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Ginger

16 September 2018:

Lily brought home a full ginger plant from the farmers' market.

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The 110 Freeway

 12 September 2018:

From the same photo walk. The mosaic version of this also turned out quite nice.

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Grand Park Fountain

12 September 2018:

I went on a photo excursion to downtown Los Angeles last night, and captured this image of the fountain in Grand Park.

Note the white squares in the upper right. When I first saw these, I thought it was a message from the Trisolarians (see The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu).

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Beach Cottage

7 September 2018:

I walked down to the end of the Hermosa pier and back late Friday afternoon. I took this portrait of a rather colorful beach cottage along the way. It is on 10th Street, very close to the Hermosa Strand and the beach.

Notice the brush hanging next to the steps to allow one to easily brush off beach sand before entering the house. I also like the very rusty thermometer hanging above the brush on the post. It does not look like it is working anymore. I wonder why that is still there?

Yes, the beach is off to the right.

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Window Washing

5 September 2018:

I have been washing windows for five days. We have not washed windows for a few years now, and the dirt really accumulated so it is slow. Most of the work is gaining access to the window (over furniture, around clutter, etc) and then getting all the dirt off of the frames and sills. My production rate is 1.7 windows per hour. I have three windows left, for a total of 41 windows and one sliding glass door.

Hazards to wildlife: Today while I was cleaning the big sliding glass door, I had its screen propped up against a big post in the middle of the back yard. Apparently I put the screen across a hummingbird flyway in the back yard (they love our lion's tail flowers). After cleaning the glass panes of the sliding glass door, I came out into the back yard and found myself face-to-face with a very upset hummingbird, flying just a few feet in front of my face and squawking like mad. I could not figure out what all the racket was about until I looked down at the screen and found its mate stuck in the screen. He or she must have flown at full speed into the screen and impaled its tiny bill right through it. I gently tipped the screen backwards and shook it a bit, and the bird managed to back out and flew away, probably with a nice headache but not much worse. There must have been some interesting conversations between those two back at the nest tonight.

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Oh Canada!

4 September 2018:

Lily's cousin Antonio introduced me to these headscarf / sleeve things to use during cycling to keep the head cool and the helmet clean. He gave me a blue one as a present to wear while were were mountain biking.

Yesterday we went to the Hermosa Fiesta (~artisan fair held over labor day weekend) and I found some at a reasonable price, including one with a Canadian flag-like motif. Cool!

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Mural Walk along Lincoln Boulevard

26 August 2018:

A friend wanted to walk Lincoln Boulevard in Venice and Santa Monica this morning in search of murals for his art project. I went along looking for cityscapes for my mosaic project. Here are three murals that I found interesting along the way.

Top: Side of "Wash 'n Dry", 2626 Lincoln Boulevard, Santa Monica
Middle: Side of "Bowl Kitchen", 2127 Lincoln, Santa Monica (looks like a good place to eat...)
Bottom: Side of "The Love Dome" (yoga), 200 Lincoln Boulevard, Venice

I am going to try a multi-source photo mosaic of the front of "Bowl Kitchen"

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Visit to SS Lane Victory

23 August 2018:

A friend had two groupons for visit to a WWII Merchant Marine supply ship, and so we had a pleasant 3 1/2 hours wandering around this ship. It is generally in running order (except both boilers are undergoing repairs right now). When it resumes operations, it is used to take tourists out and around Catalina Island, or it is used in movies. When docked, it acts as a museum and for $7 or so you can wander around it at your leisure. This one was built in Long Beach in 1945, and saw brief service in WWII until that war ended. It then served in the Korean conflict and in Vietnam.

It has great potential for photography, and so maybe some day I will go back and just photograph around the ship. We were promised a personal tour of the engine room when we return!

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Deconstructing the house

20 August 2018:

I made a photo mosaic of the house. Yikes!

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Clark Field Tree

14 August 2018:

I went for a late afternoon walk down to the pier and back. On the way down I passed through a part of Clark Field that I do not frequent, and I saw this stately tree in the late afternoon sun.

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Pier-to-pier swim, 2018

5 August 2018:

This is an annual event on the first weekend in August, and it was a beautiful morning for an ocean swim. Except that I only watched. I am not ready for a 2 mile open ocean swim.

Water temp was a reported 75F, very very warm for Hermosa Beach. I do not ever recall a water temperature that high.

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First backyard plum of 2018

23 July 2018:

In the Spring of 2017 we had to replace our venerable old Santa Rosa plum tree with a new one. This morning I discovered the young tree's first mature plum laying near the trunk Yeah!

And somehow the local squirrels did not get there first.

There are still four or five green ones on the young tree. The tree had a big growth spurt while we were in Brazil.

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2018 Manhattan Beach Grand Prix

22 July 2018:

The top shot is from the Men's 35+ race (I think, with one woman thrown in for good measure).

The next is from the Men's 50+ race.

The Colnago bicycles were part of a classic bicycle display. The model years (bottom to top) are 1970, 1972, and two from 1984.

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Photo mosaic, Sao Paulo downtown

21 July 2018:

I built a photo mosaic to put on the cover of a thank you card that will go to one of Lily's aunts and her granddaughter. The showed us around Liberdade in Sao Paulo. The top photo is the sunset view from their 20th floor apartment. The bottom image is a photo mosaic version of that image.

The straight photo is compelling all by itself. It is a variation of the July 7 posting.

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Farmers' Market July 2018

21 July 2018:

It is always fun to take a few pictures at the Torrance farmers' market.


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Martin, Jullie, Bianca, Lucas

18 July 2018:
We had visitors from Indonesia today. They are on a long trip, and were recently up in San Francisco where the two children, Bianca and Lucas, were attending summer camp. They return to Indonesia on Saturday. We brought them down to the beach after lunch.

In the bottom picture they are surrounding our family brick down by the Strand.

Jullie said that she wanted to retire here. I said that that sounded like a good idea!

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Here is one last picture, of me, taking the photo of Bianca and Lucas. It was taken by their father Martin.

Bike ride to a falls near Guararema

9 July 2018:

For my fourth and last bike ride on this trip, I joined 8 others on mountain bikes for a 5-hour, 72 km jaunt on rough back country roads to a falls near the town of Guararema (see earlier post). This Monday was a holiday in Brazil, so traffic was light everywhere. Antonio, Lily's cousin, at first advertised the ride was a 60-km one, but he as a bit off.

Lily and I headed for the airport later that evening for the long overnight flight to LA, so I was nice and tired. It was supposed to help me sleep on the plane, but that didn't work too well.

Antonio, Lily's cousin, is in the back row in the blue shirt. The person next to me in the orange shirt is the 'professor' who loaned me one of his spare bikes. Nice group!

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Avenida Paulista

8 July 2018:

We spent the afternoon in Sao Paulo before heading back to Mogi, and we visited the Museu de Arte de Sao Paulo (MASP) for a few very interesting hours. When we emerged we found the street in front of the art museum full of people. The city of Sao Paulo closes Avenida Paulista every Sunday from about mid-morning until late afternoon to car traffic, and it is open for walkers and cyclists and street entertainers and the like. It was a very nice afternoon, and the place was packed!

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Leon and Fernanda's Wedding

7 July 2018:

#1: Lucas, Lucas' girlfriend, Regina, Gabriel (Antonio's family, Antonio is a cousin to Lily)

#2: Pictures with the bride and groom

#3: The elegant table settings

#4: Beatrice, daughter of Antonio and the wife of Gabriel

#5: The lively band

#6: Marianna, Lily, Maya (Marianna and Maya traveled from Indonesia to attend)

The wedding started with the wedding ceremony at 6:00 pm in a fancy hotel in downtown Sao Paulo. It ended, we are told, at about 2:30 am the following morning. Lily and I did not last nearly that long.

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Coconut Juice

7 July 2018:

The main street in Liberdade in Sao Paulo turns into a market street on the weekends. Here Lily and her aunt are buying coconut juice for all. It was good!

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Sao Paulo Downtown Skyline

6 July 2018:

Lily's aunt lives in Liberdade in central Sao Paulo, and we are staying here for one night. This is the view from her 20th-floor apartment, just after sunset.

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Traditional pre-wedding Chinese Tea Ceremony (and dinner)

5 July 2018:

The traditional Chinese wedding tea ceremony was held on the evening of July 5 in the patio area of the groom's parent's home. We first had crepes for dinner, then the ceremony was held. About 50 people were in attendance.

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Uncle's Rancho

4 July 2018:

It is a bit of a break day before things get busy leading up to a weekend family wedding. Lily and I got a tour of the agricultural section of her Uncle's ranch. He produces some fruit from the land, including bananas. The bottom image is a picture of one of the groves of banana trees.

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Bike Ride to Guararema

3 July 2018:

Lily's cousin Antonio loves to ride his mountain bike in the hills around Mogi das Cruzes where we are staying. He has been taking me along for company, and I have enjoyed getting out in the countryside. Today was the second ride for me, and I got to use a bike that was almost the right size today. There were four of us. The route was out and back to a tourist / resort town called Guararema, a total of some 64 km. We did it in about five hours, including stops for drinks and lunch. It was difficult. Two of the climbs were very steep, probably at least 15 to 17% grades (guess). I did OK on those. However, there was a stretch of single-track that was at times above my comfort level. It ran alongside a railroad track, and you can see me walking the bike at this point (picture 5). I need more practice! We had to walk the bikes over 4 or 5 railroad bridges. It was an adventure.

I borrowed a bike from Diogo in the lower right of picture 2. He also posted it on Strava. He is a friend of Lily's cousin, and is apparently also a professor.

https://www.relive.cc/view/1678404247

That's it from here.

Photos from Antonio Ang, Lily's cousin