Celestial Celebration

 

Mercury, or Jupiter, Venus & the moon.

That's neat, hunh? Must be early December.
(UPDATE: Click to enlarge, and it's still not a very good post. I'll leave it up, however, because, from the front driveway, it was very impressive.) (So, there!)

Live Sea Urchin! (echinoid)

 

Live sea urchin, fresh from the Pacific. M asked the fish monger to open and clean it, but he said (in broken Spanglish)"No. Do it at home." There it is, up above.

Get the cleaver ready...

And hit it, hard!

 

Voila...

 

So now we have very fresh uni .

The Piedmont Winnackers were able to enjoy it with us. Happy Saturday after Thanksgiving!

8 Minutes Wishing On A Star

Jarrett is a poseur, but he's good. So, if you have eight minutes to spare, close your eyes and listen to piano, bass and rhythm.  They're very good:

You're welcome.

Thanksgiving 2008

Down Home In Tennessee

Question: What to do when you have an outdoor gig, and your drummer doesn't show up?
Answer: You crank up the old John Deere!

(except John Deeres are green, no?)

Maybe it's an Allis Chalmers?

 

I guess I need some help.

A Puzzle

 

Some things just look too big to fly

Autum - California Style

 

Granted, it's a bit more subtle than Vermont, slightly nuanced compared to New Hampshire, but we enjoy it and celebrate the bright red leaves when spotted.

Karma?

 

I thought I saw a strange relationship between the picture above, and Ed Hoopers 1928 painting below:

 

What's the common theme? Nighttime? Loneliness? Light? Maybe, it's just me.

1906-1945 Fascinating Films

This Flick'r site is chock-a-block full of film of San Francisco and Oakland from the Earthquake to the Key System. Also, references to Wikipedia articles:

http://flickr.com/photos/32912172@N00/2665092589/in/photostream/

What a treasure trove! Enjoy.

More Light!

 

Inspired by yesterday's visit to the Oakland cathedral, I noticed early and late sunlight affecting our humble manse in Walnut Creek.  The above is when the morning sun reaches underneath the roof overhang outside the guest apartment. Wonderful to look at.

And then, below, we have the evening sun setting over the Lafayette reservoir and side lighting the wire baskets on the rear wall of the Barn.

Note that the shadows are almost horizontal. That's neat!
(The texture of the stucco background doesn't hurt, either!)

Cathedral of Christ The Light

Completely covering the parking lot where Hanako learned to ride a bicycle now resides Oakland's new Roman Catholic cathedral:

It is a stunning complex, housing diocesan offices, housing, gift and coffee shop, conference center, mausoleum and, of course, the Cathedral of Christ the Light.

 

(That's about 125 feet from floor to roof...impressive.) The interior is completely lit naturally during daylight. Soft diffused and reflected daylight, with sudden rays appearing through random openings in the skin of the space.

Note the solid riser panels on either side of the pixelated picture of Christ. These panels will each be filled with organ pipes sometime next year. 

On the opposite side of the sanctuary is the entry complex:

 

Chapels and confessionals are secreted of both sides of the sanctuary, behind the concrete walls.

The entire complex sits comfortably overlooking Lake Merritt:

 

A very impressive addition to the architecture of the Bay Area!

(And, it's on base isolators, so it should ride out the next few serious earthquakes.)

Armistice Day

Alfred Hitchcock

Sorry. I just couldn't resist.
(I'll try to be more serious, next time. I promise.)

Stone Mountain, Atlanta

Somehow, I find the story of Stone Mountain interesting.

 

Stone Mountain is the largest granite outcropping in the world, although much shorter than our El Capitan. This hunk of rock was there when General William Tecumseh Sherman, one ugly dude, burned his way through Georgia during our Civil War.

Nowdays, the mountain is used mainly as a public outdoor recreation park.

Whatever, I love the sculpture of Lee, Jackson, and Davis.

Somewhere, Over The Rainbow...

Skies are blue.

 

(click to enlarge)

We certainly needed the rain, but this weekend was fascinating. Showers early on Friday, Halloween, but they had mostly cleared out by the time the neighborhood kids came, and it was pleasantly warm. A good evening.

Saturday was wall-to-wall heavy, cold, windy wet rain. Probably about 2 inches, more or less.

And then today, Sunday, I woke up to the sound of rain on the roof, but it soon stopped. There were patches of blue between the gray, and then the sun came out intermittently and, with it, the inevitable rainbow.

Let's hope we have a wet winter, with lots and lots of snow in the Sierra.