Lovely Lullaby Lonely

Tonight late I discovered this beautiful example of progressive trance from Russian trance producer Dennis Kenzo featuring Russian singer Svetlana Pisareva a.k.a. Sveta B. As previously stated on this blog, I'm boycotting all things Russian due to the actions of the corrupt regime governing that imprisoned land. However, I make an exception when it comes to electronica. Married to this sumptuous trance track released in 2012 is some amazing footage of our planet captured from the International Space Station in recent years. Crank up your speakers and enjoy! Note: best listened to in the middle of the night such as right now as I compose this post. Enjoy an extended chill-out version of this track posted a couple of days later HERE.

Aliens in 60 Seconds

For those of you not culturally hip enough to get this clever animated short, this is a humorously animated and foreshortened interpretation of the 1986 sci-fi/action blockbuster Aliens.

Graphic of the Day - What a Difference a Year Makes

    March 2016            vs.        March 2017

Compelling Portrayal of Hiroshima Nuking

This week I played this video segment for my students in prepping them for a classroom debate on the merits of the decision by U.S. President Harry Truman to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 & 9, 1945. I find it fascinating and compelling and the best yet which I have found on Youtube in the short clip category. It also reminds me of this short segment from the 2009 Battlestar Galactica movie The Plan which can be viewed HERE.

It's Starting To Look A Lot Like El Niño

Recent weeks have revealed a rather rapid transformation in the Pacific Ocean of anomalous warming sea surface temperatures in a pattern looking more and more like El Niño. We just experienced one of the most powerful such events in recorded history just two years ago and yet here we are again perhaps. Recent flooding in Peru of almost unprecidented magnitude coupled with the warming sea surface anomalies revealed in this map coupled with the fact that the Australian computer models are more bullish than the American ones in regards to El Niño development later this year, have me convinced we are indeed headed in that direction. Will this mean another wet winter-spring in 2017-2018? Only time will tell!

Edible Amethyst Geodes

My buddy Blake shared this with me on Facebook and I was enchanted by it so here it is for you to enjoy. I love rocks, I love geodes, I love crystals, I love chocolate, I'm not such a big fan of rock crystal candy but that's okay. These geodes "rock"! Note: these look a lot like the amethyst geodes that come out of Brazil. Also, the purple rock candy even up close appears to look very stone-like in texture and structure.

Image of the Day - Twelve Colonies of Kobol

Both today after school while driving home as well as tonight, I find myself thinking about the destruction of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series. I feel it is a metaphor for something else as in God is using it to get me thinking about something that is anything but fictional and imaginary. I'm still pondering and discerning the meaning per the truism in Proverbs 25:2. Left-click on image for expanded view. Cartographic artwork by Werthead HERE. All rights reserved!

Masterpieces of the Earth

Masterpieces of the Earth from Guido Ronge on Vimeo.

Picture of the Day - My 1st Limoncello Batch II

After completing Round One of my limoncello project last night, it seemed to me I had too many Meyer lemon slices per volume of Everclear. Therefore, today on the way home from school I dropped by BevMo and picked up a medium bottle of the product. I just now added it to the mix and thus am fully entered into the first stage of this project. I also took a better photograph of it this time. For my previous post about this project go HERE. For my next such posting go HERE. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Picture of the Day - My 1st Limoncello Batch

As a result of my being enamored with limoncello and having friends who make their own, I have been inspired to make my own batch. Tonight while waiting for edTPA recordings to reformat for editing and turning in on April 10th, I pealed some 60 or so Meyer lemons and dumped them into a one-gallon pickle jar with a liter of Everclear. It appears I need another smaller bottle of it to top this batch off and thus complete the start of the first stage of this project. Perhaps I'll get around to doing this tomorrow. I will keep you all posted on the progress of my experiment. For my next post on this project go HERE. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Picture of the Day - The Shining of the "B" Building

My 10th grade world history classes at Atascadero High School started this academic year being held in the "H" wing. However, that building is being thoroughly remodeled and upgraded soon. Therefore, in February we were moved along with the other classes being held in that structure to other rooms in other buildings scattered throughout the campus. My classes were relocated to a room on the second floor of the old Virginia Black Union High School Building, now called the "B" building. I was last in a classroom here in the spring of 1989, the year I graduated from this school. The place was built back in the early 1920s. I often come to my classroom before dawn to get work done or I come on Saturday to work on my lesson plans or edTPA. In either case, I am very much alone in the building and have gotten to know it better. When I am there I do not feel alone. The place has a heavy feel and it makes mysterious noises. I realize it is nearly a century old and old buildings creek. I get that. There is more than that going on, however. I am sensitive to these things and have been in many creepy-looking old buildings and felt nothing. That is not the case with this building. I do not believe in ghosts, but there is something about this place. It "shines", whatever that means. I shot this image at midday today with my phone as I left for home. Note: this structure shall be demolished in the next few years.

Quote of the Day - Count Galeazzo Ciano

The following quote came up today in the course of events. Before today, I had believed it was the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's line and apparently most people who know this quote believe it to have originated with the late U.S. president John F. Kennedy. However, as it turns out, the line comes from the pen of Count Galeazzo Ciano, the late son-in-law of the late Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. It originally appeared in Italian, written in his diary two years before his execution.

 "Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan (La victoria trova cento padri, a nessuno vuole riconoscere l'insuccesso)."

Absolutely Degenerate Basket of Deplorables

I'm not sure if I should be ashamed or proud to be a charter member of the Absolutely Degenerate Basket of Deplorables, but I am what I am. We have been un-PC-ly subverting the popular culture for well over a year now and at some point need to upgrade to a podcast. Memes courtesy of the PhotoShop kung-fu of Stephen Soto (all rights reserved).

Graphic of the Day - 2614 Lightning Strikes

This the result of the latest late-season storm ending overnight last night and the 24-hours previous.

Thunderstorm Over Mount Wilson

KNBC-TV Los Angeles just tweeted this dual image (above) of a strong thunderstorm over Mount Wilson in the San Gabriel Mountains of Los Angeles County as viewed from down below in the San Gabriel Valley. Below is a view of the storm approaching that locale as viewed from the Mount Wilson Towercam.

R.I.P. SLOStringer!

I never met Matthew Frank a.k.a. SLOStringer, but I certainly became aware of him over the course of recent years. His accomplishments as a top-of-the-line scanner buff, firechaser, and photographer/videographer have become locally legendary and even earned him respect in the fire photographer and stringer community across the state. His news service became something members of the Central Coast community have come to depend upon for immediate, accurate, and relevant news coverage even more so than our traditional news sources such as newspapers and TV. Stringers shoot video for money, while SLOStringer, despite identifying as a stringer, really was not one in the traditional sense as he already had another business (owned a motorcycle shop). He did his stringing for the pure pleasure of chasing the story and reporting the facts and supporting our local first responders. His service to various elements of our community and to the local community generally, ended early this morning in a predawn traffic accident in a driving rainstorm. We here in San Luis Obispo County will be less well-informed and less well-served moving forward without him in our midst. I suppose the only positive to come out of this is that he died doing what he loved as he was responding in the 3 a.m. hour from his house in San Luis Obispo, CA, to a reported house fire in Atascadero, CA. R.I.P. SLOStringer!
*Note: last summer he covered the Chimney Fire quite remarkably and I covered his coverage starting HERE.
**Note: The Tribune ran a beautiful story about him HERE.

Spring Has Sprung!

Nocturnally Scintillating Noctiluca Scintillans

Somehow this magical 2015 outbreak of the plankton-like bioluminescent Noctiluca scintillans in Hobart, Tasmania in 2015 escaped my attention until I noticed THIS yesterday. It refers to an ongoing (as in March, 2017) outbreak occurring in Preservation Bay, Tasmania. While researching these two blooms, I noticed images of the same thing occurring in Maldives Islands as well. Apparently, the presence of this organism in this quantity can be a bad thing, but boy is it beautiful. I'd love to see a bloom of this organism but will have to settle for red tide along the California coast for now (something I have yet to witness). These images come from both Tasmanian outbreaks mentioned above. 

Photo by Paul Fleming (all rights reserved)

Photo by Dave Reynolds (all rights reserved)

Photo by Helen Wisby (all rights reserved)

Photo by Kev Morse (all rights reserved)

Photo by Lena Wisby (all rights reserved)

Photo by Lena Wisby (all rights reserved)

Photo by Ammonite (all rights reserved)

Photo by Leoni Williams (all rights reserved)

Photo by Leoni Williams (all rights reserved)

Photo by Jo Malcomson (all rights reserved)

Photo by Jonathan Esling (all rights reserved)

Photo credit unknown

My Favorite Memes

Below is my list of some of my favorite internet memes. Internet memes are not to be confused with Richard Dawson's term "meme" from which the term internet meme is derived in a roundabout way. My list is in no particular order. Some of these are high-brow and even rather sophisticated and some are distinctly low-brow and yet others fall somewhere in between. I created none of these although I wish I was clever enough to have created at least some of them (and gifted in the arcane arts of Photoshop). I could try to explain each one of these to you but since I'm primarily sharing this with my fellow meme culture peeps and they already "get" these, I'll leave it up to you to figure them out if you can..... Google (and Google Images (and image search)) are your research friends. However, I will toss you this bone to get you started in memology: knowyourmeme.  

This Opened My Eyes

I have been aware of this progressive trance track "Open Your Eyes" by Russian trance outfit Aurosonic for a few years now. However, for reasons I cannot now fathom, I never felt like sharing it heretofore here despite its abject "epic-ness". This sublime example of progressive trance (the best type) was released in 2013 and features the haunting vocals of Englishwoman Kate Louise Smith. Crank up your speakers and listen, feel, and dance. As hauntingly beautiful as this is, it is also difficult (at least for me) to catch every word of these soulful lyrics, so I include them below courtesy of songlyrics.com:

It's dark out here
In the pursuit of love
Completely unabridged
This silent fortress

My mind escapes me
Feeling it in my bones
The ties that bind
Deny us this love

Open your eyes
Open your eyes
I started blind
But now they're wide open

Open your eyes
Open your eyes
The ties that bind
Deny us this love

And how it breaks me

In the pursuit of love
Completely unabridged
The silent fortress
My mind escapes me
Telling my story well
The ties that bind
Deny us this love

(Alt )

Open you eyes
Open your eyes (open open)
The story's closed
Our love has broken down
Open your eyes
Open your eyes
The ties that bind
Deny us this love

Picture of the Day - Parking Limos

Today I worked five hours doing traffic control and parking at Halter Ranch Winery's offering of this weekend's regional Vintage Paso: Zinfandel Weekend. The event went smooth as silk today at Halter Ranch and I had a career first with parking three limos within a close proximity to each other and their fares despite limited space. As it turns out, one of the limos was being driven by an old high school schoolmate of mine, Rick Brown, Atascadero High School class of 1988. Also, the change of the April-like weather pattern back to wintry weather pattern manifested itself in the sky today as a more El Niño-esque weather pattern was revealed in the clouds which passed over today as yet another atmospheric "River in the Sky" a.k.a. Pineapple Express sets itself up for this area this coming week. Note: my work partner and brother-by-another-mother and best friend Mike at right in the image.

I Found Around You

It has been since before last Christmas that I shared any new trance or progressive house music here. Although I continue to observe a boycott of all things Russian, I make an exception for trance and all electronica progressive. Yuri Kane is one of those exceptions I make and here he justifies it with his 2010 trance track "Around You" which I only discovered just now. Crank up your speakers!

Picture of the Day - Self Same Sunset II

Tonight I shot this image at my Self Help Gang church home group in northwest Templeton during the later-winter Central Coast magic hour when light conditions are sublime for beautiful sunsets. The clouds are unrelated to any significant storm activity but a wintry weather turn in the weather pattern is a few days away. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Beware The Ides of March

Every March 15th is the Ides of March. The comment is from William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. The painting is Morte di Cesare (Death of Caesar) by Vincenzo Camuccini.

Graphic of the Day - Atmospheric Rivers 2017

This has been a winter storm season for the record books here in California. In one rain season, statistically-speaking, the epic 2011-2017 California Drought has been nearly eradicated. Necessarily, it required a series of "atmospheric rivers", a phenomenon formerly known here in California as the "Pineapple Express."

Quote of the Day - William Arthur Ward

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."
~ William Arthur Ward, American writer (1921-1994)

Scripture of the Day - David (Psalm 37:4-5)

Yesterday morning I was reading this passage in Psalm 37 as part of my attempt to get back in the habit of doing daily devotions which I think of as both connecting with the Lord and making a time tithe. As I did that, the following passage of it jumped off the page at me in a way that has never happened. I hope this was from Him and that its significance to me is what it seems to be saying.

"Take delight in the Lord and He will grant you the desires He has placed in your heart. Commit yourself to follow Him and trust in Him and He will do it."

~ Psalm 37:4-5 (Kimicus ad Absurdum translation)

Picture of the Day - Windfall Sunset

This afternoon into this evening I worked traffic control at the Rotary Club of Paso Robles Sunrise's 17th annual crab feed fundraiser. Once again, it was held at the Stallion Barn at Windfall Farms. Today was a gorgeous day of the sort that affirms and confirms I live in paradise. A year ago I worked this event in a windy, driving rain. And, as with a year ago, the Rotarians generously fed us salad and garlic toast and pasta with meatballs and of course, those crab legs with lemon butter. Every single person was gracious despite having to walk some distance from their cars. I even bumped into my friends Mike & Denise from the local rockhounding club. Last but not least, I had the privilege of observing the above sunset and a short time later, a spectacular moon-rise. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).