Today's walk report: 011914

The universe is talking...

about the sunsets on the planet earth.

But 1st, the walk to get there. I struggled today. I was sluggish and a little achy. I worked in the yard in the late AM but I think I was struggling with that too. I'm not sure what was up with that. I didn't have my regular two cups of strong coffee in the morning. In fact I had only about 1/2 cup of some really weak coffee. Maybe that was it. As it turned out I struggled on the walk all the way to the top of the hill and I hit a vending machine for a Mountain Dew, Code Red which has the regular caffeine jolt of ordinary Mountain Dew but is favored a rather sickening sweet cherry. Anyway, it did the trick and got me motivated to make it to the other side of the hill, to the cross country course to await the sunset. It seemed apparent early on we were in for a doozy.

In the garden. It was only male Anna's #1. I saw only one other hummingbird but it zipped past me way too fast for an ID.

I didn't hang out there too long, just one quick lap. I was already preoccupied with getting a soda and finding a caffeine buzz.

That kicked in before I got up to the switchbacks on the CC course, I sat, listened to music and watched the show.

The geese were everywhere.

There was a whole bunch of commotion going on off to the north too with LAPD in the air and on the ground and LAFD paramedics moving in ground level too. I turned the music up.

Midway...

I walked up and down the path of the switchbacks marveling at the setting sun and looking for alternate angles. I was shooting vertical and horizontal panoramics all at 70mm since I only brought a 70-300mm lens.

This is 12 vertical images stitched,

and this is 3 horizontal images stitched.

That's it. I was fine all the way home and feel pretty good right now too. Now it's time for a movie and some couch potato non-activity. Thanks for looking at the sunset with me.

Today's walk report: 083013

Preparing for a sunset.

Frequently before I leave the house I'll look outside the small west facing window next to my a/c unit to see what the sky looks like. Either that or I'll take a quick cruise out to the driveway and do the same. This is to get an idea of what sort of sunset to expect and decide on what I want to bring along lens-wise. I've mentioned before that I don't like to carry much on the walk. If it's going to be a picture taking walk I usually take the camera, over my shoulder using a BlackRapid RS-7 strap, my Canon 70-300mm telephoto and put my Canon 500D closeup attachment in my pants pocket. It's OK, it's in a plastic case. But I'll also consider carrying a Canon 60mm macro or a 18-55mm stock lens. Whichever one going along in a small zippered case which Velcros onto the belt that holds my pants up. If it's the 18-55mm that usually means I expect a nice sunset. Not that all sunsets aren't wonderful but some are better than others.

Today I took the 18-55mm lens.

It was 93º and 38% humidity out the door. It wasn't comfortable. The botanical garden is 1.85 km into the walk and when I go to the garden I like to slow down and look for pictures. Not today. I got to the garden, stopped and said out loud... fuck this.

I did get a somewhat unique photo op with a brown carpenter bee however. I took 125 shots with the 500D of this one in flight. It was basically hovering in one spot. Now, a variance of just a few cm means the difference between focus and no focus so it still wasn't an easy shot and when I say one spot what I really mean is an area of about 45 square cm (18"). Nevertheless, I got a moment or two in.

Onto the sunset...

The beginning.

The ending...

and from the "other side"--that would be facing east.

Today's walk report: 062613

This is so hot...

As summer settles in my walk time becomes more and more dependent on outside temperature than hour of the day. I prefer to walk when the thermometer reads 85º F (29.4º C) or less. I would much rather walk in a torrential downpour than in 100º + weather. I live in the San Fernando Valley (you know like, Encino, the Galleria, it's so bitchen) and it gets really hot here. I'm actually a few miles north west of Encino--but we pretty much share the same heat. It's not like Phoenix, Arizona hot but it can be pretty miserable. Triple digits will be common. 115º+ is not unheard of.

The only really positive thing I can say about this kind of weather and how it effects my walks is, waiting for cooler climes gets me out at the right time to catch some nice sunsets. Temps can stay way up there well into October and as we progress into fall the setting sun is often quite spectacular.

Today I walked out the door about 7:15 PM or 89.6º F. I turned the A/C on before I left and really appreciated it when I got home. Sunset today was no more than an orange glow behind the Santa Susana Mountains so no pics but I thought I'd post some from last year instead.

This is kind of random, I'm really just hoping to get this done rather quickly tonight.

That's a peregrine falcon in the tree there.  That's a rare bird in these parts.

Usually it's a pair of crows in this location. Trust me, the other one was nearby. I would see these same two crows everyday at sunset.

See? Would I lie to you?

Sometimes I'm already heading home. I often have 2nd thoughts about not having waited out the sunset from up on the hill but then I had special responsibilities at home which took precedence last year. Tonight I had a vivid recollection of my mother passing away the last km of my walk--almost a tunnel vision movie playing out in front of me. I'm coming up on 4 months since she left, some of the memory could fade a bit faster if it would. This is very close to where I was when that happened today.

 If the sunset is lighting up the sky in a big way I often shoot the other direction for shots I call, the other side of sunset (in other words, east.)

Panorama shot silhouetting the Santa Susana Mountains.

The Warner Center, Woodland Hills, CA.

Many times there have been wonderful sunsets and I don't have the best choice of lenses. This shot 70mm and was a 16:9 crop from 3:2.

That "texture" you see in the clouds remains consistent across multiple image over the course of about 15 minutes. I have to assume it was winds, or perhaps some crazy virga effect. I saw it too so it wasn't my camera. This shot was taken 100613.

 
 Want a closer look? Here you go...

Now let's look north, 8 minutes later...

A week earlier... I wonder what the bird on the barbed wire is thinking. I see a lot of animals watching the sunset and just have to believe there's something going on. Some magic.

Today's walk report: 050713

I don't usually bring a DSLR on school days but I did today. One reason was to see if I could capture an image if the traffic problem at the intersection I tried to describe yesterday. The other reason was I thought I might catch a nice sunset. Well, sunsets are always nice aren't they? But you know what I mean--photographically nice, as in special. The traffic thing is a Monday deal for the most part so that didn't happen. I'm not quite sure what it is about Mondays and intense rush hour traffic. Maybe it's a lot more people going to work because it looks really bad if you call in sick on a Monday? Right? It looks like you might have a problem. So people struggle through and perhaps give some indication of how crappy they feel yet what hard workers they really are so ultimately the boss shows enough sympathy that they feel they can take off on Tuesday. I don't know. I'm merely speculating, for all I know on Tuesdays everybody goes to the gym after work. Anyway, on to the walk...

This could very well be my alternate gig for the walk. I was a pretty serious cyclist on and off over many years of my life. I will, in fact, start riding night rides once again once school lets out in the summer. For the most part the campus is deserted and I have a route which is relatively safe. I tried this a few times last year but last year I was taking care of my mother and I don't think she was particularly excited about seeing her son head out on a bike in the evening. I had a great sense of responsibility to my mom too so this night ride thing was a rare exception to that responsibility. For those people stumbling into me here, my mother passed away at the age of 90 here at the house where I grew up. This Valley, a place I vowed 27 years ago never to return to except to visit, has once again become where I live. Life has it's little unexpected surprises, doesn't it?

Riding in a pack really helps control automotive traffic to the rear.

I added about 1.5 km to the walk by heading up to the campus cross country course and walking some of that. I ran this course in High School. Miserable sport--cross country running. Just awful. This is the view off toward the music and theater arts buildings. The main theater has been under reconstruction for over 2 years now and was supposed to re-open last fall. It's behind the green fenced off area on the right of the image. The parking lot is covered with solar panels which was a pretty early adoption for that sort of tech. I guess the school had funding to get stuff done back then.

These are the "switchbacks" on the CC course. They start about 1 mile into a H.S. race right after you go up "Hernia Hill." The other part of the course which had a name was the hill marking the final 550 or so yards of a race. It was called, "Puke's Peak" and rightly so.

Finally, a panorama of the sunset. When I started the walk that cloud layer out there wasn't so dense. That sucked up the end of the setting sun. Still it was a wonderful walk on a beautiful day.

The "best of" The Walk Report (and related babble)

A Brief History of The Walk Report

Ever since I got sucked into Facebook, August 27, 2008, I have made a habit of posting photos, events and music which have taken place on my "daily constitutional," a walk which I have done now with a great deal of dedication, rain or shine, in sickness or in health, for the last 12 years. For whatever reasons I decided to share the experience but for much of it, and I think this is true for a lot of people on social media, there was a rather perverse subconscious commitment in the sharing of one's bullshit. Some of that bs goes down to the level of sharing the sandwich one is eating or the color of one's toenails. In the world of psychology we call that addictive behavior.


On or about March 25, 2012 I began labeling these Facebook posts as, Today's walk report. Eventually I found out that some "friends" would look forward to the Walk Report. I also found out that my son and his girlfriend enjoyed my report. Wow! I'm appealing to a younger audience. But the kids were bailing on Facebook because the adults took over. The longer I stayed the more I too realized, yes, the adults were annoying and numerous adults I encountered seemed to believe just about everything because they--read it on the Internet.


Here's the thing about the walk itself.... It is rather routine. It's typically the same 4-6 mile trek each and every day with only minor variations and extensions depending on how I feel and how much time I have. Occasionally there is a supplemental walk of some sort. I might actually go to and from a location like a movie theater, a store, or I'll report on something related to walking in general--like shoes, foot problems, injuries. Once in awhile I'll report specifically about the diversions that take place with music during walks. Music is a huge part of my walks. In relation to the report itself the walk is almost superfluous yet it becomes, at times, the challenge of tying to find something interesting within the banality of the act itself. It encapsulates a subconscious desire of making something ordinary and mundane somehow interesting to another person... or not. Aside from the report the walk is--routine exercise. 

April 19, 2013, my walks moved here to the blogosphere. And here's a late entry edit to this post, on April 1, 2015 I permanently deleted my Facebook account. On this edit day, December 29, 2019 I'd like to encourage anyone reading this who is currently on Facebook to bail. It's liberating and while I thought much of Facebook was bullshit back in 2015 I will add this to that now--Facebook is evil and Mark Zuckerberg is an asshole.

I hope at least a few people find some sort of entertainment in the idea of somebody posting ordinary drivel of a routine event such as a walk... that's another thing about posting here... people can just bump into me, don't have to feel obligated to "Like" because they are my "friend," they don't have to "belong" to Facebook, etc.

On to the report...
Finally... to familiarize this audience with the Walk Report here are some sample postings from the past year or so... my so-called, "best of," more likely they are random selections--I don't know myself at this point.

 March 17, 2013
Today's walk report: This ALMOST happened yesterday, same exact spot about the same time, except yesterday as soon as I raised the camera it was bye-bye birdie. Red tailed hawk, I took close to 200 shots from 45 to 6 meters away. He/she (really hard to tell with RTHawks) sat and watched me until I left. I thought I took a ridiculous number of pictures but now I think I should have kept going until we parted together.

Sometimes the report is a little abstract...
March 11, 2013
Today's walk report: All I did was walk. I think the walk looked like this.

Serious moments. This was the report the day after my mother passed away, in my childhood home with me at her side, age 90.
Today's walk report: I discovered that I cannot cry and walk at the same time so, for the most part, I walked, 5.45 miles and took in some really great music. Today was the 2nd worst day of my life. It only stands to follow, they will get better.
March 6, 2013

Revelations about my personality.Today's walk report: End of the walk, back home. People thought I was watering but what I was really doing was making rainbows. Sometimes you just need to make your own.
February 28, 2013

Hummingbirds have been the subject of several walk reports but what typically is going on is the exoneration I find in the process. Taking photos is about what it does for my spirit.
Today's walk report, SPECIAL, MATINÉE EDITION: For those of you who have an idea about what goes on in my life... The mom's been pretty sick last few days. This is on top of a rather rapid decline in her overall fitness over the past few weeks. So, that's where my attention has been. My sister came for a visit today and that gave me a couple of hours to take an early walk. It was really nice to have so much light. I should go out earlier more often. It's really windy today so that did a number on some close up picture takin' but my hummingbird friends ultimately provided some nice photo ops.
February 24, 2013 (edit: Our mother passed away 10 days later)

There have been financial rewards on walks.
Today's walk report: That's about $1 a mile. This was on the sidewalk just short of the 1/4 mile mark. I walked about another 30 yards, thought "wait a minute", and went back looking for more to no avail. Last year I found $1... I'm working my way up to the big money. See, exercise really does have its rewards.
February 13, 2013

Frequently there are sunsets in the report...Today's walk report: A little sloppy but so be it. 6 image panorama of the first Woodland Hills sunset of 2013. I never mention this but when I'm out on a walk--that's the main deal, the walk. Happy New Year again... I hope everyone had a wonderful 1st day of 2013.

January 1, 2013

Sometimes I just make shit up...
Today's walk report: I dunno the story here. I hardly think that's going to contain him though. The Sheriff told me, "it's just a kitten. It's not too bright."
December 21, 2012

Simple observations...
Today's walk report: Bolero Hat.
November 9, 2012

That's it, in a nutshell and from today, April 19, 2013 it's happening from here. Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Be good, have fun! 

(Several edits to this post took place on December 28, 2019, just because a lot can change in 6 years and 8 months).