My 3-year old 777-300 ride tonight to Frankfurt. SFO gate G9 has decent views of that gate’s aircraft. Lucky me! (Not sarcasm; most gates here are awful for avgeeks) #Avgeek #B77W #Fujifilm United 777-300 parked at SFO gate G9 just as it’s towed in. It’s a cloudy day and the tarmac is wet and shiny.

    #SilentSunday It is night in the city where there’s a five story building where the front is only lit up. Small li windows reveal shops are along the dark street. There are a few red unlit Chinese New Year lanterns strung across the street.

    Yellow-Rumped Warbler was on the backyard cultivated Native California Grapes just long enough for this fortunate shot. #Birds #YellowRumpedWarbler #Fujifilm 🪶A Yellow-Rumped Warbler in a grape vine that’s losing its red to brown leaves. The pointy beaked warbler has a yellow neck and chest. It’s gray and white elsewhere. The bird is staring at something off-frame to the left.

    I guess it’s good that the lost Budgie (parakeet) keeps returning to our bird friendly backyard. The neon green bird seems to be flocking with house sparrows. The sparrows constantly move while the Budgie preens.

    A parakeet is perched on a Ceanothus branch. It has a neon yellow head and green body.

    Happy new water year! According to WeatherCat software, my wx station recorded a total of 27.91” for Oct 1, 2022 - Sep 30, 2023 water year. Compare that to 13.66” for Oct 1, 2021 - Sep 30, 2022 water year! Nature gave us a 0.5” boost yesterday. I’m in the N. Sac Valley #CAWx

    Someone lost a parakeet or a small parrot 🙁😳 #BirdsOfMastodon #NotFromAroundHere A bird with a green body and yellow head perched on an elderberry branch. It has black markings on its wings and tail. There are elderberries behind it.

    Got out to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge this morning. The White Fronted Geese are here (along with many small migratory song birds)! #WhiteFrontedGoose Five Greater White Fronted Geese flying in a clear sky. They have bright white chests and tails. Their belly is striped with black. Their wings are gray. The photo is very soft or slightly blurry.

    Covid booster and flu shots scheduled for next Friday! 🎉

    I finally deleted my Twitter account. Even having an inactive account felt icky. And really really awful and gross over the last couple of days.

    I managed to write an ugly Python script that converts MesoWest (via Synoptic download; nice people there btw) CSV weather data to WeatherCat (macOS software) data. I did some QAQC and it’s a good conversion. I’m pleased. Nice to finally have locally stored & accessible historical weather data.

    macOS WeatherCat and Meteobridge with any Supported Wx Station

    I figured out how to have WeatherCat work with my Meteobridge that connects to my Ambient weather station. Turns out it is easy to do with Meteobridge’s template system.

    In the WeatherCat Station Communications dialog, for Station Type select Generic XML (HTTP) and then enter your Meteobridge’s IP address appended with a URL encoded XML template...

    user:password@192.168.x.y/cgi-bin/template.cgi?%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EAirTemp_C%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[th0temp]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EIntTemp_C%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[thb0temp-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3ESolar%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[sol0rad-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EUVIndex%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[uv0index-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EBarometer_hPa%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[thb0press-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EWindSpeed_ms%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[wind0wind-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EWindDirect_deg%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[wind0dir-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3ERain_mm%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[rain0total-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3ERH%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[th0hum-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E%3Cvalue%3E%3Cname%3EIntRH%3C%2Fname%3E%3Cdata%3E52%3C%2F[thb0hum-act]%3E%3C%2Fvalue%3E

     

    If you want more information on this XML format, see the WeatherCat 2.1 Change Log for the XML definition. For more information on building Meteobridge templates and the various possible values, see this page.

    I’d put this into the WeatherCat forums but I don’t feel like creating a new account right now.

    A female Oriole having a nice evening Mantis snack in our backyard tonight. A female yellow and gray Oriole with a praying mantis in its beak. It is mostly yellow on the underside and gray on its wings. It is perched on top of a blue wire tomato cage with a tomato plant pushing through the top.

    This morning, House Finches were breakfasting on ripe elderberries in our backyard. #HouseFinch #BirdsOfMastodon #BirdWatching #Fujifilm Two house finches are on top of two bunches of ripe elderberries, feasting on them. The upper most Finch has a Elderberry in its beak. The lower most finch is on a branch, reaching up into a bunch of berries. 

    Much as I dislike that my heat-pump requires a proprietary communicating thermostat, I do like that I can change some deep level settings to optimize things without dip-switches.

    Some real dinosaur stuff happened today at Bay Front Park just south of SFO. This Great Blue Heron caught a gopher, paraded around with it for several minutes, then swallowed it whole. Then the heron proceeded to hunt some more. 😬A Great Blue Heron stands in a dry grassy area with yellow flowers. It has a gopher’s neck in its mouth and the entire gopher is hanging.

    Volunteer Sunflowers in the backyard. The scrub jays garden really well. I continue to be impressed with the new Fujifilm XApp for transferring photos from my X-T5. #Fujifilm #Sunflowers #BloomScrolling

    Two sun flowers, one at the bottom and nearby and one about 15 feet away. There’s vegetation surrounding the flowers and a weather station behind the forest Sunflower. The flowers are extremely yellow and well lit.A close up of a sunflower, brightly lit by the sun.

    Out of an abundance of caution, early this morning I’m watering my front yard native plants in case the neighbors get whacky with their fireworks.The Rachio smart hose timer is working well so far. Turned on at 3am while I was sound asleep.

    Suppose it will only be a matter of time before the Justices are on the receiving end of their undemocratic, hateful rulings.

    It sure is easy to rise in FlightRadar24’s ADS-B rankings! I guess most people don’t even try to get a even half decent antenna position and reliable uptimes.

    The new Rachio hose timer works well. Currently, it has fairly simple operation with basic App scheduling and timer. It doesn’t yet have smart home support or an API. It’s independent of the Rachio valve controller. But it works quite well for my needs: rare but long (deep) watering of my front yard native plants.

    The grey and white Rachio hose sprinkler timer. It is outdoors and connected to a Y spigot. There’s a back flow preventer and a hose attached to it. It has some water on it.Oscillating sprinkler spraying arcing water over native shrubs.

    Perfect morning in California to cool the mass of the house off with our whole house fan. Normally it’s in the 90s this time of the year with lows in the high 60s and low 70s. Sorry for those in Texas though 😬 A Weather Strip iOS appweather chart that shows unusually cool June weather with lows in the 50s and highs in the low 70s and 80s.

    Using Migration Assistant via thunderbolt is insanely fast.

    Migration Assistant dialog showing 612 MB/s transfer speed.

    I’ve been very patient with my M1 Mac Mini. But now I have an M2 Mac Studio on the way. Flight simming and photography will be enormously improved. Less likely: And now that Apple allows on personal device “testing” of apps for free, I might resume learning iOS development.

    macOS Universal Control is so very good when I’m multitasking between my Mac Mini and my MacBook Pro. One keyboard + one mouse = total control of both.

    I’m slowly getting the canopies of my shrubs off the ground. Mostly to reduce outdoor cats hiding under them. I’ll do a lot to keep their destructive, bird killing lot out of my yard.

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