Today's walk report: 010114

Happy new year!

Man, am I beat! I don't go in for year end craziness any more in my life but I did happen to stay up for the new year last night, watching a movie and enjoying a fire in the fireplace with my cat Lucy. I figured even if I had gone to bed at a normal time I would have been awoken with fireworks at midnight. The fact is, I would have been awoken by sirens wailing from EMT ambulances at 11:04 PM until about 11:15. Seemingly 3 or 4 different groups of emergency vehicles flying by all about the same time. Personally, I've seen bad stuff go down on new year's eve in my past. I'm not going to be a part of that in my present. When the clock struck midnight and of course well before and well after, it wasn't just firecrackers and whistling fireworks, it was full blown explosions. It's a mentality I find beyond idiotic.

This makes sense to me...

Anyway, last time I looked at the clock before drifting off to sleep it was 1:30 AM. Lucy T. Cat had come out from wherever she went to hide during the major explosions and was curled up next to me in bed, twitching away in her kitty dreams. She also decided I needed to get up at 6:20 AM and walked up and down on me until I did. Turns out she had a 1st furball of 2014 hacked up and waiting for me on the living room carpet. That also meant an empty tummy and she wanted her AM treat. I at least made her wait for me getting some coffee brewing.

5 hours sleep. That doesn't cut it for me these days. I was dragging on the walk something serious but I still managed to do 8.79 km. At the top of the hill and pointing toward home I checked the time, 4:22 and decided not to prolong things by trying to wait for the 1st sunset of 2014 and headed home. Sunset was 4:57.

Before all that...

The 1st episode of critters not caring about my presence. These two hares were actually too close to me for me to focus, I had to lean back. Minimum focus is 1.5 meters.

This fellow drove me nuts for awhile, hopping from one lamppost to the next as I approached never giving me a very good opportunity to get focus in flight. That's what I was hoping for, a nice in flight closeup. I think it was the 4th hop between 3 lampposts that it decided it was just going to ignore me and stay put. I even slapped my hand against the hollow metal lamppost many times trying to encourage it to take flight again but it simply did not care.

Today's walk report: 123113

Final report, 2013.

Out a little early again today for two reasons. One I understand the behavior of a lot of people on a night like New Year's Eve and  two, I wanted to get home and relax for the coming of the new year. This morning I drove downtown and submitted paperwork ending another phase in the wonderful probate process in Los Angeles County. I actually got in and out of L.A. Superior Court quickly enough to only have to pay $5.50 of a $10 maximum for day parking at the lot I choose to park at. This has never happened before. It was called to my attention recently that a lot of people don't know what probate is about so in a nutshell...

Probate is a legal process that takes place after someone dies. It includes:

• proving in court that a deceased person's will is valid (usually a routine matter)
• identifying and inventorying the deceased person's property
• having the property appraised
• paying debts and taxes, and
• distributing the remaining property as the will (or state law, if there's no will) directs.

Not on that bullet list, it's a big pain in the ass but it wasn't enough of a pain in the ass for me to pay a lawyer to do it. The biggest problem is that process itself was essentially created by lawyers with their best interest in mind. So despite an independent Administration of Estate Act (IAEA) it appears to me things have been designed to confuse and intimidate the novice going in. This is something I've had to rise above.

The walk. I was out the door by 2:15. There were very few people out driving. In fact it was the same driving downtown today, it was like it was already a holiday--no traffic. In Los Angeles this always amazes us.

Onto the campus.

I think this is the same Anna's hummingbird I've been seeing lately, it's in the same spot as the 1st photo taken 122613. I got close enough this time to fill the the shadows from the palo verde tree that looms above and behind this Cesalpinia bush with the on board flash on my camera. This was a good reminder to do some tests with an old but decent Vivatar flash unit I have and that project is coming up this evening once I get myself cleaned up and over to the living room couch. The on board flash on most cameras is good for about nothing.

This is a turkey vulture above and seemingly challenging a red-tailed hawk for airspace. I had 5 birds of prey all coming in my direction in a circular pattern at the same time. I may have lost track of who's who watching through the lens. There may have been a Cooper's hawk in the mix. I was certainly spinning around in circles too.

This I'm almost positive is two red-tailed hawks.

Here's a closeup of that same lower red-tailed which circled directly over my head.

This, unfortunately, was the best shot I got of the turkey vulture. The second turkey vulture was way outside of the action zone.

That's it for 2013! I had a great 8.79 km walk on a beautiful day. On the way home I was already seeing some suspicious driving so I'm glad I'm not out amongst the holiday drinkers. Hopefully people are getting smarter about free Metro transit services here in L.A., and even free towing service from AAA. Please don't drink and drive. Happy new year and thanks again for joining me on my walks!