August 12, 2025 · 23:42

If You’re Up Before Sunrise

Last night and tonight will be the closest approach in this conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, and they’ll be slowly separating over the next month or more, but if you’re up before dawn and have a clear sky, look to the east!

At 05:25, my iPhone taking pictures through the kitchen window is having just as much trouble focusing as I was! I know how it felt!

With a little bit of effort, both I and the phone were able to focus, both in the optical and in the philosophical sense. The brighter, lower right one is Venus, the slightly dimmer, upper left one is Jupiter. With a pair of binoculars (or the time to actually put on pants and shoes, go outside, and set up a good camera and a tripod, assuming I could find one of the tripods in one of the PODS units out in the driveway) you could easily see several of the Galilean moons near Jupiter.

This was my favorite view. We have plantation shutters…

If you’re up, go look! Take binoculars! Put on pants!

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Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

August 11, 2025 · 23:08

Visitors

We had the pleasure of a visit today from The Son, The Second Daughter, and The Son-In-Law. They came up to see the Forever Home for the first time and were suitably impressed. They also helped to solve a problem I’ve been having with one of the PODS unit, an effort which is greatly appreciated.

See, I can stop being stubborn and pig-headed (occasionally, reluctantly) and ask for help!

We’ve been googling restaurants in the area and went out to a BBQ and pub just a mile or so from the house and found it as tasty and excellent as we were hoping for.

Finally, after they had gone, I spotted a large Great Horned Owl sitting out on top of the pergola in the back yard. No pictures, it flew away after a minute, before I could grab my camera. But I want to think that its presence is a sign of good things to come.

Progress.

Dragons slain.

Dare we even say – hope?

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Filed under Birds, Family, Forever Home

August 10, 2025 · 23:00

Sunset View From The Mailbox

Another change for the Forever Home from all of my previous houses is that we don’t have an individual mailbox at the street next to the driveway – there’s a set of mailboxes for the entire tract down on the corner. Since we’ve been in here almost three weeks now (WOW!) I figured I should probably see if we had any mail.

We did! A couple of very nice “Happy New House!” cards from some friends, lots of escrow closing and insurance documents, and a slew of “Dear New Homeowner” spam. (Which went straight into recycling – life’s too short!)

Since it got up to 102ºF here today (it’s a dry heat, really, not that uncomfortable) I went about a half hour after sunset when it was comfortable. With some smoke still in the area from a couple of brush fires, it was lovely.

Not saying that a few clouds couldn’t push this sort of lighting from “astonishing” up a notch or two to “extraordinary,” but I’m thinking I can get used to it as a baseline without ever taking it for granted.

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

August 9, 2025 · 23:07

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One…

I think that in all of the chaos of the last six weeks, this particular bizarre incident of terror got completely overlooked. Boy, if that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is!

Back on July 10th I we were in escrow, but still living in the old house in West Hills. The Long-Suffering Wife had left for the morning, I was down the hall in my work-from-home office, and the house was filled with boxes and stuff waiting to go into boxes.

I heard a crash of some sort from down the hall, in the kitchen or living room. Being alone in the house and the sound not being something like someone smashing in a door or window to force entry, I figured something had been piled up in an unstable manner and had crashed over to the floor. I would deal with it later.

Then came another bang. And another crash. I came to the conclusion that I was NOT alone in the house.

When I went to investigate, I found that the kitchen had been invaded by mourning doves.

At the moment I had no clue how they had gotten in. All doors and windows were closed. (Later, having reviewed the view from a NestCam, I came to the conclusion that they probably came down the chimney by accident. Drunk? Fermented berries? Or just stupid and clumsy? Both?)

This one was fairly calm. I put a towel over it, picked it up, took it outside, and let it go.

This one I found in the kitchen sink and I figured it would be a breeze to drop a towel over it, trap it in the sink, and repeat the take outside & release strategy.

WRONG!

I never did figure out what its major malfunction was, but I spent fifteen minutes chasing it around the kitchen before I finally got the drop on it. There was much panicked flying up into the eyes (mine) and flapping of wings in my face. I know that we’re in drastically different weight classes and that no one on the planet has ever been killed by a mourning dove, but there’s a first time for everything and I didn’t want it to be me with the funny headstone.

When I finally succeeded in getting it outside I realized that I was now twenty minutes late for a Zoom call with my boss, his boss, our banker, and multiple members of our Board. OOPS!

It’s not quite a “my dog ate my homework” moment, but I’m sure it wasn’t a story that was on anyone’s Bingo card that morning.

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Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography

August 8, 2025 · 21:48

Full Moon Over The Backside Of Lake Arrowhead

One of these days I’m sure we’ll get up to Lake Arrowhead and get a view of the lake itself. For today, what we have from our back yard are the northwest sides of the mountains surrounding it.

You can’t see the mountains in this picture, but they’re there.

I’ll also need to get my telescopes back up and running since we have such a nice sky, but since we still haven’t found our dishes or silverware or pots & pans or sheets or most of The Long Suffering Wife’s clothes yet, getting the ‘scopes aligned might not rise to the top of the priority list this weekend.

(Credit: “Liberated” from the internet someplace, some time in the last forty years)

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Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography

August 7, 2025 · 23:31

Reality Is Odd

Boy howdy.

Loving the new house, not so thrilled about all of the work that remains to unpack and get settled. Got a bit knocked off kilter with some news, when the move and the freakin’ world had me already spinning, so it’s all a bit odd.

Perhaps I need a better office chair, since I seem to be in this one about 16+ hours a day and this one is thirty years old and sort of sucks. But I digress…

Lying on the floor by the front door, we have the good luck charms and trinkets on the front door handles, and the really nice chandelier in the foyer.

Sleep would be nice – one leftover from all of the moving the last week is those freakin’ nocturnal leg cramps waking me up every hour. If anyone has a cure or a suggesstion on treatment or prevention, please drop it into the comments. I’ve been bitching about it to my Primary Care Physician for about fifteen years and so far all I’ve gotten is, “You’re getting old.” While true, it’s less than useful.

And somewhere I picked up a cold. Lousy sleep every night for a month, pretty constant pain and discomfort, and hitting the Dayquil every six hours is not a good combination for wrestling with the nature of reality.

That’s how you end up lying on the marble floor by the front door, taking pictures of the ceiling and the chandelier.

I need better drugs. Or better reality. Or both.

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Filed under Forever Home, Paul, Photography

August 6, 2025 · 23:10

Fannish Things We Gave Up In Exchange

Those of you associated with science fiction & fantasy fandom know what “fannish things” are. For those who don’t know, SF fandom is a bit of FIAWOL (Fandom Is A Way Of Life), a bit of FIJAGH (Fandom Is Just A Goddamn Hobby), and a bit of FIJAGWOL (the math is left as an exercise to the student). We had plans to attend Worldcon (the annual World Science Fiction Convention) in Seattle in two weeks, but those plans (sensibly, which is not always a given) were abandoned when we opened escrow at the beginning of July. Probably more short of time and strength than cash, but it’s all a factor.

So, house or Worldcon? Well, we last went to Worldcon in Chicago three years ago, skipped China and Scotland, and were really hoping to get to Seattle (we LIKE Seattle!) but were starting to have a few second thoughts to begin with due to some “issues” with the Worldcon committee, the volunteer group who are running the con. I’m hesitant to get too critical since back in the day I was on a half-dozen-plus con committees and was the con chair for three of them. It’s a tough, thankless gig. But still… Let’s just say that when the house became available, it didn’t take much to be a tipping point and have us cancel our hotel reservations.

The other aspect of the Forever Home adventure vs. Worldcon was time. Worldcon is where the Hugo Awards are presented, and since we have memberships in the Seattle Worldcon we’re entitled to vote for the Hugos. I always try to do that and do it from an informed position, which means reading all of the five or six or seven nominated novels, novellas, novelettes, and short stories, as well as at least peruse the artwork, fanzines, and other nominated works. That takes time, which is generally time well spent since I’m reading what are among the best works of the year. Often I’ve already read a couple, just because I read a lot in the field to begin with.

But this year, I didn’t even get to make a decent effort. Every single brain cycle for the past six weeks has been focused on getting the house and getting into the house and getting out of the old house. Oh, and also keeping my job and putting in my hours there.

Reading recreationally for the Hugos? That might have gone so far onto a back burner that you need the Hubble Space Telescope to see it.

In two weeks I’ll watch to see who won. I’ll look for pictures from friends who are at the con.

And I’ll make plans for next year. Los Angeles.

That should be do-able, even from The High Desert.

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Filed under Fandom, Forever Home

August 5, 2025 · 22:13

Purple Mountain Majesties

Just after sunset, “the Golden Hour,” is photogenic up here in the desert.

Part of it’s the light, part of it’s the mountains, part of it’s the various layers of smoke from the Gold Fire over by Big Bear. Part of it is the Belt of Venus and part of it’s the 88% illuminated Moon floating up there.

In the end, we’ve come full circle. There were several things that got us pointed at the High Desert as a location for the Forever Home, but one of them was the Virtual Railfan camera here in Hesperia.

(Image: Virtual Railfan)

See those mountains in the near distance on the right?

Here’s how they look from our back yard. Which isn’t a surprise since we’re less than a mile away. I’m looking forward to seeing snow on them in a few months. We may be in the desert, but we’re also at 4,000 feet elevation.

 

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Filed under Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

August 4, 2025 · 23:23

A Touch Of High-Level Moisture

It had been clear and a gazillion almost every day since we moved up here, except for that one morning when the sunrise was mind blowing. But tonight we finally got some beautiful, wispy clouds.

I’m finding that I really enjoy the “edges” of the day outside, in the morning before it gets too hot and in the evenings when it’s starting to cool off. Yeah, it’s hot here in the middle of the day, but there’s that whole “mad dogs and Englishmen” thing going on. Wait until just before sunset and go out in the breezes and it’s exceptional.

Turns out that laying out on the turf (house on the left, pergola on the right) is quite comfortable. Getting back up to my feet? I was worried we might need to call in a crane…

And it’s not true that we don’t get any airplanes passing overhead. While in West Hils we were under the extended final centerline for Burbank’s primary Runway Eight and thus had jets overhead constantly, we still get some traffic here. Click on that photo and blow it up as much as you can – do you see the Iberia A350, flight #03, headed from LAX to Madrid, 20,000 overhead?

Both to the south…

..and to the north we were right under the edge of a front of some sort, with lots of twisty, turny threads and ribbons of clouds.

But it’s all way up there at 30,000. No rain or precipitation expected here for the forseeable future.

But if I happen to be wandering around about 04:45, the sunrise might be beautiful.

 

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Filed under Forever Home, Sunsets, Weather

August 3, 2025 · 22:40

First Hesperia Hummingbirds

I’ve had LOTS of hummingbird pictures over the last seven years at the West Hills hilltop house. When we picked this new house in Hesperia we had no idea if we would continue to have hummingbirds to host in our yards.

I started seeing a hummingbird around the yard the first day that we were moving in, but it wasn’t until today that I found the feeders and food in all of the chaos. I didn’t know how long it would take for the birds to find the food source – turns out it was literally about three minutes.

We’ve got this wonderful patio and pergola in the back yard and it’s perfect for hanging our feeders. We probably won’t throw bird seed out for the finches and other songbirds since we have astroturf instead of grass and I’m concerned about the mess that birdseed might make, but I figure two hummingbird feeders and two birdseed feeders should be a good start on rebuilding a personal bird population here at our Forever Home.

Cleared for landing! The sunset silhouette view from about 20′ away was perfect!

This is actually when this bird returned (assuming it’s the same one that came almost immediately when I put the feeder up). Once I get a couple of feeders up I’ll keep an eye out to get a better idea of how many birds we have in the area.

Click on this one to blow it up to full sized – I don’t think I’ve ever caught one with its beak open like this. WIERD! LUCKY!!

Last weekend when I was cleaning out the old house and packing the truck, the hummers there definately knew that something was up. Where I would often see as many as five or six at a time zooming around the yard, there was one point when it was probably three times that or more. (They’re tough to count when they won’t hold still!) There’s still plenty of flowers there, but someone else will have to feed them if/when new tenants take over.

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Filed under Birds, Forever Home, Photography