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.

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.

-----
* 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.

----
* 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!

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Fri 05.22.09 - Night heron on the pond's edge at the Rainbow Lanai. We are having a last hurrah breakfast before going to the airport.

Photo by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N79.

Mon 05.04.09 - One the best parts of the Long Beach Marina Farmer's Market in the spring and early summer is that the flower vendor has sweet peas. Not only are they lovely, but they smell like honey.

Wed 04.22.09 - I love the comic, Bizarro. Most of the time it is very bizarre, as the name would lead one to believe, but every so often it is true genius, like today's commentary on Homo Sapiens - the uppity cousins.

Happy Earth Day!

Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N79.

Tues 04.14.09 - One of the neighbors has a Buddha's Hand Citron tree on the edge of their yard. And I photographed the two citrons that were big and lovely whilst walking home with Les Doggies.

Photo by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95.

Happy Easter!

Sat 04.04.09 - More photos on this tomorrow, when I don't have a funky headache.

Photo taken by Ms. Jen at Chiraco Summit with a Nokia N79.

Every butterfly and its brother must have been migrating today across the desert today. As I was driving home from Arizona about 15 miles before Desert Center on Hwy. 177 until Chiriaco Summit (about 34 miles in total) on I-10, waves and waves of butterflies were flying low across the roads and highways.

It was beautiful and sad. Beautiful to see hundreds and thousands of butterflies all at once. Sad to see so many meet their deaths on the grill of my car.

Sat. 03.21.09 - Local mourning dove decides to nest and raise youngins in a cactus filled window box.

I hope all is well, but I am concerned about you.

March, I hate to break this to you, but you seem to be confused this year. I know that you know this and I know that I know this, and so do the other 16 million folk who have lived in SoCal for longer than a couple of years, but ...

March, June Gloom is *supposed* start in June, or mid-May at earliest. Please tell the fog and inversion layer to go away. Yes, go away.

March, you, along with February, are the two months that I brag about to non-SoCal folks. Both of you are usually delightful and glorious, warm-ish, sunny, with a few storms that rumble quickly through and leave the mountains draped in white, which is stark contrast to the same two months in many other places in the northern hemisphere.

March, don't let me down. Please either tell the clouds to rain or to go away.

Thanks, jen ;o)

Happy New Year to all the folks who celebrate it on the Equinox!

All Colbert snarkiness aside, President Obama has given a Norouz address, and here is the wikipedia article on Nowruz.

New Year used to be celebrated at the spring equinox in Europe but it was changed over to January 1 by the Romans and finalized in various other cultures of Europe by the 1700s. Given how many of our holidays have their roots in the agricultural calendar of neolithic Eurasia and pre-Roman Europe, I would prefer that our New Year was celebrated with the advent of spring rather than an arbitrary date picked by Rome. Besides, spring is much more naturally festive than January in the northern hemisphere.

Happy New Year!

Sat 02.28.09 - My Mom and I decided to drive up and explore Lake Havasu City to combat "cabin fever" this afternoon, as we drove north on the Arizona Hwy. 95, I decided to stop at the Bill Williams Wildlife Reserve "scenic view" spot for photos. Scenic it was.

All photos taken with Ms. Jen's Nokia N95 and stitched together with Fireworks.

Wed 02.18.09 - Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia N95 while walking the dogs.

Thur 02.12.09 - Or the Nokia N95 is back in action.

Sat 02.07.09 - Plus the nearly full moon rising, as a bonus to today's amazing turnaround from pouring rain this morning to very gorgeous this afternoon.

This week when the press was nattering on in headlines about Michael Phelps getting caught smoking a bong at a party, I thought, "Michael who?"

This shows you how much I pay attention to sports. It took me about 2 hours to remember that Mr. Phelps was an Olympic athlete. My next thought was, "Why does anyone care if he smokes pot? Isn't he like 22?"

I would be more concerned if he was shooting steroids to improve his athletic performance than smoking a drug that is known to make folks couch potatoes. Really, people, think of the headlines, "Famed Olympic Swimmer Caught on a 3am Run to Dunkin Donuts for a 24 Pack of Donut Holes." vs. a headline like "Famed American Male Swimmer Looking Oddly Like 1970s East German Women's Swimming Team."

While I do not like marijuana and I really don't care to be around anyone smoking it, as the smoke is a migraine headache trigger for me; and as the daughter of a parent who has smoked it for years, I don't tend not respect regular users, but... but... but...

Really, America, it is time to legalize and tax this stupid-making herb. If we allow Colt 45 to be sold at liquor stores and the state of California makes a tax off of it, then a dime bag of pot should also be sold and taxed.

Why do I think this? As long as this drug is illegal our prisons are full, our national parks are being raped by greedy drug farming capitalists, and we are losing tons of tax dollars to drug lords and cartels who are holding many cities north & south of the border hostage.

We have not set up Sequoia National Park to be a place for the Mexican Cartels to grow marijuana and trash the land, we set up Sequoia to preserve a unique biosphere on the western Sierras. When I first read in 2005 in the LA Times of the cartels slashing & burning oak forest to grow marijuana for the illegal drug trade, I was FURIOUS.

I was even more furious that the US government has known about this since at least 2003 (from the LA Times article), even though they chose to ignore it:

Sequoia Kings Canyon spokesperson Alexandra Picavet thinks the drug debate has kept the problem from getting traction. "People get blinded by the marijuana issue.... We don't want people planting asparagus on the land, either. This is agricultural assault on a national park, no matter what they're growing."

Lawmakers say the issue is crowded out by more pressing matters. This year's federal drug-control strategy did not address pot cultivation on public land. And the Sierra Club acknowledges other priorities than drug bandits.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), whose district includes Sequoia National Park, called hearings on the marijuana incursion in 2003. He says the issue is under the radar for most lawmakers in Washington.

"They don't even know that it exists.... People don't think about it," Nunes says.

The pot growers are no longer the stereotype of hapless hippies. They are part of sophisticated criminal organizations schooled on the Colombian cartels' economy of scale, says Ruzzamenti. "They do things big. Even if you lose a little here, you'll make it up in the long run. They've taken this lesson to another level," he says.

Most of the ringleaders, say investigators, are U.S. nationals based in Southern California with connections to cartel families in Michoacán, Mexico; field workers are well-armed Mexican laborers.

"We've found AR-15s, shotguns, rifles, knives strapped to poles, crude crossbows," says J.D. Swed, chief ranger at Sequoia.

It is high time that we allow American farmers to legally grown the herb - let's help set them free from Monsanto & Number 2 corn - and for the US & various states to make a little tax money. Let's make it cheap enough that there is no incentive for drug cartels to rape our national parks and to be involved at all.

If folks want to get high, let them. Tax the shit and then change the DUI laws to include both alcohol and marijuana influenced equally. Take the tax monies and place it into education and health care. We tax alcohol and cigarettes, let's tax the herb.

We need the money more than the drug cartels do. As for Mr. Phelps, we put him up on the hero pedestal, let's not knock him down off of it for anything less than steroid drug abuse that will effect why we put him on the pedestal in the first place.

Sun 01.25.09 - Spied a fiddlehead fern unfolding while out on a walk with the dogs. Photo taken with a Nokia N82 camera phone.

túrána hott kurdís by hasta la otra méxico! from Till Credner on Vimeo.

Tues. 12.30.08 - The International Year of Astronomy 2009 - go out and truly watch the night sky. (Video via APOD.)

Tues 12.23.08 - The day in between storms.

Sun 12.21.08 - Today is the shortest day of the year, the start of winter, and starting tomorrow the light wins.

Sorry for the lack of words here the last few days, I have had a very stressful last week in work world, I have been fighting a cold for a good week and a half that has decided to revisit with a vengeance this weekend, and last but not least - after a delightful Friday of celebrating Thomas' joining the Land of the Free & Brave - yesterday I received a phone call that a friend who I have greatly admired for years was killed in a car accident on Friday. Thus, the last 24 hours has been very sad on top of tired & sick.

I truly hope that the light starts to shine tomorrow and into the next year.

Thurs 12.18.08 - The rain stopped sometime last night and I woke up to clear, sunny skies and snow low on all the mountains and local hills! Very exciting! The last time I have seen snow this low on the Irvine & Orange hills was in Nov. 2004 the day before Erika & I went to Ireland.

I couldn't just stay home in Seal Beach and natter way on images and slideshows on my computer, no, I had to go out at lunch time and drive up Santiago Canyon Road to take in the low snow line myself before it all melts away.

Truly a lovely day.

All photos taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82 at Dog Beach, Huntington Beach.

Fri 12.12.08 - This afternoon at 3:16pm was an extra, extra low tide due to the Full Moon. Usually the low tides are 1 to 3 ft with high tides at 3 to 5 ft, today the low tide was -1.78 ft and the high tide was 7ft! Whole sections of beach that are normally underwater and the domain of surfers, stingrays, and halibut were dry land today. There were tons of baby clams at the surface opening and closing their little shells in wonderment of this air stuff rather than the normal ocean water.

The extra low tide was a blast for the dogs, as they had a lot of flat hard sand to run on. We arrived at 3:10pm and did not depart until sunset around 4:45pm. It was a lot of fun.

Sat. Dec. 6, 2008 - On our way back from the Caribbean Christmas concert at CSULB, my Mom noted that tonight's sunset would be good. When we got back, we collected Scruffy and walked over to the beach to see the sunset. We walked up to the top of the winter berm and the sunset was amazing!