Friday, October 3, 2014

This didn't happen twenty years ago

We've been having great stormy weather around here, especially in the afternoons. It rained hard. Gradually dark and suddenly windy overwhelmingly drenching with rain and as a complete pouring is winds down somewhat the sun comes out while this is still happening as if the clouds are used up while rain is still being delivered from altitude then the rain wind and darkness suddenly stop and all that is left is a bright cloudless day and birds that dare coming out.

And the whole time I was thinking, I bet I am in a rainbow. If you were on Federal I'd be in a rainbow. This is like the fifth time this happened similarly this year.




About this same time last year was an even more severe rain storm. I'm such a dunce sometimes. The lens I was using is perfect for this. It is made for this goofy light reflecting situation. The lens has a nano crystal coating inside to prevent light bouncing around in there. It also has two extra low dispersion elements and precision glass mold aspherical lenses to control chromatic aberrations. The cloudscape was incredible and dynamic all day, the drama showing in degrees of grey. My camera conceit is so complete that it never occurred to me to put it on automatic and let it do its thing. I cannot possibly do as well myself with settings as the camera can do in such an odd light situation as this. The camera always reliably takes better photos of clouds than I do. But the whole day I never thought of setting it to automatic. The camera would have done much better with this rainbow. It was more distinct than this. And a full-size camera would have worked even better with this lens made to fit, it is less effective on my regular 3/4 size camera.

The rainbow seemed to contain the barn. A seventy-year old man whispered in a wonder-struck voice of a child, "I've never been this close to one." 


11 comments:

AllenS said...

We've had two days of rain. Still too dark to see what's going on at the moment, but it's very windy. Wind from the northwest. Could mean cooler temps.

AllenS said...

Rain/snow mix tonight.

Unknown said...

I grew up in this semi-arid climate of CO. Dry is normal.
When we do receive a wetter than average season, it's really delightful. A few sun-worshipper/heat lovers grumble. But, for the most part, the rain makes everyone happy. I'll take a summer like this one every year.

I recall drought-years and water restricted summers as a child. Some summers were like that.

This is the first summer in about 5-7 years that we haven't been on fire. Bring on the rainbows.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Our exurban neighborhood has rural style mailboxes by the street curb.

Every now and then someone, or some organization, attempts to advertise by having someone drive a car down our street tossing ziplock bags containing a couple of rocks and a note.

Right in the trash they go, unread.

But in all fairness, I can see why they wouldn't want to invest too much in making a more pleasing sales pitch.

bagoh20 said...

What is this thing you speak of - this "rain"?

bagoh20 said...

Oh yea, I remember that stuff. Back in the day we used to get that too.

Governor Jerry Brown just signed a bill banning plastic grocery bags for 30 million California residents, but the broken sidewalks and potholes are so bad we can't even get the store, so it's all cool. California Democrats entrenched in power guaranteeing our life is expensive, inconvenient, and politically correct according to the latest up-to-the-minute scientific misinformation and false impending tragedy and courageously protecting the endangered Pothole Snipe from extinction due to habitat reduction.

bagoh20 said...

That was not off topic either. The current political craziness here also did not happen twenty years ago, and maybe the drought has dried out the collective gray matter of the California voters who seem to now be clinically insane - a kind of mass retardation.

It's Friday!!!!!

Unknown said...

Hallelujah. Plastic grocery bags were ruining everything.

bagoh20 said...

Plastic bags are the George W. Bush of California politics - the root of all evil and a terrible thing until you compare them to the replacement.

Aridog said...

I find this dispute about plastic bags almost humorous. The pigs that misuse them can't be cured. Maybe shooting them would help? Bwahahaha.

However, some of us, without prodding by some government drones, long ago abandoned the plastic for well made permanent shopping bags, from stores of our choice...for me that's Westborn Market (local to Dearborn, MI) who has stout bags I've used for years and if four of them can't handle your load (about 125 lbs) then maybe you're shopping too much :-)) ...heh heh, each bag will hold about 35 lbs if packed stupid full. I do try for a lighter load. At my age that heavy crap is hard on your body, yanowhadahmeen?

I actually have to tell check out clerks to not first use the plastic stuff then put it in my reusable bags. It's not about ecology, it is about me = lazy and how my bags make me do less work. Lazy is a good feature now and then.

Why is this a hard concept for some? I carry 4 of these stout bags in my truck always...and they serve me well.

Aridog said...

PS: I live in a mandatory recycling community...we have two 350 lb capacity canisters on wheels that will take our stuff, one for recycling the other for raw garbage & Styrofoam ... something they haven't yet figured out how recycle profitably. If you cheat they can check out the container load and find your name & address, etc, from stuff you've tossed it it...it's just easier to comply.

No plastic bags makes it easier. Simple as that. MY stout bags from Westborn Market do yeoman service and add zero to pollution.

Yeah, I am the guy who would track you down in the wilderness for dropping crap on a trail when the rule is carry it in, carry it out. How pissed you were for my aggression on the subject meant nothing ... but I was always armed, so debate was okay, physical stuff not so much.

My love for wilderness areas in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana is such that nothing anyone does to soil the landscape will escape my anger. I don't always win, but I usually do. It is just so much easier to just do the right thing.