Two hundred years ago today (apparently) Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was played in public for the first time.
You’re probably most familiar with the final movement, the Ode to Joy, which is one of the most stunning, brilliant, and beautiful pieces ever created anywhere, any time, by anyone.
If the alien overlords land and point at Trump and Gaza and ask why we as a species should be allowed to live, I’ll point to this.
Some days it’s getting warm(er), when it’s not cool and foggy like it was on Saturday. When that happens, the fence lizards come out to sun themselves on the wall and on the sidewalk and wherever they can grab a sunny spot that’s just a quick dash from safety if/when danger (i.e., me or a hawk) appears.
They all seem to have their own little territories.
This dude hangs out either under these trees or on the side near the ground.
Several of them lounge along this wall at the back side of the yard. Here you can see his blue belly.
And again. These Western fence lizards are often known colloquially as “blue bellies” for obvious reasons.
They’re also big on giving me side eye.
This little goober has repeatedly sat here and will stand his ground instead of running off into the bushes.
I just step over him, of course, and then he runs – I wonder if he’s capable of learning that I’m really not a threat. I remember that some of the larger and presumably older lizards at the Pomelo house seemed to finally learn that I was safe and they wouldn’t run when I walked over. But that might be more of a perception issue on my part rather than actual behavorial modification.
Filed under Critters, Photography
The roses next to the driveway have started to explode into color and life. This is a glorious thing.
Compared to some of the neighbors, ours is a small and simple crop.
But so, so many of the houses I’m looking at on Zillow (in a completely different part of SoCal) have none at all in the pictures.
If/when we get one of those houses and move, finding a stretch of the front yard to put in roses will be a priority.
Plenty of time to unpack later.
Seeing this every spring and all summer when you go out or when you come home is more important.
It’s one of those key little things that will change a new house into our forever home.
Roses, and hummingbird feeders. Even if we don’t see hummingbirds on Day One. They’ll find us.
Filed under Flowers, Forever Home, Photography
I work for the ALS Network (previously known as The ALS Association Golden West Chapter). I’ve been there over four and a half years. COVID interrupted many of our regular events, but we’ve been back to in-person fundraising and community outreach events for a year or so and I figured it was way past time for me to get my butt out there and get out from behind the desk. So today I was at our Southern California Ride & Rally To Cure ALS event.
It was cool (mid 50’s F) and foggy to start the day, didn’t warm up much and the Sun never came out. I’m told that last year it was the exact opposite, hot as Hell all day. Gotta love SoCal!
We had two bike rides (different distances), a hiking course, and a walking course. This is the start of the walk.
That’s a LOT of pallea! If you’re going to cook, COOK BIG! It was excellent!
Lunch
The post ride/hike/run/lunch party with a local band and other activities. A nice day, especially since I really like the folks I work with and now that I work from home 99.99% of the time, this is one of the few chances I get to see them.
If you’re in California or Hawaii, keep an eye on our calendar for an event in your area. We would love to have you there, I might see you (let me know you’re coming and I’ll try to get there!), you can learn about ALS and help us to fundraise for research and helping those suffering from the disease, and have some fun to boot!.
Filed under ALS Network, Photography
Which god’s dog did I accidentally kick? Payroll one night, bank statements being reconciled the next, those are on me. But tonight having the internet connection crash and burn at 23:04 was not on my Bingo card for today.
And my teeth are killing me… And it’s going to be a busy, busy weekend…
Yeah, that’s how it feels. Well, THERE‘s your problem!
Filed under Photography, Travel
I’m brain dead and burnt out. I’ve been to the dentist again, I have to go to the endodontist, they’re talking about multiple root canals in my future, and all is shit. So, since I shot HUNDREDS of pictures at Boca Chica a month ago, let’s look at more of them.
The Rocket Garden.
The launch site from the construction site.
That’s a freakin’ big launch tower.
The Starship booster was on the pad. The cloud is some sort of cryogenic fuel that was venting.
That’s the Quick Release connection. It moves over to connect to the top of the booster, and fuel pumps through it into the liquid oxygen and supercooled methane tanks. When the launch starts, it disconnects in just a second and pulls back away from the rising rocket.
Waaaaay off in the distance, about eight miles away, is South Padre Island, which is the best place to watch a launch from if you don’t work for SpaceX and can’t get onsite.
The “chopsticks” which rise up, spread wide, then close around the top of the booster to lift it off of the transport vehicle and up into position on the launch pad.
The space above the top of the booster is where the Starship rocket goes, also picked up and put into position by the “chopsticks.”
The “hopper,” the first test vehicle that flew and landed safely on its own.
Filed under Photography, Space, Travel
There’s a tradition in hockey of growing a “playoff beard” from the time your team gets into the playoffs until they are eliminated or win the Stanley Cup.
As a loyal LA Kings fan, I’ve NEVER done this for two reasons. First, because I HATE having a beard. It’s scratchy, it itches, and I look terrible. Secondly, while I might be the least vain person on the planet when it comes to how I look, really and truly not giving a rat’s patootie about what I look like 99% of the time, I believe that with a scraggly, thin, grey beard I look like a homeless dude far more than I look like Santa Claus or Duke Leto Atreides. It’s BAAAAAD.
So, as my beloved Kings got eliminated from the playoffs tonight in five games, while the Vuvuzela of Victory is sad and will no longer sing this year until the NFL season starts in September, when the game ended at 22:00, by 22:15 the beard was gone, painfully.
Filed under LA Kings, Paul, Photography
Yesterday was WLTSTF’s 11th Anniversary/Birthday.
One thing I’ve mentioned from time to time is that when you start posting on WordPress day after day, you start getting these little “attaboy!”s where they define the number of “days in a row” that you’ve posted as posting before midnight in your local, home time zone. If you post something at 12:01 or 12:10 or 12:30 or whatever, it doesn’t matter, by their definition it breaks the streak.
I’m simple minded about such thing and love the attaboy!s, so it becomes something of an obsession.
With last night’s post I was at 813 days in a row…
It’s now 12:09 and nine minutes ago, buried deep into calculatinging timesheets and doing data entry for payroll, my watch went “DING!” indicating that it was midnight, and in an instant I realized that I had completely forgotten to write up something or find a photo for today’s post.
BUSTED!
Time to start over…
11 years.
4,019 days.
4,117 posts.
9,846 images. (90%+ are taken by me. The rest are images from the news, from cell phone screen captures, and so on.)
74 videos.
11 audio clips.
3,100+ total comments. (Please keep them coming!)
77,118 total views.
51,142 total visitors to the site.
11,548 total likes.
A ton of followers including the fact that we just crossed the 750 line (now at 752) on WordPress, folks who get my blatherationinings in their email every day! My undying thanks to all of you for your support!
God alone knows how many words.
The last time I either was too busy or, more likely, simply forgot to post anything was April 10, 2020. Since they I’ve posted 1,115 days in a row.
In total there have only been fourteen days of those 4,117 days when I didn’t post anything at all.
I hope that at least a few of the thousands of folks who get notified every day that I’ve posted something take a minute to look and/or read and get a moment of zen or pleasure from it. I enjoy creating it.
I hope that in the next year there are many more occasions to share a pretty picture, a goofy story, or something clever.
I hope that in the next year there will be many fewer occasions to descend into a venting rant about something stupid, annoying, or depressing.
As do we all, I’m sure. Again. Eternally.
Pressing on…
Filed under Uncategorized
Having lost all sense of time, in regards to what day it is or what time of day it is, I’m still “mining” the ton of pictures that I took on the eclipse trip to Texas earlier this month.
This panorama was taken from a rest stop in New Mexico, just to the east of Las Cruces, where I was about to head into that thunderstorm, which indeed did have high winds, lightning, thunder, heavy rain, and light hail. It was spectacular!
Filed under Panorama, Photography, Weather
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 