Author Archives: momdude

momdude's avatar

About momdude

Space cadet | Family dude | Photographer | Music lover | Traveler | Science fiction fan | Hugo Award nominee | Writer | 5x NASA Social participant | KC Chiefs fan | LA Kings fan | Senior Director of Finance & Administration for ALS Network | Member & former staff Finance Officer at the Commemorative Air Force SoCal Wing | Hard core left-wing liberal | Looking for whatever other shenanigans I can get into
June 18, 2023 · 22:57

Hummingbird Butt

It’s been a lovely couple of days to sit out on the back porch in the shade and listen to all of the birds. Sitting near one of the hummingbird feeders, I hear the buzz of them coming in, but once they perch, my view is limited.

What I also find hilarious is how Little Bastard (butt shown) reacts when I take down this feeder to clean and refill it. While I’m at the kitchen sink cleaning it, maybe ten feet away, he’ll zip in and fly all around where it was. He won’t fly at all into that empty space, but he’s circle that space like the feeder was still there, just invisible.

Does he think I had a Romulan cloaking device installed?

He’ll do this two, three, four times or so. Then he’ll come back with three or four other hummingbirds. Now, mind you, these are the exact same hummingbirds that he’ll chase away in a heartbeat if they try to eat at HIS feeder. But now that it’s vanished out of this plane of existence, he’ll go round them up and bring them back to show them the mystery he’s found. “Look, guys! Just like I told you! It just freakin’ VANISHED!”

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography

June 17, 2023 · 19:54

Our June Theater Visit

Back at the Ahmanson!

A pleasant night in LA, the routine down pat, the sun back today for the first time in weeks.

I hope your weekend is going well!

2 Comments

Filed under Entertainment, Los Angeles, Photography

June 16, 2023 · 23:06

A Long Weekend

I’m sure when I was younger there were stretches of 2-3 weeks like this. I spent years as a single dad with three teenagers and a job that required way more than 40 hours a week and I got through that. When I was in my early 50’s I still had that job, it was going through a stretch that was busier than all getout and I was going to Pepperdine for two years to get my Masters and I got through that. So, yeah, this isn’t a first.

But I might have lost a step between my 40’s, my 50’s, and now my late 60’s. In other words, I’m getting too old for this shit.

It is always a surprise when I see news of another high school classmate retiring. Or one my brothers, all of whome are one to seven years younger than I am.

Retire? Not any time soon. I’ll be happy to just get some time off this weekend instead of working all three days.

But there’s a lot of satisfaction in what our team is doing and the teamwork concepts that I learned at Pepperdine are being put to good use. So we’ll press on.

Perhaps with an extra nap or two for a couple of days. Maybe I’ll even have time to go find something other than this one rose bush to take pictures of.

Maybe. The possibilities are endless.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Flowers, Paul, Photography

June 15, 2023 · 23:29

A Day Without Panic Is Like A Day Without Sequelae of Chronic Microvascular Ischemia

We’ve established that I’ve been REALLY busy for days and weeks, and the best case scenario is that it won’t get much worse. All with the knowledge that in a worst case scenario it could get barking mad in the blink of an eye.

Then this happens out of the blue…

It’s entirely possible that language was used or which my saintly mother would not have approved. ENTIRELY possible.

EGBOK = Everything’s Gonna Be OK

And it was. I fixed it.

Leave a comment

Filed under Computers, Photography

June 14, 2023 · 23:31

A Plateau

The last ten days or so have been like running a triathalon and doing so while trying to keep up with the Kenyans in the marathon, Lance Armstrong in the bike race, and Michael Phelps in the water. There were three critical, like, “Scotty I need warp speed in three minutes or we’re all dead!” deadlines, plus a whole huge other longer term project, plus, you know, the usual day in, day out operations stuff.

Needless to say, I’m a little short on sleep. And there were moments when I had doubts. But the three critical deadlines all get met, the other big project is being picked back up but at a more “normal” rate, and the operations thing keeps chugging along.

One dictionary definition of a “plateau” is, “a relatively stable level, period, or state.” I’m there. This evening I’ve been just watching a baseball game, fighting off that nagging feeling that I MUST be missing something critical if I’m not going 100 miles an hour.

It’s fine. The 10-day long adrenaline high will fade.

There will be a ton of more work, and new deadlines, and new crises. But I (and the amazing team of folks I work with, I’m no freaking solo superhero) have shown once again that we can get the job done. We’ll deal with those deadlines and crises.

Tonight however, I will sleep. A little bit, at least.

Now if I could just get a better, final solution to the multiple plumbing problems in this #*#$%$&!# rental house…

The semi-random picture isn’t really a plateau, more like a hill. Close enough for government work!

Leave a comment

Filed under Paul, Photography

June 13, 2023 · 23:44

Same Plant, New Flower

I talked last week about how much I adore this precise color.

Now there’s a new bloom on the same plant, and today it was sublime!

It smelled like…indictments!

Leave a comment

Filed under Flowers, Photography

June 12, 2023 · 23:32

Desk

You can thank me later for taking a look at that picture before just blindly posting it. You don’t even want to know why.

Meanwhile, the other random thought in my head for the last several days since Ted Kaczynski had the good grace to shuffle off of this mortal coil was this, like my fourth or fifth favorite scene in this spectacular film, “Good Will Hunting”:

I’m still breathing! How are all y’all doing?

Leave a comment

Filed under Entertainment, Paul, Photography

June 11, 2023 · 23:37

Purple Flower Power

The Seek app won’t ID the species, just says it’s part of the onion family.

I’m not big on purple flowers, probably because of all of the jacaranda trees around. The leaves they drop onto the sidewalk are extremely slippery and a real hazard when I’m running or even walking.

These haven’t attacked me … yet. (Tomorrow’s another day, filled with opportunities!)

1 Comment

Filed under Flowers, Photography

June 10, 2023 · 23:23

Juggling As Fast As I Can

As noted yesterday, the Chaos Times are upon me. (Also, many thanks to @wcroth55 for the spot on comment with the Kipling quote!)

So you may consider this a tiny, friendly heads up that you may just be getting random photos with minimal verbage or prose for the next couple of weeks. Think of them as my personal version of “proof of live” messages.

While dealing with yesterday’s plumbing issues I was down under this hibiscus (there’s a cleanout buried under there) and there were no flowers on it at all. I would have noticed! Today, a handful of full blooms with more getting ready to pop.

For my effort in getting these pictures I almost got a hummingbird in the ear. Apparently they’ve already laid claim to them and the fact that I was standing there upset them. They didn’t recognize me as the one who feeds them in the back yard. Not surprising – they’re incredible flyers, but that’s despite the fact that their brains are thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis 🤏🏻 small (at best).

As I’ve no doubt commented before, while beautiful, these things remind me of Triffids, and that book (and movie) made it tough to sleep for a few nights, so having them right outside the house isn’t necessarily comforting.

Another day survived. Pressing on. I hope y’all are doing well also!

 

1 Comment

Filed under Flowers, Photography

June 9, 2023 · 23:53

The Toilet Was When I Knew That God Was Mocking Me

Life is multi-faceted. There are things you’re thinking about at home, at work, in life in general. Opportunities.

Some are forseen. For example, our audit is starting. This is a familiar and well-known stress point, a time when I need to be on my game, involving a lot of hours, reports, thinking, and so on. But we’ve known that it was coming.

Some are potential. At work we’ve known for a while that things were out there on the horizon that could be “a thing,” potentially a *HUGE* thing in terms of hours, work, effort, disruption to the normal routine, and so on. All stress points. Granted, with a lot of great opportunities on the other side of the stress, but still – stress.

Some are long-term goals, like the “forever home” search. We’ve been “looking” for three or four years, never knowing when we might find “the one.”

So when the audit starts, and then things start happening lightning fast on that *HUGE* thing, and then things start happening way faster than you ever thought they might on the house hunt, something’s got to give.  We’re adjusting priorities, which can be disappointing, but necessary.

THEN there’s another hour plus in the dentist chair which somehow results in a chunk of tooth that hadn’t been a problem being chipped off and now we have ANOTHER dental problem to deal with. With pain, just after we finally got rid of the old dental pain point…

So with all of that going on TODAY all at once, and I’m wondering which god’s dog I kicked, to find that the toilet has completely backed up and made a huge mess… The toilet was when I knew that God was mocking me.

Fine. Laugh away, God.

But I stuck with the home repairs and got the toilet functional again, even if it’s probably not completely fixed. And I’m ready for the audit. And I’ll hit the ridiculous deadlines for the *HUGE* thing, even though it will take the weekend. And sooner rather than later, even if a brief stint on the back burner means that we don’t get one of the ideal dream houses that we’re eyeballing, there will be other ideal dream houses to find later.

Being brilliant or talented might be wonderful, but being stubborn (i.e., “Too stupid to give up”) gets the job done.

5 Comments

Filed under Paul, Sietch Willett