John & Anne Wiley

2012/11/11

Far Out

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 02:30

Far out of town to the West beyond Refugio is a little enclave with some wonderfully creative homes on the bluffs overlooking the beach. Unless you’ve flown low and slow along this coast (or spend a lot of time on Google Earth) you might never know such beautiful and whimsical houses are there. Places like this with its sprawling free-form roof, and a little rounded structure behind it at the right.

1301 Free Form

1301 Free Form

This next one shaped somewhat like a sea creature’s shell, evokes the late 1960s when architecture expanded with all manner of “far out” rounded forms. Must be a very cozy and beautiful place to live.

1304 Sea Shell

1304 Sea Shell

Two doors down is this home with a very angular collection of shapes, offering a great contrast in its straight lines.

1306 Sharp Angles

1306 Sharp Angles

With so many of our homes following the rectangular form, it’s always fun to see architects and builders going far out of the norm. Maybe this proves yet again that diversity is a core human value.

2012/11/10

Down Home

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 00:34

Maybe my tastes in aerial pix is predictable, but is it explicable? I like rocks, and you’ve seen plenty of those here. I like mansions & grand estates, as you’ve noticed. I like sea life & surfers. I also like abandoned human stuff, like this little shack near the beach up past the grand Bacara resort.

1318 Down Home

1318 Down Home

I’ve noticed it often on flights past this area, and thought I’d already shared an aerial pic of it here. Since I couldn’t find any pix here going back a few months and as already mentioned this sort of thing intrigues me, here’s a view down into it.

As for explaining this particular fascination, maybe it’s about Life. Seems to me many of us would like to be remembered when we’re gone, and noticing this remembers the people who lived there in a way. For me it’s also about noticing Now. Imagining myself there when it was inhabited, reminds me that those people most likely seldom if ever thought about it. We tend to live as if things will never change, caught up in living so much we aren’t really aware. When I’ve spoken impulsively, sometimes I can “see” the words hanging in the air and feel something like regret that I wasn’t more aware. If we’d lived here would we have been conscious of our good fortune in living with loved ones on a bluff over the sea, or might all our attention been spent on the mundane? There was a line in a song something like, “Loving is mainly just memories. When you’re gone I’ll be glad to love you.”

2012/11/09

Up & Down

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 00:59

Some people don’t like going up. That phase of flight when the nose tips up and a moment later the ground drops away and the view expands, for some people it’s uncomfortable or even scary. Not for us! We love the feeling, and even more we love the view. A few days ago as we were going up, I again enjoyed this old bunker left over from the days when SBA was a Marine Air base.

1252 Hunkered Bunker

1252 Hunkered Bunker

Maybe it’s the contrast between a structure so bound to the earth, and the lightness of being we’re getting with our first gulp of flight. Because it’s on the airport property, I often don’t even notice it amid such an expanse of wonder and lift of excitement. Most of our takeoffs are South from Runway 15, so my first gulp is East toward downtown. When we take off West from the less common Runway 25, UCSB is on my side of Tripp so I have lots of pix like this.

1254 UC, IV, & CI

1254 UC, IV, & CI

On clear days like this, my view past the airport grounds expands to include UCSB, IV (Isla Vista), and across the water to the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. After a short flight out to El Capitan area and back, we were still Up long after coming down to land. Even after such a short time in the air. Maybe that’s why our evening meal prep looked so especially delicious, I paused to snap this.

1248 Dinner Colors

1248 Dinner Colors

Farmer’s Market Organic produce along with some steamed rice and an avocado from our tree, provided a Perfect way of bringing our bodies back to earth while extending our Up time.

2012/11/07

Other Side

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 21:10

Sometimes I’ve wished you could see more pix from Tripp’s other side. Though she takes fewer pix, it’s always fun to see things from Anne’s side of the plane. There’s also a fascinating contrast from the other side of our gender orientation. Maybe some day she’ll get more motivated to post her perspective, but meanwhile here are some of my faves among her pix from two recent flights.

4387 Hill To Islands

4387 Hill To Islands

On many flights, she gets this view as we obey ATC’s directive to “follow 101 to the harbor.” That’s “TV Hill” at the bottom-right, SBCC in the middle, and “our” spot on Shoreline Park just to the right. I like how she captures the wave texture in this view of East Beach where we used to walk daily when we first moved here.

4421 Wave Sweep

4421 Wave Sweep

Lately she’s been fascinated with all the construction on the Mesa, and I like how this view puts it in context with downtown at the top-right.

4431 Mesa Construction

4431 Mesa Construction

Last up is this view past Hope Ranch to the West, taken the next day with her polarizing filter. I’m going to post a larger version of this one to my Photo Page.

4473 Hope To West

4473 Hope To West

2012/11/02

Random Surprises

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 06:07

I’ve missed posting lately, and decided to start catching up. I’ve been helping with a free new Android app for pilots, named Avare. Click the link to check it out if you’re into aviation, or just want to see what I’ve been up to. Anyway, here are some random surprises, starting with a view that greatly surprised us the first time we saw it.

1139 Tucker's Grove

1139 Tucker’s Grove

We’ve been to the Tucker’s Grove park at the north end of Turnpike many times, and hiked the trail up toward the hills from there a lot too. On the trail it feels like we’re in a wooded wilderness along the creek, but as you can see there are lots of homes on both sides. The park entrance is at the bottom-center, and the trail goes to the right and then up into the mountains. I’ve made this pic bigger than usual if you’d like to click it for a better look. Next up is a more recent surprise.

1163 Oprah's Cottage

1163 Oprah’s Cottage

When we fly past Montecito, it’s fun to glance at Oprah’s modest SB cottage. Recently there’s been major construction work there, and that’s surprising given how beautiful it was before. I think she’d already done major renovations when she bought it a few years ago. Will be fun to see this latest work finished and compare with how it looked before. Last up in this random set is a familiar building that surprised me.

1179 California Light

1179 California Light

We thought the California Hotel was going to be demolished, but seeing it from State Street we thought the project hadn’t started. I was surprised to see that it’s hollow inside except for a stout steel framework, and even more surprised at the translucent back wall. I guess they wanted it to look substantial, and maybe offer the neighbors an impression of how it will look with windows where the black areas are painted on the tarp. Next time we’re down in that area, maybe we’ll go by for a closer look.

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