Visit the kelpforest....

I noticed a strange-looking cloud out of my office window. Turned out it was smoke from the Station Fire, north of Los Angeles. The strange spots are from the tempered glass window and the polarizing filter on my lens.

Pyrocumulus cloud
Los Alamitos CA
EOS Canon 1000D
28 August 2009

Very cool photo - space shuttle Endeavor and International Space Station transiting the sun -

http://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=28&month=07&year=2009

My boss sends us these -

Here is the schedule for the space station and space shuttle for
tonight. Endeavor is supposed to undock and leave the space station this
afternoon so it might be a pretty cool show tonight....If you are not in
San Diego, follow think link and find your city...

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/index.html

Not much to do with work, but I appreciate them...

Flew up to Spokane WA for three days of meetings. Another sundog, this time from above.

Sundog
Location -? (somewhere between John Wayne Airport and SeaTac)
Canon EOS 1000D
11 June 2009

( ...And flung my eager craft through footless halls of air...  )

The flight up had no less than six small passegers under two, who all set each other off crying during takeoff. While I can tune a lot of that out, being a parent, six was rather a lot as once. Luckily, most of them settled pretty quickly, except for one little girl who wailed intermittently as her parents took turns handing her off. While jockeying for position with the other passenger for the second leg of the trip from Seattle to Spokane, I noticed the young man next to me had a Jack's Surfboards shopping bag (a store on Main St. near me), so I asked if he was coming or going from SoCA. Turned out he and his dad were going back home to their small town nearly on the Canada/Idaho border. They'd gone down to go to Dismalland (JWA flights always seem to have families with that as a destination), and we chatted a bit about beaches and traffic (he was shocked it was so bad), and whether I'd been to Idaho (twice; the meeting last September, and a number of years before, when Beth and I drove up there to visit and go camping with her father's family). He also related that the little girl who cried the most on the flight had been on their flight down as well, and never stopped that time. He told me he never wants to leave his town, and I don't blame him a bit. I think the entire state of Idaho has less of a population than my local area; from that trip with Beth, I remember seeing three- and four-digit license plates.

I was out of camera battery for the flight to Spokane (and if you ever peruse my Flickr photostream I'm sure you're grateful for that!), and the sun was setting anyway, but it looked like there was still quite a lot of snow in the Cascades. After I checked in I realized I must have left my DFG jacket on one of the planes, and my black go-to-meeting shoes no longer seemed to be in my suitcase - and I know I shoved them in there because I almost forgot them. We were about to leave for the airport and I had to run back inside and grab them.

Stimpson J. was being unusually sociable this afternoon, so I took a bunch of closeups; this was runsamuck's favorite (Stimp's always been his baby). I like this one.

Stimpy cat
Huntington Beach Ca
Canon EOS 1000D
10 June 2009

( ...and sundog... )

Last day this house is whole. This is the same property where the owner cut the tree down on Earth Day. It was originally built in the 20's, and used to be the offices for Standard Oil - Huntington Beach being founded on the oil in the area, so there's a bit of city history behind it. I'm not sure when it was converted to a home, but it has been so for a very long time. The previous owner unfortunately had to sell it to cover his son's bout's in rehab; finally the son went to jail (again) and the parents split up. The new owner, after swearing he wasn't going to tear it down, decided he had to have another McMansion like every other new person who moves into this neighborhood -already started in the backyard - he had to wait until the tenant he was renting the house to move out to start the front.

It's not a fancy house, but it's older than two other city buildings nearby that are on County and National Historic Registers. I'm very sad about this.

Old Standard Oil House
Huntington Beach CA
Canon EOS 1000D
2 June 2009

( Also, weird clouds... )

Went for a walk with fry down to the beach again, and turned out there was a kite festival going on. These two were absolutely huge, maybe 10 feet across. The way the octopus's tentacles moved was rather hypnotizing (video here, if interested).

In like a lion
Huntington Beach CA
Casio EX-Z80A
1 March 2009

( a bit more sobering... )

Getting in the car to head to Dismalland to take the kids minds off recent happenings; I love it when the clouds are so textured...

Sky
Huntington Beach CA
Casio EX-Z80A
22 February 2009

( +1 from Dismalland... )

The fry wanted to watch the guys who fly big model planes at the soccer field behind my office, so on a Saturday we headed to my place of work. On the way there, I spied some lenticular clouds hanging in the sky over the San Gabriel mountains. They were the only clouds in the entire sky for this warm January day; these were only taken a few minutes apart, but I didn't realize until I posted these how much they had changed shape. Really wished I hadn't forgotten the good camera, as we don't see them that often, but Astronomical Picture of the Day (apod.com) has some much more spectacular photos (including, well whaddaya know, today's).

Lenticular clouds
L.A. Basin
Kyocera Switchback phone camera
10 January 2009

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090121.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050821.html

Docks - it was a gorgeous morning after a rain. There were no boats out, but I went up to Pt. Fermin for a few minutes just in case. While I was there a pair of ravens soared by below me, which I thought was a great perspective. I caught this one, perilously close to passing over the sun streak on the water.

Pt. Fermin raven
San Pedro CA
Sharp VE-CG30
16 December 2008

( Angel's Gate )

Another December sunset
Huntington Beach CA
Sharp VE-CG30
14 December 2008