Category Archives: Photography

December 29, 2023 · 23:45

Skyscapes – December 29th

It’s been wispy.

That was the last two days, with fog in the morning. Tonight the fog is already here and we’re expecting rain by morning, all the way through Monday morning.

The aforementioned “Monday morning” would be January 1st, 2024. There are a few local activities which have only been rained on once or twice in their 100-year-plus history. Some people are freaking out a bit.

I expect the parade itself to be fine, and the football game definitely will be dry. Or at least dry-ish. But all of the tourists camping out on the sidewalks in Pasadena on Sunday night into Monday morning, trying to reserve that perfect spot to watch the parade, might be a bit soggy by the time the B-2 bombers fly over.

The Pasadena Home Depot stores and Lowe’s stores might see a run on plastic sheeting this weekend.

Good times!

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Filed under Photography, Weather

December 28, 2023 · 23:49

Haze

Not clear, but less cloudy. Last night and tomorrow morning it’s fog, pea soup off the coast. But for now, you can see the brighter stars and Jupiter through it.

The house looks nice, the (a couple days past) full moon is rising, and way up at the top right you can see Orion. (You’ll probably have to click on the image to blow it up to full-sized.) But with this exposure, with the iPhone exposing for the bright moon and Christmas lights, you can only see the brightest stars in Orion.

If you take the Christmas lights out of the picture (again, click on it to see it full-sized) you can see a lot more of Orion. In the “sword” you can see the Orion Nebula (the middle “star”) and you can see even the dimmer stars in the “neck” of Orion. You can clearly see the red tint to Betelgeuse (left shoulder) and the blue hue to Rigel (right foot). But between the haze, the city’s light pollution, and the bright moonlight being scattered around, that’s about it.

It beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick! But I still want to see what shows up on a clear, dark night.

Another goal for 2024.

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Filed under Astronomy, Christmas Lights, Photography

December 26, 2023 · 23:32

Boxing Day 2023

With a full moon rising in back of the house.

 

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Filed under Astronomy, Christmas Lights, Photography

December 25, 2023 · 20:53

Christmas 2023

Want to see a Christmas miracle?

I know that it MUST happen more than once every fifty years, but it’s the first time that I’ve ever seen this freeway congestion map 100% green everywhere, all the way from Tijuana to Tulare, Santa Maria to Palm Springs.

We made it all the way from our house to LAX and back in less than 90 minutes. Granted it was O’Dark Thirty on Christmas morning, but still…

I hope it was a wonderful holiday for you if you celebrate!

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Los Angeles, Photography

December 24, 2023 · 21:34

Christmas Eve 2023

I’ve lost a day or two in all of the hullabaloo. My calendar and watch keep reminding me that it’s Christmas Eve, but my head is trapped somewhere in early to mid December. The year is irrelevant and up for grabs.

I’m sure it will all work out and be fine. (Or at least fine-ish.)

Our tree’s only theme is “whatever we feel like putting on there!” White lights, colored lights, bubble lights, an airplane circling the top, old family heirloom ornaments, new ornaments every year from our travels, annual ornaments with planes, and so on.

It’s us.

This year’s new ornaments include a couple from our trip to Winnipeg, one from the Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory, one from a trip up the California coast to Solvang, and a talking Ted Lasso from a dear friend.

I hope everyone enjoys the holiday tonight, tomorrow, and on through the last week of the year, preparing to end 2023 and kick off a better 2024.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Christmas Lights, Photography

December 23, 2023 · 23:43

Thinking About The Old House

That would be the “Pomelo house” that we sold five and a half years ago. We could put up a LOT of Christmas lights there. The house we’ve been renting for the past six Christmases? Some, but it’s a small fraction as much.

Maybe the next house, the “forever home” that we hope to find in 2024.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Christmas Lights, Photography

December 22, 2023 · 23:26

Backside Of The Storm

For two days or more we’ve had long bands of rain coming up from the south off of the ocean and streaming up into Ventura and Santa Barbara. This happens as the low rotates and the cloud bands spin around it.

First thing this morning the convective activity was building up over Ventura as the Sun heated up the humid, unstable air.

Directly overhead was this ugly, dark thing and when I heard thunder I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, so I went inside rather than get fricaseed by one jillion electron volts.

Later I went out to get the trash cans and saw these twin thunderstorm cells. It looks like they’re over the coast out in Ventura County.

Close enough. What was really interesting was that when the radar was put into motion, all of these cells were now moving almost due north to due south, the exact opposite of how they’ve been moving earlier in the week. Not surprising to anyone who’s gone through a direct hit by a hurricane, but unusual to see it this graphically demonstrated in this part of the world. The center of the low had moved inland to our east and we were now on the opposite side of that circular rotation.

By sunset it was getting mostly clear and the gradient at the horizon was lovely, but there were still enough clouds out there showing a touch of pink coloring to make it spectacular.

It looks like we’ll have a dry-ish Christmas, then another system comes through at the end of the week before New Year’s Day. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain on the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game. I think that’s against the law!

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather

December 21, 2023 · 22:50

Mildly Threatening

Not too long before these pictures got taken we had a couple of peals of thunder. Not usual around here most any time, but certainly not in the winter.

It had been raining most of the morning, but not hard. Off in that direction there was some much heavier rain, coming up from the south and streaming into Ventura and Santa Barbara, causing some local flooding.

I had come out during a lull in the rain to move the trash cans while I could, but seeing this coming I figured the lull wouldn’t last long. And it didn’t.

Several hours of a pretty good downpour started just a few minutes later. Those bands of low, white, ragged clouds in front of that darker wall of clouds behind? Yep, that’s mildly threatening, to say the least.

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Filed under Photography, Weather

December 20, 2023 · 23:44

No Way Out

As Leo Bloom reminds us repeatedly from his semi-catatonic state near the end of “The Producers,” there is “no way out, no way out, no way out…”

Yet the signs are everywhere.

And, sure, while I had hoped to exit the ginormous parking garage here which would have let me simply turn right, go a half block, and then turn right again onto the correct freeway going in the correct direction, and this exit dumped me out there onto a different street on a side I didn’t even know about in a warren of one-way streets, homeless encampments, and no sign of a freeway, correct or otherwise, a little “exploration” led us back to an onramp.

One rule I always taught my kids when I was teaching them to drive in LA was in a pinch, especially leaving a crowded venue like a concert or sporting event, get on a freeway onramp. You might have a preferred freeway and direction, but that’s secondary. Get on. That will get you away from the crowd. All of the freeways interconnect in almost infinite permutations, so you can ALWAYS get there from here. You might have to travel a few more miles and then go to the 22 to the 405 to the 605 to the 210 to the 101 instead of just going on the 134 to the 101, but you’ll get there eventually. It beats sitting in that parking lot and fighting a gazillion other cars to get on that one, perfect onramp.

So back to the original point – it feels like there’s no way out sometimes. But get moving. Get out of the crowd and get it in gear. You’ll figure it out.

BTW, did anyone else notice that it’s the 20th? That there are like four days until Christmas?

No way out. No way out. No way out…

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography

December 19, 2023 · 23:43

Cloud Butts

The first storm of December has rolled in, a solid cloud deck yesterday that gave us mist and petrichor, but not a lot of measurable precipitation.

What we did get visually was a grand view of “cloud butts” from horizon to horizon.

Whatever was going on up top, the bottoms of the cloud deck was turbulent and bubbly, the signs of a cold, active system.

With luck we’ll get some lightning and thunder tomorrow and Thursday, but the chances of that have gone down significantly since yesterday. Pity.

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Filed under Photography, Weather