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Hey hey club people, it’s been a month so I thought I would trip through my photo roll and share a few pictures from July. As usual, I take quite a few pictures of random things that I see, but there are also a couple of sunsets. Enjoy!
The Mill Pond is a “nature spot” near my MIL’s house on Long Island. A trail circumnavigates the preserve, looping around the large pond and up the Bellmore Creek that both feeds and drains the pond. The northern boundary is the Sunrise Highway, a large road, 3 lanes in each direction with a few stop lights and cross roads; the LIRR is parallel and on the other side of the…
The Tahoe Symphony wasn’t perfect, though they were all musical “all stars” as the long-winded introductory speaker said. A program coordinator muttered something that sounded like “too long” under their breath while we waited in the wings for our ticketing situation to get sorted. It was fun watching these intros from stage left, still under the trees; not the usual…
Lost Coast, CA. July 2021. Miles and miles of mountains that fall into the sea, and just a narrow shelf at the edge that is sometimes submerged by the tide. This was a short notice trip, Tony spotted the permits available on recreation.gov, available in about a week. We went for it, committed and reserved them, made it happen. The drive takes hours and just leads deeper into the north coast…
There were a few small straggly bits, not much magnetic tape was missed. I looked for any other remains of the huge mess from last week along the center median of 85. Some few pieces of it fluttered and glinted in the breeze, but most had been cleaned up by someone, a highway worker or a good samaritan, or some unknowable party doing the good work to keep our city’s infrastructure at or…
Good Saturday morning, subscribers! This update of random things is a day late because despite things starting off at a more manageable rate this week, it sure ended with a bang that completely derailed my Friday afternoon plans. But, enough about that, it’s the weekend. One of my all-time favorite meme-gif thingies. (I say it "jif" which I think is wrong but I say ig anyway because of years…
The Canaveral National Seashore is one of a few places where a harsher, more brutalist industrial-scale future intrudes into the timeline. Miles down the shore, as close as we can get at the safe distance keep-out fence line, there are launch towers, lightning towers, and enormous tanks of fuel softened in the moisture hazed morning air, hypnotized as Bob Ross used to say. It is before 8 AM and so…
There was about a half mile of magnetic tape strewn along the center median of 85, just past the Almaden Expressway. It was wide tape, VHS or even bigger, hard to say for sure even though traffic was crawling. You don’t see it like that anymore. Tape trash was a common thing to see on the side of the road, wrapped around and twisted and engrossing other bits of rubbish like seaweed.…
Well, friends, it’s time for another installment of “I read something so good I have to tell you all about it.” Previous installments: the moth one, and the one about the eclipse . Today I’m here to talk to you about Something Defeasible , by Max Beerbohm. It’s a short essay, you can read it in the nicely formatted version I prepared, or over at Project Gutenberg from…
I'm so excited about two things here. First, I get to share with you this banger of a personal essay by Max Beerbohm. You can read my thoughts about it in this post . Second, since I discovered the Justif library last week , I've been trying to figure out how I can use it here. Well, this is it!
Hey cool kids, happy Friday and welcome to the latest edition of the Friday grab bag. It’s another peak behind the curtain: what do I have in my open tabs this week? The Louisiana Channel’s Knausgaard material has been open on my tabs for weeks. Nominally this is a video interview with Karl that I want to watch as a warm up for finding/signing up for a writing workshop. Maybe this…
It is like seeing the dawn of time, or a time very near that dawn. The waves crashing, they came from a storm somewhere near New Zealand, where New Zealand would be in millions of years. In my mind, the big waves we had this summer, they are the New Zealand waves. The waves in the picture above are different yet again, the picture is from a couple of years ago and in the winter. The big summer…
The Cheesecake Factory was more middle class than I expected, there was a veneer of ostentatiousness, especially near the perimeter of the space, but the interior was much less decorated. 1 It was a large volume of space, the ceilings were as high as they could be, perhaps 30 feet, maybe even 40, but the decorations were actually minimal. The relative plainness surprised me. The entrance is richly…
The Bernal school, which is not on Bernal, is another that is right up against the edge of the Santa Teresa hills. They put these Oakridge schools as far out as they could, it seems. Across the street are those hills, and the Bernal ranch house, and a historical plaque too. The hills, they rise up. Towering might be too strong a word for them; their rise is just a bit too gentle for that, but they…
Great hike this morning to the top of Mt. Umhunum , great conversation the whole way! Walking really does help the brain go. Great idea, Jeff! It’s kinda dystopian scifi, right? The top has this superb and surreal cold war relic, a cubic building which used to house an early warning radar system. The building is huge, totally out of place, and still very well maintained. It’s…
The rocks are in a different configuration, but that has always been true. There are still rocks. And there are still waves, and still sand. The creatures that are here have been here since long before I came on this shore. Crabs and clams and sea palms all cling to the rocks. Damp cold sand clings to my hands and feet, getting between my fingers and toes. Barnacles and anemones and starfish hold…
I do love a good sunset. It’s the colors, you see. Sunsets have the best colors. Sun go down. We’ve had a couple of days of great sunsets. Unfortunately it came with a side of major humidity and high temperatures. Monsoonal moisture, so says the weather guy . I dunno, some great sunsets might be worth the price. 😁
The berry farm, Gizditch’s, was only u-picking boysenberries. An old woman on her way out met us at the bridge, happy and carrying juice stained containers full of berries with juice stained hands. Between wide smiles she told us that she had picked last week and made a pie and was back again for more. The furthest rows, the back ones, still have the best berries, she said. So, after taring…
I lament the change to the recipe of Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Formula Lip Balm, formerly my favorite chapstick by a wide margin, which now is a completely ordinary and utterly uninteresting moisturizer for the mouth parts and I have no desire to buy it ever again. Do you even know what you have done. You.
Hello once again RSS and Email club members! This week the grab bag is from my photo roll last month. I’ve upped the gallery on the site rendering recently, now with lightbox and (optional) captions. Take a look there if the captions don’t come through this time in the email or rss feed (and I’ll fix it for next time).
The wind whipped past us, surprisingly fast and consistent on the way up to the tower. It was cool enough that long sleeves became necessary in a short time. The winds grabbing fingers took Jeff’s hat right off his head once and tried a second time but Jan was ready. The clouds above were close and kept getting torn into little pieces; they rushed past just overhead. Santa Teresa County Park…
Bright wet sand, slowly eroding rocks, and the waves crashing over all of it, always coming in and going out. Sometimes the sea is higher, and sometimes it’s lower, but in the colder months the waves are bigger and usually they’re smaller in the warmer. The water is always about the same cold fresh temperature, crisp and sharp and salty. The sand shifts and moves, traveling with the…
I remember the first time I heard Daft Punk, and saw it too. It was in Gianfranco’s parents’ living room in 1997, in the summer. Almost thirty years ago. The room was dark, the shutters were drawn or it was night. Hard to tell sometimes in a memory. “Around the world” was playing on MTV Europe, and I had no idea what I was listening to. There were neon outlined astronauts…
Somewhere above San Jose c/o Acme Hoping this works for catching the fireworks tonight. The wind should be light; I hope my bag doesn’t blow away. I should have weighted it with something, at least the battery pack.
I find grocery displays fascinating as a subject of photography. Sweet snacks. Salty snacks. Not snacks. Related photographers:
Hello club members! We have all collectively made it to yet another Friday. As is my wont, it’s random grab baggy type things, and because it’s been kind of a week, and because nothing else has come to me, I will turn to my open browser tabs and share something that is shareable. The Colossal article on Sara Flores , who is an artist that makes very beautiful and geometric art. I…
When Cleveland was about 8 years old, he was working out in the cotton field doing some hoeing, and when the lightning hit him “Cleveland went one way and the hoe went the other way.” My dad is telling me this on the phone, on Father’s day. During the story I learned that Cleveland is a black man, “a very black man” from Mississippi. And that he has white hair,…
Santa Barbara, CA, 2025 The offshore platform is just there, day and night. Lit, dark, and dusk, it is a permanent presence from an earlier strata. It could go on to outlast us all against the sea; a still anchor, untended and disused. And unreachable by us on the shore. Like a beacon of foreign industry, it’s always there, will be on the horizon doing it’s unknowable things, making…
Ali and I went for a hike yesterday, the first time for her in years. We went along with friends on their usual weekend route. I had never been into Almaden Quicksilver park from the east before, the New Almaden town side. It used to be a mine, which is what “Almaden” means and is named for, a famous mine in Spain since antiquity. The hike is up a road grade, wide and even and well…
Hello RSS and Email club people. It’s Friday so that means randomness. The universe has by chance presented to me a string a busted myths lately. Three myths have been broken, and I want to share. This improved understanding of the world is thanks to the indefatigable research and combined powers of a team of inquirists; I would not be smarter without the benefit of their efforts. Watering…
I spent a day at the Sonoma Raceway; my expertise in cars runs about as deep as playing Gran Tourismo and Forza Motorsports many years ago will get you. The cultural experience, the different scene in the pits, and all the forms and colors of the cars, the race track itself and its infrastructure made for a very interesting day. I’d do it again, for sure, just to see things that are totally…
I had just finished my workout, stair machine and treadmill, and was about to climb the four floors of stairs back to my desk. The door to the stairs has a card reader, you have to get in close to scan your badge, which I had just done when the door absolutely burst open, into my shoulder, and a young man came flying out. I shouted “oh my goodness!” over my headphones, completely…
This one’s about writing craft. If that’s not your jam, feel free to skip it. I read Total Eclipse 1 by Dillard. In the same way that the moth essay does, it hits like a hammer. You can find it in Teaching a Stone to Talk , and online too (but I don’t think you’re supposed to). 2 This time I wasn’t reading to count similes; I was looking for permission and instruction…
The lat pulldown machine is the only machine in the gym with a one pound increment, and the only machine with a seat belt. The only machine with a foot pedal. It’s a strange machine. Many machines in the gym have adjustments and this one adjusts the seat up and down so that it hinges where I hinge at the shoulder; the pulldown motion concentric with my arm’s motion. The bar comes down…
Hello once again RSS clubbers, this is the now habitually weekly grab bag post of random things that I have on hand that are interesting and fun. And random. Ha! The new field recorder (iOS) app Fields by Audiothing looks like a step up from Kymatica’s AudioShare . I’ll let you know how it turns out, with samples. Of course, you can always just use the built in voice memos app,…
Feeling down after a rare rough day at work. There is a lot going on, a lot of turbulence right now. I’m sure it will pass. Well, I believe it will pass. But there will be challenges during these challenging times, and today was one.
Today I learned of the bandoneon , a variant of the concertina . It’s often used in tango, according to wikipedia. (For musical instrument rubes such as myself, it’s like an accordion.) I also learned that, with enough reverb applied, it can do a pretty great rendition of that famous Bach piece (which I do happen to love). Enjoy! I remember, in college, going to the Fred Meyer and…
The strong smell of fresh earth became noticeable in the dark night air. Ebi was digging again, and all of us began to pay her more attention and admonish her to stop with a sing-song “Ebi, uh-uh!” It was only once that we were too distracted by our own jokes and word plays and humorously strange logical fallacies that we had missed it when the greyhound started digging again. Ebi had…
I saw recently that a company is now projecting the indicator on the ground . My objection: the blinking will draw our eye down to the ground, and that’s away from where the 2-ton killing machines are. The flashier ones that move, extend, or are strange shapes doing strange things, some think those are fun, but I don’t. All the turn signals with “extras” really grind my…
Hello RSS Club! Open tabs There are only a couple of tabs open in my browser that are worth mentioning. Researchers discovered that we humans prefer to walk to the left , period full-stop. Man, I love it when some new physics is discovered. I have a couple of photographers open Brendon Burton and John Thomson (via KDO ). I’m intrigued by both, but for different reasons. Ideas I had a couple…
Dang, it’s hot! Today it was nearly 100 F, and for the next week it’s going to be in the 90s. My car said 102. That sucks. Along with that there was a red flag warning , a much higher fire danger due to some wind. Yesterday, on my way home from the office I saw a brush fire 1 near my exit, I smelled the smoke. I guess it was a homeless encampment. What a bummer.
The parking lot is full, like completely full. There are cars prowling. This is an ordinary grocery store on an ordinary Thursday night. There is no reason for this parking lot to be completely used up. The only other time I have ever seen Nob Hill’s parking lot begin to get full is during the after school pick up time when parents abuse the proximity of this parking lot to the high school…
I’ve always been struck by the middle view, the “middle airs,” 1 of the Redwood trees. From a steep hillside trail in the Santa Cruz mountain forests, one is both high above the gully bottom and far below the canopy top. Sometimes the trunks are near, right off the trail, and you can appreciate the bark’s stretched and growing nature, the outer skin of the tree literally…
Hello RSS Clubs and Email Subs! It’s Friday and that means random things. This time I thought I’d share a few YT videos in my history from the last couple of weeks. Looking through the list of videos that I pulled up, there is an ordinary exotic theme here, to me at least. These videos may not be exactly your jam, but maybe there is something about them that interests you. Seeing into…
The black Tesla is speeding and braking and lane changing and routing around the slower cars. It’s leap-frogging through the light traffic to get ahead and go even faster. At times I’m driving nearly 85; it’s after 7 and we’re all flying down the 85. Just going with the flow. The other side is practically empty, at its natural and quiescent state for this time of the…
The uniformed man walked past, straight down the middle of the two rows of chairs, perfectly ordinary. He’s young-ish, he’s wearing a hat, a baseball cap, but I didn’t catch the logo. When he got to the back of the shop, I lost interest in his activities, but on recollection I see that he entered the scene empty handed, which is odd for a delivery person or service man. When I…
Where did that banana slug go? It was just here, in the middle of the campground, but now it’s nowhere. I am scanning the perimeter, checking the trees, looking under my seat, under my feet. It’s just gone. It was making a slow meandering arc near the middle of my camp site. I must have gotten distracted long enough while making some notes for it to get away. I was about to name it…
Our pants are getting wet, quite a bit more wet than I had anticipated and the umbrellas aren’t helping much. It’s almost June, June is in 3 days, it doesn’t rain in California in June. Or late May. And yet, it is raining, and windy, and our pants are getting really quite wet, and we continue on our morning walk routine with determination because we have a lot to say and it is…
Apple, we’ve got a problem. What are you doing? There are at least three things that bug me every time I use your stuff. Your phones don’t register clicks. I click things two, three times, nothing happens. I see the ui register that it’s been touched, the color changes in your Liquid Glass UI, but still nothing happens. So I click again, again. From your perspective, I’m…
Hello once again RSS Clubbers, and welcome email subscribers! This week I am sharing a few open questions that I have pondered lately. Please enjoy this week’s grab bag, another peek behind the curtain. What is the source of the infrasonic rumble? You may or may not know that I have a hobby of making field recordings, especially long playing ones. This one , from Quicksilver-Almaden park, is…