Intersection Logs

This is the little peach tree from the far end of the campus.

The exhibitors at the AMS are generous with trinkets -- mostly pens, shopping bags, and hand sanitizer, but also some fun stuff, like a three-inch clockwork robot.

( Video on Flickr )

Taken in the Yerba Buena gardens this lunchtime. Click through to see the set -- which may get added to as the week goes on, but maybe not, as it's supposed to rain tomorrow.

Saturday was the annual Sunday School excursion to the Wildlife World Zoo near Phoenix. It was a quick turnaround after the Stanford trip last week, but I'm glad I went. The weather was perfect, everyone had a good time, and I got some nice photos.

( Several pictures and a video )

Here's the full set of photos and videos on Flickr

I spent my lunchtime stroll chasing a roadrunner in the middle of campus. This is not something I get to do every day; it's pretty unusual for these to be seen this far into Tucson, and prior to the encounter outside my office a couple of weeks ago I think the only one I'd seen was up at the Kitt Peak Observatory. But there it was, perfectly at home and attracting a fair bit of attention from the passers-by.

It had a rather jerky, freeze-and-dash way of moving, and several times it was perfectly posed only to move before I could get the camera lined up. Eventually it pounced off into the shrubbery, possibly on the track of one of the little lizards or maybe just looking for some privacy.

This is the one where I got both the Mount Wilson Observatory and the Station Fire in the same shot, though you probably have to view it full size to see them.

The fire is finally winding down, though there's still a fair amount of smoke from the back-burning around Mount Wilson visible on the Towercam.

1. The Lumix camera has an "aerial" mode, which comes complete with an on-screen warning to turn off for take-off and landing and obey crewmember instructions.

2. Our flight this morning was via Los Angeles.

3. I have my very own Station Fire images!

4. It's Update Tuesday, and the hotel internet isn't taking the strain very well.

5. Also, I don't know what's going on with Flickr, but I uploaded a couple of images at full resolution (because one of them really needs to be seen at full size to appreciate what it shows) and they still haven't shown up, so I can't blog them.

Night-blooming cactus Early morning on the UA campus, June 2009

I do love these fragile, flamboyant flowers, though I have to get up uncomfortably early to see them. Yesterday's expedition was a good one; six flowers on the big plant on the chaplaincy corner and a couple in the grove in the shade of Centennial Hall. It was cloudier than usual, which gave me softer light to work with but rather took away the point of being up that early in the summer -- it was no hotter at lunchtime than it was at 7am, really.

I treated myself to a little genuine Swarovski crystal, and it arrived today.

A handful of fire Swarovski crystal: fire opal, topaz, light topaz

I'm not much for flash and glitter as a rule, preferring the subtler sheens and hues of natural semi-precious stones and shell, but these are rather lovely.