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
February 25, 2022 · 23:43

Take Care

Hey, y’all! You know all of those tips and suggestions that you get about internet security and safety that you’ve been ignoring about 99% of the time?

Now’s the time to take every one of them incredibly seriously 24/7/365. The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming! And you can bet your ass that they’ll be scattering spam and phishing and ransomware out there like cluster bombs. Touch one of those by accident and you’ll be extremely messed up for a long, long time.

So remember:

NEVER open an email of any kind unless you know who it’s from. Hopefully you’ve got a spam filter that these malware laced little threats get put as a first line of defense. If so, assume that everything in there is in there for a reason. And even if something slips through to your regular email box, be suspicious of everything.

NEVER go to a site based on clickbait. C’mon, folks! Be smarter than that! Why do you really care for two seconds about Kanye or Taylor or Beyonce at all to begin with? You all know what these things look like. With what’s going on in the world right now, one of these days real soon now it’s going to take you not to a mindless site filled with vacuous celebrity drivel but instead to something that’s going to lock your computer and erase everything on it.

It seems obvious but I know folks who have fallen for it recently – NO ONE WITH THE IRS, FBI, POLICE, CIA, M6, YOUR BOSS, OR ANYONE ELSE IS COMING TO COLLECT A BILL WHICH YOU CAN ONLY PAY OFF IN GIFT CARDS. Okay, so this isn’t necessarily part of a Russian World War III plot, but you’re more likely to get one that almost kinda sorta looks like it might be legit in the near future. IT’S A SCAM!!! Trust me, if the IRS is going to come after you, you’ll get something legal IN THE MAIL. If the police or FBI want you, they’ll just kick your door in. If it’s a creditor, they may make your life a living hell, but they won’t be paid in gift cards.

Make sure you have a good anti-virus program, make sure it’s running, and make sure that its definitions are current.

Make sure you have a full backup of your computer and make sure that it’s offline and not going to get locked and/or corrupted at the same time your computer does. Better yet, get three external hard drives (hell, you can get 10+ terabytes for about $130, and drives over 20Tb are now available) and make three backup sets. Keep one at home (NOT plugged into the computer), have one nearby but not at home (can you store it at work? can you and a friend swap holding onto each other’s?), and have one way off somewhere (do you have a family member in another state?) where it can’t be touched.

As the above proves – BE PARANOID!

My computer holds tens of thousands of photos, video, financial documents, not to mention all of the entertainment content (music, videos, publications, books, and so on) that I’ve purchased over decades. One mistake, one idle moment of curiosity instead of paranoia, and I’ll be staring at a screen with that laughing skull thing that Jeff Goldblum had on the alien mother ship in “Independence Day” while forty years of content goes away.

I would be seriously pissed for the rest of my life about that. (When our car got broken into in Montreal and my briefcase stolen back in 2004 they took a couple of memory cards full of photos that I’ll never get back again and I’m still pissed!) I choose paranoia instead.

Actually, it’s not paranoia – there really, REALLY are folks out there who are and will be trying to mess up my life like that. And yours. And everyone else’s if they can. It’s random, it’s evil, but it’s happening.

It’s war. Literally.

Be smart, be prepared.

And start yesterday.

 

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Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Freakin' Idiots!

February 24, 2022 · 23:04

The Universe Doesn’t Care

Not to be too much of a buzzkill, but the Universe doesn’t care.

It doesn’t care about Russia invading Ukraine.

It doesn’t care about Putin masterminding Brexit to divide Great Britain or corrupting the American elections to get the Mango Mussolini into the White House.

It doesn’t care about COVID, or the evil forces manipulating the system to make a significant slice of the population anti-science and stupid.

It just doesn’t care.

Yesterday there was NOTHING but bare branches on this tree. Today, it’s got a dozen of these gorgeous pink flowers sprouting. Not sure if the Universe actually cares about this or not, but it’s what the Universe is doing every day and actions speak louder than words.

The Universe is going to move on its merry way, with or without us. If every human being on the planet woke up dead tomorrow morning, this tree would still be exploding with spring flowers.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing at all. But it tells me that the only ones who will EVER give a shit about us is … us. Not the Universe. Not any invisible old dude in the sky.

Nope. It’s just us and only us.

So we had better get our shit together and do a better job about caring about us, ALL OF US, or the Universe will be short one human race in its entirety.

And it still won’t care.

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Filed under Flowers, Freakin' Idiots!, Photography

February 23, 2022 · 23:55

War Again

Mad men leading us to the brink again, an invasion that could lead to a larger conflict with no good way out, and a full-blown nuclear exchange just a little bit closer to reality.

Doomscrolling is hard, but ignorance doesn’t seem any better.

Take a moment.

Breathe.

Watch the clouds.

The helplessness and anger are strong.

How did we get here? More importantly, how do we get out?

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Photography, Weather

February 22, 2022 · 23:43

Deuces Wild!

Lots of twos today. “Tues”day. 02-22-2022. Celebrating, or at least noting the occurrence, at 10:22 PM, or 22:22 02-22-2022 if you’re on military time. I think that I missed precisely 22:22:22 02-22-2022 exactly for a whole new level of obsessive-compulsive behavior.

We humans do love our numerology and symbolism. Especially when it means NOTHING.

Days are well defined whether we’re here or not. The year is a fact, or at least can be defined for any body orbiting a central star. It’s just Newtonian celestial mechanics.

It’s that zero point, that starting point that’s tricky. Year zero, month zero, day zero, hour zero, minute zero, second zero is when? And how do you know? Hell, 2/3 of your units are 100% arbitrary!

But we’ll ignore that when someone finds “prophecies” in a document thousands of years old, totally made up, 100% fiction, translated from one language to another to a third to another… And based on that we’ll calculate to seventeen decimal places when the end of the world will be, or when a god will return, or when the alien mothership will show up in our skies to take only the select few home to Valhalla. Or something like that.

It’s a matter of hoping we have a shred of control or order in a Universe which has very little order and over which we have very, very little control. So is it better to believe nonsense and feel better, or to face the cold, hard truth and feel like shit?

Tough call.

I’m going to go with acknowledging the ridiculous, use it as an excuse for some joy (although, damn it, today was also National Margarita Day and I didn’t celebrate or observe the holiday!) because we all know there are too few reasons for joy, and avoid letting anyone pick your pocket or mistake your celebration for gullibility. If someone tells you that their precise to seventeen decimal places calculation means you should give them all of your life savings, maybe skip that round of grape flavored cyanide and have a margarita instead.

Just make it yourself. Just to be sure.

The fact that the deuces were wild today doesn’t mean that the cosmic slot machine is going to spill out treasure.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Freakin' Idiots!

February 21, 2022 · 23:37

Presidents Day 2022

With one exception, not a huge fan of any of them in my adult lifetime, and I didn’t need to buy either a new car or a new mattress, so we ignored the holiday and started using the time to catch up on a season and a half of “Star Trek: Discovery.” Time well spent – I’m enjoying it a great deal. We’re current now and looking forward to the last four episodes of Season Four. Next, we have to pick something else to get caught up on. Probably either “Star Trek: Lower Decks” or “The Expanse.”

With significantly less time pressure and an eyeball issue that requires occasional eye drops, the practice of lying down and closing my eyes and relaxing has led to a re-discovery of this “nap” thing.

Mmmmmmmmmm! “Naps!”

I know this isn’t an original thought, but little kids who are “forced” to take naps have no freakin’ clue how good they’ve got it or how much they’re going to miss naps when they’re busy doing “adult shit” eighteen to twenty hours a day.

 

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Filed under Entertainment, Photography

February 20, 2022 · 23:40

Brave Solo Hibiscus

A handful of days last weekend it was up into the 80’s and low 90’s here, but last week was down into the 60’s and low 70’s here, and tonight it’s damp, cloudy, drizzly, and headed for the 40’s. But that didn’t stop this one, brave, solo hibiscus from taking it’s shot at being FIRST to pop and get pollinated!

Don’t think that the hummingbirds don’t appreciate it! First, this is out of sight of where Little Bastard sits and guards the feeders, so they can hit it without being attacked. But it’s also the real stuff, not that artificial concentrate that goes into the feeders.

Give ’em hell, brave solo hibiscus!!

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

February 19, 2022 · 19:50

Yet Another Night At The Theatre!

We’re all masked and vaxxed (and so is everyone else, which I love) so we’re out at the theatre again tonight.

The Ahmanson Theatre, to be exact, to see “Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.” I know very little about it, so it will be a surprise!

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Filed under Entertainment, Los Angeles

February 18, 2022 · 23:48

Three Days

Hey! It’s a three-day weekend! I literally didn’t even realize that until it came up in a meeting this afternoon.

And I don’t have to go to the hangar! That gig’s done!

I don’t even know what I’ll do with myself.

Maybe (hold on, this is going to be a radical concept!) read one of those books that’s been sitting there.

Maybe (buckle in!) watch a movie or a couple episodes of a TV show that I started years and years ago.

Maybe (inconceivable!) I’ll just sit and watch birds and clouds.

Let the adventure begin!

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Filed under Castle Willett, Paul

February 17, 2022 · 23:51

Moon Rising Over The Valley

It was clear and cool with the moon rising, one day past full. The picture from the iPhone was nice, but a bit blurry. It was time to get out the tripod and the light bucket lens.

Due west, the lights of Woodland Hills and Tarzana just above the trees at the center, the moon rising at the left. (Blow it up to see a bunch of detail.)

To the north-northwest, looking across the canyon.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Photography

February 16, 2022 · 23:35

The Belt Of Venus

There are astronomical phenomenon that you can observe on most any clear morning or evening if you have a clear sunset or sunrise. Observing them at sunrise means getting up at an hour that’s way, WAAAY before I want to be awake, so let’s talk about sunset!

While the sunset in the west might look great, take a peek behind you just a minute or two after the sun sets. You’ll often see something called the “Belt of Venus,” with a dark, shadowy band at the horizon about as wide as your hand held horizontally at arm’s length, with a broad, diffuse pink band above it.

This was a particularly good apparition of the effect about ten days ago. Through the trees to our east on a wide-angle view, the blue-gray belt at the horizon was quite clear. That’s the Earth’s shadow, rising as the sun is setting opposite it.

Above it you can see the pink glow of refracted sunlight through the atmosphere, the sunlight being bent from the sun below the horizon behind us and spread out, similar to how a rainbow is created.

This is not a small effect needing a telescope or binoculars. It’s literally 180º wide or more!

So the next clear sunset (or sunrise, in reverse order, for the masochists in the group) take a look and impress your friends with your newfound meteorological knowledge!

You do go out and watch the sunsets with your friends, don’t you?

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography