September: A Month of Photos

I'm not going to go into a long explanation here; I'm just behind on things. Writing things. Which includes, actually, the blog, even at only two "writing" posts a week. Which is not to say I don't have things to write about, I do. But you'll have to wait till October to read them, even if they'll be "out of date" by the point. Because they won't be, even if they are not things still in the news. I mean, come on, THERE ARE STILL KIDS IN CONCENTRATION CAMPS, but the news has completely passed over continuing to talk about it because, I suppose, it's old news at this point. But people OUGHT to be talking about it, because it's a fucking travesty.
Among all of the other travesties.
Like Trump's (#fakepresident) renewed and invigorated attack on the environment and his seeming focused intent on killing us all. Or, at least, everyone who is not the 1%, because, I'm sure, the 1% will be able to buy their way out of any catastrophe. Or they think they'll be able to, anyway. Probably Elon Musk is the only safe one among us, because he'll just fly off to live on Mars. Or something.

Anyway...

September will be a whole month of pictures. Having not set those posts up, as I write this, I'm not saying there will be no words, but there aren't going to be a lot of them. However, I will still be around, and I will respond to comments as needed. Which means I will respond to comments that need responses.

So, you know, enjoy the visual commentary on my life.
Because that's what it is, right.
(Yeah, that's not a question, not even a rhetorical one; it's just a statement.)

Rebels: "The Holocrons of Fate" (Ep. 3.03)

-- "Once a secret is known, it cannot be unknown."

Tom Baker is back! And so is Darth Maul!

And... Caleb gets spaced. Caleb, you ask. Well, it appears that Kanan has been keeping a secret and that it's that Kanan is an assumed name.

Actually, this episode is all about secrets, secrets of the holocrons and the secrets they hold.

And, man, things keep getting interestinger and interestinger. We get a reference to "twin suns" and Maul muttering, "He's still alive," and, and, and... all sorts of things.

I don't know at what point Lucasfilm or Disney or whomever decided to start really connecting the animated series... What's the plural of series? I mean, I know it's both the singular and plural, but it seems inadequate here. There are multiple animated series being referred to! Anyway, I don't know at what point they made that decision, but you can really see that process beginning to happen at this point in Rebels. Not to mention the overlap of Rebels with Rogue One. And the return of Maul in Solo. Not that I think that will result in a satisfying conclusion considering the clusterfuck Disney is having with that.

Actually, Disney is just having a big clusterfuck with the whole Star Wars franchise, right now, and they don't necessarily look to be pulling themselves out of it. The animated series seem to be the only thing they have a grip on (maybe), and I think that's because they didn't really take them seriously and left them in the hands of the team that had originally been working on them. We'll see how that goes as they transition back to Clone Wars now that Rebels has ended.

But I digress...

At any rate, this seems to be a significant episode. Maybe. It does, at least, lay some clues for things to come. Maybe. It's intriguing, to say the least. I think it's safe to say at this point that if you really want to know what's going on in the Star Wars universe, you need to be watching the animated shows. The movies are... well, they are clearly lacking the kind of scope they need to have.

"I thought you said it was safe."

"It is safe; that may be the problem."

"The airlock is down there if you want to show yourself out."

"A dull and dour chamber. This is the chamber of a Jedi."

"We asked for a chance to defeat the Sith, and we failed."

Reflection (pictures I like)

Moya Art (a local-ish color post)

I mentioned last week that my wife and I recently did some non-pleasure travelling, which doesn't mean you can't find some time to stick in some site-seeing. On the way back home from all of this travelling, we stopped in Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world! (where we did have some garlic ice cream), and happened upon Moya Art, Gallery and Studio. I couldn't help myself but to poke my nose in and look around. The owner, Nacho Moya, was awesome enough to allow me to take some pictures.

Yes, I really liked that Earth-bomb theme.
You should stop by his page and take a look at all the stuff!

Sleuth? (pictures I like)

Whose tracks are these?

I think I'll follow them...

Nah.

It Came from Below (pictures I like)

Dale Evers Design Studio (a local-ish color post)

My wife and I spent some time out of town at the end of July and beginning of August. Not pleasure trips, but we did do some casual strolling around town in the places we were. So there we were walking down the street in Paso Robles when we came across this:

And this:

While we were looking at the sculptures and I took pictures, a guy in the street fussing over a boat says, "You can go in if you want." And we realized it wasn't just street art... I mean, it was street art, and there is a lot of street art in Paso Robles, so we really didn't think anything about it, but it wasn't just street art in this case, because there was a whole gallery right there, which we hadn't noticed because we'd been distracted by the street art. So we went in, and here are some things we saw:

This one (below) was possibly my favorite piece:

But the sculptor, Dale Evers, named this one (below) as his favorite, though he did admit that it might be because it was his latest piece, and he tends to like best whatever he just finished. So...
The seafood taco!

Just a few more examples of his work:

So go by and check out the website! There's plenty on there not pictured here. And, you know, if you're in the market for some fine home sculptures...

Run Away! (pictures I like)

This Is for the Birds (pictures I like)

California Missions

Skipping past the history lesson, I'll just say that the California missions are some of the most significant historical/archaeological/architectural sites in California. In some ways, the history of the mission is the history of California, and the four largest cities in the state grew up around four of the 21 missions. They're also responsible for there being a wine industry in California and, therefore, the United States. They're responsible for a lot of other things, too, not all of them good.

My wife and I have plans to visit all of the mission sites; so far, we've visited five of the 21, three of them back around the beginning of August. Here are some pictures from those visits. Without labels or anything. Sorry. No, I'm not. If you're really curious, you can look up the missions and see if you can match my pictures to the appropriate one. Sounds like fun, right!

The Odd Things Nature Does (pictures I like)

Mind the Gap (pictures I like)

From Wood, a Fireplace (pictures I like)

Rebels: "Steps Into Shadow -- Part Two" (Ep. 3.02)

-- "Get ready for another demotion."

More Hondo! And he speaks Ugnaught!

heh

So... Last episode, Ezra was promoted and given his own mission to command. Let's just say that the promotion ends up being short lived. Let's just say there's some Dunning-Kruger effect going on here, as Ezra thinks he's got it all under control. You know, on his first command mission. Though I'm pretty sure it didn't go as badly as Ahsoka's first mission.

Also, I learned something in this episode!

Most everyone is familiar with the y-wing fighter as they appeared in the original Star Wars trilogy:

It's one of the reasons everyone preferred the x-wings, right? I mean, besides the fact that Luke flies an x-wing. Y-wings just look kind of junky.

But y-wings are also prominently featured in The Clone Wars and, in Clone Wars, they look like this:

I've always just assumed that the ones in the movies were a later model, like with the changes in the x-wing between the original trilogy and the current trilogy. Turns out there's a completely different explanation for the different look. Which I'm not going to tell you.

Anyway, while I was having my ah-ha! moment, my kid looks over at me and says incredulously, "You didn't know that?"

Yeah, well, I don't know everything about Star Wars. Even less so these days as I actively avoid material which may contain spoilers.

And/or horrible Star Wars fanboy trolls.

"When were you going to share that information?"

"Well, of course, I just did."

"They fight so hard to gain so little."