I have no memory of this, but apparently the US Core of Engineers stopped the water flow over Niagara Falls in 1969 to see how stable the rock bed was. Flickr user, Russ Glasson, took several amazing pictures of the event: Niagara Falls with no water falling! Check his photos out at this link.
Amazingly, people were swimming in the Gulf before, during, and probably after this storm. But maybe, it was ok. I never went down to the water. If any oil or dispersant were around, it wasn't visible from the hotel room balcony. Sunday night, the last night of the visit, a big thunderstorm came from the north. I shot this short video of the storm moving out to sea.
Unfortunately, the progress bar does not show while downloading this HD video. Be patient. It is working. If you have a slow connection to the internet, be very patient.
We just returned from a very short visit to my hometown of Pensacola. My FC, favorite cousin, Susan, came down for the visit as well. We had a wonderful time filled with laughter, good seafood, and great political talk (the FC and I are on the same side of the political coin). I don't know, it seems the dispersants used in the Gulf, made all of the seafood especially flavorful. Actually, we made sure none of the seafood we ate came from the Gulf. This picture, click to enlarge, was taken by the HU at the Oar House, one of my favorite Pensacola establishments.
I just came across the photography and video work of Shaun Reeder. Wow!!
At his site, he comes across as one free-spirited human soul that isn't bound by the force of gravity. His adventures are stunning. His music, photography, and videos will probably take you places you will otherwise never go. In fact, watching his death-defying video work just makes me nervous — to be so balanced, so aware of your location in space, so certain of your center, in such great physical shape. Even the banner on his site is way cool.
You have to check out his videos which are linked to the image below. Awesome work!
Today we went walking along the beach and plopped our beach chairs surf side to enjoy a moment of sunshine and the cool ocean breeze. When I sat down, I noticed I had a glob of tar near the heal of my foot. And since I had forgotten to wear my "official beach shoes," I was going to have a very hard time getting the tar glob off.
While seated I frequently rubbed my heal in the sand. No help at all.
So, when I got home, I Googled "remove tar foot" and saw two suggestions:
All of the toothpaste here at the house is gel; so, I got the olive oil out and the tiny new toothbrush my dentist gave me when I had my teeth last cleaned. The tedious process took about 20 minutes, but it worked. Below are the pictures documenting the trauma. Consider this my own personal exhibit of "Crude Awakening" that I blogged about before.
The tar (combined with the beach sand) becomes hard and is completely stuck to the skin. I couldn't even scrape it off with a sea shell. It has the dank tar smell.
The Tar Glob Proper
The Tools for the Procedure
Twenty Minutes Later 
This is quite the week for tar. The city of Manhattan Beach is in the process of redoing the slurry on the streets (that black tar goo with little tiny pebbles in it). They just did the two streets by the house. It's incredibly messy. The workers also got black tar on the grass by the side of the house. Not happy as that oil spill will probably kill the grass.
Oil is gushing freely into the Gulf of Mexico today as BP is trying to cap the well again. And I just read an article online about the potential of a massive methane gas bubble from all of the methane gushing from the well in the Gulf (40% is methane gas and 60% is oil) rising from the Gulf and causing the extinction of all life on earth as methane gas is deadly. She claims the sea floor around the gushing well is rising for about a 5 mile radius. I hope the author is a crackpot. If not, at least BP was kind enough to only kill all life on one planet in the solar system.
Check out the link at the bottom for a more detailed description of the methane gas theory including a link to the original article.
But the greatest tragedy of all was the realization that I have lived here in Manhattan Beach for about 2.5 years now, and today was the first time I've actually sat out on the beach. That will be rectified this summer!
Every image tells a story. So, I've decided I should share some of the stories around the images that rotate through the banner images at the top of my blog. [If you're reading this at blog.timtyson.us, you will not see these rotating banner images. You have to go to the mirror site at timtyson.us/weblog to see the rotating images.]
I shot this particular image at Horseshoe Bend in Page, Arizona, in January, 2010. Perhaps in the larger image (click to enlarge) you can see the snow in the distant mountains. While it was cool enough to wear a jacket, it was not at all cold.
You have to walk about a mile in the desert from the parking area to get to this location. The view is very, very flat and you simply can't see the Colorado River winding through the desert until you are very close to the edge. Speaking of the edge...
Taking this shot was terrifying! I slowly and "intrepidly" inched my way to the edge of the sheer drop off holding my opened tripod out in front of me as if it were a senior citizen's walker. Though I'm certain I looked ridiculous, I could have cared less! The air was rather still while we were there which at least reduced my fear of being blown over the edge.
The view is gorgeous. Photos can't capture this type of grandeur.
This photo was among my first experiments with HDR that has "gone public." This picture is actually three shots, each at a different exposure. I then took the three pictures and merged the detail information into one photograph, which gives the photo its distinctive look and level of detail in the brighter as well as darker areas of the scene.
Finally, I have to tell you about the guys, three of them, that were walking up to the edge and shooting--literally within inches. One guy, twenty-something, just squatted down within 2 - 3 inches of the edge on a slope (downward!) and was shooting away as if there were no way he could possible fall to his death if the sand slid or crumbled. I simply couldn't stand to watch him! My knees were about to turn to rubber!
An amazing, beautiful view. The scale is astounding.
This is the second time lapse I shot at Malaga Cover yesterday. This one was shot at ISO 100 with a 5 second interval and includes a bit of panning. As you can see from the comment at the other Malaga Cove time lapse, I met lots of interesting people yesterday morning.
So, here is the noon time lapse of Malaga Cove. Don't forget, you can click the full screen button when it starts playing. You can see the little tiny surfers and the water currents moving about. The one below is HD: 1280 x 720, so be sure you have your window as large as you can get it before clicking the play button. (If your monitor is too small to play the HD version, you can view the smaller version directly underneath the HD version.)
I'm not exactly sure why, but the HD version plays rather poorly over the internet using MediaBoxAdv; so, I just have it pop up in a separate window for excellent playback.
I mentioned in my post yesterday about this time lapse, that I wasn't able to get a transition from complete darkness to light because I shot this time lapse so close to today -- the longest day of the year, and you can't park your car until 5:00am. At any rate, here is the first time lapse from yesterday.
My face got totally fried! The breeze was delightfully cool (a bit cold actually before the sun came up), probably in the low to mid 60's. So I had no idea I was cooking myself!
The cloud action, while not as dramatic as the fog coming in to engulf the cove and then moving out again, was still awesome! (The camera frame is actually considerably larger than the 16:9 video frame; so, you don't get to see the full effect in this video. Though what is here is great.)
Technical: Balancing three variables: the exposure time (very dark and then very light conditions in the same time lapse) with an aperture that will provide the best depth of field and sharpness with the shortest possible shot interval so the continuous motion of the waves in the finished time lapse appears as smooth as possible.
I placed my ISO at 400 since I would be shooting in very decreased light in the early morning hours but also in very bright light by noon. The exposure time (at f5.6) is pretty significant when its darker outside but then ran up to 1600 (at ISO 400) when it was noon). So I set my shot interval to be 20 seconds. (My experience has been that in near dark conditions, at ISO 400, the exposure time can be over 20 seconds. In yesterdays darkest time the exposure was only 2 seconds, but I just now noticed this! Rats! I could have done a 5 second shot interval.) Regrettably, once the sun comes up, a 20 second exposure time creates jerky wave motion. But the cloud action is pretty cool.
Therefore, halfway through the time lapse, I stopped and adjusted the ISO to 100 and the shot interval to 5 seconds. So, in the second time lapse I will post from my day at Malaga Cove, the wave action is considerably smoother. Stay tuned for the second time lapse to be posted later.
But, in the mean time, here is the early morning time lapse of Malaga Cove. Don't forget, you can click the full screen button when it starts playing. You can see the little tiny surfers and the water currents moving about. The one below is HD: 1280 x 720, so be sure you have your window as large as you can get it before clicking the play button. (If your monitor is too small to play the HD version, you can view the smaller version directly underneath the HD version.)
I'm not exactly sure why, but the HD version plays rather poorly over the internet using MediaBoxAdv; so, I just have it pop up in a separate window for excellent playback.
This morning I got up really early (3:45AM) to shoot a time lapse of the Galaga Cove along the Palos Verdes Shoreline Preserve. Unfortunately, the area is not open for parking until 5AM; so, as tomorrow is the longest day of the year, I missed the transition from complete darkness to sunrise. It was already fairly light out when I arrived at 5AM. Probably just as well: the cliffs are a sheer, straight drop off, and I didn't want to plunge to my certain death by mis-stepping in the darkness. I placed the tripod just inches away from the edge!
The time lapse was with one shot ever 20 seconds for 7 hours (from 5am until 12pm) as the slider travelled 29 inches. (About half way through I switched to one shot every 5 seconds which is yielding a much smoother time lapse.) Regrettably I could put nothing in the foreground here for a parallax effect. The surf was very active for the summer time, and numerous suffers were enjoying the unusual wave action. Regrettably, the weather didn't do anything too dramatic during the time I was shooting, though the sunlight was varied and some heavy clouds considered coming in but didn't.
I shot this picture of this area several months ago when a thick fog enveloped the cove. I was hoping for something even more dramatic with the fog moving in or out but had no luck this morning.
But this is what the same area looked like today:
At any rate, I had some interesting conversations with a couple of surfers--guys about my age. I learned from one of them that, about 20 years ago, the city purchased the houses on the western side of the road along the Pacific Ocean. They allow the original owners to live in the houses until they die. Apparently the entire hillside is slowly sliding off into the Pacific Ocean. The land, otherwise, would easily be worth tens of millions.
One of the surfers was very into photography. He spoke of the many pictures he has taken over the years at this spot. He said it was very much like the south of France, another place he loves to shoot and surf.
One of the surfer dudes I talked with said the brown in the water indicates rip tides: where the current is pulling the seashore sand back into the ocean. I've always heard of these as a child growing up on the Gulf Coast (may it rest in peace) but had never been able to see them as you can in this picture.
As you will be able to see when I post the time lapse, soon, I promise, the weather was glorious beyond description. As a result, I got a sunburn on my face without ever realizing it. I don't think that paradise could be as perfect as this day.
"I don't think I'm overstating the case by saying this is America's Chernobyl." —Louie Miller, Mississippi state director, Sierra Club, at a news conference on May 1, 2010, in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Not overstating it? Indeed!
But, unless you live on the Gulf Coast, as does my extended family, unless you know people who will lose everything because their livelihood. in fact, the economy of the whole regions already deeply depressed by the aftermath of Katrina, is completely dependent on the health of the Gulf of Mexico, this is just a minor little setback in the United State's intoxicated love affair with oil consumption and war above all else.
God forbid we should have policy that takes care of people and the environment in which we live! That ain't Amurrrrican! That ain't for the real Amurrrrica.
I mourn the death of the pristine beauty of the Gulf Coast on which I grew up: the sugar white sands, the beaches littered with sea shells and crabs, the clearest water in the world in which you could watch little seahorses and starfish swim, dolphins play, and routinely see huge sea turtles and giant manta rays swimming in the wild.
Gone, now. Probably forever so bubbah can drive his Hummer and Ms. Thing can sip her bottled water shipped all the way from Fiji. Am I angry? You're damned right I am! Where's the righteous indignation over taking care of people and the beauty of God's creation?! Instead, we just want to kick some terrorist butt so we can guzzle some more oil.
And where is Dick Cheney today? Talking to King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia? Trying to line his purse with more oil money no doubt? Now isn't he just the clever one. Dick never misses an opportunity!
Our reckless, live-for-the-moment, greedy, consumptive lifestyle in this nation will inevitably kill us all. But what matters most is that some people will get very wealthy in the process.
Alila Villas Uluwatu, in Bali, is sustainable resort on Bali's southern coast. The pictures depict a gorgeous resort selling for $800 a night and touting luxury combined with ecology. (I'm not too sure such a thing can exist.) But the place is gorgeous. [Source: CoolHunting—sited below the pictures]
I love the infinity pool pictured above.
Perhaps because one of my high school music teachers is retiring at the end of this year (after many years of service) or because of what I saw at the beach yesterday, or maybe both, but this song from my high school music days in the Singers came back to me.
Red and yellow and pink and green
Purple and orange and blue
I can sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow too.
Listen with your eyes,
Listen with your ears,
and sing everything you see,
I can sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow,
sing along with me.
Yesterday I was surprised to see that the lifeguard stations along the Pacific all have had their banisters painted one of five different colors. I'm not sure if the remainder of each station will be painted the same color it currently is, the color of the banister, or a completely different color. Time will tell.
Tim likes!
(To hear the song, click here.)
Tonight's sunset was different from the norm with its clouds hanging low in the sky, but then, what exactly is the norm for the Pacific Coast? It is always expressing a subtle shift in mood.
These photographs of albatross chicks were made in September 2009 on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.
To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.
~Chris Jordan, October 2009
Chris' creative work on trash and the 21st century has been eye opening. I've followed it now for a couple of years. He has enlightened my perspective on the impact the consumptive culture in which we live is having on our world and its animals.
I didn't realize that our plastic is in fact an oil-based product. In fact, last summer I read a post in which the writer concluded that a single bottled water should be seen as two-thirds water and one-third oil, because that's how much oil is required to manufacture the plastic and transport it to market.
The, I came across this TED presentation.
I love many things about fall: the shorter days, the nip in the air, the angle of the sunlight, and the fact that the beach returns to the locals after Labor Day weekend.
This afternoon featured a gorgeous sunset with a heavy fog layer down by Santa Monica and Malibu. (You can't really make out the fog in this picture as it was further to the right.) The number of people at the beach and walking along the Strand was reduced by 75%.
Add to all of this a wonderful dinner at an authentic French restaurant. Ahhh. Life doesn't get much better than this.
I'm so glad I had the opportunity to visit Norway in the summer of 2006--just over 3 years ago now. That country has such a pastoral serenity during the summer months. I reflected on my visit because I stumbled upon these two marvelous panos from one of my favorite sites, 360 Cities.
Here are a few of my pictures presented below. You can also visit my Norway gallery if you wish for more of this breath-taking 2006 trip. This post ends with the two panos from Norway that prompted this journey down memory lane. When viewed in fullscreen on a huge monitor, these panos are stupendous!
Click any image below for a larger view.
Solestrand
Loen
Balestrand, Norway
Balestrand, Norway
Balestrand, Norway
Hardangervidda, Norway
Borgund Stave Church, Borgund, Laerdal, Norway in Norway
Ferry Cruise Hellesylt - Geiranger, Geiranger Fjord, Norway in Norway
Sounds like a song, doesn't it!
Well, Last night I felt my third and fourth earthquakes since living here in Southern California. I had already fallen asleep but was immediately awakened with the house rumbling. The sound of the earth moving is quite unsettling--more than feeling the house shaking. I wondered if I needed to get out of the house, but there are trees and power lines all around. I assume being outside would be more dangerous. This quake was the first to "cause damage," pictured to the side, here at the house. Of course, I'm being overly dramatic.
A few minutes later was what I believed to be an aftershock, but what is reported as another earthquake.
I immediately checked Twitter to see who was tweeting what: where was the quake, how serious was it, who was being affected? But Twitter was non-responsive. Imagine that! So, after the adrenalin rush passed, i went back to bed.
This morning I learned several things:
For all the news, it really is a big gorgeous world out there. Check out this Pano and the others linked to it...
High today of 82º?!
And I just came in from showing the sprinkler guy what needs to be tweaked in the yard's sprinkler system. You know, here in the desert, since it never rains, if you don't regularly water the yard, it dies!
I think it's already gone higher than they forecast! It's way too hot for January!!
I travel so much I haven't done much of anything here in the greater Los Angeles area to actually appreciate where I live. Well, I take that back. I do walk along the ocean with regularity. And I also ride my bike along the ocean as well. (Yesterday, for example, I rode over 10 miles.)
So today it was off to do a hike in Eaton Canyon in Pasadena. I was impressed with the beauty of the city of Pasedena. The area of the city I had visited before wasn't at all appealing to me. But these homes actually reminded me of Atlanta: they had yards!
At any rate, the hike route I took is shown above (I was wearing my GPS) and was slated as "easy." Well... The first mile in was an easy walk near the creek/river bed. You can see the picture of that area in the top photo of me above. (I know, rare to see me in a picture as I hate having my photo taken!) The last .5 was another matter entirely!
Hikers have probably a dozen creek crossings. At one of them I decided a wet foot was better than a broken one (from sliding off a very round rock). So I stepped directly into about a foot of rapidly flowing, very cold water. That shoe is still drying out.
And then there is another issue: the guidebook said the hike was 1.5 miles. However, the GPS I wore said I hiked 6.1 miles today. So here are the stats:
At the end of the trail hikers arrive at the base of about a 70 foot waterfall. At least the last part of the hike was in the shaded canyon itself. So the breeze was pleasantly cool as I clawed my way up and down boulders.
In the next day or so I hope to post a few more pictures of the area. Photography simply can not capture the grand scale of the canyon. If I get back to this place (I have others on the list), I'll shoot some 360º panos in here and wear some waterproof boots. But, for now, here's a shot of the waterfall.
I believe we need to return government to "of the people, by the people, and for the people"—not a radically new idea, really.
I invite you to explore Larry Lessig's Change Congress initiative.
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