bad ear day

Wherein we see one downside to having extravagant ear tufts: Static electricity. I wonder what that feels like?

Taz vs. Palm Tree

dusk, koin center

november leaves

Today's batch of autumn leaf photos comes to us from around the SW Lincoln, Chimney Fountain area, if I remember right. The lens for these was an old Vivitar-branded 28mm f/2.0 made by Kiron, which I'd completely forgotten I owned until I found it in a drawer the other day. These were taken with the lens wide open and close to minimum focus, mostly to see what the thing can do.



I mean, I probably already have enough autumn leaf photos already, but I keep taking more for some reason, and I keep posting them here for some reason. So I like to think I'm doing so in the name of Serious Research, at least some of the time.



Another reason for all the leaf photos is that so far this fall has been far less crappy than the previous one. I seem to recall that 2009 went directly from a mild summer straight into nine or ten months of winter storms. There was no possibility of photographing a turning leaf and a blue sky together last year. Not without a little help from Photoshop. And I do realize that, decent fall or not, we still have months of winter storms ahead of us even in the best case, and photos of wintry grimness get old even faster than fall foliage does. So I'm making the most of it while it's here.



It may seem monotonous now, but in February we can all look back at these photos and marvel at how much color there used to be in the world, and sigh loudly, and take another sip of... whatever it is we're drinking at that point. Irish coffee is usually a safe bet at that time of year. Mmm... booze...

daybreak, hawthorne bridge

The main problem with sunrises is that you have to wake up early to catch them. If you go back over the nearly five (!) year history of this humble blog, the vast majority of sunrise photos I've posted have come from cold and clear (or at least only partly cloudy) days in midwinter, when the sunrise occurs latest. If you see sunrises any other time of the year, either I'm on vacation, or some idiot (other than myself) scheduled a meeting at 7 or 8am and I snapped a few quick shots while trudging resentfully to the office. Which is basically what happened this time. You're welcome.

You might have noticed that there haven't been a lot of posts lately that involved a quick pre-work expedition to some local bridge or city park or obscure statue or something. That was before the advent of 9am meetings. Which are an only slightly more civilized practice than 7 and 8am meetings. And then only because a.) we have a machine that brews up a semi-palatable quad espresso, and b.) the jug of aspirin on my desk is never empty.

I should point out that, for an engineer, complaining about meetings is not the same thing as complaining about work. Meetings don't count as Real Work, they're something that interrupts Real Work, and sometimes makes you go back and revisit the Real Work you did last week all because some PHB had a new whim.

So, in short, I do realize this humble blog's gotten a little monotonous of late, and I'm trying to figure out what I can do about that. It could be that I just need to take more vacations, and take more vacation photos when I do. And I can always post more kitten photos. That never seems to get old.

october roses, south park blocks

autumn, pettygrove park

october flowers, sw salmon

autumn leaves, sw 2nd

A cat and his laser

sky, water, grass (whitaker ponds)

Reflections, Columbia Slough at Whitaker Ponds