Larkspur...

We saw many of these larkspur on our trip yesterday, usually in shaded areas.  There are many Delphinium species in the chaparral, both blue and red, and I didn't try to identify these...

Grasses...

One of the prominent members of the chaparral flora are various grasses, dozens of different species.  Many of these grow briefly in the spring, then go to seed and turn brown.  Entire mountainsides turn from green to brown early each summer, providing a classic California vista.  In large parts of the chaparral, the grasses grow in relatively small meadows, or along road cuts (or natural rocky breaks), etc.  While on our trip yesterday, we spotted several fine examples.  I've not even tried to identify these...

Chamise...

Chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum) is one of the most common plants in our local chaparral.  Most of the year it's basically an ugly looking pile of fragile dry sticks, and it burns like gasoline in our fires.  But briefly each spring it can actually be quite beautiful, I'll grudgingly admit.  This year the bloom is particularly profuse, presumably because of the normalish rains.  Here's some we saw on our trip yesterday.  I particularly like the dangling branches against the rock wall...

Monkey Flowers...

Yesterday Debbie and I did a little four-wheeling, down Boulder Creek Road and a side road we discovered a couple years ago.  The altitude varies from about 3000' to almost 5000' along these roads.  To our great surprise we found abundant wildflowers at every altitude – very unusual for this late in the year, especially at the lower elevations.  So far this year has been basically at the 100 year average for rainfall, but quite a bit cooler than average.  The combination of normal rainfall (instead of drought) and cooler temperatures must account for the late season.  But whatever the cause, we enjoyed the scenery! 

The photos here are of one of my favorite natives: Mimulus clevelandii, commonly known as monkey flower (supposedly the flower looks like a grinning monkey's head, but I don't see the resemblance).  We have several of these growing in our yard, but the ones we saw today at higher altitudes were much more beautiful.  As usual, click to enlarge...

Palo Verde Tree...

Our Palo Verde tree is exploding with bloom and new growth.  At the rate it's going, it's going to dominate our yard in about 7 weeks (or maybe a bit longer).  Click to enlarge...

Commercial of the Day...

Cheap Glasses...

I haven't tried Zenni Optical (yet) – it was referred to me by a friend-of-a-friend.  Their prices are amazingly low, especially for frames...

Quote of the Day...

Laurence Sunderland, to critics of his decision to allow his 16 year old daughter Abby Sunderland to attempt to sail around the world on her own:

I never questioned my decision in letting her go.  In this day and age we get overprotective with our children. If you want to look at statistics, look at how many teenagers die in cars every year. Should we let teenagers drive cars? I think it'd be silly if we didn't.

Now that's an American showing some some can-do, self-reliant attitude! 

Back Home...

Well, I made it back home (from Phoenix) last night.  At right is me in my rental car (picture taken by my colleague in our customer's parking lot). 

It was hot in Phoenix – at least on Wednesday and Thursday (as high as 108°F!).  On Friday, the weather report called for temperatures to plunge into the mid-90s – and by comparison, that did indeed feel quite cool...

Morning in the Chaparral, Moonless...

The sky was completely dark this morning on our 3:30 am walk; the moon had not yet risen.  The brightest things in the sky were Venus (on the western horizon) and the Milky Way (straight overhead).  Beautiful.

And this morning there was nary a coyote, dog, or turkey to be heard.  The only animal sounds I heard were a few crickets and one lonely-sounding peacock who squawked a few times.  That was it.

Our three field spaniels were nose-down, investigating the previous night's visitors.  At one point in our walk, all three of them wanted to go investigate a nearby pepper tree – a place where I've seen a bobcat lurking before.  They were annoyed that I wouldn't let them check it out.  Our border collie was up to his usual morning shenanigans: picking up pine cones, putting them by my feet, and waiting for me to kick them.  I think he would do that for approximately a year if I was willing to continue the game.

Somehow I suspect that my next two mornings in Phoenix won't be nearly as pleasant...

Cryptography in JavaScript...

Challenging objective: “build a secure, powerful, fast, small, easy-to-use, cross-browser library for cryptography in Javascript” – claimed met.

Light Blogging Alert...

I'm leaving this morning on a three-day business trip to Arizona, with limited access to the Internet and even more limited time.  I'll be back for the weekend, assuming I don't get arrested and deported (I'm not carrying proof of citizenship) ...

Gobar Gas...

Michael Yon has another excellent dispatch, this time not about war.  As usual, his article is well-researched and lavishly illustrated with his photos.  Go read.

Morning in the Chaparral...

Out with the dogs at 3:30 as usual.  The sky was clear and beautiful once again, with the Milky Way bright and straight overhead.  A quarter moon hung just over the mountains to our northwest, slightly orange.  Just to its right and a little higher, Venus shone, so bright and clear that I imagined I could actually see its disk.  The Big Dipper is now rotated at that hour so that the “dipper” almost sits on the horizon, right-side up.  Just a gorgeous evening sky in the high desert...

The dogs were unperturbed by the chorus of howling, yipping coyotes – there was a pack somewhere quite nearby.  I counted at least five individuals, but there were probably more.  I don't think they were more than 100 yards away from us, off to our west on the flanks of our neighbor's hill.  A dog kennel about a quarter mile north of us joined the coyotes, baying and howling.  It was quite a racket!  But all four of our dogs were just doing their thing, acting as if they didn't even hear all this noise...

In the midst of the canine cacophony, there was one discordant sound: a turkey, giving its occasional gobbling.  Worried, probably, as well he should be.  We have quite a few wild turkeys running around our valley, and I bet one of them would make a very nice meal for a pack of coyotes...

Unix Toolbox...

Nice collection of UNIX/Linux/BSD tools, organized and classified...

Spending More to Save More...

Only a liberal administration could publish this memo with a straight face: the Inspector General reports that the Census Bureau says it that it hired and trained more workers than it actually needed as a “cost savings measure” – and they were serious.  One hardly knows what to say, especially after reading all the details.

Oh, the country is in fine hands!

Are you pissed off yet?  Remember that feeling when you vote today.  Throw out the trash!!!

Political Orientation vs. Knowledge of Economics...

Interesting article by Daniel Klein over at the WSJ.  I'm not surprised at the results: libertarians and conservatives, on average, understand a lot more about basic economics than do progressives and liberals (just look at “Spending More to Save More” nearby)...

North Korea: Tourist Destination?

Well, that's what their tourist bureau thinks.  Here's their advertising video to tell you all about it:




My first reaction on viewing this: it reminded me of the grainy black-and-white movies I saw as kid, showing the Soviet's May Day “celebrations” in Moscow...

Best Campaign Pin Evah!

Via my mom:

Bernie Madoff Unleashed...

...and no conscience in sight...

Turkish Hypocrisy...

Victor Davis Hanson on Turkey's hypocrisy...

Could Obama be Hoping for a Republican Takeover in the House?

Fred Barnes outlines why this rumor circulating in Washington just might be true...

Laffer on Taxes...

Arthur Laffer has some grim prognostications on future taxes.  Gulp.  Just what I needed to read on a Monday morning...

Spirit Finds Carbonates...

The Spirit rover has found clear evidence of carbonate rocks on Mars.  Carbonate rocks form only in neutral or alkaline water, in conditions conducive to life-as-we-know-it.  Actually, Spirit recorded the evidence for the carbonate rocks way back in 2005 – but the evidence was recorded on a sensor that was covered in dust, and the dust distorted the readings.  Just recently scientists figured out how to remove the distortion computationally, and thereby found the carbonate rock's “signature”.  The same instrument has collected data for about six years, and the same computational technique means that much of that data can now be “cleaned up”, quite likely leading to other “new” discoveries with old data...

Want to Feel Better Everyday?

It's easy: spend time in nature.  This is one reason I choose to live out in the boonies – it makes me feel better...

Autochromes...

A fascinating online collection of very early (~1910) color photos, using a technique called “autochrome”...

Astrology or Science?

Nicola Scaffetta has posted an interesting paper over at Watts Up With That?  The paper presents a model for climate change that's driven mainly by a number of cyclical phenomena within the solar system.  Some of these phenomena (such as the distance between the sun and the earth) are not controversial; others are considered closer by many scientists to be closer astrology than to astronomy (such as spin-coupling between planets).  I don't fully understand the arguments about the controversial bits, and don't have time to dig into them today – but I'm intrigued by how closely his model backfits to measured data...

Iowahawk on Obama and the Leak...

Don't miss it.

Fun in the Chaparral...

Yesterday a colleague of mine (Aleck L., a software engineer) visited us.  He's a young guy (28) who has spent most of his life in a city environment, so there were lots of surprises for him out here in the country.  We had a great time watching him react to various things, such as the personalities and behaviors of our dogs (he spent a lot of time throwing things for Race) and the cats (he really liked Maka Lea's personality, and Halala Pala's magnificent tail), the birds on our feeders, hummingbirds buzzing him, etc., etc.  Debbie cooked a feast for us – shrimp, salmon, asparagus, green onions, and mushrooms on the grill, and an apple cobbler for dessert.  We were not hungry!

But the best part of all came near the end of the day, when we just casually mentioned to Aleck that we liked to go four-wheeling – something he'd never done.  This surprised him (he's often surprised by the things I like to do), and we asked him if he'd like to go with us sometime.  An emphatic yes.  So then it occurred to us that despite it being 4 pm, we could still make it out to Los Pinos that same day – so we asked if he'd like to go right now, and got another emphatic yes.

So we all piled into the old LandCruiser and took off for Los Pinos.  That trip was a whole series of new experiences for Aleck, and lots of fun for us to share them with him.  We were surprised at the abundant wildflowers at this late date – we saw several beautiful types that we didn't recognize, plus larkspurs, a lupine that was new to us, huge quantities of penstemmon, and some of the nicest Indian Paintbrush we've seen in San Diego County.

At several points along the Corte Madera road, Aleck broke out his iPhone and took short videos of us traversing some parts of the road that looked challenging to him.  That particular road gets more challenging as you go, so we kept running into spots that topped anything he'd seen before – and out came the iPhone again.  We all had a grand time, but we didn't get back home until around 9 pm.  That's late for us, but Aleck said it was plenty of time for him to go to “his next party” – and I do believe that's exactly what he did.  Debbie and I went to bed ...

We Con the World...

Sums it up pretty nicely...

Watts Roundup...

In the space of just 24 hours, Watts Up With That? posts about how the Pacific Islands aren't really sinking, the arctic ice isn't really disappearing, and astronaut Harrison Schmitt bridles at the comparison between Apollo 13 and the BP response.

Who Knew?

Steve McIntyre:

Did any of you know that the US supposedly has a National Contingency Plan for dealing with very large oil spills? And that EPA has legal responsibility for maintaining readiness for such an eventuality? Who knew? I’ve watched hours of coverage and this hasn’t been mentioned anywhere.

Read all about it.

Bayes' Theorum, Visualized...

Here.

How to Plug the Oil Leak in the Gulf...

Via my mom...

Yikes!

In Guatemala City...

Of Course, the Press Is Completely Unbiased!

Via my mom:

A Harley biker is riding by the zoo in Washington, DC when he sees a little girl leaning in too close to the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by her jacket collar and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents.

The biker jumps off his Harley, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch.

Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back, letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly. A reporter has watched the whole event.

The reporter, addressing the Harley rider says, 'Sir, this was the bravest and most gallant act I've seen a man do in my whole life!'

The Harley rider replies, 'Why, it was nothing, really - the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little girl in danger and acted as I felt I should.'

The reporter says, 'Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist, you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page...
So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?'

The biker replies, 'I'm a U.S. Marine and a Republican.'

The journalist leaves.
The following morning the biker buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on the front page as promised:
________________________________________________________________
U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH
________________________________________________________________

That pretty much sums up the media's approach to the news these days!!!

Manning Predicts Revolution in America...

I've posted one of this guy's rants before, and I have the same reaction this time that I did then.

Via my mom, Dr. James David Manning ranting preaching about white revolution in America:

Awesome Quadrotors...

Via reader Doug S.:

Hearing for the First Time...

Lawyers Cause Problems...

I can't believe we're even having a discussion about lawyers on the battlefield, much less actually giving them operational control over weaponry.  We're morphing into Euroweenies faster than I thought, I guess. 

But at least someone had the good sense to take the keys to the UAVs away from the lawyers...

Another One Bites the Dust...

Sheik Sa'id al-Masri, Al Qaeda's third in command, has died from the complications of old age, mental illness, and American-supplied high explosives (but mostly from Amercian-supplied high explosives).

Excellent...

What Every Programmer Should Know About Memory...

Excellent article...

Cartoon of the Day...

A New Personal Project...

Because I just don't have enough things going on in my life!  I'm going to learn Scala.  This is what motivated me.  Here are some resources...

Phobos is Hollow?

Apparently there's some data from at least two of the spacecraft orbiting Mars that indicates that about 1/3 of the volume of Phobos is empty.  I haven't been able to locate the original reports of this.  For all I know, this simply means that Phobos is really just a loose collection of boulders with lots of empty space between them – or possibly even the conclusions about the data are misrepresented. 

But whatever the data and conclusions are, the tin-foil hat brigade is already at it...

Extended Solar Minimum...

Even the mainstream scientific press is starting to talk about the very odd, extended solar minimum we're experiencing.  Next thing you know, they'll start wondering about its impact on climate!

Mickey Kaus vs. “The Box”

Mickey Kaus is running his “Long-shot, bare-bones, grassroots, maverick, seat-of-the pants or independent, but not symbolic, or quixotic” campaign against Barbara Boxer.  I like the cardboard box on the podium!

Memorial Day Message...

From Ted Nugent:

Never forget them. Make every day Memorial Day.

What he said.

The Sarah Palin Homunculus that Lives Inside Liberals' Heads...

IowaHawk is at it again.  WARNING: put your drink down before reading...

Arctic Ice News...

It's Arctic Ice week, or at least it seems like it over at Watts Up With That?

Volcanic Smoke Ring...

Steve and Donna O'Meara captured this photo of a smoke ring shooting out of the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano on May 1, on Iceland.  Anthony Watts estimates its diameter at 1 to 2 kilometers (about a mile).  Awesome!

Quote of the Day...

From Escort81 (at TigerHawk), upon seeing this bumper sticker on a Prius:

If you've lost the Whole Foods-shopping Prius-driving voter, you've lost liberal America, and you're in trouble with your base.

Don't miss the comments...

Miracle of the Little Ships...

Seventy years ago this week, a ragtag, hastily-organized flotilla of some 850 little ships – mostly civilian – crossed the English Channel to Dunkirk to rescue over 300,000 British and French troops under siege from the Nazis.  Through a combination of excellent adaptive leadership, enthusiastic civilian participation (at great risk to both the sailors and their boats), numerous tactical errors and poor leadership on the part of the Nazis, and pure blind luck, they pulled off one of the most amazing wartime feats ever. 

This week, more than 50 of the remaining “little ships” are making a commemorative crossing from Dover to Dunkirk.  The last such crossing was in 1990, on the 50th anniversary...

Good Bosses Believe...

According to Robert Sutton, good bosses believe twelve things.  Lots of ground truth here, I think...

More Dogs...

Here are the promised videos...

Dogs...

Now comes the important part of our trip: the dogs!  Racer and Miki had the time of their lives yesterday.  After the long drive from home to Mt. San Jacinto, they were visibly surprised to find that when they got out of the truck they were in a doggie wonderland.  Lots of space to run around in!  Lots of new smells!  Lots of things to play with – especially pine cones.  Racer has a thing for pine cones; they are by far his favorite toy.  Then there was the stream – oh what fun to run and splash in it!  After a couple of hours of running around like crazy, they crashed on the drive home, sleeping like logs...

Here are some photos from the day; videos will follow:

Streams...

Mt. San Jacinto is a very dry mountain, especially on the eastern flanks.  We spent the day on the north side, which isn't quite a desert environment but doesn't look so very far from it.  The soil is mainly decomposed granite and sand, with very little organic material – so the drainage is practically perfect.  The result is powder-dry soil, lots of dust, and almost no running water.  Except, that is, while the snow pack is still melting – and it was melting while we were there yesterday.  So we had some running water – little rivulets to small streams.  We found one very near the end of Black Mountain Road that was a delight both for us (visually) and for the dogs (much more viscerally).  Some scenes from that stream:

Snow Plant...

Here's one of the stranger members of the flora in the area: the snow plant (Sarcodes sanguinea), a parasitic plant.  My father and I saw lots of these in the Mt. Lassen area a few years ago, and I saw them many times when hiking around Mt. San Jacinto in the 1970s.  I haven't often seen them in the act of emerging, though...

Scenery...

All along Black Mountain Road, one is treated to beautiful vistas.  To the northwest, on a clear day (like yesterday), you can see Mt. Baldy some 65 miles away.  Just 20 miles to the north is San Gorgonio peak.  Both of these were snowcapped, as was the upper elevations of Mt. San Jacinto visible to our south.  We hit just a bit of snow, in shaded areas above about 7,500 feet.  Here are some of the scenes that caught our eye:

Indian Paintbrush...

Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja) wasn't very plentiful, but the few specimens we saw were beautiful – a deeper, purer red than we normally see around home...

Flowers...

Some minature wildflowers that occurred in the lower elevations in sandy flats along the road.  The purple patches were visible from a long distance, but the tiny, sparse little white blossoms were almost invisible until you were upon them...

Manzanita...

One of the delights all along Black Mountain Road are the manzanita.  With all the water this year, most of them are loaded with bloom.  Depending on our altitude (this varied quite a bit over the course of the day), we caught them anywhere from just beginning to bud to absolutely bursting with bloom.  The species found on Mt. San Jacinto are different than the ones we have, just 150 miles south (but much lower altitude).  The species I photographed all day long was my favorite, with bright red or pink flowers than any of our four species have.

Grasshopper...

I've no idea what kind of grasshopper this is, but it was abundant all along the lower reaches of Black Mountain Road...

A Mini-Vacation...

Yesterday Debbie and I took two of our dogs (Miki and Racer) on a one-day vacation: a trip to Mt. San Jacinto, about 150 miles north of our home.  We spent most of our time up there on a leisurely drive along Black Mountain Road, with frequent stops for short walks and explorations.  We finished our day with dinner at the Gastrognome in Idyllwild, long one of our favorite restaurants.

The next few posts contain photos from our trip...