February 7, 2021 · 23:11

Fine Feathered Friends – February 07th

So, there’s no celebration or champagne tonight. You know who doesn’t care? The birds out in the yard and the trees, that’s who.

The Cornell Merlin app identifies this mid-sized bird (the size of a robin, bigger than a wren, smaller than a jay or crow) as a California Towhee.

Left profile.

Right profile. Very cooperative, almost like it’s modeled and taken direction in the past…

Not funny? Sorry.

There are not a lot of distinctive markings or coloration, although there is some cinnamon brown coloring around the face and some gray stripes on the wings.

And they play well with others, in this case the rat bastard squirrel who keeps eating the bird seed.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Critters, Photography

February 6, 2021 · 23:18

No Context For You – February 06th

Something that’s been increasingly notable over the past week or so is not a thing, but the absence of a thing.

When I’m getting some work done in the evening, I find myself every hour or so going to check social media, FaceBook and Twitter primarily. It struck me tonight how little I’m seeing posted, particularly on Twitter.

FaceBook’s algorithm tends to give you the same number of posts no matter what, preferring things “ripped from the headlines,” but lacking that you’ll get something from a friend of a friend talking about how their cat stole a waffle off their plate. But Twitter is a firehose – for those who you’re following, you’ll see pretty much everything they’ve posted in your feed.

The difference I’m seeing manifests itself two ways, depending on how you slice the time axis. I don’t have the time to spend hours and hours and hours on Twitter, so I tend to open it up and work backwards through the current batch of tweets, with the app putting a break in after some more or less fixed amount. 100? 200? I don’t know, but after X number of tweets you get a “Show more Tweets” prompt, which is generally where I bail.

During the crazy times when the GOQ was in charge in Washington, that X number of tweets would take me back ten or fifteen minutes and give me a snapshot of what was going on. These days it takes me back almost two hours, or more.

Conversely, if after going back through a batch of X tweets I hit the “See new Tweets” prompt, after spending fifteen minutes or so going through that first batch, I would get hundreds of new tweets, sometimes (January 6th, anyone?) thousands. These days, I get maybe a dozen. Sometimes less.

It’s not that I’m following fewer people, and I was never following any bots or trolls that might have gotten booted from the platform. It’s got to be that people are posting far fewer tweets these days than they were last month and in 2020.

Why? Well, isn’t it obvious? We’re not all being drowned in lunacy and bullshit, awash in a tidal wave of outright insanity and trying to keep in touch with each other and figure out what was going on and how we could survive. We don’t seem to need to do that nearly as much these days.

I’m sure we’ll get back to picking up the pace with tweets about hobbies, families, sports, and once COVID’s behind us, travel, and get togethers with friends. But for now, we’re all just taking a breath and a break.

Meanwhile, my checking in every hour or so seems to be a symptom of PTSD or some other condition, similar to those found in soldiers returning from combat, where they’re hyper vigilant all of the time. Mentally, the threats and chaos of the last four years have left us all with a bit of a “thousand yard stare,” and it will take some time to decompress and stop checking social media repeatedly, waiting for the next existential threat to pop up.

Leave a comment

Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography, Social Media

February 5, 2021 · 23:11

In Training

Just not sure what I’m in training to be! Some suggestions here – I suspect I’m more likely to be morphing into a hibernating groundhog than an Olympic swimmer.

What really pisses me off is that my watch always does that “It’s time to breathe” thing, like some early 70’s FM college station graveyard shift DJ, and when I do it, I’ll occasionally get this:

Wait – why is this a problem? Isn’t this the result it wanted when it TOLD ME TO “BREATHE“??!!

Great, now I’m going to get a warning about my blood pressure…

Leave a comment

Filed under Health, Photography

February 4, 2021 · 23:47

Efficiency Strategy

Sometimes to get more done, and to be able to get more done in the future, even though you’re on tight deadlines NOW, you need to back off and do something else to make yourself more efficient. It might seem counterintuitive if you’re tightly focused on the goal and the methods you have to get there, but it’s a lesson to be learned about not losing sight of the bigger picture and being open to opportunities.

Case in point – it’s now been almost a year since the pandemic hit and many of us, myself included, ended up working out of a spare bedroom or odd space at home. When that crisis hit, and one crisis after another, we had to simply deal with it with the tools at hand. In my case, while I have a company laptop here for connecting to the server and accounting software there, the laptop with a single, smaller screen and fixed keyboard and trackpad isn’t the best form factor for me to get volume work done. It can work – it’s just not the easiest or fastest way to work.

However, I have my personal desktop computer here that is quite capable, has dual monitors, a full-sized keyboard, trackball, and so on. So I’ve worked out ways to get a lot of my work done on that computer, simply because it’s so much easier to work on.

But one thing I’ve noticed in the handful of times that I’ve gone back into the office is how much I miss my big 27″ monitors at work. The ones I’m using on my home desktop were picked up when my former office shut down about nine years ago, and while they were pretty cutting edge then, they’re small by today’s standards. They’re also slightly mismatched, different manufacturers, which is a little bit crazy-making in a dual monitor setup. But the price was right (they were being thrown out) and they work fine for what they are, so I’ve gotten used to it.

Earlier this week it struck me – I can do better. Those 27″ monitors today are about 1/3 the price of what those much smaller monitors were ten years ago. And I could use that extra screen space to get much more done, faster, easier…

The new monitors came in today, and while I’ve got deadlines, I took several hours this evening to NOT be working on those Excel files and deposit coding and data entry, and instead rearrange and clean my desk, move the old monitors out, and get the new ones in. It’s like a weight has been lifted, one that I didn’t even realize I was carrying.

Onward and upward! Work smarter, not harder! (Insert totally inappropriate non sequitur platitude here!)

 

3 Comments

Filed under Computers, Paul

February 3, 2021 · 23:42

In Transit To A Different Phase

A week ago these were gorgeous, stunning. Now…

…it seems to me that they’re still stunningly gorgeous.

Beauty and worth are not binary, yes or no, on or off.

The colors might have faded, the blooms wilted… But think of the invisible judgement inherent in those words. “Faded.” “Wilted.”

They’re still colorful, elegantly textured, incredibly complex natural constructs.

They’re just in transit to a different phase of their existence. It might no longer pigeonhole conveniently into our arbitrary definition of beauty – but they are still beautiful.

How many other things in the world around us are in the same position?

2 Comments

Filed under Flowers, Photography

February 2, 2021 · 23:52

Fine Feathered Friends – February 02nd

These guys have probably been around a while but I’ve considered them to be pretty generic – maybe not so much!

The Cornell Merlin app IDs all of these photos as a Yellow-Rumped Warbler.

There’s definitely some yellow on those rumps.

Now that I know what to look for, it’s really obvious when they’re flying – that yellow patch is really prominent.

This guy, however, wants to give me the stink-eye for talking about his butt. Sorry, dude!

Leave a comment

Filed under Critters, Photography

February 1, 2021 · 23:57

Rumbling

Maybe I’ve been to too many airshows (like there could ever be such a thing!) or maybe I’m just attuned to the noises that planes make, but I’ve recently noticed something and tested out my theory yesterday.

Sometimes when I’m working in my home office I will hear a deep rumbling that will last for several minutes. It’s plenty loud enough to get my attention, almost like a large semi idling while parked outside – but we’re on a narrow side street at the top of a freakin’ huge hill, so we get very, very few big trucks up here. They can come up here – the trash trucks are weekly visitors, and every now and then we’ll get a big moving truck or something, but they’re rare. So when I start noticing these sounds several times a week, I got curious.

Yesterday it was cloudy and cool, and that might have helped with the acoustics. But when I heard the sound and it had been going on for a minute or two, long enough to register, I went outside to look. The sound was quite distinct, but fading off to the north. A quick check of my FlightRadar24 app confirmed my suspicion:

We may be on a very narrow, steep hill which discourages trucks, but we’re also directly under the flight path for jumbo jets heading from LAX to Asia. While a great many of the newer big jets have much quieter engines, the older jets are noisy, and many of them have been converted for cargo. That rumbling I had just heard was a KAL cargo 747 headed to Seoul.

Is it repeatable?

Two hours early I heard it again and didn’t wait, immediately went outside. Too cloudy to see anything, but the app showed that it was another cargo 747 headed to Seoul, this time from Atlas Air.

I love the sound of jet engines in the morning! Or, in this case, the late afternoon and evening. Or whenever.

2 Comments

Filed under Flying, Los Angeles

January 31, 2021 · 22:14

No Context For You – January 31st

Has this felt like the longest freakin’ month, following the longest freakin’ year, in anyone’s recent memory? Like, I’m sure for those living in Europe or Asia or even here in the US during 1939 through 1945 had their own fair amount of stress, and I’m not sure we can really claim to top that. Then there was that Civil War in the 1860’s, the Black Death in the 1300’s, and so on and so on.

It’s not a competition.

But in our lifetimes, and I’m getting close to being officially “old” by government standards, this is pretty unprecedented.

On the other hand…

A lot of my personal issues revolve around my workload. Between my job (year-end, budget, annual Board Meeting – and mind you, this is the best job and the best work crew that I’ve ever been with) and the hangar (again, year end, audit coming up, some “issues” that had to be dealt with on a tight schedule) and personal life (holiday, Christmas lights, plus all of the “normal” stuff that needs to fit into the schedule, plus the aches and pains of getting older and this shoulder that’s acting up) I’m trying to stuff ten pounds of pickles into a five-pound pickle bag. Remember those guys who used to spin plates on top of tall bamboo sticks on The Ed Sullivan Show? Yeah, I feel like them with about a dozen plates going and trying for just one more…

The good news is that I’m winning some of the battles, particularly this week. The annual budget, a HUGE project, has been approved and most everyone’s happy. Other big “drop everything” projects that popped up in the middle of the budget process have paid off. There’s progress and I can see the end of the tunnel on preparations for the hangar audit. And so on.

So the accomplishments feel great – let’s not forget that there are hundreds of hours of follow up and implementation and then all those things that got shoved off onto the back burners to get the high priority items done, and…

The accomplishments feel great. Oh, and someone’s favorite football team is going to be in the Super Bowl for the second straight year this Sunday, so that might be spectacular as well. And things in Washington are…better? That helps.

As for the photo, I suspect it’s the equivalent of a “butt dialed” phone call, somehow accidentally triggering the camera while I was carrying the phone. Maybe Siri thought that I wanted her to take the picture. She’s a eager little minx, always willing to please, but sometimes a little bit too eager.

1 Comment

Filed under Photography

January 30, 2021 · 23:47

Someone Hates Rainbows – Or He Hates Me

My money’s on me…

Just after the rainbow pictures from yesterday, I noticed a woodpecker out in the neighbor’s tree, then in ours. I was trying (with marginal success) to get some pictures and in the process suddenly noticed that someone was LOUD and appeared to be seriously pissed off with me (sound up!) –

The way he started circling made it clear to me that he didn’t like me being in the yard – what have I ever done to him?

The video stops when I shut down the iPhone to try to get some pictures of him with the good camera in the other hand. He kept squawking at me for another 10 or 15 seconds, but as soon as I brought up the camera with the telephoto lens, he was outta there!

Crows can be very smart – I wonder if he saw the device with the big snout pointed at him (my camera, not my face…wiseass) and thought that it might be a weapon. Unless he stops by again to yell at me and deigns to chat, I guess we’ll never know.

Leave a comment

Filed under Critters, Video

January 29, 2021 · 20:25

Chasing Rainbows

Which sounds like it should be a song…and apparently is, at least three times. But this isn’t about that.

Scattered showers all day after some pretty solid rain last night. Great! We needed it! Finally, this afternoon about 16:00 I noticed some sunlight out in front. But it still looked damp and drizzly. Good conditions for rainbows, right? Low, bright sun in the west, dark, moody clouds in the east, drizzle in between?

Well…okay. Sort of weak, off to the north, but those white, low clouds just above the rooftops lend atmosphere? Maybe today’s not the day for rainbows after all. So I went into the house and looked out the back doors to the east…

WOWSERS!!

These pictures really, REALLY don’t do justice to how stinking BRIGHT this rainbow segment was. I’m sure it’s a combination of the bright sun behind us and the dark clouds overhead and behind it, but jeez louise!! It was like some kind of Hollywood special effect, or a cartoon ad for some kids’ cereal!

Maybe for some reason this lens/camera combination isn’t picking up the colors. What about the other camera?

Better… What about the cell phone?

Better! And part of the problem is all of the bushes and trees in the way. Move! Bob and weave! Serpentine!!

There we go! It was amazing, truly.

I played with the exposure settings on the iPhone a couple of times – some seemed to work and bring out more contrast in color.

To the naked eye, it was trivially easy to see the (left to right, inside to outside) violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red bands. And even more amazing, it was out there for a good half hour or more. It faded a bit after those first couple of minutes, but it stuck around for a while!

Maybe that’s a sign. We could use some beauty and peace and calm in the world right now. There’s plenty of good out there, but it’s a royal pain to have to sort through so much bullshit to find it. Having it splashed across the sky so much that it literally makes you yell “WOW!” when you see it? That’s a good thing.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Photography, Weather