John & Anne Wiley

2011/01/04

Rainbow Halo

Filed under: Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,Random,SB Region,Tripp — John @ 03:12

We finally got up for a short flight today, and saw a magical rainbow halo around a little cloud. We climbed high trying to get our transponder to work. That’s a little box that sends an ID number to ATC so they can tell at a glance who we are, to more conveniently distinguish us from the other planes flying around SBA. It was working perfectly since we bought Tripp, but coming home from Christmas in San Diego it decided to stop working when we landed to see friends in LA. Tomorrow we might fly to SLO for a replacement, but today while testing it one last time we got this treat.

4262 Cloud Rainbow Halo

4262 Cloud Rainbow Halo

The cloud was about over Hwy.154 in the Santa Ynez Valley, and rain falling on the slopes beyond made a really cool rainbow behind the little cloud. We’d thought about flying in that direction to see snow on the higher slopes of the Sierra Madre, but as you can see they’re all covered in clouds. Just as well, since without the transponder our preference was to stay closer to home. Sure was nice to fly again, because it’s been more than a week!

2010/12/08

Rocky Returns

No, I haven’t gotten over it. I’m the rockhound that never quits. Here’s a sequel to the rocks from above theme. It’s not just the sculptural shapes of rock formations that I enjoy. Sometimes the pure texture of a rock will capture my attention.

3860 Texture Stories

3860 Texture Stories

What created the texture on these stones? Was it only mountain rainfall erosion of sandstone laid down when this was a slumbering sea bed, or might there once have been a hillside creek or pool involved? Did humans participate at any point? Who visits this spot since the ancient peoples stopped coming? How long before this is all but buried in thick, tall brush? As you can see in this next shot, large areas are relatively clear still from the recent series of wildfires on these slopes.

3858 Rocks Revealed

3858 Rocks Revealed

An even wider view brings in Tripp’s sturdy strut, easing me from rock reveries back to flying dreams.

3861 Ridge Roaming

3861 Ridge Roaming

The brighter area top-middle is where our shadow would be if closer to the distant ridge. I like the radiant effect when looking exactly opposite the sun’s direction, and you never see that from the ground unless on a mountain top. Any time of day aloft you can spot this, and if low enough you’ll also see the shadow of your aircraft painting an impression of the outline someone on the ground will see. If they ever look up.

Well, Anne got some interesting snaps on this flight. Will she share any?

2010/12/04

Toothless

Filed under: Aviation,Happiness,Has Photos,SB Region,Tripp — John @ 06:56

Sometimes photos are toothless, like this one from my antique cellphone.

120310_005 Cell Sun

120310_005 Cell Sun

The sky was so magnificent, but all we had was the phone. It does give an impression, and the opalescent quality of the sky might be dimly similar to the impressionist historic paintings of smoky London.

The title of this post though, is about the fact there’s a tooth missing in my smile now. Today the dentist said it’s time to give up on trusty old number 21 (lower left, behind the “eye” tooth, 4th from the center). We’d already spent a great flying trip’s-worth of Tripp cash on it, so it took considerable convincing. When we saw the x-rays of how thoroughly the infection was eating away my jaw, we finally caved in (so to speak). I’m now one of those old geezers with gaps. Next we get to decide whether to waste even more Tripp bucks on an implant. Comments, advice and suggestions welcome. It sure would be more fun to fly, or at least spend the cash on some fancy Tripp toy. Tail strobe, flashing HID landing light, avionics upgrade, even a good part of a spiffy paint job. When our Tripp is happy, we’re happy. 🙂

2010/11/15

Two More

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Random,SB Region,Tripp — John @ 21:17

I’m deleting some duplicates, and found two more to share from 11/3. The dupes build up because I shoot “rapid fire” so that at least one out of a dozen identical pix might come out ok. There’s lots of vibration and little bumps we don’t notice when flying, but the camera does. Especially in low light when the shutter is open longer, so that a point of light will move around on the sensor producing a streak or a blur. So that one ok shot is the instant when the camera has stopped moving. It helped that 11/3 was flat calm and we’d just had Tripp’s propeller balanced to minimize vibration. Anyway, I like how SB shows better in this first one than it does in the similar shot #3150 I posted earlier.

3147 Sunset City

3147 Sunset City

This second shot also shows downtown twinkling nicely, with the SBCC stadium glowing colorfully.

3159 Sparkling Sports

3159 Sparkling Sports

2010/11/14

Spiral

It can be fun to explore synchronicities, and to contemplate what we attend (as in notice and/or take pix of). I realized that two of my fav recent pix evoke an intense almost dizzying spiral energy in me.

0797~3131 Spirals

0797~3131 Spirals

So I googled “spiral” just now, and the first hit is a movie we’ll get from the library. The second hit is the wiki entry, and I skipped down to the symbolic meanings: “a symbol of the process of dialectic” and an excerpt there: “central to both Indic and Western philosophy since ancient times. …dialogue between two or more people who may hold differing views, yet wish to pursue truth by seeking agreement with one another.”

It turns out that in the relative silence of our life since the Citizens election campaign, Anne and I have been engaged in an especially deep, sweet, challenging and fruitful ongoing dialectic. Kinda cool to “feel” something in the pix and find this context.

Another “hit” I’m getting internally is about Chumash meaning in spiral forms. So I googled “spiral chumash counter-clockwise” and the first hit was an essay with two bits that resonate. First a reference to how low pressure systems make a counterclockwise spiral (a common feature related to aviation weather), the other mentions a Yogic tradition that “counterclockwise flow is the unfolding or dissolution of matter into energy.” I’m certainly experiencing some energy flow!

In a dream last night, Tripp’s number came in. You may recall it’s 66111, and that seems to have strong significance in ways I don’t understand. That entire number is the end of my pilot license number, assigned in 2006 and not consciously noticed until long after we bought Tripp 1/23/10. I graduated high school in 66, and that number has resonated for me over the years. In the dream there was something about 111 related to a date, maybe 1/11 (New Year’s Day) or Jan. 11? Anyway, it all seems worth noting so I can re-read this if anything else comes up, or perhaps sometime next year.

Further down the hit list is an Ojai item about a Chumash ceremony where “a screech owl swooped overhead.” On a quiet night in Santa Ynez recently a great horned owl (a bird I have associated with my father) called me and I walked to within 15 feet. We looked at each other intently before I tried to speak owl and he flew away in disgust. Two nights this week in different parts of town a screech owl has flown low over my head and called. I’ve heard them a few other times over the years, but never in flight. Coincidence? The item linked in this paragraph ends, “everything is a process of spiritual growth.” That’s been my core focus since soon after switching my life focus from technology to psychology.

Further down the hit list is an essay by Harry Marriner I’m going to read and contemplate more. “Many North American Indian cultures associate counterclockwise spirals (starting from the center) with the concept of rising, and the clockwise spiral with the concept of descending.” Earlier tonight I had noticed that one of my two spiral themed pix above is looking down into the water, the other up into the sky.

OK, enough of my inward spiral for now. Next post I’ll be back to “normal” for you. 😉

Harry A. Marriner
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