Saw this tire swing on Cow Creek near Whitmore yesterday. It called out to me. Too cool for an Autumn swim, I settled for a photograph or two.
Overexposed going for the long shutter time ‘misty water’ look. Photographers who master that technique have my admiration.
Not Really Redding. Perhaps Really Whitmore.
Fall run Salmon spawn in Clear Creek near Redding
Restoration efforts have paid off for Clear Creek, but even so, this Fall run seems way below recent years.
We tried to imagine prior runs where the creek was filled with fish from edge to edge.
We spotted these battered sojourners enjoying the gravel beds below the lookout on Clear Creek Road near Redding. They are kind of difficult to make out, but we were at least a hundred feet away, and far above them.
Really Redding
There was a lot to do in Redding this weekend, but…
Buckeye Tower Mart gets upgraded
Tower Mart v2 opened in the Buckeye part of Redding yesterday. It’s a nice upgrade to the area.
Gas prices look attractive. And it has an automated Car Wash.
I know they are concerned about the competition over at nearby locally owned Variety City, so be sure to patronize them as well if you go out to see the new store. Variety City has a lot to offer too. We wish great success to both businesses.
Summer Schappell plays the Asphalt Cowboys BBQ
Summer Schappell is the granddaughter of my colleague Bill Schappel at the real estate brokerage I worked with in 2009. She’s an up and coming singer who has performed here and recorded in Nashville. She and her band gave a terrific performance for an appreciative audience and I took some photos. We were told that many of the drive-thru customers heard the music and got out of their vehicles instead of just driving through for food. The weather was perfect, the food was really good, and there was lots of it.
Photographic reminder
Beguiled by bridge busker
I meet RS Editor Silas Lyons for the first time
I finally met the current editor of my usually-beloved/occasionally-infuriating local newspaper, and it turns out he’s a decent guy. It’s hard to believe we’d never actually met.
He seemed to know who I was. He reminded me about that time last year I photoshopped his head onto the body of a young girl on this blog. Oh…yeah. To tell the truth, I’d forgotten all about that. I felt my face redden with embarrassment. It’s easy to sort-of disrespect a public figure online, but when you are face to face, it’s a different story. Plus, I sometimes just get carried away, heh. I apologized to Silas, but he said he had a good laugh over it. I hope he wasn’t just being polite.
He was speaking to the Shasta Association of Realtors about some new programs and stuff. More interesting to me was the glimpse into the things that keep a small town newspaper editor awake at night, while their business model is rapidly changing. Ironically, there was a new online classified ad website being promoted at that same meeting. The new site trumpeted their “localness” but seems to be more of a a statewide business. Another new competitor for the RS revenue stream. Silas and his crew face huge challenges. I want them to be successful. We need a strong newspaper.
Silas was kind enough to let me take a few photos if I promised not to photoshop him again. In return, I was reluctant to bring up my pet peeve about the RS continually running and re-running cartoons in the Sunday paper penned by the long-dead Charles Schulz. Okay, so my dismay about Peanuts is more of an obsession than a pet peeve, but I kept a lid on it. Like I said, Silas seemed like a real nice fellow. Anyway, after looking over the photos, I can see why he’s very comfortable with our newspaper running Charlie Brown cartoons over and over…
Hummingbird poses
This little guy (or gal) sat still long enough for me to get in a few shots.
It saw me, but didn’t seem to care much. They seem to me to have quite complex behavior, especially considering how small they are, and how small their brains must be, they seem proportionally brilliant.
I caught one image as it was about to fly off, and thought that was a lucky shot.
Really Red Planet magic
So we have these two robots exploring another planet and one of them comes across this big rock lying exposed on a flat plain. Further examination reveals the rock to be a meteor made of iron. There it sits, perched rather improbably. What happened to the crater it must have left when it hit? Did it blow away, leaving only the meteor? It’s genuinely mysterious.
Okay this is not Really Redding, per se. But this is something we did. Are doing. This is happening today. We Reddingites, we Californians got together to send robots to another planet. Try saying it out loud. “We flew these robots to a distant Red Planet, and they wander around looking at stuff, and taking pictures for us.” Words fail, really. It’s amazing and awesome when you think about it. Which is probably not often.
Not often enough. It is still thrilling to me to be part of a species that explores places, and builds elaborate devices out of nothing but curiosity. We humans spend a lot of time talking about the mundane, but magic goes on all around us every day.
This robotic mission to Mars is one of the most magical things ever to consider and learn from. It stands as a complete highlight moment of our entire civilization. Click HERE for more. There is a lot of drama there, even if it’s couched in science terms at JPL. See what’s happening with the other robot. It’s drama and magic. Mostly it goes on unnoticed by the many, like so much of the magic in our lives….