I'm not real political as a rule. I hate getting my hands dirty in the shit that passes for discourse these days. In my opinion we've not had a good president since FDR and he was really a great leader by accident. A smart man, something quite lacking in most leaders unfortunately, he realized that in order to save capitalism and the US he had to make major changes in the way the government worked. He put his personal interests aside and did what he felt was right for the country. Such a noble act. His actions brought us back from the depression and guided us through most of the war. But since his time we've had a string of crooks, opportunists, grifters and simpletons. We've seen these clowns take a great nation and make it into the laughing stock of the world. Living in Europe I get to see this up close and personal. But nothing prepared me for what we have now. We get to choose between the ultimate grifter and the buffoon. Between the ultimate insider and an 'outsider' who is more inside than even Hillary. Both so obscenely rich that they are absolutely disconnected from the daily existence of all but the most wealthy. I'm so disgusted with them that I'm not even making the effort to vote. It really doesn't matter anymore who is president. Neither of them will be effective as the real power behind the throne sits in the C-suites of major banks and corporations. Big money and large corporations are in control now. In control, that is, until they run the whole mess off the cliff. The idea that only the investor matters is so corrupt and stupid that it's laughable were it not so tragic. Greed is not a good basis for society ... sorry Gordon Gecko. We all live on this rock ... a small, fragile stone circling a minor sun in a minor galaxy. It's all we have and we're destroying it so a few people can grab even more obscene wealth. But when the wheels come off ... and they will come off pretty soon ... all that money won't be worth anything. Sorry to be so negative but that's our reality.
Lebec Cloud Formation
When I'm in LA, especially in the northern suburbs, I drive north up I-5 to a rest stop near Lebec to spend the night. It's only30 miles but seems light years from the frantic climate in the city. The air is cleaner, there's open sky and I can let my system wind down just a bit. Round trip burns about 4 gallons of gas in my little truck so I save quite a bit over even the cheapest motel and I don't have to take all the gear out of my truck. All in all a good deal.
Anyway, this last trip into LA I was sitting in my truck reading on my tablet. It was just after 8pm. I happened to look up to the north and saw this cloud. It was amazing and the most unusual formation I've ever seen. I grabbed the 60D with the telephoto zoom and walked out into the surrounding brush. I tried to take a timelapse of the cloud but something wasn't right as I found major fluctuations in the exposure levels between shots. Even using my custom deflicker program I was unable to stabilize the footage so, for now, it's going to wait until I can figure out a way to fix the problem. But I did get some excellent stills of the cloud. It had formed over a series of low hills just to the north of my location. I'm not sure of the dynamic but have to assume there was some striation in the upper level winds interacting with the wind deflecting off the hills. The cloud was quite fluid and dissipated over a 40 minute period. The sun was setting to the west (to the left of the frame) and much of the fluctuation, I think, is the amount of light being reflected by the ice crystals in the cloud. The color changed too as the sun set over the coastal mountains. It was an amazing sight for sure. Anyone out there who can offer a reasonable explanation for why this happens?
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| Lebec Cloud Formation - 70mm(1.6 crop),f/11,1/250sec,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0 |
