9/6/15

View to the west from Red Mountain

I think I had a decent week. I paid the bills and nothing fell from heaven and smashed anything. An old client came out of nowhere and bought a couple small paintings. Everything is appreciated in the dog days of summer.

I was allowed access to a beautiful Fallbrook lake and spent an afternoon shooting with the Sigma150-600mm c, however none of the shots really turned out any good.

I posted a note regarding my problems and some test shots over at DPReview, a photographer's website, really not smart on my part as they love nothing better than to snark over there and I got pretty much what I expected from them.

Ken agreed to test the new lens thoroughly, scientifically with controlled variables and it turned out it was shooting in front of the focus subject anywhere from 4 to 18". Now I knew that it wasn't me and a case of lousy technique and I felt a little better!

I ended up taking the lens back to Samy's in Santa Ana where they cheerfully exchanged it.

I am happy to report that the new replacement is working perfectly. Can't wait to shoot more extensively with it.

But I won't be shooting the old hawk's nest anymore. It's gone.

Loyal Blast readers have seen pictures of the red tailed hawk nest for the last eight years. Like this one.

One day I sense that something is weird, look over and it's just gone. Poof! Maybe it got too heavy and just slipped off the tree or crashed. Vacant this time of the year in any case. But I will have to be real lucky for them to build in the same spot so this might be an end of an era of hawk shooting for me. Well, nothing lasts forever. It was a great run while it lasted.

Doves at twilight

In a few weeks I will be taking pictures of eagles and orcas.

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This is a picture of Leo and Therese from The Sushi Bus, a mobile sushi caterer. Leslie and I had a beer at the Fallbrook Brewery on Thursday and they were set up there.

Very good, very creative, not to mention ultra clean. Nice people working the fish too.

We had a spicy yellowtail with prickle pear scotch bonnet sauce, yellowtail, avocado, cilantro with krab and cucumber as well as a shrimp tempura roll.

Leo made us a wonderful complimentary spam musabi with a deep fried something attached that was out of this world yummy.

Been hitting the Guatemalan place pretty hard too. Lengua taco today, sopes and a fresh naranja y fresa smoothie. If you haven't tried the tamales at Aydees you are missing out.

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If we had paid no more attention to our plants than we have to our children, we would now be living in a jungle of weed.
Luther Burbank

We have been invited to an adult party that is billed as 4/20 friendly this afternoon.

No pollyanna, I am going, if nothing else to see the dawning of the brave new world that some of us imagined when we were kids. Now that it's finally arrived, I'm a little staid and ho hum. Like, so what? Adults smoke weed. Shocking! Is that it?

But that is another subject for another day, a day when I feel more comfortable discussing the whole topic publicly.

But is there anything so boring as discussing marijuana in 2015? Trainwrecks, pineapple kush, blah, blah, blah, vaporizors, wax, blah, blah, blah the whole shebang has gotten so goofy.

Anybody still reading High Times after the age of forty should seriously consider get some counseling for arrested development. At least find a complimentary complementary complimentary hobby, preferably something that doesn't involve television or eating.

postscript - the party turned out to be 4/20 tolerant. turns out I was the only miscreant... oh well.


I swear someday I will write a book. Change all the names of course.

Rain © Robert Sommers 2015