Ski runs at Mammoth Mountain, half hour or so before arrival at SFO.
February 20, 2009
February 6, 2009
Just outside the office window*
I hadn’t realized what a production nest building was.
Our new neighbors — two doves — started in another spot, a little lower to the ground, a little more exposed to the neighbor’s Siamese cats. They decided after several days of nest building that their chosen spot wasn’t a good place, so they started over again. The new spot is higher and more protected, and they’ve carefully dismantled the partially-built nest and incorporated it into the new one.
I watch one of them (the guy? probably) down in the dirt finding twigs and grasses. He picks one up. No, not good. Tosses it away. Picks another. No. Finally he gets a bundle of twigs and grasses together and takes them up to the nest. The other dove arranges them and tucks in the edges and fusses while the first one goes back down to see what else there is that might work.
Lovely. Really sweet.
Our cat sits at the edge of his nibs’ desk next to the window and watches the doves. She moans and clatters her teeth. So near! So unobtainable!
The doves survived the rain that hit us overnight and this morning, even though the nest is far more exposed than it will be in a month or so when the fig tree is thick with leaves. I’d been worried the rain would drive them off, but they’re still here.
I sit at my desk, working, with their susurrant cooing as background noise.
* a mashup of several Facebook posts and comments
The sun adding shadows to the rain clouds
And then, a while later, a couple tugs pull a decommissioned vessel south … to dry dock? to repair? to ???
February 5, 2009
35 Examples Of Beautiful City Photography
35 Examples Of Beautiful City Photography from Smashing Magazine.
Some are far better than others. Some are stunning.
Click through the photographer link for a given photo and find more photographs by the same person.
e.g. Giuseppe Finocchiaro‘s photo of Oia, Santorini.
[via Gerard Vlemmings at the Presurfer]
February 2, 2009
Warren Ellis — War Haunted
Warren Ellis writes: These are, I’m told, the work of one Sergei Larenkov, and they are wonderful. He’s reshot WW2-era photographs in the present day, from their original perspectives, and then faded the original in.
Ellis tells you a bit about the images (and shows some).
The photos are ‘shopped photos taken during the Siege of Leningrad mashed up with the identical scene from modern St. Petersburg. The edges of buildings and trims and fences match up. Marvelous dissonance.
[via Sour Grapes' Google Reader]
January 27, 2009
New Giraffe Calf – a set on Flickr
Baby giraffe born at SFZoo this morning. Here are photos of its first day.
Window seat
We visited the open house at 1440 Kearny Street yesterday. Beautiful condo. *ONLY* $2.675 million. Nice chat with listing agent extraordinaire Louis Silcox, who lives near us and knows people we know.
I see his name everywhere but we’d never met.
Views are toward downtown. No water views. No bridges. Still, the views are extraordinary.
Nice yard area with solid solid solid retaining walls.
Three levels. Three bedrooms. Private elevator so you don’t have to slog your groceries up stairs. TWO CAR PARKING! (Worth an extra $200K right there. …) Two fireplaces. Wonderful kitchen. Maple floors.
And loads of art and photos.
(Where is she going with this?)
One of the photo artworks was a large collage of images out plane windows with wing tips showing: clouds and sun and weather and blue. Each image had been shaped in an ovoid fashion and the images were piled 5 x 7 or so in a large frame.
Lovely. I would’ve taken it home in a flash.
(I can hear his nibs saying, “But where would you hang it, Sal?”)
I [heart] views out airplane windows.
January 21, 2009
Home again, home again, riggety jig.
Four crab boats had finished off-loading at the wharf and came out of the small harbor and split in different directions. These two were headed off thataway soon to be home again, home again.
January 19, 2009
Fishermen’s and Seamen’s Chapel
The chapel is “a memorial to the fishermen and seamen who have braved cold waves, blinding fog and howling winds. It was built between 1978 and 1981 on the former site of an old Coast Guard building.”
(Picture taken from Jefferson Street, between Jones and Taylor.)
