New Mexico Hiatus

Off to Aunt Senaida's Funeral.

Megan Tilly O'Laughlin's Debut as Mermaid at Dive Bar on K Street Mall

MH370?

Has the Malaysian Airlines aircraft finally made an appearance?

I recall on the morning after the disappearance there was a strange aircraft sighting in the Maldives, which is far to the north of Reunion island (but upstream with respect to the currents).

Apparent airplane debris found off the coast of Reunion island, a French department in the western Indian Ocean, is being examined to see if it is connected to the 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, a member of the French air force in Reunion said Wednesday.

The debris was found off the coast of St. Andre, a community on the island, according to Adjutant Christian Retournat.

The folks from the Maldives have been trying for some time to make their voices heard. Like the diminutive Whos that only Horton the Elephant could hear, they have been drowned out and had their stories discounted. I bet, when all is said and done, they will be proved correct. The Maldives are upstream, with respect to Indian Ocean currents, with Reunion Island:

Fresh testimonies from a small island community in the Maldives has reignited reports that missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 could have crashed over 5000 kilometres away from the official search led by Australian authorities.

Locals from the island of Kudahuvadhoo, located in the southern area of the Dhaalu Atoll in the Maldives, reported witnessing 'a low-flying jumbo jet' on the morning of March 8 last year, when the flight disappeared while travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board.

The reports come as acoustic scientists from Curtin University refuse to rule out the possibility that 'distinctive' data they recorded from the area at the assumed time of the crash may have come from the impact of the aircraft as it hit the Indian Ocean.

"Fiddler on the Roof" - DMTC YPT's Summer Youth Show

Gotta Love This Guy

Chiru - Bollywood's entertainment answer to entertainment problems we didn't know we had....

My eyes....THEY HURT. What was that.

Posted by Rupan Bal on Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Mad Max Fury Road - Yakety Max

The Crows Are Taking Over

I was in the back yard filling the dog's dish with water when I heard the hedge shrubbery rustle behind me. "The crows," a voice said. I recognized the voice: it belonged to one of the DMV parking lot guards, who no doubt was on his rounds when he saw me through the leaves. "The crows?" I asked, without looking behind me as I ran the hose. "They're taking over," he intoned ominously.

Indeed, I've noticed over the last month, as summer's heat compounds the drought shredding the local ecosystem, that crows and ravens are getting organized on the hunt for food. They've gotten together before, of course, but I've never seen this scale of organization previously.

California crow populations have increased mightily over the past century, and they may well be the biggest beneficiaries of the drought as other bird populations collapse under the pressure. Here's an article from 2012 in regards to the Bay Area.

Not so long ago, common ravens were uncommon in the Bay Area. A 1927 reference calls them "rare" except at Point Reyes. American crows lived mostly along the Marin County coast, not in the East Bay.

In 1991, Audubon Christmas Bird Counts tallied 17 crows and 54 ravens in San Francisco; 60 crows and 23 ravens in Oakland. The 2011 San Francisco count reported 599 ravens and 566 crows; Oakland had 1,152 crows and 193 ravens.

Remarkable, especially considering that crows, if not ravens, are highly susceptible to the West Nile virus. California Department of Public Health statistics show more dead crows than any other bird species testing positive for West Nile: 1,792 in 2008; 468 last year. (Raven mortality was minor.) The disease devastated crow populations in the East and Midwest, but California populations weren't dented.

...What brings them here? Kevin McGowan of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology notes that they don't get shot in cities; they benefit from both federal protected status and local firearms ordinances. That alone may encourage boldness. Also, he says, cities tend to be warmer than the countryside, and have large trees for night roosting. Urban crows are less likely to encounter their mortal enemy, the great horned owl, and city lights let crows spot owls before the owls spot them.

There's food, too: not so much the landfill smorgasbord (more the gulls' beat) as the fast-food parking lot buffet. "We eat so much out of doors now that these very intelligent birds can access all those food scraps we just drop or toss on the street," said Dan Murphy, compiler of the San Francisco Christmas Count. Some people feed them on purpose, too.

Weird Japanese Candy

RIP, Senaida Valdez Aragon

From March, 2013. My sister, Michelle Browning, my nephew Aaron Christopher Browning, Marc Valdez, and my 93-year-old aunt Senaida (Sadie) Aragon.

It looks like I'll soon be making an unexpected trip to New Mexico. My father's elder sister, Senaida Valdez Aragon, passed away this morning at the age of 95. I had almost thought of her as indestructible, as uncomplaining and in comparatively good health she had spent most of her life, but alas, it was not to be.

Uncomfortable Tryst

Stumbling across what appears to be a tryst on the hard pavement of the DMV parking lot at 1:20 a.m. took even human-jaded Bella by surprise. Closing time is in just a few minutes and impaired drivers will be zooming through that short cut any second. And with a grassy cemetery so close by too!

National Dance Day - West Steps of State Capitol - July 25, 2015

National Dance Day, West Steps of State Capitol, Sacramento, CA.

Good Day, Sacramento had fun with it.