During Saturday's Malibu brush fire, I went to Malibu Lake near Agoura Hills to watch the air operations. A large smoke plume was rising on the mountain south of the lake. Several helicopters were using the lake to reload water.







The fire-retardant dropping DC-10 framed by the smoke south of Malibu Lake.



During a quiet period between helicopters, four swans took flight from the west end to the lake and headed to the east end.

After shooting the soccer match in Bakersfield Saturday morning, I had to be at the Livermore by 4 pm. It was only 250 Mapquest miles from the Kern County Soccer Complex. So of course, I arrived at 3:55 pm.

My sister-in-law Nancy threw a surprise 50th birthday party for my brother Rick. About 25 friends and family members showed up right at 4 pm for the party at his hanger at the Livermore airport.

Sunday was free. But the only California map I had was the Mapquest printout from Saturday's drive. I had all day to get back to LA. So of course I got lost several times on back roads in the Central California.

It was follow my nose macho time - no GPS, no damn map! (well almost.)

The day started with driving a back road out of Livermore to look at the local wind turbines hidden in the low hanging clouds. Of course the road I took ended up back in Livermore. Circle number 1.

Once back in Livermore I jumped on the 580 to the 5. After some 30 miles on the 5, it was time for food. For breakfast reading I picked up a copy of the Modesto Bee. The lead Sunday feature story was on Merced's Peter Komlenich, a local World War two pilot and volunteer who had helped restore a B-36 at Castle Air Museum in Atwater.

B-36! damm those suckers were big and I had never seen one in person. So I was off on back roads headed to Atwater located on the 99.

I kept following the signs to Livingston. Trouble was they kept saying 7 miles. Circle number 2 ended in Atwater about noon. During this mapless run, I did find a cool old bridge over the Merced River.



Merced River from historical bridge. More photos.

Upon entering the outdoor exhibits at the Castle Air Museum, the clouds parted and there sat a restored B-17 saying take my photo! I did find the B-36, and yes the sucker is big. Other aircraft I had not see before included a B-47, B-18 and B-23.



B-36 at Castle Air Museum. More photos.

I left the museum and headed south on the local highway through Merced. After about 20 miles the road just ended. I turned right that should have taken me back to the 99, but ran into a detour caused by a collapsed bridge. After circle number 3, I finally found the 99 - but no on-ramps. Just a stop sign and traffic doing 80. Of course I had to turn left.

After a five minute wait, the traffic parted. I made my turn. Left turns onto a rural expressway is an adventure when you're in a four- cylinder 170,000 mile car that does zero to 60 in 10 hours.

OK, no more goofing off. I studied the mapquest map and took the 99 to the 41 to the 33 to try to get to Taft in the south end of the Central Valley. Its been over 30 years since I went through Taft. Guess what, there is a construction project on the 33. A four mile stretch is dirt.

I arrived in Taft way after dark. After a quick drive through downtown, it was off to home.

I didn't get this sunset posted last week. This nice afterglow on clouds was on Sunday, November 4th. Photo was shot from my neighborhood in Newbury Park.

The Newbury Park AYSO U19 Boys team placed 2nd in the weekend tournament in Bakersfield. I was able to shoot the first game on Saturday morning before off to Northern California - more on t hat in future posts. Enjoy, Scott.



Dotphoto album

I have told myself, enough of the LAPD building! But I couldn't pass up sparks flying at dusk. Here are two photos from this evening of workers at the construction site on Spring Street in Los Angeles.

I witnessed this on Monday. On a busy Wendy Drive in Newbury Park a man stopped his car in the middle turn lane, flicked on his blinkers and got out. With the engine running, blinkers blinking, he dodged oncoming traffic to run to the curb and yes, buy a newspaper from a coin box.

Afterwards he calmly got back in his car, turned off the blinkers and drove away.

While pondering why anyone would put their life on the line for a newspaper, a recent joke from one of my sister-in-laws came to mind:

Ron was in trouble. He forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife was really angry. She told him "Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in less than 6 seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE!!"

The next morning Ron got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up she looked out the window and sure enough there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway. Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway, and brought the box back in the house. She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale.

Ron has been missing since Friday.

I guess that was Ron on Monday in a hurry to buy a newspaper to find a new place to live.

While emptying digital cards, I found these two images from the first day of the bursh fires, Sunday, October 21st. Thousand Oaks was hit with not only the high winds, but was exactly downwind from the fires in Santa Clarita area.



A street sign hangs over Olson Road after winds caused one connector to break.



Red sunset in the Dos Vientos section of Newbury Park.

Last week work began on a different wing of the LAPD headquarters under construction on Spring Street in downtown Los Angeles. Instead of shooting up at the iron workers, I now had the elevated angle. Being scared of heights, you will never get me out on those beams.



ISO 200, 75-300mm lens at 160mm f/5 at 1/400th a second. See 10/19/07 for additonal LAPD images.

The Newbury Park AYSO U19 Boys A team won the area 10E championship 4-0 against the NP boys U19B team. The A team is coached by Steve McDaniel. The team is undefeated in regular season and the playoffs. Their only tie was against with the NP B team. The A team goes to the Section 10 Playoffs next weekend in Bakersfield. The NP B team was 2nd in both the regular season and during the tournament. The B team is coached by Eric Bordagaray.

Congratulations to both the Newbury Park A and B U19 Boys teams. I posted about 80 images in a dotphoto album. Enjoy. Scott



Newbury Park AYSO U19B A team members enjoy their 4-0 victory. Dotphoto album.