While walking along Madison, just into North Park, my wife pointed out what looked like a branch placed atop a street-sweeping sign, today. She thought kids, then changed her mind on further investigation. A tree had grown up the metal post and come out on the back side.
This was a resilient, living thing—and another example of how conducive is San Diego’s year-round summer climate and fertile soil to growing seemingly anything at any time.
Six-color flags are quite common in my San Diego neighborhood of University Heights. Real rainbows are rare occurrences, and a delight, in part because rain is uncommon. Yearly average precipitation (October to September) is about 25 cm (10 inches). We are already well above that number, following a series of storms.
That explains my seeing two rainbows in the sky on consecutive days—one to the West from the front of our apartment building and the other East in the alley behind. The latter is the Featured Image, taken yesterday using Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Torrential rains fall this evening across San Diego County. Officials warn of flooding that will rival or exceed last month’s storm surge. When I checked the forecast before bed, last night, showers would start around 3 a.m. and increase throughout the day.
But the low pressure area either slowed or stalled, allowing my wife and I to walk about 4.2 km (2.6 miles) roundtrip to The Hub in Hillcrest for on-sale tuna fish at Ralph’s supermarket. Light drizzle started minutes after we returned to our apartment. Lucky.
Four @Work Series Android Collectibles remain in the box—correction, three after today’s debut: Executive / Lawyer / Investor. I can’t imagine why he dresses in purple, other than perhaps some royal, divine-right-of-kings sense of self-importance. He is better than you (and me, too). Well, I never heard such nutty-sense before. What might these three professions share in common? Ah, thievery perhaps?
I must admit to liking the eyeglasses. Can I have a pair, similarly styled? But the briefcase wouldn’t attached as designed. I tucked the thing under an arm, so precariously that heavy breathing could case it to fall down.
This evening, while standing in our living room, I marveled over the shadow cast by the hanging lamp, which we bought with IKEA’s NIPPRIG collection nine years ago. Handmade from natural fibers, the furniture and accessories are lightweight and durable—and were amazingly affordable. For example, we paid $125 for each of the two sofas (see link above for glimpse).
I used Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra to capture the Featured Image. In post-production, I cropped 3:2, which removed top of our TV from the frame. Then, in post-production, I pushed dehaze slider, which amped shadows and darkened the overall photo.
While waiting outside the Smart & Final for my wife, who was grocery shopping (bless her!), I hung out in the parking lot by the wall where, on the other side, homeless folk sometimes hang out. On the ledge, I came upon a small collection of coins.
My question: Did some good Samaritan leave loose change for the unhoused (hate that term) to find, or were the coins perhaps gathered and forgotten? Either, or neither, could be true.
Yesterday, UPS delivered the Galaxy S24 and S24 Ultra, which I preordered from Samsung on Jan. 17, 2024. My wife and I each chose one of the three exclusive colors; she moves up from the S22 and I from S23 Ultra. The South Korean manufacturing conglomerate offered generous $450 trade-in value for her phone and $750 for mine. Combined with other discounts and incentives, which includes double storage, my out-of-pocket spend for the new model is less than the older one. For hers, I paid less than the discount given for the trade-in.
Last night, right before going to bed, I finally opened the box for a peak and a shock. Titanium Green wasn’t as strong a color as I expected. Oddly, the Featured Image and companion—even taken with Leica Q2—isn’t representative. The green isn’t as faint or pastel as you see but not really far from it.
In February 2023, I owned the Galaxy S22 Ultra for such short time that upgrading to the S23 Ultra sure seemed stupid. But, for preorders, Samsung offered appealing trade-in value ($500) and other incentives that reduced price so much that the new flagship cost less than what I paid for my wife’s humbler S22 a few months earlier.
The S23 Ultra turned out to be quite a bit better than its predecessor by way of many refinements, particularly performance of the 10x optical zoom camera—the differentiating feature that appealed most to me.
I shot the Featured Image on this date seven years ago, using iPhone 7 Plus. Vitals: f/1.8, ISO 20, 1/1250 sec, 28mm (film equivalent); 3:37 p.m. PST, Jan. 23, 2017. Composed as captured. Presumably, I sought the faint rainbow in the distance.
The view—looking East towards Cleveland Ave. along Monroe in University Heights—could easily be current. Heavy rains pelted San Diego County, yesterday. In response to widespread, destructive flooding, today, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency.
Storm showers pelted San Diego on this mid-month Monday. My unofficial estimate here in University Heights is 7.6 cm (3 inches). Elsewhere, according to the National Weather Service through 3 p.m. PST: Point Loma, 11.04 cm (4.49 inches); Airport, 8.36 cm (3.29 inches); Fashion Valley, 7.32 cm (2.88 inches); Montgomery Field, 6.6 cm (2.58 inches).
In the Mountain View neighborhood, Interstate I-15 flooded out at 32nd Street. TV news footage showed city crews wadding through waste-deep water, trying to free up drains and release the unexpected river crossing the highway. Similarly, rising waters closed businesses along the main thoroughfare through Mission Beach.
For no particular reason, we spend another day looking back on San Diego Comic-Con 2015, where Star Trek-themed Uglydolls went where no plushie has gone before—sold out, if I rightly recall, before the convention ended.
In the Featured Image, Power Ice-Bat rises above a sea of OX. The companion capture presents Ice-Bat as Scotty—and the Red Shirt who defied the odds episode after episode during the three seasons. Red Shirt has become a euphemism for a pulp-media character who is killed soon after his or her introduction. On Star Trek the Original Series, they dressed in a specific color.
San Diego Comic-Con is still six months away (July 25-28). Late last year, I missed the first chance for a 2024 pass and skipped the second opportunity. My attendance days long ago ended when the convention chose not to renew my press credentials (and when I was still a working journalist). Subsequently, I wasn’t (supposedly) randomly chosen to purchase a pass.
On this fine Thursday evening, for no particular reason, let’s peek at what was SDCC before the culturally woke put to sleep my interests in participating. The Con is gone, or at least as I remember it.