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
May 5, 2022 · 22:44

Surprise Flowers

I was taking the recycling bin out to the back yard today and was surprised to see this one big plant covered in these bright, fuscia flowers.

We’ve been in this house for four years, but this is the first time I remember ever seeing this plant flowering.

The flowers all have this tiny little five-part center, which is amazing to look at up close.

I’m thinking if I had seen this previously I would have remembered. But maybe not. Cue that old joke about the advantage to “senioritis” being that you could hide Easter eggs and then find them yourself the next day!

Either way, they were a joy today, and probably tomorrow and the next few days as well. I’ll take it!

Never look a gift pistil in the mouth!

1 Comment

Filed under Flowers, Photography

May 4, 2022 · 23:47

Healthy Lunch

Apropos of just about nothing other than it’s been a busy, busy day in a busy, busy week and I’ve got some tight deadlines coming up and my brain is still stewing and festering about *waves hands vaugely at everything* so let’s see what a normal lunch is for me. It caught my eye today because it’s colorful!

  • A slice or two of low sodium turkey
  • A slice or two of Swiss cheese, but sometimes a hunk Monterey Jack (the cheese and turkey used to be a sandwich, but in order to cut down on the carbs that I so dearly love but my A1C readings hate, the bread and condiments are gone)
  • Radishes (or sometimes carrots)
  • Strawberries (or sometimes grapes)
  • Apple (or sometimes a pear or orange)
  • Diet Coke or water (not shown)

Compared to what I might like to eat for lunch if I were still working in an office, particularly if that office had dozens of fast food places within a block or three, this is pretty stinking healthy. There are enough alternatives and options to keep a little bit of variety in there, which is good. Even with a fair amount of flavor, the same thing every day like clockwork would be … BORING!

I would also note that lunch is served at my desk with keyboard at the ready. Remember, sometimes it’s not so much “working from home” as it is “living at work.” As so many of us know these days.

2 Comments

Filed under Paul, Photography

May 3, 2022 · 23:41

No Context For You – May 03rd

I have few coherent words at the moment given the news of the past 24 hours and the rage it has ignited in me. And that doesn’t even take into account the ongoing horrors in Ukraine.

So take an odd picture without any context, because there isn’t any there to be had.

Meanwhile, while thinking about the 19-year-old, Eisenhower Republican, Midwestern, raised strict Catholic Paul who would be totally gobsmacked to see mid-60’s Paul sharing this, have some interesting and possibly extremely useful information for the days ahead…

Leave a comment

Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Moral Outrage, Paul, Photography, Politics

May 2, 2022 · 23:06

Lucy & Ricky Have Four Eggs

Last night I commented on how Lucy was sitting in her nest most of the time for the last few days and speculated that she might now have eggs in the nest.

She is. Four of them.

Gestation is 12 to 14 days, and she’s been on the nest for three or four days, so I’m guessing ten days until they hatch, give or take a day or two. Updates to follow.

What I don’t get is how those four eggs came out of that one tiny bird. There’s some space-time continuity issues that we’re dealing with here!

3 Comments

Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography

May 1, 2022 · 23:48

Lucy Gives Me The StinkEye

It appears that Lucy and Ricky are happy with their nest building and have settled down to domestic life. Where last week they were flying in and out all day long, while Ricky would constantly be making quite the racket as proud papa house wrens will do, now Ricky comes by every now and then while Lucy is sitting on the nest almost 24/7.

I’m no certified bird dude, but I suspect that means there are eggs in the nest and she’s sitting on them.

From where this nest is, any activity out of or near the sliding glass door there will have her bailing and bitching about it. These pictures were taken after very slowly and carefully approaching the door at a time when I was hoping there would be enough glare off of it so she couldn’t easily see inside. She spooks easily.

Most of the time, even if she doesn’t fly off, she’s giving me the stink eye the whole time I’m there. I’ve tried to talk to her and promise that I’m (mostly) harmless, only interested in helping her and watching her nest, but she’s not buying it.

Two years ago we ended up with three fledglings out of five eggs. Last year and this year in the other three (at least) nests, the finches are building them where we can’t easily see into the nests. I’m sure that I can hear little chirps begging for food, but I don’t know how many. Maybe if Lucy goes off for a quick brunch with the girls I can take a quick peek for eggs while refilling the humming bird feeder.

We shall see!

Leave a comment

Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography

April 30, 2022 · 23:24

Okay May, Let’s Talk

First of all, April? Long hike, short pier, don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split ‘ya! Capiche? You were better than January, February, or March, but that bar wasn’t set very high and we had such hopes for you. Which you failed at delivering.

May, listen up! I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings!

Big picture – if the stock market could start recovering and stop plunging, if gas prices could get back under $5/gallon, and if the Russians could stop whatever insanity they’re up to that would all be super great! Make it so.

It’s good that the Kings made the playoffs and the Angels are off to a hot start and in first place after three weeks or so. It’s a little icing on the cake that the Ducks, Sharks, and Golden Knights are sitting at home watching the playoffs on cable, and the Dodgers aren’t in first place while we are. (What, me petty and vengeful? Damn straight!) Now let’s see those things continuing and improving even more. It’s that whole “Big Mo” thing (momentum, for the non sports addicted) and we need to see it snowballing.

It’s been pretty good at work and I’m hoping that continues, although there are always storm clouds on the horizon. If those could hold off another month or so, so much the better. If not, then at least give me a bit of a heads up, okay?

On the personal time management and existential stress front, some time to get caught up on “Picard,” get started on “Strange New Worlds,” and get to the theater for “Top Gun 2” would really push your evaluation score towards an A+.

And as always, if you really want to graduate cumma sum laude, you could do something appropriate with COVID or the GOP. Do both and you’ll be a freakin’ legend.

It’s up to you, May! We’re dancing as fast as we can here, a little help on your part would really be appreciated!

You’re on in 36 minutes.

Good talk!

Leave a comment

Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul

April 29, 2022 · 22:28

Happy 9th Birthday, WLTSTF!

9 years.

3,288 days.

3,380 posts.

7,917 images. (90%+ are taken by me. The rest are images from the news, from cell phone screen captures, and so on.)

67 videos.

9 audio clips.

2,670 total comments.

67,800 total views.

43,044 total visitors to the site.

10,727 total likes.

1,609 followers (694 from WordPress, 613 from Twitter, 280 from FaceBook, 10 from Tumblr, and 12 via email)

7,049 shares (1,982 from Twitter, 1,643 from FaceBook, 1,454 from LinkedIn, and 1,970 from Tumblr)

God alone knows how many words.

The last time I either was too busy or, more likely, simply forgot to post anything was April 10, 2020. Since they I’ve posted 749 days in a row.

In total there have only been fourteen days of those 3,288 days when I didn’t post anything at all.

I hope that at least a few of the 1,609 folks who get notified every day that I’ve posted something take a minute to look and/or read and get a moment of zen or pleasure from it. I enjoy creating it.

I hope that in the next year there are many more occasions to share a pretty picture, a goofy story, or something clever.

I hope that in the next year there will be many fewer occasions to descend into a venting rant about something stupid, annoying, or depressing.

As do we all, I’m sure.

And finally – I have a Tumblr account??!!

Leave a comment

Filed under Paul, Writing

April 28, 2022 · 23:20

Scans Of Old Photos

A quest down the rabbit hole of old, OLD photos reminded me of how much of the photos, film, video, and audio recordings I have from my youth are still in a very non-electronic and potentially fragile state. In looking for any of my baby pictures for example, scans of pictures I took in high school are the earlierst I have in any electronic format, and 17 years old is hardly a baby picture. That in turn led me to electronic copies of old 8mm home movies that I long ago digitized – from there I can grab a screenshot of 3 year old me at Halloween, but it’s not a very high resolution picture at all.

A lot of those original pictures from my parents are in storage and just need to be scanned. I also still have all of those 8mm films. I’m willing to bet that I can do a lot better job of digitizing them than I did 20+ years ago.

Yeah – in my copious free time…

Meanwhile, I also ran across some of the B&W film and color slides that I’ve digitized. For example:

The house where I lived during high school. My B&W negatives were stored properly and scan up real well.

Some of the color slides are still in pretty good shape, although there’s been a little color shifting. (Hey, look, in the driveway, it’s THE MAX!!)

Other slides have much better color retention, but weren’t stored in a clean environment, so they’re covered with spots of dust and schmutz.

Next time I’m bored maybe I’ll see how much a little Photoshop can clean up the dust spots. Or maybe a little bit of very gentle TLC applied to the original slides could clean them up without destroying them.

In my copious free time…

Leave a comment

Filed under Paul, Photography

April 27, 2022 · 23:59

Larger Flying Things Overhead

Being under the flight path out of LAX to locations on the other side of the world has its advantages if you’re a plane nut (like me!).

There it goes!

An A380 is a LOT bigger than a junco, finch, wren, or even a hawk!

Leave a comment

Filed under Flying, Photography

April 26, 2022 · 23:41

No Context For You – April 26th

First of all, I notice that the filename on the WordPress server for this is “no-context-for-you-april-26th-3” which means that it’s actually the fourth time I’ve posted one of these “No Context For You” posts on April 26th. (The WordPress file naming convention for duplicate file names is pretty obvious.) They’re supposed to be more or less at random, so the fact that this particular date (which also happens to be my brother’s birthday) has had one of these particular posts four out of nine years is really odd. I wonder if there might be something that’s causing it. (It’s not that I’m out partying with my brother – we’re thousands of miles apart.)

Anyway…

It occurs to me (and probably should be far more obvious than it is) that if you’re frustrated with what you have, it helps a lot to have an actual clue about what it is you want to have instead. “Not this” can be the simple answer, but it’s not always intuitive that “different” is equivalent to “better.”

This insight, in turn, can add to the frustration if you have no clear idea of what it is that you want or how to answer that question. The knowledge that you’re actually at least one step further away from the answer isn’t necessarily useful.

There’s probably some theory named after a 16th Century Lithuanian philosopher that states that more eloquently, but looking that up and figuring it out is left as an exercise for the student.

Leave a comment

Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography