From National Geographic’s Best Photos of the Year collection:
No why, just because.
Cubism constructs a cathedral of artistic liver paste. -Tristan Tzara
Ask me about hosting with birdhouse.
November 19th, 2009
Lizard Eyes
August 21st, 2008
Mammatus
No Photoshoppery here – Mammatus clouds are formed when the air is saturated with rain droplets and/or ice crystals, and begins to sink. They don’t precede a tornado or presage a storm; the worst of the storm is usually over when Mammatus are seen. The name “mammatus” is derived from the Latin mamma (breast), for the way they hang down, seeming to offer … something.
Pix all over the web, but these are some of the best I came across.
Music: The Mountain Goats :: Wild Sage
April 19th, 2008
Oak Hymenoptera Redux
Six months ago, a certain unnamed geocache vexed and flummoxed Miles and I, and we ended up marking it DNF (15 minutes later I cut my hand wide open on barbed wire). Felt like we were so close and yet so far on that one (and it was a beautiful area), so returned to Carquinez today for a re-match. This time, we found it within three minutes, and it was a well-done doozy – a micro “Buffalo tube” tucked inside a tumorous growth on the branch of an old oak tree on a solitary hill in the middle of nowhere. Great place for a picnic, too.
Miles was on a mission to photograph his Bionicles in natural settings, so spent half the day shooting macros of various Phantoka (and their off-spring) hanging from trees. If that sentence means anything to you, you have a 5-10 year-old-boy.
Also encountered a 4′ bull snake in the middle of the path, soaking up the sun, completely content to be petted and photographed. After a minute, it slid calmly off into the weeds.
Music: Joe Dassin :: Les Champs-Élysées
March 1st, 2008
Hummers
A few weeks ago, a hummingbird built a nest in a bamboo tree in our backyard. Over the next week, we watched it hauling in tiny twigs and wrapping them tightly around the tiniest of branches. When the “big storm” rolled in last week, we were sure the nest – no bigger than a tennis ball – would be toast. Such a small cluster of lightness on such a bendy branch, so exposed. Amazingly, the nest survived.
Today, playing soccer with Miles in the back yard, stepping through bamboo to retrieve the ball, a small motion caught my eye. Got a chair and peeked down in. Two tiny beaks sticking up from pinky-sized babies. When I returned with the camera and hoisted it up, the baby hummers lifted their beaks and opened their gullets wide, expecting me to feed them – they must have perceived the shadow of the camera as their mother. Suddenly, I felt the hum of the mother’s wings just a foot from my head, trying to scare me away. We left them alone.
Music: Culture :: Hand and Bowl
January 12th, 2008
Mr Potato Head Makes Octopus Pal
Far out — BBC: A giant Pacific octopus living in a Cornish aquarium has formed an unlikely bond with a child’s plastic toy. Louis regularly plays with the Mr Potato Head figure which was given to him as part of an enrichment project at Newquay’s Blue Reef Aquarium.
Music: Bill Tapia :: Paradise Isle
October 18th, 2007
Land That Time Forgot
One of the J-School’s multimedia student teams is putting together a package on geocaching, and Miles and I got to take them out to Redwood Regional Park last weekend. Didn’t go as well as planned – the dense redwoods made getting a signal lock almost impossible for much of the day. But we did manage to find two caches.
At the bottom of the valley, the ferns and moss and fungus grow thick, and the ancient trees rise up impossibly to the sky, gorgeous.
The highlight of the trip, as usual, totally unanticipated: Came across a patch of low weeds about 30 feet long absolutely dripping with ladybugs — tens of thousands of them, clinging from every tiny branch, several bugs thick in places. You could hear them dropping to the forest floor as they lost their grip on each other; they sounded like quiet popcorn. We scooped them up in our hands and let them crawl over our skin. Many inevitably found their way into our shirtsleeves and pant legs, into our hair and ears. It was magical, and we lingered with them for a long time. So this is where bugs are born.
Didn’t take my camera, but the journalists did share a handful of shots with me and said I could post them on Flickr.
Music: Loop Guru :: Stone River Reckoning
August 24th, 2007
Gull Lake, 2007
If it’s been quiet around here lately, it’s because I just returned from a much-needed two-week vacation in Minnesota, relaxing with extended family. Five days of the trip spent on the shores of Gull Lake – canoeing, fishing, reading, golfing (yes, I said golfing!), playing tennis, geocaching, fishing, feasting, relaxing our hearts out. Nice little water skiing injury to show for my efforts – a ski whacked the top of my foot at speed and created a 3/4″ pillow bruise on top of the foot… which forced me to sit on the beach and devour a book and a half* (ah, shucks). Still recovering from that. Did I mention Wi-Fi in the trees, so you can use a laptop from anywhere? Life’s rough.
Back at work now, trying desperately to hang onto the vacation glow, but it’s fading fast. Big semester coming, with me in a new role at the J-School (more on that another day).
Just uploaded a pile of vacation images. Again trying something new – Image Rodeo has been great over the past few years, but never liked the fact that it forces you to output a separate database from iPhoto and then generate an album from that. Decided to give the free Galerie (which generates galleries with custom templates directly out of iPhoto) a shot and loving it so far, though it did take a while to port my template to its syntax.
Rained a bunch in the last few days (and I had my first encounter with a storm of nickel-sized hail – scary stuff!), but didn’t let that stop me – had an amazing experience on the last day doing a 15-geocache run in the rain, on bicycle. I’m almost always caching with Miles – was great to get out on my own. The Land of 10,000 Lakes is just packed with gorgeous meadows and wild lands. Trails run everywhere, ponds around every corner. The vegetation is incredibly lush — I could die of greenery.
* Read Sam Harris’ “Letter to a Christian Nation” and half of Sam Leavitt’s “Freakonomics” – both incredible. Hope to post more on those some day soon.
Music: Porter Wagoner :: Albert Ervin
July 25th, 2007
Keep Your Chin Up
Had an amazing day at Angel Island with the family last weekend. Made our way to the 800-foot peak over miles of switch-backs in absolutely perfect weather. Views of the Bay Area from the top like I’ve never seen before, picnic lunch with the birds, lovely ferry rides there and back. Did some good geocaching along the way, including my first 4.5-star terrain rating grab. Amy spotted it first — a camouflaged Nalgene bottle hanging from a limb 30 ft. up the backside of a tree. Pretty much in plain view, but the climb was hairy. Unscrewed the lid one-handed to find a dry pen and a damp log book, which meant another trip down and back up again to get the log signed (it don’t count if you don’t sign). Just scary enough to get the adrenaline going… but resulted in a crowd of muggles gathered around. Not much I could do about that once up there (“Chill out – don’t draw attention!”), but the climb was a nice little nitro boost to an already perfect day.
Music: Black Heat :: Wanaoh
July 10th, 2007
Pipi Creek, Granite Lake
Amazing weekend hiking, geocaching, playing with Dad at El Dorado National Forest near Tahoe (not near the burned area). Saturday at Pipi Creek, grooving with the boulders and the foliage and dragonflies. Found a natural swimming hole, Miles stoked to swim and climb the slippery face of a mini-waterfall.
Sunday on the backside of Silver Lake, hiking up to the well-hidden natural treasure Granite Lake, a great stone basin under pristine skies. Found a water snake, which Miles followed along the banks until disappeared with a ripple beneath the surface. Lunch on the banks of nearby Hidden Lake, watching postcard reflections dance in the afternoon heat.
Had some excellent geocaching adventures. Saturday evening, traipsing through thickets with M, running out of time, Miles held up a thick stick: “Daddy, what’s this funny log?” Noticed the saw mark around the middle, and had him pull one end. Cacher had hollowed out just enough space for a medicine bottle containing a log book and pencil. So creative. Would I have found it without M’s help?
Sunday thought we were getting close to Minkalo Cliffs cache, when the GPSr started pointing uphill. Realized we’d have to backtrack and scale a butte overlooking Silver Lake. Gorgeous. Got to the cliff edge and found the compass pointing down again. That’s when I realized some climbing was involved. “Remember, no one is forcing you to do this,” said the cache page. Decided to go for it. 20 ft. down, found an ammo box wedged into a crack. Yelled the prizes down to Miles, who was hanging out in the trees with Amy. Left a travel bug that had originated in Hawaii and was asking to be left at Tahoe views… only to find later that evening that it already done a Tahoe circuit and was headed back for Hawaii. Heh – that’s the game.
Total recharge of a weekend. Ready for anything.
Music: Grey-Afro :: Flying Saucer Attack
June 22nd, 2007
Watering Hole
A battle between a pride of lions, a herd of buffalo, and two crocodiles at a watering hole in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. You can smell the animal adrenaline. As Lebkowsky says, “This is the herd I want to join.”
Music: Catler Bros :: Burning Monk’s Waltz
March 25th, 2007
Planet Earth
Discovery’s Planet Earth series is so beautiful, I think it make my head a-splode. Just speechless. One second of footage of an orca striking a seal, blown out in time on high-speed cam to 47 seconds, like nothing you’ve ever seen. Birds of Paradise dancing so surreal they can’t be from this planet. Hyenas tracking impalas with a group intelligence like ESP. Throw away everything you thought you knew about nature programming. This raises the bar so high…
Music: Moondog :: No. 19 – Maybe
January 23rd, 2005
Collision Course
Excellent new weblog by J-School student Marcus Wohlsen on the general theme of man and nature — evolution/creation, Huygens, mudslide, Tsunami vs. Rwanda in the public consciousness… Should be a good site to follow.
In the same way, Creationists believe we exist categorically apart from our ape ancestors — and therefore the entire process of natural selection itself. Which makes Creationists a ripe constituency for an administration that tries to bend the rules of ecology to its will as a matter of policy. Since we run the show, how could nature ever bite us back?
Aside: Heard a commentator on Air America today making the point that when Creationists call Evolution an “unproven theory,” they’re cherry-picking one unproven theory from so many in science. Gravity, quantum mechanics, etc. are all unproven theories. Much if not most of science is “unproven theory,” but still strong enough to get work done with, to do an adequate or excellent job of explaining the world around us. In other words, it’s valid to point out that we need to be careful about distinguishing fact from theory, but when ID-ers use this as a reason to put warning labels on textbooks, one has to ask why they choose to warn about evolution rather than any other “unproven theory.” The only explanation is that the “unproven theory” argument is yet another smokescreen, an attempt to legitimize their real agenda.
I actually know Marcus from a previous life – he went to school with Chris Tweney of Strata Lucida — Chris and I worked together at Ziff-Davis in Boston in the early-mid 90s. Went to a Martin, Medeski and Wood show in Boston with him once, never saw him again until he showed up at my office door a few months ago. Full circle (or semi-circle, or something).
Collision Course is running on SquareSpace, a next-gen online blogging/general-purpose CMS space I hadn’t heard of until now – looks promising.
Music: Rufus Thomas :: Sophisticated Sissy
