-
Continue reading →: Black and White MondayI’m working on a couple of book reviews but I’m not happy with them so back to the editing. In the meantime, my photo club is coming up and I’ve committed myself to submitting black and white for the next couple of months. So this is just a quick post…
-
Continue reading →: The Know-Nothings Party
It’s all the same except the batteries. With all the press about immigration and immigrants, I thought I would look back into American history and see if there was anything we might look at and compare to today. Sure enough, I found the Know Nothing Party. The Know Nothings are…
-
Continue reading →: John Quincy Adams: Possibly the most qualified candidate to be president
He may have been the most qualified candidate to become president. As a young teen his dad took him to Europe where he met diplomats and observed what life was like on the continent that birthed the ideas our new nation would be founded upon. He started college there before…
-
Continue reading →: The Case of the Mad Doctor-P.D.Lennon DK Random House 2025One of the beauties of fiction is putting things together that don’t necessarily exist in real time. Such is the case with Isaiah Ollenu, P. D. Lennon’s lead character in The Case of the Mad Doctor. Isaiah, is a Black Lawyer, a nearly impossible situation in 1770 London. Tasked by…
-
Continue reading →: Coyote Creek, February 2026I while back I watched a YouTube video with Scott Kelby, one of the world’s Photoshop gurus. In this particular video he was talking about how to get good travel photos when on family vacation. I picked up several points but one that stuck with me was “if you see…
-
Continue reading →: Santa Rosa PlateauI’ve been in mourning for the redwoods. More than the beautiful trees, I miss the forest that surrounds them. Carpeted underneath the trees are ferns, and other ground cover, even the banana slug that lives in the cool and damp underbrush. I miss the roads to access them too. They…
-
Continue reading →: Hollywood Bowl’s First Production of Bizet’s Opera Carmen July, 1922
Seemingly, the Hollywood Bowl has existed forever, or at least as long as the Hollywood Sign. Tucked away on the west side of the Hollywood freeway (the 101 for Angelinos) on the edge of Cahuenga Pass, the Bowl, in addition to being the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is…
-
Continue reading →: Santa Ana Winds in SoCalThe Santa Ana winds are blowing in Southern California and that means moderate temperatures and low humidity. For some, temps near 70 degrees in December seem like a dream. But for my part I’m ready for cooler weather. Not that I have experience living in rainy or snowy climates. I…
-
Continue reading →: The Old Becomes New: The Falkirk Wheel, ScotlandEven though it wasn’t rocket science, it took a long time for Britians to come to the idea that transporting something on a man made waterway was cheap, efficient, and scalable. They already had long standing examples of the Romans moving water over long distances; some of the aquaducts from…
-
Continue reading →: Civics 101-b Ratifying the ConstitutionYou may remember last month we talked about THE founding document of the United States, the Declaration of Independence. The focus of the Declaration was two-fold, first to establish the philosophy behind government. Using ideas from Enlightenment philosophers John Locke, Thomas Hobbs, and JJ Rosseau, and others, the Declaration shows…