Hot Spring Pools

This is what is left of the Pan Hot Springs Hotel in Big Bear City. It was built in 1924 and burned to the ground 9 years later. All that was left of the hotel was these two naturally heated mineral hot springs pools. They eventually reopened and became swimming pools for the locals of Big Bear City until the June 1992 Big Bear earthquake, forcing their closure due to extensive damage. During the time I lived in Big Bear there was always talk about reopening the pools, I guess it just hasn't happened yet. Right next to this site a large church has now been built.

We Miss You PJ

Today marks the 1 year anniversary since my golf buddy, colleague and very good friend PJ sadly lost his brief fight with stomach cancer. I met PJ when on my first day working at the County of Riverside. He instantly took me under his wing and showed me the ropes and introduced me to all the right people. We worked together for 8 and bit years and had some great times. PJ is also the person responsible for my golf addiction. PJ as a person was one of the most impatient people you could ever meet and always wanted things done right now. The one exception to his lack of patience was when he was teaching people to play golf. Not a day goes by when I don't think of him and when I'm at work we remember his favorite saying "The fact of the matter is....." We still laugh at that and sometimes use it in meetings ourselves just to have a private joke. PJ I miss having you around.

I took this photograph in PJ's office at work, it was the very first photograph I took with my current camera and it depicts PJ perfectly.

Sharp End of an Aircraft

This is the sharp end of a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird at March Air Field Museum. I was really shocked when I stood here and took this photograph by how small this aircraft really was. This aircraft was revolutionary and introduced a lot of new concepts including "Stealth" technology. It's first flight took place towards the end of 1964 and they were finally retired from service in 1998. If you have five minutes read the wiki page link about this aircraft, it was a feat of technology and introduced so many new ideas that are just accepted today as the norm.    

Seeing The Light

The past couple of weeks I've been attending a photography class called Travel photography at the local evening university. I love to learn so any opportunity I have, if it's an interest of mine I take it. My reason behind taking this particular class was because I just cannot, no matter how hard I try capture an image of a person that describes a scene or a place I travel to. I can take photographs of landscapes and cityscapes all day long, but people just allude me. Anyway last night I'm sitting in class and the instructor is explaining light and how different angles of light affect the photograph. Then the light bulb went on in my head. There is a saying in photography that goes like this "You need to see the light" and as much as I tried i just didn't grasp the concept and then last night for the first time I "Saw the light". So I hope that I can now practice seeing the light and make my photographs even better.

This photograph is of the road that leads up to Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

A Sun Observatory

This is the Solar Observatory on the lake at Big Bear Lake. Big Bear is at an altitude of over 6700ft and with over 300 days of sunshine a year makes it an ideal place to observe the sun. The observatory was built in 1969 by the California Institute of Technology and has been run by the New Jersey Institute of Technology since 1997. This photograph was taken a few weeks ago just after some of the heavy snowfalls to hit the Southern California Mountains.

My Work

 I've told you about the big project at work that I've been working on for the past three years right? You know, the new radio system for our first responders (Fire and Sheriff's) that I have been a jack of all trades on. I started on the project as a Data Network Engineer, along the way I got to become the lead for the microwave system (the big dishes that hang on towers that use radio waves to transmit data). Then I got to become, in my copious free time, the lead for all the existing radio and microwave sites that need to be upgraded to meet the new standards. So when I say a jack of all trades, that's what I have become. Well all that work for the past three years finally became reality for me last week when I went to Motorola's Staging Plant in Chicago. I walked into this big warehouse size building to finally see our entire new radio system under one roof. 70 sites worth of radio equipment all under one roof, it was pretty amazing to see. 

The photograph above is just one fifth of our system and it's all working right here, in fact I got to test some of it last week. In March I get to spend a week with some of my colleagues doing Acceptance Testing before all this equipment gets shipped to California.

Badwater

I think I posted a black & white version of this photograph once before, although I have posted so many now it's hard to keep track. Anyway this was taken at Badwater Basin in Death Valley. This is the lowest point in North America at 282ft below sea level. I thought I would taste to water just to see what it tasted like, yeah that was a mistake, it was kind of yucky, salty actually. Things do actually live in this water though as you can see them swimming around.

I Was Here.....Freezing!!!

So I got to spend last week in one of the suburbs of Chicago working with the Motorola engineers configuring and testing the some of the data systems on the new radio system the County of Riverside has purchased. It was quite amazing to see our whole radio system with 60 sites worth of equipment all under one roof. I get to spend two weeks back there in March for our factory acceptance testing. 

So while I was there I took a 45 minute road trip to Downtown Chicago one evening to take some photographs. I had checked all the best vantage points online so I knew where to head right from the start. I wanted to get a photograph of the Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower). So the destination was Adler Planetarium knowing that it had a view of the city across a small part of Lake Michigan. I got there just before sunset and setup my tripod thinking that I was dressed warmly. Well I was except for my hands, in the space of 30 minutes I had lost all sense of feeling in my fingers and by the time I left about one hour later my hands had gone from a numb feeling to one of pain, in fact it took 20 minutes in the car to get the feeling back. I think the photograph was worth it though. In case you are wondering the lake was partially frozen and what you see in the water is the moving sheets of ice.

Where Am I & Illinois Earthquakes??

So in case any of you are wondering where the daily photo is I thought I should let you  know where it is or not as the case may be. I'm in Chicago right now for work being part of the configuration team for our new radio system. So I thought I'd have a chance by now to get a photograph or two from Chicago but alas lots of snow stopped that. Anyway today looks good outside and I'm hoping to get into Downtown Chicago to get some photographs. So thanks for bearing with me and I hope to have something posted tomorrow.

Oh and as a side note, I slept right through the 4.3 magnitude earthquake we had this morning. Yes, Illinois has earthquakes and if you look it up some pretty big ones. Check out this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_fault_zone

Martin. 

Winter At The Lake

Tuesday I took a trip to see my doctor to get my cholesterol levels checked.Now for me my doctor is a 75 mile drive up a mountain to Big Bear Lake. You may ask my reason for travelling that far to a see a doctor? Well, the answer is I really like and trust him as my doctor and i haven't heard anyone else say that about their doctors closer to home. Anyway, about two weeks ago a major storm system came into Southern California and dumped more snow on the mountains around here than I had seen in my ten years of living here. Driving up to Big Bear was easy, the roads were now clear. The snow piled up at the sides of the roads was way above the roof of my car though. After seeing the doctor I took a drive around the lake to see what photographs I could get, this ended up being tougher than expected due to the piles of snow at the roadside. I did manage to find a couple of good spots though and the photograph above was one of them. This is a view across the lake of the East boat launch ramp. 

One point I would like to add is if you ever want an entertaining weekend afternoon then head down to a boat ramp and watch as people try to load and unload their boats in and out of the lake. It's one of the most amusing and sad things to watch as couples get into fights over something as simple as launching a boat.