That Goes For Joes, Too

(Ne confondez pas la différence.... II )

Jo-ker

Jo Sticks

Jo Blocks

"This gun, shoots through schools"

Fox News Founder

Ne confondez pas la différence...

Ne confondez pas la différence (don't confuse the difference) between Ariels, Aerials, and Ariels, and Aerials.

SOAD

More Aerials

Mother & Child, Heading South

I was lucky enough this evening, just before sunset, to see a mother whale (I THINK it was a gray, but I am not sure) and her 1 year old calf heading south towards Baja.  I took these images at a 24X zoom, nearly a mile away, with a 16 Meg setting.  This is about 1/10th the size of the original photo, which had a great deal more ocean in it.

The calf's spout next to Much Bigger momma is visible in the above picture.  In the below picture, you can see mother's fin (I think) beside her calf who is heading back underwater after getting a breath of fresh air.

This was taken about 100 yards further south, around 40 seconds later.

Since I'd been looking for spouts and breaches for the previous 2 hours, seeing one just as I was leaving, was very moving.   I told 3 other groups who were heading out towards the lookout points in the head lands about the pair heading south, and it seemed to make each of their days.

The sunset was pretty nice as well. (sunset image taken 30 seconds after the last whale pic)

There WIll Be Apricots

The apricot tree beside our garage has started to bloom.  The previous owners said that the tree was previously so productive that they used to string netting from the fence to the garage eves to catch all the fruit before it fell to the ground - they've left us the netting.  I think in a few months I'm going to have to start stringing it up, and harvesting daily.  That is, if the house finches stop raiding the blossoms, tearing each one off in quest of some tiny drop of nectar promised within perhaps.

Warblers and finches used to do the same thing in Phoenix with the yellow and orange blossoms on the trees around our house, but those were not fruit trees, so I never felt like I was being robbed of fruit.  I actually opened up the breakfast nook's sliding window this morning and growled at the finch raiders, who just looked at me like I was crazy, and went on tearing off blossom after blossom.  The tree has, if I had to guess (like a jelly bean jar), at least a 1000 buds and blossoms on it, so sacrificing a few dozen to adolescent male finches is not that big of a deal.

Supposedly apricot trees (or at least the variety planted beside our garage) are on a three year cycle, where they go two years without producing fruit, and then on the third year put out a massive crop.  From the looks of the blossoms, we are fortunate that our first spring in our new home will be blessed with apricots - and the oven even has drying racks, if we want to truly be "Californians".

I am really pleased with how the Panasonic Lumix macro feature automatically kicks in when zoomed in Up Close.  Again, my thanks to Ron.

Big Kitty In My Backyard

On Thursday night, I was skimming my neighbor's fallen leaves out of my pool and spa, when I noticed muddy tracks along the side of my pool coping bricks and spa tiles.  I took a few pictures, and I measured them...  and found they were more than 1.5 inches across, and more than 2-1/4 inches long... they looked feline.  No claw marks, with about a 20 inch stride.

I looked closely at our 20 year old cat's paws, and they are much less than 1 inch wide, and less than 1 inch long, and she weighs in around 12 lbs.  A quick google search showed that we Very Likely have a bobcat who is visiting our back yard in the middle of the night.

I'm kind of surprised that we'd have a bob cat being in the middle of the subdivision, and 3 blocks from the closest park, but we are one of the only houses on the block with a pool, and we have no Large Dog in our yard, while 2 of our neighbors have small yappin' dogs.  From the look of the muddy prints, the bobcat probably jumped down from the wooden fence (a 6 foot fence is an easy jump for a bobcat, when they can ascend a 40 foot all saguaro cactus while chased by a mountain lion [link here]).

These don't really look like the splayed, clumsy prints of a lumbering opossum - which my neighbor across the street said used to be digging in his yard.  No, they look very bobcat-like.

We won't be leaving our back door open at night anymore.  A hungry bobcat would eat our house cat for dinner without much of a fight - though probably more of a fight than from the all-bark-no-bite chihuahuas who border us on 2 sides.  Maybe the bobcat is hunting citrus tree rats...  one of whom I executed with a large spring loaded trap 3 weeks ago, baited with guava (not a mouse, a wine bottle sized rat).

Then this morning, I am sipping a cup of tea and looking out the kitchen window, when I see a mass of smashed down, trampled flowers in the corner of my yard.  Upon closer inspection inspection, I did not find any hair, or feathers or paw prints or entrails, nor did I find human foot prints...  but something very large smashed down the previously lively plants that were flourishing the night before.

I am considering investing in a wildlife night camera...   if these sightings continue.

Obama Derangement Syndrome, Still an Epidemic

From The Moderate Voice, I found this sad but strongly correlating article by Dana Millbank on ignorance, poverty, and manipulation by the media entitled "10 Obama Myths" that still promulgate in the reddest states.  (link here)

• Obama conspiracy theories have flourished in the Deep South, where wealth and educational levels are both low. This makes sense: Where voters are least informed, they are most susceptible to misinformation peddled by talk-radio hosts and the like. For this reason, voters in reliably Republican states, which tend to be poorer, with lower test scores, are more vulnerable to misinformation. To use one measure, the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress test of eighth-grade reading, all but one of the top 10 states were in Obama’s column in 2012. Of the 19 doing worse than average, 14 were red states.
• “Obama derangement syndrome is running pretty high right now among a certain segment of the Republican base,” Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling, told me. “There’s a certain segment of people who say, ‘If you’re going to give me the opportunity to stick it to Obama, I’m going to take it.’?” In other words, a large number of that 29 percent who said Obama was responsible for the Katrina response knew that he wasn’t but saw it as a chance to register their displeasure with the president. Obama has driven a large number of Republican voters — Jensen puts it at 15 to 20 percent of the overall electorate — right off their rockers.
• 
  
• The ten myths about the President:
• Obama was responsible for the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
• Obama hates white people.
• Obama is a socialist.
• Obamacare will raise insurance costs for consumers.
• Death panels are a part of Obamacare.
• Obama is a bigger spender than Bush.
• Obama is welfare obsessed.
• Obama is Muslim.
• Obama was not born in the United States.
• Obama is coming for your guns.
• 
  
• Read more at http://themoderatevoice.com/191449/10-obama-myths/#tjWMkyIveJ7wzlYq.99

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 California Debut

On the advice of my buddy Rufus Blooter, in order to get better quality images faster & more easily, I bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200 off of Amazon.  It arrived today, and an hour later I had it out of the box, and was taking pictures of everything I could in my back yard.

It zooms quickly, auto-focuses precisely, and takes - at least I think - photographs with remarkable clarity.  The Anna's Hummingbird above is a mature male who thinks he owns my backyard, chasing off all other hummingbird intruders, and watching me from a distance, wary of the flightless & nearly hairless ape who approaches "his feeders".  (the original image is 3.8 megabytes, 4000 x 3000 pixels, F/2.8, ISO320).  Yes, the Anna's male is sticking his tongue out, if you're looking at this on a high quality large monitor.

This Rufous hummingbird was not yet chased away by the larger Anna's (and yes, I need to clean the feeder...  that's on the "to do" list for Sunday morning, before we go to the beach.  The Lumix had some difficulties trying to focus on moving objects, but at 200 beats a minute, a hummingbird's wings are pretty hard to see regardless.

The macro feature works well, as long as you stay more than a foot away, and THEN zoom in.  If you're closer than a foot (0.98 feet per the manual) then the Lumix software can't compensate for the Leica optics.  It took 4 tries to get this hyacinth image "just right".  (the hyacinth spontaneously 'popped up' all on its own from previously planted bulbs...  a lovely January & February surprise).  This image is 4.8 megabytes, ISO400, F/2.8, and it seems to LEAP out of the screen at me, far better than the 3 megapixel Sony Cyber Shot ever could have.

"Far Away" shots are also pretty nice, on the "auto" setting.  A little "mountain icon" pops up in the corner of the view finder, to let you know its shooting in "landscape mode".

Thank you my friend, for your advice and perspective.

January Gardening

We've planted many flowers around our home, to add some color to the land scape.  The previous owners had renters in the house for 2 years before we bought it in October last year, and the landscape had become somewhat neglected and over-run with "low maintenance" plants that had little appeal.  We've changed that.  And unlike many parts of the midwest or northeast that are frigid & buried in snow or ice, we planted these in the warm 65F sunshine in December and January.  They appear to be thriving in the California winter.

French lavender is Dr Desert Flower's Favorite lavender

My mother called me to tell me that "on our bird bath in the back yard, we have 24 inches of snow. It looks like a birthday cake".  I do not miss that kind of weather, the shoveling required, or the salt put on the roads to melt ice that also attacks every metal surface it contacts.

Train Distractions

Dr Desert Flower recently changed jobs, improving her work environment and advancement potential, but it will require a longer commute.  Luckily Southern California has viable train alternatives for transportation, and she may be riding the rails on the longer commute.  When I stumbled upon this very funny post (link here) I found it hilarious.  Perhaps it may be an interesting way for her to spend her time on the train.   =)

Follow the link to see many many more variations on this theme: tastefully offensive

Superb Owl XLVIII

If you have not watched Colbert's coverage of Superb Owl XLVIII this week, you've missed a hilarious series of shows (links Here, here, and here).   Dancing around copy write and trademark infringement, Stephen and his writers have done a masterful job of making me laugh heartily.

Stephen, you are a genius.  =)

How I Spend Most Of My Work Days

Parody is funny to most people, because it exaggerates what they already know to be true, and in that exaggeration, highlights the silliness, absurdity, illogical nature of what they normally know to be true.

I found this both sad, and funny.  Sad, in that my life has come to this.  Funny, in that the producers of this video nailed it, perfectly, as a very short sample of how most of my conference calls throughout my work week actually happen.

Thanks to Dr Desert Flower, for posting this on The Face Book.

Best Spoken Word Grammy, Colbert 2014!

Colbert won "best spoken word" Grammy for 2014.
link here: http://www.imdb.com/news/ni56718617/
... there will be no stopping the Colbert juggernaut now... Monday night is bound to be hilarious on Comedy Central.  (at least he still does not yet have a Nobel Prize!)

In Three Years, They'll Be Even Smaller & Implanted

Intel's CEO Brian Krzanich revealed "Edison" this week.  A fully powered pentium class computer the size of an SD card (link here).

With the rapid acceleration in miniaturization and computing power, my guesstimate is that it will be about 3 years (maybe 4) until there will be a fully powered & rugged-enough-to-survive-in-the-corrosive-human-body, and small enough to be implanted device that the geekiest, or most severely injured, or the most addicted, or the most extremely lethal & pathological of the homosapiens will have installed inside them - some for good, some for evil, some for just recreation. Il faut voir.
http://www.businessinsider.com/intel-edison-processor-2014-1

25 Unscripted Moments

The FMJ one is a good one, that I did not know was not in the script.  Several others here that are "not for young impressionable children to listen to" - unless you want to significantly expand their slang vocabularies, and get calls from the school principal.  =)

Link here, if the embed doesn't work in the future:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTFQBHBeleE

LVA - Feels Like Love

Ahhhh, memories of dancing in Hell at Masquerade in Atlanta back in the 90s...

No, No Green Bay! No Green Bay!

This hilarious early 90s S.N.L. video
http://smg.photobucket.com/user/stopgo73/media/Reddit/wearethekickers.flv.html
 introduced by none other than the legendary Walter Payton (R.I.P.), is hilarious.  Watching the DVR'ed San Francisco Green Bay game this evening, and how cold it is there in Wisconsin tonight, reminded me of this.

No No Green Bay!  No Green Bay!  Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.  =)

Not A Shark Photobomb

This article by Dr. M is great, and scientifically accurate.  (link here)  I love when facts are used to combat hysteric, inflated, baselessly stupid hype.  Way better than Snopes.
http://deepseanews.com/2014/01/heres-how-you-can-tell-that-the-shark-photobombing-kids-is-actually-a-dolphin/

Epic Western Ridge Bike Adventure

Nathan Jr and I took this bike route last Saturday, the day before he went back to South Carolina.  I thought it was about 10 miles... it was actually horizontally 16 miles, and vertically about 1/3 of a mile, when you add 300+ 400 + 800 + 400 + 300 elevation changes over that 16 horizontal miles.  We did it in less than 3 hours, which means that even though we walked down most of the "Mentally Sensitive trail" at 3 mph, we averaged more than 8mph everywhere else.  Sweet.  Orange County has some Serious Hills.  Nathan messaged me to say it was an "Epic Biking Adventure". I agree.

Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears - Booty City

Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears - Thanks to Nathan Jr for bringing this awesome group to our attention. (link here)