Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Off to Catalina Again

It’s our anniversary week and later today, in our tradition, we’re off on a pilgrimage to the place we got married – the city of Avalon on Catalina Island. We will be crossing the Catalina Channel on the Island Express helicopter, which takes about fifteen minutes. I shot this video last year on the helicopter trip over to the Avalon Heliport.

Our plans are to visit some of our favorite places like the shops on Crescent Avenue and the botanic gardens in the hills behind the town. We plan to do a bit more hiking this time, and will probably climb the hill up to the Chime Tower. We’re looking forward to this trip. We will try and update the blog from the island with some photos and posts about the island.

10 Sep 2007 by California Travel

Solar Sparkler

sparkler.jpgNASA’s SOHO website has a weekly feature that highlights selected solar events. This week’s SOHO Pick of the Week is about a video taken by one of the STEREO Spacecraft pair. STEREO consists of two space-based observatories – one ahead of Earth in its orbit, the other trailing behind. The video reveals a recent “shower of sparks” event on the sun’s surface. The circled region in the inset is where to look when playing the 36-second video embedded below:

Continue reading…

09 Sep 2007 by Astronomy Rocket Science

Lean Cuisine

We had a busy day today. We visited the recycle center, did our weekly shopping, maintained the lawn and garden and, finally, grilled some chicken breasts up on the barbecue to go with steamed broccoli and orzo/veggie salad. Served in reasonable portions, it was a waistline-friendly meal – and delicious too!

bbq-chix.jpg

08 Sep 2007 by Food & Dining Home & Garden Photography

Blue Tuscan Rosemary

We never buy commercially-grown rosemary these days, since this beautiful Blue Tuscan Rosemary grows in abundance in the garden here. We have so much of this vigorous herb, that we can use its smoke in the barbecue to add a unique flavor to some of our favorite meats. And who can deny the beauty of the delicate little flowers?

blue-tuscan.jpg

06 Sep 2007 by Food & Dining Home & Garden Photography

Shuttle Tydirium

star-wars-shuttle.jpgWell, not actually, but this little “Butterbug” perching on one of Damsel’s Zinnias reminded me of the Star Wars shuttle craft when it folds it’s wings back for a landing on the flight deck of the Death Star.

To get the inset Shuttle Tydirium photo, I did an Internet search on “star wars shuttle” and found reference to it on WOOKIEPEDIA, the Star Wars Wiki Site. I never saw Wookiepedia before, although I’m sure many readers have.

NOTE: Due to a transition in my work assignment, you will be seeing less content and more pictures for the remainder of this week. Next week we will be blogging from romantic Catalina Island for our annual anniversary pilgrimage.

Damsel took this picture over the weekend.

butterbug.jpg

05 Sep 2007 by Culture Entertainment Home & Garden Photography

Hot Shots

Whew! When we got to the range last weekend, the cooling fan wasn’t keeping up with the elevated temperatures outside. Good thing we dressed in tank tops to help us cope with the heat.

California and the West have been having a heat wave. We usually have a warm spell toward the end of summer, and this year is no exception. Don’t worry, this has been happening for the last 60 or so years that I recall as a California native (second generation), and has nothing to do with mythical anthropogenic climate change.

Shooting was a lot of fun in spite of the temperatures in the range. We each brought our little guns – Damsel’s S&W 442 and my Glock 26 – the regular hand guns – the S&W 686 revolver and the S&W 908s pistol – and all three shotguns with wooden stocks – my 40-year old Ithaca, and both our Remington 870s. The video is us emptying the 870s 5-round capacity magazines.

The 2 by 3 paper target did not do so well.

04 Sep 2007 by California Environment Firearms Photography

Categories

Archives