Time flies when you roast coffee

When I recently posted a video of my new Hottop Coffee Roaster doing its job, Izzy wondered how long it took to roast. I guessed around 15 minutes. I was wrong. It takes a bit longer. Colleen suggested that I reshoot the video with some old-time movie cliché showing the passage of time.

Your wish is my command!

Here is the coffee roaster with a clock ticking the seconds off!



I'll get around to telling you more about the movie in the next few days (if you ask for more).

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Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A tin turtle beneath a glass mask.

It was a walk in the park, part two

San Dieguito River Park

Yesterday, after we walked through Kit Carson Park, Jerry suggested another hike.

We went home to swap our flip-flops for shoes and headed to the south side of the Westfield North County mall (Kit Carson Park is just to the north of the mall).

We took a walk on part of the North Shore Lake Hodges segment of the Trails of the San Dieguito River Park. This is a park that eventually will go from the ocean at Del Mar to Julian.

We had started out just to walk across the David Kreitzer Bridge over Lake Hodges. This is the longest stressed ribbon bridge in the world. When I drive to work each morning I see a patch of green in the lake near the bridge. I wanted to see what is flourishing in the middle of the lake.

Here is Lake Hodges to the east of Interstate 15.

It's kind of low this year.

This is what it looks like beneath Interstate 15.

The David Kreitzer bridge from the south side of Lake Hodges.

The stressed ribbon design gives us a bridge with only two supports, long spans, and a very low profile. This minimizes the bridge's effect on the lake.

Here's a view of the bridge from the bridge.

Here's the patch of green I see from my car. It's a little island!

We saw what we came for!

But wait, there's more to the trail. Why don't we walk a little more?

We passed a sign that should make Colleen happy to see.

*sniffle*

The required panorama made from six shots stitched together.

There were flowers.

Here's a Google Map of our little walk.

View Lake Hodges Hike in a larger map
(Zoom out or click on the link to see the whole trip.)

We just had to keep seeing what is around the next bend. Apparently it was almost four miles out and nearly that back. We drank a lot of water when we got back home. It was a nice day in the parks.

It was a walk in the park

Today, instead of doing laundry and other chores, Jerry and I got some fresh air in some local parks. I lugged my camera with me.

Kit Carson Park
Our first stop was Kit Carson Park.

We got to see a snake.

It no longer holds a swing. Maybe too many kids crashed into the snake's body.

There were trees with pretty blossoms.

There were wildflowers.

And there was Queen Califia's Magic Circle. This is the only American sculpture garden by Niki de Saint Phalle.

The approach to the Magic Circle.

The entrance through the Snake Wall.

Some views of Queen Califia and the Eagle Throne.

Some of the Totems with more of the Snake Wall in the backgrounds.

Why haven't any of our visitors seen this? I guess to leave something for their next visits.

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Next stop on the walk: Coming Soon!

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Taking the Roadster for a spin

As I promised when I introduced you to the Roadster, here (finally!) is a video of it in action.

Moving right along

The final processes of my digestive system have gotten back how they were before, well, I forget.

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Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Refrigerator magnets.

They're on the door to the garage...the refrigerator is stainless steel and magnets don't stick to it.

The top one is cast paper. Karen gave it to us.

Compare and Contrast

We had some parties to celebrate my mother's 90th birthday over the Fourth of July weekend in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Between parties, I hauled my camera to the spot where the water tank used to be above the house I grew up in (and where three of my nieces are now growing up).

I love my new camera. It can do everything. And with the help of the few accessories I've gotten for it so far, it can do even more.

One of the accessories I've bought is a circular polarizing filter. One of the things that the filter can do is darken the sky without changing colors since the sky far from the sun is polarized a bit.

The first part of my picture project was to see the polarized filter in action.

First, here is a picture looking west at Burnt Mountain. This picture has the polarizing filter oriented so that it aligned with the sky's polarization. It doesn't darken the sky. 

Now I have rotated the filter 90˚. The sky has darkened and the clouds became more apparent. You can better see the quarter moon just to the left of the mountain (about half way up the mountain).

I didn't do any tweaking of the colors so the greenery has gotten lighter in the second picture since the automatic exposure has compensated for the darker part of the picture.

Another thing that the camera can do is take very long exposures. Here is the same shot (well, zoomed in a little...I didn't really mean to do that) later that day. This was about 10:30 that night and the exposure lasted 107 seconds, not quite two minutes.

If I had had the zoom set the same for the two pictures we should have been able to compare the lengths of the stars' trails to the diameter of the moon in the previous picture. It takes about two minutes for the moon (or the sun) to move its width across the sky. So the stars' trails should be about the same width as the moon. At least for the stars near the equator.

I repeated this exercise with the mountain to the north. First, with minimal darkening from the polarized filter.

And maximizing the sky's darkening.

And a 206-second exposure that night.

Though there is nothing to contrast this picture with, here is a 13-minute exposure of Polaris and its surrounding stars.

To the left of Polaris is a short track of a meteor or a satellite flare. Along the bottom of the picture you can see the dotted line of an airplane's navigation lights as it flew across the shot. And from around the middle of the bottom to the middle of the right side there is a solid line, either a satellite or a meteor (or maybe it's a flying saucer!).

Now I have to make myself a barn door tracker and try to shoot the sky without the stars leaving trails. But then, I don't make it to places with dark skies very often. When you live in the big city, you give up a lot of your stargazing.

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Happy Birthday, Mombert!

As P-Doobie told us, we had a birthday party for Mombert where the dessert was a cheesecake with sparklers instead of candles. It was near the 4th of July, after all. I had my camera ready and took a little video of the festivities.

For your viewing pleasure, here's...

Birthday Cheesecake Flambée!

Now call the fire department.

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Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

Artwork by Dawn Dark Mountain.

A woodblock print.

A watercolor.

Turtle Tchotchke Tuesday

A ceramic turtle from Mexico (it's got "Mexico" written under its chin).