Everybody's Going Somewhere

If you need a reference point for this photo, it was taken in the hills above the Los Angeles Zoo looking east as the 134 freeway heads into Glendale and points beyond. There's a good deal more snow than usual in those mountains. It's now early February and I think the Angeles Crest Highway is still closed.

This was taken a couple of weekends ago, after almost a week straight of rain, this sunny, cloudless weekend was a welcome blessing!  And walking in the hills above the zoo was the perfect way to spend the day.  If I stood still and closed my eyes, I could almost pretend that the sounds coming from the freeway were actually ocean waves. You should try that some time - listen to familiar sounds and see how much like other sounds they are. Next time it rains, listen to how the rain sounds. To me it sounds a lot like bacon frying in a pan (I learned that from an episode of MASH except I think Hawkeye said it sounded like a steak frying - who says you don't learn anything from TV?).

It was wonderful to feel the sun on my skin, to breathe in the clean smells of the earth. I've lived in this area all my life and have never walked the trails here. Now that I know what I've been missing, I will surely go back. To escape from the city for a while and not have to drive for hours to get there - such a deal!

Giant Nails?

 While walking around the outside of the zoo I walked past a fenced in utility yard. These long metal planks were stacked in large piles. I have no clue what these are. They just looked really interesting.

Different Point Of View

Most people don't spend much time looking up. They spend a lot of time looking down or looking straight ahead, but very little time looking up.

I was at a conference today and one of the presenters said "We are all little echos of the Big Bang". I like that idea.

Sunset

Driving home from Palmdale on Sunday evening. I really wanted to get up on top of one of the hills so I could take photos without buildings and phone/power lines, but I was losing the light and the roads ended at dead ends in the canyons. It was so beautiful!

A Perfect Day

I went to visit a friend who lived at lake Isabella once. In one day I went through just about every kind of weather possible - it was sunny when I started out, I drove into and out of rain storms, after I got there we went up into the mountains and it started snowing while we were there, coming back to the house it was raining again with thunder and lightening and really strong winds.

The next day I drove from Isabella out to the coast on Highway 155. What a beautiful day! I drove through dry, dusty desert, up into beautiful green hills, on and on, watching the vegetation change as I went through the valleys and up over this hills. Some of my best days have been when I can just get in the car and drive, with no appointments, time lines, or agendas. I can drive when and where I want and stop whenever the urge to take a picture strikes.

When Waves Receed

I remember when I took this photo. I watched for the LONGEST time to get just the right look of the shiny sand. Water absorbs back into the sand really fast when the waves recede so it took me several shots to get this just the way I wanted it to look. And it was REALLY cold that day! The lengths I go to for my art!

This is Moonstone Beach (and yes, you can find moonstones and California jade on that beach). I don't know if that's considered Central or Northern California. Anyway, the coast is still my favorite place to shoot. There are so many different colors and textures and with the movement of the sun the color and quality of the light is constantly in play, making the very same scene at 10 am look very different at 5 pm.

Being on the west coast I can only shoot the sun setting into the ocean. I could always go over to Catalina Island to get a sunrise over the ocean shot though. That's not very far. Maybe I'll go camping over there this summer.

Favorite Quotes

This is my desktop at work. It's a picture of comet Swan (I didn't take it, I got it off the APOD site and sorry, I don't know who did take the photo). Anyway over that background picture are quotes by fictional characters, famous people, not famous people and anonymous people that I have collected over the years. These are the quotes (in no particular order):

Life isn’t about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain – unknown
 

I think I’ll try defying gravity – Elfaba
 

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about thing that matter - Martin Luther King , Jr.

 
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic – Arthur C Clark

 
Life is zesty and worth the struggle – Neven Julius (this was pulled from an emailed birth announcement that was the most creative thing I've ever see. It was written first person POV from the newborn baby announcing his own birth.)

Faith and reason are like the shoes on your feet - you can get farther on both than just one – J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon5)

 
Harry, even in the Wizarding world hearing voices is not a good thing – Hermione Granger

 
We lose our freedoms at the altar of fear – Kahil Gibran

 
Never explain yourself. You friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it - unknown

I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops – Stephen Jay Gould (I found this while I was looking for quotes for a project at work. I don't know who SJG is, but I really liked the quote)

I’m not all here today – Cheshire Cat (this one and the Wicked Witch quote were the two that started the whole thing)

 
It’s a bitch trying to get people to like you – Scissor Sisters (a band someone was listening to while we were driving to lunch one day)

These things must be done delicately – Wicked Witch of the West

Give us strength to understand and eyes to see. Teach us to walk the soft earth as relatives to all that live – Lakota prayer

Second star from the right and straight on till morning – Peter Pan