No, I’m not at Yosemite tonight.

Happy thought, though!

The TV news tonight mentioned LIVE (well, ALMOST live: a 30-second delay) webcams from Yosemite that you will want to check out AFTER the sun comes up on America’s West Coast! The webcams are on the Web site for the Yosemite Conservancy, and they include webcams for:

• El Capitan
• Half Dome
• the High Sierra, and
• Yosemite Falls

As with many images (like MINE ), THESE are COPYRIGHTED, and we photographers have our lawyers. Nonetheless, there is no harm in LOOKING at one of the greatest natural international attractions in California and the U.S. – Yosemite National Park!

The Web site says:

Yosemite webcams are maintained through the generous support of Yosemite Conservancy donors. Webcam image is uploaded every 30 seconds, click refresh to update webcam view. You can help support these webcams and provide for the future of Yosemite by becoming a Friend of Yosemite today.

The Friends of Yosemite page tells about discounts and benefits that you get with your donation, and lists the Yosemite Conservancy’s tax ID. These people do a lot of good. Read their Web pages, and see whether you would like to be a member.

Enjoy their webcams! Then plan your trip to California! See you then!

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

With six miles of the grueling 116-mile Stage 1 of the Amgen Tour of California (Map: PDF) yet to go, Peter Sagan, 22,  of Slovakia experienced a flat tire. His mechanic had trouble replacing the wheel, which cost the world’s 4th-ranked rider time. Sagan’s teammates controlled the final miles, to help him win the opening stage of this eight-day event, the premiere cycling event in the United States.

Sagan won by two bike lengths in a wild finish, completing the stage in 4 hours, 42 minutes, and 36 seconds.

Fred Rodriguez, a Berkeley resident who came out of a 1 1/2-year retirement in June, took 3rd place behind  2nd-place finisher, Garmin-Barracuda’s Heinrich Haussler.

Santa Rosa‘s Levi Leipheimer earned the “most courageous rider” award today after finishing 46th of 128 riders for team Omega Pharma-Quick Step. Leipheimer returned to training only 2 1/2 weeks ago after suffering a broken leg on a training ride last month.

Watsonville‘s Ben Jacques-Maynes, 33,  placed 5th and earned the “most aggressive rider” award for the stage.

Monday’s Stage 2 (PDF) runs from San Francisco to Aptos.

Tuesday’s Stage 3 (PDF) runs from San Jose to my hometown of Livermore.

A RadioShack spokesperson said today that he couldn’t confirm whether manager Johan Bruyneel was issued a federal subpoena upon arriving at San Francisco International Airport for the race. Two outlets for cycling news reported that the former manager of Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France teams had been met by federal agents.

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

“Tonight’s moon is set to appear 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter from our perspective on Earth. The Supermoon lines up much closely with perigee — the moon’s closest point to Earth. The 2012 May full moon falls some six minutes after perigee, the moon’s closest point to Earth for this month. At perigee, the moon lies only 221,802 miles (356,955 kilometers ) away. Later this month, on May 19, the moon will swing out to apogee — its farthest point for the month — at 252,555 miles (406,448 kilometers) distant.“

Enjoy!

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

I love the international flavor of California, especially that of some of the cities, like San Francisco. Today, however, after tutoring a math student in the morning and signing a bunch of checks for artists in the late afternoon, I decided to use the rest of the time before supper to attempt a panorama and some short 1080p HD movies at the high point of Patterson Pass Road through the Altamont. The point offers sweeping views of hundreds of wind turbines and of the Central Valley, beyond!

I set up the tripod, mounted the camera, remote shutter release, and stereo microphone and, almost immediately afterward, heard the sound of gravel being disturbed behind me. A lean and fit bicyclist dismounted and said hello, in a strong German accent. I learned that he has a Ph.D. in physics (almost common in Livermore ), but that he was in the middle of a three-week vacation and lived in Dresden – formerly in East Germany, which was the target of a very controversial Allied bombing and firebombing raid in the last months of World War II that destroyed 15 square miles of the city center and caused the deaths of thousands of civilians. I made a reference to the bombing, so that he was aware of my knowledge of Dresden.

We talked a bit about his travels in the United States and compared points of interest in California. We talked about the way Americans work too much and are not given enough vacation to lead balanced lives. I noted the Garmin GPS on his bicycle and told him that I have a mount for mine on my motorcycle. He said that he had bicycled to Livermore from Berkeley today and would return in the evening. I told him that Patterson Pass Road east is an interesting one, and that the first Tour of California that passed through Livermore included Patterson Pass Road going WEST…  a long uphill run for most of its length.

We parted ways after he took some photos and I shook his hand and gave him my business card. Later this week, he will visit Big Sur.

I took my still shots and a couple of short high-def movies. I used a “dead cat” this time, which is a “furry” (fake fur) “sock” that fits over the stereo microphone to serve as a wind screen and reduce wind noise. We shall see how effective it was.

This evening, I parked along Tesla Road to photograph the “Supermoon” that rose tonight. The full moon appears 14% “larger” than usual. We shall see how well the photos turned out.

My life has been full of chance encounters like today’s, and it has been enriched by them. International visitors to California have merely broadened the scope.

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

Some may want to stock up on shotgun shells (better for target practice in the “country”) …

…or modified paintball guns for urban settings, which would be quieter, and could be fully automatic.

Back in February of 2011, I wrote about the Nano Hummingbird, a tiny, battery-powered robotic drone that flies by flapping its wings and is built to look like a hummingbird (with a tiny camera in its belly) for surveillance in urban areas (oh… in the western hemisphere, which is the only place that hummingbirds live). The Nano Hummingbird is built for the Pentagon by AeroVironment, Inc. of Monrovia, California.

Now, aerospace engineering researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have:

“… duplicated the control functions that allow birds to successfully perform a soft landing–in this case, perching on a human hand.”

… or on that telephone wire or tree branch outside your window!

There are a lot of brilliant people at the University of Illinois. I know, because I remotely managed a project team at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications there. (The Mosaic team, which later developed the Netscape browser, also had its origins there. It’s also where my configuration manager at the time [thanks, Hei-ming]!] bought me a copy of The Dilbert Principle [an invaluable guide to corporate America, initially based upon Scott Adams' experiences at Pacific Bell] at the university bookstore. ) Besides academics, there is not a lot to do in Urbana-Champaign – drinking comes to mind!

The academic paper (if you love math, you will LOVE this one! ) “… presents the underlying theoretical developments and successful experimental demonstrations of perching of an aerial robot.”

But it’s not all “theory…” CNET notes:

It turns out that this project was not inspired solely by academic curiosity. In fact, there appears to <be> potential military application, which is probably why the work was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

One of the researchers, Jo Chung, adds this:

“There’s a lot to learn from bio systems,” Chung, who originally wanted to study the flying patterns of bats, said in a University of Illinois story about the project. “Bats can fly with damaged wings. They are so agile and highly maneuverable; they can make rapid 180-degree turns autonomously and they can fly indoors without colliding with obstacles. These qualities are desirable for small aircraft that could be used in surveillance, particularly in urban settings where obstacles hamper movement and satellite control is blocked.”

Those of us who “missed our chance” to live in the former “surveillance society” of East Germany may yet get an opportunity for something similar (or even much WORSE), between the engineering efforts of folks like those above, and FBI agitation for mandatory backdoors for surveillance on social networks, Voice-over-IP, and providers of Web email.

(Note added May 5, 2012: I was in a classroom with middle schoolers yesterday, and I asked them what happened in history on May 4. When nobody knew, I told them briefly about the National Guard shootings on the Kent State University campus in the spring of 1970, with the unarmed students who were killed and wounded, guilty of the heinous crime of “walking to class” or “watching a protest.” One incredulous student said, “They must have been drunk or something.” I assured him that they were not, and that he could read more in Wikipedia. Human memory, especially of events that we would rather forget, is a very short-lived thing. It seems that the FBI might be fighting back in a “turf battle” against encroachment by the NSA, which has been granted unprecedented powers to operate domestically in the United States in recent years [and seeks MORE - isn't that the funny thing about "power?" For those who seek it, it's NEVER enough!]. From personal experience, I have found the personality types of folks who operate in the “security” field to be “guarded” (if not paranoid), “competitive,” and INTENSELY “territorial.”)

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

This week, folks are filming some scenes for the new J.J. Abrams “Star Trek” movie at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Thinking back a few years ago when my wife and I stood on the hilltop above and watched a green laser shoot skyward from “The Lab,” I muse, “Where could be a better place to ‘beam up?’”

“We do have a film crew on site, known only as the HH project. We are not allowing media on the set, per their request,” lab spokeswoman Lynda Seaver said in an e-mail Tuesday.

The crew is filming segments in the National Ignition Facility (NIF), according to Dale Kaye, president of the Livermore Valley Chamber of Commerce and a Livermore Valley film commissioner. The NIF is where scientists are using ultraviolet laser light from the world’s largest laser (how would WE know? ) to produce thermonuclear ignition at temperatures and densities similar to those in the sun.

The NIF building could house three football fields. (Presumably AFTER they would move out the equipment! )

Many local hotel rooms have been booked to accommodate the cast and crew. Good for Livermore!

The movie is scheduled to open in May of 2013 The film is the sequel to the blockbuster 2009 film (which was a prequel to the original “Star Trek” TV series) and stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana and Benedict Cumberbatch as the latest villain.

Reporting live from Livermore, California, I am…

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

Shutterfly® offered to buy Kodak Gallery in early March, after Eastman Kodak Co.’s Chapter 11 filing. Other bidders had until April 20 to come forward. A final hearing on the deal, in bankruptcy court, will be held on April 30.

Analyst Shawn Milne of Janney Capital Markets predicted that the deal might add 10-15 cents per share to Shutterfly®’s earnings this year, and 20 cents per share in 2013. In 2011, Shutterfly® earned $14 million, or 40 cents a share.

Kodak says that their service has over 75 million users, which likely refers to all of those who have REGISTERED for the service. Like Shutterfly®, Kodak’s gallery allows users to upload photographs and order prints of uploaded photos. Such services are still profitable, but have lost some “photo-sharing” to social networks like Facebook.

Kodak has narrowed its focus to its core printer business, having announced in February that it will get out of the camera business except for a few disposable “point-and-shoot” cameras. Kodak has also tried to sell its collection of patents and has until June 30 to create a procedure to sell them. No buyers have emerged so far. My hunch is that the reluctance is merely to drive down prices.

Shutterfly® stock rose $1.57, or 5.4 percent, to close at $30.58. Although the stock is down 45% over the past 12 months, it has gained 34 percent in 2012.

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

The Essential Nude features a celebration of the human form and includes nude, semi-nude, clothed figures, and portraiture in a wide range of media. This year’s judge is Bill Sala, “… one of the pre-eminent surrealist artists working in America today, and perhaps the world.  Bill’s unique approach to his graphic use of color and thematic style is unparalleled by other contemporary surrealist artists.”

A popular part of the show is “The People’s Choice Award” – chosen by the votes of folks who visit the show and announced at the end of the show. I won’t spoil too many surprises for you by revealing the award winners chosen by Bill Sala, other than the “Best of Show,” which is “Restoration,” featuring a fully-”clothed” figure painted by Engela Olivier-Wilson, a gifted Livermore painter and muralist.

I hope that many of you Bay Area folks are able to attend the show on Saturday and Sunday, before it ends Sunday at 4 PM.

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

Why?

The L.A. Times sums it up succinctly. Instagram, with 13 employees, had just raised funding that valued the app maker at $500 million. Instagram was rapidly becoming a competitive social network that let people share photos, tweaked with filters, on Instagram and on other social networks, from a mobile platform. Instagram’s Android app was adding 1 million users each day, and its iOS app was adding 25 million users each day! Meanwhile, other competitors to Facebook were circling and might have just gobbled Instagram up, had Facebook not acted!

Paul Kedrosky, a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation said of Instagram, as quoted in the L.A. Times:

“It was becoming a competitive social platform.”

“In many ways, Facebook would rather not have done this. It creates a mess for them with having to issue an amended S-1 with this highly material transaction,” Kedrosky said. “What that tells you is that Facebook felt like it had to do the deal.”

“Getting it done beats losing Instagram to a competitor,” Kedrosky said.

Ah… high tech! It is a lot of fun to watch if your life no longer depends on it!

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

“Ice shelves are sensitive to atmospheric warming and to changes in ocean currents and temperatures,” Helmut Rott from the University of Innsbruck said in an statement from the space agency. “The northern Antarctic Peninsula has been subject to atmospheric warming of about 2.5 degrees Celsius over the last 50 years — a much stronger warming trend than on global average, causing retreat and disintegration of ice shelves.”

The ice of the Larsen B ice shelf, one of the three shelves that make up the Larsen Ice Shelf, is disintegrating. The Larsen A ice shelf disintegrated in January 1995. So far, the Larsen C shelf has been stable, although satellites have observed some recent thinning and melting.

Larsen B measured 11,512 square kilometers in January 1995. It went down to 6,664 square kilometers in February 2002 after several parts broke off, and a month later Larsen B was down to 3,463 square kilometers.

Satellite observations confirm the sensitivity of the ice shelves to climatic warming, according to the European Space Agency.

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

Volunteers turned out in large numbers for all phases of the show today. A couple of my friends, Marc Davis, a photographer, and Engela Olivier-Wilson, an oil painter, had major sales. A number of other folks had important sales, too! I will wait for a Treasurer’s report to determine just how well we did. I especially want to thank over 20 volunteers who stayed around to “tear down” the show!

I am beginning to realize just how tired I am!

Thanks, everyone who contributed in any way to the Spring Art Show this year – from my co-chair, Angela Johal, to the customers to onlookers to volunteers to artistic contributors, to the Mayor of Livermore, who handed out the City Special Awards, to the City folks who put up the booth for the Amgen Tour of California, which will occur in May!

It was a VERY good show!

Now, I am going to get some SLEEP!

Thank you, volunteers of LAA!! You made the show happen!

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

And TOMORROW (Sunday, April 1) is the second and LAST day of this year’s show…. No foolin’!

I mentioned the weather. I knew from forecasts and radar that at about the time that the show was to start… 10 AM… a strong storm front would pass through Livermore, with heavy winds and rain. After the front passed, there were a a few hours of clearing, followed by scattered showers. The meteorologists called it pretty well – except that the scattered showers included some strong storm cells, some with hail!

Heck, you would think weather like that might slow down traffic to even an INDOOR show like this one – no way! There was a pretty constant stream of visitors all day, and people were buying art! I STRONGLY suspect that even MORE people were “scouting the show” before coming back on Sunday to make their purchases.

One thing that not all customers of art realize is that, in commercial galleries, the GALLERY owner takes 50-60% of the sale price, so the artists have to ask higher prices, because most of the money goes to the gallery, rather than the artist. LAA’s percentage is MUCH less, so that most of the purchase price actually goes to the artists, and customers save a great deal, because the asking price is much less!

Tonight, from 7-9 PM, I passed out awards to the prizewinners at the reception, which featured live music by RM Jazz. Livermore’s Mayor, John Marchand (a good man and friend of the arts), announced the city’s “Special Award” winners, whose works will hang in City Hall for one month. In addition, my co-chair, the incredibly versatile Angela Johal, announced gift certificate-winning volunteers whose names were pulled from a basket by two young girls who volunteered.

The reception was a really nice party, and it looked like a lot of people had a lot of fun! I had a lot of fun, too, because handing out awards and signing checks for artists are two of my favorite aspects of the president’s job! I performed several other enjoyable jobs today: connecting a customer and artist for a commissioned work, connecting a sculptor with a woman who would like art lessons in clay for her daughters, and emailing the photographer whose work took first place this year that his award-winning piece had been SOLD!

Soooooo… what is happening tomorrow? First off, the WEATHER is supposed to be MUCH BETTER – partly sunny with temperatures in the 60′s! I fully expect EVEN MORE people to attend the show than attended today.

If you are close to Livermore in northern California, come to the Spring Art Show at The Barn on Pacific Avenue on Sunday. No, it does not LOOK like a barn (THAT little fact confuses a LOT of people)!   You can just follow the signs that I will set out first thing in the morning! The corrugated steel building is more like a quonset  hut than an eastern barn, and it was built in 1922 and served on the first rodeo grounds in Livermore. Yes, I live in a “town” (80,000+ people) with an annual rodeo, the “world’s fastest.”

I hope to see you at The Barn!

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

People handle stress in different ways! I commented about that fact to some of our artists, today! Today, a lot of folks helped their fellow artists through stressful times and situations.

The most encouraging signs that I have seen over the last two days have been: 1) the large number of volunteers, as compared with some recent years, and 2) the generally “accommodating” attitude of most of the volunteers, who have adapted to working with the personalities of their fellow artists – personalities that are much more heterogeneous that those of some groups I have led in projects.

I looked around at lunch today, brought in by our Hospitality Chair. Everywhere in that small kitchen at The Barn were artists and friends catching up in conversation, engaging in warm hugs, and asking each other how they could help. I thought – some of these folks don’t see each other enough! The Spring Art Show is a meeting place for REGIONAL artists, and the number of artists this year who are NOT members of LAA and paid slightly more in entry fees as a result, attests to that fact.

The most observant of you have probably noticed that I did not submit a blog entry yesterday, for the first time in a long time! Yeah, when I looked at the time after some signage for the show came rolling off the printer, it was after midnight!

So… how is the Spring Art Show shaping up? It will be a WONDERFUL event, with what seems to be a more balanced distribution of media types than in some recent years, and a larger contribution of 3D and fiber art than we have seen recently, as well! The words of my friend and fellow photographer, Walter Davies, seem to hold true – the quality of the work seems to get better each and every year! Even after some artworks were canceled, there are still upwards of 250-260 pieces in the show (I haven’t had time to count again!) – a wonderfully strong showing! The amount of artistic talent in local and regional artists continues to amaze me!

The threatening rain today helped to smooth out the peaks and valleys in “receiving” and the “many hands” involved in all of the interrelated processes made for “light work.” I want to personally thank, again, all of the folks yesterday and today who volunteered and cooperated to accomplish a very large amount of work in a very short period of time.

Come to the LAA Spring Art Show in Livermore at The Barn on Saturday and Sunday. The event is open to the public and free. Bring a young artist with you!

You will not be disappointed!

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

This afternoon I had the pleasure and honor of photographing the Pleasanton Community Concert Band, both before and during its Spring Concert at the Firehouse Art Center in Pleasanton, California! I had a really enjoyable time!

The Band is a very talented organization of experienced musicians who provided a truly wonderful program today. The performance was recorded, both sound and images, to DVD. This time, I was just shooting stills at the Band’s request. The Spring Concert in the Firehouse Theater was well attended by an appreciative audience!

And the Band was GREAT…!

I shot some “fill-flash” images before the performance, and photographed during the performance using only existing light. The low-light capabilities of the Canon EOS 7D were very handy.

I will add some photos and links to this blog entry, when the images are finished.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is the day for painting The Barn in Livermore and setting up display flats for the Livermore Art Association‘s Spring Art Show. Angela Johal and I have co-chaired the show, the largest of the LAA year, for four years. This week is the week BEFORE the show, which is 10-5 on Saturday, March 31 and Sunday, April 1. The show is free to the public, and I estimate that there will be about 250 works of art on the main floor, alone. There is also a free, public reception with live music and food, where I will announce awards, from 7 to 9 on Saturday. This year, the show will also host a booth for the Amgen Tour of California, which is coming up in May. This year, Livermore will have the finish line for one of the stages of the race!

Busy, busy, busy….

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

Yesterday’s Santa Cruz Sentinel told of the rapidly flowing San Lorenzo River taking a sharp right turn onto the beach, instead of heading straight out to sea. The river water ran PARALLEL to the amusement park, close to a retaining wall of concrete that separates the Boardwalk from the beach. A wooden staircase from the Boardwalk to the beach was swept to the ocean by the current. The damages on Wednesday were estimated at several thousand dollars, and amusement park employees spent the day creating piles of sand on the beach to prevent the river from sweeping under the Boardwalk, PARTICULARLY where the retaining wall ends on the north end of the beach.

Today, the river continued to threaten the Boardwalk. The work done during yesterday’s third day of steady rain in creating a berm of sand, helped push some of the river’s water to the sea.

“It was good we did the work we did when we did it,” Boardwalk spokesman Marq Lipton said. “If the water had gone any further, there would have been significant damage.”

A berm helped push some flowing water to the ocean, preventing it from scouring at a concrete retaining wall that separates the historic amusement park from the beach. The park, which dates back to 1907, and its 88-year-old Giant Dipper roller coaster has suffered no serious damage so far.

The Seaside Co., which owns the Boardwalk, is allowed to do the work necessary to protect its property without permits from the city or state because of the emergency status.

“As long as they’re working to protect their property under this emergency condition, they’re well within their rights,” Public Works Director Mark Dettle said Thursday. “We’re monitoring the situation.”

Meanwhile, residents of Rio del Mar were dealing with a similar situation, in which Aptos Creek turned southward and passed directly behind homes.

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

But today, California bald eagles are recovering. According to the California Department of Fish and Game, nesting pairs have been found in 41 of the state’s 58 counties. Although pairs of bald eagles have nested in Santa Clara, San Benito,  and Monterey counties, bald eagles have been SEEN only occasionally in Santa Cruz County, and none have nested there.

Although bald eagles are not on the federal endangered list anymore, the species remains federally protected. Bald eagles are still on California’s endangered list.

Thanks in part to photographs taken by amateur photographer and Watsonville resident, Efren B. Adalem, and posted on the Web site of a local TV station on Wednesday, people have flocked to Pinto Lake (Google Map) to see the birds!

“I was pretty excited to see them actually nesting, placing sticks in the nest and catching fish and bringing that back to the nest,” Adalem said.

Pinto Lake is off Green Valley Road and a popular fishing spot that is stocked with trout regularly. Both the City of Watsonville and the county have parks along the shores. Yesterday, visitors catalogued a flock of cormorants, a pair of herons, coots, a young ruddy duck, seagulls, and a trio of ospreys! Some visitors spent most of the afternoon looking across the lake from the shore near near a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe before they were finally rewarded with a view of the bald eagles.

Although we in Livermore have nesting bald eagles at Lake Del Valle nearby, I am delighted that the birds appear to be expanding their range into Santa Cruz County. Santa Cruz County parks are some of our favorite weekend getaway places!

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

I’ve got good news and GREAT news!

The good news: Big Oak Flat Road is reopening.

The GREAT news: It is reopening THIS SATURDAY (a month ahead of schedule)!

Back on February 21, I wrote about a road closure on Big Oak Flat Road between the Foresta Road junction and El Portal Road (California Highway 140) junction, as the result of a rockslide on January 22 that showered the road with BOULDERS THE SIZES OF HOUSES! The closure was SUPPOSED to last until Easter and affected a major route to Yosemite Valley by Highway 120!

The extremely MILD winter experienced by most parts of California this year meant that road repair crews could work around the clock to fix the road, so that the road can open this Saturday, March 10, with only MINOR repairs unfinished, which are not likely to disrupt traffic.

The early reopening is good news for hotels and restaurants in the area, and even better news for tourists traveling to Yosemite Valley and other areas of Yosemite National Park!

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

So two of my MAIN three criteria for a new Apple device – the “retina display” and the ability to run on the Verizon LTE network have been met. The unsatisfied criterion, at least for me, is “at an acceptable price.”

I will admit that, at this point, I have not had time to watch the video of the “Special Event” -  my usual starting place. At some time in the future, I (along with many of my fellow Baby Boomers) will have to decide (given our “aging eyes“) whether it makes more sense to own an iPad OR the smaller-screened iPhone. The new iPad’s features that I have investigated so far LOOK pretty good, but the price looks pretty bad, ESPECIALLY on LTE and when you consider that an iPad is essentially a stripped-down laptop (although a “très chic” one). Unlike Apple, where artistic design sometimes wins over functionality and engineering (you can admit it – remember the Mac “Cube?” I own a T-shirt of the device that I purchased [the T-shirt, NOT the device] at the on-site Apple Store in Cupertino), MOST of us who have had our incomes limited by age discrimination and who hope to make our savings last our entire lives, are interested in what a device can DO for us!

Remember back when all of the tech pundits couldn’t figure out the FIRST iPad? I had to laugh. “Leave THIS one to ‘the People,’” I said to myself. And the People spoke, in VOLUMES – volumes of 55 million iPads sold, worldwide!

The CNN article notes:

“Just last week, Microsoft rolled out its Windows 8 operating system for tablets, suggesting that Windows-based tablets could be making a serious run.”

Please get serious! Those of us who have worked with multiple operating systems in technology companies know that, although Windows has gotten BETTER, it is still Windows! The People are driving the migration to Apple products, NOT the stodgy, group-thinking corporations. Many corporations (especially in financials and pharmaceuticals) HAVE “seen the light” with regard to iPad! It TOOK them long enough! Linear thinkers CAN eventually “get you there” sometimes – just it TAKES much longer!

A note to CNN, which said:

“The new version will be available in the U.S. on AT&T and Verizon and will be the first iPad to connect to 4G networks (a fact that, at least for now, remains academic in most cities).”

HARDWARE-purchase decisions, and the networks that SUPPORT them, are NEVER “academic.” Why would a customer sign a 2-year contract with a telecommunications company for a device that is already obsolete (3G ) whether or not the 4G networks are “built out” yet? High-quality Apple hardware lasts a long time. Apple’s customers EXPECT that. Customers who purchase Apple products are in the position of having to forecast what the tech world will look like in 3-5 years. Sometimes, we guess “wrong,” but “educated guesses” SAVE us a lot of money.

As a loyal (and long-time) Apple customer, I still have a few comments. Apple DRAGS its “competitors” FORWARD. Still, many of us expect MORE from Apple than its primary obligation (under U.S. law) to its stockholders, and we expect MORE from Apple than the assurance of good working conditions for its employees and suppliers, both in the U.S. and in China. Apple customers ALSO expect their OWN loyalty to be rewarded, with affordable products that move the industry forward, without leaving Apple’s long-time customers BEHIND.

If this suggestion sounds like the radical incorporation of morality into business (What a concept! “Business Ethics!” Precisely HOW MUCH “greed is good?” ), then perhaps that is exactly what it is. And maybe, if Apple is radical enough to embrace the challenge, some of its “competitors” (or really, “emulators” ) may do likewise, just to “keep up.”

Not that I would likely buy the inferior products of Apple’s competitors, even if they DID….

(Note added March 14, 2012: Of course, Apple needs to recoup its development and production costs for this beautiful device by selling it to people who can afford it. For the time being, that doesn’t include me, and I suspect that it doesn’t include a whole lot of OTHER people, either! If you would like to read a CNET article that does a reasonably good job at analyzing the pros and cons of buying the new iPad, it is HERE. The only statements of theirs that I do not understand are those related to future Windows 8 devices. What is CNET’s fascination with Windows? Or is it just that I am not the blind and forgiving type…? )

(Note added March 14, 2012, 9:52 PM PDT: OK, I got a chance to watch the keynote today, and I only had to leave it three times to puke when two speakers said, “…take it to the next level,” and one speaker said, “…take it to a higher level.” Darn it people, there ARE no levels! It was a pleasure to see Eddy Cue again. During the whole presentation, I kept wondering if Tim is an INTJ, based on what I have observed about Introvert:Extravert pairs. As for the iPad, it’s brilliant, of course. I still can’t afford one, and I have learned not to desire objects that I cannot afford.)

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

Just stellar!

Yesterday, a Steller sea lion was observed on the “sea lion dock” below the Sea Harvest Restaurant in Moss Landing Harbor and photographed by Michael Sack of Sanctuary Cruises. The sighting is unusual, since the animals generally stay offshore. Wikipedia lists their conservation status as “Endangered.”

What is a Steller sea lion, you ask? I just learned about them, myself! Back when my status as a microbiologist was “fresher,” I used to excuse my vast ignorance by saying, “If it’s big enough to see with the ‘naked eye,’ I don’t know anything about it!” Later, when I moved to California, I excused my vast ignorance by the differences between “eastern” and “western” species and variants of plants and animals. I am running out of excuses, except for the quotation by Lucretius, that says something like “There is an end to our lives, but there is no end to knowledge. To pursue what is unlimited with what is limited is a perilous thing.” “The Steller sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) also known as the northern sea lion, is a threatened species of sea lion in the northern Pacific. It is the sole member of the genus Eumetopias and the largest of the eared seals (Otariidae).” Among Pinnipeds or fin-footed mammals, these “puppies” are smaller than walruses and the two elephant seals! That’s IT! The Santa Cruz Sentinel says:

“The sea lion, estimated at 2,000 pounds according to marine biologist Dorris Welch, can grow to up 11 feet, weighing in at to 2,500 pounds. Stellers are more than three times the size of the California sea lion, which resides along the coastline in abundance.”

In the past 30 years, the species has declined. However, there is a stabilized breeding colony on Año Neuvo Island that produces as many as 200 pups annually, according to Welch.

I hope to see one in person!

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.

Its prospects are “dim” in the Senate.

Its supporters are “dim” in the House.

And what about “States’ Rights…?”

Yes, California is STILL very much about water.

Wednesday, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed in a mostly party line vote of 246-175, legislation that rewrites 20 years of water law in California, “…wiping out environmental protections and dropping reforms of federal irrigation policy that have long irritated agribusiness in the Central Valley.” “It essentially says farmers will get theirs and nothing for anybody else,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California). Despite the odds, House Republicans brought the bill to the floor to emphasize differences between the parties in an election year. Republicans contend that environmental regulations are killing jobs.

I contend that House Republicans are killing the environment (or trying to). (Pssssst… no environment, no jobs! I hope that they don’t let these people use sharp objects. Actually, it is the Republican landowners and agribusinesspeople who are ACTUALLY killing the jobs, but being “thinking-judging” types, they find it difficult to accept responsibilities for their own actions.)

So… why don’t these maroons in the House do something useful with their time and our money?

“The bill, called the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act (PDF; full text), kills a settlement that has launched one of the most ambitious river restoration projects in the West: the rewatering of a dried-up stretch of the San Joaquin River to revive salmon runs. It guts a 20-year-old federal law that set aside a large portion of federal irrigation supplies in California for environmental purposes and toughened the terms of federal irrigation contracts.

The legislation also rolls back fish protections in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to those stemming from a 1994 agreement between the state and federal government and it preempts California water law.”

Part of the conflict between the agricultural and environmental groups SEEMS to be, how far to “turn back time.” The supporters of the legislation want to turn back time to 1994; the environmental groups want to turn back time further, to when the region was a thriving ecosystem and more ecologically balanced. It personally makes me want to send some agribusiness folks to biology classes.

“Part of what it tries to do is turn back time,” said UC Berkeley law professor Holly Doremus. “It’s a remarkable overreach. It tries to give the irrigators everything. They threw all of the wish list in here.”

Supporters of the legislation listed by Representative Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, national farm groups, and interests from the Central Valley, including such agricultural forces as the Harris Ranch and Westlands Water District. Nunes also said, “The senators don’t understand that they’re going to put tens of thousands of people out of work.”

I can only think of the MILLIONS that largely Republican businesspeople, especially financial (but also some Democratic businesspeople of the “top 1%”) have put out of work (and sometimes, their HOMES) in California and across the nation in ALL job sectors in recent years.

Opponents warned that if Congress overrides state water law in California, it can do the same thing elsewhere. “What happens in California won’t stay in California,” said Rep. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Creek). “This bill, if it ever becomes law, will ignite California’s next water war and the fights will spread across the West.”

The Western States Water Council, which has 18 member states, opposed the measure. California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris wrote a letter to lawmakers saying the bill would impose unprecedented federal constraints on the state’s ability to manage its natural resources and “abrogate long-standing provisions of California law designed to protect” them.

-Bill at

Cheshire Cat Photo™ – “Your Guide to California’s Wonderland™”

You can view higher-resolution photos at the Cheshire Cat Photo™ Pro Gallery on Shutterfly™, where you can also order prints and gifts decorated with the photos of your choice from the gallery. The Cheshire Cat Photo Store on Zazzle® contains a wide variety of apparel and gifts decorated with our images of California. All locations are accessible from here. LIKE Cheshire Cat Photo on Facebook here! If you don’t see what you want or would be on our email list for updates, send us an email at info@cheshirecatphoto.com.