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.

Tonight's Sunset

San Diego State Student Union Building

About three years ago San Diego State demolished their old student center to build a brand new 206,000 sq ft modern place.  Friday they had a "open house" and we got a chance to tour the new place. What's really nice is that they stayed true to the surrounding architecture. The old place was unique in that it had the 1950s vibe but it was outdated and needed to be modernized.

Items of interest:

• Largest Starbucks (not pictured)
• 300 seat multipurpose Theater
• Bowling Alley
• LEED Platinum Certified

Our newly elected Mayor showed up

What's an event without protestors?

Pool hall adjacent to the bowling alley

Bowling alley

Theater screen

Sunset

Panorama from the roof

Inside the tower

Rooftop garden

Live Music

Old building

Sunset and Storm Clouds

As most of you know I have become somewhat of a shutterbug and movie maker. I have really wanted to start doing time lapse photography but my Nikon wouldn't take interval photos, so I had to take actual video and then speed it up. The big drawback to that was huge files. To produce a 30 second clip could use 600mb of space or more.

So now that I have an iPhone I am experimenting with apps to find the best one, hopefully free, that fit the bill (pun intended). Here are two clips that I made yesterday and today. The first one is from my iPod touch and the second is from the iPhone. The iPhone is in portrait mode instead of landscape because I screwed it up.

As always you can go to my YouTube channel to view them as well. You can also double click on the video to go to full screen or click the little box just lower right next to the "YouTube" symbol.

Sunset

Just wanted to share a gorgeous sunset.

Beach Bonfire

Yesterday we were invited to a Beach Bonfire by a friend of ours. Of course I forgot my camera, this seems to become a habit that I have to break. So I was left with using my cell camera which is OK but not great.

Anyway, I took a few pictures and stitched them together. Since it rained on Thursday the air was really clear and you could see all the way to downtown. Unfortunately my cell will not zoom. But downtown is on the right side of the picture. (just a reminder, you can click on the picture for a larger resolution)

One thing I could not catch on film was a flock of birds skimming on the watter at sunset. They were literally inches above the water and there was at least 30 of them. I would have loved to catch it on video.

Annular Eclipse

We didn't get the full eclipse but got around 80+ percent of the eclipse. We were expecting the marine layer and not sure if we could see any of it but thankfully the weather cooperated.

Since we were laying tile most of the day and I actually forgot about it. I was getting ready to take a shower and noticed that it was "dim" outside without any clouds. Aha, it must be the eclipse. Of course I didn't look at the sun, mama didn't raise a fool, but our blinds have many pinholes in them were the cords pass through. Also as the sun passed through the trees we got nice shadows on the walls.

Not sure why they turned out kinda blurry but enjoy!

After the Storm

Saturday and Sunday we had our biggest storm of the season. Not sure exactly how much rain we got, but it was easily over an inch. The big thing was the wind and all day today it was blowing fiercely for San Diego standards. Since we live on the canyon it was even more intense. I would guess that it blew at a steady 30mph with gusts into the 40s.

My main concern was the two eucalyptus trees in the back. But it seems that they held up OK. I have a lot of branches on my back patio and side yard from the eucalyptus trees and the ash tree.

Yesterday and today at sunset there was a nice break and that provided for a few nice shots from our nice new windows.

Saturday

Saturday, this is actually a picture of the sky, I thought it made a cool picture.

Saturday Sunset

Sunday Sunset

Rainbow

Rain, Rain...

Friday and today were rain events very much needed. In 2003 and 2007 we had major fires here and since we are still in fire season it was nice to have the rain. Hopefully this will get us through another year.
We were lucky and the sun broke through near sunset and were treated to a rainbow.

From the back porch

From the courtyard

Panoramic Sunset

So here is the deal. I learned how to make panoramic shots from multiple photos. So why is this important? It means to standby for many more panoramic photos. I know I have several posts of our sunsets but they are so gorgeous I just can't help it. Kinda like someone I know who took a LOT of photos of ducks. Also kinda like someone else I know who always cut off peoples head. You know who you are. But I digress.

hint-click on it to get the big picture ☺

Sunset

There are some things that you just have to share. Tonight was a beautiful sunset with a sliver of moon. We have been getting muggy weather with the monsoon pushing in and the last few days have been cloudy. but tonight was really nice.

Sunset

The last few days has been typical San Diego Weather, mild evenings, low 60s, and beautiful days, mid 70s at the beach and mid 80s inland. We are considered at the beginning of inland so it was around low to mid 80s. Of course it was sunny :)

I took these photos off my back porch, it was even better in person. Even with the problems that southern California has, we are so lucky to be living here. My heart goes out to Santa Barbara and what they are dealing with in the wild fires. The last few years my wife has gone for conferences ( I tagged along) at UCSB www.ucsb.edu and it is lovely. Lord knows we have had our share of them and we will find out later this summer if we will have to deal with it yet again.