Post Meridiem

Blessed rain...
We got some unexpected, unseasonal rain in my corner of the parched California. And it was 15mm of it to boot, so not just some symbolic sprinkling. I took this shot in my back yard this morning. It's an unknown to me weed that I saved from a certain death, so I could see what it turns out to be like. It tuned out cute, as most weeds do. :-)

Faux wieloryb
Doesn't it look like a snout of a whale?

It snot! I mean: It's NOT! It is an unopened bud of a Naked Lady flower (Amaryllis Belladonna). Here it is what the whole thing looks like in color:

Pics taken in my back yard.

Sunol again!
As in the years past, I've volunteered to man an aid station along the annual Ohlone Wilderness 50K Trail Run. The park rangers dropped me off in the middle of the most gorgeous wilderness, near the Rose Peak (California) and after camping there overnight, I and a few other volunteers helped the 200 participating runners. There wasn't much time to take pictures, but the few I did take you can see here.
The picture below was especially nice, since the underlying phenomena are rather rare:

Mystery flower
OK, let's see who can identify this mystery flower (hint: not tropical):

Another hike
This time I hiked with my wife and

irrevocabilis. This is one of my pictures from that enchanted place that is Sunol Regional Park

Hike

For more pictures from this hike click here.

Spring in Northern Hemisphere
Today I noticed that my yard has 42 different species of flowers in bloom. Kind of cool to have that in the middle of March! You can see them all here

I'ma gonna...
I'm so emo I'm gonna bite ma arm off...

One of the pictures I took last weekend in the Ohlone Wilderness.

Monterey Aquarium
Wow! I haven't been here for a while!

Yesterday I went with my sweetheart to the Monterey Aquarium. That was our date to celebrate Valentines Day. It was great. What an incredibly interesting place. Usually I hate visiting a zoo because I feel so bad for the animals. At the Aquarium I was just thinking that these creatures do not have enough neurons to mentally suffer from imprisonment. I hope.

Here is a picture I took of one of the sea anemone.

Also a picture of a jelly fish. They were so beautiful!

Signing off for a while
I will not be visiting LJ for a while. See if I can live without it.

Laterz...

Smoky skies
When the nearby hills are on fire and the wind blows our way, the skies fill with smoke. The sun casts a strange orange and gold color light.

Mount Diablo
With some friends I hiked to the Hidden Pond on the slopes of Mount Diablo. We had a great picnic and a lively discussion (most people were immigrants from Europe). The wild oat grasses are drying out now, looking like a carpet of gold. It was truly enchanting there and it was hard to go back home.

Back to Sunol
I spent the night at Sunol Park and the following day helped out at the aid station for the Ohlone 50K race. But before the race begun, I took some landscape pictures. You can see them here.

Bold to be bald
I was looking at a lot of great black and white portraits lately and decided to try doing one myself:

And remember what the Bible says in 2 Kings 2:23 before you comment! :-)

Bike Riding
I went bike riding with my friend at the San Francisco Bay Salt Ponds. It was just the perfect weather. We did over 12 miles not meeting almost any people, just wild Canadian Geese and squirrels. What a great place to be on a day like this.

No, we did not meet this mermaid. It's just an icon.

Carmel sand and US penny
During my recent visit there, I was fascinated with the sand on the beach in Carmel (California). It was so white it hurt the eyes and so incredibly fine, like powder. I brought some home and took a picture of it through a microscope, with a common penny as a background. Looking at the grains I realized why it was so white - it's pure quartz! See attached pictures.

In the process, it was also interesting to discover that the penny is the only US coin to use lower register "o" in "UNITED STATES oF AMERICA", while the rest of the coins follow the more expected all-capital letters. Funny, isn't it?

Please help!
I was asked to submit 3 or 4 of my pictures to a photo exhibition - any pictures. I have never done anything like that and am a bit lost as to which ones to choose. Some of my favorites are that way just because of their sentimental value and not because of their inherent aesthetics.

Here is where I need your help: please visit this website made up of what I consider are some of my best pictures and tell me which 3 or 4 you think I should submit:

http://zarzycki.org/jurek/picts/favs/index.html

If your favorite pic (that I took) is not on that web page, please let me know. I will appreciate all feedback!

THANKS!

Carmel By The Sea
Dian and I went for a few days to Carmel this week. The weather held up beautifully for us. The locals told us that it was unseasonably warm week and that just prior week it was unseasonably cold, nearly snowing. They lost a lot of exotic landscaping plants that previous week.

Following the excellent example of

amygooglegirl photographic reports, here are some of our pictures (with extensive captions!) from that trip.

Enjoy!

Moonstone Beach at sunset
Shot at sunset at the same place...

More pictures here.

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