With Apologies to Meatloaf, Phil Rizzuto, Ellen Foley (and in the video, Karla DeVito)

 TSG came across this little bit of Paradise on our neighborhood ramble the other day: part of a car dealer license plate frame (detritus from a fender-bender no doubt).

 (photo re-creation since we didn't have a camera on us at the time)

 Instantly inspired, we picked it up and hurried home like a bat out of hell. Once back at Hermitage Arms, we created this impressionistic homage to Mr. Loaf's most famous tune.  

For A Certain Demographic, It's The Most Dangerous Time Of The Year

 Statistics show the last week of December sees the most drownings and bitten-off limbs in the Gingerbread Community.

Happy Holidays!

The Los Gatos Mega Xmas Mashup

 Alternate title: The Christmas Display That Almost Wasn't

We came across this very impressive installation whilst running yule-related errands; a corner lot chock-a-block full of seasonal pop-culture iconography. Besides Santa and the usual suspects, they've got the Polar Express Locomotive and Hot Chocolate Car, The Grinch's Whoville, Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and the gang from Nightmare Before Christmas. 

Unfortunately the wonderful winterland has been a victim of it's own success this year. The hot chocolate car and the rest of the decorations were attracting big crowds, sometimes upwards of 700 folks a night. Town officials, citing code violations, demanded the removal of the hot chocolate car.

Deciding that they weren't going to let City Hall ruin their festive fun, the neighborhood gathered up almost 700 signatures and petitioned the Scrooges to allow a holiday exemption. 

And what happened then? Well, In Los Gatos they say, the authorities' hearts grew three sizes that day. They let things remain until New Year's...yay!

 

 

 

The OTHER Jimmy in "It's A Wonderful Life"

Recently we got a text from Elaine with this amusing avian portrait:

Looking to make a seasonally-appropriate response, we did an image search for "Christmas raven" and came across this:

 

It's been many (many) years since we saw the movie, and we had no memory at all of this bird. Our curiosity piqued, we did a little googling and were surprised to discover that Jimmy Stewart's feathered co-star was also named Jimmy. 

 

It turns out that Jimmy The Crow (actually a raven) was movie star in his own right. Plucked from a nest in the Mojave desert by animal trainer Curly Twiford and raised by hand, Jimmy appeared in hundreds of movies in a career that lasted almost 20 years. Here he is in some of his other roles:

 

You Can't Take It With You (1938)

 

The Secret Garden (1949)

The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941)

The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

So, the next time you see a thespian of corvidian* persuasion in a movie from Hollywood's Golden Age, take a closer look. It might be Jimmy! 

*We made that word up

The Mysterious Not-Quite Fallen Leaf

As one would expect during this time of year, the grounds of the Hermitage Arms are littered with fallen leaves, including those from the Eastern Redbud:

 

 

 What one wouldn't expect is to see one sort of floating above an agave plant, as we witnessed in passing a couple of evenings ago, and on the following morning:

 

 

Ah, we thought, the leaf must have managed to fall just so, its balance/pivot point resting on the tip of the agave "dagger",creating sort of a natural weather vane:

 

 

But no; on closer inspection, it turned out the leaf was impaled. An not just impaled, but kind of "double impaled" (look closely at the image on the left).

 

We have to wonder just what the odds were of that happening...and what they are of it ever happening again.

TSG's Favorite Little Bird

Canyon Wrens are found throughout the west. Their descending trill is one of the sweetest sounds you're likely to hear when you're out on the trail. This little guy was hopping around the edge of Bear Gulch Reservoir at Pinnacles National Park.

Deli Confidential: TSG's Artificially Intelligent (Intelligently Artificial?) Sandwich

Wherein we pull back the curtain on the evolution of the Chez Le Hop Special. 

 The image wasn't 100% AI-generated as we might have suggested in our disclaimer. As noted, our original photo didn't turn quite out the way we wanted, and our on-board editing tools weren't up to the task of "fixing" it to our satisfaction.

Original Image: not bad, but not what we wanted

 So then we turned to the Deep Dream Generator, hoping to come up with a more palatable (so to speak) result. We used the photo as the base image and input the following "text prompt" for the AI to apply to it: 

"Meal photo on menu sandwich creation, Smoked Trout Filet, melted Horseradish Cheddar & Coleslaw on a lightly toasted sweet steak roll. Baked Lays and Brick Oven Beans, Clausen Dill Spear garnish"

The AI bots (or whatever you want to call them) actually did a pretty good job, but the legumes and dills were MIA:

Dream Generator output: No pickles! No beans!

Well, our photoshop skillz were up to the task of fixing the AI omissions, so no problem there. We copied and pasted the beans into the little metal ramekin and flew in the dills to rest alongside the coleslaw. Et Voila!

 

 

This Evening's Special @ Chez Le Hop

 Our chef's exclusive sandwich creation: Smoked Trout Filet, melted Horseradish Cheddar & Coleslaw on a lightly toasted sweet steak roll. Baked Lays and Brick Oven Beans, Clausen Dill Spear garnish.

Bon Appétit!

(Disclaimer: our actual picture of this dish didn't turn out all that great. So, we used the less-than satisfactory photo as a base image, input a text description, and put it through an AI photo generator. The result looks somewhat more appetizing than the original.)

Put Yer Face Here (Plus Bonus Trivia Tidbit)

TSG is always on the lookout for photo stand-ins* when we're out on the road.  Here's a collection of recent sightings we've put together for your consideration

 

 

*Bonus trivia tidbit: the artist who came up with the original concept of "comic foregrounds" was Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (aka Kash Koolidge). He also happens to be the father of the "Dogs Playing Poker" school of art. His painted his first mongrel masterpiece, Poker Game in 1894. And the rest, as they say, is history.

 

They Got Legs; They Know How To Use 'Em

Assorted artifacts from the Jumping Frog Jubilee Exhibit 

at the Angels Camp Museum

They're All Together Ooky

The usual gang of creeps we run into this time of year... 

Please Stand By

Due to various distractions of a technical nature, we're still working on the annual H'ween decoration slideshow.  Please enjoy this spinning skull until our next post.

Longest West Of The Mississipp'

Testing 123...does a Pixel 360 image work when posted on TSG? (editor's note: apparently not, but this link to google photos should bring up the "maneuverable" image. Click on the image and give it a few seconds to fully load)

 

 Here we (or at least our feet) are on Knight's Ferry Bridge. This iteration was completed in 1863 after the original was washed out by the great flood of '62. At 378 feet long, it's the longest covered bridge west of the Mississippi and second longest in the USA. 

 

Fun fact: this spot is approximately 85 river miles downstream from the gorge featured in Wednesday's post

 

The ̶V̶o̶l̶g̶a̶ BW Cedar Inn Boatmen

 Not that we're complaining --TSG has dog-paddled in waters that contained creatures both great and small -- but it was a bit unusual to see these little guys doing the backstroke in the hotel pool. You think the chlorine  (or whatever water treatment they're using) would kill them off. But they seemed to be suffering no ill effects as far as we could tell over our 48 hour observation period. 

Another Nice Day In The Sierra Nevada

Middle Fork Stanislaus River / Tuolumne County CA

(Apologies for the "portrait" mode, the scene just fit better that way) 

Interesting note: when the original 27-second video was uploaded to youtube, it was auto-flagged and published in the newly-established "short" category (clip under 30 seconds).  Apparently the "short" label raised the video's visibility by an order of magnitude; it got over 1000 views overnight. (Or maybe the title of the clip attracted views?)

 Anywho, we felt the clip seemed to be a little abrupt so we edited it to run 25% slower.  So now the updated video runs 36 seconds and is no longer a "short".  We're curious to see if the change will impact the number of views going forward.

 

Nice Day In The Sierra Nevada

Tenaya Lake / Yosemte National Park

 

Don't Disrupt The Classes If You Can't Take The Lashes

Fresno Flats Musem / Oakhurst CA

 

What's For Launch?

(Alternate Title: The Missile of October) 

Join TSG as we take a tour of the Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley AZ

Our Gorriest[sic] Post Ever

 Alternate title: John Gorrie: One Cool Dude

A visit to Apalachicola's John Gorrie Museum State Park, which commemorates his pioneering work in ice making and refrigeration. The museum also featured a small exhibit of the history of Florida's State Parks. 

Vintage Record Potluck

TSG's Button Campaign

Select items from the archives