Father & Son

I was out visiting one of our new radio sites that was under construction when these two pieces of machinery caught my eye. They looked like a father and son sitting there just waiting to do their job. As a kid growing up I was always fascinated by machines such as these, but they never held any fascination like trains did to me and in fact still do. That reminds me I need to go and photograph some more trains!

Night Time Over LA

A couple of weeks ago I went to see the Pet Shop Boys in concert at the Greek Theatre in LA. My mum and dad were here so I asked if they would mind dropping us off and finding something to do for a couple of hours and then picking us up after the show. My dad agreed but wondered what was nearby to visit while they were waiting for us. So after a quick search I discovered that The Greek is at the bottom of a road that leads up to Griffith Observatory on top of one of the hills in Griffith Park. The observatory overlooks Downtown Los Angeles, Hollywood and various other cities that form part of the Los Angeles sprawl. Anyway my parents dropped us off and headed up to take a look and came back with a good report and highly recommended a visit.

This past Saturday it was my time to pay the Observatory a visit, only to discover that Saturday is a crazy day to visit what must be one of LA's most popular tourist attractions for the locals. I wanted to get up there for sunset, but when my friend Mark and I arrived we could not get near the place to park. So being easily defeated we headed down to Hollywood for dinner, we waited a couple of hours and sucessfully managed to park very close by. The photograph above shows the nigthtime view and skyline of Downtown Los Angeles and in the next couple of week I'll make it back up there for some sunset photos.

Artists Palette

I mentioned yesterday that deserts are some of the most colorful places to see, even though my personal thoughts did not see that for a long time. So today I thought I would show you a photograph of one of the most colorful rock formations I have ever seen. This is Artists Palette in Death Valley and you can clearly see how it earns that name. The colors in the rocks are caused by the oxidization of different metals. Click on the image for a larger version.

Yucca Brevifolia

This is a view looking west across Yucca Brevifolia National Park or Joshua Tree National Park as it is really known. The national park gets it's name from the special habitat in the Mojave Desert of Joshua tree (Yucca Brevifolia) which grows there. I used to find deserts pretty boring places, I mean it's just sand and scrub right, but since I've been taking photographs of them I've discovered that they do have a beauty that no other type of view has. The different colors in the rocks and ground and the amazing skies that form above them make for a very beautiful place to see.

Have A Happy Retirement Lieutenant

I always wonder what it would be like to retire and then I realize I'm just wishing my life away doing that. I thought when I joined the railway in England at 16 that I would retire from there 49 years later like a lot of the older drivers I worked with had done. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would be living here in the USA and working towards retiring at 55 instead. Mind you that date is only 16 years away for me, so it'll be here sooner than I can imagine.

Anyway today's photograph is to celebrate the retirement of someone I have worked with for the past 2 and a bit years. So after I'm not sure how many years but 30 must be a close number Lieutenant Tim McCauly (the one on the right) gets to retire. I've worked with Tim for the past 2 years on the PSEC project, the new radio system project here at the County of Riverside. Tim and his two colleagues seen here (Sgt. Eric Briddick and Dispatch Supervisor Dawn Lopez) were the original three Sheriff staff members assigned to the project when it started 4 years ago. It's been a fun couple of years too and I haven't always agreed with Tim, but we've always found a consensus. So Lieutenant best wishes for the future and have a very Happy Retirement.

A Great Day at Work

There are some days when you're at work when everything falls into place and you realize that today is a great day at work. In fact since I took a demotion from supervisor and moved over to the the new County of Riverside radio system project as a Data Network Engineer just about every day is a great day at work. I won't say there aren't frustrations, because even the most perfect job has them, but when you're not going home every day and wanting to kick the cat you know you're in a better place. What really makes a great day at work for me is some of the people I get to meet and the places I get to go. Since one of my former colleagues left the County I took on some of his work. So I am now in charge of the existing site upgrades, bringing the current County radio sites up to date. This involves heading out to these sites with our contractors and one such site is Santiago Peak. It's about a 90 minute drive to the radio sites on top of Santiago Peak and when you get there the view is spectacular. On one side you look easterly into Riverside County, on the other side you look west over Orange County and the Pacific Ocean. This photograph is the view to the east with one of my fellow engineers, David and one of the Construction Managers from Motorola, Scott taking a look at the site we plan to build on.

A Warmer Evening

I'm sitting here in the living room on the couch amazed that in the space of a couple of days we can go from hot and needing to take cloths off, to cold and needing a blanket and a fire. I got up this morning to play golf, got in the car, drove to the golf course and discovered it was 55°F and windy. Then the realization hit me that I didn't bring a jacket or wind shirt to play golf in. So a cold day at the golf course was to follow. So when I was looking through my photos for today's posting I decided that something to make everyone feel warm again was needed, so this is what you got.

On our way out of Death Valley I had fallen asleep in the back of the car while Janet was driving. She woke me up about 5 miles from Baker on the 15 freeway to tell me that I needed to drive. As I looked around to try and figure out where we were, this sunset was staring me in the face. I told Janet to pull over as quick as possible and I jumped out of the car with camera ready and took this photo. It was a beautiful evening and the end to a great trip through Death Valley with my mum, dad, aunt and Janet. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Parallel Lines

Photographs can inspire, tell a story or bring back memories. I took this photograph because I thought it would look good and be interesting, but as I sat and looked at it to come up with a title I realized it told a story and brought back memories. The story it tells of the pioneers who built these railways through some of the most inhospitable land ever imagined with their bare hands. It also brought back memories for me and at the time I took it I didn't know why I was taking it off center and now I know why. It's because for 13 years of my life this was the view I had from the cab of a train that I was driving. Of course I would be a few feet higher off the ground but other than that this was it, my working life and what I saw everyday of it. The photograph was taken on the railway lines running through Rice in Eastern California.

The Badlands of America

Can you believe it's October 1st already? I know I cannot, this year has just flown by. Anyway when we visited Death Valley it was a very spontaneous visit. I did a quick look online to find places to go but had no real plan or even a clue on how long it would take to drive through there. So as we were driving I saw the signs with names of places I saw online and told Janet to follow that sign not knowing what we would expect to see. So that's how I came across this photograph. It's a photograph of Zabriskie Point in Death Valley. It was named after Christian Brevoort Zabriskie who was the Vice President of the Pacific Coast Borax Company. This is the company that made the 20 mule teams famous. These teams of 18 mules and 2 horses pulled multiple large wagons (with 9 tonnes of borax in each one) to the nearest railroad from their mines in Death Valley. Borax is used in all sorts of household items such as detergents and cosmetics. Zabriskie Point is known as a Badlands, which is a type of terrain that has been extensively eroded by wind and water and creates some spectacular scenery. Click on the photo for a larger version, it looks even better.

The Strip by Night

After Janet and I watched the Jersey Boys I wanted to head outside to The Strip and take some photographs at night. It's amazing the looks you get from people when you head out to the sidewalk and set up a tripod and start taking photographs. In fact at time it can be downright scary in Las Vegas and this is in the good part of town. I had groups of drunk people come up to me three times wanting their photos taken. Anyway this is the view looking South down Las Vegas Boulevard from outside the Palazzo Hotel, which is just across the street from Treasure Island. The very large hotel you can see on the right side is Caesars Palace. Las Vegas to me is like a grown ups adventure land. It's a great place to visit, but even better when you're heading home. Click on the photo for a larger version.