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
September 22, 2022 · 23:07

Nature’s Popcorn Part Deux

Here’s the same little guy as the other day but with the “big” camera and lens. (Canon DSLR with a 300mm telephoto lense instead of an iPhone 13 Pro Max.)

I don’t know if it’s because I was coming up behind him or not, but I got a lot closer than I did two days ago.

Or maybe it’s just that he had a really good, warm spot and didn’t want to leave if he didn’t have to.

Once he saw me, he kept me in his sights. Lots of side eye.

As long as I moved really, really slowly (and stayed at least seven to eight feet away) he was sorta okay.

That board he’s on is about a half-inch thick (maybe 1.5 centimeters).

That gives you a good scale. He’s not very big at all.

Still bigger than when I first saw him (and his siblings) a week or so ago.

Just hanging out, trying to learn to balance, both physcially on the edge of the board, and in terms of threat assessment, balancing the need to be in the sun and warm vs. being exposed to predators.

Ah, he’s lifting his tail, bringing it out of the shade and into the sunlight. For warmth, or as a prelude to flight?

It was flight. He was off in an instant into the brown grass and essentially invisble.

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Filed under Critters, Photography

September 21, 2022 · 23:45

NC Headphones Vs The Laugh Track

If there’s a special place in Hell, I hope it’s reserved for whoever invented the TV sitcom laugh track. It’s specially designed to cut right through all of the background noise that might be around you as you watch, very subtle, almost unnoticeable, ever present.

Until you have it pointed out to you.

Until you’re listening to it from a TV down the hall and trying to think and you can hear none of the “jokes,” none of the dialog, just a mush that sounds a lot like Charlie Brown’s teacher – except for the laugh track, slicing through reality like a prop from a horror movie (what was that spinning ball with the blades that popped out?) headed straight for your ears like a cruise missile.

And then, once you’re aware, sort of like Rowdy Roddy Piper in “They Live,” you’ll never watch a sitcom in peace again. Whether you’re out of bubble gum or not.

Consider this – have you EVER seen a movie with a laugh track? Think of movies you find hilarious. “Animal House” maybe. “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off.” Is there any kind of laugh track to make sure you know which bits are supposed to be funny?

It’s a war now.

Then I discovered Noise Cancelling Headphones.

There just might be a God.

Not only do you get tunes, but the laugh track goes away. It’s blissful. If it’s a war, this is the nuclear option.

The good ones are not cheap, but they’re worth every penny. The Apple iPods are in the $100 range and work okay, if you can keep them in your ears. (I can’t.) The top of the line Bose headphones are about $550, but worth every cent.

Wearing them all night might not be the most comfortable thing when it’s warm and muggy, but take them off for a second, listen to the cackling demon chorus hooting at something that’s not very funny to begin with, and you’ll be surprised how fast you can put them back on and be perfectly happy with the choice.

Thank you for listening to my TED Talk!

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Filed under Entertainment, Music

September 20, 2022 · 23:13

Nature’s Popcorn

That’s a phrase I’ve heard Dr. Earyn McGee use more than once on Twitter referring to tiny baby fence lizards. (Also, tomorrow’s Wednesday, so a reminder that Dr. McGee runs the best “game” on Twitter on Wednesday nights. At 17:00 PT you can get her picture of the week with a lizard in there somewhere and try to #FindThatLizard. When you do, let folks know with the #FoundThatLizard hashtag, with the answer revealed at 21:00 PT. It’s fantastic!)

Well, we’ve had another hatching. We got back from Chicago two weeks ago and I’ve noticed them all over the dry dirt of the back yard. Most aren’t more than an inch or two inches long. You almost don’t see them so much as you see their shadows as they skitter for cover.

She calls them that (I believe) because they hatch by the dozens, but the vast majority of them don’t survive long. They get eaten pretty quickly by birds, other lizards, and anything else fast enough to catch them.

Don’t underestimate that speed. The reason these pictures are marginal is because they’re taken from 20+ feet away with my iPhone on full digital zoom. If I get any closer, POOF!! They’re scattering at Warp Nine.

Maybe one or two of them will win the Darwin lottery and make it to a spot in the front yard under the car, as front door dragon, or big boy of the back yard next year.

 

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Filed under Critters, Photography

September 19, 2022 · 23:10

In Search Of A Little Green

We started restrictions on lawn watering back in June (or was it May?) and between that and several solid weeks of 100+ºF days every single day, the back yard has taken a beating.

But abour ten days ago, just after we got back from Chicago, there were some hurricane remnants wandering through and we got a tiny bit of rain here. Other places out in the mountains and deserts inland, out beyond Palm Springs and into Nevada and Arizona, some isolated spots got enough rain to cause some flash flooding and mudslides, but here we got maybe 0.2 inches of rain over a 24-hour stretch.

Plus, since then it’s been mostly in the mid-80’s every day instead of 100+.

Did it help?

I’m going to go with a resounding, “Maybe?”

I’m not sure how much of it is wishful thinking and how much is actual recovery, but it seems to be a tiny little bit more green than it was.

I’m not talking about those tall, long desert grasses on the right, it’s the standard issue monoculture lawn grass on the left hand side of that barrier that I’m wondering about. Maybe? In spots? Kinda?

At this point, I would be happy to have the lawn hanging on in a “less dead” state than even bothering to hope for “thriving.” Let’s manage our expectations, folks.

This would be another benefit to owning our home instead of renting. If we owned I would be ripping out the wanna be putting green and putting in some low water, desert vegitation and flowers, along with some succulents, cactus, rocks, pathways, and lots of fancy gravel or decomposed granite in between everything. It would look great, be very low maintenance, and have ultra low water requirements. Maybe a bench or two, a birdbath, some bird feeders…

I think we’ll probably be out of the drought via natural causes and a couple of consecutive El Niño years before the owner will be doing that. Brown and dusty might be the new norm. With just the slightest, semi-hallucinatory bit of green mixed in…

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Filed under Castle Willett, Photography, Weather

September 18, 2022 · 23:57

And A New Week Is Upon Us

My usual Monday phrase at work for every informal email or text is “Happy Monday!”

I’ve made it quite clear to everyone else on the team that this is 1% a “fake it ’til you make it” philosophy and 99% utter sarcasm. If they ever detect even one part per billion of sincerity in there I am to be immediately institutionalized and given a full course of rabies shots.

It is what it is.

Here, have a random picture of some plants in my back yard as I was dropping my phone while out futzing and getting soaked in the middle of the night tonight.

Happy Monday Eve!

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Filed under Farce, Photography

September 17, 2022 · 23:47

The Same Way Bricks Don’t

It’s truly astonishing how big these jets are.

Coming out of LAX, even at over 10,000 feet and almost 300 knots, it looks freakishly large. Yet it just seems to float there, as Douglas Adams said, the same way bricks don’t.

Airbus 380. Impressive.

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Filed under Flying, Photography

September 16, 2022 · 23:56

No Context For You – September 16th

While I know where and when the picture was taken, I don’t know what it is, what it does, or whose sneaker that is.

I’m pretty sure it’s not mine.

In other not-so-riveting news, you may noticed that after two weeks of writing for Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction prompts (here and here, and I liked them a lot), this is the third week in a row where there hasn’t been one.

The first reason is simple – Chuck’s been busier than god (he might have been at Worldcon or Dragoncon or both) and we haven’t gotten new prompts for the last three weeks. Not that I’m in any way blaming, it’s a volunteer space that Chuck provides to begin with, so I’m more than happy with whatever we can get. But if he doesn’t do the prompt…

Secondly, given what my schedule has been like for the past month between deadlines at work (which we met – I do sincerely LOVE being on one of those “highly functioning teams” that they taught us about in the Pepperdine MBA program!) and the trip to Chicago for Worldcon, I don’t see any way that I could have squeezed in time to write in those three weeks. So I guess it all worked out.

Finally, are there other “Flash Fiction” prompts out there that are open to whoever wants to jump in? If you know of any, please point me to the sites in the comments. I want and need to be writing, it’s time to open up my options!

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Filed under Photography, Writing

September 15, 2022 · 23:50

NFL Week #2

We kicked it off this week with the Thursday night game. Arrowhead was rocking like it should be, a great venue for a great showdown against our interdivisional rival, the Chargers!

Twas a great game, which the Chiefs won 27-24. It was tight all the way with the deciding big play being an interception by the Chiefs and a 99-yard runback for a Pick Six.

The fun part was having a Board Zoom meeting from 16:00 to 17:00 with the game starting at about 17:10. Let’s not allow that meeting to go long! (Not a problem.)

The best part was being dressed in some of my pre-game Chiefs gear for the meeting. We’re not one of those companies where we’re really strict about protocol, and my pre-game stuff is pretty tame (no beads, no funny hats, no face painting, etc) so it was good for a laugh or two and some friendly ribbing.

It’s all good. We’re 2-0, and with no Chiefs game on Sunday, there might be some alternative activities available. They just opened a new grocery store, an Aldi, the first in the area. Maybe a visit there instead of the same, old Ralph’s.

Do we know how to party hard or what?!

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Filed under Castle Willett, KC Chiefs

September 14, 2022 · 21:27

Sometimes The Lyrics Just Click

If you’ve listened to any country music in the past twenty years or so, you’ve heard Toby Keith’s “You Shouldn’t Kiss Me Like This” a time or seventy-three. A cute enough love song, I guess, with a video that’s a bit on the creepy side for my tastes.

Anyway, today it came up on my playlist while my brain was busy doing some routine work and suddenly all of the words clicked. But it’s not love that Keith’s talking about!

“Something shot right through me, my heart skipped a beat in time…”

That’s not love, or even lust.

That’s a PVC, or Premature Ventricular Contraction. I’ve had them for years, even to the point of wearing a Holter monitor for a day to make sure they weren’t something more serious. Mostly harmless – unlike what the cougar in the video is going to do to that young stud muffin.

“I even think I saw a flash of light…”

Again – not passion, or a bolt of metaphysical, super psychic energy impacting your cranium from the great beyond.

Nope, that’s a PVD, Posterior Vitreous Detatchment. I had that about a year ago. Lots of floaters and spots and at night and in dark spaces I get flashes of light sometimes, especially when I blink. You get used to it. It can be serious and an indication of something much worse going on, but monitoring it with an exam every six months or so seems to be working fine.

So, much like the cold, harsh reality of the ending of the video, we see that the romantic, gushy, sappy love song is just a sign that we’re all getting old, falling apart, and soon to die. Probably painfully.

(I may be Captain Buzzkill now, but I’m bucking for Admiral Buzzkill!)

 

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Filed under Farce, Music

September 13, 2022 · 23:47

Happiness Is Only One Line Showing On A COVID Quick Test

You know – sort of like this!

We tested when we got home from our Chicago/Chambana trip, and then again five days later. We’re good!

I pretty much don’t go out at all still, or at least compared to pre-COVID days it’s much less than 10% as much. A lot of that is working from home instead of going into the office, but also going to sporting events, the CAF hangar, concerts, movies, shopping, and so on.

And when I do go out, I’m masked. Period.

And I’m fully vaxxed, including two boosters, and I’ll be getting the bivalent booster as soon as I can, which should be soon.

I’m still just astonished that everyone isn’t doing that. When the zombie apocalypse comes, we don’t have a prayer if the response to COVID is any indication.

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Filed under Health, Photography, Travel