Building Blocks

Today's photograph is another one that I took at The Mission Inn Hotel here in Riverside. This is on a balcony looking down on the courtyard at the entrance to the Wedding Chapel. I still have trouble believing just how beautiful The Mission Inn is and how much is packed into this amazing building. It reminds me of a project we once did in junior school. We each had to build a castle out of household waste items such as cereal boxes and drink bottles. Then we connected them all the individual ones together and made a giant castle. That's how I can imagine The Mission Inn being built, as every turn seems to have some different architecture. 

The Peace Tower

One of the places that I have seen and heard of and never really wanted to visit, (mainly because it involved physical exercise) was Mount Rubidoux here in Riverside. Well all that changed on Saturday, when a couple of guys from our informal photography club and myself decided to hike up and take some sunrise photographs. Of course mother nature as per the previous few weekends did her bit and nearly rained us off, but we got a day of no rain and took the hike. We met at 5:30am and headed up. Now all I ever saw of Mount Rubidoux was the cross at the top and I didn't think it was that big, until I saw it. What really fascinated me though was the other monuments and buildings up there. We stopped and took some lack of sunrise shots overlooking the City of Riverside and then walked up towards the summit.

Then after a short walk I get my first glimpse of The Peace Tower and Friendship Bridge (photographed above). They were built in 1925 as a surprise for Frank Miller, co owner of Mount Rubidoux and founder of The Mission Inn Hotel in Riverside, while he was away on a trip to China and Japan. On the south side of the Friendship Bridge is a plaque commemorating an incident in the 1932 Olympics held in Los Angeles (Click here to view a photograph of it). A Japanese contestant turned his horse aside from its final jump because it had developed a limp indicating a severe injury. Had it jumped, the rider almost certainly would have won, but most likely the horse would have had to be destroyed. The plague was the idea of Frank Miller, who had earned the highest civilian award in Japan for his effort to foster friendly relations between the USA and Japan.

By the way as hikes go, it's not too bad, except the next day my calf muscles ACHE!!!!

The Chapel

This is another photograph I took at the Mission Inn on Tuesday evening. It's of the entrance to the St. Francis of Assisi Wedding Chapel. The Mission Inn is pretty amazing as you are pretty much free to explore it on your own, (although tours are offered.)  When we got up to the first floor the scene that greeted me was yesterdays photograph; then we wondered around a little more and walked into a large courtyard and the entrance to the chapel. If you ever have a chance to visit do so, you will be amazed at what's inside.

Night Time Inn

 I know I have posted photographs of the Mission Inn in Riverside before but, never anything from inside it. The main reason for that is I always thought inside it was just another boring hotel. Yes maybe a little older and prettier but just another hotel. Well last night that all changed for me when our Travel photography class took a field trip to the mission Inn. Unbeknown to me there is a chapel and an amazing courtyard. You can go up to the top and have a view of the City of Riverside. So over the next couple of days I will share some of the beauty of the Mission Inn with you.

Update on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 10:47AM by [Martin]

So I had a bit more time to see what I could do with the photograph I posted above and maybe improve it a little. Tell me what you think?

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.