Category Archives: Video

October 19, 2026 · 23:30

Sunrise Moment

When we had to get to the work event yesterday by 08:00, we had to get up at 06:00. Given my own choice, I NEVER get up at 06:00. I’m NOT a “morning person.”

However, I had to admit, having a serious sense of admiration for sunsets, the sunrise wasn’t bad.

I wish that I looked as good. Dazed, confused, unable to set the phone for photos instead of videos, unable to set it to use the normal rear cameras instead of the forward facing camera, unable to notice that I had messed it up – as Arlo said, “I looked and felt my best!”

And then I got in the car and got on the freeway to head over the edge of the Cajon Pass and go down the hill at 80 mph. Fun times!

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Video

September 28, 2026 · 22:21

The Sight Of Distant Thunder

About 80 miles as the crow flies, just north of Indio, there’s a big thunderstorm tonight.

I didn’t know that before I went out a couple of hours after sunset to refill the birdseed feeders. But it didn’t take long to figure out.

While the base of the thunderstorms were well over the horizon and behind the mountains, the tops of the thunderstorm cells probably went up to at least 40,000 feet and were filled with lightning, so they were perfectly visible, even from this far away.

I love the video. I love watching thunderstorms. I love listening to the thunder roll across the valley and bounce off of the hillsides. The thunder in this case is way, way too far away to hear, but the sights of the lightning ripping through the clouds was exquisite.

Bigger picture, it’s a line of intense thunderstorms and downpours and flash flooding all the way from Indio through the Colorado River Valley, Las Vegas, Cedar City, and Salt Lake City, all being sucked up from the remnants of Hurricane Polo, currently over Baja.

This “el Niño” year is going to be wild!

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Video, Weather

July 26, 2026 · 23:11

Sunday Morning Brushfire Alarm

I love it when the Watch Duty app (get it for free if you haven’t already, it’s fantastic) goes off and shows you a new brush fire that’s practically just down the block…

That might be two miles, it might not be. Down in the Cajon Pass, over the edge of The Mesa. (It should be pretty obvious where that edge is…)

I was not worried. Anything near homes they jump on pretty fast. Worst case scenario was that it might burn up as far as Summit Valley Road, which would wreak havoc on traffic along there, as well as along the BNSF train tracks that run next to Summit Valley Road. I didn’t see much chance for it to spread up to the edge of The Mesa, let alone beyond.

A quick peek over the wall in that direction showed no sign of a smoke column, although there was a quite noticeable smell of smoke. When I had first seen the Watch Duty image above there had been no aircraft on the job (the app shows them in real time) but now there were a couple of helicopters and a pair of “water bombers,” the smaller scout or guide plane and the bigger bomber.

The “threat” was over in a half hour and the fire only grew from two to five acres. Thanks, CalFire!

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Video

June 10, 2026 · 23:24

Sunset Conjunction 2026 Max – The Video

From last night, when Venus and Jupiter were at their closest and Merury was still above the horizon.

As long as my iPhone was on the tripod and ready to go after I shot my still photos, let’s see what a timelapse of the planetary trio setting looks like!

That’s the full-sized file – if you need something smaller with compression built in (unfortunately!), here’s the same video from YouTube:

At the very beginning you can see Mercury, just above the peak of the neighbor’s house. It sets quickly, but Venus and Jupiter start out way up in the sky and take their time to crawl below the horizon.

And all of those bright white dots streaking from the lower middle up toward the middle left? Commercial airlines. Guess which way LAX is?

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets, Video

May 28, 2026 · 23:25

Blustery

In more ways than one.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to how freakin’ windy it can get up here.

On a day when I was already getting rocked from side to side pretty well in the deadlines & work demands sense, I went out at lunch for a quick doctor’s visit. Nothing serious, routine, but (as usual) a bit on the annoying side. I’m sure they all mean well, but cut me some freakin’ slack! I’m old and tired!

Just about the time that dinner finished and I was really, REALLY hoping to sit on my ass for the evening watching some sports thing or the other, the “emergency” phone call came from further up the corporate ladder and it was time to be a miracle worker again. I did it, that’s why I get the big bucks I guess, but I would have been happier falling asleep in front of the television with some ice cream.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography, Video, Weather

May 10, 2026 · 23:16

156 Minutes Of Frolicking Baby Squirrels

A couple of weeks ago I set up an iPhone on a tripod right near where all of the baby squirrels were running around and just let it run until the battery on the iPhone died.

Enjoy 156 minutes (2:36) of frolicking baby squirrels. They’re cute as hell, even if they don’t have five brain cells shared between the entire group!

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Filed under Critters, Video

January 10, 2026 · 22:53

Hesperia Christmas Lights 2025 – First Dark

The first night without the lights up is always a sad one. Something’s missing.

The good news, as always, is that five or six days spent putting lights up only take a day or two to take down. Gravity helps.

There was a moment of awe and joy in the whole painful (literally) process. At one point, up on a ladder in a semi-precarious position, on a cold (high 40’s) and windy (15-20 knots with gusts to 30+) afternoon, I noticed a mass of crows headed overhead. I stuck my head out from under the roof and directly overhead, probably not more than 100 feet or so, were two absolutely gorgeous red-tailed hawks circling and hovering in the winds. The image of the crows scrambling to intercept the hawks immediately got compared in my mind to Battle of Britain images of the Spitfires scrambling to climb up to do battle with the German bombers.

The hawks however had another strategy. They caught a thermal and went into a tight spiral in it, their wings never flapping, just cruising up in the jet like they were in an invisible elevator. In less than five minutes they were mere dots in the sky, hundreds of feet up, where the crows couldn’t climb to get them.

Spectuacular, a great treat! I used to watch red-tailed hawks (and other kinds of hawks) at our Scarborough house. It’s such a relief to see them here as well!

Now if we could just get some juncos migrating through…

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Filed under Birds, Christmas Lights, Forever Home, Video

December 8, 2025 · 23:19

Instagram Ad Hell

Mondays! Am I right? Ho, ho, freaking ho, Merry freaking Christmas!

If I’m letting my brain burble for a moment and I’m surfing through videos of sunsets and planes and loons and wild critters and so on on Instagram and you and your mind-numbingly STUPID product interrupt my flow with an ad, I will hate you with the white-hot fire of a million suns.

If on top of that the audio on your ad starts with, “Whoever invented this deserves a raise!” then I hope that they’re excavating a whole new level of Hell for you and I hope you’re there soon.

If the audio on your ad starts with “How did it take until 2025 for someone to figure this out…” then I’m wondering why YOU didn’t figure it out and get insanely filthy rich last year, so YOU get the next level of Hell underneath that one.

If the audio on your ad starts with both, I will break the land speed record hitting the “mute” and “delete” buttons and I will make a voodoo doll of you to make sure that every time you think about sex you get kidney stones instead.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Farce, Paul, Video

November 29, 2025 · 23:28

Circumzenithal Arc

We were out putting up more Christmas lights this afternoon and saw what was to me a totally new and fascinating phenomenon, a circumzenithal arc. Technically not a rainbow but a halo, it comes from the sunlight being scattered by high-altitude ice crystals instead of raindrops. It stood out because of its location (directly overhead instead of on the horizon), the fact that the colors are extremely vivid, and the arc and spacing of the colors are reversed or “upside down.” Bizarre at first, but stunning.

(The “Hesperia Christmas Lights 2025 – Day Two” pictures are coming, but will have to wait.)

Given the positioning of the arc relative to the Sun and that band of ice crystals between them, I suspected the connection even if I didn’t understand or remember the math behind the optics. The article referenced above confirms that.

With a wide-angle view you can see the two sundogs on either side of the Sun, with some hints of the very faint Parry arc. One of the things that amazed me was how long the phenomenon lasted – I’m used to rainbows on the horizon only lasting maybe five to ten minutes max, often much less due to the clouds and rain moving around. With this based on high-level ice clouds that are moving much more slowly, we watched this for well over a half hour.

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Filed under Photography, Video, Weather

November 22, 2025 · 23:27

A Murder Of Crows

I was out in the back yard, refilling the bird seed feeders, when I heard a commotion overhead.

Something like 40+ crows milling about!

I think that qualifies as a “murder!”

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Filed under Birds, Critters, Forever Home, Photography, Video