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Not quite yesterday, but last week. What passed for grass in our garden was 50% weeds and infested with ant hills that defied all attempts, chemical, biological and thermal, to kill off. So after three weeks of preparation (painting 35 metres of fence twice, painting walls white, all after digging out 15 metres of Virginia Creeper and ivy) a team of five guys came for four days to fit artificial grass. Cheap it was not, but the effect is so much better that the mess it replaced.

I did my last little bit of cross training for the 100 mile ride I'll be doing next weekend. Here's to hoping the nearly 1,200 miles I've logged this year so far were enough.

Needs some artificial weeds!

Labor Day Weekend at Carpinteria, CA is an opportunity for some Sigma dp0/2 Quattro panoramas. Forgot how much I disliked the cameras handling and processing, but love the Foveon output. Also an emu at nearby Ostrichland, Fake Denmark, with the dp2Q processed with a Kodak Technical Pan sim in Alien Skin (recently renamed Exposure). Bonus: Hypno-E with a7III & Voigt 40 f/1.2 E and default C1 sim.

That is a lot of photography nerd jargon for one post! But great pics as always.

Pre-Dorian, full moon, high tide walk on the beach By the way, the first picture is a part of the beach open to vehicles. The posts mark the furthest toward the dunes that vehicles are allowed. Vehicle access was closed down due to the high, high tide.

Well... I've been missing having a stick car in the stable. Was planning on purchasing a different car but the order banks for what I want do not open until next year. In the process of punting my Demon (suspension is not to my liking...way to singular in personality...drag suspension and I prefer more of a road race setup), I bought a car yesterday that I have yet to see in person so this should be entertaining. 2012 BMW M3 coupe manual w/ "slick top" and competition package in Interlagos Blue / black leather. It's got some miles on it, but these are getting more difficult to find. V8 motor that spins to 8300 rpm. It's light on torque for what I'm accustomed to, but hopefully I'll leave it alone and not slap a blower on it...LOL. There's actually a nice kit out there. Just something to drive for a while that's more nimble than the Trackhawk. Should look something like this except with the carbon fibre roof and no sunroof...thank goodness. vroom vroom... HS

My first attempt at ramen eggs. Presentation leaves a lot to be desired, and the white was too firm but the texture of the yolk was fantastic.

Ha. Just know it’s a plastic camera with a stacked sensor (instead of BAYER RGB like nearly every other color camera), doesn’t work well with Lightroom, Photoshop, or Capture One, and instead of a front grip for human hands has a reverse grip, because why not? So pluses and minuses.

Don't laugh too hard, Craig. We spent an obscene amount to put turf down over packed crushed stone in a 20' x 25' yard in SF and it is now a terrible weed patch because the weed roots grow laterally under the mat and sprout up throughout. We fought it for a while but between that and gophers making holes in it we gave up. Diligence -- and some kind of edging where the turf meets soil -- is necessary but not nearly as much as a natural lawn requires.

Holy moly. This gent pees ice cubes. Mr. Andy Wallace, I bow to you sir as you are a ROCK STAR! HS https://jalopnik.com/the-bugatti-chiron-just-cracked-304-mph-on-special-mich-1837811754?rev=1567432738518&utm_source=jalopnik_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow&utm_campaign=socialflow_jalopnik_twitter

Carnival Row—excellent production values, some nicely morally complex characters (but I think I know how this is going to go), and some interesting takes on contemporary issues. Recommended!

The reason weeds are called weeds is because they are astonishingly resilient and able to grow and actually thrive in areas where you think it is impossible. So as Al said, keep vigilant.

Ours was put in similarly and I refused the herbicide that they can put under the turf mat because of our dog. The damned weeds did not sprout through the compacted stone but rather between the stone and the mat. It became a mat of weed roots that would them shoot up weeds through the turf. If you pulled them out, eventually you pulled up the turf with the weeds because the roots were so widespread underneath. I wish now that I had put in some kind of edging board around the turf because that was at least partly how the roots worked their way in. Just a word of caution not to let the weeds get established.

Well these guys went down 6 inches, started with dense nylon planting film, 4 inches of hardcore (about 20 tons), and 2 inches of fine crushed grit (10 tons). All compacted at each stage. So nothing is coming up through that lot. Things might get out at the edges, but if anything sprouts there I'm just going to hit it with kick ass weedkiller. The planting film is there sure to stop weeds (and ants) getting through, but also to stop the hardcore from sinking into the ground underneath. The thing that astonished me is that everything they dug out, and all the hardcore etc was brought through in an endless relay of wheelbarrows. They worked their asses off from start to finish. When they arrived in the trucks, it was only a minute or two before they were at it full tilt. Lunch was ten minutes and then pow back to it full bore.

Totally agree Dusty! There are a lot of big budget movies that could learn a thing or two from this show. The only weakness I've seen so far is there's only one season!

Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb created an entirely novel kind of mature pop: countrypolitan

Yup! Despite having jumped ship to the hybrid/full electric side of things,.. Totally jelly!

^^^^ Approve! Vroom vroom indeed.

Late Night Union on bandcamp. Hard rock. Only Access to the Sun is an album, but the rest of the songs are great, too. Previously was the sillily named Awooga, but they're even harder rock, and I dig them too.

Jim Hall "Concierto" Jim and I in a masterclass:

Thanks Mikey. This one is pretty dense. Just the piano parts were a bear to edit. I'm not sure how many "hands" it would take to play that part but thats a problem for another day. Here's a snapshot of a few measures of the piano midi in Logic.