The view when I stepped out of the office last Thursday night. Not retouched at all except for cropping.
Category: Photos
LA Music Center at Night (Photo) & The Glass Menagerie
On Saturday we went the the Mark Taper Forum to see The Glass Menagerie. It seemed an appropriate night for a “little silver slipper of a moon” (next to the Bank of America tower).
It was a great production, and one that really made use of the idea of it being a “memory play.” Most of the productions I’ve seen (including the one I did in high school) tend to switch between past and present as if they were two distinct experiences. This one mixed them together freely.
(Interesting thought: I’ve probably been to the Ahmanson Theater a dozen times or more, and I’ve seen three shows at the Mark Taper Forum…but I’ve never been inside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion or the Walt Disney Concert Hall.)
Sun Shower
This afternoon I found myself entertaining the notion that Orange County, California had somehow switched places with Orange County, Florida. The weather was certainly more typical for Florida in July than California.
It was 90 degrees and sunny when I left the office a little after 6:00 pm, though the eastern half of the sky was dark with clouds. It started raining before I pulled out of the driveway. Just a little. I was halfway home before I decided enough of the raindrops were staying on the windshield that it would be worth turning on the wipers.
It was still spattering a little when I got home, but nowhere near enough to soak the ground. The drops were evaporating quickly. A far cry from the heavy rain and thunderstorms a few miles farther inland.
The rain’s stopped here, and the half-and-half cloud cover and sunset are giving the sky a dingy yellow color.
Laguna Fireworks Gallery
We went to Laguna Beach last night for the fireworks display, starting with dinner at Ocean Avenue and moving down to the beach at sunset. They shoot the fireworks out over the bluffs, making the beach a prime viewing spot. We could also see the fireworks from Dana Point and Newport Beach lighting up the cloud layer.
It was crowded as usual, and I managed to get my legs soaked when I was standing out where I thought I was safe from the waves, but even with the cloud cover and offshore breeze it wasn’t too cold after nightfall. (Yes, it cools down at night even in July next to the ocean.)
Last year I experimented with the fireworks setting on my camera. This year I just braced it, pointed it roughly in the right direction, and hit the button every once in a while and just watched the show. I ended up with about a dozen photos worth sharing.
Afterward we stopped at Dolce Gelato for ice cream, where I learned that cookies and cream does not always mean Oreo or chocolate wafers (they make theirs with Italian crostatas), but plain cream gelato goes really well with berry sorbet!
The $250 Magnifying Glass
You know you’re a geek when you take a photo with your camera and zoom in on the display instead of looking for a magnifying glass:
OK, perhaps a bit overkill, but now I have this cool close-up picture of a broken watch pin.
Incidentally, it’s harder than I expected to buy just a replacement pin. I can find watchbands easily, but just the pins? I’m going to need to do some more looking. Not that it necessarily matters, since I seem to have misplaced the unattached half of the watchband — I may need to replace the whole band anyway.
If I do, this time I’m making sure I keep the remaining pin as a spare.
Feathery Not-a-Rainbow Cloud
I saw this amazing circumhorizon arc around 1:30 this afternoon. I had just crossed the street while walking to lunch when I looked up, saw it…and walked back to the office to get my camera!
Lesson learned: always bring the camera!*
It started out as just a couple of small segments, but as the clouds drifted into position it quickly grew, and at its strongest it was just long enough to fill the field of view on my camera. There were also a couple of fragments of a 22° circular halo visible at the time.
The whole thing had vanished by 1:50, as the clouds drifted out of alignment, though I did see a more complete circular halo later on.
It looks like a sort of straightened-out rainbow, but it’s actually caused by ice crystals. If the right type of crystals cover the entire sky, this will actually stretch in a circle all the way around the sky, parallel to the horizon.
They’re a lot less common than the 22-degree halos. I’ve seen and photographed a ton of those over just a few years, but this is maybe the second time I’ve seen something like this. Fourth if you count the two feathery fragments I’ve seen.
At times like this, I really wish I had a DSLR, but the point-and-shoot will do in a pinch.
*On the other hand, when I went back, I pointed it out to a couple of people at the office who are into photography, since it was visible through the windows on one side of the building. One of my co-workers has a digital SLR and carries it with him, so he went outside and got some great shots. If I hadn’t taken a late lunch and chosen to walk anyway and been in the habit of looking for halos and forgotten to bring my camera, chances are no one in the office would have seen it.
Update (May 17): I just discovered that there are people who think these clouds are connected to earthquakes. No, they aren’t. They’re caused by ice crystals refracting sunlight, just like most halos, and have been seen in many places that didn’t have earthquakes.
Cat in the Hat Silo
If the hat is that big, I’m not sure I want to see the cat who wears it!
Seen from Interstate 5 in California’s central valley, somewhere near Tejon.