Author Archives: momdude

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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
January 9, 2023 · 22:59

Big Rain In SoCal

Well, NorCal is getting hit hard to, but this is even more unusual for us. It started out quiet, with steady, soft rain all day. I love the sound.

I started to see news reports about some seriously bad weather heading south towards us, with places up in the Santa Barbara mountains getting over ten inches of rain in just a couple of hours. That, of course, leads to some major flooding up in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, and now we’re seeing some of that in Los Angeles County.

Then the heavy rain started.

Followed by the strong winds.

We’re fine. We live on top of a fairly large hill, so as long as we don’t have a mudslide or something taking the ground out beneath us, we’ll be just fine. If water gets to our yard, we don’t need a rescue, we need an ark! There might be some branches down and some street flooding down at the bottom of the hill, but our biggest potential concern would be a power outage or one of the big trees coming down on the house. So far, no sign of anything like that happening.

We’re in a lull for a couple of hours, but the word is that the second, BIG part of this storm is coming by tomorrow morning. Thunderbolts! Lighting! Very, very exciting!

Stay safe out there, folks!

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Filed under Video, Weather

January 8, 2023 · 23:56

Converging Lines

It’s really late and it’s been a really long day.

It’s raining again, but before the clouds moved in, there were two contrails, one old, one new, converging as the planes took the same route to their destination.

 

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Filed under Flying, Photography, Weather

January 7, 2023 · 20:54

The Dark – 2023

As 16:00 comes and goes with no monstrously huge surge in the regional demand for electricity, the SoCal Emergency Energy Management Agency realizes that today was the day I took down the Christmas lights and they can re-mothball that backup nuclear power plant that they’ve needed ten hours a day since Thanksgiving.

The dark has returned to West Hills, as it always does sometime in January. (Okay, there were years when it was February [or March…] when the lights came down, but they always got turned off by late January.) Normally it might have been next weekend, or even the weekend after, but the weather forecast for next weekend is abysmal and the 21st isn’t looking much better. Today was actually nice (if still more than a bit muddy) so the smart money said to take my shot.

As always, the good news is that the lights that took four days to put up only take four hours to take down. And the tree is still up inside, so there’s still some holiday cheer for another few days.

The fact that my beloved Chiefs stomped on the hated Raiders and tied up the #1 seed in the AFC playoffs and the bye next week is just gravy.

 

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Filed under Christmas Lights, KC Chiefs, Photography

January 6, 2023 · 23:44

In Search Of Something New

I’ve been working on a tight deadline that’s going to keep me busy all weekend, and while plowing through it I found a Stanley Kubrick film fest on some cable channel. Three truly outstanding films that I’ve seen a gazillion times and they can just be background, comfort food for my soul while my brain is occupied elsewhere.

“2001”

“A Clockwork Orange”

“Full Metal Jacket”

This obviously isn’t new to anyone who’s been reading this site for nearly ten years. I started by titling this post as “Kubrick” and WordPress gave it a filename of “kubrick-3” which means this would be the fourth time that I used that exact same title…

It would be great to be watching something new. I’ve got a “to be watched” list of movies and streaming series that could keep me busy for years. I’ve got a “to be read” pile of books that could tip over and cause a 9.3 earthquake. But any of that, while intellectually stimulating, would require me to pay attention. And my attention needs to be focused. I don’t get to attack that “to be read” pile until I get past a couple of deadlines.

I hate making Chuck Wendig wait. (Read “Wanderers,” it’s outstanding. And once I get done with my re-read of that, I get to start the sequel, “Wayward,” which I am hearing amazing things about.)

Onward.

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Filed under Entertainment, Paul

January 5, 2023 · 22:53

Skyscapes – January 05th

After a couple days of steady rain, last night we got some heavy stuff, some good downpours with heavy winds. But by noon today, it had started to clear.

It looks like we’ll get a day or two of sun before the next waves of heavy rain move in early and then again late next week.

The good news is that I’ll probably get some decent weather this weekend when I need to make the time to take the Christmas lights down.

For today, it’s chilly and cold, but it would have been a glorious day to be a hawk and just soar on the thermals.

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January 4, 2023 · 23:41

Another “Set SCE To AUX” Day

If you know, you know.

“Miles to go before I sleep…” as they say. Tomorrow will be another day.

So far 2023, four days in, is “more of the same” mixed in with “Say, WHAT?!” When the going gets weird, the weird get going.

Stay weird, freindos!

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Filed under Paul, Photography

January 3, 2023 · 23:37

Random Old Photos – January 03rd

I’m a sucker for taking pictures of statues, and god knows there were enough of them on this day. Lots of Native Americans, wilderness dudes, cowboys, and so on. But this one of the spouting seal and child was the one that tickled my fancy the most.

Denver, there for Worldcon, fifteen years ago in August, somewhere near the capitol building and US Mint.

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Filed under Photography, Travel

January 2, 2023 · 20:35

From One Extreme To The Other

One of the key effects of climate change that we’ll see is a change in the historical norms.

More “storms of the century” – every couple of years.

More all time highs.

More all time lows.

Here in California and the Southwest we’re in record drought conditions. There are water use restrictions. The Colorado River is so low that it’s almost to the point where a lot of major metropolitan areas (LA, Las Vegas, Phoenix, etc) have to stop pulling water from it, which will REALLY mess things up, not to mention that hydroelectric generation will have to stop at Hoover Dam and other dams along the river.

And yet, seemingly out of nowhere, we’re now getting massive rain storms, one after another. We’re already having street flooding in Northern California and San Francisco.

Now the rain has started here for tonight, and it’s going to continue on and off for days and days.

Credit: Wunderground

Buckle up, folks! It’s not going to get any better, and we don’t even have any idea how bad it’s going to get in the short term or the long term. Our grandchildren might well look back on these days as a virtual paradise compared to what they get to deal with every day.

And tomorrow most of us go back to work to start catching up on everything that happened while we were celebrating.

It’s gonna be a slice…

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Filed under Weather

January 1, 2023 · 23:50

First Sunset Of 2023

I really wasn’t expecting to be able to see anything for the rest of the week as far as sunsets go, given the “atmospheric river” that lining up to dump many inches of (much needed, I know, I KNOW!) rain on California for the last four or five days and the next ten days or more. But lo and behold, we were between rain bands this evening and the sky was clear right at sunset.

Nice gradient. That whole thing I was talking about last week with all nine planets lined up has pretty much passed. Mercury has now sunk down in the evening sky toward the Sun and is too dim in the twilight to see, so on the Western hornizon we’re just left with Venus.

Even it’s not far from the Sun, but it’s really stinking bright so you can see it there just below center, to the left of that tree.

Above it was easy by this time to see Jupiter (also stinking bright) straight overhead, and Mars off to the east, reasonably bright and red, over in the neighborhood of Orion. In between Jupiter and Venus you can see Saturn if you know which one it is, and the Moon is also up off in the east, so that’s five of the six naked eye stars visible, plus the Moon. (I’m counting the telephone pole, wires, and neighbor’s houses as a legitimate sighting of the Third Rock from the Sun.)

I hope your New Year’s Eve was safe and enjoyable and your New Year’s Day restful and fun. Tomorrow we get all of the parades and the remaining football bowl games, so I hope you get to enjoy them without having to work. You’ll know how the weather’s deteriorating in SoCal by the weather conditions for the Rose Parade (should be dry-ish) and the Rose Bowl (may or may not get through the whole game without rain).

Meanwhile, 2023 fired a warning shot across my bow in the form of a whole slew of two-factor authentication codes being sent to my phone for my Google and Gmail accounts. I’ve changed the passwords and that seems to have stopped it for now, and I’ve verified that there aren’t any unauthorized logins, but I may end up spending a good chunk of tomorrow updating and changing all of my passwords on all critical accounts. Fun! Just what I was looking forward to.

Let’s not start off this way, 2023. I will not be willing to cut you much slack, just to be clear.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Sunsets, Weather

December 31, 2022 · 23:14

New Year’s Eve 2022

Good bye, 2022. I can’t say that I’ll miss you much.

You were better than 2020 or 2021, what with Biden and House investigations and vaccines vs Trump and January 6th and COVID, but let’s be honest, the bar wasn’t set that high.

Personally, we did finally get to take a handful of trips, but you left a lot of room for improvement for 2023 to tackle.

It’s pouring in Los Angeles tonight, there’s street flooding in San Francisco, and pretty much the whole state is getting one of those 10-14 day “atmospheric river” deluges – the ones we’ve been praying for since the drought was getting pretty desperate, so 2023 is starting out okay from that viewpoint.

We’ll see what 2023 brings. I’m trying not to be hopeful, but the permanent optimism (Pollyanna syndrome) that was beaten into my DNA by the nuns at Christ the King Elementary still is lurking out there, hoping for good things for my beloved Chiefs, Kings, and Angels. There’s the eternal hope that THIS will be the year I get back into the left seat at the pointy end of a plane. There are already a couple of trips planned (barring the emergence of yet another COVID strain and the deaths of hundreds of thousands) and if I could spend some quality time with friends, well, that would be spectacular.

So, with the 2022 Christmas cards all sent (*) out last week, I’ll get on with with accounting and tax returns and financial statements for 2022 but let’s start living in 2023. As a good friend on Twitter was saying tonight, “We must love one another or die.” I like Plan A so much better. It sounds much more fun.

Let’s do that. Happy New Year, y’all.

(*) – If you’ve gotten cards in the past but have moved and don’t get a card this year, let me know what your new address is… If you haven’t gotten cards in the past but want to, I’ve still got a handful left, so send me your address. (pwillett@ix.netcom.com)

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Video, Weather