Today's walk report: 030522

 This was a much needed excursion. Besides waking up at 3:30 AM (not unusual) I ventured into the Dark Side on the news front and also made a serious mistake of translating some Russian Tweets into English and experienced a world of disinformation which was well beyond the pale. The scary thing... those posting had no idea how the rest of, most of, the world is seeing things. It was a big mistake on my part, it won't happen again. More typical during the past week or so, I've been spending early mornings reading SciFi stories, mostly from the late 1800's into the early 1950's. That and walking. 

I've only read one story about the destruction of earth and that was by natural causes. Climate change without human intervention, actually. At least humans weren't getting attribution.

Anyway, company on the phone with Docken and that was nice. I drove onto the campus today and extended my walk to adjust for that. I'm going to guess it was a little over 2.5 miles. I missed more pictures than I took.

In the garden there was ever trusty Dusty (male Calype anna).

Over the phone I commented on sirens I was hearing to Docken because they just went on and on. It's not the kind of thing you ever want to hear but especially now. I took the infinite stairway up the hill and the sirens continued, by this time it had been a solid 15 minutes, along with what sounded like truck horns. From the top of the hill I could see what was going on, sort of. This is a long way away (can't ya tell) and I still hadn't quite exactly figured things out until I got home and zoomed in on the photos, Today was opening day for the local Little League teams and the parade was truckloads of kids and dads. They were being escorted by the Los Angeles Fire Department and also the Los Angeles Police Department. At first I thought what a pain in the butt but then I thought about the kids not having any of this for what? Two seasons of baseball. I have some fond memories of being a Little League dad with my son.   

Age 13, last year for little league, the last game for the league championship, my son... I don't think it was this at bat but in the final inning his team was down one run. It was two outs, runners on second and third my son hits a double to win the game. I was a proud dad. Almost 18 years later, I remain very proud of my son for very different reasons.

 Oh yeah, the parade. I've never seen any sort of parade in this town before...

"St. Louis Cardinals"

"Los Angeles Dodgers"

"Oakland Athletics"

Continuing on the walk I decided to see if the school had finally opened up the cross country course for the general community. There was an incident some five years ago and there was a decision to gate the course. As it turns out it's still gated except for special events under permit. I found this sign on the gate rather odd.

"TOGETHER, WE MAKE POSSIBLE HAPPEN." What the... huh?!

Right after taking that picture there was a roar in the sky. A fairly regular occurrence on weekends, this is the Condor Squadron, a nonprofit organization dedicated to honoring America’s veterans, out of Van Nuys Airport. I believe the planes are North American Aviation T-6 Texan aircraft.

Overall, a beautiful day, good company on the phone (thank you), I was nicely distracted from current affairs and also from a day which I find to be an unpleasant anniversary of sorts. Now, I'm off to distractions in my home garden. Here's what the view was like for the walk. This is a 34 image panorama, I'm sorry you miss the full effect.

Oh, one last picture for Docken... Here's Stan from Wednesday morning. Seeing Stan and letting Docken know Stan was here for bed and breakfast is always a wonderful way to start the day. Stan is a special kitty, Stan is a very good boy.

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