Page 9
6/14/2024
Reflections…
I really like this photo below. It reminds me of the five years I lived high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. There is a phenomenon that occurs at the high altitudes in the Rocky Mountains. It's called “Aspen Glow” and it happens when you have a valley surrounded by very high mountain peaks. The effect occurs in the late fall and during the winter months. In the late afternoon the sun sets low enough that the high peaks of the mountains prevent direct sunlight from entering into the valley. In the fall, the sun hits the leaves of the thousands of acres of aspen trees in the high ranges of the surrounding mountains that have begun to turn yellow. It then reflects a yellow glow back down into the valley making everything take on a yellow tinge. In the winter months the sunlight strikes the white snow that covers the peaks, which then reflects back into the valley; but for some reason, when the light reaches the valley, it takes on a pinkish glow, not a white glow. Very beautiful to behold.
In this unprocessed raw photo below, look where the dark rain clouds on left meet the base of the first white cumulus cloud. You can see a brown haze there and in the column of the cloud. I wonder if this is reflected sunlight coming off of the tops of buildings. Now look at the top of the same cloud and you will see that some clouds behind me are blocking out the sunlight, so the top of the cumulus cloud is in shadow. Finally, look at the top of the cumulus cloud on the right. You can see the sunlight is directly hitting the cloud unfiltered and it is significantly more white than the white on the other cumulus cloud.
![photo of dark rain clouds on left of photo with white cumulus clouds reflecting sunlight.](https://docs.gato.txst.edu/692873/w/2000/S1TzSH8lAYt0/cloud-1335.jpg)
In case you are wondering, The answer is “no”. I did not have my umbrella with me when I took this picture. It was not cloudy when I left my apartment an hour before I took the picture …and “yes” I did not make it home before I got rained on. Did I learn my lesson? All I can say is, this was not the first time I have been rained on.
I'll always wonder if I would have made it if I didn't stop to take the picture?
They are tearing down a business in my neighborhood. All buildings are made from concrete and some bricks and they are crammed together often sharing a common wall. In this instance, the gray area in the upper left of the photo is the back wall of my apartment building. That said it does not share a common wall with the building that is being torn down. The first thing that happens is they send in men with handheld jackhammers to break up all the walls into chunks and then the backhoe comes in and breaks it down further using a larger jackhammer attached to the backhoe. All very noisy and they work from 07:00 to 1900 hrs. It took two weeks of constant non-stop jack-hammering to get to the point you see below. My teeth are still rattling. As you can see they have more to remove. Eventually they will have an open space cleared of all rubble and they will come in and pour a new foundation and build the next structure out of new concrete and rebar. I took this picture because I saw the painting that once adorned someone's living quarters. See next picture.
![picture of demolished building and the arm of a large backhoe is resting in rubble in the forground](https://docs.gato.txst.edu/692870/w/2000/yK4mjcqGgI37/demo1-1381.jpg)
![picture of two women wearing conical hats rowing a boat with a bridge in the background.](https://docs.gato.txst.edu/692871/w/2000/IWfWBqUJI2Jh/demo2-1381.jpg)
NOVEMBER p.2, p.3, p.4, p.5, p.6, p.7
DECEMBER p.2, p.3, p.4, p.5 p.6, p.7, p.8
MARCH p.2, p.3, p.4 p.5, p.6, p.7
APRIL p.2, p.3, p.4, p.5, p.6, p.7, p.8, p.9, p.10, p11