Monthly Archives: September 2019

September 30, 2019 · 23:44

I’m Getting Gas Over Gas

What the hell happened??!!

(Images from GasBuddy.com)

Things were okay all summer, at least by LA standards. Yeah, I know that gas is almost a buck a gallon cheaper in most of the country, and in some places more than that, but for LA, hovering steadily at about $3.67/gallon is okay. That’s the average for the area – I was usually finding it for about a dime less in the West San Fernando Valley.

Then it started to creep up.

Then it exploded last week!

There’s a couple of places near work where the cheap stuff, unleaded regular, self serve, is $4.25/gallon. We’re not talking about Beverly Hills here, or some “oasis” station in a “gas desert.” We’re talking about a place on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills with another station across the street and two more within a mile in either direction!

Geeze!!

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Filed under Los Angeles

September 29, 2019 · 23:27

The Curse Of Being A News Junkie

I’ve always been more than just a little bit of a news junkie, even long, LONG before the Internet and FaceBook and Twitter made a 24/7/365 fire hose of information available at our fingertips.

When I was a kid it was mostly about the space program (we were going to go to the moon!) and baseball.

The first time I remember getting truly immersed in the news in general was high school. Somewhere along the line we had a class or a program where we could get the New York Times delivered to school every day for some ridiculous price, like $1 per week, and it was part of what we were studying for some social studies class. As a result, I was reading it five days a week and also had a core group of friends and classmates who were also reading it. There was a lot going on in the early 1970’s – Vietnam, Watergate, the moon landings, Nixon in China…

Then I went to Annapolis and that training served me in good stead. As part of the program there to train midshipmen to be able to react and think under pressure there were daily requirements to have memorized by breakfast a whole slew of things from the morning newspaper. Lots of it was sports related (you had better know the score of the game for the favorite sports teams of your company’s upper classmen!) but you also had better be on top of the major news stories of the day.

Going through Plebe Summer will make you a news junkie at a subatomic level!

In the intervening years after Annapolis there was college and marriage and kids and all of that adult stuff to deal with so for a while the obsession with the daily news faded just a bit into the background. It never disappeared, but it migrated down the priority list to somewhere lower in life’s daily Top Ten.

Then came the Internet. And FaceBook. And Twitter.

Along with all of the current bullshit that is US and world politics, which simultaneously leave me wanting to never, EVER hear about it again while also keeping VERY close tabs on every detail I can because I want to know what existential danger is coming at us next.

There are those out there who ignore all of that. I’ve met people who barely know who the President is or what the fuss is about – and they don’t care.

Ignorance = bliss, or so I’ve been told.

Perhaps, and there are most certainly days when I’m a bit jealous of that worldview. But, to quote the punchline from an old Hudson & Landry comedy routine, “I couldn’t live like that!”

So when the alarm goes off at 07:00, the morning news comes on. Social media and emails get answered, and the headlines and a few key Twitter accounts get monitored periodically through the day. When I have an hour or so, it’s often dipping a toe into that firehose of information.

Is that healthy? Maybe – maybe not. But I can’t cut it off cold turkey and not look at all, any more than I could go driving while wearing a blindfold.

But if the news cycle could get just a bit less insane, if we could take the batshit crazy down a couple of notches, well, that would be great.

I’m thinking that about 90% of the population could get behind that request.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts

September 28, 2019 · 23:59

To The Driver Who Turned Left In Front Of Me

Yeah, that was way, WAAAAAAY too close, dude or dudette!

Yeah, I was turning right and had slowed down and was signalling, but there was no way any sane person would have gunned it through the intersection like that. It’s a good thing that neither of us had an extra coat of paint on our cars or we would have been swapping it.

And the way you then fishtailed your way back over into the left lane and gunned your mom-mobile SUV like NCC-1701 going to Warp Six – impressive.

So as I pulled up next to you on your right at that stop sign that you graciously deigned to honor, I was ready to use my “driving finger” to “signal” that I thought you were “number one,” if you know what I mean.

Who the hell drives like that?

But I didn’t, because it turned out you were just a kid, probably really early in your driving learning curve…

…and you Mom in the passenger seat was saying things to you at such a volume that my flipping you off and screaming would have just been pale and pathetic in comparison.

Good luck, Mom. I’ve been there.

Today was my turn to be a little bit more experienced, a little bit faster, a little bit smarter.

Tomorrow you’re on your own.

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Filed under Distracted Driving, Los Angeles

September 27, 2019 · 19:54

Some Old English Guy’s Here

Rod something?

Jeff Bark? Buck? Bork? Is he that Swedish Chef guy?

I hear that Maggie may – or she may not. We’ll see where the night leads.

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Filed under Los Angeles, Music, Photography

September 26, 2019 · 23:29

Dingo

A picture from a month ago at the “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” build in Palmdale. The name on the equipment caught my eye.

Indeed, that’s a dingo that’s quite capable of “aighting your baaaybeee!”

It was hilarious at the time, but then again, I don’t think I had slept more than a dozen hours in the previous five or six days combined…

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Filed under Homes4Families, Photography

September 25, 2019 · 23:07

Fear Passes

I wrote a few weeks ago about wisdom from the science fiction classic “Dune” and the famous quote about fear.

I’m not sure that the fear which inspired those comments has passed so much as it was always there and I’m passing through it.

It’s not a trivial distinction.

The former concept is passive – just endure, hold on, survive, and the fear will pass through you. The latter is active – move yourself through the fear, one step at a time, until you come out the other side.

The former leaves you with little agency or control. The latter is empowering.

The former can leave you feeling like a victim or survivor. The latter can lift you up to feeling like a conqueror.

I’m not through it yet – many adventures lie ahead. But I’m finally to a place where I can start to embrace the coming adventures instead of dreading the perceived ordeal to get through it.

I also hope the next time (there’s always a next time) I can remember that the anticipation of that perceived ordeal turned out to be much worse than the actual ordeal. And having come through what I hope is the worst of it, that I’ll remember the feeling of success and accomplishment that can be waiting on the other side.

Ideally it would be best to somehow have that memory of success (let’s call it “confidence”) deeply ingrained at a cellular level. But I’ll settle for having my head remember it, even when my gut doesn’t.

It’s sort of like a colonoscopy these days. In practice, the procedure itself is a piece of cake compared to the day of prep leading up to it. And the anticipation of the prep once you’ve done it once is far worse than the actual prep. (Which is not to say that the prep doesn’t totally, 100,000% suck.)

Lesson noted. Possibly learned.

Time will tell

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul

September 24, 2019 · 23:57

Announcing His Presence With Authority

I got home yesterday evening and the house was FILLED with birdsong. I thought that there was one that had gotten into the house and was squawking to get out.

I didn’t see anything inside, so I went out onto the back porch. Ah, there’s the problem.

This guy’s sitting on the edge of the chimney and the sound is coming down the flue and echoing through the house.

But now I’ve made the mistake of coming into his back yard, and this action must be challenged!

Well, I’ve got a few thoughts about who’s back yard it truly is, so I took a step or two in his direction…

Time to go into camouflage mode! You can’t see me here!!

Gotta love mockingbirds…

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Filed under Castle Willett, Critters, Photography

September 23, 2019 · 23:28

Change Is Afoot

It’s the fall equinox, a balancing act, when both night and day are of equal length.

But from here the balance continues to shift, the nights growing longer, the days growing shorter. At least, for those of us north of the equator. If you’re in the southern hemisphere, your mileage may vary.

Other changes are coming as well. It will be important to use our days wisely and prepare. One door will open, another close.

Meanwhile, outside, the praying mantis awaits. This guy was about as long as my index finger.

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Filed under Critters, Photography

September 22, 2019 · 23:47

Lakeside

There was a work event today up in Palmdale, but rather than being on a ten-acre, dirt-covered construction site, we were at a lakeside location. I was working most of the day, but did take five minutes to go down to the lake and take in the view.

When I first got there and took the first two pictures, all of these ducks were just off the end of the dock, most of them with their duck butts in the air as they were feeding. When I started to walk out onto the dock, they all took off to about 100 feet away and proceeded to squawk and bitch at me.

These must not be normal “park ducks.” The park ducks do the opposite, coming onshore and near anyone that comes near because they’re used to people having bread and seed and crap to feed them. (I did not have anything to feed them.)

Maybe they’re just smart ducks and knew that.

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Filed under Critters, Homes4Families, Photography

September 21, 2019 · 23:59

Weekend Gradient & Reflection

The gradient comes from the lovely sunset colors as I was leaving the CAF hangars tonight.

The reflection is a philosophical one, not a photographic one. It comes along with two probably contradictory lessons.

John Scalzi has said, “The failure mode of ‘clever’ is ‘asshole.’” While I’ve agreed with this for years, it never came home quite so personally as today, when I in a moment that I regretted thirty seconds later, tried to make a joke which sounded much more clever in my head than it came out of my mouth.

This was not the world’s worst faux pas by any means, but it did leave a couple of people looking at me like, “Huh? Was that supposed to be funny?” It bothered me the more I thought about it all day.

The second, related, lesson is, “Don’t beat yourself up unnecessarily.” Before I left I went and found the person who I had made the comment to and apologized. Their response was, “Huh? What are you talking about?” I thought for a minute that I was hallucinating or something, had to remind them of where it was and who they were talking to and what I had said before they said (in essence), “Oh, that? Nothing wrong with that, was there? Didn’t give it a second thought.”

This is not to say that if you stick your foot in your mouth and truly do say something that portrays you to be an asshole that you shouldn’t repent and sincerely apologize and attempt to make amends. (Are you listening, GOP?) But before you beat yourself up all day for being offensive, make sure you actually offended someone.

Finally, if you take a longer, handheld exposure with the iPhone, can you see Jupiter at the upper left, near the edge of the picture? Yes. Yes you can.

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Filed under Astronomy, CAF, Photography, Space