Musings

This is white false indigo, and, yes, I was playing with photo-“phunctions” on my phone.

Here’s an azalea bush, with fading fleurs…and most of the petals fallen. Note the flourishing leaves.

Posted at 8:55 PM | No Comments »

We did see the eclipse. We perhaps didn’t prepare our recording equipment for the event. This is taken with a “real camera,” that is, one that you can’t talk to, with eclipse glasses held in front of the lens.

Here’s the total eclipse—again, not a stellar photo, yet still a wonder. Phenom witnessed, photoed, and oohed over…so we hopped back in the car and turned south into what became a series of traffic jams. Remember, we were in southern Illinois, and we had only a few bridges near enough to get across a major river. [We heard that an academic prognosticator in Carbondale estimated at several hundred thousand folks would visit southern Illinois to eclipse-watch.]

En route, we encountered a double rainbow—with both ends on the ground! Sorry, not shown. I saw no leprechauns or pots of gold, although I had a good view of the rainbow-feet. Still, we took it as lucky…

…that we encountered the front that brought this a few miles before the hail, and, as it happened, we only had to drive through hail-on-the-ground, not plummeting hail, whew. We motored along with great care between hail-piles, and within two miles, were out of the ice and headed for our traffic-jam fate. For the record, we reached home safely at 12:45am, at about the end of my energy.

After seeing photos today of Etna’s “smoke rings,” I wonder if there’s another phenomena sighting we should put on our short list?!!—and perhaps arrange tickets???!! 🤣 Kidding.

Posted at 8:37 PM | Comments Off on Phenomena

Had a few plumbers through the house today, even though we don’t have lead pipes (I hope!). Mostly plastic instead. We don’t call them plasticers (plastickers?), though. Anyway, the word is that the flushing mechanisms now are all tip-top.

Posted at 8:59 PM | Comments Off on Misleading

Cherry blossom cloud…with too much sky-brilliance….

Posted at 9:50 PM | Comments Off on Exposure control…where?

I was thinking about old technology today, older than this: obsidian tools. Several decades ago I was told that some surgeons used obsidian for surgery because the edges will thin to one atom (?). I imagine that today there are lasers and other instruments that are even finer.

Posted at 9:54 PM | Comments Off on Other kind of Brownie

1) several ladybugs found in master bath, and left to their own devices.

2) one stinkbug, removed from inside the house.

Also, phone updated; watch updated. I always assume that updates in part address bugs.

Posted at 9:29 PM | Comments Off on Bug report

This people’s car has over-sized, shiny, convex hubcaps. Chrome or stainless?

Posted at 8:46 PM | Comments Off on Optics

I saw an iPhone ad recently that portrayed changing the focus on an image from a foreground object to background one, and back, and thought, hmm, I should try that. Turns out: 1) you have to do the changing on your phone and not on the image downloaded to a laptop (like this was, for posting); and, 2), the image has to be in focus to begin with. Still, I know more now!

Posted at 10:00 PM | Comments Off on Techno learning

I played with the iPhone camera again. This is the result of a spotlight-portrait combo…with a little tweaking. It’s not evident, but this shot was taken in broad daylight.

Posted at 7:36 PM | Comments Off on Bending reality

Sunrise-orange across the Grand Marais breakwater and Lake Superior.

Fall color along US2, southern side of the peninsula, out from under the cloud bank.

Lake Michigan at Brevort, still in the Upper Peninsula. Never come down to the lake here before.

Lake Michigan at Cross Village, in the northern Lower Peninsula. More wind than the north shore at Brevet.

Tunnel of Trees, as the state highway going south of Cross Village is known. The right-of-way is narrower than standard, not two lanes wide, and thus no center line. We followed about ten fancy, late-model Corvettes who were traveling together. We left the park at Cross Village right behind them, and followed them into Harbor Springs. [If you’re looking at a map, this’ll make sense.] We got a chance to analyze tight GM cornering from the rear.

One more shot of the fall color in the northwestern Lower Peninsula, greener than in the UP.

That visually sums the prettiest pretties of the day.

Posted at 9:01 PM | Comments Off on Glorious fall day