Monday, January 7, 2013

2012

2013 is starting off on a quiet note.  The weather has been dry except for a couple too brief snow storms in the last few weeks.

There are only a couple months until storm season.  Hopefully this one won't be dry river beds and burning sky.  For now, I just try to remember the gentle sound of thunder.



















Taken March 29, 2012.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

The End of 2012

The new edition of the Mayan Calendar has hit shelves just in time for New Years, this one features cats.

The near full moon the last couple of nights has produced a moon ring. I've seen these several times and always thought of the folklore about impending rain, snow, or ice. The amount of stars trapped in the halo is the amount of days to the next storm.




I noticed two this week. The first being a fairly bright ring and on the eve of some expected precipitation, although it never showed.

This was one of the brighter moon rings I've seen and the first time I noticed the rainbow effect.  It faded before I could get to the wide angle lens.


This ended up being a difficult 16 shot panoramic that I could never get the physics correct on.  I took these with my fixed Nikkor lens and even with the wide angle, would have had problems catching it all.
























Then three days later, a similar effect with a full moon.  That's Jupiter in the upper right corner.

1-3 inches of snow are rumored for New Years Eve in a couple of days and will prove an interesting end to an interesting storm chasing drought plagued year.

In the next couple of days, I'll post my favorite shots of this year.

Thanks for riding along.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Haunted Kansas

The full moon is fading, the candy is plentiful, and October has ended.  Not much to report in the Midwest weatherwise, so I've been visiting old haunts of late.  When I say haunts, I mean the local haunted places in town.  I did a series on another blog about local haunted places and took pictures.  This may become an annual October event.

Crumm Castle in Riverside



Crumm Castle in HDR


Theorosa Bridge near Valley Center
The Strange Red Orb, why is green in front of it?




Bel Aire Water Tower


 

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Tricks of Light and Magic

Look Ma, no tripod!


Look for the skull

Green Lantern






As the party lagged on and one group decided to do one thing, we took the kids (the adult ones too) gave them helium balloons and glow sticks.  This was the outcome.







Cell phone wanders by