Recently in nature + environment Category

Sun 05.12.13 - The conjunction of the new-ish crescent Moon with Jupiter as seen from the Seal Beach Pier.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia Lumia 920.

Photo taken at Bolsa Chica Wetlands by Ms. Jen with her Nikon D800.

Thurs 05.02.13 - While all the other photographers out and about late this afternoon at Bolsa Chica Wetlands had DSLRs with Big Big Big prime lenses mounted (400mm+), I cheekily went to photowalk around the wetlands with my Nikon D800 with the Nikon 50mm 1.4G lens. The high resolution of the D800 plus the sharpness of the 50mm allows me to crop the photo and still get a good clear picture of the egret and the sunlight through it's wings.

I am sure if I stopped traveling and started buying 400mm+ prime lenses, that I would have a clear photo of the mites on the egret's wings, but I do have my priorities. ;o)

This great (white) egret was in the most lovely direct sunlight / backlit pond and then it took off in flight, off it went, but not before I took a few photos.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nikon D800 and an 85mm f1.8D lens.

Wed 05.01.13 - Happy May Day!

Photo by Ms. Jen with her Nokia 808 PureView.

Wed 03.20.13 - Happy Vernal Equinox or Happy First Day of Spring!

While many of you may still be stuck in snow and those of us here in SoCal have been in spring conditions since January where our winter rains have delivered half of what we usually get, still we can all be happy for the equal light and equal night day that is today!

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia 808 PureView.

Tues 10.09.12 - Nip in the air, wearing a fuzzy fleece jacket to do my evening walk around the park - London in the autumn is glorious. Much much better than the late summer/early fire season that passes as fall/autumn in L.A.

Today's Dr. Jeff Masters' Wunderblog is entitled "Hottest rain on record? Rain falls at 115°F in Needles, California" and it appears that California has beaten Saudi Arabia's June 2012 record for the hottest temperature in which rain was observed to fall and hit the ground.

Dr. Masters' reports:

"A searing heat wave rare even for the Desert Southwest sent temperatures soaring to record levels on Monday, with Needles, California tying its record high for the date of 118°F (47.8°C). The temperature might have gone higher in Needles, but a thunderstorm rolled in at 3:20 pm, and by 3:56 pm PDT, rain began falling at a temperature of 115°F (46.1°C). Most of the rain evaporated, since the humidity was only 11%, and only a trace of precipitation was recorded in the rain gauge. Nevertheless, Monday's rain at 115° in Needles sets a new world record for the hottest rain in world history. I don't think many people were outside to experience to experience the feeling of rain falling at 115°, but if they were, it must have been an uncomfortable, sauna-like experience!"

Most Finns would tell you that 115°F / 46.1°C is barely getting the sauna heated.

And Dr. Masters' continues in the 2nd paragraph on Saudi Arabia's previous world record for highest temperature for rain:

"According to weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera, the previous record for hottest rain, which I blogged about in June, was a rain shower at 109°F (43°C) observed in Mecca, Saudi Arabia on June 5, 2012 and in Marrakech, Morocco on July 10, 2010. The 11% humidity that accompanied Monday's rain shower at 115° in Needles was the lowest humidity rain has ever occurred at anywhere on Earth in recorded history, according to Mr. Herrera."

Since I appear to be following in my mother and grandfather's steps into weather geekery, I have to say that my weather pattern and factoid curiosity for such questions as what is the highest temperature it can rain at or the lowest temperature that it can snow at is satisfied on a regular basis between NOAA, NASA, and Dr. Masters' weather blog. Thanks!

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Mon 05.07.12 - My first full day in London coincided with May Bank Holiday which meant that streets and Park were fairly quiet, so a good long walk in Kensington Gardens was a lovely way to start my AppRetreat. A good long walk after catching up on my sleep and battling jetlap induced nap attacks.

After a rather dry winter, London and the UK have had the rainiest April ever and now the beginning of May is a lovely soft green with flowers unfolding everywhere.

"It is the people who have made the changes." - John D. Liu

"I am amazed that in as short of 5-6 years you can get water this clean." - Ethopian professor Lagessa on how vegetation traps moisture and brings clean water

"Restoration is critical for Africa, particularly for Ethopia. ... This is regional, national, and international." - Prof. Legasse

On the Hope in a Changing Climate documentary (via metafilter.com):

The film "Hope in a Changing Climate" is created by John D. Liu, the director of Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP). The EEMP is dedicated to continuous research and collaborative learning in environmental, sustainable development and public health subjects; and to producing, gathering and distributing high quality audio-visual materials to support public awareness of these crucial issues.
This documentary demonstrates that it is possible to rehabilitate large-scale damaged ecosystems, to restore ecosystem functions in areas where they have been lost, to fundamentally improve the lives of people who have been trapped in poverty for generations and to sequester carbon naturally. This approach has been dramatically proven on the Loess Plateau in China, the highland area spanning some 640,000 square km in north central China. It is the birthplace of the Han Chinese, headwaters of The Yellow River and home to a new environmental and economic paradigm: A degraded ecosystem of more than 35,000 square km of land now teems with life and supports the sustainable economic, social and agricultural activities of its people.

Today is World Water Day.

Photos taken at the Huntington Library and Gardens on 03.10.12 by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Tues 03.20.12 - Today is the first day of Spring 2012. Well, first day if you are in the Northern hemisphere and east of the Central time zone, but here in California we turned to Spring at 10:14pm last night. Though in typical Southern California form, spring has been blossoming since the leaves fell off the trees in mid-January.

The On Being Blog has a nice photo essay on the Iranian-Kurd-Afghani spring celebration of Nowruz. If you are Catholic or Orthodox, then Happy Lady Day to you or not if you are cranky.

Even if you are still knee deep in snow and weeks away from flowers and trees blossoming, go light a good bonfire and jump over it in joy of Spring! The bonfire will at least keep you warm... ;o)

Photos of the Lunar Eclipse taken by Ms. Jen on Seal Way with her Nokia N8.

Sat 12.10.11 - Saros Cycle 135 Full Lunar Eclipse was visible from Seal Beach from about 4somethingAM to about 20 minutes before the moonset at 6:50am, as the last I saw a faint remnant of the eclipsed moon was at 6:27am. Left my house just after 5:45am to walk along Seal Way to see both the eclipsed moon setting in the west and the sun rising in the east.

While cold, it was a lovely morning to see the full moon slowly but surely being eclipsed by the earth's shadow.

Thurs 12.08.11 - Photo of the peacocks in the ponies' riding area taken at Irvine Regional Park by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D7000 using a 18-200mm VR lens in Dan's studio yard on Wed Oct 12, 2011 as all the media madness was going on less than 100 m/yds away.

Mon 10.24.11 - Two local tree flowers as seen fallen on the Ocean Ave sidewalk, photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Fri 10.07.11 - This afternoon, Erika and I went to the Getty Center to see the Crosscurrents Paintings in the Pacific Standard Time exhibit and we walked out to the Getty's gardens to see the sculpture that was also a part of the PST exhibition and to wander around the maze area.

The afternoon was the perfect Los Angeles weather right after a rain storm has pulled out and the air is sparkly, the surfaces clean, and the view spectacular. The best time to go to the Getty.

I recommend if you live in SoCal or are visiting any time in the next six months to get out to one or more of the various Pacific Standard Time art exhibitions that are in museums and galleries in LA, Orange County, Palm Springs, San Diego, and Santa Barbara. The scope of modern and contemporary (1945 -1990) that was made in Southern California in so many different spaces is monumental.

Two weeks ago, Erika and I went to see the Sam Maloof PST show at the Huntington, the Crosscurrents Painting exhibition at the Getty today, and sometime within the next few weeks I will be going to MOCA to see "Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974 - 1981" as Kim Vollstedt has recommended it. Anyone want to join me?

Fri 09.23.11 - Photo of a magnolia blossom by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8 at the Huntington Library and Gardens.

Wed 09.07.11 - Photo of local tree flower taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Photos of the Hummingbird & Agapanthas at the Huntington Library & Gardens taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Yesterday, Thurs 08.18.11, Erika and I went to the Huntington Library and Gardens, as we walked towards the Rose Garden we passed a line of agapanthas that were thick with hummingbirds. Most were Anna's Hummingbirds fighting for territory over the flowers, but there was one very calm and peaceful young (juvenile, 1st summer) Allen's or Rufous hummingbird that was sipping at the agapanthas at its leisure and then resting on top of the flowerstalks.

I thought this was very sane behavior as it was 93F/34C in the shade. But as more and more of the visitors walking down the path stopped to take photos of a hummingbird at rest and so close up, Erika and I started to get concerned that it was sick and not able to move. At one point it sat for a breather on the sidewalk, which is a typical behavior of very young birds in their first week or two of fledgling/learning to fly as their muscles aren't quite ready.

I am glad that this little hummingbird had a court of respectful, if not photo-full admirers, while it was getting its strength up to fly rather than a bevy of local cats. After about 10 minutes, I got a bit distressed and asked Erika if we could move on, as I was afraid we would see the bad side of the circle of life.

Dear little young one, you were very lovely. May you fledge successfully. May you visit many flowers and have a long and good life in the shadow of the San Gabriel Mountains. Many blessings upon you. Thank you for letting us watch you.

Wed 05.18.11 - After a surprise rain storm the last two days, it was quite windy & chilly this morning. As Scruffy & I left for our morning walk, I saw my neighbors Earl and Ryan dressed up like it was winter not the verge of summer.

Sun 05.01.11 - Photo of May Day flowers taken by Ms. Jen at the Huntington with her Nokia N8.

Sat 03.19.11 - Big weekend in the neighborhood of planet Earth: Hindus welcome in Spring in the festival of Holi, the Persian New Year in Nowruz, the Jewish spring holiday of Purim, the Spring Equinox, and a once every 18 years super Moon in perigee.

To celebrate all of this spring and astronomical related happiness, the dogs and I went to Irvine Regional Park this morning for a good long walk. The park and surrounding hills were cloaked in new green grass and the air was full of birdsong. The western bluebirds where at their boxes and I even heard baby bluebirds chirping from one box as the mom waited on a sycamore tree branch adjacent to the bluebird box. Lovely.

I like the idea of celebrating the New Year with the arrival of the Spring season and the vernal equinox. January 1 seems so out of place. Mid-March when the world is bursting with life, now that is New Year.

Happy Spring. Happy flowing creek water in Southern California.

Sun 01.23.11 - If winter has you down, go visit the Huntington Library & Gardens in San Marino, Caliornia, as this second to the last weekend in January was it was bright, sunny, and quite warm at 82F (27.7C). The most glorious part of this time of year, particularly after all the rains in December plus the warm weather of the last two weeks, is how many of the camellias were already in full-bloom and quite a few of the Asian fruit trees in the Japanese and Chinese gardens were putting on a show in time for the upcoming new year.

Today was a lovely day to visit the gardens. All photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Sat 11.20.10 - Photos taken at Bolsa Chica Wetlands by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

Wed 11.03.10 - There is a fabulous garden on the front row of the Seal Beach boardwalk/ Seal Way where the owner/gardener is in a lovely little south facing micro-climate that allows him to grow bananas, tomatoes until Christmas, artichokes, and tropical flowers. This flower is one of my favorites in his garden.

Wed 10.27.10 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N8.

At 8:09pm Pacific Time, 3:09am UTC, it will be the second 'equal' day/night of the year. In five minutes we, here in the Northern Hemisphere, pass from Summer to Fall / Autumn, which starts my favorite time of year.

Ok, not really fave time of year in SoCal due to our usual fall fires, but when I visit other places, I love autumn.

Enjoy.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Sat 09.11.10 - Autumn is approaching, the neighbor's backyard persimmons are starting to turn orange and the air is by far crispier than the usual SoCal September hot & humid.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Mon 08.16.10 - Or why I love my Nokia N86 camera phone, the camera really is extraordinary. Hello, little bee.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen at Dog Beach with her Nokia N86.

Sat 08.07.10 - Yes, SoCal is still experiencing June Gloom in August. The weather has been gloomy/foggy in the morning and sunny in the afternoons with temperatures in the low to mid 70s F (19-22C). One would think it was May and not August.

Others are complaining and want a real summer, I love it.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

07.20.10 - June gloom, aka the Marine Inversion Layer, returned on Sunday morning after a week of strong sun and heat. Today my favorite local sycamore tree looked particularly green and restful in the late afternoon diffused light due to the cloud cover.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86. Click for original sized image.

Wed 07.14.10 - This morning, as I woke up, I noticed a scarab beetle making out with my carpet, right on the edge of the area that I steam cleaned yesterday. The beetle was about 2cm (nearly 1 inch long) and when it had its head in the carpet, its butt was in the air. Very silly little creature.

Me being me, meant that I had to get up, walk past the beetle without disturbing it, grab my Nokia N86 8MP camera phone to take a photo or two. I put the camera settings on "Close Up" and zoomed in a bit to take two photos of which the one above was the one with the most clarity - click on the photo to see the original large size for details.

Oh what clarity the N86 captured! The hairs on the head of a 2cm beetle.

Of course the beetle got camera shy and lowered its butt by the time I got the camera to it, but the Nokia out performed my wishes. Not even my borrowed Nikon D70s could have taken the above photo.

Bravo!

Photo taken this afternoon by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

p.s. The sun decided to show its face to us before 2pm today, old Sol decided to wake up nice and early by breaking through the clouds in the 8:30am time zone for the first time in over a month. Glory glory.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86 this misty morning about 10:30am looking out from Seal Beach to Esther the Oil Platform.

Mon. 07.05.10 - Rarely does the Southern California's June Gloom last into July. Some years the marine layer of clouds will stubbornly persist in the mornings until the Fourth of July, but most years the Fourth of July dawns sunny and hot, not low, gray, looming clouds with a windy chill as yesterday's weather.

In the course of my living memory, there have only been two summers where the clouds stayed past noon and/or the clouds stayed all summer long, depressing many and causing tourists* to snark about "Sunny California".

The summer of 1983 had clouds that lasted well into July and it did not get good and sunny at the beaches until August. The winter of 1982/1983 was one of our biggest El Nino years in history and the following year was a La Nina year. The summer clouds created by the chillier than normal ocean & hot land foretold of the La Nina to come.

The summer of 1991 had clouds as far inland as Buena Park all summer long, while it was odd to be socked in with clouds 20 miles inland from the ocean in August, that was the year that Mt. Pinatubo blew it's top and created the 2nd biggest eruption in the 20th Century. But the early nineties were also a strong La Nina and California drought era.

In a year of drought, it can be a blessing to the parched hillsides to have clouds and a bit of mist over a hot, drying sun, even if it causes S.A.D. and cranky beach goers.

Scientists announced last month that this past year's El Nino had abated and that the Intertropical Convergence Zone in the Pacific has lower than normal temperatures and they declared 2010 to be a La Nina year. Or shall we also account Eyjafjallajökull's ashes to partially account for this year's extended June Gloom season in SoCal?

My bet to account for the longer than usual June Gloom this year is largely with La Nina with a possible sprinkling of volcano ashes. Regardless, this morning and yesterday morning had low lying clouds bordering on fog and the temperatures were in the 60s F / late teens C and not the 80s F.

Yesterday the sun finally burned the clouds off at 12:43pm and they did not return until after 5pm. Today we had a sprinkling rain most of the morning, the clouds didn't burn off until after 2pm and by 4:30pm the clouds had rolled back in.

Clouds most of the day with a fine misty morning? Who imported in a nice western Irish summer to Los Angeles?

;o)

* Dear tourists, please note that SoCal is at her *TRUE* glory from Jan 15 - March 15th. When your town is knee deep in with snow & cold, SoCal gets a storm or two that blows in, blows out, and leaves crystal clear, sunny days with snowy mountains. Our summer does not really start until July most years, and does not really heat up until August & September. Check Weather.com and book your holidays accordingly. kthnxbai.

Mon 06.21.10 - At the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, today was/is Midsummer, but here in the mid-latitudes (33N), today at 4:28am PDT marks the beginning of the summer season, or the summer solstice.

Now, the specific 33N mid-latitudes that I live in is the greater Los Angeles basin area, of which June 20/21st marks the end of the June Gloom season (May 1st - June 30th) and the start of the Mostly Consistently Sunny Season but before the start of the official Fire Season (Sept 15th - Oct 31st). Thus, Summer in other people's worlds.

Me, I am not so much of a fan of the season known as Summer, and I am even less a fan of the late Fire Season. I like my mostly consistently sunny season to be Dec 21st - March 15th. I like my sun to come with sharp, crisp chilly weather, not sweltering, stagnant hot weather.

I will leave the love of the hot to the folks of the higher northern latitudes who have a real winter and thus summer is a treat or to the folks of the equatorial latitudes for whom summer is year around and any drop below 68F/20C is FREEZING.

So how, some way, I will figure out how to spend Midsummer to late October north of the 55th parallel line next year. Some how, some way.

And to the rest of you, Happy Summer!

On the Left: 1950s/1960s photo from the Huntington Beach archives, On the Right: 2010 photo taken today by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Sun. 06.13.10 - Yesterday while researching my blog post on the century of oil wells & pumping in Seal Beach & Huntington Beach, California, I found the above left photo of oil wells as seen from the Huntington Beach Pier taken in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

Today, I decided to drive down the pier before sunset and try to find the place the photo was taken and take another photo, on the right. The original must have been taken from the mid-pier lifeguard tower due to the angle, and I did not have access to the tower, so I took it from the place the ladies the in the original stood.

I wanted to have the photos show how much HB has appeared to change in the last 50 years, although underneath not as much. There is still oil being pumped in between and around the million dollar ocean view homes.

As I drove out of the parking lot just north of the pier, I decided to take a video, see below, as I drove north up Pacific Coast Highway to narrate both as a visual and verbal history what I know of the land between the Huntington Beach Pier and the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

There is still some visible oil pumping and drilling, but much of it is now hidden or expensive homes have been built over the capped wells. As one drives north on PCH from the HB Pier towards Bolsa Chica the oil rigs, wells, pipes, and tanks along the roadside become more visible to the watchful eye. Then as the road descends into the Bolsa Chica wetlands, the oil wells and pipes become highly visible on three of the four sides of the wetlands.

Please do read yesterday's blog post, On Offshore Oil, if you are wondering what I am talking about.

Photo taken this morning at Dog Beach by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

I have grown up in beach communities in Southern California to a surfing / beach volleyball mad family. Much of my memories & lessons of childhood revolves around sun, sand, a fierce ocean, jellyfish stings, riptides, and tar.

From my earliest memories, nail polish remover was for getting the black sticky tar off one's feet and it wasn't until I was older that I learned about enamel nail polish. As a child, little patches of tar washed up on the beach was objects of play, much like the ocean's version of play dough mashed up with silly putty. Except it only came in one color, black.

The landscape of my childhood is one of oil, oil rigs, oil donkeys/seesaw horsies, offshore oil islands & oil platforms. Southern California was just a string of Spanish missions and land grants running cattle until the discovery of oil and water. The offshore oil seeps and onshore tar pits of Los Angeles are thousands/millions of years old. Onshore and offshore oil made this town. William James Mullholland made sure that there was water for this town in the 1920s.

All my life there has been a give and take, sometimes shove and push, between the needs of the people and their need for oil to run a modern life in a semi-desert and the needs of the land and environment in California. For all of our "Land of the fruits & nuts" or "The Left Coast" or hippie environmental tree hugging, we here in California, and by California, I mean all of us, not just LA, but SF and the Central Valley, etc, we all rely on the wonders of the oil economy for our automobile based lifestyle, for our water to be pumped from the Sierra Nevada mountains, for our modern homes, the plastics that make our computers and devices, and on the list goes.

Yes, here in the western US, we have most of our electricity coming from hydropower and in the deserts of SoCal we are developing big solar farms, as well as big windmill farms in the passes between our mountains. But, a big but...

Both in SoCal and NorCal, we have built our cities on great ports with large docking for oil tankers, we have refineries that convert the oil to gasoline and other products. We build over the land that once contained many oil rigs and oil donkeys pumping oil out for our consumption, now we cleverly hide them with buildings. Or we take the rigs down, place them offshore, angle the drilling to pump into the same area, and then build million dollar homes over the land that has been soaked in oil for the last 100 years. Funny, those patches of land have some the highest rates of cancer in SoCal. Not so funny for the folks who bought the houses and let their children play in the backyards.

Layers of history. Layers of landscape. Layers of industry. Layers of suburbia. Layers of city over desert. Layers of tar washed up on the beaches.

Esther, Emma, Eva, Edith, Elly, Eureka, plus two more between Seal & Huntington Beaches and Catalina Island. I know their names, I am fond of them. Every couple of years one can surf the sand bar near Esther. Eva and Emma are just off of Dog Beach (see photo from this morning at the top). The big noisy diesel powered supply boat pulls out of the Seal Beach pier to run supplies and employees to the all the E's. Sometimes, when you are walking your dog early or late, you see dead tired, oil smeared men in dark work overalls carrying backpacks and hardhats as they walk down the pier to a waiting car on Ocean Ave coming home from a set of shifts on the E's.

I actually love Esther and Eva. I think they are lovely ladies, so gracefully raising from the Pacific Ocean only a mile or less off the coast. I love their bright white girders, their lights at dusk and night, and at 5am when I hear the supply boat take off from the pier, while the gunning of its engines wakes me up, I smile thinking of those men in their overalls going out to one of the ladies to bring up the crushed organic remains of 100s of millions of years old diatoms giving their ancient selves for our smog and melting glaciers.

Coal with enough time & pressure becomes diamonds, diatoms with the same time & pressure become black liquid diamonds.

Romantic pftuffle!

By age 9, I had learned that the lovely buildings on the islands in the Long Beach bay weren't modernist apartments for the terminally hip, but disney-esque facades for the oil rigs, platforms and pumping bound for Terminal Island. To this day, I still wish they were apartments for people and not for long dead diatoms.

If tomorrow Esther or Eva's wellhead blew out, the fix would be simpler than a deeper offshore rig as both of them sit on continental shelf that is less than a hundred feet in depth between the ocean floor and the top of the platform, possibly a bit more in Eva's case. Yes, it would be a tragedy, yes oil booms would be placed at the entrance of the Anaheim Bay and at the entrance of the Bolsa Chica wetlands to protect the precious Seal Beach & Bolsa Chica wetlands, bird & fish hatcheries. But there are already permanent floating booms at the Bolsa Chica wetlands, as they are still pumping oil on 3 of the four sides bordering the fish & bird protected areas. The wild lands have been in terse congress with the oil lands for many many years.

I haven't written about the DeepWater Horizon oil spill off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf Coast yet, as I have been appalled at our collective hubris to think we could drill at depths of over 5,000 ft and horrified at the scale of the environmental disaster. All of my romanticism of the strange mix of industry and oil with the land has completely flattened and atomized by the magnitude of disaster that has been occurring in the Gulf of Mexico for the last 6 weeks.

I am horrified and saddened. Every time I see photos of birds or turtles encased in oil sludge and dying, I cry. I am not sure what else to write as my words are no sop to the enormity of tens of thousands of barrels of oil gushing from a high pressure wound in the ocean floor nearly a mile below the surface.

May this disaster be the catalyst to cause us to break up with our 150 year romance with oil, stop going back for more, and move on to sustainable forms of energy even if they are less sexy and more expensive than oil. Maybe it is time for humanity to return to a collective worship of the sun, the wind, and the waves rather than the vengeful mistress of black, black oil.

****

Follow-up Post: Following the Huntington Beach Oil Trails, a Tale of Two Photos

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Tues 05.08.10 - The magnolia tree sapling that got completely ran over and trapped under the runaway Volvo back in late March has now rebounded and is actually blossoming rather than dying as the city workers predicted it would do. It still has Volvo scars, but is thriving.

Go, little magnolia tree, go.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D70s at Irvine Regional Park.

Updated Wed 05.26.10 - I have been spelling the name of the "Tree Poppies" wrong, it is Matilija poppy. Oops.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N86.

Thurs 05.20.10 - Erika and Thomas just got back from three weeks in New Zealand, so Erika and I decided to meet up today to go for a long walk. When I arrived at her house, I suggested that since it was late May and the weather had started to warm up, that we should go to the Huntington Library and Gardens in San Marino to see if the Rose Garden was in full bloom.

Oh was it ever in full bloom! We came the very right week to see every rose bush in full, over the top, bloom. It was amazing. The afternoon was warm at 84F/29F, clear, and sunny. We walked purposefully around the Rose Garden, all the while sniffing the roses and taking photos.

Luckily, the Huntington was not very crowded. My suggestion is if you live in the LA area, go the Huntington in the next 3-4 days to see the roses at their first bloom peak. It is truly amazing.

And the lotus flowers in the Japanese, Chinese and North Lawn ponds/fountains are also in bloom.

Do go. It is lovely.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D70s using a 50mm 1.8D lens.

Wed 04.28.10 - During the Nokia N8 Q&A CoverItLive Event today, panelists were asked to slow down on questions to give the Nokia folk time to answer, so I took photos of my birthday tulips while waiting for my turn to ask a question.

I shot the tulips in natural indoor light with no other lights on or using the flash, the curtains were open and it was clear & sunny outside. I do wish that I had a light coming up through the tulips to illuminate the purple ones better.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Sun 03.28.10 - Last Sunday afternoon the whole of SoCal was socked in with a not so nice foggy inversion layer that obscured all visibility and foiled my plans to take Lloyd Davis around the Palos Verdes Peninsula to whale watch before dropping him off at LAX so he could fly home to London. We did drive from the Queen Mary to LAX via Pt. Fermin, Pt. Vincente and Palos Verdes Drive, but it was not the show stopping March day I was hoping for.

Seven days later, today, the show stopping, crystal clear, once in every five years, truly stunning Southern California day occurred. It was beyond warm, 82F at the beach and 88F just a few miles inland with very little breeze. The air was so clear that one could not only see all the canyons & green hills of Catalina Island (26 miles out to sea) but one could clearly see Mt. San Gorgonio & Mt. San Jacinto 70 something miles to the east with their mantles of snow.

Not a day to waste, so I packed up the film Nikon FM3a, the digital Nikon D70s, my brother's borrowed fancy binoculars, the Nokia N86, and off I went to drive Palos Verdes Drive around the peninsula to the Point Vincente Interpretive Center to see if there were any whales to be seen. The whole drive was packed out with Sunday sightseers and the hills were green and scattered with purple lupine and yellow mustard flowers.

When I got to Point Vincente, the whale watchers were out in force, from the hardcore with their expensive sight scopes to the families with binoculars. The best part is that 2 fin whales were with in eyesight distance about a mile offshore and a whole pod of common dolphins plus babies where only about 200 yds/m off the coast just beyond the kelp beds.

Between watching the fin whales breach, spout out water, flip their tail flukes and the antics of the baby dolphins plus the amazingly clear day, today was a true visual feast.

Happy Palm Sunday! Happy Spring! Happy Baby Dolphin Day!

Photo of California Poppies taken on Mon 03.22.10 by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N86.

Spring sprung on Sat March 20th, 2010. Due to the big family event, I didn't wish all of you Happy Spring and Happy Nowruz on Saturday, so I shall wish Happy Spring to you now.

Photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nikon D70s and stitched together with Photoshop Cs. Please click on image for larger image.

Thurs 02.25.10 - The El Nino influenced winter storms with their attendant high surf have more than chipped away at the sand and beach contours of Huntington Beach's Dog Beach, as there are whole sections of beach that are now depleted, areas where the beach sand was tall and deep are now shallow and thin. What was a nice straight beach is now undulating like a ribbon. Today at 1:17pm was a -1ft low tide which usually would mean at least 50 ft of damp sand extending into the interstitial area of the ocean for the dogs to run on, but instead, due to beach sand erosion, the -1ft low tide was at the mid-high tide mark over much of the 2 miles of Dog Beach.

The power of the ocean and winter storms is truly extraordinary.

Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Sun 02.07.10 - For some folks this may have been the day of men in lots of plastic armor running up against each other in some sort of bowl type object, for other folks, particularly the ones in Southern California today was a truly lovely, sunny, clear day after another good rain storm.

As the first Sunday in February, today did a very good job in the sunny, kinda warm, but lots of flowers department. The local ornamental pear trees have been blooming for the last week and they are in full bloom now.

As for the men in plastic armor assaulting each other today for some sort of trophy, well, I am sure some of them won and others did not. I didn't watch them. Instead, I walked the dogs, went to the Long Beach Marina farmers market, took photos, baked a chicken and some root vegetables, and otherwise enjoyed a fine fine Sunday.

I owe y'all my wrap up post about the Nokia Booklet 3G, which I can summarize here: Ubuntu works as a dual book when installed via Wubi, although as of right now, the proper screen resolution does not work reliably; I tried to install Jolicloud last week but it would never download all the way but would stall about 1/4 into the download; and last but not least, I actually found a use for the Windows side of the Booklet, which was to update various Nokia devices with Ovi Suite, until Ovi Suite decided to go dicey on me and stop.

Tomorrow is a big work day but after I have tied up all the little code ends for the final client wrap up on Tuesday, I hope to do a proper write up about the Booklet Day 14.

1.43 inches of rain in less than half a day. Tornado warning. Sirens, emergency announcements. Flooding of Electric Ave. Tornado touches down 1 mile south at PCH and Anderson Street. Storm moves southeast quickly. Big winds, waves, and sun in wake.

I will let the video I took with the Nokia N97 tell the story. The first two were taken around 8am this morning on the berm in the southern most part of the Seal Beach. The second two while the emergency sirens were going off at 12:52 - 1:02pm, Electric Ave was flooding, and the tornado/waterspout was coming ashore. The thrid two were in the 3pm hour after the crazy clouds had moved out.

Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Thur 11.18.09 - Now that the hot, dry SoCal summer (July - Oct) is behind us, the roses are in full busting out all over bloom. Southern California has two good growing seasons, one from February to June and the other from October to December, and if you are within a few miles of the ocean December and January are very kind to one's plants. Go a few miles inland and there will be the occasional frost in December that will piss off the basil and flowers. Go many miles inland and Nov. 15th to Feb. 15th is frost time.

Here in Seal Beach, where we are on the Pacific Ocean, the local roses, camellias, and other spring flowers like pansies, violets, and snap dragons are having their second big bloom of the year after being seared into non-blooming compliance during the hot, dry months.

From now, mid-late November, until April are my favorite months of the year in SoCal. From late April to early November, I would rather live quite a bit north of here, like the 50-54th parallel line. ;o)

Blackburnian Warbler, May 2009, Magee Marsh, Ohio. Taken in the wild by g-graphic.

For years I have told friends and family that I really want to visit Central Asia, climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, and eat Chinese food in Greenland. I didn't know that this activity was called a 'Life List' or a 'Bucket List', but I had one in my head and most of it revolves around the intersection of my love for nature/mountains, history, culture, and travel.

Given that it is now meme-able to post your life list on your blog, I thought I would write down the list items that have lived in my head for years and will add to this list as I think of more.

Ms. Jen's Life List, in no particular order:

1. Travel to Greenland, eat at the Chinese restaurant.

2. Sit under a wild apple tree in bloom on the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains.

3. Go into space.

4. Travel around the world in less than 4 hours, stopping in London, Mumbai, Sydney, Tokyo, and LA.

5. Hike up Mt. Kilimanjaro before the glacier melts.

6. Travel the Silk Road.

7. Visit Tuvalu

8. Visit Tuva and Mongolia, go see some of the Mongolian carved megaliths.

9. Spot a Blackburnian Warbler in the wild.

10. Learn to fly a plane.

11. Learn to fence properly.

12. Spot a Vermillion Flycatcher in the wild - Fulfilled on March 1, 2009 at Buckskin State Park in Arizona.

13. Live in central London for a couple of years at some point.

14. Live in a loft at some point and actually paint in it.

15. Stay overnight at the Pic du Midi Observatory in th French Pyrénées.

16. Spend a week in a cabin / summer house on a lake in Finland. - Fulfilled June 24, 2012 in Finland. While I was not able to find a summer cottage for rent over Midsummer, I did stay for a week in Hervanta near Tampere within 1/2 a mile of three lakes and then for Midsummer weekend I went to Turku and spent Midsummer's day & evening on the water in the Finnish Archipelago.

17. Visit at least 2 of the Verracos, particularly the Bulls of Guisando.

18. Live in central Helsinki for a couple of months at some point. [Added 06.24.12]

Photos taken today by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97 camera phone.

Wed 11.04.09 - Today I am combining my photo post with my text post, as I have received a trial Nokia N97 from WOM World to be an alpha tester for the new Carl Zeiss mobile application. Given that there is no Lifeblog on the N97 and I have been working deep in the PHP Salt Mines, I have not had time to set up the trial N97 for moblogging, so today's photos were uploaded from my MT install.

As I stated yesterday, I repent of most of what I said in my March & August reviews of the Nokia n97, as the recent October firmware update has solved about 98% of my complaints. It is now a device that is fun to use and is not a struggle, this is the version that should have been released back in July, not three months later as an update.

Upon receiving the Nokia N97 yesterday, I was able to set it up about 80% to my satisfaction within the first 15 minutes. I did not attempt to set up moblogging or email, as setting up a POP email account is what made my blood pressure raise so high in July. Today, I did install the Gmail app very quickly, but have not installed PixelPipe* to Share Online.

What I am most satisfied with the new N97 firmware is the to the responsiveness of the touchscreen - fast scrolling / flicking - w00t!, and more refined camera functionality. Scrolling/flicking aside, it is the ability of the camera to now get clear, sharp shots, close-ups, and good color that makes me happy.

The last two days the inland parts of the greater LA area have been quite warm but at the beach we have had pea soup fog most of the day. When I went to walk the dogs this morning the fog made visibility low and all surfaces wet. Even though the air was gray & murky with water droplets, the Nokia N97 was able to take a good photo of the building of the annual winter sand berm.

As we ended our walk, I noticed an unusual worm with a flat triangle head crossing the sidewalk, I was able to crouch down, set the Nokia N97 to close-up mode and get the camera lens within 5 inches of the worm and still get a good, clear shot of the worm, its colors, and bizarre head. Before the October firmware update, I would not have been able to get the clarity and sharpness of the worm at 5-6 inches away.

More on the Carl Zeiss app tomorrow.

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* PixelPipe, please release a stand-alone app for Symbian that is like your delicious PixelPipe Pro for Android.

Southern California's first good rainstorm of the year* has arrived. Normally, even in a good rain year, we don't get our first rain until mid-November. On the exceptional year we will get the first real rain at the end of October, but at the start of the month?

Crossing fingers that this means we will have a good rain year, as after several years of drought, we need it.

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* SoCal receives rain from Oct to April (usually Nov - April) and our weather year is usually counted from July 1 to June 30th.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Mon 08.31.09 - That mushroom cloud is not a thunderhead, nor is it an atomic cloud, but is the singular cloud of the Station Fire as seen from the distance in Huntington Beach.

Since the United States has been so obsessed with free markets, democracy, and business competition, it is time that the health care systems gets a good dose of competition from these United States in the form of a public health care and insurance option for any citizen or legal resident of these said States.

Given all the hysteria from various corners and pressures from lobbyists, the various Congress Critters and Administration folks seem to have lost heart and have caved to a reform bill that is unpalatable by most.

Last week while having dinner with my mostly Republican family, a hue and cry went up about health care reform. I expected various members of the family to bash Obama's health care plan, which they did, but not for the reasons I expected. Several folks at once cried out, "What happened to the public option?"

After discussing all the various perspectives, everyone but my 89 year old Grandma agreed that the US needed a public health care option to be opened for all who wanted one. Two of my aunts agreed with me that the Irish way of public health care for all and extra private supplemental care for those who want to pay for it was an excellent way to go.

When I lived in Ireland, I purchased private supplemental health insurance from VH-1 for €10 a week, which at 2005 exchange rates worked out to be about $54 per month. This supplemental health insurance would give me a semi-private room if I ended up in a hospital plus other options for picking the doctor of my choice. Right now, I pay $297 per month to Kaiser Permanente for health care and I have no idea what my hospital coverage is if I would need it other than I have a $100/day co-pay.

I felt more confident in Ireland with the public health care and my supplemental healthcare than I do now with Kaiser. I am reluctant to go to Kaiser and in the last three years have only been 5 times in total, twice for my migraines, once for an ear ache, and twice for travel shots & booster vaccinations, otherwise I have avoided the Kaiser doctor like the plague. I have paid out of pocket to see an N.D. about my allergies & migraines, as Kaiser in SoCal does not cover ND's although they do in their Pacific Northwest territory.

I am willing to pay out of pocket to see a doctor that is willing to explore the real causes of my migraines as the ND was and the doctor at Kaiser was not. The Kaiser doctor did not want to listen to my ideas of what I thought my migraine triggers were, but instead after 2.5 minutes prescribed a $125 co-pay medication and shuffled me out of the office. This is a minor problem to have compared to the large minority of people who do not have any health coverage or are under insured.

Let's not even speak of all the small businesses that will never be started because folks are too afraid to lose their insurance if they leave their job to start a new business or the current small businesses who can't afford to hire more people because they want to provide insurance but can't afford it.

Tonight I decided that I would send emails, via their websites, to the President, my Congress Critter - Dana Rohrabacker (R-CA), and my two Senators' Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer (both D-CA). I tailored each letter to the political type human and here is an example of what was sent:

Dear Senator Feinstein,

I am writing as I am very concerned about the health care legislation that is currently going through Congress, as it does not have a public option. I am concerned that true reform is being squelched by the insurance company lobbyists.

For a variety of reasons - humanitarian, reduce costs, increase competition, and others - we need to provide a public health care option along side of the private health insurance and health care systems currently in place.

Not only do all people within the borders of the US need access to affordable health care, but we need to keep costs down. A public option would increase competition and access.

Thank you,
Jenifer Hanen
Seal Beach, Calif.

Regardless of how your hopes and thoughts in the US health care debate, here below are some good blog posts to get one thinking, after you have done some thinking, please do write your Congress Critter:

Matt Haughey on The entrepreneurial case for national healthcare
BLDGBLOG on City of Fees and Services
William Blim of 3 Quarks Daily on Will Someone Rid Me of Private Health Insurance?
Adam Greenfield on On systems, and what they do

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Mon 08.03.09 - Also, two sets of Mom and Baby dolphins were seen frolicking in the waves.

A friend, who will remain unnamed, recently went on a fascinating camping trip to Zion with a group o' folks. The folks in question were a motley crew worthy of their very own adventure horror comedy movie. And I heard the whole sordid tale.

It was the kind of tale that made one say, "OMG! Oh, dear. Oh, Wow! I am so sorry! ZOMG! How horrifying!" etc etc etc. As a side note, I was invited to this Zion trip, but I instead went to Germany for the Carl Zeiss Factory Tour. After hearing the first 10 minutes of the Zion trip story, I was really really really glad I went to visit with the lovely folks at Carl Zeiss in Aalen.

But after the friend in question related the tale of the Subway Slot Canyon hike at Zion, while the hike they went on in June was hellish to say the least due to the other party members, I would love to go on this hike as it sounds amazing and beautiful and a true test of one's abilities:

Climb Utah on "Subway - Zion National Park - Canyoneering"

Zion National Park on "The Subway"

Tom's Utah Canyoneering Guide on "The Subway Canyoneering Route" with Maps and the Famed Log and Slot.

My friend recommends that one does quite a bit of bouldering, rappeling, and stamina training before attempting the The Subway at Zion. Regardless, from the descriptions and photos from the web sites above, The Subway is lovely.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.

Fri 07.10.09 - Purple is the hardest color for a digital camera to get right, particularly a non-DSLR digital camera. Purple requires quite a bit of computational power to take the sensor's red-green-blue/light-dark and translate it into an accurate purple. Most sensors are good with yellows and oranges, but with purple it either is skewed to the blue or to the red depending on the camera model, the manufacturer, and how much time/money were spent to get the image algorithms right.

The Nokia N97 is getting the closest to getting purple right and the color very close to spot on as any Nokia camera phone or Casio digital camera that I have used to date, although the Nokia N95 and N82 were also very good. Good on Nokia for allocating the computational resources to capture a good purple.

Bravo.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Thurs 06.25.09 - A horse chestnut flowering in Hyde Park.

I will be on an airplane flying from Los Angeles to Stuttgart, Germany, most likely somewhere over northern Canada when the official summer solstice occurs tonight 10:45pm PDT (5:45am UTC), which is highly appropriate to be in a northern clime during the actually time of "sun-standing".

Here is a cool chart from the US Navy on the relative length of longest day and longest night depending on your latitude: If you live just a bit north of Los Angeles at 35N, then today/tomorrow will have 14 hours and 31 minutes of sun, but if you live in Helsinki or Anchorage at 60N, then you will have 18 hours and 53 minutes of sun (providing it is not cloudy, so I should say daylight)!

If you belong to a good old fashioned Sun based religion, enjoy your day and evening... Happy Midsummer!