Images

I don’t mind the super-deformed shapes or even the mix of Wally’s eye lenses on Barry’s costume… But slapping a New 52 label on a series where Superman still has his red underwear, Batman has his yellow oval, Flash’s belt is straight and no one has seams, armor or collars?

I don’t mind the super-deformed shapes or even the mix of Wally’s eye lenses on Barry’s costume… But slapping a New 52 label on a series where Superman still has his red underwear, Batman has his yellow oval, Flash’s belt is straight and no one has seams, armor or collars?

I don’t mind the super-deformed shapes or even the mix of Wally’s eye lenses on Barry’s costume… But slapping a New 52 label on a series where Superman still has his red underwear, Batman has his yellow oval, Flash’s belt is straight and no one has seams, armor or collars?

Abandoned Railroad

Abandoned floppy disk on tracks

This week’s photo challenge is “abandoned” — kind of like this blog was for a few months. 😉

A few years back, I explored a disused spur of railroad tracks branching off of the main line into a light industrial area of town. In many places, the tracks had already been ripped out, leaving only gravel paths (and in some cases stepping stones, as seen below) between buildings that no longer needed freight access.

I found this floppy disk sitting on the track, and the combination of an obsolete data technology and what I thought of at the time as an obsolete transportation technology just struck me.

A path of stepping stones between two buildings.The funny thing is, trains in the form of light rail have made a resurgence in the last few years. Los Angeles’ Metro rail system, started in the 1990s, has expanded dramatically. I actually commuted myself along the Green Line at one point, and while normally that meant driving halfway there to pick up the end of the line, there were a few times I tried picking up a connecting (well, not quite connecting) train from Metrolink, at a station not far from this spot. In fact, the track in the first two photos has since been converted into a footpath connecting a shuttle stop to the commuter rail station.

TODO: Import to K2R, link forward and back to Obsolete (2009).
QUESTION: Import the original 2014 post (with suitable tag/link changes), or update the text and post it as new? Also connect to this Mastodon post (local archive copy)

Smoke from a wildfire burning northeast of Los Angeles. Sky to the west is totally clear. Sunlight is orange.

Smoke plume from a wildfire burning northeast of Los Angeles. It hasn’t had time to diffuse through the whole basin yet, and the wind has cleared out all the smog, so the sky to the west is a gorgeous blue and the distant mountains and skyline are completely clear.