January 16, 2026 · 23:39

Two Planes

I was out trying to stretch my legs (this afternoon? yesterday? Wednesday? They all blur together) and I saw two jet contrails heading more or less west or west northwest.

The top contrail is from the first plane:

(Image: FlightAware)

I wasn’t thrilled about being where I was, but at least I wasn’t going to Fresno. (The raisin capital of the world!)

The second, lower contrail was more interesting.

(Image: Flightaware)

Okay, a 15-hour flight to Taipei would be quite the haul, but it would be cool to be in a country that I’ve never visited before, seeing things that I’ve never seen before. But, who knew that there were non-stop flights from Phoenix to Taipei? I would have never put that on my bingo card. A flight to Honolulu and then a different flight to Taipei? Sure! But a non-stop? Is there really a big enough market for that level of service?

Standing in my front yard, trying to get some blood circulating again in my legs, you learn some of the damndest things!

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Filed under Flying, Photography

January 15, 2026 · 23:29

No Re-Entry Joy For Me

Here’s  the flight path for last night’s SpaceX Crew 11 re-entry to splash down into the ocean off of San Diego.

I went out to watch, but they were a bit too far offshore and I live a bit too far inland, so while they were definitely out there off the coast, they were too low for me to see. Maybe if I had gone out to the edge of the Mesa where it drops off into Cajon Pass to the west…

Others in the LA and Ventura area had much better results. A few selections from social media:

https://www.threads.com/@cgoure/post/DTifPuBkSXH?xmt=AQF0k-nL6oqFR-TlSRlLcRwLt1ekfrqgDO-eAUmVMCm9Yx04GxWeB6zPD7zS1nHO1BZ1Szmu&slof=1

https://www.threads.com/@astro_g_dogg/post/DTjh6rWkQsI?xmt=AQF0iXwO5UyPSl6l5PFpAnCJ3O2kwy7GVuYiFjGzbJSwGULn_e-HNp4dAckLH7FA64K6F4Bg&slof=1

https://www.threads.com/@johnwillsund/post/DThn-UelUw9?xmt=AQF0JY82oRgfLKjGW0Jx8FZ88-c3lhmxMQ1Gh7TaAjUqlIvKDpWLEISNqynWfBRGIIYGGPJs&slof=1

There will be other missions and other similar descending node orbital tracks toward San Diego. Time for me to check out some back roads and find where I can get a good, open view to the west!

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Filed under Forever Home, Space

January 14, 2026 · 23:57

Proof Of Life – January 14th

Somehow, today was busier than yesterday.

More, NEWER cloud pictures from today!

In about 50 minutes the SpaceX Crew 11 spacecraft will be re-entering to splash down off of San Diego, and we might be able to see it. Let’s hope we get lucky.

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Filed under Photography, Weather

January 13, 2026 · 23:49

Proof Of Life – January 13th

Oh, crap, look at the clock. I’m still here – that has so many potential interpretations, both good and bad…

Have some more pretty cloud pictures, it’s all I have time for at the moment.

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Filed under Photography, Weather

January 12, 2026 · 23:55

A New Apple Variety

Well, new for me, at least.

I like apples. I like variety. I like having a variety of apples!

I’m no Chuck Wendig – his social media and his website have had hundreds of posts about heirloom apples and apple snacks and everything related to apples for years and years. (He also writes some pretty awesome books! And was the guy behind all of the “Flash Fiction” prompts and posts about ten years ago.) But he has an advantage, living out in the Pennsultucky region where there are hundreds of family orchards growing heirloom apple varieties.

Here in California they’re 100% paranoid about importing fruit flies and other pests, so none of those fruits are allowed. You can’t go get them and bring them in, you can’t get them by mail order, you can’t have someone send them to you. You just get the five or six varieties in the chain grocery stores.

This one was new this week. I tried it today. Nice, I liked it! Mostly sweet, but a little bit of tang to it. Hard, not mushy. Huge, nice color.

Let me know if you see any Wild Twists and try them. I would like to hear what you think.

Is this the biggest news or the most important thing that happened today? No, not even close. But a lot of the big stuff is bad and worse. This was a good thing. Some days you need to pick your victories wherever you can find them, regardless of size.

A win is a win.

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Filed under Paul, Photography

January 11, 2026 · 22:21

Evolution Of Some Weird Clouds

This probably doesn’t mean much, but I thought it looked cool, and I’m easily amused. And it’s my site, so I’ll post whatever I want.

At 11:52 we came out of the restaurant where we were having our normal Sunday morning breakfast and I saw these odd clouds. It was striking how the three in a row each had such sharply defined edges on the side facing us. Almost like lenticular clouds, but those tend to form over some sort of object (like a mountain) that’s sticking up high into the atmosphere. These were out beyond the dry river bed.

They caught my eye, looked weird, I took pictures.

Fifteen minutes after that, at 12:07, we had gotten to our grocery store and this whole cloud mass had shifted over toward the Sun and started to merge into one blob, but still with the sharp edge on the side closest to us. Plus there were some airliner contrails.

It still looked weird, I took more pictures.

Groceries obtained, as I was emptying the car and bringing the grocers in at 12:49, the cloudy mass had stretched out into a wide pair of arms that looked a bit like one of the later “Star Trek” ships, maybe the Enterprise-D or the Titan. There’s the saucer section and bridge right beneath the Sun, with the body and engine nacelles off in the distance and stretching off to the right…

I looked cool and weird. Guess what I did?

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Filed under Photography, Weather

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

January 9, 2026 · 23:53

Hesperia Christmas Lights 2025 – Last Light

Normally I might have spent last weekend, i.e., first full weekend of the new year, taking down Christmas lights. But last weekend was pouring rain again, and I’m not THAT stupid. Most of this week has been dry, if cold and windy as hell, so this weekend will probably be dedicated to getting that task taken care of.

So, a little bit windblown, here’s last light. (It’s 23:45, windy, and 33° out there – the things I do for my “art”!)

The multiple lines of lights along the roofline did just fine, even with unbelievable amounts of rain and winds gusting at times to 65+ knots. The stuff up in the maple tree came down (at least partially, like here) almost daily when there was wind. And there’s always wind.

I think the wind took down two of the candy canes next to the driveway, but that’s mainly because I figure if it was Hissy, ALL of the candy canes would have been pulled loose or snapped. At least we didn’t have any rabbits chewing on the wiring this year! (See 2024, 2023, 2022…)

In this corner by the garage the wind swirls and spins, so next year I’ll have to remember and find a better way to keep these lights up in the trees and not on the ground.

Already planning and looking forward to next year!

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Forever Home, Photography

January 8, 2026 · 23:29

Stained Glass – January 8th

Because who couldn’t use a tiny little reminder that beauty still exists in the world, especially in light of the horrors going on all around us?

All images from Brussels Cathedral.

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Filed under Art, Photography, Travel

January 7, 2026 · 23:20

Proof Of Life – January 07th

Between today’s news, yesterday’s news, the news of the last year, the news of the last ten years, life, the universe, and everything, simply starting to scream is high on my list of things to do. I’m just not sure that I could stop.

I did get a haircut, and I can hear train whistles. I guess things don’t TOTALLY suck.

Tomorrow might be better. That possibility is what gets me up every morning. And prevents a 5150 hold. Well, that and Diet Coke (my caffeine substrate of choice).

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul, Photography, Politics