Stockholm at Christmas

St. George and the Dragon at the Storkyrkan.

The plan is to spend Christmas break in Stockholm (taking care of a kitty). Days are short: sun up by 9-ish and sun down by about 16:00. Then there are those Swedes - they have a different word for everything (to quote Steve Martin).

Amazing Landscape Photos

First Prize International Landscape Photograph of the Year 2015: Luke Tscharke

The Landscape Photographer of the Year competition has announced the winners and they are, as expected, amazing. The article on Huffington Post  also collects the winner's photos in a form that may be a little easier to scan, and I want to share them here as well to be sure that you see these remarkable photos.

I have my work cut out for me, clearly.

A bit of a pet sit

McGuire is relaxed.

Doing a bit of pet sitting this weekend. I thought I'd share some photos of the cats. Rumor has it that the internet needs more cat photos(?). Above you see McGuire. He is indeed an ample creature with great confidence that all is safe.

His brother, Dougal gives the impression of not really paying attention to me with his staring out into space.

Dougal sees spacemen.

No matter how many times I try to photograph him, he always has this vacuous stare -- "Zandor, I hear and obey". Beautiful cat with a silky coat and very friendly.

Up on the rooftop...

From the Brisbane Times.

It seems that no place in Australia is really safe. These fellows are in the city of Cairns in northern Queensland. The key quote in the article is

"The residents rang me with suspicions they might have snakes," he said.*


There were apparently two pythons on the roof fighting. Go figure.


*Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/scrub-pythons-brawl-in-roof-of-cairns-home-20150821-gj4ycu.html#ixzz3jaiuYfsn Follow us: @brisbanetimes on Twitter | brisbanetimes on Facebook

Just reading the power meter...

I repeatedly encounter blog and news items about all the inventive ways that nature has dreamed up to hurt you in Australia. Here's the latest incarnation in the Daily Mail. Take a moment to absorb the content of the photo above.

Summertime

 On a hot summer's day the bumble bees are thick in the agastache. These guys are constantly feeding  and enjoying the abundance.

Hardware update

Cleaning the windows on Beverly Street.

I have been using the new Nikon 1 v3 to learn what I can learn. And I have to say, I'm impressed. Compared to the SOOC jpg's from the Fuji X100s, the jpgs from the v3 are head and shoulders better.  Above is shot from downtown of window cleaning that shows what I mean. Note that only parts of the sky are blown out while the rest of the image filling the exposure range very nicely. Details remain in the shadows of the brick wall and the highlights across the street. Well done.

Atomic City

Boom goes London and boom Paree
More room for you and more room for me

Randy Newman, Political Science, 1972


 There is a new web site getting some attention in the press called Nukemap. On this site you can choose a location for your nuclear device, its yield, and other details, then get a visual representation of the result of the detonation on a map.