Today's rain clouds

One of the great advantages of living in Downey is our rain. First, our rain is typically a soft rainfall that's actually fun to walk through. The rain usually soaks into the ground to replenish our city's underground wells or is channeled into the sewer system to be returned to the ocean.

Second, the rain usually only lasts a day or two. Then the sun will break through to give us beautiful blue skies with a few puffy white clouds. My weather app says today's rain will be done by 7 am tomorrow and then we'll have partly cloudy skies for the remainder of the day. What a great place to live.

"Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet." 
~ Roger Miller

Downtown view

I love that we are surrounded by beauty and we just we have to look for it.

I walked through downtown this weekend when the weather was blustery and a little dramatic. I looked up and saw the puffy clouds hovering over St. George Greek Orthodox Church. It reminded me how beautiful changing weather can be.


 "The sky is the daily bread of the eyes." 
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Light through the clouds

Coming home this evening, I was struck by the streaks of light coming through the clouds. You can see three of them straight ahead and to the left. Here is a close up. I know the pictures don't do it justice, but it was impressive how the rays of light were streaming through an opening in the cloud.

According to Wikipedia, the rays occur frequently at twilight and are called Crepuscular rays (from a Latin word meaning twilight).

“To love beauty is to see light.”
~ Victor Hugo

Clouds are for sharing

Last week, the day before a storm blew through Downey, I spied these clouds overhead. They remind me of waves at the beach. It's amazing how a clump of water vapor, which is at the mercy of the wind, air pressure, and air temperature, can be such a topic of conversation.

Do you remember lying on your back, looking up at the sky and asking each other, "What does that one look like to you?" A rabbit, a ship, an alligator, a bear?

Look at the clouds today. What memories do they conjure up for you?

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”
~ John Lubbock, The Use Of Life

April showers...not so much

These clouds looked pretty stormy to me on an afternoon last week. Now I have to wonder if they were a result of the work of the LA County Dept. of Public Works. According to an article I read today, contract workers have been attempting to make it rain through "cloud seeding"—sending special flares containing silver iodide into the clouds to increase precipitation. The flares are shot from the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains.

Interestingly, even though cloud seeding has gone on in LA for 50 years, there didn't seem to be solid evidence that it was really effective. Sadly, the predicted El Nino rains have not appeared this year, so the drought remains concerning for LA.

"The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it." ~ Patrick Young 

A last view

As we left Yosemite, the clouds were moving across the landscape, making everything dramatic. This is the tunnel view. It is the last big "official" view of Half Dome and El Capitan (although neither are clearly visible with all the clouds). Even with the drizzly weather, people were still crowding the view point watching the dramatic sight.

“Yosemite Valley, to me, is always a sunrise, a glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.” 
~  Ansel Adams

Fall is here

There has been a discussion here lately about not being ready for the Christmas season. For me, I'm ready for winter weather. I love the rain, the clean crisp air, and the endless photo opportunities winter provides. I took this picture on top of my roof today after taking the picture below from my work's east parking lot. I love when a storm moves through.

Then when I got to the other side of the building, I saw the golden sunset. But I wanted to get high off the ground to get a better view without all the buildings. I rode home as fast as I could. When I got home, I called for my wife but she had gone for a walk to enjoy the sunset. I immediately got my ladder and climbed onto the roof. I was rewarded with an amazing burst of color. Thank you God.

Oh, I'm ready for winter.



"Peace is seeing the sunset and knowing who to thank."
~ Unknown Author

"The City"

I was on my way home from school on the 10 freeway (about 10 miles from Downey) a couple of days ago when it started to rain. The light had such an odd quality. The buildings looked bright and bluer than usual. I shot this really quickly with my cell phone, not knowing if I had even aimed it straight. But when I looked at it later at home, I liked the image. It is as if this big group of clouds has converged on the city. There was thunder, even though I didn't see the lightning.

It reminded me of an Irish blessing I read some time ago...

"May God give you...for every storm a rainbow, for every tear a smile, for every care a promise and a blessing in each trial. For every problem life sends, a faithful friend to share, for every sigh a sweet song and an answer for each prayer."

Unexpected rain

I was going to take some pictures of the Warren High School baseball team practice this afternoon, but I got there too late. I had just gotten out of the car when it started to rain. The players wasted no time getting off the field, collecting their gear and heading to their vehicles. The reason I didn't think it would rain while I shot some pictures was that the storm cloud covered only half the sky and I was under the clear half. We drove home without any pictures, so I decided to show you this view of the storm. The sun is shinning through the clouds and it's still raining.

But looking the other way gave you a view of a rainbow.

"And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow."
~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

The blue sky

We've had some spectacularly beautiful days in Downey in the last week or so.

But the same wind that cleans our air and brightens our skies also makes a mess in our swimming pools and clogs our drains and our gutters.

A fair trade-off, I think, for a chance to see those clouds in the blue, blue sky.

"I never get tired of the blue sky."
~ Vincent van Gogh

Cloudy sky

I love clouds. I remember, as a child, lying in the grass during our lunch break at school and assigning shapes to the clouds and then telling stories about the "cloud shapes."

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky."
~ Rabindranath Tagore

Colored sky

Tonight the sky was so full of color. I was at Downey Landing doing a little shopping. As I walked out of a store I looked up and WOW! If I had stayed inside shopping for even another 20 minutes, I would have missed it. Sometimes timing is everything.

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever
its loveliness increases; it will never
pass into nothingness."
~ John Keats

Clouds illusions

What a gorgeous sky! I have always liked clouds.

When I was little, I would lie on the grass and gaze up at the clouds and look for shapes and make up stories about them. This day the sky was filled with these wispy clouds that seemed to be continually in motion. In the top picture, you would not know the moon is smack in the middle of the sky.

"A cloudless plain blue sky is like a flowerless garden."
~Terri Guillemets

July gloom?

The weather in Downey is being so weird lately. These are the Whittier Hills (just north of Downey) and at 10:00 am, it's humid and muggy and overcast. Yesterday it even rained! What's going on with this summer?

Big city reflections

It was a great time of reflection in the big city last week.  After we visited Vincent Court, we were in search of a fun place to eat breakfast.  We headed for an iconic LA eatery, the Original Pantry Cafe (which I have wanted to try for years ). Unfortunately the line was too long and we had to settle for a less historic place for a quick bite.

Back on the streets, heading for our car, we began to notice how the glass of these buildings did such a good job of reflecting the puffy clouds and the colors of the surrounding structures. I hadn't "seen" the reflections earlier. Perhaps the sky had been more gray or the sun hidden behind clouds. But, all of a sudden, the reflections were there—dramatic and vibrant.

It was a beautiful way to start our day.

"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it."
~ Confucius

Foggy idea

Getting up early for class means seeing a whole different world outside my house in the mornings. It's been so chilly this past week that I have to sit in the car for a while (read only a few minutes, because really, it's still California) until I can see out my window enough to drive.

Fog is both so dangerously scary and so breathtakingly beautiful, after 26 years, I haven't decided how I feel about it. I guess it's fun to look at but not so fun to be a part of.

Road trip

The trip home from northern California was actually kind of beautiful along the 5 highway (which normally seems quite dull). We had dramatic stormy skies filled with beautiful, angry clouds. It made for an impressive scene. It allowed me to "see" the highway from another perspective.



“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
~Henry Miller

Out with the old

I've noticed around Downey more "for sale" signs on business properties. In a weird way, I'm kind of glad. It's time for a rejuvenation in Downey and I'm ready for some new businesses to come and light our fires. If you had a piece of land and had to use it to enhance the community, what would you build?

Oh thank heavens... and barking dogs

I'm not going to lie. I completely forgot about today's Downey Daily photo until right now, 2:05 am. Luckily, the insanely annoying dog from next door was not letting me go to sleep because she had something to tell the dog 17 houses down and hasn't learned to text yet. After tossing and turning for a few hours and then googling "how to shut your neighbor's dog up" I realized I hadn't posted for tonight. Thankfully I had taken pictures, I just forgot to upload them.

So here is my picture. The beautiful sunset from my porch. The storm just missed our city yesterday and hit all of western Los Angeles and the beaches. We just got the fun cloudy sky producing rays of sun shining through it.

By the way, "Yahoo answers" suggested I use ultrasonic to shut the dog up. Um, can anyone say animal cruelty? And where am I going to get anything ultrasonic at 2 in the morning?

Cloudy sky

The clouds are again scarily close to coming down hard. It's almost worse waiting for the storm than to be in it.