Sun halo. At ground level it was in the low 70s, but up in the sky it was cold enough for ice crystals. It’s hard to be sure, but I think there’s a bit of a circumscribed halo just outside the main curve of the circular halo.
Tag: TODO: Blog Import
H2O: Walking By The Los Angeles River
Los Angeles has a weird relationship with water. Most years there isn’t enough rain to support the region’s population, agriculture and industry without importing it from surrounding areas. Some years there really isn’t enough. And some years there’s so much rain that floods are a greater threat than drought.
The region’s flood control system is built around that threat, channeling storm water out to sea as quickly as possible. In many places, rivers are lined with concrete, typically with a narrow channel in the middle to keep it flowing during dry spells and a wider channel to prevent flooding. This stretch of the Los Angeles River in Studio City is a good example:
Other parts of the river are much nicer, even navigable at times, but this stretch really is just a concrete drainage ditch inside a bigger drainage ditch.
Unfortunately what’s needed in flood years ends up hurting us in drought years, sending too much of the rain we do get into the ocean instead of collecting it. In recent years they’ve been testing systems to recharge groundwater reserves, but if drought becomes more common — and indications are that it will — we’re going to need to revamp the system.
Raven and Poe: Partners for (n)evermore
Last September I visited Boston to attend a friend’s wedding. While there I took a guided walking tour of the Freedom Trail, and also wandered the city a bit on my own. I stumbled on this statue with a pair of unconventional partners: Edgar Allen Poe and a raven.
I particularly like how they’ve balanced it so that the raven appears to be flying out of the briefcase as the writer’s papers burst out. My photo album on Flickr has another angle of this statue, plus another 15-odd sightseeing shots.
Sun halo and palm tree, spotted at lunch today.
Locked Out at the Boundary
Behind this gate, a path leads up a narrow access way to a railroad bridge. Clearly people do get in there from time to time based on the trash – or maybe they just throw it over the fence from the sidewalk. Once I saw two people up on the bridge doing a photo shoot. They probably didn’t get there through here — a block south, there’s an at-grade crossing without any gates, and anyone could easily walk along next to the tracks as long as they keep alert for trains.
It got me thinking about how some boundaries are there to block access, and some are there purely for organizational purposes — consider the property line between two neighbors, defining responsibility for upkeep on each side — and while some of the obstacles we put up are intended to keep people out, sometimes they’re only meant to slow people down or send them down another path.
And then there are the boundaries like the tracks themselves: Structures that aren’t intended to separate regions, but nonetheless just by existing define a near and a far side. Railroads, highways, even natural features like rivers and mountains split communities, climate zones, ecosystems, and nations.
But people are also good at getting past obstacles. We build bridges and tunnels. We find places to ford streams. We find mountain passes, and blast them out to make them easier to cross.
And sometimes? We just go around.
Social networking experiment creates the amalgamated platonic ideal Facebook & Twitter users.
An interesting social networking experiment: Someone set up profiles on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, then publicized the passwords so anyone could use them, creating an amalgam of the ultimate Facebook or Twitter account. (Instagram’s didn’t take off.)
Halo, how you doing?
Sunset in the Corner
When I have time to compose a scenic photo, the rule of thirds is usually on my mind. Even if I’m not putting an object off-center, I’m trying to line up visual borders with the 3×3 grid — a horizon, or the top or side of a building, or a treeline. Sometimes symmetry works better, though…and sometimes I’m just trying to get a snapshot of someone or something.
In this case, I stopped by a store after work and arrived just as the sun was about to set, at the top of a hill, giving me a clear view to the west. When that happens, you don’t go inside, you stop and watch!
(What I really wanted was to catch a nearby farm-style windmill silhouetted against the sun, but unfortunately the best place for that was in the middle of a crosswalk across a busy street, and I wasn’t going to trust in my ability to stop, aim, take a few photos, and get back to the side.)
Photo challenge (WordPress): Rule of Thirds
Spotted on the inside of the restroom at the ER waiting room yesterday. It looks like I’m not the only one who was desperate to get out of there by the end.
Spotted on the inside of the restroom at the ER waiting room yesterday. It looks like I’m not the only one who was desperate to get out of there by the end.
Follow-up on Tumblr:
One of those things that could be harmless (but painful) or could be a sign of something seriously bad, but tests came out normal. At least this year I didn’t miss out on any of the convention days we had tickets for.
Chasing the Golden Hour
I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time looking for a good spot to take photos during the golden hour for this week’s photo challenge late Saturday afternoon. There was an open space with electrical towers nearby that I thought would make for some interesting pictures. But the clouds rolled in as I drove down the street, and I spent the next hour racing inland, trying to stay ahead of the marine layer.
The best shot I got of the bunch, with clouds intermittently covering and revealing the sun, was this one. It’s the historic Pacific Electric Railway Bridge in Torrance, California, which I stumbled across a few years back completely on accident. What makes it an even better choice is that when I first found it, I shot it in broad daylight. You can really see the difference that lighting makes!
At this point, I started heading into the hills, figuring I’d focus on the clouds instead of the lighting, though on the way I spotted this view of a hilltop lit up by the sun. I could see it from halfway across town, and wasn’t sure I’d make it before the sun dipped too low or the clouds rolled in to block the light.
The park I’d planned to go to for views above the cloud layer turned out to be in the cloud layer. The fog was hitting the west face of the hills, moving over, and just barely pouring over the summit ridges. I took my first Instagram video, of low clouds racing across the sky before dissipating.
I finally went to another park on the inland side of the hills, and found myself in a clear space surrounded by a wall of clouds to the west and south. This is the view to the west, with the fog backlit by the sun.
This particular park is a great place to get away from it all for a while, so I stuck around for a few minutes to just relax before heading home for the evening.
Babylon 5 vid to Nobody’s Side from Chess.
After realizing that “Suddenly,” the new song in the Les Miserables movie, reminded me of “Someone Else’s Story” from Chess, I decided to dig out that soundtrack. And that reminded me of this official Babylon 5 music video set to “Nobody’s Side.”
I love this explanation of “opt-in” co-reg marketing “permission”
I love this explanation of “opt-in” co-reg marketing “permission” (if you can call it that):
A husband gets permission from his wife to go to the pub on certain nights of the week with his mates, then sometime later later gets divorced, re-married, and then uses the original permission as an excuse when his new partner moans about his social habits.
Level 2 coffee? Character profiles? Is this a new Coffee-themed RPG?
Level 2 coffee? Character profiles? Is this a new Coffee-themed RPG?
For the record: The back explains that it's roasting levels.
Katie: I can see coffee having strength, constitution, and charisma, but the rest…not so much.
Wayne: roasting levels themselves are a stat right? ;> Actually, how does one measure charisma on coffee? How sane it ends up making you after you drink it? ;p
Katie: I'd think of coffee charisma as being layperson appeal…how friendly it is to the general public's palate. But tea automatically has a better charisma, being CHA.
Wayne: (forehead slap) groooan TEAed off good there
Kelson: That's a measurement of Total Effective Armor, right?
Wayne:totally 🙂
Katie:Yeah, that stat increases steeply over time. Makes a big difference in whether you take one lump or two.
Wayne:ba-lump-dump!
Glenna:now, do you want Charisma to mean attractiveness of a person or how hyper-bunny that person is thus driving the rest of us insane? lol 😀