Romantic Litmus Test #1: Pakalu Papito

Any woman who is to be my Soul Mate and One & Only must necessarily not only "get" this but also find it as funny as I do. Otherwise, "we" just won't work. Also, if I have to explain that this is not really narrated by Morgan Freeman, but rather is an intentionally goofy imitation of Freeman then "we" are a non-starter.

Raw Rocky Fire Footage

Linsis, my sis by another mother, Tweeted me the Youtube link to this raw Rocky Fire footage and I find it fairly awesome. Being rather familiar with the Highway 20 corridor along which most of this footage was captured I find this especially fascinating and disturbing at the same time. I sure wish I was up there right now! Note how photogenic this fire continues to be and how aggressively it continues to burn. The area of this fire is especially suitable for sustaining aggressive burning, but this year's ongoing drought has created ignition conditions generally considered unprecedented in the experience of the fire service in California.

Rocky Fire Day One Two Scenes Spliced

Video captured by local first responder fighting the #RockyFire near Clear Lake.65,000 acres burned. Video @JakeAuby pic.twitter.com/8ddBkPhwlk

— Danville/SR Updates (@DanvilleSR_News) August 4, 2015

Short but sweet, this short reel of two Day One (July 29th) scenes of the Rocky Fire spliced together provide a powerfully poignant perspective which reveals why this fire escaped and got so big. The first scene shows the aggressive burning of heavy fuels in either the initial attack or extended attack period of the fire. The second scene shows a frantic retardant drop by a Type-1 tanker (a heavy) while a hand crew marches away from the fire as it approaches from the other side of the mountain.

Awesome Stone Wall In Atascadero

Today I stopped by the Enterprise Rental Car office in Atascadero, CA, in order to give somebody a ride home who dropped off a rental auto there. While waiting for them I noticed in back between the rear parking lot of Enterprise and the adjacent property behind it, an awesome old stone wall of the sort folks generally don't build anymore. This one must have been built circa 1950's to 1970's. It featurs a great many awesome stones. Was the building above it for which it serves as a retainer wall, once a rock shop back in the day?

The front stone panels were built after the larger main wall to which they are attached.

Note that along this section of wall, the original wall and the two supporting panels of wall are each made of different material which is homogeneous to a given panel of wall. The green stone at center is mariposite.

The supporting panel at right contained a heterogeneous assemblage of stones from the Franciscan Melange unlike the rest of the wall.

The nicest stone in the wall was this large chuck of banded jasper or chert. All images by Kim Parick Noyes (all rights reserved)

My Achy Breaky Heart

Today was one of the very worst days of my life... certainly the worst since 2009. It did something to me.... or rather what I endured today did something to me that I hope is not harmful in the long-term. Certainly, tonight I feel particularly misanthropic and the idea of being the last person left on earth feels, at the moment, like a delightful predicament.

Sadly, my relationship with my very closest friend on earth may be permanently damaged beyond repair by today's events. I have lost all respect and trust for this person and I am genuinely ashamed of them. I am left questioning who they really are and who they really have been all along. It appears this person has chosen death over life although they have deceived themselves through their prideful stubbornness that it is otherwise. I officially give up on them and have already begun to grieve their absence from my life.  I will terribly miss this person the rest of the days of my life.

I wish I had enough money to just go away for awhile... to the desert out east or the mountains up north or the coast over to the west. Instead, in the days to come I will bury myself in working to pay bills and get caught up on the work I missed today due to chasing my tail on behalf of this person. I must also make up all the work I missed last week from being in too deep a funk to even leave my house some of the days. This also was the result of what this person has put me through of late, this year, and over the years. What sucks is that I love this person more than life itself. I give this to God and will look to Him to get me through this and teach me from it whatever is in it for me to learn as I continue to grow in Him and prepare for eternity.

My entire life possesses a certain solitary and misunderstood feeling to it. I have always been an outlier and have felt the part throughout. The lonely road tonight feels ever more so than it has ever felt before. Yet, I am not alone and hope remains. I am blessed to be as close to my Creator as I am now and that despite my own prodigal past. I will be alright I suppose. Time heals all wounds... but wounds do leave permanent scars.... I will wear my scars with gratitude and pride. Heaven knows I earned them in the trenches of life.

Tale Of Two Rocky Fire Timelapses

In recent days since the advent of the Rocky Fire burning mostly in Lake County, but a little in Yolo and Colusa Counties (but could do a lot more in those counties) I have noticed a handful of notable photographers whose work I have thoroughly enjoyed. Two of the have already been featured on this blog, to wit, professional photographer Jeff Frost and Kent Porter of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. I have also noticed the work of Craig Philpott who captured the two stunning timelapse sequences  featured below.


RockFire.12FPS from Craig Philpott on Vimeo.
A timelapse from the first night of the Rocky Fire (7/29/15) in Lake County, CA.


RockyFire2.15FPS from Craig Philpott on Vimeo.
A timelapse from the fifth night of the Rocky Fire (8/02/15) taken from Langtry Vineyards near Middletown, CA.

Rocky Fire Timelapse

This morning I encountered this amazing timelapse sequence of the Rocky Fire burning east of Clear Lake from last night or the night before that was captured by the amazing local photographer Jeff Frost.