Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun
Showing posts with label end of the year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label end of the year. Show all posts

Friday, December 31, 2021

A Parting Shot and The Rising Storm


     Poster children for the unvaccinated enjoying the fog and drizzle between rain storms that have left us with 12 inches of rain in two weeks while our brethren and sisters up in Sierras are buried under record snow.
    We take the good where we can find it and we'll be tightly gripping our "cup of kindness" as we limp more deeply into the '20's. 
    We've wandered many a weary foot children, so drink up the cup and remember the good old times, stingily parsed these last couple of years. The trusty hand of a friend is a companion wise on the rough road ahead.


    Maybe it just me, but there's something regal here.


    Sunny and Hemingway making the best of it, on a rare moment to be in fresh air, as crises of nature and the human kind beat the old year to a pulp. 
    Another variant, bad behavior and now our precious care givers are beset again. Putin is up to little dictator games, and it's suddenly election year in America. Pass me another cup of kindness there and then I'm headed for safety.


        Whoops! Well, any box in a storm! 
    I've been paying attention the animals around here because people are either disgusting, or they are my friends, who I rarely see except on Zoom or masked, or at social distances and they too are worried about the rise of the disgusting. My tennis pals are an exception as we can put all human foibles out of mind as we rock and roll on the court-except two weeks of rain have stopped that. 
        So Auld Lang Syne 2021. You were supposed to be the year of healing and normalcy. Do you think humanitie's karma is catching up with us?
    


        So I've been looking up, as the storm clouds clear, and I can't stop from trying to make my phone work like a telescope.
        These are meager offerings especially when we have some genuine astrophotographers living in these parts, but they point you in a good direction. We can celebrate the launch of the Webb telescope this month. That will do more for human knowledge than all of the weasel heads in congress, all of the unmasked, and unvaccinated combined.
        Grasp this, Voyager 1 and 2, launched in 1977 are still moving through the heavens. In about 14 thousand Years V 1 will be leaving the Oort cloud. Give it another 280 thousand years and it will be approaching our next nearest star, still in our galaxy of course and we just don't know how many billion galaxies there may be. So there's a perspective to apply to 
the life and times of planet earth in these days of uncertainty. 

        A friend who worked on the Hubble telescope, one of the brightest scientific minds around said often as he aged, "you've got to have a sense of humor in this life." Frank was frequently bemused when it came to how the inhabitants of this planet conducted themselves. 
        So let's take a right good draught for auld lang syne and for the good old days to come.

        Slainte'

    See you down the trail. 

Friday, December 28, 2012

THE WEEKENDER-RECALLING

FRAGMENTS 
Sometimes a piece of a tune, a hint of fragrance or a glimpse is enough to put you on memory lane.  







FRIDAY LUNCH FLASH MOB
AT THE CLOSING OF THE YEAR
What's a cloudy cool day among friends?
THE YEAR IN PICTURES
    A favorite task in the newsroom was to review the work of our photo journalists, to find the images that told of a year.  Here is the year reconstructed by images from shooters at Reuters. I suggest you watch this full screen.
Enjoy your weekend and the reminiscence.
See you down the trail.