California Institute of Technology

I took this photo at Cal Tech in Pasadena. Cal Tech is the academic home of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is not far from the campus. It is a beautiful campus, I guess actually located in San Marino not Pasadena. There are so many beautiful buildings, trees, fauna, etc. to photograph. All of the growth is lush and some has been there a long time as you can tell from the way the ivy has taken over this building. We went early in the morning and there aren’t many people around on Saturday of a holiday week-end. Cal Tech is also where the TV show Numbers is filmed.

It was another good day yesterday. I didn’t get any homework done but I will work on that today. Willie and I do not have any plans. I would like to get Willie to finish up the fountain for the backyard – it is still not up and running. Willie lives in the slow lane so there is no rush to him. Kyla and Donnan are doing fine. Donnan is even getting some hair growing back already. Hope you are having a good weekend!

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Morning at the Beach

This was the scene Thanksgiving morning when we went to breakfast. Wasn’t it a beautiful morning? Those big fluffy clouds were fantastic! There were just a few people at the beach. This is across from Pacific Coast Highway by the Hyatt Hotel. There is a bridge from the hotel across PCH to the beach. What a place to stay on vacation!

We had a laid back day yesterday. I did not accomplish very much. We did watch the last two episodes of The Shield and watched the episode we missed a couple of weeks ago of Gavin and Stacey, both very good shows.  Willie took the dogs for a good long walk before dinner. No more rain for now. Larry and Shelley went up to the mountains for the week-end. I am sure they are having a good time. Until tomorrow…

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It Was a Fun Thanksgiving

We had a great day yesterday! It was a long day but it was good. We had a good breakfast down by the beach then to my brother’s for dinner. It was very delicious, as usual – turkey with all the trimmings. My niece Erin, who wants to be a marine biologist, created a nice decoration for the dinner table out of a yam. She is a very talented young lady!  I told her I wanted to photograph it and that she would see it on my weblog. It turned out real cute. I hope she likes it!

Erin’s Thanksgiving sweety potato…

The poinsettia mystery was solved yesterday morning. They came from our neighbor Eleanor, who lives across the street. She gave them to Willie because he helps her with her trash cans and her newspaper from time to time. It was her way of saying thank you. Totally unnecessary but very nice. I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving and were able to spend it with family and friends as we did.

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Let The Holidays Begin!

Aren’t these pretty poinsettias? They arrived on our front porch last evening while I was at school. There was no card, no nothing. No one knocked or rang the doorbell. Willie said he heard something, went to the door, and there they were. He didn’t see anyone either. I called Larry and they were not from him. I called a friend (the only one who has ever sent me flowers!) but I was just able to leave a message.  What a mystery!

Gorgeous red poinsettias for the holidays…

Well, I made some carrot salad and some fudge yesterday to take to my brother’s today. There will be so much traffic!  We are going out to breakfast a little later this morning with Larry, Shelley and my father-in-law, Lorenzo, down by the beach at the Hyatt. I have a question:  If I sharpen an image that has a lot of grain, am I just sharpening the grain? or is it making it less grainy? Have a great Thanksgiving day!

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One More For My Calendar

For the past five years I have made a calendar with photographs I have taken during the year. I give some out as Christmas presents. There are many people who expect them and look forward to them. I worked on it yesterday and came across this photograph I thought you might enjoy. It was taken at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades. We will be going again to the Villa this coming Spring. I really enjoy doing the calendar for my family and friends.

Beautiful Lily Pad Pond…

Donnan’s BooBoo looks really good. Very clean and healthy. He is leaving it alone so I guess it is not bothering him. We finally got some rain yesterday. It started at about 8:00 P.M., off and on with some thunder. The dogs do not like that. It is supposed to rain Thursday. I hope not because we have to drive out to Corona to my brother’s house. His wife Mary is a very good cook. It will be a good day. Until tomorrow…

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A Break in the Clouds?

I was driving home yesterday about 3:30 after taking Donnan to the vet and when I got a few blocks from home I noticed some beautiful clouds in the sky. They were different shades of blue and silver. I decided I would try to capture the colors with my camera as soon as I got home. To me, this shot looked like there was some kind of break in the clouds. Willie thinks it looks like a meandering river. What do you think?

Some very pretty rain clouds..

I just think they are pretty. It is supposed to rain for a few days – but hopefully not on Thanksgiving. It went well with Donnan today. The vet said he is healed and he took the stitches out. There is no more satellite dish and Kyla and him had so much fun when we got home. They went crazy running around the back yard! Life should be much happier for both of them now, and easier for Willie and me!

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One of My Favorite Photos

I really like this photo I took of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. It is such a beautiful building. Frank Gehry was the architect. It looks like The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, which he also designed. I love going to downtown Los Angeles and just driving around.  Actually, Willie does the driving. He knows Los Angeles so well, he can get us anywhere! He takes me to places that are not on the tourist’s maps!

Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA

I was looking at the Huntington Beach Pier Camera yesterday around 4:30 P.M. It showed a very beautiful sunset – made we wish I was down there instead of at home doing laundry! Remember, that link is always at the top of my weblog on the opening page. Donnan gets his stitches out this afternoon. I am so glad things will finally get back to normal around here. I hope the vet does not  put any restrictions on him (which in turn will put them on Kyla and us). I will let you know tomorrow!

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Winter Leaf

A couple of weeks ago I told you Willie brought me a leaf to photograph and it was too windy to photograph it outside. Well, here is my leaf photo! I put it on the porch and took several pictures of it – no sun shining on it and no shadows – just the leaf. What do you think? I did saturate the leaf’s colors so they would stand out against the concrete porch. Maybe a little levels adjustment too. Looks good to me!

A golden leaf of winter…

Anyway, yesterday (11-22) marked the anniversary of JFK’s assassination. I was around then and very young, but I do remember where I was and what I was doing. Probably not very many of you were around then. I guess I am aging myself, but I do not care and I have never been a vain person. That was a very, very long time ago – like another life time. What a thing to witness and to be a part of. Why didn’t I see anything in the paper or on the news about this historic day?

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The Urban Landscape

This is part of the urban landscape in Huntington Beach. Pretty, huh? There are wires and cables everywhere going off in different directions for phone, electricity, cable TV, etc.  I guess we cannot get away from it and be thankful we have it. We all demand these things and this is what we have to look at to get it. That is, unless we live in a more high class area and they put it all underground! There was a beautiful blue sky out but I didn’t want that to distract you from what I was trying to show you! I am going to work on taking more urban landscape photos.

The urban grunge landscape…

To change the subject – we have had this car parked in front of our house for a week so we can’t park there or any visitors. They parked there last Friday, the police came out on Tuesday and marked the tires, they came out again yesterday (we thought to tow it) and now they are saying another 72 hours. We cannot figure out whose car it is. They move it once a week and so far they have avoided a ticket or towing. It is very frustrating. This has been going on for a couple of months!

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Blue

As I said yesterday, I have not been traveling much to take photographs lately (because of Donnan) so I did this one here at home. At first I tried to photograph cream being slowing poured into a glass of coffee but I did not have much luck, so I tried blue food coloring into water. It was fun experimenting and taking lots of shots. Willie helped me alot with this one! I will definitely try that coffee again!

Interesting flow of color…

We had an interesting Flash class last night. We found out we have one less week to work on our final projects. They are now due the week after Thanksgiving. I spent a lot of time a few days ago working on my layout and I am really glad I did.  I felt I was ahead of a lot of people there tonight. But I’m sure there are probably some who are already finished with their projects. Anyway, I will be very busy the next two weeks!

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What Kind of Purple Flowers Are These?

These really were purple when I took the photo but I thought it might be fun to do something different with it. I made it black and white and then added a filter that gave it a brown look, but not quite sepia. I also wanted to increase the contrast. Am I happy with the results? I think the flower on the right is a poppy anemone and they look like impatiens on the left. Again, my mother is not here to ask!

Anemone and impatiens…

Anyway, as you should know by now, I do try to create different kinds of images and see what Is successful. I don’t know yet about this one. Yes, I like this one – it is different. I feel like I have been adding a lot of flowers lately, but they are so pretty and I do enjoy photographing them. I really haven’t gone anywhere in the last week to take photos because of Donnan, so I have had to photograph things close to my home. I will expand my horizons soon!

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Blossoming Chive Plant

I was surprised when I went outside and saw these purple flowers on my chive plant. I guess it is because the weather has been so warm. The purple flowers are so beautiful. I remember the first time I saw them a few years ago - I didn’t know they bloomed like that! It seems that when the herbs produce flowers, they kind of die away for a while. I guess they go to seed? Basil has some pretty flowers too.

Beautiful, delicate purple flowers…

We are still working to get the fountain running. Willie got it all apart but we need to go buy a tall stick to put the solar panel on. It has to always be in the sun or it will stop working. Our back yard does face south so that will be an advantage, especially next summer.  I worked on getting my layout and photos ready for my Flash project. We watched Gavin and Stacey last night and it seems we missed one or two episodes. I don’t know how we can see them now!  ’till tomorrow!

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HMS Queen Mary

I was in Long Beach with Willie last night and thought I would try shooting the Queen Mary again.  I did not have much luck last month so I tried again. I like this one. There is a lot of light reflecting in the sky from the Los Angeles Harbor against a little lingering smoke. Larry and I went there many years ago on a tour and when I first started in real estate, the company had a Christmas party there. It is very beautiful on board.

Queen Mary looking beautiful at night…

We see it every once in a while in a movie or TV show. It has been used a lot for filming. There are several restaurants on the ship and a lot of different kinds of tours. It is pretty to see whenever we are in that area. The Spruce Goose used to be next to it (to the left of this photo), but it has been gone for many years. We never did go to see that. This is still a very beautiful ship and fun to look at and explore.

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My Beautiful New String of Pearls

This is the newest addition to our patio – a very nice and healthy string of pearls (senecio rowleyanus).  Doesn’t the sunlight look pretty shining on it? It is a succulent so it will do well in our backyard. It is hanging next to the donkey tails. To me it looks like a string of peas! Willie takes such good care of all of our plants in the back yard. I got this old cast iron fountain to put in the yard along with a solar powered pump. I am hoping we can get it up and running this week. Of course, I will share it with you!

Is it a string of pearls or a string of peas…?

There have been a lot of fires around Southern California the last 4-5 days. There was one on Saturday here in Orange County. We called some friends to make sure they were ok. I think the fires are winding down now since the wind has died down. But it is still very hot here! Donnan is doing quite well – he was running around outside today with Kyla so we had to bring him in. I think it was a little too much!

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Back at the Shop

This is one of the photos I will be using for my Flash final project. I was going to use it yesterday, but then I got sentimental and used the decal photo instead. I am looking forward to working on the project and I hope I can pull it off. I will post it on my website (can’t put Flash here) when it is done. It is due December 11th, so wish me luck!

They repair and restore English automobiles…. 

Well, Donnan’s vet called Saturday morning and read the pathologists report to me. Bottom line, it was a cyst, originated in a hair follicle and contained a lot of bacteria. If it had burst, it could have caused a lot of infection. There is nothing we could have done to prevent it. As long as all of it was removed, nothing else needs to be done. I was very happy to get this news and really glad that we decided to have it removed. So, we just have to get through the next 8 days and get the sutures removed. Hooray for happy endings! It is very windy and hot here! Have a great Sunday!

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Frank Monise Motors

We were up at the shop yesterday to check out the work being done on my MGB. They have made so many changes there since my father died five years ago. I took a lot of photos because I am going to use them to create a website for my final project for my Flash class.  It made me think about some photos I took years ago. I always enjoyed looking at this wall of decals. There were many more added after this photo was taken but they are all gone now. My brother says it is still there, just covered up with new drywall.

I miss this colorful wall with so much history…

They have done so much work and the place looks great – it is just different. There are some things that have not changed and those things make me feel good. We took both dogs with us up there. They did very well, but they like to go in the car. Kyla more so than Donnan. It was hot in Pasadena yesterday- in the low 90’s. That is so crazy for November 14th!

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