Mother's Day Brunch Pictures: Trees

Mother's day brunch at Marie Calender's.  A selection of trees and other things that stick into the air with the greatest of ease.

One in our continuing series of tree boles.

Pealing bark.  Looks a bit like a dragon.

A second in our continuing series of tree boles.  Palm tree.

Ominous gathering of palm trees surrounding smaller weaker flag poles.  I fear the worst.

Sticking up in the air.  Magic Mountain in the background.

Blasted oak tree, surviving in spite of itself.

Mother's Day Brunch Pictures: Buildings and Signs

These pictures were taken outside Marie Calender's, where we enjoyed the Sunday brunch on Mother's Day.  This set are of man-made artificial objects.

This is an interesting sign belonging to the Hilton next door.  Why assume risk?  Why not assume safety?

All the details fit to print.  Too bad about the no magic mountain parking, but, then again, there aren't any magic mountain rides either either.

Every time I see this roof, all I can think is: fire hazard.

Modern day shining castle on the hill, southern California edition.  I take (American) exception(alism) to this hill.  Such an ugly hill.  Maybe when the owners start getting some revenue from office suite rentals they'll afford some landscaping.

Canyon High Views

Some over and under views of Canyon High.  Because you can never have enough tourist-quality photographs of your kid's Alma Mahler.  I mean Alma Mater.

View of the phone pole and Q building roof.  This is where Q hangs out when not filming.  Q is a famous alien actor who has a continuing role playing John de Lancie.

I believe this is the administration building's roof.

Prepare to enter Canyon High, all ye who enter here.

Canyon High Tableaus

Tableau: A fancy word indicating the author knows words with French roots.

 When the high school was first built, it was a one room high school and this was the first building.  Then as the school grew, this became the baking box.  It was for wrestlers needing to get down to their weight by afternoon weigh-in and the room for delinquents to stay in as punishment.  As the school modernized, air conditioning was installed and it became a room for classes with very small enrollment.  

I believe they sell fish and chips in this one during sporting events.  Notice the field set up for soccer and football simultaneously.  The players must dodge the other sport while simultaneously playing their own game.

The handicapped ticket booth as not mandated by the ADA.  Separate but oh so very equal.

The path of steepest descent is the easiest way to get down onto the field.

I'm sure I can get my wheelchair up those stairs.

Why did they put holes in this wall?  Freshman hazing?  (Four holes=four freshman at a time!)  ROTC obstacle course?  Ground squirrel wildlife corridor?  Water run-off from the toilets?  Mr Gorbachev, tear down those holes.

Knowing how yummy Canyon Country water tastes, these water hydrants appear scrumptious.  Although I would recommend carrying a cutting utensil if you insist on drinking Canyon Country water.

These next two pictures demonstrate unequivocally that trees do in fact move.  In this first picture, we have a photo of a tree's shadow.


In this second photo, the shadow is gone, even though the sun is still shining.

Signs of Canyon High

High schools are complex institutions and suffer from their very own blessing of signs.

High school students and their captors are capable of reading very complex and irrelevant signs.  Personally, I've never owned a valid permit, nor have I ever parked a school bus in this particular lot.

And especially no chewing tabacky while skateboarding on your bicycle.

It's been a long time in hanging there, and this sign is just about ready to be put out to pasture, pard.

Stopping.  We mean it.

Students are ok.  It's just the acts of dropping them or picking them up that is verboten.

Morp.  It's a real problem.  Fortunately it's past now.

Items Around Canyon High School

Some items witnessed around Canyon High School in Canyon Country.  Specifically in the general area of the parking lot.

The rare southern unspotted fence snake.  It is unspotted because it is rarely seen of course.

Not sure why they call these things bike racks.  Bikeless rack would be better.  Notice the nest of fence snakes attached to the rack.  

This hydrant is protected from a constant rain of dog urine by being placed behind this fence.  Not sure how the fire department is supposed to access the hydrant, but at least it won't have rusted away when they need it.

Decorative yogurt container gracing the bare dirt.

Fence snake offspring.  The egg hatches in spring, and if not eaten by a landshark, it will grow into another fence snake.

Turnstile.  Entry and exit is controlled to prevent further infestation of fence snakes.

Capstone.  An art installation project showing the value of a high school education.

Dirt

Nothing like some dirt to shed light on the issue.

Stack of dirt with concrete deposit at base of passageway.

Footprints on tire tracks

Windows on the World

Another episode of Biostatprof looks at, in, around, and occasionally through, windows.

PAC reflections, but some of that is actually inside the building.

Most of what you see is outside the window.

Box office reflections.

Indoor truck.

A stutter of balloons.

Widgets, Stuff, Do-dads and Thingamagumbies of COC

All those modern techno-gadgets the techno-philes love and the techno-phobes love to hate.

Either a star wars robot in its day job or its a finger nail buffer.  You stick your hand in the snout up to the shoulder, and the gadget buffets your nails.  It will do toe nails too if you can get your foot in there far enough.

Fire plug, funny not-quite-red tree trunk, bus stop sign, blue recycle bin, grey trash can.  How's that for keeping your ducks all in a row?

Light bulb.  This is what keeps your campus bright at night.

This grates on me.

When you're done sitting on this, you have red stripes on your shirt.  If you take your shirt off, you have red stripes where the holes don't block the sun.

Plug that sucker in.  These are known as zero-armed bandits in Las Vegas, you never lose!

They really should have planned better.  If they'd just set the floor a little lower then they wouldn't have had to set the fire hydrant in a hole by itself.  It's already short, now it's going to be even shorter when people stand around talking to it.

Random stuff coming out of the wall.  Why does one go into the ground while the other one goes into the air?

Parasol, Marisol.

Even the trees are made of tougher stuff in Santa Clarita.

Spider web blocking the bat cave?

Combination sun dial water fountain and globe.