Desert vistas… part 7… (or): Mountains, clouds, snow and palm trees…

Posted on March 5, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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You gotta love California, where you can gaze past palm trees and see snow-topped mountains.

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I am nearing the end of my posts of photos I took on my recent drive back to San Diego from Arizona.

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We saw a lot of desert. Technically, this mountain pass, through which I was descending towards Los Angeles, is still desert… high desert.

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Now remember, I only took this route, which is slightly longer, because my normal route was blocked by a snow storm. I don’t have snow chains in my car.

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But, even in San Diego or Los Angeles, during the winter, you can drive to play in the snow in just an hour or two.

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I have to admit, I am baffled by you people who live where it snows right on top of you… and your car, and your roads.

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We keep our snow like we keep our tigers and lions… near enough to visit them, but not right out in the backyard.

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We have zoos for the dangerous animals, and mountains for the snow.

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Because I don’t ever want to wake up, go outside, and find either of those things piled up on top of my car.

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Desert vistas… part 6… (or): Tanks for the memories…

Posted on March 4, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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Okay, back the the story of my recent drive from Arizona to San Diego. We left off with me almost running out of gas at the California/Arizona border. I found a gas station with 12 miles of fuel left in my tank… and, speaking of tanks… I do like a tank with a clear message. Although, that ‘keep off’ sign is not a memento of some tank crew, but rather was put there by the people who run a small museum.

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It is a museum dedicated to this man, General George Patton.

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I had no idea the museum was there, in that little town nestled in that mountain pass.

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I walked around behind the museum… I didn’t pay to go inside, but I might do that someday. I found the tank graveyard, where they put the wrecks that they might someday refurbish and restore, or maybe just use to cannibalize parts for other tanks. It really did look a battle had been fought there years before.

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A Sherman tank, the main battle tank of U. S. forces in World War Two. This is the tank that Patton led against the Nazis. It wasn’t as strongly-armored as the German tanks, and the gun wasn’t as big as the German guns. But we made a lot more of these than they made of theirs. Patton died… in a vehicle accident… shortly after the Germans surrendered, so he wouldn’t have ever seen many of the tanks in his museum.

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But I am sure he would approve of the museum. He did like any kind of publicity, and the high mountain desert does look a lot like parts of North Africa where he first led our troops against the Nazis.

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And then, I was back on the road.

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I was heading down out of the mountains, heading towards Los Angeles.

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Okay, see you soon.

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Desert vistas… part 5… Some desert rain…

Posted on March 3, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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I am particularly proud of that photo. It is a very localized rain shower in the middle of the desert, seen through some high-power lines… highpower lines… high powerlines… high power-lines… high-power-lines??? Not bad for a shot taken one handed at 85 miles per hour without even looking.

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And then, the unthinkable almost happened.

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I came within 12 miles of running out of gas… in the middle of the Arizona desert. Okay, I was technically at the Arizona/California border… but still.

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I have never run out of fuel in a car in my life, not even in my old Suburban with a busted fuel gauge, that you had to write down the mileage in a little notebook and do math, which I suck at. But there are some wide expanses in the American Southwest. One minute, I had plenty of gas. Then, I had very little. Then, the warning light… in the shape of a little gasoline pump… came on. I watched my range indicator read down.

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12 miles from disaster… well, extreme embarrassment, because I do have AAA, and could have just called a tow truck for free… I found a gas station.

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I also found some tanks, but we can talk about that in the next post.

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I will just leave you wondering about the armored vehicles for now.

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And go back to tranquil scenes of the desert, like this one, with cloud shadows turning the hills dark.

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Okay, catch you in a while.

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Badges! We don’t got to show you no stinkin’ badges!

Posted on March 2, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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Desert vistas… part 4… and some stuff about my new job…

Posted on March 1, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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While we look at some more of the photos I took on my way back to San Diego from Arizona, let me tell you about that new job thing.

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As a security officer, i can’t go into too many details, but I have been accepted at a posting.

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I have to admit, when I went into this line of work, I was picturing myself in tactical gear, with a metal badge, creeping around in the dark, looking for broken windows and broken-into doors.

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Awww… what a cute little mesa… What I ended up with is a job at an exclusive, gated private community of very upscale residences. I wear a blazer… a monogrammed blazer… sigh.

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I do look pretty spiffy, I must admit.

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I can’t share pictures of where I work, but I will try to remember to get some photos of myself in uniform… with the monogram smudged out. And maybe some photos of the area around where I work.

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Hey, look, it is Quartzsite, that place where I petted 68 dogs in one day, a personal record. You should look up that post.

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Okay, that is about it for now.

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See you soon.

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Okay, this is the last bit of digital magic I am doing on this picture from my children’s book: The Lonely Little Wizard…

Posted on February 28, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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Desert vistas… part 3… (or): Well, I been through the desert in a car with no name, it felt good to be out of the rain… except it rained on me…

Posted on February 28, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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Did you get the song reference in the title? Good. It is an old song, and I never really liked it… but, still…

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And yes, the same storm that snowed in the pass on my usual route from Arizona back to San Diego and making me take an alternate route did indeed dump a lot of rain on me, starting right near the Arizona/California border.

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But storms mean clouds… and clouds mean more interesting photos, right?

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Can you look at these without thinking about Western movies?

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I know I can’t.

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That is black lava rock, left over from an ancient volcanic eruption. I think I have a better picture of it.

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Mmmmm… fluffy!

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Oh yeah, lava rock and cacti.

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Are you getting sick of these yet? I could take a break and do some other weird stuff.

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Desert vistas… part 2… and some important stuff I learned about necromancers and wolves…

Posted on February 28, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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As I continue to post the photos I took on my recent drive back to San Diego from Arizona, in which you will see mountains, bluffs, crags, scarps, cliffs, escarpments and precipices of all sorts, let me share some things I learned while visiting my daughter and son-in-law in Arizona.

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Never try to kill necromancers… they are already dead. You think you are winning. They fall down and start to give off radiant blue swirling magic light formations, and you think, oh yeah, I am absorbing some new magic… but it is just them getting ready to get back up and kick your ass.

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Dire wolves are irritable, and will attack you when they see you, but they respond well to a firm tap on the head… with a mace… and a nice petting… preferably with a hand that shoots magic flame spells.

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Never stand in the front row, right in front of the raised platform, at a public beheading… you will get blood splashed all over your nice armor and cloak.

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Help people. If a jester has a broken wheel on his cart, and needs you to convince the local blacksmith to fix it, and then the blacksmith needs you to find something for him first, just do it. Happy people give you stuff.

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Always loot dead bodies, whether or not you are responsible for them being dead… because, one again, free stuff.

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Learn magic.

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But do not accidentally hit the wrong button and use magic against a town guard. The other guards get cranky, and swarm all over you until you die.

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Okay, I might, between sending my newest novel to the publishers and finishing the cover art, have spent some time playing Skyrim wearing a virtual reality helmet.

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Desert vistas… part 1…

Posted on February 27, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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I am back in San Diego after visiting my daughter in Scottsdale, Arizona. I took a lot of pictures on the way home. Yes, I take pictures while I am driving. But I am a professional, trained driver, and I don’t look through the view finder. I just point, and click, and let auto-focus do the rest. I don’t take my other hand off the wheel, or my eyes off the road.

That is right near where Jessica lives. It is a rock formation called ‘Camel Rock’. It is supposed to look like a camel sleeping in the sand. Maybe it does. I also happened to catch those two Saguaro cacti by the freeway, propped up with two-by-fours.

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Okay, I guess it looks like a sleepy camel… sort of…

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I leave it up to you.

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So get ready for it. I have a lot of photos. The American Southwest is a unique place.

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I mean, most places have mountains and forests. A lot of places have beaches. Yes, there are deserts out there, but each one is different.

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Also, I am a sucker for mountains fading away into the distant mist or haze.

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And you do get a feel for how big this country is.

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Also, because of a snow storm in the pass, I had to take a different way home, so a lot of this is stuff you might not have seen before.

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I hope you enjoy the journey.

 

 

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The fourth book in my action/humor science fiction novel series is done!!!

Posted on February 27, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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I have sent it to the publishers, along with the cover art. I have ordered a copy to proofread. Self-publishing rocks. My daughter, whom I am visiting in Arizona, you might recall, decided that just formatting and sending all my books to the place that prints them is easier than teaching me how to do that part myself. So… yay… and phew!

I did do all the cover art, and send that in, with just some help from my son-in-law.

Here is the entire cover as it gets sent…

book cover small for blog

It is a wrap-around kind of thing.

Just so you know, book four of The Otherwhere Chronicles is the end of the adventure… but maybe not. Our hero… that me from another dimension… now has stealth spy ships that are undetectable on any scanner. He has a triangular stone that is a memory device of the ancient race of beings called the Shann… that some humans call ‘the Giant Flying Pickles’ because they do, indeed, look like giant flying pickles… and he can learn anything instantly. Oh, and he now knows how to use the gate that leads to all other dimensions…  because it is the husk of a dead, Giant Flying Pickle, and they travel between dimensions to sow life back into each universe after new big bangs, and this one died while crossing over, and is still really in all the dimensions at once… did you get all that?

Anyway, now that our hero is the CEO of the biggest company in the history of anywhere, and, as Supreme Commander of the allied fleet has saved his dimension from that invasion by the Keelar Black Fleet, he can literally go to any dimension, which is the same as being able to go to any time or place that ever could exist.

So why, I ask, couldn’t this be the next Doctor Who?

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