I never have tried to take photos of the night sky and there are other settings that maybe would have worked but I only tried to change the white balance when it was coming out of eclipse and it help some. Anyway here is what I got.
Showing posts with label Outdoors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Outdoors. Show all posts
Monday, September 28, 2015
Lunar Eclipse
Excited about the Super Moon Lunar Eclipse last night I got out my tripod to so that I could get some good pictures. You can see the results below, which are really dissapointing. I took a ton of photos but most of them came out blurry. I am not sure why other than it was dark and my camera is not a fancy SLR type. It is a compact that takes pretty good photos but not this time.
I never have tried to take photos of the night sky and there are other settings that maybe would have worked but I only tried to change the white balance when it was coming out of eclipse and it help some. Anyway here is what I got.
I never have tried to take photos of the night sky and there are other settings that maybe would have worked but I only tried to change the white balance when it was coming out of eclipse and it help some. Anyway here is what I got.
Monday, September 7, 2015
San Francisco Road Trip
♫ Headin' up to San Francisco
For the Labor Day weekend show♫
-Come Monday, Jimmy Buffett
So this Labor Day we drove to San Fran Friday and Saturday, then on Sunday drove to Pismo Beach and returned back home today.
We haven't taken a trip together since Christmas and wanted to get out of town for the long holiday. We went straight up I-5 and didn't run into much traffic so it took about 8 hours.
A friend who used to live in that area told us about Twin Peaks (not the TV show). She said that it is not that widely known and researching places to go we never heard of it. So before we even checked into the Hotel we drove up to the top. Gorgeous views of the city and bay. The weather for our trip could not have been any better. From there we drove down the "most crooked street" in the world, Lombard Street. Last stop before the hotel was the "Painted Ladies".
Unfortunately we couldn't get tickets to Alcatraz and we didn't want to drive across the Golden Gate because the BART bay rail tunnel was closed this weekend so the bridges were really busy.
We stayed at The Rex Hotel near Union Square. The Rex was built in 1907 just after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. We paid more by staying right down town but we could walk anywhere and by did we walk. Friday night we just walked to Union Square then went to dinner. Saturday we must have walked 10 miles total. Did I mention that San Fran has some of the steepest hills I have ever traveled for a city? First we drove near Fort Point to take some photos of the Golden Gate, then the walk from Hell began. First stop the Ferry Landing Farmers Market. From there we went to Chinatown where we got one of the cheapest lunches I can remember having. Since this place did not have any seating and there was none in the area at all we walked back to Union Square where we ate. I could not believe how many people there were in Chinatown. I have never been to China before but I think I have a good idea of what it is like. Don't think I will book a trip there anytime soon. It was very tiring dodging and moving through the crush of humanity. Incredibly we did not take a singe picture of Chinatown, probably because if we stopped we would have been ran over, it was like a river of people.
We still had time before dinner so off we trekked to Japantown. Chinatown and Japantown could not have been any different. Where Chinatown was chaotic, dirty, and bustling; Japantown was quiet, clean and orderly. We walked down Post street to Japantown and part of that trip was through some sketchy neighborhood. We had to dodge vomit on the sidewalk and saw a black guy wearing a blond wig, wearing a midriff shirt and looking 9 months pregnant. Yes it was a guy!! So we decided to go back on Sutter street and what a world of difference one street can make.
We thought that after such an exhausting day we would sleep soundly the 2nd night and we did until 2:40am when a bunch of drunk young adults decided to take an after party to the room next to us. We tried to go back to sleep but it didn't work so we got up early and headed to Pismo Beach, our 2nd stop. On the positive side the hotel took off $115 from our bill due to the noise.
On the way to Pismo I wanted to take "A" down the Pacific Coast Highway 1. Beautiful drive but also very demanding on the driver. By the time we reached the end, we had enough of the twisting turning road.
We stayed at The Cliffs Resort and got a room upgrade to a full ocean view. Don't know what we did to deserve that but we were happy. So we went down to the "beach", funny thing about the central coast, their "beaches" are not really beaches. At least not to anyone from SoCal. Everything is rocky with a small part of smaller chunks of rock they must consider sand.
For dinner we went back to a wonderful Sushi restaurant.
On the way home we see "Herbie the Love Bug".
Overall it was a really fun trip that I am glad we took.
For the Labor Day weekend show♫
-Come Monday, Jimmy Buffett
So this Labor Day we drove to San Fran Friday and Saturday, then on Sunday drove to Pismo Beach and returned back home today.
We haven't taken a trip together since Christmas and wanted to get out of town for the long holiday. We went straight up I-5 and didn't run into much traffic so it took about 8 hours.
A friend who used to live in that area told us about Twin Peaks (not the TV show). She said that it is not that widely known and researching places to go we never heard of it. So before we even checked into the Hotel we drove up to the top. Gorgeous views of the city and bay. The weather for our trip could not have been any better. From there we drove down the "most crooked street" in the world, Lombard Street. Last stop before the hotel was the "Painted Ladies".
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| Crossing the Bay Bridge |
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| View from Twin Peaks |
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| Alcatraz from Twin Peaks |
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| Panorama. Click to enlarge |
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| Lombard Street |
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| Lombard Street |
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| Painted Ladies |
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| Our Hotel |
Unfortunately we couldn't get tickets to Alcatraz and we didn't want to drive across the Golden Gate because the BART bay rail tunnel was closed this weekend so the bridges were really busy.
We stayed at The Rex Hotel near Union Square. The Rex was built in 1907 just after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. We paid more by staying right down town but we could walk anywhere and by did we walk. Friday night we just walked to Union Square then went to dinner. Saturday we must have walked 10 miles total. Did I mention that San Fran has some of the steepest hills I have ever traveled for a city? First we drove near Fort Point to take some photos of the Golden Gate, then the walk from Hell began. First stop the Ferry Landing Farmers Market. From there we went to Chinatown where we got one of the cheapest lunches I can remember having. Since this place did not have any seating and there was none in the area at all we walked back to Union Square where we ate. I could not believe how many people there were in Chinatown. I have never been to China before but I think I have a good idea of what it is like. Don't think I will book a trip there anytime soon. It was very tiring dodging and moving through the crush of humanity. Incredibly we did not take a singe picture of Chinatown, probably because if we stopped we would have been ran over, it was like a river of people.
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| Union Square |
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| Golden Gate |
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| Transamerica Pyramid |
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| Stumbled across this. Church of Scientology |
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| Cable Car |
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| Curved Escalators, never seen that before |
We still had time before dinner so off we trekked to Japantown. Chinatown and Japantown could not have been any different. Where Chinatown was chaotic, dirty, and bustling; Japantown was quiet, clean and orderly. We walked down Post street to Japantown and part of that trip was through some sketchy neighborhood. We had to dodge vomit on the sidewalk and saw a black guy wearing a blond wig, wearing a midriff shirt and looking 9 months pregnant. Yes it was a guy!! So we decided to go back on Sutter street and what a world of difference one street can make.
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| Japantown |
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| Our walk |
We thought that after such an exhausting day we would sleep soundly the 2nd night and we did until 2:40am when a bunch of drunk young adults decided to take an after party to the room next to us. We tried to go back to sleep but it didn't work so we got up early and headed to Pismo Beach, our 2nd stop. On the positive side the hotel took off $115 from our bill due to the noise.
On the way to Pismo I wanted to take "A" down the Pacific Coast Highway 1. Beautiful drive but also very demanding on the driver. By the time we reached the end, we had enough of the twisting turning road.
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| Along Highway 1 |
We stayed at The Cliffs Resort and got a room upgrade to a full ocean view. Don't know what we did to deserve that but we were happy. So we went down to the "beach", funny thing about the central coast, their "beaches" are not really beaches. At least not to anyone from SoCal. Everything is rocky with a small part of smaller chunks of rock they must consider sand.
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| Our view at Pismo Beach Hotel |
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| Giant room at Pismo Beach |
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| The "beach" below our hotel |
For dinner we went back to a wonderful Sushi restaurant.
On the way home we see "Herbie the Love Bug".
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| Herbie the love bug |
Overall it was a really fun trip that I am glad we took.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Target Shooting
Last weekend some friends from the neighborhood went out to Ocotillo Wells to do some target shooting. Honestly, I didn't know there was anyplace in Southern California that you could go out and shoot that was not an "official" shooting range. I also had no idea that there were quite as many people in the neighborhood who owned guns and liked to shoot.
Getting there was an adventure, actually a scary adventure. The normal way is to take I-8 East through the mountains, and we did, but that weekend the Santa Ana winds were howling. We all rode in one of the guys RV and with the winds blowing around 40mph with gust hitting around 60-70mph it was all he could to to keep the RV on the road. In fact we almost turned around. What normally takes 1 1/2 hours took over 2 hours thankfully, when we got in the desert, the wind wasn't blowing there. But around 1PM the Highway Patrol closed the highway for a few hours. Going back we took the S-2 highway, no wind but it took us over 3 hours to get back. So the drive there and back sucked.
We had a whole mixture of weapons from the .22 rifle up to a 300 Magnum hunting rifle. One guy made his own AR-15 receivers and the little black gun I am shooting is one of them. Another guy had some WW2 rifles (M1 Carbine and M1 Garand) which were really cool to shoot.
Getting there was an adventure, actually a scary adventure. The normal way is to take I-8 East through the mountains, and we did, but that weekend the Santa Ana winds were howling. We all rode in one of the guys RV and with the winds blowing around 40mph with gust hitting around 60-70mph it was all he could to to keep the RV on the road. In fact we almost turned around. What normally takes 1 1/2 hours took over 2 hours thankfully, when we got in the desert, the wind wasn't blowing there. But around 1PM the Highway Patrol closed the highway for a few hours. Going back we took the S-2 highway, no wind but it took us over 3 hours to get back. So the drive there and back sucked.
We had a whole mixture of weapons from the .22 rifle up to a 300 Magnum hunting rifle. One guy made his own AR-15 receivers and the little black gun I am shooting is one of them. Another guy had some WW2 rifles (M1 Carbine and M1 Garand) which were really cool to shoot.
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| (L-R) Mini 14; M1 Carbine; M1 Garand; don't know what the far right one is |
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Tonight's Sunset
Really nice sunset tonight. It has been a rough few months and I will work on putting up more posts in the future.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Yardwork and Rain
Our front landscape was beginning to look a little sad. Basically it has sat untouched since we planted it, well almost. We have done a little work but basically it has had the freedom to do what it wants. Apparently it wanted to die more than anything. We have lost quite a few plants, namely the fan flowers and the flax. I contribute this primarily on poor irrigation and drainage. In the case of the flax it was too much water. When I removed it, the root was completely rotted. I think it was not enough water with the fan flowers.
When we had the irrigation installed it was a one size fit all with drips for everyone. The problem was that we had a great variety of plants/succulent so this did not work well and the casualties were high. So now we have the hardy/just right bunch still around.
Our blue chalk sticks are doing OK but some parts shriveling up and dying. I think once again it is poor irrigation/drainage. I pruned back the Mexican Sage and cleaned up the blue chalk sticks throwing away the dead parts and propagating the healthy parts.
I really need to address the Lions Tail but will wait till this fall to do some dead heading, I learned this from YouTube. No it doesn't mean I will sit around smoking weed and listening to the Grateful Dead. Dead heading plants is to cut back any dead parts/flowers so that it will stimulate growth. I learned how to do it with the Lions Tail and will also figure out the best way for our Pride of Madeira and Licorice Plant. Both of those are out of control.
One thing I MUST do in the next few weeks is to re-work my irrigation. There are a few other plants that are hanging on but for how much longer I am not sure.
We actually received some rain today, IN AUGUST!!! OK, for most everyone else it was a light sprinkle, but for us it is RAIN. We actually got more than what is in the picture, that was the beginning. Water actually came off the roof, we take what we can get.
When we had the irrigation installed it was a one size fit all with drips for everyone. The problem was that we had a great variety of plants/succulent so this did not work well and the casualties were high. So now we have the hardy/just right bunch still around.
Our blue chalk sticks are doing OK but some parts shriveling up and dying. I think once again it is poor irrigation/drainage. I pruned back the Mexican Sage and cleaned up the blue chalk sticks throwing away the dead parts and propagating the healthy parts.
I really need to address the Lions Tail but will wait till this fall to do some dead heading, I learned this from YouTube. No it doesn't mean I will sit around smoking weed and listening to the Grateful Dead. Dead heading plants is to cut back any dead parts/flowers so that it will stimulate growth. I learned how to do it with the Lions Tail and will also figure out the best way for our Pride of Madeira and Licorice Plant. Both of those are out of control.
One thing I MUST do in the next few weeks is to re-work my irrigation. There are a few other plants that are hanging on but for how much longer I am not sure.
We actually received some rain today, IN AUGUST!!! OK, for most everyone else it was a light sprinkle, but for us it is RAIN. We actually got more than what is in the picture, that was the beginning. Water actually came off the roof, we take what we can get.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Pathetic Gate
Finally we decided, OK "A", decided to get rid of the metal gate that we were using to block access to the canyon. The metal gate is actually from our other house that we dragged here in the hopes that we could still use it for something. Yep we have had it there for 5 years.
We knew that we wanted a wood gate but could not decide on how to design it. Should it be permanent, should it open, or should it just be removable. We finally decided to make it removable.
We planned on using the existing post attached to the wall on the right then construct one to the left. My original thought was to attach the 2x4 to the patio using concrete anchors. However once I started drilling into the concrete it wasn't thick enough and was breaking. Plan B was to set the 2x4 into concrete which was really easy and it should have been plan A. We used a french cleat to hold the gate onto the posts
We wanted to use any existing wood and here is where the pathetic comes in. We wanted it light so that it would be easy when we removed it. But it also could not block a lot of wind since it was such a light gate. I could see the wind catching it and blowing it up on the deck.
We spaced the vertical pieces about 8 inches apart and with it being thin pieces the gate looks really pathetic. But it does the job and we can now get rid of the metal piece of crap.
Just don't lean on it!!!!!!
We knew that we wanted a wood gate but could not decide on how to design it. Should it be permanent, should it open, or should it just be removable. We finally decided to make it removable.
We planned on using the existing post attached to the wall on the right then construct one to the left. My original thought was to attach the 2x4 to the patio using concrete anchors. However once I started drilling into the concrete it wasn't thick enough and was breaking. Plan B was to set the 2x4 into concrete which was really easy and it should have been plan A. We used a french cleat to hold the gate onto the posts
We wanted to use any existing wood and here is where the pathetic comes in. We wanted it light so that it would be easy when we removed it. But it also could not block a lot of wind since it was such a light gate. I could see the wind catching it and blowing it up on the deck.
We spaced the vertical pieces about 8 inches apart and with it being thin pieces the gate looks really pathetic. But it does the job and we can now get rid of the metal piece of crap.
Just don't lean on it!!!!!!
Monday, March 31, 2014
San Diego Maritime Museum
Since it was such a nice day yesterday we wanted to get out and about so we drove down to Little Italy where we had desert and then decided to go down to the bay and walk around the waterfront. I took a few pictures of the boats on display but we didn't feel like going on any tours. Here are a few pics. If you want to learn more about the San Diego Maritime Museum go HERE.
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| USS Dolphin |
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| USS Dolphin and Steam Ferry Berkley |
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| Star of India |
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| Star of India |
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| Star of India |
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| Star of India |
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| Some cruise ship |
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| B-39 Submarine |
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