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The California Poppy is a remarkable plant.  I caught these poppies just as the sun was going behind some clouds and the rain was starting up.  Definitely not as is impressive as the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve but still a pretty sight.

California Poppy

Rebecca and I went to Reno for her Birthday…well we ended up there at least after going for a drive.  Saw this puppy just enjoying the mild almost spring air.

Going for a drive

This was my first introduction to rugby.  Even after shooting most of a game and reading up on it on wikipedia I’m still not convinced I understand the game well enough to describe how one would play it.  It is obviously a very physical game.

I think below is one of the better shots of the day even though it is not a picture of my nephew Mathew who was playing and was my reason for shooting the game.

Rugby

But I might get into trouble with my little Sister if I don’t show her little 6′5″ boy as well:

Mathew trying to avoid being tackled

After the game one of the players from the opposing team came up and asked if I had a website.  Since I was asked I figured I would post a pile of the outtakes here in case someone wishes to have a copy. My usual rules of copyright etiquette apply here.

Here is the album:   Rugby Photo Album

Please leave a comment or email m...@michaelhugo.com if you wish to get the full resolution image.  The full resolution images also won’t have the clear text watermark.  It will mostly likely be free unless you are planning on making a load of money with it yourself.

Before I get to the question of the day I would like to thank our sponsor.   Eileen gave a birthday party for my wife.  In addition to being a simi-retired nurse she is also a Mercy Corps volunteer and is volunteering a year at MaryHouse.

Eileen singing Happy Birthday

And now the question:

What is the thing to the  left of the cutting  board?  This is in an older Sacramento house.  The flat long board is obviously a cutting board but what is the 2×4 inch square board?  It has never been used.

What is the board?

Not sure I captured the exact scene in this photo but it still shows how just how beautiful a day it was.  These Oak trees are outside a strip mall (link to Google maps showing location) and for whatever reason they somehow always strike me as being out of place.

Didn’t manage to grab a shot until I got home from work and by then the sun had gone down.  Went for a walk in the dark  and managed to find someone out with her dogs.  As I said before I never a met a stranger with a dog who wasn’t nice.   In situations like this it would have a been nice to still have some daylight left.  The built in speedlight just doesn’t do a great job of lighting this sort of scene where I can’t choose the background.

Jill with Clara and Fritz

Last spring we started a raised vegetable garden and actually did pretty well last sumer with fresh tomato and  carrots and zucchini.   Just before Christmas we saw some nice looking Broccoli while wandering the isles at Walmart and thought we would give it a try.

Doing  the research we should have done a month or two ago shows that we should have cut off the top stocks before they flowered and let the side buds develop.   Oh well.  We will probably do that now and see what happens.  Here is a link to an article on growing Broccoli.

Broccoli

Shot a quick picture of the flower bed next to where I parked my car today as a backup photo in case I didn’t find anything else.  I actually didn’t try all that hard.

Not even sure what type of bush/flower it is.

Some flowering bush

And just as a bonus.  I did shoot a technical photo today to update a document I put together a few months ago.  This is a photo of a USB keyfob that I’m using in a Ham radio project.  The write up where this photo will be used–when I get around to updating it–can be found here:  Modification of a USB Sound Card for Asterisk app_rpt Use.  The entire card is about 1 inches wide and about 2 inches long.

USB Sound card wrong capacitor image

Two sunny days in a row and  to celebrate here is another photo from the same park as yesterday.  This time it is baseball practice.  Gar is taking pitches from his father or perhaps his friend’s father–once again I’m not demonstrating my photo journalist ability to ask the right questions.

Gar at Batting Practice

Really nice blue day today.

Went down to the park and found Taj playing with Corinna’s dog Dixie.   Taj hardly blinked twice when I asked if I could snap a few photos even though we just met.  Dog people are great that way.