Skip navigation

Monthly Archives: December 2013

We come up here to Sea Ranch once a year.

bright sunlit waves break over rock on a calm day

waves on a gentle day

Every year since 1988, except one year, when we went to Hawaii and could not afford both trips.  The kids now come home so that we can do our yearly sojourn up here.  We have friends here that live in Gualala, just 5 miles up the coast.  For their vacation, they go down to Martinez in the S.F. Bay Area.  Yes, that Martinez, with the refinery in its back year.

Man, Meadow, Sea as backdrop

Witnessing

Yet they are excited as they prepare to go down there… to get away from the quiet.

Thank goodness for photography.  I take pictures where ever I am.  I find beauty there.  I find beauty here.  So the pictures are a reminder that you find beauty wherever you are.  “.. the eye of the beholder.”  I know that.  You know that.

But every once in a while, we need a reminder:

Beauty is everywhere.. just remember to look…

Beautiful sunset with streaks of clouds

Light Display at Day’s End

Share

but no pondering weak and weary.  On this night of nights when it is no less than hope that enters the world.  Every group celebrates birth.  This night belongs to one group, while others celebrate other nights and days.  Shared all though is the belief that buried in the dust of the strugglings of daily life, there is something more.  Something just.  Something that stands above us all, as a star to which to reach.  In the wind and cold, there is warmth within.

So stop.  Pause.  Look.  For every person around you is struggling and striving and trying.  Each one feels pain and fear and sorrow.  Each travels the road alone, whether surrounded or isolated.  We enter alone.  We leave alone.

Such a burden to think yourself special.  Such a burden to think thus.  Rather see value in each life, each thing.

Ecclesiastes 1:9
Parallel Verses
New International Version
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Pick things up and put things down and needed.  No more no less.  May you know that that is sufficient.

May you feel the joys of all the celebrations of seasons such as these.

 

 

 

Share

Yes.  Hitchhiker’s Guide.  When it’s time to say goodbye, sometimes there isn’t much to say.

I spent 4 years working hard and learning much.  I guess that is when I’m happiest, when I’m in learning mode.  But even with great technology, sometimes the market is just not right and it is taking just a bit too much time.  That means something has got to be done.  So, before that something, I decided to leave for greener pastures.

With the new job in the pocket, I had to say goodbye to the old.  It was tough.  People make the difference in the workplace.  These are good people.  But after a final yoga class and sandwiches.. no, no goodbye lunch for me, I shook some hands and left.  It was like a weight was lifted.  Funny how you don’t realize how the fishbowl looks from inside the fishbowl.

The next day was the next job.  Good job.  A place to learn lots of new things.  A solid company.  A new start.  But as I sit here at home after my first full week, I can’t help but think about how chance lines things up.  Sometimes for success.  Sometimes for failure.  If you’ve ever read “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” [a bit racy] by Milan Kundera.. six chance events that bring us to our fate…

Where ever you end up, there you are.

Sometimes there is nothing left to say, except ..

Thanks for all the fish.

 

Share

Yesterday I drove 6 hours, to Sacramento and back for a decade birthday of my brother-in-law and the way there was during rush hour out of the bay area.  For what I am about to say, I do have a certain bias; few people would say that I drive slowly  rather to the contrary.

 

One of those things that I can feel my blood pressure rise around are individuals who are not keeping up with the traffic flow.  I have found that these people frequently drive a Prius.  In conversations with Prius drivers they talk about working to get even higher mileage by limiting acceleration and therefore not necessarily keeping up with the car in front of them.

 

This is for all those Prius drivers;  Have you thought about how self centered you are, how much more total gas you are causing everyone else to use?

 

Let’s take a commute along an expressway as the first example.  Assume that the extra gap between the Prius and the car in front would at the normal density of cars on the road hold 3 additional cars.  When a Prius goes through an intersection on a green light with traffic behind him, there will be 3 cars (or however many would fit in the excess gap) that don’t make it through the signal before it turns red.   These 3 cars will then idle at the signal burning gas until it turns green, let’s say 30 seconds for the signal to keep the math easy or a total of 90 seconds extra idle time.  This becomes true for most of the signals on a commute.  If there are 10 signals the virtuous Prius driver has added 900 seconds of extra commute time to the collective everyone else who is driving.  900 Seconds is 15 minutes. How much gas is this?  Except that it is worse than this.  Those 3 cars that didn’t make it through the signal because some Prius had left a big  gap, then mean that 3 less cars make it through the prior  signal.  At the 10th signal, there are 10 signals each with 3 cars that have had to wait.   The total additional idling at signals for a 10 signal model with 30 seconds per signal cycle yields an added delay to the collective commute of 4950 seconds or 82 minutes.  Mileage may vary depending on signals (count and duration)  and Prius gaps.

 

Let’s take a freeway during rush hour.   Let’s assume that the traffic packed, but moving at 30 miles per hour.  Let’s assume that each normal car uses 53 feet of space for itself and the gap in front of it.  This yields 100 cars per mile.  The reality is that there is usually less space and higher density. If traffic is heavy like this for 5 miles.  Our 3 car Prius gap is roughly 159 feet, or about 3.5 seconds of time.  The Prius is delaying 5 miles, or 500 cars by that ~3.5 seconds which is roughly adding 30 minutes of driving time to the overall commute with each of the 500 cars behind the Prius suffering.

 

Do the desires of a few outweigh the needs of the many?  Think about this the next time you see a car not keeping up with the car in front, and notice what type of car it may be.  Are you one of those drivers?

 

Patrick Lynch

Patrick Lynch Photography

Sierra Fall Colors

Share

I’ve been driving the SF Bay Area freeways for many years.  So many times I have seen Peregrine Falcons perched on freeway lights, power polls,..  Lots of times.  But they have always been alone.  Never have I seen two together.

Today, on the way home from work, I saw what might have been the sight of my lifetime: Two Peregrine Falcons, sitting on a light fixture, just west of the Dumbarton Bridge Toll Plaza.  One was brown:

http://www.google.com/imgres?sa=X&espv=210&es_sm=93&biw=1036&bih=656&tbm=isch&tbnid=BCRgD4YKlg11LM:&imgrefurl=http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/peregrine-falcon/&docid=yEDkye36XfCdgM&imgurl=http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/006/cache/peregrine-falcon_659_600x450.jpg&w=435&h=580&ei=ctq0Uu63MtH3oAS62oHICA&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:1,s:0,i:105&iact=rc&page=1&tbnh=172&tbnw=127&start=0&ndsp=9&tx=78&ty=119

and one was blue [ at least in the moments I could see it, it looked blue ] :

http://www.google.com/imgres?sa=X&espv=210&es_sm=93&biw=1036&bih=656&tbm=isch&tbnid=5UJlVME0PyZ_BM:&imgrefurl=http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/peregrine_falcon/id&docid=yodZoMn_KGFzuM&imgurl=http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/PHOTO/LARGE/MJH_040302_00123Z_L.jpg&w=425&h=301&ei=ctq0Uu63MtH3oAS62oHICA&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:7,s:0,i:123&iact=rc&page=1&tbnh=172&tbnw=240&start=0&ndsp=9&tx=108&ty=76

I’m assuming they were a mating pair.  The brown bird was larger.  I was thinking that the female is colored brown and the male colorful, but wikipedia says they have the same coloring.  The female is larger.  The Peregrine Falcon mates for life.

Just another romantic Friday afternoon in the Bay Area.

 

Share