Pre-Apocalyptic Wasteland

The major question in my mind, at the moment, was whether the houses we were standing next to were abandoned or not. There were cars parked out side in reasonable states of disrepair, but the there was detritus strewn around the yards. The paint was cracked and faded. The blinds were closed. The plants a mixed between dead, trimmed, and feral. Various adornments were out of place: a destroyed light fixture, a fallen flag pole, a broken statue. I couldn't see any lights on, outside or in, but one had a garage door open, down the street, a car idled, warming itself.

I turned to ask the Dog his opinion, to see if he thought people lived around here, but he was smelling a discolored spot of grass. I took up the slack in the leash, and we moved on down the street. I stepped around a piece of concrete that said "BROADBAND^TM". I suppose Victoria's Secret is now advertising using sidewalk impressions.

Poor little Entropy

In the case of my brother's system, Entropy is a major process causing entropy.

I hope my brother has a vacuum cleaner.

Patterns of entropy

The second law of thermodynamics implies, among other things, that processes acting within a system increase the entropy of the system.

As the entropy of a system increases, systems can assume interesting, though less ordered patterns that significantly deviate from their original order.

The Pond in Winter

It's such a tiny little thing. Buried between a couple of office parks in the metro-burbs. I think it was created as an example of how forest and wetlands can be incorporated into development. People are so happy to make the waddle-sprint from the door to the car that they'd hardly notice. It's a thing that's definitely alone in the crowd.

I was kind of alone too. The car was grounded. It was too cold to comfortably ride my bike, so I used my feet to go to work. Yes, Virginia; Arduous; Horrid; Unimaginable.

But, I got to see the pond and a million other little things I didn't know about.

Fr0z3n

It didn't seem to chilly when I walked the dog. I just wore a light sweater.

I put on my jacket over the sweater, threw my backpack into the cat litter tub on the back of the bike and started to work. A process that is principally trying to not suddenly coming from nowhere and then be under a nice BMW.

By the time I made it to the stoplight, it was painfully obvious that it was a lot colder than it felt.

That is to say, my hands were getting very cold.

The worse part was right after passing through the cloverleaf/death-trap, and turned downhill towards work. Then I realized I had been pedaling with the wind, and the last mile was going to be all about hoping my fingers would work well enough to work the brakes.

It's not summer yet.

Things I've Noticed

I took this picture in Downtown San Fransisco. I was impressed at how far the trolley poles on the electric bus could articulate. Several months later, I looked at the picture again and realized that there is a large hole in the hill behind the bus.

I used to spend hours talking to people from payphones using calling cards. Now they just block shelves.

The ChevOldsmoBuiac uses two light bulbs per tail light, leading to curious malfunctions.

Garlic jars melt. Easily.

Christmas.

There's a Monty Python Reference here somewhere.

Ladybug in December

The spittoon in one of the printers at work is getting quite full.

The lamp over the stove is cracked. The plastic has decayed in spite of using a lower heat CFL.

Girl feet.

More Axial Rotation

Stitching together a panorama of 20 images taken at the salt flats was challenging because most of the useful detail is contained in the skyline, and in a few rare cases, in tiny textural anomalies in the salt bed itself. A lot of work had to be done by hand, and a few photos that wouldn't align right had to be tossed out of the group. 

Autumn in Virginia from up high.