The Judge’s Curse & The Alabama Hills
Posted by Pat Hathaway | February 19, 2026
We woke up in Lone Pine, caught up on the
news in Iran before the sun had even thought about cresting the Inyo Mountains. The thermometer on the dashboard of Dan’s Land Yacht read 28°F.
“Crisp,” Dan said. That was his word for the day.
We headed out to the Alabama Hills. If you’ve never been, it looks like Mars if Mars had been designed by a cowboy movie director from the 1940s. Huge, rounded granite boulders scattered across the desert floor, with the jagged, snow-capped sawblade of Mount Whitney looming in the background.
The “Plastic Computer” vs. The Moment
I had the Sony α1 II around my neck. I’ll admit, for the first twenty minutes, Judge Roy Bacon’s voice was haunting me. My fingers were numb, and I was fumbling through Menu Page 47, trying to switch the “Subject Detection” from Airplane to Bird.
“It’s a toy, Pat. A German tank doesn’t have menus,” the Judge’s email had said.
I was cursing the plastic buttons. I was missing the mechanical click of my old Nikon. I was about to agree with Roy.
And then, it happened.
A Prairie Falcon dropped from the granite arch above us—a blur of brown and white moving at Mach 2. In the old days, I would have missed it. I would have been focusing the lens while the bird was already in the next county.
But the Sony isn’t a tank. It’s a time machine.
I had the “Pre-Capture” mode on. I mashed the shutter after I saw the blur. The camera’s AI brain had already buffered the images from 0.5 seconds before I reacted. It locked onto the falcon’s eye—which was no bigger than a peppercorn—and rattled off 30 frames of razor-sharp perfection.
I reviewed the shot on the back of the screen. The falcon is frozen in mid-dive, talons out, framed perfectly by the Mobius Arch with Whitney in the back.
I sent the JPEG directly from the camera to Judge Roy Bacon with the subject line:
“German Tanks Don’t Fly.”
The Masters Longshot
We stopped for breakfast at the Alabama Hills Cafe. Over eggs and coffee, Dan asked about his
BetAnything betting account. He’s still unbothered by his AMZN losses (he calls it a “tax write-off,” though I’m not sure he knows how that works).
I’ve been digging through the stats for the 2026 Masters. I need a longshot—someone with young nerves who doesn’t know enough to be scared of Amen Corner.
I found him:
Blades Brown. The kid is barely 19. He’s been tearing up the Korn Ferry Tour. He’s got a name that sounds like a comic book hero and a swing that looks like liquid mercury. The odds are astronomical.
“Blades,” Dan said, chewing his toast. “Good name. Bet it.”
So, the money is down on the kid.
Next Stop
We were throwing the bikes and
bike performance parts in and packing up the truck. The wind is picking up, blowing dust off the Sierras. We’re pointing the compass west, aiming for the coast. The Pigeon Point Lighthouse is waiting, and I want to see if this “plastic computer” can handle the salt spray as well as it handled the falcons.
Dan just checked the gas gauge, patted the steering wheel, and gave me the update for the next leg of the trip.
“Drive,” he said.
Comments
JudgeRoy: A lucky robot is still a robot, Patrick. Let’s see how it handles the salt air.
BigBoyDan: Bird.
Video Recommendation
Since Pat and Dan are currently shooting in the Alabama Hills, this video gives a perfect visual of the “Mars-like” terrain and the specific winter light conditions Pat is describing.
Winter Photography at the Alabama Hills, Lone Pine, California (YouTube)
