the roof structure or in one of those massive columns?
I don’t want to be anywhere near here if and when we find out. In fact, when that day comes, I wouldn’t complain if I’m in Kansas City or points east.
Filed under Disasters, KC Chiefs, Los Angeles, Photography
Sunday At SoFi
SoFi Stadium in Inglewood is where the LA Chargers and the LA Rams play football. Today my beloved Chiefs were playing their division rivals, the Chargers.
It’s a stunningly gorgeous stadium and facility.
We were up in the nosebleed seats, but could still see everything just find, assisted by that GINORMOUS video scoreboard.
My beloved Chiefs did not play particularly well and made way too many mistakes with penalties and turnovers.
Our quarterback, #15 there, is pretty good. Good enough, so we’re 4-0 now. All four wins have been “ugly,” but a win’s a win.
As is usually the case with Chargers games (we’ve gone here, at their previous smaller venue before SoFi opened, and their old home down in San Diego) a huge percentage of their seats get resold to fans of the opposing team. Thus our nickname, “Arrowhead West.”
And since we’re just a couple miles from LAX, we get to watch planes on short final while waiting out in the parking lot for our shuttle bus back to the offsite parking location. This was a British Airways A380, floating up there exactly the same way that bricks don’t.
Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports
Spoiler Alert!
Not the best joke, and not original, but some days you just have to go with what you have.
Related, how do you make a Cybertruck even uglier? You put a spoiler on it! I’ve seen one, very near here, about two weeks ago. Believe me, as butt ugly as those wannabe dumpsters are to begin with, putting a HUGE spoiler on the back makes it worse. No pictures, it flashed by in crossing traffic while I was waiting at a red light, so you’re going to have to trust me on this one.
Filed under Paul, Photography, Silly Shit
Halloween’s Coming
Is it me? Is it this year? Are people needing to escape reality starting weeks earlier than normal? (I blame politics – if that’s not a reason these days to escape reality, I don’t know what is!) Are the Halloween decorations starting weeks and weeks earlier than in all previous years?
We’ve got a fair number of houses in the neighborhood that go all out for Halloween, the same way I go a bit over the top for Christmas lights. But that has normally meant that three weeks or so, maybe around October 7-10th, we would see the decorations going up.
This year I saw the first big displays going up around September 15th. Of course, there have been Halloween candy displays in the supermarkets since July 5th, that’s “normal.” But today I noticed a dozen more houses that have their full displays up.
Again, when we were at the Pomelo house, a half block from the local elementary school, on flat ground, on a more prominent street, and at a place where we had been for decades, we would put out the telescopes, put up some decorations, and sit out there handing out candy and letting folks take a look at whatever was up in the sky that night. These days, nowhere near a school or anything other than more houses, at the top of a freakishly large and steep hill, we probably won’t bring out the scopes or doing anything else, no matter what all of the folks at the bottom of the hill are doing. I think we’ve had something like five Trick or Treaters show up at our house in six years.
Another thing to keep in mind when we’re finalizing our search for The Forever Home. Next year. I don’t see that happening in any sort of time frame for this year.
Filed under Christmas Lights, Forever Home, Photography
One More Time In The Dentist’s Chair
It’s been an ordeal. I’ve lost track, but I think it was back sometime at the end of 2023 that I went in for some minor cleaning or “small” issue and ended up with three root canals, three new crowns, several thousand dollars in payments, and far more “discomfort” than Extra Strength Excedrin was ever meant to deal with.
I’m told that this was it, the new permanent crowns are in, they shouldn’t crack or fall out like the temporary ones have done repeatedly, and all I need to do is my semi-annual cleanings.
We’ll see.
I figured that Karma owed me one, so as I left I dropped into the liquor store next door in the little strip mall and got some Quick Picks for tonight’s $208M Power Ball drawing. Then again, we all know that Karma’s a bitch, so I’m not holding my breath.
Join me in dancing naked in the moonlight, or just howling at the moon, or both?
Anyone want to pick a time and date in the betting pool to guess when one or all of these crown crack or eject themselves from my mouth?
Filed under Astronomy, Health, Photography
Amelia
Burbank is a charming little airport. It’s also old. Back in the day, one of the folks who flew out of there and worked there was Amelia Earhart.
This is in the lobby before you get to the TSA screening area. One of the next few times through there I’ll have to remember to look and see who the artist is.
It’s probably on that plate at the bottom or one of the posters right there.
This was more of a hit-&-run photographic opportunity. The TSA inspection line awaited…
Filed under Art, Photography, Travel
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 