March 6, 2026 · 23:45

Barstow DMV

One of the things that’s really starting to harsh my mellow about the upcoming milestone birthday is all of the freaking paperwork. I’m hitting the age where taking my Social Security payments is mandatory, and all of that has taken hours of filling out forms. And after decades of just renewing my driver’s license online or by mail (I have a nearly spotless driving record and no accidents), not I have to show up in the flesh to prove I’m alive, take an eye exam, and get a new picture taken.

Going into any California DMV office and simply getting in line is an excellent way to spend all day there, so I tried to make an appointment, as they encourange you to do. Except that all of the offices near hear had their earliest open appointments in mid-April or even early May, which won’t work with my birthday in mid-March. Rather than just accept my fate of a full day wasted in boredom Hell, it occurred to me that I could look for other DMV offices further out of the Los Angeles area. Hesperia’s sort of on the edge of the “LA Metro area” – what’s the next step out?

Barstow. (“Jewel of the Desert” my ass!!)

It’s an interesting shift in perspective. I don’t think that I’ve EVER thought of Barstow as anything other than a spot on the I-15 about halfway between LA and Las Vegas or LA and Lake Havasu, a spot you zoomed through at 70+ mph unless of course you had to pull off a block or two for gas, food, or a bio break. But now, as Hesperia and Victor Valley (Hesperia + Apple Valley + Victorville) residents, Barstow is a neighbor, just a quick half hour away. Where before the mental picture was of an endless ribbon of concrete through the barren desert to get from the Cajon Pass to Barstow to Baker to Las Vegas, all looking the same, rocks, tumbleweeds, mountains, and rattlesnakes, now it’s just ten miles through neighborhoods we drive through all the time, then another fifteen or so miles through desert just like the landscape outside our yard, then you’re in the outskirts of Barstow and back to “civiliztion” with outlet malls, McDonalds, Starbucks, gas stations, and stucco jungle neighborhoods of houses carved out of the sand.

It was definitely weird seeing the difference in viewpoint.

The DMV was…the DMV. The stereotypes, memes, and jokes (sloths, anyone?) didn’t spring out of a vacuum. I will say that the four DMV staff that I interacted with were all pleasant, efficient, and friendly, and we got things done quickly once I got to their windows. The system (which isn’t their fault!) to get me TO their windows is totally fucked, and in between the small handful of two minute interactions were twenty and forty minute exercises in wanting to claw my eyeballs out just to dispell the boredom and ennui.

But it’s done.

Another task checked off, and another government agency giving me permission to be older than I was. Seven decades of living to satisfy the bureaucracies just for the sake of satisfying the bureaucracies.

Joy.

 

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Filed under Forever Home, Paul

March 5, 2026 · 23:08

Red Dinner

My “red dinner” tonight, not to be confused with “The Red Wedding,” which I might still be traumatized by.

Sheer coincidence, just a small variety of stuff that I grabbed quickly since I was busy all evening, and I realized as I was sitting down that everything was red. (Except for that one, odd radish – the result of shopping for super fresh fruits and veggies at the farmers’ market again.)

One unexpected observation that I’ll pass along – eating all of the radishes first and having that zesty ZING! going off on my tongue and then going to the watermelon next gave me a MOST unusual taste sensation. I don’t recall ever having done that combination in that order before, but the sensation was distinct and powerful. Not unpleasant at all, but it very much caught me off guard. So hit the farmers’ market, radishes, watermelon, in that order, and see if YOU get that rush!

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Filed under Health, Paul, Photography

March 4, 2026 · 23:22

Has The Moon Risen? Is It Too Cloudy To See?

Both questions answered quickly as the timing was perfect, about twenty minutes after moonrise.

No windswept moors or hounds, just dusty desert and coyotes.

And owls. There were a couple hooting back and forth out there, very cool.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Weather

March 3, 2026 · 23:37

Cherry-Plum Blossoms

It’s gotten warm for a few days and we see trees starting to bud and flower all over town. Nothing yet from the pear and apple trees in our back yard (I’m keeping an eye on them!) but in just 48 hours or so the neighbor’s trees along the street have gone from bare to an explosion of pink flowers.

They’re gorgeous! Two separate plant-ID apps on my phone identify these as “Cherry-Plum” flowers. Okay!

It’s also great to see a ton of bees all over all of the flowers.

As long as they’re not building a nest in the walls at our house, the bees and I can be good neighbors!

No scent detected while I was taking these pictures, but then again, with all of the bees I wasn’t trying to get my face in there too close.

I remember a grade school joke about a kid failing a spelling test because he spelled that common red flower as “brose.” The teacher says, “There’s no ‘b’ in ‘rose.'” The kid says, “There was in the one I was sniffing!”

Up along Maple Street, where we go to the grocery store on Main, there’s a line of what I believe to be apple trees, that are covered in very similar white blossoms. They exploded into flowers over the last week as well.

Decent rain over the winter, warming up with lots of Sun now, spring is announcing its presence with authority in the High Desert!

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Filed under Flowers, Forever Home, Photography

March 2, 2026 · 23:40

Sunrise Over The Pergola

In about three hours there will be starting the totality phase of the only lunar eclipse of the year, and the last one in North America for about three years. It may or may not be clear enough to see it here, we’ve been getting on and off clouds all day. It doesn’t matter to me – I won’t be up at that time of the morning to see it. That’s a game for the young.

However, I was up just before 05:00 this AM (another fate caused by age) and saw the most amazing and bright red and orange sunrise. That will have to do for today.

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Filed under Astronomy, Forever Home, Photography, Sunsets

March 1, 2026 · 22:54

City At Night

These go back to a rainy night in March, 2006. I was in a hotel near LAX and the 405 Freeway, taking long-exposure, hand-held photos of traffic on the freeway to see the visual effects.

I ***STRONGLY*** recommend viewing them while listening to the Doors, “LA Woman!”

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Filed under Art, Los Angeles, Photography

February 28, 2026 · 22:50

Forget February

The best thing about February was that it was mercifully short, and now it’s over. That’s also the worst thing about it, since I feel like I was trying to get more done in fewer days, because, well… I was!

March is going to be weird. I know that, it’s out of my control. The schedule is going to be chaotic, my nerves are already shot, and almost all of the rising bullshit levels (on a personal level at least, I take no responsibility for the state of the freakin’ WORLD!) are tied to it being a birthday month involving one of the “BIG” ones (with a zero!). It also requires a ton of paperwork and jumping through hoops for both the DMV and Social Security Administration, so there’s extra joy to swallow there!

Between this and that and the paperwork and the world and this week’s computer issues and everything else, I just want to grab the mother of all chanclas and just start walloping everyone and everything. Fortunately, but frustratingly, I’m too tired to do that.

“March Madness” is going to take on a whole new meaning around here.

No filters, not on my photos, not on what comes out of my head, either via my mouth or via my pen or keyboard. It’s easier that way.

Let’s do this, March!

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Filed under Paul, Photography

February 27, 2026 · 23:44

Cloud Zoom

It sounds like a new online, distributed video conferencing platform, but it’s much more simple. There was one odd cloud up there, I had my new iPhone, and the camera on it has 1x, 2x, 4x, and 8x zooms by default. So…

1x

2x

4x

8x

If only I could be a hawk… (Who else read the “Animorphs” books with their kids?)

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Filed under Photography, Weather

February 26, 2026 · 23:21

Planes Past & Possibly Future

I was thinking this evening about life up here at the Forever Home, and while we’re truly loving it, there are things that we gave up in moving out of the west San Fernando Valley area where we lived for almost 35 years. One of those would be my involvement with the Southern California Wing of the Commemorative Air Force.

Granted, after eight years on staff there as the Finance Officer and finally giving up that position three years ago due to the time it involved and my new (at the time) position with ALS Network, I hadn’t been out to the hangar that often. But I still stay in contact with many friends there on social media, I’m still a member, I still get all of the emails and publications, I still get to the odd airshow here and there. But now that 30-minute drive from West Hills to Camarillo is a 3-hour drive from Hesperia. Not doing that a couple of weekends a month! (There’s also that whole lack of time thing with my work schedule, but if I don’t have time for a short drive each way, I really, REALLY don’t have time for six times longer drive each way.)

It does occur to me that it would be a relatively simple 30-40 minute flight (we’re only four miles from Hesperia Airport, maybe ten miles from Apple Valley Airport) if I had my own plane or even if I was renting one, and that would be an excellent “excuse” (i.e., motivation) to keep flying and stay current. That all is, of course, dependent on getting current again. It’s been a while since I’ve flown. So maybe we’ll table that thought for the moment and look for a more simple solution.

Then it occurred to me that I might be an idiot (this is not news) and that I had completely forgotten that the CAF has OTHER Wings, and I was pretty sure that at least one was out here somewhere. A quick search shows that the Inland Empire Wing flies out of Riverside Airport, which is less than an hour away. They’re not as big and don’t have as many planes as the SoCal Wing, but that’s not a deal breaker in any way. It’s most certainly worth checking out.

Meanwhile, here are some plane pictures from 2013 when the CAF’s B-29 “Fifi” and other planes came to visit in Camarillo. This is what I’m missing!

“Fifi,” at the time the one and only airworthy B-29, still one of only two.

Our F-8 Bearcat.

Our Zero.

The P-51 we had at the time, since gone and with a different owner. She might be out at the Palm Springs Air Museum…

Our Spitfire.

One of our two SNJ’s.

One of several C45 transports owned by the CAF, this was “Bucket Of Bolts.” I haven’t had a chance to ride in her … yet.

“Fifi” and “Bucket Of Bolts” came in from the previous stop of their tour, our aircraft went up to greet them, and they all did a couple of passes over the airport in formation.

Not one of ours, this is a Mark I turkey buzzard. Fairly large bird, will ruin your day big time if you meet it in the air and take it in the windshield or prop on short final.

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Filed under Airshows, Birds, CAF, Forever Home, Photography

February 25, 2026 · 22:48

Purple Streaks In The Sunset

This whole “stress dreams on top of nightmares combined with having to get up to pee every 90 minutes” thing just isn’t as much fun as it sounds like. My watch says I got two hours of sleep last night. I’m glad that one of us thinks that’s true.

There’s a meme going around that says, “What’s something you’ve never tried in the bedroom bur really want to? ME: Sleeping a full eight hours and waking up actually refreshed with a will to live.” Yep.

At least there was a very pretty sunset tonight!

Just enough clouds to create a canvas for the colors to soak into, not enough to make it gray and gloomy.

Where the Sun had just vanished we got some great yellows, reds, pinks, and oranges.

And off to the north (and a little bit to the south), some deep purples, which were glorious to see in person.

That’s a big “Yes!” checkmark on the plus side ledger for today. Little victories – take ’em and celebrate ’em when you can!!

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather