Category Archives: Photography

A Plateau

The last ten days or so have been like running a triathalon and doing so while trying to keep up with the Kenyans in the marathon, Lance Armstrong in the bike race, and Michael Phelps in the water. There were three critical, like, “Scotty I need warp speed in three minutes or we’re all dead!” deadlines, plus a whole huge other longer term project, plus, you know, the usual day in, day out operations stuff.

Needless to say, I’m a little short on sleep. And there were moments when I had doubts. But the three critical deadlines all get met, the other big project is being picked back up but at a more “normal” rate, and the operations thing keeps chugging along.

One dictionary definition of a “plateau” is, “a relatively stable level, period, or state.” I’m there. This evening I’ve been just watching a baseball game, fighting off that nagging feeling that I MUST be missing something critical if I’m not going 100 miles an hour.

It’s fine. The 10-day long adrenaline high will fade.

There will be a ton of more work, and new deadlines, and new crises. But I (and the amazing team of folks I work with, I’m no freaking solo superhero) have shown once again that we can get the job done. We’ll deal with those deadlines and crises.

Tonight however, I will sleep. A little bit, at least.

Now if I could just get a better, final solution to the multiple plumbing problems in this #*#$%$&!# rental house…

The semi-random picture isn’t really a plateau, more like a hill. Close enough for government work!

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Filed under Paul, Photography

Same Plant, New Flower

I talked last week about how much I adore this precise color.

Now there’s a new bloom on the same plant, and today it was sublime!

It smelled like…indictments!

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

Desk

You can thank me later for taking a look at that picture before just blindly posting it. You don’t even want to know why.

Meanwhile, the other random thought in my head for the last several days since Ted Kaczynski had the good grace to shuffle off of this mortal coil was this, like my fourth or fifth favorite scene in this spectacular film, “Good Will Hunting”:

I’m still breathing! How are all y’all doing?

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Filed under Entertainment, Paul, Photography

Purple Flower Power

The Seek app won’t ID the species, just says it’s part of the onion family.

I’m not big on purple flowers, probably because of all of the jacaranda trees around. The leaves they drop onto the sidewalk are extremely slippery and a real hazard when I’m running or even walking.

These haven’t attacked me … yet. (Tomorrow’s another day, filled with opportunities!)

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

Juggling As Fast As I Can

As noted yesterday, the Chaos Times are upon me. (Also, many thanks to @wcroth55 for the spot on comment with the Kipling quote!)

So you may consider this a tiny, friendly heads up that you may just be getting random photos with minimal verbage or prose for the next couple of weeks. Think of them as my personal version of “proof of live” messages.

While dealing with yesterday’s plumbing issues I was down under this hibiscus (there’s a cleanout buried under there) and there were no flowers on it at all. I would have noticed! Today, a handful of full blooms with more getting ready to pop.

For my effort in getting these pictures I almost got a hummingbird in the ear. Apparently they’ve already laid claim to them and the fact that I was standing there upset them. They didn’t recognize me as the one who feeds them in the back yard. Not surprising – they’re incredible flyers, but that’s despite the fact that their brains are thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis 🤏🏻 small (at best).

As I’ve no doubt commented before, while beautiful, these things remind me of Triffids, and that book (and movie) made it tough to sleep for a few nights, so having them right outside the house isn’t necessarily comforting.

Another day survived. Pressing on. I hope y’all are doing well also!

 

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

Cleared To Land

It was getting late, almost dark, I was sitting out on the patio being very still, with camera in hand.

Tough to focus and get the lighting right, but if you shoot enough pictures, sometimes one of them won’t suck.

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Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography

Random Old Photos – June 07th

Playing the Zillow game, house hunting (or at least semi-seriously and starting to get more seriously house window shopping), I quickly started building up a checklist of things to verify. Priorities. Deal killers. Variables.

For example, a one-story property is a high priority – but a nice two-story with a master suite on the ground floor is acceptable. We have a price range which is firm – but if the perfect place came along and it’s “close” to that range, then we can talk.

Some things are absolute deal killers. I’m still working remotely and intend to keep doing it for a while, so an excellent, high-speed internet connection is a must, no questions asked.

Then there are the “softer” variables. How does the yard look? Does it have a pool or spa? Does it have solar already? Is it near a busy high school or mall or someplace with a lot of traffic? How old is it?

Beyond that, everyone has that “something” that they’re keeping an eye on, even if the real estate agent or other family members might not be. For me that’s, “How many Christmas lights can I put up? How many trees and bushes are there, and how much roofline and gutters to hang lights from? Are we on or near a major street where lots of people are going to see them, or are we off in the boonies where only a handful of folks will ever know, no matter how much time I spend hanging them?”

It’s not a deal killer, but it’s there in the back of my mind. The old house on Pomelo shown above from twenty years ago? That was a great house to hang lights on! The house we move to will be our last one, our “forever” home, so we need to get it right.

There are going to be a lot of Christmases there, they need to be celebrated with lights!

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Photography, Sietch Willett

Fine Feathered Friends – June 06th

It’s been foggy and cloudy and grey and cool and just bleeeech here in LA for the last several weeks, barely seeing the sun for real for more than an hour here or a half hour there. It happens this time of year – “May Grey” blends into “June Gloom” as the coastal marine layer just hangs over the area. I don’t know if it goes away in July or if it’s just that no one’s come up with a clever rhyme to describe the condition lingering past June 30th.

But across the yard, particularly if we get a tiny touch of sun near sundown, Little Bastard takes up one of his favorite perches at the top of  a dead Japanese elm sapling there.

Most everything is grey with the clouds, with maybe just a touch of color from the sunset seeping through. But not him. He stands out like a beacon.

What little sunlight there might be gets caught, amplified, colored, enhanced, and spat back out by his iridescent feathers.

If left alone he’ll sit there for ten or fifteen minutes, looking left, looking right, staring at me in the kitchen, scanning for danger or intruders. All the while his red and gold and green and white feathers will stand out like they were spotlit miraculously in the gloom. Then, eventually, something will annoy him, probably another hummingbird trying to take a quick sip at his feeder, and he’ll be off like a little, iridescent, furious, feathered, guided missile to defend his territory.

It keeps him off the streets at night, I guess.

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Filed under Birds, Photography

Not Quite Red

I love the color on these roses.

They’re not quite RED red. And the iPhone camera doesn’t quite capture their color 100% accurately.

To my eye there’s a bit more orange, maybe a touch of lavender.

I wonder if there’s an app for the iPhone that will let you scan something and get an accurate color reading, give you a value in RGB values. I know that hardware stores have something that you can use to scan things to get a perfect match for paint – maybe they could tell me.

This one probably comes the closest. Whatever it is, it’s wonderful.

LATE EDIT TWO SECONDS BEFORE POSTING – The gods have spoken. As I’m double checking the post settings before posting, out of the corner of my eye I see a Home Depot ad where they’re pushing home improvement deals and their app which will let you scan something and get paint that matches! Coincidence? Or intervention from the Universe? 🤔

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

The Bunnies Are Back

We used to have a whole slew of bunnies. At times at night I would see five or six out on the front lawn.

They appeared to all be living in a big, overgrown yard of heavy brush in a yard across the street. But that house got sold a year or so ago and the new owners tore all of that out. The bunnies went with it.

But they’ve found a new home. For the last month or two I’ve often seen one out on the front lawn at night, occasionally a pair.

Now they’ve found (or re-found) the back yard during the day. At first they were extremely skittish, but now they’re getting less spooked if I come to the door to watch.

We don’t have a dog right now (since we’re renting and our lease forbids it, another good reason to buy our own place if we can) and that’s probably a good thing.

There’s a tiny chihuahua next door who will yap at them, and I’m sure the rabbits would run like hell if Coco ever got into our yard. But I’m just as sure that if they stopped and ran at him, Coco would run like hell too.

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Filed under Critters, Photography