Category Archives: Photography

May 10, 2024 · 23:49

No Aurora For Me

Another obvious bucket list item for me would be to see the Northern Lights or aurora. I figured I would need to book a trip to Iceland or Northern Canada or Alaska to see them, but tonight a huge CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) from the Sun has slamdanced the Earth and we’re getting the most vivid and widespread aurora in 50+ years. On social media there are amazing and detailed photos from places like Detroit, Chicago, upstate New York, and even as far south as Nashville and Ohio. Even further south, there are photos of the sky glowing red and purple from Miami, Texas, and Mississippi, and even Southern California. I saw one set of pictures from Thousand Oaks, which is only a dozen miles from here.

Here, I’ve been taking cell phone pictures and looking a couple times an hour all night, but with no luck. We have light pollution near the horizone and the Little Dipper, and some haze and clouds off to the north.

Straight overhead you can see the Big Dipper, which would look even better if I wasn’t too lazy to go get the iPhone tripod and use it instead of shooting these pictures handheld. But no aurora, no purple or red tint to the sky. And now the clouds have moved in here.

Maybe on the next once in a lifetime occurrance. Maybe that will either be stronger so that the skies light up even at 34º12’03″N, or I’ll be somewhere further north so that I can see them.

If you’re further north tonight, I hope you had clear skies and a great view of a colorful sky, excited by high energy particles and plasma thrown out from the Sun! Enjoy!!!

And please, everyone try to take a peek for aurora on Saturday and Sunday as well. This solar storm might be strong enough to last a couple of days. If at first you don’t succeed…

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space

May 8, 2024 · 23:44

Roses Are Pink (At Least, Some Of Them Are)

That whole “Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue” thing is PR at best, BS at worst.

I don’t have any violets in the yard, but while some of the roses are red, most of ours are not.

This is almost fluorescent pink.

Hot pink, mixed with touches of yellow and lots of white.

And the shapes and curls!

Life on Earth – it can be wonderful. If only we could stop screwing it up for a while.

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

May 6, 2024 · 23:52

Checking In On Our Lizard Friends

Some days it’s getting warm(er), when it’s not cool and foggy like it was on Saturday. When that happens, the fence lizards come out to sun themselves on the wall and on the sidewalk and wherever they can grab a sunny spot that’s just a quick dash from safety if/when danger (i.e., me or a hawk) appears.

They all seem to have their own little territories.

This dude hangs out either under these trees or on the side near the ground.

Several of them lounge along this wall at the back side of the yard. Here you can see his blue belly.

And again. These Western fence lizards are often known colloquially as “blue bellies” for obvious reasons.

They’re also big on giving me side eye.

This little goober has repeatedly sat here and will stand his ground instead of running off into the bushes.

I just step over him, of course, and then he runs – I wonder if he’s capable of learning that I’m really not a threat. I remember that some of the larger and presumably older lizards at the Pomelo house seemed to finally learn that I was safe and they wouldn’t run when I walked over. But that might be more of a perception issue on my part rather than actual behavorial modification.

 

 

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Filed under Critters, Photography

May 5, 2024 · 21:50

Roses Are Red (Mostly, Ish)

The roses next to the driveway have started to explode into color and life. This is a glorious thing.

Compared to some of the neighbors, ours is a small and simple crop.

But so, so many of the houses I’m looking at on Zillow (in a completely different part of SoCal) have none at all in the pictures.

If/when we get one of those houses and move, finding a stretch of the front yard to put in roses will be a priority.

Plenty of time to unpack later.

Seeing this every spring and all summer when you go out or when you come home is more important.

It’s one of those key little things that will change a new house into our forever home.

Roses, and hummingbird feeders. Even if we don’t see hummingbirds on Day One. They’ll find us.

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Filed under Flowers, Forever Home, Photography

May 4, 2024 · 23:51

My First ALS Event

I work for the ALS Network (previously known as The ALS Association Golden West Chapter). I’ve been there over four and a half years. COVID interrupted many of our regular events, but we’ve been back to in-person fundraising and community outreach events for a year or so and I figured it was way past time for me to get my butt out there and get out from behind the desk. So today I was at our Southern California Ride & Rally To Cure ALS event.

It was cool (mid 50’s F) and foggy to start the day, didn’t warm up much and the Sun never came out. I’m told that last year it was the exact opposite, hot as Hell all day. Gotta love SoCal!

We had two bike rides (different distances), a hiking course, and a walking course. This is the start of the walk.

That’s a LOT of pallea! If you’re going to cook, COOK BIG! It was excellent!

Lunch

The post ride/hike/run/lunch party with a local band and other activities. A nice day, especially since I really like the folks I work with and now that I work from home 99.99% of the time, this is one of the few chances I get to see them.

If you’re in California or Hawaii, keep an eye on our calendar for an event in your area. We would love to have you there, I might see you (let me know you’re coming and I’ll try to get there!), you can learn about ALS and help us to fundraise for research and helping those suffering from the disease, and have some fun to boot!.

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Filed under ALS Network, Photography

May 4, 2024 · 00:02

Offline

Which god’s dog did I accidentally kick? Payroll one night, bank statements being reconciled the next, those are on me. But tonight having the internet connection crash and burn at 23:04 was not on my Bingo card for today.

And my teeth are killing me… And it’s going to be a busy, busy weekend…

Yeah, that’s how it feels. Well, THERE‘s your problem!

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Filed under Photography, Travel

May 3, 2024 · 00:02

More Boca Chica Photos!!!

I’m brain dead and burnt out. I’ve been to the dentist again, I have to go to the endodontist, they’re talking about multiple root canals in my future, and all is shit. So, since I shot HUNDREDS of pictures at Boca Chica a month ago, let’s look at more of them.

The Rocket Garden.

The launch site from the construction site.

That’s a freakin’ big launch tower.

The Starship booster was on the pad. The cloud is some sort of cryogenic fuel that was venting.

That’s the Quick Release connection. It moves over to connect to the top of the booster, and fuel pumps through it into the liquid oxygen and supercooled methane tanks. When the launch starts, it disconnects in just a second and pulls back away from the rising rocket.

Waaaaay off in the distance, about eight miles away, is South Padre Island, which is the best place to watch a launch from if you don’t work for SpaceX and can’t get onsite.

The “chopsticks” which rise up, spread wide, then close around the top of the booster to lift it off of the transport vehicle and up into position on the launch pad.

The space above the top of the booster is where the Starship rocket goes, also picked up and put into position by the “chopsticks.”

The “hopper,” the first test vehicle that flew and landed safely on its own.

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Filed under Photography, Space, Travel

May 1, 2024 · 23:26

Goodbye Hockey Playoff Beard

There’s a tradition in hockey of growing a “playoff beard” from the time your team gets into the playoffs until they are eliminated or win the Stanley Cup.

As a loyal LA Kings fan, I’ve NEVER done this for two reasons. First, because I HATE having a beard. It’s scratchy, it itches, and I look terrible. Secondly, while I might be the least vain person on the planet when it comes to how I look, really and truly not giving a rat’s patootie about what I look like 99% of the time, I believe that with a scraggly, thin, grey beard I look like a homeless dude far more than I look like Santa Claus or Duke Leto Atreides. It’s BAAAAAD.

So, as my beloved Kings got eliminated from the playoffs tonight in five games, while the Vuvuzela of Victory is sad and will no longer sing this year until the NFL season starts in September, when the game ended at 22:00, by 22:15 the beard was gone, painfully.

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Filed under LA Kings, Paul, Photography

April 28, 2024 · 23:47

Skyscapes – New Mexico

Having lost all sense of time, in regards to what day it is or what time of day it is, I’m still “mining” the ton of pictures that I took on the eclipse trip to Texas earlier this month.

This panorama was taken from a rest stop in New Mexico, just to the east of Las Cruces, where I was about to head into that thunderstorm, which indeed did have high winds, lightning, thunder, heavy rain, and light hail. It was spectacular!

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Filed under Panorama, Photography, Weather

April 27, 2024 · 23:06

Stupid Design & Stupider Design

I ran into this one twice on my Texas trip.

One of the ways hotels try to spruce up their rooms in an “upgrade” is to replace the bathroom fixtures. They like things that are stylish and “modern,” “artsy,’ or “fashionable” or “trendy.” Anyone else see the problem with this?

Which way do you turn this for hot water and which way for cold water when you’re adjusting the shower? I know that usually it’s hot to the left, or clockwise, but given that hot water takes a while to start after you turn it on, you can screw around for quite a while, either scalding or freezing parts of your naked anatomy you would prefer to not be scalded or frozen.

Then on the way home, ther was this gem:

Same problem with a new problem to boot. Would it really be THAT hard to engrave or stamp a little “H” and “C” onto the handle? Or just a little dot glued on with blue on one side, red on the other (for the international crowd)?

And this sink fixture is on the side, not on the back of the sink. Cool! Trendy! Stylish! NOT!!

Right up until the point where I want to brush my teeth and I normally rinse by running water into my hand and ducking my head to the left or right of the faucet. But here there is no left or right without either being a contortionist or doing that “drop-from-the-ceiling-like-Ethan-Hunt-at-the-CIA-thing” from the first “Mission Impossible” movie.

For us more normal humans it just left me wanting to take a baseball bat to it for kicks. And revenge. And general principles.

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Photography, Travel