Musings

I have been looking at ancient stadiums (actually, I prefer to pluralize it as stadia) recently, but today I looked at a REEEELY big REEL one. Toasty day, bright sun. And the playing surface was hot, hot, hot, did I say: HOT!

I think part of the reason they use the fake turf is that keeping the grass alive in the exaggerated heat of this focal-bowl must be nearly impossible. A few rows of what looked like sycamores in the sea of asphalt that surround the stadium (general parking: $50, no lie) had assorted leafless limbs and generally looked on the brink of their demise.

The closeup is from a few extra chunks of lifeless sod stacked on a pallet on the edge of the parking lot; some pieces even had white “stripes.”

Posted at 7:04 PM | Comments Off on Is this for real?

Even on the interstate, you can find spots with lovely vistas. And then you notice the overhead powerlines.

Makes you lust for CAR*.

Content-Aware Retouching.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

If you are particularly clever (pat your back!), you may have guessed that there was a bit of chainsaw work going on around here today…although this photo is from another time and place.

Breathe a sigh of relief: no trees on house!

Posted at 5:00 PM | Comments Off on Time shifted tree trimming

My mind keeps drifting north, so a boreal forest image from this day three years ago….

Posted at 10:22 PM | 2 Comments »

I met The Best Summer Drink™ the day before I saw this.

I hereby bestow, at least for the time being, the title The Best Summer Drink™ on, tahdah!, the Dark ’n’ Stormy.

The Dark ’n’ Stormy requires two unusual ingredients and one (optional but recommended) easy one (lemon or lime juice—fresh!). The unusual ingredients are black rum and ginger beer. Black rum is not dark rum. Ginger beer is not ginger ale.

Well, plus ice. So: four ingredients.

I’ve had only one Dark ’n’ Stormy so I’ve only embarked on the pathway to Dark ’n’ Stormy connoisseurship. My first one had the black rum and the ginger beer, with some lemon juice. I’d like to try it with lime juice. I wouldn’t include the sweetening recommended in the link’s recipe.

And I’ve never even thought about making ginger beer, but it does sound tasty! Well, if you overlook the “symbiotic glob of lactobacillus and yeast.”

Posted at 12:52 PM | Comments Off on Dark ’n’ Stormy

3D HD TV: screen and specs. And, yes, the picture looks terrible because the specs are on the table and not the camera.

Even if you aren’t a letter-writer, consider writing one to protest this: the Ivanpah Solar Generating System. The deadline is 2 September, so hop to it.

It’s in the desert. The project area is 3582-acres—plus “adjacent habitat”—which is not quantified!

Perhaps that is enough to get you writing!

In another place in the “Presiding Member’s Proposed Decision” (CEC-800-2010-004 PMPD; dated August 2010), the authors note that the area’s the storm water flows would be affected over a 13,900–acre area—natural sheet water flows come across the project area in California west of Las Vegas.

Plus the finished project will have three towers almost 500-feet high (scattered, not clustered). Can be seen pretty much forever in this flat area!

I know many people think the desert is “empty” land, but it isn’t. Just because you don’t see lush trees doesn’t mean that it is “waste land.” Actually, imagine trees there, if you have to, and then think about why they aren’t considering putting this solar system (haha) right smack in wasted land in cities—right by the users, after all—and on land that’s essentially been abandoned. C’mon.

After all, Las Vegas is a few miles away, and grids of roads have already been dozed into the desert there, without the development that speculators had planned. Perfect place for this; these are the people (well, and Southern Californians) that are putting the energy demand load on the system; they should be looking at the consequences of their air conditioning, etc.

IMHO.

Don’t get me started about the Cultural Resources section—which endows construction workers with the responsibility for identifying archaeological resources they may uncover. Hah!

Read the critical document here, or download it from the California Energy Commission here (it’s 9.7 megabytes). Chris Clarke summarizes the reasons for you to write a letter. Even if you don’t live in Arnold’s state.

Like me.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Your turn to write

Once upon a time, there was a holographic pig. He lived an empty life, but he was very reflective.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on (I guess) you had to be there

The website says:

A Camembert-style bloomy-rinded cheese, Green Hill is the shining star of the Sweet Grass Dairy line.

We must agree that it’s a lovely, rich, fresh cheese. Not having tasted the rest of their line, I dunno about the comparative, but we sure enjoyed our celebratory wee wheel of Green Hill.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 2 Comments »

More from yesterday’s pool visit….

I did something I’ve never done before today: I saw some 3D TV, that is, 3D HD TV. Woooooohoooooooo!

Posted at 6:58 PM | Comments Off on 3D, many ways

Ya got me. Falling water, pounding on the upended soles of your feet—pretty darned rejuvenating!

Well, that and a (yes, plastic!) glass of wine and some motionless floating.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Pool time