Site/Sight Of A Volcanic Final Stand

As some of you may know I am a bit haunted by final stands. Indeed I wonder if I am being prepared mentally-emotionally-psychologically-spiritually for this eventuality in my future. If this is the case I am in complete acceptance and peace with this and feel honored to be chosen thus. In any case whenever I encounter a story of such a scenario I am drawn to it.

The latest such story is that of the recent surprise eruption of Mount Ontake in Japan on September 27th which killed 67 day hikers including Izume Noguchi (pictured below) who snapped three amazing images of the ash cloud hurling towards him right before he died of which two of those images are featured below.

Izume Noguchi in the final hours of his life as captured in his own camera by an unknown photographer.

The first image of the eruption captured by Izume Noguchi.

The third image captured by Izume Noguchi who shot one more image which shows the man at right with the blue cap running towards the camera from the euption from a location around the corner to the left of the building. I did not include it here as I could not find a decent-sized version of it but it appears quite similar. Both men in this image were killed as well as Mr. Noguchi shooting these images and 65 other people.

This is a more distant view from down the mountain of the same eruption at about the same time or some seconds later.
Photo courtesy Associated Press and Kyodo News Agency.

Izume Noguchi's unscorched cameras found with his body suggesting he was killed by asphyxia and not thermal shock.
Photo credit unknown to me (all rights reserved).

This is the building seen in the Izume Noguchi images above and where he likely died. I was unaware that such a fantasy-inspiring, Tolkien-esque place existed on Earth made all the more LOTR-ish by the devastated look of it evoking mental images of the aftermath of an attack by Smaug.
Photo credit unknown.

A more distant view of the structure seen in the Noguchi images but showing some additional structures below it. The entire scene does not even look real but rather like a CGI-generated image.
Photo courtesy Kyodo News Agency.

This image places the source volcanic vent in a physical context to Mr. Noguchi's location at the time he shot his final photographs with his last stand being at the top-most structure. Note the "daylighted" roofs caused by volcanic missles and/or the weight of the ash deposits on the rooftops.
Photo courtesy Reuters/Kyodo News Agencies.

Picture of the Day - Disaster Trailer Relic

Last month I was at a friend's house in the hills west of Paso Robles. On previous visits I had taken note of this trailer intending to capture an image of it to share here. On that occasion I finally got around to it and now a couple of weeks or so later I'm finally getting around to actually posting it here. I am quite curious if anybody visiting this blog, perhaps as a result of a web search can tell me anything about a semi-trailer with "American Red Cross Emergency Services Santa Clara Valley Chapter" emblazoned across both sides of it. Note: since first posting this I have discovered that the Palo Alto Area and Santa Clara Valley Chapters of the American Red Cross merged in January 2009 to form the Silicon Valley Chapter.
Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Bridget's Sunset

Earlier this evening my buddy Mike and I worked a wedding for Vino Vice at Silver Horse Winery. And once again an amazing sunset unveiled itself before our eyes. As this latest sunset sequence demonstrates, there is something distinct about Central Coast light as it pertains to this time of the day. We also met a cool Silverado Stages bus driver named Bridget whom we hung out with quite a bit this evening as she was hired to hang around until the wedding was over and drive most of the guests home. She is wisely using her job as a way to go sightseeing the beauty of California and working Silver Horse was her latest sightseeing experience.

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved). 

I Have "Loss Aversion" Attraction

This progressive trance track "Loss Aversion" by Terry Da Libra and David Broaders is the bomb when it comes to triggering a goose bump explosion at about the 2:00 mark when it hits that amazing atmospheric ethereal breakdown leading to the track's climax of dance-inducing grandeur. Crank up the speakers! Oh, and for a bit more on that epic breakdown go HERE. I have been enjoying this track for several weeks as it appears in THIS SET where I first discovered it (at the 9:43 mark) and decided to share it with you now while I'm still obsessed with it.
Note: at one point in the song one hears a D.J. speaking briefly which is an artifact of the original recording onto Youtube and nothing I can control.

"Way You Know" Is Way Cool

I have never before shared a Deep House track on this blog. "Way You Know" by Matt Lange featuring the sexy-longing voice of Tania Zygar is undoubtedly to me the finest example of this sub-sub-sub-genre I have ever encountered. It is both highly danceable in a sexy-groovy sort of way but also rather haunting and atmospheric in an Ambient sort of way. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have since first finding it last night.

"Last Night" At Last

Last night I rediscovered Dominic Gertz' little gem of a progressive house "Last Night" while exploring Youtube in search for new discoveries. I say "rediscovered" because I had found it before, albeit in the middle of a progressive house mix and shared the music player for that mix with the starting time for specifically the program. One can listen to that music mix HERE. This track could not be found on Youtube solo. I asked my sister by another mother to host it on her Youtube Channel specifically so I could share it here in the usual fashion. She also created this wonderful little video for the song. Thanks, Linsis, for this gift! Now y'all crank up your speakers!

Same View, Different Season & Disaster

It struck me while compiling the previous two posts here that I had seen an avalanche on a webcam in Yosemite National Park this past spring. I figured it might be cool to juxtapose an image of that with an image from the previous post here showing last month's Meadow Fire blow-up. I looked in my random graphics folder and low and behold I had saved a couple of images of that avalanche as captured on the Sentinel Dome webcam... the same webcam which captured the images featured on the previous blog post here. How cool.... that could make an even cooler juxtaposition that I originally conceived, I thought to myself. Now that I have viewed the finished product I can confirm that is quite true. Talk about a Tale of Two Seasons! Note: nobody was harmed in either the avalanche or the wildfire blow-up.

Large avalanche on Wednesday, April 30, 2014, 4:53 p.m.

Large wildfire on Sunday, September 7, 2014, 3:49 p.m.
Both images courtesy of Yosemite Conservancy (all rights reserved).