Friday, 18 January 2019
Here’s your mossy vocabulary moment…the tall parts are sporophytes, and the low green parts are gametophytes. These represent alternating phases of the life cycle of this moss. In the cycle, the gametophytes come first, then the sporophytes attach to them.
Now you know plenty about moss; I know there’s more, but this is the level I have attained (momentarily).
Thursday, 17 January 2019
This morning began all sunny and upbeat (the meteorological version thereof).
Speaking of sunshine, all this medical biz about taking vitamin D…turns out the high D levels are an indicator of time spent in sunshine (duh), and the correlation that’s good for you is not actually with the vitamin D, but with nitric acid that the body makes when exposed to sunshine (if I have it right). Higher levels of nitric acid dilates blood vessels and lowers blood pressure—very good things. (Read about it here.)
While I’m on health news, get exercise to keep your irisin levels high, and improve brain memory formation, storage, and inter-brain-cell communication. All very good things…. (Read more about it here.)
By afternoon, when I got motivated to walk the neighborhood, a light rain had begun, the 8-inch kind (meaning eight inches between drops hahaha). Note how the “Garden of Good…” gal (copy, of course) displays zonal moistening.
Wednesday, 16 January 2019
You get out of town for a few days, and whoops, things happen. Someone with dailies used their wheels to push a don’t-cut-this-corner architectural rock a dozen feet down the road, and mashed down a traffic signpost in the process. Big doin’s that we missed!
Here’s your chance to create the backstory for this event….
Tuesday, 15 January 2019
Coming into Atlanta from the west, the interstate passes by a major amusement park just before it descends to cross the Chattahoochee River.
At night, the view of the city is…twinkly.
With this post, I report the end of the Rainbow Triangle Trip. Accomplished all goals, foremost among them seeing loved ones. Fun trip; and, simultaneously happy to be home.
Monday, 14 January 2019
This morning the fog was thick and the temp was such that the moisture attaching to the antenna as we zoomed down the highway froze!
Later, clearing was partial and we saw many wind mills; here’s an early one and many current models….
Genuine lone star llamas!
The oppressiveness I feel from all this packaging tells me it’s time to bring this Rainbow Tour to an end to escape all these cheerful protections….
Sunday, 13 January 2019
For dozens of miles crossing the desert this morning, the air smelled to me vaguely like burning plastic, an odor backnote I found rather unpleasant. Miles.
The plants, however: unfazed. Unknown grey-green leaved low shrub with yellow fliers…
…and a towering yucca (I think).
Today’s title references one of my favorite books, Gary Paul Nabhan’s The Desert Smells Like Rain: A Naturalist in Papago Indian Country (1987). This desert perhaps should have smelled like rain today, as rain came through this area in the wee hours overnight. In fact, we think we’ve had rain at some point every day beginning on the 26th of December, for a run of 19 days so far. Tomorrow we may well not see rain, however.
Saturday, 12 January 2019
Once again, we find SoCal murky. More rain systems pushing in from the Pacific. Not good for solar panel action….
Wearing my archaeo-hat, I would describe this as civic-ceremonial architecture on a flat-topped mound. You might say it’s a roadside chapel for some reason on a bulldozed hill.
Lettuce? Lots left in the field…I assume to be plowed into the ground as green manure….
Considerable irrigation required to make row-crops productive in the Imperial Valley….
Our Arizona desert encampment for the afternoon and early evening…
…even more beautiful with a rainbow, arc en ciel, aka arco iris.
And MJ and I took a power walk while Droney flew…such stupendous light…so wonderful catching up with long-time friends…until next time…. Lucky us….
Saturday, 12 January 2019
Gulls/Terns and surfers under the marine layer. Here on this SoCal beach, lifeguards use red pickups.
Police? Surveyors? close one side of a bridge (out of frame, right)…fortunately for us, not our direction. (Yay!)
Random rooftop critters. Extra points if you noticed the pigeon before this mention.
Note: lawn bowling is not bocce or pétanque.
This sample suggests that redwoods are not an urban species, or just a NoCal species that does not like SoCal.
Dramatic green lighting on this SoCal Episcopal church. So Cali.
Apologies: too fried to do more than extended captions. Luvya.
Thursday, 10 January 2019
I think this morning we drove under the last of the dense cloud layers that we’re likely to see in Cali. I enjoyed seeing the sun on the flanks of the hills…
…and ahead of us as we climbed into the visible humidity.
We even found at least two large herds of mechanical dragons.
Then, we crossed a pass, and, zip, no more clouds.
And into the city, the giant metro area. This species is the city flower. A showy choice as you’d expect for LA.
Here’s the City Hall tower; you’ve seen it in many movies and TV shows.
And, in the busy train station, a for-real shoeshine stand.
Here’s the busy corridor that crosses under the tracks, allowing access to each of the tracks above. Cops arrived in the golf cart; the fine is at least $1500 for going up to the tracks without a valid ticket, the sign said. We just didn’t get caught. Heh.
BTW, this city traffic, wow, exhausting. Sleepy-time for this blahger….
Wednesday, 9 January 2019
More rain as we continued our drive. For a while, with vineyards.
With rain rain rain, comes swollen rivers, irrigation canals, and ditches.
Dry in this tunnel. Named to honor Robin Williams.
Wow! Big bridge! Clearing sky!
Little boxes. North of Daly City.
Computers! A whole museum of them! I give you just one: a 1951 Whirlwind rack, MIT (the label said; I assume it’s correct!).
The giant, new Apple doughnut-building, side view. No entrance for civilians.
Instead, we can visit the roof of this “visitor center” aka Apple Store +. Note that the fancy white stone flooring (manufactured, polished quartz?) around the VC under the wide overhang, which is good for controlling sunlight/sun-heat, that stone paving is slippery when wet. Like today. On the order of a dozen security/employees were stationed outdoors under the overhang to remind people to be careful. Since I took my daily 30-minute walk circling the building over and over, I was reminded several times, then took to walking on the pebbly surface (not slippery) under the shrubby trees, as the rain was slacking off…. [I think the shrubby trees are Russian olives….] I’m all about form, function, and aesthetics, and the VC building was lovely. But. Slippery flooring? Hrrrumph. Also, the glass sandwiches making the railing for the rooftop viewing area: made in Dubai, and whoops in the Cali weather they expanded and had to be heated/dried (!!!) before they could fit together and be assembled properly. Heh.
Fine sunset over strawberry fields. They fumigate (gas) under the plastic; not at all green or friendly to Ma Earth…a good reason to buy organic berries. We saw two rainbows today…no photos of one, lousy ones of the other. Imagine.