Pouring My Art Out

And then, right in the middle of that big seagull riot… this happened…

Posted on March 3, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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As I was filming the great ‘bag of bread war’ between that flock of seagulls… the one I shared with you the other day… I noticed these two mallard ducks swoop calmly over the fracas.

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They made a nice splashdown in Mission Bay.

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They cruised sedately towards the shore.

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And then proceeded to waddle up the sand in my direction, the male still following the female.

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They strolled up onto the grass, still ignoring the swarm of angry gulls fighting over the bag of bread just a few yards away.

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They walked by, very close to where I sat on a cement picnic table.

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Female mallards, as with many bird species, are not as colorful as the males.

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But that is neither here nor there.

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They ended up sitting in the shade, not too far behind me, as I continued to photograph the gulls going crazy.

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And did I mention the osprey I saw, not far from this very spot?

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I am pretty sure I did.

Posted in dogs and other animals | Tagged animals, art, birds, ducks, humor, nature, photography | Leave a comment

More shore birds, for sure… (or): Let’s see some sea birds???

Posted on March 2, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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I still have some pictures left from my work trip down to Mission Bay in San Diego.

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I know, I live in San Diego, but I had to drive down to the beach to do some work…

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Look, it doesn’t really matter…

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I brought my camera…

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I took some photos of some birds…

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And I have been sharing them with you…

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And one of those birds was an osprey, so…

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And I say that any day where you see a cool, big, hunting bird is a good day.

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Also, it was a lovely day, down by the bay…

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Considering it is winter and all…

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Man… those eyes…

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That bird was aware of everything within a mile of where it was.

Posted in dogs and other animals | Tagged animals, art, birds, california, humor, nature, osprey, outdoors, photography, san diego | 2 Comments

Mine! mine! mine! mine!… (or); Nature in the wild is seldom mild, as my mother always says… part 2…

Posted on February 27, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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The struggle over the loaf of bread has become a tussle…

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It has passed the scrap phase and is building towards being a fracas… or maybe even a fray…

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The scrimmage has become a scrum…

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The scuffle is now a tussle…

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The affray has risen to the level of a brawl…

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Uh oh… one of the gulls picked up the bag containing the loaf of bread and then dropped it down by the bay…

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But the dust-up continues, unabated…

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The ruckus resumes…

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The donnybrook is not done…

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The melee moves into the bay…

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It is now a splashy spat… a soaked squabble…

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But the row is becoming less rowdy… the tiff has turned with the tide… the free-for-all has fizzled…

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That is because, as you can see in the center of this photo, the bag of bread has slipped beneath the waters…

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There are no winners in a war!

Posted in dogs and other animals | Tagged animals, art, birds, humor, nature, photography, san diego, seagulls | 4 Comments

Mine! mine! mine! mine!… (or); Nature in the wild is seldom mild, as my mother always says… part 1…

Posted on February 26, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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A seagull finds the mother lode by Mission Bay in San Diego… an loaf of bread in a plastic bag.

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A crow stops to watch, and maybe see if he can get in on the action.

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The seagull get the bag open.

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Another seagull approaches.

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They are joined by another gull, and they begin to flex their muscles… which, I’m sure, would be more impressive without all those feathers in the way.

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Things begin to get a little heated.

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The strutting and posturing commences.

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Another gull, and things escalate. It is now a full-blown brouhaha.

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More gulls arrive… and some pigeons. Pigeons are the innocent bystanders of the bird world.

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It becomes an actual skirmish.

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One seagull makes a break for it with the entire loaf!

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And it just went downhill from here. Please join me later for the exciting conclusion.

Posted in dogs and other animals | Tagged animals, art, birds, gulls, humor, nature, photography, san diego, seagulls | Leave a comment

Birds… I am going to be doing some posts about birds… I have pictures… so, uh, here we go…

Posted on February 25, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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I took my good camera and the telephoto lens down to Mission Beach in San Diego when I had some work to do down there. Here are some much better pictures of that osprey than the ones I took with my phone the other day. Look at those eyes!

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They are big, majestic birds, and I do love the predator birds.

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So I did take a lot of photos of him… or her.

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But I also saw some drama involving that loaf of bread in the plastic bag there. I will get to that in a later post.

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I looked in the bird book, and I think those are Brant Geese.

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You have to be a more serious bird watcher than I am to identify the types of gulls. There are pages and pages of gulls.

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That might be a sandpiper. There are a few pages of those, too.

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Mallards… who doesn’t like mallards???

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Okay, nobody really cares about pigeons, do they?

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But cormorants are cool!

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But not as cool as an osprey eating a fish!

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Okay, see you soon.

Posted in dogs and other animals | Tagged animals, art, birds, humor, nature, ospreys, outdoors, photography, san diego, seagulls | 2 Comments

I’m not sure if you understand how much effort my dog put into eating my books…

Posted on February 23, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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So, here they are, the very first copies of my novels that I sent for from the company that does my self-publishing. The first version I can hold in my hands. I order one copy to do a final edit read-through, and to look for formatting errors. Notice that these three books only have the front AND rear covers torn off. Then, some of the covers were lightly chewed, while others were ripped to small shreds.

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Here is my first copy of the last book in my action/humor science fiction series. It is neatly opened to the middle, and a few pages were torn out.

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Flip it over, and the covers are intact.

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And here, in a box, are the bits and pieces of my books… the small ones.

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I remind you what my office looked like when I came home the other day.

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I was not a happy camper.

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Here is the shelf he pulled the books from. The arrow shows where they were. He didn’t get to my children’s books. I am happy about that. He stopped at a copy of a compilation of short stories done by many authors, of which I am one, that was put together by a blog friend of mine. The dog had plenty of choices if he wanted to eat some books.

I remember when he was a puppy. Even then, he didn’t eat my books.

Posted in dogs and other animals, Stories of my life | Tagged art, bad dog, books, dogs, humor, novels, pets, photography, writing | 10 Comments

Because, seriously, who else is going to show your their kid’s liver???

Posted on February 22, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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Yup, that is the liver and gallbladder belonging to my younger daughter, Mollie. I guess, technically, the gallbladder no longer belongs to her, since it was taken out.

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That photo is a close up of one of four photos, on one of four pages. The doctor who did the surgery had photos taken because Mollie is in college doing pre-med courses.

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The surgery was done using robotic arms with some cool attachments. There was a little grabber to move stuff around, and some clippers that had an electrical charge in them that cauterized whatever they clipped. So, that is the inside of my kid…

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And that is the outside of my kid.

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That thing on the right is a thing that puts little plastic clamps on the cut-off tubes that once attached the gallbladder to the inside of my kid. The plastic biodegrades after a few weeks.

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It is pretty interesting to be able to have these images of what went on in the procedure.

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She is all better now. And instead of one big scar like in the old days, she has four little scars where they closed her up with magic glue.

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There is the grabber arm, and the electrified clipper.

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We live in an age of medical miracles.

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But to me, Mollie has always been a miracle.

Posted in Stories of my life | Tagged doctors, family, health, humor, kids, livers, medicine, nature, people, photography, surgery | 4 Comments

Sky and water… more random photos that I took in the Bay Area, that night my mom and I went to watch the sunset over the Bay Area from the Berkeley hills…

Posted on February 21, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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Posted in My travels, sunsets | Tagged art, bay area, california, colors, golden gate bridge, humor, nature, Northern California, photography, san francisco, san francisco bay area, sunsets | Leave a comment

Random cell phone photos; (or): My second double rainbow in two weeks, a tumbleweed on a beach, my dog ate my f*&%$#g books, a really cold car, a cool bird, and an upside down cat…

Posted on February 20, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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Just clearing a few photos off my phone from the last few days of my crazy life. That is the second double rainbow I have seen within two weeks. What are the odds of that?

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A tumbleweed on the beach at Mission Bay in San Diego. If that doesn’t sum up Southern California in one picture, I don’t know what would, except for snowy mountains in the distance, which you can see from very close to this spot.

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That osprey, in her nest, not far from that tumbleweed.

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So yesterday, I drove up to Anaheim, near Disneyland, to help my daughter do some college-related stuff. I got home to find this. Yes, I left the dogs in our office, because it was supposed to rain.

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Usually, the young, dumb dog only chews up his own bed. This time, he ate five or six books. They were all the very first copies of my novels the ones that I ordered, to do one final edit and check for formatting errors and bad spelling. They still had my hand-done fixes. I am still mad.

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Okay, that helps cheer me up.

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I know that is a horrible, back-lit picture, but I think I see a little baby in the nest! I need to go back down with my real camera and the zoom lens.

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And I kept that one because it is artsy.

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Yeah, I need better photos. Ospreys are awesome.

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And yesterday morning, my car was covered in ice. In San Diego, that is a rarity.

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And not the thin kind of ice you can wipe off. This was a solid layer. Oh man, I should have used my digital microscope on those crystals.

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Where are my ice skates???

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Hey, I promised you an upside down cat.

Okay, see you soon.

Posted in dogs and other animals, Stories of my life | Tagged art, birds, books, cats, dogs, humor, life, pets, rainbows, san diego, southern california, travel | 6 Comments

Hey tRump, if you want a wall so badly, why don’t you build it yourself…

Posted on February 18, 2019 by pouringmyartout

The real irony here is that, if he wants a wall built in the United States, the odds are that he will end up paying quite a few Mexicans to help build it. That is just the truth. Maybe a Go-Fund-Me would work. So, Mr. tRump, that is my advice to you… go fund yourself!