My First & Only Blue Blood Supermoon

Earlier this morning at a quarter to 3 a.m. I checked out the blue supermoon before it turned red while I slept. I was awakened by my cat or my bladder or something at 4:35 a.m. and went out and rechecked the moon. At that point it was further to the west behind a huge oak tree sans leaves so I could see it perfectly if I stood in the right place. It was in all its blue blood supermoon splendor at that point. I went to bed thinking I'd miss it and was blessed by not missing it at all. My only regret is that I did not have a good camera with which to capture it. The last one of these visible in North America was in 1866 so I'm pretty sure I won't see another one.
*Note: supermoons are when the full moon happens when the moon is at or near its closest orbit to Earth while a blue moon is the second full moon to occur in a given month while a blood moon is when the moon is partially eclipsed enough that it casts a partial shadow upon the earth which makes it appear reddish in the sky. Photo courtesy of USFS (all rights reserved).

Graphic of the Day - Homonyms

I encountered this graphic today and found it an interesting refresher on the subject.... I had forgotten about some aspects of homonyms in regards to varieties.

Trance Is Back In Higher Place

I have not shared music here in quite some time. To kick off my return to doing so, I'm reconnecting with my trance roots by sharing the stunning progressive trance gem "Higher Place" released last May by Russian progressive trance and progressive house master producer Artem Stoliarov a.k.a. Arty under the auspices of his long-abandoned/newly-resumed Alpha 9 alias/side project. There is a point in this track where it is impossible for me to not get chills. Can you guess at which point that is? In recent years I have come to fear that trance music was wholly passé now. I feared that there was no more new beauty and quality left in the sub-genre by artists producing the new stuff as it has become mostly saturated with commercialism and imitation. Arty has generated several progressive trance gems, last year into this year, not one whole month done. I intend to share some of them here with you in the coming weeks. Crank up your sound system and enjoy!

Castle Crags Jaunt

Today I joined in on a quick road excursion out into the Machesna Wilderness Area in the La Panza Range on the Santa Lucia District of the Los Padres National Forest in eastern San Luis Obispo County. Most of the way out there I had traversed before but the final part up towards Castle Crags was new to me. We were forced to turn around due to a deep erosion-control drainage swale across the road and the characteristics of the Honda SUV in which we were driving. On the way back we stopped for a short break at the adit for the Queen Bee Mine at and in which I took some photos featured below.

These were the lowest-situated crags we encountered today before turning around. They are clearly old riverine alluvial deposts upthrust by plate tectonics and now being heavily weathered.

The fellas backed back down the road a ways and turned around at the location seen here while I stayed behind to capture images and view the surrounding terrain.

The Queen Bee Mine is a gold-bearing hardrock deposit that was not economically viable and abandoned shortly after being excavated.

The entrance to this adit used to be blocked by a heavy metal grate but that kept getting yanked off by drunken idiots with winches so now it remains open but given the adit ends about 20 feet into the hill there seems to be no need for it.

I can only imagine why somebody's chonies were left on the floor of the adit. I can certainly think of more romantic places to make "the beast with two backs" but drugs and alcohol can do remarkable things to deprive people of their dignity.
All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Graphic of the Day - Super Blue Blood Moon Eclipse

This graphic leaves out the fact this also a blue moon making it a Super Blue Blood Moon! Blue bloods in space: who knew?!

Picture of the Day - Today's #1s From #3

This was today's haul from Secret Spot #3 in Templeton: tractor-disk-fractured petrified whale vert (upper right), tractor-disk-fractured biconoid (upper left), and various carnelians and yellow agates. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Graphic of the Day - The Devil's Doorbell

Tonight I watched a special by the lady comedy duo Garfunkel & Oates on Netflix. In one of their song's lyrics was a reference to the clitoris as being "The Devil's Doorbell" which was in context a send-up of hyper-legalistic Fundamentalist Christianity's obsessive fear of sexuality and sexual pleasure. This got me curious about the hilarious expression, so after watching the comedy special I looked it up and found this satirical image macro.