pauljwillett

[pauljwillett]

Happy 11th Birthday, WLTSTF!!!

11 years. 4,019 days. 4,117 posts. 9,846 images. (90%+ are taken by me. The rest are images from the news, from cell phone screen captures, and so on.) 74 videos. 11 audio clips. 3,100+ total comments. (Please keep them coming!) 77,118 total views. 51,142 total visitors to the site. 11,548 total likes. A ton of  followers including the fact that we just crossed the 750 line (now at 752) on…

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[pauljwillett]

Skyscapes - New Mexico

Having lost all sense of time, in regards to what day it is or what time of day it is, I’m still “mining” the ton of pictures that I took on the eclipse trip to Texas earlier this month. This panorama was taken from a rest stop in New Mexico, just to the east of Las Cruces, where I was about to head into that thunderstorm, which indeed did have high winds, lightning, thunder, heavy rain, and…

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[pauljwillett]

Stupid Design & Stupider Design

I ran into this one twice on my Texas trip. One of the ways hotels try to spruce up their rooms in an “upgrade” is to replace the bathroom fixtures. They like things that are stylish and “modern,” “artsy,’ or “fashionable” or “trendy.” Anyone else see the problem with this? Which way do you turn this for hot water and which way for cold water when you’re adjusting the shower? I know that…

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[pauljwillett]

Random Old Photos - April 26th

Rain. An empty street. Little or no color. What comes next? Is there a rainbow? Or a flood? Blue skies & puffy clouds? Or lightning, thunder, hail, destruction? If we only knew then what we know now. If we only knew today what we’ll know in six years.

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[pauljwillett]

Belt Of Venus - West Texas Style

Last night I shared a picture looking west at sunset from a rest stop off of I-10 in west Texas, just east of where I-10 and I-20 split. But if you look the other way… I’ve mentioned and shown pictures before of the “Belt of Venus,” an astronomical phenomenon seen in the eastern sky at sunset. It’s simply the Earth’s shadow rising in the sky as the Sun sinks below the opposite horizon. It can…

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[pauljwillett]

No Context For You - April 24th

My head is either too full or too empty tonight. Or both. Simultaneously. It’s odd, and not necessarily comfortable. “Comfortable” might be overrated. Or not. Blow this one up. Just look at it. I barely remember taking it, but I’m finding that I really, REALLY like it. The gradient. The silhouttes. The composition. Blind squirrel. Broken clock. Paul’s photography.  

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[pauljwillett]

Duly Noted

I got several of these alerts while driving cross country to Texas and back for the eclipse. It turns out that Hissy has a very nice sound system. And if you’re bombing across the terrain at 80+ mph (I was using cruise control to stay at the speed limit, didn’t want any tickets this trip and as we know from seven years ago in Kansas, the local constabulatory looks on a gazillion eclipse tourists…

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[pauljwillett]

Public Texas Waterfowl

There are wild birds and then there are park birds – these were park birds. But they’re still interesting to me. A mallard in the water at RiverWalk, looking for handouts. Goslings (no doubt all named Ryan) at the Tower of the Americas. One adult goose keeping track of the kids. I figured with that chest marking (it looks like a maple leaf to me) this must be a Canadian goose – as opposed to…

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[pauljwillett]

Theater Rescheduled

We normally would have been seeing “Funny Girl” at the Ahmanson two weeks ago, on April 6th, but I was three large states away, so we rescheduled. No, I haven’t become homeless – that’s my two-day old Kings playoff beard! Yes, I know the looks are almost identical… Let the festivities begin!

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[pauljwillett]

Cacti

Spend a few days driving around the American Southwest and you’ll run into a few of these dudes. Hopefully not literally – that’ll leave a mark. They grow all over the place, even in some of the most inhospitable locations. But these are all parts of decorative landscaping, which is also a very US Southwest sort of thing. I don’t know if it’s a spring thing or year-round, but most of these…

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[pauljwillett]

Recycled Roadrunner

Two weeks ago I was driving for many hours from Benson, AZ to Fort Stockton, TX and only had time after adventures in dining to post one cryptic selfie of me standing in front of a humongous roadrunner statue. It’s actually an amazing piece to see. As you’re going eastbound on I-10 through New Mexico, you come across a couple hundred miles of a plateau before suddenly diving down a long, scenic…

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[pauljwillett]

The Gulf Coast

On the Texas trip, having driven all the way down to Boca Chica for “other things,” we of course had to go to the beach since it was right there. I’ve never been much of a “beach person,” probably because of the crowds almost anytime you get near the beach in Los Angeles. But this was very calming, hypnotic, restful. The gulls of a half dozen different varieties were everywhere. As were the…

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[pauljwillett]

San Antonio

This was at least my third trip to San Antonio, but I had never seen the two, big, “normal” tourist attractions downtown. I needed a “rest” day between all of the driving and the trip to Boca Chica and the upcoming eclipse, so we made time to do that. I remembered! This is the Alamo. As I had been warned, it’s MUCH smaller than everyone expects it to be. We did not wait in the 1-2 hour line to…

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[pauljwillett]

Texas Wildflowers

There may be things that disqualify Texas from my “favorite states” list, but this isn’t one of them! I’m sure this is a “spring thing” and not year ’round, but it is gorgeous now! Coming eastbound, crossing into El Paso from New Mexico, it’s still pretty barren and desert-y. But Texas is a REALLY big state, and by the time you start to climb up into the Hill Country in the center of the…

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[pauljwillett]

Fine Feathered Friends - April 14th

You might have heard that I was recently in Texas. They’ve got a lot of interesting flora and fauna there. Just a few minutes after the total solar eclipse in Kerrville, while it was still dark and twilight like and I was trying to recover from the emotional high of the eclipse, I went wandering Louise Hays Park, which is located on an island in the Guadalupe River. Landing in this tree…

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[pauljwillett]

The 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

Some days it’s better to be lucky than good. All week I was asking for a little luck, a break. When the time came and the celestial mechanics lined up while the crowd counted down, we were lucky. As I said last Monday (see the other pictures from that day here), it was an emotional roller coaster ride all day long. It was completely overcast when I woke up, but clearing a bit by breakfast. My son…

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[pauljwillett]

Road Weather

Two days back home and this weekend I’m going to try to go through the eclipse photos and see what’s good. There’s got to be at least one or two, right? Statistical fluctuations and all of that! In the meantime, because I like pictures of clouds and storms and potentially violent weather, enjoy these pictures from Tuesday on the trip from Kerrville to Tucson. Here are some mammatus clouds.…

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