Miss Ing Link

The Moon, the Pleiades, and Jupiter are across the top of the photo early this morning.

Sunflowers at Dawn

Venus at Dawn

Gino called me first thing this morning to see if I could go out and film Mr. Williams operating a large Link-Belt crane that few people in the city know how to operate at a construction site on Albuquerque’s west side. I drove over and took video and photographs for a couple of hours and compressed the video footage into a three-and-a-half-minute video of Mr. Williams hoisting trusses up onto the roof of the building under construction. The framing contractor is Nelson Framing. Jerry Nelson, the owner, and Gino have worked together on many projects. The building contractor is Bradbury Stamm Construction. The Superintendent of the construction site was kind enough to lend me a hard hat and vest to wear. Nelson’s staff working with Mr. Williams on the ground and on the roof came over and introduced themselves before they started hoisting trusses.

Miss Ing Link, the large Link-Belt Crane set up in the middle of the building project.

The 3 1/2-minute crane video with music

Il paparazzo delle costruzioni

S L S

Pre-dawn. Venus is to the right of Resa’s Tree.

A baby Bullsnake on Snakey Lick Sunday

Pre-dawn. The moon and Jupiter among whipped cream clouds.

Colorful Dawn

Who you callin’ silly?

A Box Turtle I moved off the road.

Daddy Owl

Sunset

Degenerate AI

Sunset no AI

The beta version of Adobe Photoshop has Generative AI, which I tested. For those of you who are familiar with my music videos using images generated by AI image generators based on my lyrics, the AI-compiled images were more degenerate, on the edge of profligate, than engendered. The results are not much better in Photoshop (beta).

This image is the best result by asking PS Beta to add a UFO.

I asked for a horse, a white horse, and a black horse. The black ram was the best of the three choices that PS Beta offered for a white horse.

PS Beta produced the unbearable likenesses of planets — Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars from left to right. It did okay on the Milkyway.

PS Beta produced fairly bearable likenesses of hummingbirds.

7 @ 7:07

We had a cat 7 on the bed this morning. Having all seven cats on the bed at the same time is an extremely rare event. The cats from left to right: Glenda, Silver, Loki, Gwendolyn, Marble, Sasha, and Spunk.

I stayed in bed for an hour after I woke up. I wanted to let mostly sleeping cats lie. It was cold as hell inside and even colder outside when I got out of bed and checked the temperatures at 7:07 AM. It was probably a few degrees colder outside at 6:00 AM when I woke up. It was obviously cold enough that all the cats felt the need to be in bed with us.

The moon shining on Venus.

The cloud looked a little fishy.

New Music Monday

If you don’t want to listen to the new song (it’s hard rock/metal) about the new abnormal, you can simply enjoy the photo of the sliver moon and Venus hanging out together in the clouds last night.

While I was cleaning out my address book of people who have died or simply disappeared over the past three years, I realized that outside of my family and work, I have only a few real, in-the-flesh friends in town who I rarely see. I started thinking about how my physical world has grown so small, how the powers that be work hard to keep the world in turmoil, and while their mouthpieces and talking heads in the popular press speak of the “new normal” it’s really the “new abnormal” that is being shoved down our throats. For better or worse, it inspired a new song.

New Abnormal
Lyrics and Music by Timothy Price

[verse]
I’ve watched my world as it’s grown so small
I sit, I stare, as I listen to The Wall
I would like to break bottles in the hall
But plastic bottles won’t break at all.
I’m feeling spastic I’m all alone
My world is dreary no one’s home

[Chorus]
Will we ever be normal again?
Can we say what normal has been?
The new abnormal is tearing us asunder
They divide us up as they plunder.

[verse]
The hand of doom it pleases me
Mother Mary, can you set me free?
“Man, oh man, you sinned indeed!
Maybe that’s why you can’t see!”
I may be blind my cross-eyed Mary
But the world I see is desolate and scary

[Chorus]
Will we ever be normal again?
Can we say what normal has been?
The new abnormal is tearing us asunder
They divide us up as they plunder.

[Bridge]
All my friends have disappeared
Pandemic lockdowns made us weird
Thinking each other is deranged
Now we are ideologically estranged
Isolation made us rage
We took it in, we felt the pain
Masked like bandits, identities were lost
Now we’re strangers. Was it worth the cost?

[Outro]
Will we ever be normal again?
They said our norms were mortal sins
Their new abnormal will save us any bother
They divide us up

Will we ever be normal again?
They said our norms were mortal sins
Their new abnormal will save us any bother
They divide us up.

They send us off to slaughter