I found one of Anne’s pix from our airport sunset that she didn’t share, and it overflows with magic that more words would only delay.
0749 Magic
2010/10/29
2010/10/28
People Power
Politics is amazing. Our work with the Citizens4sbcc group trying to save our Community College has been more intense lately. For one thing we’ve attended several events and fundraisers.
2846 Montecito Fundraiser
This fundraiser Anne is surveying as we arrived, was at a posh ocean view estate in Montecito. Beyond the pool is a lower level with magnificent rambling tea garden. Behind her is the sprawling mansion, and you can get a small glimpse from this later photo looking back up the yard.
2851 Uphill
The campaign has a decidedly uphill quality to it right now, as the incumbents go for broke. They’ve hired (with taxpayer funds) a campaign consultant, and are investing thousands in misleading ads and opinion pieces. The negativity of their approach is overwhelming! The thing I find particularly discouraging is their use of “doublespeak” (accusing our candidates of the despicable things their campaign is actually doing). I celebrate that they have their own opinions, but get upset when they espouse manufactured “facts” that are exactly opposite of reality. sigh…
Some of the events we’ve attended have helped refresh our hope and resolve, like this fundraiser (for a Parent Child Workshop, not our campaign). It’s a large group of parents and children working together on Parent Education, that was in one of the programs Anne supervised as SBCC Director/Dean.
2924 1/3 of a Fundraiser
Two thirds of the event is beyond this frame to the left and right. At the right is a live band, and to the left is the close-to-100 year old ranch with more action. It was so heartening to see the Carpinteria community pulling together working on the future of our world: raising conscious children. I hope when these kids grow up, the era of dirty campaigns has passed and we can focus on peaceful coexistence.
We went over Montecito couple of days later while taking a friend on his birthday flight, so I snapped this aerial view of the now quiet estate we visited in the first pix of this post. From above where political tactics don’t show as well, you can better see the beauty of our world.
2992 Montecito Estate
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2010/10/27
Once Over
We flew again today, though it was just once “around the pattern” (staying close to the airport). We left home just an hour too late due to tracking new lows in the SBCC incumbents’ dirty campaign (glad the four challengers have kept to the high road, and we’re looking forward to their improvements in SBCC community relations once elected). Anyway, by the time we got to the airport, the wind had shifted and picked up. As we drove in I saw the wind sock standing straight out and wondered how Anne would do with flying. We already knew winds had changed (though not how much!), but had decided to at least check on Tripp’s new tire (the old one had developed a small de-lamination of the tread in our last landing and we’d already been thinking about replacing it).
3027 Hope Ranch Shore
We did talk about it, and she decided to come along even though I offered to go around once first and see if it was turbulent. After standing by Tripp to watch another small plane take off, I found that Anne had been watching closely too. Since I was comfortable to fly in the gusty wind and it was it was to be short, she decided to join me. Offshore it was pretty smooth, but closer to the mountains we hit a few lumps. Before our landing a few minutes later I did one low pass over the big runway (parallel to the mountains) to practice crosswind technique, and it was fun to feel confident I could’ve easily landed if needed. Gusty winds like that are less enjoyable on a long trip, so we were glad to just be flying for a few minutes. Since I wanted to get this photo though, I continued on and turned offshore for this before turning again for a gentle landing toward the mountains and thus into the wind.
Now we feel all mellow from just that brief flight, and we’re about to enjoy another slice of the delicious bread Anne made with Nancy’s help (maybe she’ll post something about that).
Tasty Homemade Sourdough
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2010/10/26
Quick Upgrade
Only $60 for triple the drive space on my Macbook, so with the original drive nearly full from all our photos I finally went for it. Only took 15 minutes to make a “clone” backup of the original drive, install the new one, and another half hour or so to clone everything onto the new drive. So easy, and everything worked perfectly once these steps were completed. With one exception: my email didn’t work. Turns out my email app has been “improved” with features that made it choke and die on a larger but otherwise identical drive. It’s finally working again (and better in some ways), so enough whining. 🙂
Yesterday we took a friend flying for his birthday, so I’ve been spreading words & pix around (see links to Edhat & my Photo Page at the right). Here are a few more that I saved to put here to mark my return to Cyberia.
2962 SBCC & Harbor
In case you’re wondering, yes another focus of my attention lately has been the “C4” movement to elect Haslund, Blum, Croninger & Macker to replace the incompetent SBCC Board of Trustees incumbents (see http://citizens4sbcc.org/). I didn’t think about disk drives at all during this flight, but did think about our candidates when flying past this beautiful campus of the college we loved even before Anne’s work there. She once had an office in one of the two buildings at the right end of the grassy area on the left.
Heading back to land at SBA after our tour of SB & Montecito we got an unusual routing from ATC that put us high over Ellings Park, so I snapped this.
3012 Ellings Park
Just out of frame to the right is where paragliders launch. They fly across a road to soar back and forth along the bluffs at the Douglas Family Preserve, named to honor Kirk Douglas and son Michael who matched the large number of donations from the community to buy and save this popular open space. Many locals still call it “The Wilcox” as it was known before. Just below it is Arroyo Burro beach, very popular with locals. Many still call it “Hendry’s” as it was known before. When we first moved to SB it took a while to find places due to this dual naming system. 🙂
3015 Santa Cruz Island
After we passed over the beach and turned West along the shoreline toward the airport I snapped this view of the stunningly clear islands. Wish the camera didn’t somehow show haze we didn’t see, because this was so beautiful we talked about flying out to tour the islands.
OK, so now that I’m back maybe soon I’ll post more pix from the flight to SD and flights since. Also might be fun to share some from the recent C4 events we’ve attended like the one at Diandra Douglas’ estate (once home of Michael). After the election we’ll need to take another long trip to celebrate having more time!
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2010/10/19
Port to Home
Well surprise, I’ve decided to add a few more from our 10/10 flight instead of more recent stuff that’s less interesting to me. Great thunderstorm going on, so maybe the lights will go out before I finish and rather than work on backup power maybe that would nudge me to get some sleep. Anyway, here’s a shot from the San Pedro area past Long Beach across LA Harbor.
2327 Not Just Tea
Even on this “clear” day, I wondered about the health effects of that haze on the millions living and working in the LA basin. The whole harbor complex is buzzing even during the recession, with container ships, tankers, grain, military, oil development and all the land-based things associated with all that. For some reason I thought about a line from an old Leonard Cohen song, “tea and oranges that came all the way from China.”
2328 Harbor Park
Between all this commerce and massive residential areas, Harbor Park is an oasis of green. Heading out a little offshore, this view back at all the port activity also gave us a good view of the Vincent Thomas Bridge. Pretty impressive span, but easy to miss in all the industrial vastness.
2334 Vincent Thomas Bridge
I was reading a wiki page about Terminal Island, and tried to imagine this back when the Native Americans hung out here. I enjoyed looking directly down on a container ship unloading.
2338 One Way Mosaic
I like the colorful mosaic of the containers, and thought about how most of them are empty when they sail back to China. I was looking at a tanker when another plane flew below. More common in LA area, but still unusual to be close enough for a photo.
2341 Air, Oil & Water
You’ll be pleased to note the gap between the ID number of the photo above, and this next one. I’m sparing you lots of shots I liked, rather than spend the rest of the night uploading them. 🙂 Here then is a colorful collection of buildings in the community of Huntington Beach (though far from the water) that I was very curious about.
2399 Colorful Corner
Maybe you guessed that this whole thing is associated with the church on the corner. No reason worship can’t be playful, eh? There’s a neighborhood on Brighton Road, between Corona Del Mar and Crystal Cove we found interesting.
2440 Grotto Home
The grotto of sea caves and arches that was probably once popular with ancient people seems to now be popular with someone rich enough to build one on the bluffs. Wonderful garden courtyard, and was it built around those sandstone boulders? Looks like public access to what could have been a private beach, but for California law keeping our shores open to all.
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