Not the GOAT…
…but just a goat.
What? Doesn’t everyone have goats at their Christmas party?
The BIG Ornament & The Red Trees
We finish an exhausting week by merging our last two day’s posts’ themes, almost like I had a plan or a clue. (For the record – I did not have a plan or a clue.)
Walking across the parking lot at work tonight I found last night’s BIG ornament rising in the east betwixt the red trees.
There was a nice scattering of high clouds to add some atmosphere to the scene.
It was beautiful.
I enjoyed it.
Filed under Astronomy, Photography
That’s A BIG Ornament!
I got home tonight just in time to put the biggest & brightest ornament up at the peak of the garage roof!
It looks gorgeous up there. The best part is that it doesn’t cost a cent to light up like that!
Perfect placement, right there at the peak!
Wait! Wait! It’s floating away!
It got away from me. Too bad, it looked perfect there.
Filed under Astronomy, Christmas Lights, Photography
The Red Trees Redux
The morning was off to an inauspicious start – second day in a row with no hot water in the house – and was headed south from there.
Not.
Good.
But the sky was very, very blue and the trees in the parking lot at work had gone from red to Very, VERY RED. In the morning sunlight they were brilliant.
I somehow reminded myself that no matter how much things might seem to suck at any given moment, there were beautiful things all around us if we could remember to see them.
I was a few minutes early, so I took the chance to look at the trees and the sky and take a few pictures.
There were cars driving by me in the parking lot with drivers looking at me like I was nuts.
Their loss.
The day still had big chunks that sucked – but I had seen the red leaves and the blue sky instead of just driving by them.
Filed under Photography
No Context For You (December 10th)
Some days if it weren’t for the anger…
Filed under Paul, Photography
NOW It’s Almost Christmas
Yeah, yeah, the lights are up and tonight we put up the tree. Those are all good precursors.
But tonight we had the first “Love Actually” viewing of the season. It won’t be the last.
I know there are some very vocal folks who absolutely despise the film – I have nothing polite or nice to say about them. They are soulless.
It is simultaneously uplifting, complex, heartbreaking, hilarious, and satisfying.
Gotta go. Rowan Atkinson is wrapping a gift…
Filed under Entertainment
Ice Rings
I went outside to take out the trash, grateful that it had stopped raining, even though it was cold. (As always, that’s “LA cold,” not “real cold.” In other words, 51°, not 11°!) Once I got out I could see that it wasn’t as dark as I had expected, with some moonlight and the clouds breaking up a bit after a week or so of steady rain.
Between the cold, the moon, and the layers of icy, high level clouds, there was the most amazing colored 360° moonbow surrounding the moon overhead.
The cellphone doesn’t do a spectacular job on this type of photo, mainly because of the extreme contract in brightness and the lack of anything solid to focus on.
But you can get an idea of the moonbow. Not as vivid as a rainbow’s colors, but still quite beautiful!
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space
Milestone For The Big Blue Max
I told you it would happen!
I kept waiting for the transmission to blow out or some maniac doing 100+ mph in the rain and traffic to take me out in the last mile, leaving it forever stuck on 199,999 miles – but nothing like that happened.
It was uneventful, except for possibly the trivial and inconsequential coincidence that it happened EXACTLY in front of my office, which happens to sit right next to the freeway. That was a tiny bit weird and random.
On to the next 100,000 miles! She may be neither small nor zippy (like Hissy is) but she’s reliable and reasonably comfortable. And we’ve been through a lot together.
Which brings up another point. I know that my kids name their cars and give them personalities because I do and in that sense I’m either an outstanding, super cool role model or a terrible, psychotic one. But does anyone else do this?
Filed under Castle Willett, Paul
Life Commentary In Eleven Words
Some days this just describes the whole shebang:
Stupid server.
Time to count backwards, slowly, in German, from Dreihundertsiebenundvierzig, then reconnect.
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul
The Red Trees
A couple of weeks ago some of the trees at work went from green to bright yellow overnight. Today I noticed that the trees out in the parking lot had gone red.
Filed under Los Angeles, Photography
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 