Category Archives: Sunsets

December 21, 2025 · 23:04

Winter Solstice 2025

As the light dies at the end of the shortest day of the year, we try to supplement the remaining light in the beautiful sunset with those of our own celebrations.

You can think and believe what you want about the Bible and the story of Jesus’ birth, but I’ll guarantee you that he wasn’t born in late December or the middle of winter. Too many things point to a spring birth. But the reason the early Christians celebrated around the winter solstice was so that they would blend in, not stand out, and not be targets for persecution.

The winter solstice was known and celebrated a thousand year or more before the Roman Empire. Pre-historic peoples needed to know the seasons in order to know when to plant crops, when to hunt, how to survive. The days gettting shorter and colder had to be terrifying with no knowledge of what was causing it (Earth’s axial tilt) and whether or not longer, warmer days would return. So when the solstice came and the days started to lengthen again, it was a cause for celebration, often with symbols of light being prominent.

Millenia later, I put up a gazillion Christmas lights. Slightly different reasoning and knowledge bases perhaps, same celebration.

Welcome back to the light!

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Filed under Astronomy, Christmas Lights, Photography, Sunsets

December 20, 2025 · 22:33

Hesperia Christmas Lights 2025 – Day Four

When last we saw our plucky hero, the new Forever Home had a substantially larger roofline than the old houses, so while the “baseline” colored C9 lights and white icicle lights had been put up, there were large gaps in the front that didn’t have lights at all. By the time this was discovered, buying additional lights in the store was out of the question and it took a couple weeks for them to be found and shipped in an online purchase. Now they’re here, and it was time to get those “baseline” light sets up.

Because I’m working from both ends and meeting over the front doors, there are more lights there than anywhere else as the sets overlap. That’s fine. It draws attention to the front doors, which is also where the wreaths are and where the roofline naturally is larger and more distinct.

I also started throwing strings of small colored LEDs into the now leafless maple tree. It’s a good start, but I would like to double the number and get some into the upper branches. We’ll see if I can spare any time tomorrow.

Overall, I like it, a lot. It’s a much bigger canvas than we’ve ever had at the last two houses, so I’ll need to step up my game next year to fill it better, but this year has given me valuable information to use to plan that.

Another area that can use some more lights to wrap up is over by the driveway, where only three of the seven trees have lights right now. Again, we’ll see if I have any time tomorrow to finish it up.

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

December 17, 2025 · 23:45

Go Outside Around Sunset!

Big picture, like, we’re talking “annually,” the timing of sunset shifts with the seasons, so knowing when it is (ballpark figure, at least – 16:30 or 19:30?) keeps you in touch with the planet you live on and the progress of the seasons. The Winter Solstice is next week! Are you ready?

Looking at the more near-term picture, check the weather, look at the sunset (sometimes it’s just okay, sometimes it’s spectacular, most of the time it’s somewhere in between, like today), see if anyone else in the neighborhood has put up any new Christmas lights, (especially if it’s windy as all get out like today) see if any of our lights have come down, and so on. You should be getting out a few times during the day anyway to stretch your legs, but the sunset one is particularly important.

Looking for the meaning of life? The odds are against your finding it out here with this view, but they’re a lot higher than they are sitting in front of a computer playing a game, working on a spreadsheet, doing data entry, or doomscrolling through social media.

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets

November 27, 2025 · 21:31

Thanksgiving Sunset

Exactly what it says. It was one of the better ones, more pink and purple than orange in the back, with the quarter moon up high.

In the front is where the reds and oranges were found.

I hope that all of my American friends had a wonderful and peaceful Thanksgiving holiday with no arguments over dinner about politics, religion, or how Aunt Charlene is now Uncle Charlie.

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

November 12, 2025 · 23:11

Clouds – No Aurora

There’s a week-long rain storm moving in tomorrow night and I still have piles of boxes outside, so it’s a priority to get them moved inside, or at least under the roof on the back porch.

While everyone else has been looking at aurora from a huge solar storm, we’re just getting clouds. (To be fair, we’re also so far south that if we’re seeing aurora, there are probably satellites getting fricasseed, so it’s a trade off.)

Very pretty and dramatic looking clouds to be sure, especially around sunset and into the early evening.

I’m once again in “feeling like I’ve gone 15 rounds with Mike Tyson” mode – 69 is really, REALLY too old for this shit, but my stupid brain still thinks I’m 29 for some reason and I’m six-foot tall and bulletproof, at least until I try to stand up and start crying and whimpering.

Stupid brain.

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets, Weather

November 6, 2025 · 23:53

Proof Of Life – November 06th

I really should know better than to send work emails at 11:45 after an 18-hour day. Trying to be “firm” and to stress “urgent,” hopefully without being a flaming asshole.

Here, enjoy some recent above average sunset pictures that I haven’t shared yet.

Not that I had time to go out and watch today’s sunset. The Sun could have exploded and I wouldn’t have noticed.

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets

November 4, 2025 · 23:11

Proof Of Life – November 04th

Still messed up from the Daylight Saving Time shift. Need a good night’s sleep, unlikely to get it.

The odd hours do have me saying hello to Venus and the sunrise – not getting old yet!

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets

October 27, 2025 · 23:10

Launch Leftovers

I’m home, but I know who’s the most upset about me being gone for a couple of days. The birds! The sparrows and finches and scrub jays who are chowing down on the seed in the feeders, and who are emptying them in a day, a day and a half at most. When I’m gone for three days, those feeders are seriously empty when I get home. They even eat the parts that they don’t like!

While refilling the feeders about 18:30, there were these amazing, bright, high-level clouds visible to the west:

They look like noctilucent clouds, but those would be incredibly rare this far south. Normally you would only see them way north, in the polar regions.

However, that’s toward where Vandenberg is, and launches out of there are getting close to being a daily occurrence. A quick check showed that a launch had happened at 17:43, just about 45 minutes earlier.

So, there you go! Launch leftovers in the sunset sky. And happy birds now that their feeders are full again!

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Filed under Birds, Photography, Sunsets

October 25, 2025 · 21:20

Proof Of Life – October 25th

The good news is that I made a lot of excellent progress on the first day of this final stage of the great move to the Forever Home! The bad news is that I was (of course!) ridiculously overly optimistic about how much was involved and how long it would take to get done. I’ll be working on finishing it up and getting back home tomorrow.

The saving grace is that we’re slowly learning from past mistakes. I won’t be sleeping on the floor or in my car tonight. I brought a bag, just in case, and I’m now comfortable in a local hotel.

And there was a gorgeous sunset with a crescent moon over the Camarillo Airport, to boot!

I just wish that I didn’t feel like I’ve been beaten within an inch of my life by a legion of orcs. I’m truly getting too old for this shit.

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

October 22, 2025 · 22:59

Proof Of Life – October 2nd

Last night’s second picture showed clouds to the south over the Cajon Pass – I didn’t think anything of it. I took the photos, came home and downloaded them, wrote my post, hit the “publish” button.

Not ten minutes later the whole house shook with a massive peal of thunder right overhead. There had been 0% chance of rain, no mention of any clouds or storms at all. But for the next hour we had quite the little pop-up thunderstorm.

I might have just loved it.

Tonight the clouds were still hanging around, making comet viewing impossible again, but we did get some gorgous crepuscular rays at sunset.

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather