Thing of Purpose

In memory of Jack Sullivan , our well-liked and respected neighbor, who died earlier in the week.

I am inclined to poetic hyperbole: this was not so much a plethora as " more than one "… OK, two if you insist on counting. " Red sky at night, shepherds delight " and " Mist in the hollows, a good day follows ". What could possibly go wrong? Not a lot, seems to be the answer . A touch of overnight frost; a high dusting of snow; a sunny day with blue skies.   --------------------oOo-------------------- The blog author almost never checks emails or comments.

The old ' Red sky at night, shepherds' delight ' weather lore must be the most inaccurate forecast ever. Even a doofus like me can guess that atmospheric turbulence indicates an approaching storm system. Sure enough, next morning there was pouring rain, but the sun was still shining! Stephen F. Corfidi, NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center, has written about the science  of red skies.   --------------------oOo-------------------- The blog author almost never checks emails or comments.

Tethering has restricted my roaming abilities recently—a smartphone joke; or a bitter disappointment, dependent upon your service provider and your personal experiences of the technology. I was concerned that my tethering restrictions might be making me insular, what Japanese feature-phone (new retronym for you) market analysts have named the " Galápagos syndrome ": learn new information every day, or shrivel up and die! I was also concerned that I was merely using tethering as an excuse for my inborn  couch potato -ing tendencies. So, as an exercise in liberation, all the pictures in this post were taken within a time span of seven minutes and a within a fifty feet radius of where I am sitting. The evidence seems damning, although in my defense I will argue that in one fell swoop I used up most of the picture making opportunities that are available within the terms of reference for the experiment, which is not necessarily a smart-move, or even a feature-move. ...

Remember when scumbling and rag-rolling were all the rage in home decoration? Post WWII 'graining' anyone? There are some sunsets that even Rocky Mountain Power are unable to spoil.   --------------------oOo-------------------- The blog author almost never checks emails or comments.

Both of the pictures in this post were taken in dark corners, without the use of flash, ancilliary, or 'artificial' light. The first picture is of a plant illuminated from the sunlight reflecting off a vehicle window, which threw a shaft of light through the foliage and projected an image onto the wall ten feet behind the plant. I took a picture of the shadows, too, but they looked fuzzy because they are! The rockery in the second picture is a decorative feature in front of a building. It was in deep shadow as we entered. On the way out, I looked down from a mezzanine window between the second floor (first floor for British English speakers) and the first floor (ground floor ditto). A passerby remarked, "That was a fountain." As if that wasn't confusing enough, the rockery was now bathed in light. The sun had moved (more correctly, the earth had rotated, but doesn't that sound kinda pompous?) and was now being reflected from a high window. The sun had not mo...

  --------------------oOo-------------------- The blog author almost never checks emails or comments.

  --------------------oOo-------------------- The blog author almost never checks emails or comments.

  --------------------oOo-------------------- The blog author almost never checks emails or comments.

These extra-terrestial visitors did not have much to say, but I had a long chinwag with the property owner. 'Pine Tree Corner' was in Technicolor this evening. I turned the color saturation down to 'CREDIBLE'. I also chinwagged with a fellow immigrant as this 'plane glinted briefly, then began its descent to the nearby airport community. " What's one of those? " I hear you ask. In this case it's an FAA approved night-lit landing strip with a collection of privately owned hangars that have houses attached. It's the kind of place that Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (1887-1965), better known as Le Corbusier, would probably have loved: " …the beauty of an airport is in the splendor of wide open spaces! " He eulogized in more detail: " …sky, grass, and concrete runways " ('Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World's Most Revolutionary Structure' by Alastair Gordon). Well, two outta three ain't too shabby: ...