John & Anne Wiley

2011/01/12

Bird Bath

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 08:32

The pool atop the Canary Hotel in downtown SB was the first thing guessed by an Edhat reader in the enigmatic second collection of seven I submitted yesterday. This shot shows more context, but I’d cropped the Edhat one so it only shows the pool making it hard to tell it’s on the roof. Somehow a reader was familiar enough with it to recognize it from the air at night, even though it’s the tallest building in that area and very few people fly over the city at night with enough time to pick out landmarks. Pretty impressive!

4438 Lit Canary Pool

4438 Lit Canary Pool

Santa Barbara High School’s stadium looked really cool, with athletes and spectators seemingly unaware of the night just beyond the lights.

4368 Night Game

4368 Night Game

I like the accent of bright lights hitting the trees to give everything an ethereal frame, and took another shot from a different angle on the return flight.

4444 SBHS Revisited

4444 SBHS Revisited

2011/01/09

Again

Filed under: Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 01:57

Every evening the sun sets of course. Sometimes we don’t see it due to clouds, but more often it’s uneventful because there aren’t any clouds. Tonight was yet another of those less common SB sunsets with just the right mix of Goldilocks perfection blending clouds and orange-red afterglow. So we went for a short walk. First we paused to check on monkeys for a dear friend.

1248 Monkey Business

1248 Monkey Business

She’d sold her home and moved away, only to discover that these monkeys she’d left behind are wanted by her daughter. So we stopped by to ensure that they are indeed removed to a neighbor’s home to wait for transportation to their new yard.

Reassured, we headed up a small hill to survey the surrounds. I’m happy to report that all’s well, and we were rewarded with some panoramic “air-brushed” SoCal sunset skies.

1252 Soft Sunset

1252 Soft Sunset

The most gentle breeze, a mere waft really, carried the last sounds of the day as we soaked in the warm colors shifting toward indigo darkness. Luckily for this post, Anne had brought along her camera so I borrowed it to snap these pix using manual settings.

1250 Layers of Light

1250 Layers of Light

The dust blotches on Anne’s camera refreshed my temptation to look up the directions I saw online a few months ago, on how to open and clean the internal sensor. Of course, the first time she forgets to keep it out of strong wind and sticks it out of Tripp’s window to capture one of her great photos the sensor will be re-coated with blotches. There’s also some chance of messing it up during the delicate brain surgery. Is it worth the effort and risk, or should we just buy her a new and more “rugged” camera?

2011/01/01

Muddy Waters

Filed under: Flying,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 00:17

We’re finally feeling better from PHFP syndrome (post-holiday food poisoning). We’ve decided it was a bad egg, and we’re not recommending this as a weight loss plan even though I’m down a cool ten pounds. Instead we’re enjoying a look back at photos, and preparing to venture out and join the fun of New Year’s Eve. Maybe that will produce some new pix that we’ll share whenever we recover from tonight. 🙂

Meanwhile, here’s one I liked from offshore of Huntington Beach on our flight to Sandy Eggo.

4074 Human Footprint

4074 Human Footprint

A few generations back, what is now the concrete-captured Santa Ana River meandered through the desert marshes into a pristine blue Pacific. Nowadays it’s mostly dry, but after a storm the accumulated toxic runoff rushes along picking up topsoil from denuded lots and strip-mined industrial farming. The shape of this edge reminds me of the yen/yang circle, here mingling life and death.

As you can see, I’m in a cheerful mood from the recent days of discomfort. OK, off to join some revelry!

2010/12/26

New Tradition?

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,Relationships,SB Region — John @ 03:14

This might be our first Christmas at home together, and it’s wonderful to savor what might become a new tradition for us. Usually we’re with family, so this year after a warm and wonderful Christmas Eve with family in San Diego we flew home through a dreamscape. Yesterday between morning coffee and evening soup/gifts, we took a break to fly over San Diego Bay.

4118 San Diego Bay

4118 San Diego Bay

This view over the salt ponds from near the Mexican border shows the graceful arc of the Strand to Point Loma with the city skyline just visible at top-right. Flying home today we got a great view of distant snowy peaks beyond the Riverside area.

4170 Snow Beckons

4170 Snow Beckons

We were tempted to fly over them for a closer look and to avoid incoming weather so we can meet up with dear ones in the desert. But the siren song of Home was stronger, so we dodged storms to arrive just as heavy rains were approaching Santa Barbara. It’s so fun to choose in the moment, allowing our destined route to emerge. Dipping through a large opening in the clouds near Camarillo was just one in the string of choices that ended with us enjoying home made soup by a warm fire.

1195 Clouds Parted

1195 Clouds Parted

Happy holidays, everyone!

2010/12/24

Up Again

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,People,Random,SB Region — John @ 08:01

We saw some delightful sights flying to Oxnard today. First was the brown marble sea created by the muddy runoff from all the recent storms. We saw variations on this theme at every creek and river outlet along the coast.

4048 Sea of Mud

4048 Sea of Mud

Over the Oxnard coastline looking toward Ventura the dappled shadows and scampering small clouds made the familiar scene we’ve seen on so many flights, all new.

4050 Oxnard Anew

4050 Oxnard Anew

Can you make out the campground at the bottom? Those little circles each lead to pads where motorhomes park to sleep with the drumming of surf beyond the dunes. A bit to the right out of this frame is a similar shape from the air, made by picnic tables on pads around a playground. I like the embellishment created by the trees and their shadows lining the street.

4052 Playground Flower

4052 Playground Flower

Flying low reveals both geology and geometry.

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