May 1, 2022 · 23:48

Lucy Gives Me The StinkEye

It appears that Lucy and Ricky are happy with their nest building and have settled down to domestic life. Where last week they were flying in and out all day long, while Ricky would constantly be making quite the racket as proud papa house wrens will do, now Ricky comes by every now and then while Lucy is sitting on the nest almost 24/7.

I’m no certified bird dude, but I suspect that means there are eggs in the nest and she’s sitting on them.

From where this nest is, any activity out of or near the sliding glass door there will have her bailing and bitching about it. These pictures were taken after very slowly and carefully approaching the door at a time when I was hoping there would be enough glare off of it so she couldn’t easily see inside. She spooks easily.

Most of the time, even if she doesn’t fly off, she’s giving me the stink eye the whole time I’m there. I’ve tried to talk to her and promise that I’m (mostly) harmless, only interested in helping her and watching her nest, but she’s not buying it.

Two years ago we ended up with three fledglings out of five eggs. Last year and this year in the other three (at least) nests, the finches are building them where we can’t easily see into the nests. I’m sure that I can hear little chirps begging for food, but I don’t know how many. Maybe if Lucy goes off for a quick brunch with the girls I can take a quick peek for eggs while refilling the humming bird feeder.

We shall see!

Leave a comment

Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography

April 30, 2022 · 23:24

Okay May, Let’s Talk

First of all, April? Long hike, short pier, don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split ‘ya! Capiche? You were better than January, February, or March, but that bar wasn’t set very high and we had such hopes for you. Which you failed at delivering.

May, listen up! I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings!

Big picture – if the stock market could start recovering and stop plunging, if gas prices could get back under $5/gallon, and if the Russians could stop whatever insanity they’re up to that would all be super great! Make it so.

It’s good that the Kings made the playoffs and the Angels are off to a hot start and in first place after three weeks or so. It’s a little icing on the cake that the Ducks, Sharks, and Golden Knights are sitting at home watching the playoffs on cable, and the Dodgers aren’t in first place while we are. (What, me petty and vengeful? Damn straight!) Now let’s see those things continuing and improving even more. It’s that whole “Big Mo” thing (momentum, for the non sports addicted) and we need to see it snowballing.

It’s been pretty good at work and I’m hoping that continues, although there are always storm clouds on the horizon. If those could hold off another month or so, so much the better. If not, then at least give me a bit of a heads up, okay?

On the personal time management and existential stress front, some time to get caught up on “Picard,” get started on “Strange New Worlds,” and get to the theater for “Top Gun 2” would really push your evaluation score towards an A+.

And as always, if you really want to graduate cumma sum laude, you could do something appropriate with COVID or the GOP. Do both and you’ll be a freakin’ legend.

It’s up to you, May! We’re dancing as fast as we can here, a little help on your part would really be appreciated!

You’re on in 36 minutes.

Good talk!

Leave a comment

Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul

April 29, 2022 · 22:28

Happy 9th Birthday, WLTSTF!

9 years.

3,288 days.

3,380 posts.

7,917 images. (90%+ are taken by me. The rest are images from the news, from cell phone screen captures, and so on.)

67 videos.

9 audio clips.

2,670 total comments.

67,800 total views.

43,044 total visitors to the site.

10,727 total likes.

1,609 followers (694 from WordPress, 613 from Twitter, 280 from FaceBook, 10 from Tumblr, and 12 via email)

7,049 shares (1,982 from Twitter, 1,643 from FaceBook, 1,454 from LinkedIn, and 1,970 from Tumblr)

God alone knows how many words.

The last time I either was too busy or, more likely, simply forgot to post anything was April 10, 2020. Since they I’ve posted 749 days in a row.

In total there have only been fourteen days of those 3,288 days when I didn’t post anything at all.

I hope that at least a few of the 1,609 folks who get notified every day that I’ve posted something take a minute to look and/or read and get a moment of zen or pleasure from it. I enjoy creating it.

I hope that in the next year there are many more occasions to share a pretty picture, a goofy story, or something clever.

I hope that in the next year there will be many fewer occasions to descend into a venting rant about something stupid, annoying, or depressing.

As do we all, I’m sure.

And finally – I have a Tumblr account??!!

Leave a comment

Filed under Paul, Writing

April 28, 2022 · 23:20

Scans Of Old Photos

A quest down the rabbit hole of old, OLD photos reminded me of how much of the photos, film, video, and audio recordings I have from my youth are still in a very non-electronic and potentially fragile state. In looking for any of my baby pictures for example, scans of pictures I took in high school are the earlierst I have in any electronic format, and 17 years old is hardly a baby picture. That in turn led me to electronic copies of old 8mm home movies that I long ago digitized – from there I can grab a screenshot of 3 year old me at Halloween, but it’s not a very high resolution picture at all.

A lot of those original pictures from my parents are in storage and just need to be scanned. I also still have all of those 8mm films. I’m willing to bet that I can do a lot better job of digitizing them than I did 20+ years ago.

Yeah – in my copious free time…

Meanwhile, I also ran across some of the B&W film and color slides that I’ve digitized. For example:

The house where I lived during high school. My B&W negatives were stored properly and scan up real well.

Some of the color slides are still in pretty good shape, although there’s been a little color shifting. (Hey, look, in the driveway, it’s THE MAX!!)

Other slides have much better color retention, but weren’t stored in a clean environment, so they’re covered with spots of dust and schmutz.

Next time I’m bored maybe I’ll see how much a little Photoshop can clean up the dust spots. Or maybe a little bit of very gentle TLC applied to the original slides could clean them up without destroying them.

In my copious free time…

Leave a comment

Filed under Paul, Photography

April 27, 2022 · 23:59

Larger Flying Things Overhead

Being under the flight path out of LAX to locations on the other side of the world has its advantages if you’re a plane nut (like me!).

There it goes!

An A380 is a LOT bigger than a junco, finch, wren, or even a hawk!

Leave a comment

Filed under Flying, Photography

April 26, 2022 · 23:41

No Context For You – April 26th

First of all, I notice that the filename on the WordPress server for this is “no-context-for-you-april-26th-3” which means that it’s actually the fourth time I’ve posted one of these “No Context For You” posts on April 26th. (The WordPress file naming convention for duplicate file names is pretty obvious.) They’re supposed to be more or less at random, so the fact that this particular date (which also happens to be my brother’s birthday) has had one of these particular posts four out of nine years is really odd. I wonder if there might be something that’s causing it. (It’s not that I’m out partying with my brother – we’re thousands of miles apart.)

Anyway…

It occurs to me (and probably should be far more obvious than it is) that if you’re frustrated with what you have, it helps a lot to have an actual clue about what it is you want to have instead. “Not this” can be the simple answer, but it’s not always intuitive that “different” is equivalent to “better.”

This insight, in turn, can add to the frustration if you have no clear idea of what it is that you want or how to answer that question. The knowledge that you’re actually at least one step further away from the answer isn’t necessarily useful.

There’s probably some theory named after a 16th Century Lithuanian philosopher that states that more eloquently, but looking that up and figuring it out is left as an exercise for the student.

Leave a comment

Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography

April 25, 2022 · 22:14

Japanese Maple With Issues

Spring is well on its way here with the trees, flowers, birds, and other critters all in their blooming, flitting, mating, and reproducing modes. Except for the little Japanese maple tree out there.

I do remember from previous years that it can be a late bloomer, but this is ridiculous!

It’s the last week in April and this stubborn dude has nary a single bud on it, or even a hint of a bud to come. It’s a collection of sticks!

It’s a not-so-fine line between “stubborn” and “kindling.” If there’s sap flowing, the leaves need to be popping soon or the gardner’s going to take it out!

C’mon, Red! Let’s pop some of those red leaves and get some photosynthesis going! You’re going to have to do it on your own, I don’t know how to do CPR on a deciduous beastie!

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Flowers, Photography

April 24, 2022 · 22:34

New Neighbors?

We already have two house finch nests out on the back porch, but they’re hidden well, tucked up behind a pair of outdoor speakers that the landlord had installed back when he lived here. However, we have a lot more finches around than those two pairs. They’re horny and flitting about all year around (they can have a couple clutches of eggs per year) and it looks like a third couple has started a nest.

The nest from two years ago is just to the left of this, two roof segments over. These pair of finches has been checking out all of these little compartments for several weeks, and it looks like they’ve finally settled on this one.

Good choice, with those couple of vines anchored up there, gives them a good base of support to build against. Some of their building material makes me think they found a coffee filter or some other trash to use. NONE of this was there yesterday, but by this afternoon they had a nice bit of construction done.

Later in the day they both came back several times to add on and to scout lookout positions. Lucy (the female) is up in the nest and Ricky (the male) is perched in the vines below the thermometer.

I’ve had a talk with them about how they’re very near the door to the back porch that we use all day long and we won’t bother them, but I don’t know if they got the message. Right now they’re still taking off like a bat out of Hell every time the door opens, just like the two right above that door, behind the speakers.

This may take some getting used to, by all of us.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

April 23, 2022 · 23:43

“Everything Everywhere All At Once”

We went to the movies today. What a concept!

I had heard a lot of word of mouth about this film. It premiered at Cannes to rave reviews, and now that it’s in at least limited release in the US I had seen social media posts from dozens of folks whose opinions I respect, all singing its praises. The thing that sort of buzz reminds me of is the early, early days of the release of “Star Wars.”

It’s playing locally, and we had free passes from the whole “Dune” debacle back in February where our showing got cancelled on the final night of its run and they gave us free passes (and a refund) as an apology of sorts. That left just the whole COVID thing to worry about. We took our chances. (The theater was about half full, we were fully masked and vaxxed, and maybe 2/3 of the other folks in the theater appeared to be masked.)

I’m not going to tell you a single thing about the plot or the premise or what happens, and I urge you to not go looking for spoilers or even reviews and details. It will be so much better if you simply go in without preconceptions or expectations, buckle up, and…

GO SEE “EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE” ASAP!!!

It is without a doubt the most bizarre movie I’ve ever seen. Even telling what other movies I might mention in comparison in terms of “bizarre-ness” might be telling too much, but “Being John Malkovich” and “Scott Pilgrim vs the World” just got bumped from the top of that list.

I will tell you that the acting is spectacular! Put Michelle Yeoh’s name on the Best Actress ballot right now, and Stephanie Hsu’s name on the Best Supporting Actress ballot. No “penciling in” anything – use a Sharpie, one of those big, fat ones.

The execution and production? Astonishing. There’s SO much going on all the time, I’m sure I missed a million tiny details and I can’t wait to see it again and get a copy so I can go through it slowly. This is a masterpiece.

One person I follow on social media said (paraphrased), “I just saw it and I can’t drive home, I’m just overwhelmed. I need to sit here and drink coffee for a couple hours to let it settle.” Yeah, I get it.

Try to see it while it’s in the theaters, it’s so worth it.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

1 Comment

Filed under Entertainment, Movies

April 22, 2022 · 22:39

Texans!

Unusual for a Friday, but the Condors were out doing maneuvers and formation flying practice near our house this afternoon.

As is usual when they’re near, the blaaaaaaaaaaaaat of four big, old, radial engines makes a very loud and distinctive sound, so I yell, “TEXANS!” and run outside to watch. (The planes that the Condors fly are Texans, also known as SNJ’s, or Harvards if they were of British manufacture – all the same type of plane, a WWII trainer.)

Today I didn’t have time to grab the good camera, but I always have my phone, so…

One note about last night’s post – the uncommon bird that was hanging out was a White Crowned Sparrow. It was pointed out that someone (i.e, ME) somehow forgot to include that key fact.

Oops! Story of my life…

Leave a comment

Filed under Flying, Photography, Video