Of course, tonight at 23:55 my internet connection decides to go to hell.
Enjoy a picture of…something.
A Spooked Hawk
Yesterday when the Condors flew over, there was another creature in the skies nearby that wasn’t at all pleased with the company.
He was squawking pretty good!
Filed under Critters, Flying, Photography
Condors
Yesterday the house was buzzed by a squadron of warbirds – the Condor Squadron out of Van Nuys Airport. Today I ran into one of their pilots at the CAF hangar and commented on how great it was to see them so close overhead. I was given the heads up that yesterday was a practice run for a memorial service near our house – tonight was the real thing. So I was ready.
In preparing this post, I’m struck by how much this view resembles the pictures of storks that I posted yesterday.
While three are painted in German markings, they’re all American AT-6 Texans – also known as SNJs when the Navy flew them, or Harvards when the British and Australians flew them.
They circled the hill I live on, giving a number of different views. They made three passes.
What struck me was the number of people on the street and in neighboring yards who seemed totally oblivious. I understand that no everyone’s going to be an “OOOHH, and AIRPLANE!!!” ga-ga sort of guy like me who’s going to grab a camera and run out into the yard, but for crying out loud! If you’re already out in the yard and you see these guys circling around just seven or eight hundred feet up, don’t you at least look up?
On the second pass, one plane popped smoke and went into the “missing man” formation over the memorial site a few blocks from us.
After that, it was time to form up, pass behind Castle Peak, and head off to the west toward Camarillo, where there was a retirement party tonight at our CAF hangars for one of the Condor pilots.
Filed under Flying, Photography
Favorite Pictures – August 03rd
Have I mentioned that I take a **LOT** of pictures? (Hint — I have)
As proof that if you do that, eventually you’ll take one that just pops, where you look at it and say, “Damn! I took that picture and it’s just about perfect!”
Here’s one of those that I took.
September 2008, Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, Madison, Illinois
Filed under Photography, Travel
Someplace Special – August 02nd
Germany
Kaiserslautern, specifically, a city of about 100,000 near the French border in southwestern Germany.
I only had a day to spend there, visiting my son as I was on my way to Prague and later Brussels with my Pepperdine MBA class. But I had always wanted to visit Germany and enjoyed the one day I had wandering around this mid-sized town. Even on foot we in the central city we visited several churches and cathedrals (despite my conflicts with organized religion per se, I’m still a sucker for unique architecture and stained glass) and there were fountains all over the place, some traditional, some more modern and whimsical.
I can’t wait to get back to Germany and see more of the country. I’m thinking one of those tours where you go over and pick up your new BMW at the factory, drive it around Germany for a couple of weeks…
Filed under Photography, Travel
Wispy Clouds Over Santa Clarita
We had a dedication event this afternoon out at the site where we’re building homes. While I was waiting for a few minutes, I noticed the wispy, high clouds and contrails over the roofs of the houses.
Simple – but not simplistic.
There is joy to be found in tiny, “normal,” beautiful things, such as wispy white clouds in a baby blue sky. Especially when there are so many tiny evils trying to nibble our spirits away in a death by a thousand bites, we can restore ourselves by recognizing the thousand healing bits of beauty around us.
Of course, if it’s incredibly stinking hot & miserable while you’re out there collecting your thousand bits o’ beauty, your mileage may vary!
Filed under Homes4Families, Photography, Weather
Crepuscular Tuesday
“Crepuscular” rays are rays of sunshine formed by holes in the clouds, otherwise known as sunbeams. They’re particular visible around sunset or in cloudy, stormy skies. While tonight’s sunset wasn’t quite five-star, it did have a few crepuscular rays on display.
And then, just in case you forgot (or ignored) last night:
Filed under Photography, Weather
Mars At Closest Approach
Yep, there it is!
(Click to embiggenate!)
Looking very bright, very red. Beautiful, along with Venus (which set about an our after sunset), Jupiter (still up fairly high and bright), Saturn (about halfway between Mars and Jupiter), and the moon (rising an hour or so after Mars tonight).
This was the biggie tonight, the closest Mars will be to Earth in decades! If you missed it, if it was cloudy, if you just had to work, well…
…it will all (except for the moon) look about 99.99% EXACTLY THE SAME tomorrow night. And the night after that, and the night after that, and the night after that…
So if you missed it, if it was cloudy, if you just had to work, then go look tomorrow, or next week, or whenever it’s clear and you’re free. The moon’s position in the sky moves significantly from night to night (28 days to go all the way from full to new back to full, so 360°/28 = 12.8° a day, or roughly 1/14th of the distance from horizon to horizon per day) but while the planets move, it’s really rare for them to move very quickly.
Enjoy. Take the time to find someone like me with a telescope and ask nice if they can take a look. Get even a decent pair of binoculars to see Mars’ disk and the Galilean moons of Jupiter.
Don’t do clickbait. Ignore the websites that say “TODAY!” is the day like Mars suddenly appears out of a dark sky for 24 hours and then vanishes.
T’ain’t so. Be smarter than clickbait. Spread the word!
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space
No Context For You – July 29th
Busy weekend.
There are those who say it’s better than sitting around bored all weekend.
I wouldn’t know. It might be sort of nice to try, just to be able to make an informed judgement, right?
Filed under Paul, Photography
A Packed Ramp Pano
With three hangers in use for parties today (it’s one of our key revenue sources, a GREAT place for a wedding, birthday party, bar/bat mitzvah, quinceanera, retirement party, movie shoot – seriously, it’s the biggest venue in Ventura County) a lot of the planes were parked out on the ramp. It was a good time to go stand out among them and take a nice, wide panoramic view:
(Click to blow it up to full size)
Most are CAF aircraft, some are owned by CAF SoCal members, some are AAF aircraft.
From left to right (more or less):
- T-34 Mentor (orange, black, and white)
- PT-19 Stearman (blue, yellow, red & white rudder, over by the corner of the hangar)
- PBJ (grey, the big bomber)
- A-2 Alon (white & red, in the foreground)
- L-29C (silver jet)
- A6M3 Zero (dark green with red dot, way off behind the L-29C)
- Spitfire (dark brown, behind the tail of the L-29C)
- C-46 Commando (Silver, huge cargo plane in the background)
- P-51 Mustang (silver, red nose)
- F-6F Hellcat (dark blue, big white star, in between the C-46 and P-51)
- UH-1 Iroquois (dark green helicopter with a red cross on the side)
- B-25 (dark green bomber facing away from us, a cousin to our PBJ)
- L-17 Navion (silver, in foreground)
- T-6 Texan (yellow, behind the Navion)
- C-47 Dakota (brown & khaki camouflage, behind the SNJ)
The majority of these aircraft are flying. The C-47 is being restored by the AAF, our C-46 hasn’t flown in a few years and would need some work to be airworthy again, and the UH-1 helicopter has actually been converted into to a fancy & stylish promotional beer wagon. The other twelve? All have flown recently, and at least four of these aircraft were flying today.
If you’re in the Southern California area, you should come out and visit us some time. Visit on a Saturday and I’ll probably be there, I would be glad to show you around.
Better yet, come out in three weeks for the Wings Over Camarillo airshow. Not only can you see all of these aircraft, you’ll see a ton more, with many of them (including just about anything we can put into the air) flying and performing aerobatics. Bring sunscreen, we’ll sell you the beer, soda, margaritas, other folks will sell you the food, it will be a great time!
Filed under CAF, Panorama, Photography
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 