I love those red sunrises.

Missed sunrise at the creek here today!

bluefield Virginia

Is that fog?

Last edited Tue Dec 31, 2013, 05:10 PM - Edit history (1)

the town sits right at the bottom of East River Mountain.The Mountain isn't extremely tall but is steep and because of the geography we get temperature inversions on our side of the mountain sometimes.When a low lying cloud meets the inversion that is what happens.

The cloud is sliding down the side of the mountain

If you are in it, it is fog.

Fog is nothing more than a ground level cloud.

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Sweet Home!

About two mile down the rud from our home.

A county park near my home:

although it was pretty close to Pittsburgh,

Not sure which park that is, but my dad and I used to go to Raccoon Creek State Park alot.

I grew up in Forest County -- about 2 hours north of Pittsburgh.

meet for breakfast on Sunday mornings...

We don't see that flying horse anywhere around here.

the entire place is a blast from the past.

That ugly celery green paint on the inside, old wooden booths and red stools at the counter, etc.

It all looks very 1950s.

The owners are in their 70s. I don't even know if they make much money from the place, but they keep serving meals on the weekends, probably as a hobby or something.

As long as I've lived here, this place just takes my breath away.

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That small clearing is around my house and outbuildings - and just bush for miles all around that!



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And here's a picture taken yesterday Facing North East from my laneway (wrongly labeled Burke Drive on the Google Sat pic - that' an old logging road on my property that belongs to me)



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AND

A bunk/guest house fully insulated with it's own airtight woodstove in my backyard.



I'm a happy man!



CC

I feel your pain.

was that BP had heavy influence in AK, especially in the North Slope.

note, ConocoPhillips named last, least influence?

snip

The best thing the state could do in the long run to increase oil investment would be to expand competition in Alaska’s oilfields. But the state has rarely addressed competition on the slope because of the political and economic power of BP, Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips.

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20131008/alaskas-big-three-oil-companies-prefer-limited-competition

And of course, who can possibly forget the Exxon Valdez?

http://www.epa.gov/oem/content/learning/exxon.htm

It's a good thing the EPA is around to help regulate polluters.

I don't know how much Koch influence had to do with the mining bill railroaded through here in Wisconsin, lawmakers here didn't allow any public input at all.

http://progressive.org/wis-republicans-push-mining-bill-through-committees

The repuglican scorch the earth policies are alive and doing well..

snip

Much of the debate on the amendments and final passage of the bill focused on the legislative process during the short life of the bill with Democrats calling it a “sham.” Rep. Clark announced that at last week’s one and only public hearing on the bill, 98 members of the public who signed up to testify did not get the chance to do so. Fewer than 70 people actually testified during the 12-hour hearing. No other hearing was scheduled.


This is one of my photos I took when stationed at Eielson.

as "Alaska's oil and gas company," which is a huge joke, and also our governor Sean Parnell was a CP lobbyist before he was governor and has been cutting breaks for Big Oil here ever since he's been in office. We call him Seanoco Parnellips.

We had legislative process issues going on here, too, with the passage of SB 21 last year. Long story short, it DOES limit the competition, as the article states, and creates about a $2 billion a year shortfall to Alaska's budget, while enriching those Big Three oil companies. We will have a referendum on the August ballot to repeal the bill because no one was in favor of it. ACES, our previous oil tax scheme, was about the only good thing Sarah Palin did while governor, but Sean decided to kill it.

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…and backyard earlier

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Approx 10 miles east of Tacoma. It's pronounced "Pyoo-AL'-upp", and if you don't pronounce it like that, we know you're not from around here.

Here's our Frank Kapra-esque town square looking west towards our public library:

and I've never even been there. I used to have a friend from Yakima who taught me how to pronounce all those places in Washington.

I've had the pronunciation ground into my scull with all the ads I hear on the Washington channels we get for the Puyallup fair.

Thanks to King5 news and other similar channels we get north of the border one of the other names I've now had pounded into my brain is Muckleshoot as in the Muckleshoot Casino. Just how much advertisement does that place put out? Lol.

A view of downtown from under the Stone Arch Bridge.


A view of downtown from Lake Calhoun near my house


A landmark (literally Landmark Theater) in my neighborhood.

get to Times Sq.?

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They're shooting NBC TV's "Revolution" series in my little town. I live in "Willoughby" Texas.


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The "downtown" set is three blocks north of my house.

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How cool is that?

I'm kind of liking that show. I wasn't sure if I was going to stick with it after the first season, but the second really picked up. I like that the US government are the bad guys. Do you know if they've been renewed?

Right now they are on a filming hiatus, and will film again in January through April in my little town. It was cool to have the cast and extras walk right by my house last summer after their day's work was done. It's more excitement we've seen here than in a long time. Our quaint little towns out here on the Texas prairie are good film locations. The Cohen Bros filmed "True Grit" a couple of years ago about 5 miles south of us in Granger, Texas.

We had Drew Barrymore and John Kazinski (I know I'm spelling that wrong) up here for "Big Miracle" and John Cusack and Nic Cage for "Frozen Ground." Everyone was just star struck. It's fun to see locals, people you know, as extras in the movies.

I hope Revolution comes back. I really want to find out what was the story with the bombing of Atlanta. .

The light is absolutely breathtaking!

Did you take it?

It's my desktop background, found it on Google.

Happy new year!

Ha, my spelling's getting iffy, that took me a few too many tries.

I'm feeling guilty for not posting a pic in here so

and my middle daughter got her undergrad degree from Colorado State. It's a nice little town. We'll probably visit up there when we go to Littleton to visit my other oldest daughter in June.

My family moved here when I was two, so I consider myself a native. Maybe someday I'll leave, but no reason to at this point.

The city and the area have grown a lot in the last ten years.

My sister lives in Estes Park. You are lucky to live in such a beautiful region.

Do our part to help the economy after the flood.

Estes Park itself wasn't damaged too much, just some road washouts as far as I could see. But the Baldpate Inn and St. Mary's Lake Lodge are still closed, and the Aspen Lodge Resort and Spa had tremendous damages from a huge rockslide. That one's going to be very costly. But within the town of Estes Park I saw very little damage. The hardest-hit areas seemed to be Lyons and along Highway 36 north of Lyons.

But oskar blues and the pinball arcade are still there.

Having all the roads washed out meant a lot of lost money for both towns. We'll come down through lyons and toss them some money, too.

They love it. Been there since he went to CSU more than 10 years ago.

I envy you that view. Nothing anywhere close to that NW of London in the UK.

I'm in Watford which is to the NNW , outside of the London postcodes in the county of Hertfordshire. Your daughter is only about half the distance from central London than I am. Takes me about 40 minutes to drive into town.

She'll have the New Year before you

are with me until tomorrow so we will ring in the New Year California Style! Happy New Year!

I live here in Vancouver Canada, supposedly the best place on earth to live. Yet I envy you living in London

but yes I know what you mean. I'm born and bred London so take it for granted.

Happy New Year to you.

I've been here for almost 12 yrs... my dearly-beloved Lyric is a Morgantown native!

Here's an aerial view along the river... downtown and the university (WVU -- Go Mountaineers!!!) are in the background.




This is downtown's main-drag... HIGH STREET!
The green awning on the right is the entrance to the pub where i've worked for the last 4 years
The building on the left with the faux column details is a restored performing-arts space, originally built in about 1900.

That was quite a movie.

Which is probably 4+ hrs south of here... south of Charleston by about an hour.
(i didn't feel the need to see the movie... stupid people annoy me way too much)

And no, we're not in "Wrong Turn" country, either... that's still way south of here, though closer to the VA line.

We're in Monongalia County, a decidedly 'blue' county on the PA border.
We're only about an hour's drive south of Pittsburgh.

but it was quite a while ago, and I wasn't paying much attention to geography. It's a beautiful state.

Far too many areas in the state are now starting to look like the craters of the moon...

Again, much of that is farther south of us, but still.

In fact, my husband had saved up money for us to go there last year, but we decided to spend it on some much-needed upgrades to our house instead. Maybe someday...

Not that I've been to India but it looks familiar still.

At a river and creek in southern Maryland! (Really can't compete with Alaska!!!)

and I've really been enjoying your photos. Aren't you glad you got that new camera?

BEST toy in the world! Do have to figure out a few things, like how and when it goes into video mode!

that you're accidentally clicking on. It's happened to me a few times when I have my camera on "live view."

The camera is rather small, as is the Quick Reference Guide, so will study at night, quietly and carefully. That's how I found the ZOOOOM!

Napa, CA

Lived there until I was 37, and worked there my whole working life (now retired).

It's pretty amazing how much things have changed downtown, and along the river. I can remember when Koret, Rough Rider, and the tannery were all in full operation. And the old First Street bridge, and how things looked before the Wine Train, and the never ending Flood Control project.

Heck, the whole valley has changed dramatically over the last half-century. I can remember when there were only four or five real wineries in the valley (Krug, Beringer Brothers, Mont. LaSalle, and the Christian Brothers before it became the Culinary Institute). I think Sattui was an earlier one also, and I remember when Mondavi opened.

When that cool building in your first shot, on 3rd and Main, up the street from the Opera House, was the old Rexall Drugs. I believe it is the Coffee Roasting Company these days. When my oldest daughter was little (she's now 32) my wife and I would take her in there for steamed milk and honey, while we had a cup of Joe.

I was part of the construction biz there for 35 years, and did a bunch of work on some of the mega-estates up valley.

Anywaaaaay...I could go on and on, but then we would both be bored.

We've been here since 2001, right about when the Renaissance of the current downtown began. It's been fascinating to witness.

Photo is from this summer, from the roof of the library building.

We were traveling from Denver to San Francisco in an old VW bus in August 1969. The car literally broke down in every state. In Wyoming it was a broken gas line. Coming down out of those mountains east of SLC, we threw a rod. Of course, it was late Saturday afternoon and NOTHING was open on Sunday, least of all an auto shop, so we spent some of our very limited money on a cheap motel and just hung out. With no transportation, we really couldn't get around to see the sights. Plus it was hotter than Hades.

I'd like to go back again sometime under less stressful circumstances.

I would recommend visiting in mid-May or mid-September, as the summers are very hot and the winter inversions are nasty.

Nice!

as a child.. then NYC in my 20's and now Grasonville MD (Right across the bay bridge near Annapolis)

Overhead shot of the neighborhood/course. We are just to the right of the picture..

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Happy new year!

From my bike ride this afternoon. Not bad for December. I've never posted a picture before so I hope this works.

You did good.

but I live in the 'burbs currently:

We don't have anything like that here. Anchorage didn't really become much of a town until the 1940s.

Munich, Germany



This view is not my picture, but it was taken from the roof of the assisted home my mother in law is living in. About 5 minutes to walk from our house. And no, normally we don't see the mountains this clear. Normally we don't see them at all.

Here's a couple of well known professional shots:





And a few of my own:

I've only seen Vancouver from the Washington side.

You mean Vancouver, Washington? Took me a sec I thought you could somehow see Vancouver from Washington. Shades of Sarah Pailin seeing Russia from Alaska lol.

and were traveling over to Seattle. There was some city across the water. I assumed it was a Vancouver of some sort, but I must have been wrong.


Ed. I looked at a map. It must have been Victoria maybe.

I can see why you might think that now though. Victoria is a much smaller city though. It's actually the capital of BC. For some reason tourists like to go there. Beats me as I've always found it a rather boring town, though I guess it's quaint in its own way.

Hope you have a chance to visit Vancouver some day would be glad to give you some travel, sight seeing tips if you are ever in the neighbourhood.

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Lived here most of my life (except for 5 years in London as a kid) and it never gets old

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I always love coming to the Bay Area.

The pier in my hometown, Huntington Beach (SoCal)




Point Richmond (SF Bay Area) where I live now (Mt. Tamalpais is just to the right in the pic)

Oakland (during school breaks)
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and
Arcata, CA (during the semester)
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Now that you have lived there.

I lived in China (mainly Xiamen, and Dalian), Taiwan and Malaysia for 4 years as a kid. I've been back several times to. I really love Asia for the most part. Course anyone who lives there for a time gets to know its a love hate relationship

but if I talk, people will accuse me of generalizing and being racist, so I will just say there are things I like and things I don't like.

Remember, all westerners know China better than westerners that live here. . .and if you tell one westerner about things that happen here, they never believe you.

Feel free to PM me if you wish. Yeah I know all to well what you mean lol.

view from one job:


view from the other job:


No pix of my place online at the moment. Used to have some on my blog. Just a little red antique cape with a red garage and many red sheds... beautiful views out the back from the sunroom addition.

but I don't really care to post pics about the local scenery as I don't like it. It's too developed, with too many people. The beaches are mostly flat sand and not very attractive in my opinion, particularly with all the ugly California style architecture lining them. One of the only parts of Orange County where I live that's attractive to me is on the edges, out in the area of Silverado Canyon for example. Silverado is a steep-sided canyon down which a two-lane road runs as well as a stream through the trees, with quaint old houses on either side. About twenty years ago, I had the chance to buy a small plot of buildable canyon land. But then I learned that a young girl had recently been crushed to death in the night when a giant boulder fell down the high canyon walls and hit the bedroom of her small house. Rock falls from the steep nearby canyon walls are apparently common.

I know what you mean about So Cal. One of my daughters and her family live in Marina del Rey right on Lincoln Blvd. (at least their apartment is in the back off the highway). I'm always amazed at how many people are down there, especially coming from Alaska.

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You're lucky to live in such a peaceful setting.

the lake in our community.





view from Sugarloaf Mountain