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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
August 9, 2021 · 22:29

Mt San Jacinto State Park – Part Two Of Three

About two weeks ago we spent a couple of days in Palm Springs and we took the Palm Springs Aerial Tram up to the top of Mt San Jacinto. Once there I took a couple hours to hike the Desert View Trail – I had thought that I was going on a 15-30 minute quick day hike (which would have been the Nature Loop) but instead took the longer, more difficult loop.

A bit more climbing after leaving Notch One. To show how unprepared I was, I didn’t even know how many “notches” there were. (Five.) I figured there would be spots to view the desert below (thus the “Desert View Trail” nomenclature, DUH!) but didn’t have any details. Ignorance is bliss and I was VERY blissful that day.

Notch Two looks back toward Palm Springs, visible between the trees. (Click to enlarge.)

Right next to Notch Two, just looking off more to the north, is Notch Three.

From here the trail has little ups and downs but is generally level-ish, but still a bit narrow and rocky.

I ran into a few folks doing the loop trail the other direction. (There isn’t a right or wrong way.) A few, particularly those with grade school aged kids, were wondering how much further they had to go to the top. I gave them what information I had. Inevitably, the kids always wanted to go on to the top, having no clue about what I was describing as far as their trail ahead and having endless energy to proceed. The parents were more skeptical, but all pressed on. (Been there – done that!)

Notch Four had the best views, looking north through the haze.

There were also places that weren’t “official” notches, but still had great views.

Along the little ridge tops there were always fallen trees and many that were split, perhaps by lightning. I remember enough of my Boy Scout days to know that if I heard thunder or saw lightning I would be putting it into gear to get off the ridge tops.

I also loved looking at these skeletal remains of these scraggly pines. (Bristlecone pines?) At this elevation, in an area that doesn’t get much rain, trying to grab a spot in the rock cracks, this isn’t a very friendly environment. It did its best, but I think it’s lost this fight.

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Filed under Photography, Travel

August 8, 2021 · 23:15

Mt San Jacinto State Park – Part One Of Three

I took a few minutes to start sorting through the pictures from the anniversary trip two weeks ago. I’ve mentioned that we took the Palm Springs Aerial Tram up to the top of Mt San Jacinto and once there I took a couple hours to hike the Desert View Trail.

From the upper terminal of the tram, you descend about 180 feet in elevation down a twisting, paved path.

At the bottom you find yourself in Long Valley.

Unlike the desert floor in Palm Springs, over a mile in elevation behind you, up here there’s a pine forest.

It’s a state wilderness park, so some of the trees are down and left that way, naturally.

After a flat and easy quarter-mile hike, the trail starts to get slightly more difficult, getting rockier, narrower, and rising a bit.

Stay on the trails! Not that you could get too lost up here (there are a fair number of other hikers) but because we want to preserve the wilderness areas.

The textures, the details, the sights are everywhere.

The trees are really tall and spectacular.

After going back up about 200 feet in elevation, you get to Notch One, where you can look down onto the desert valley floor below you.

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Filed under Photography, Travel

August 7, 2021 · 22:56

Other Stuff I Learned This Week

First of all, what I as a kid referred to as a “steam roller” is obviously not run by steam any more (and probably wasn’t then). They’re now called just “rollers” and the ones being used in our street are smaller than the huge ones putting down interstate highways. (See #4, the combination roller, on this page.)

The second thing I learned is that the “HMA” these machines operate on are NOT “Health Management Associates” or “Health Management Administrators,” although after everything that COVID has put them through, I don’t doubt that those HMAs feel like they’ve been run over with a roller. No, in this case “HMA” means “Hot Mix Asphalt.”

I’m assuming.

Finally, you might have noticed that one page refers to “Vibratory Compaction Rollers.” It’s the “vibratory” part that sent me down this particular rabbit hole.

You see, during this whole re-paving process (which, as I said last night, isn’t over and will start over again first thing Monday morning) there has been a significant amount of noise. Noise-cancelling headphones help, but even they have met their match with the grinders, sweepers, dump trucks, pavers, rollers, asphalt spreaders, and so on. But the rollers have by far been the worse. When you get a couple of these right out in front of your house, maybe 30 or 40 feet from the house, the whole house starts to vibrate and bounce from the noise.

But I realized that it wasn’t just the noise. There were moments that got MUCH louder, accompanied by vibrations that had stuff on my desk bouncing around and pictures on the wall threatening to come down. But it wasn’t random. A little bit of observation made it clear that it was occurring when the rollers were rolling forward. It didn’t take too much of a leap of logic to figure out they were the cause and that they were probably doing it to more efficiently and thoroughly compact the newly laid layer of asphalt. And the results of the rabbit hole dive proved that guess to be correct.

On the other hand, before I figured it out… Well, let’s just remind everyone that I’ve lived out here in SoCal for over 47 years, including a VERY close encounter with the Northridge Earthquake back in 1994, so when everything vibrates and starts bouncing and getting very loud, my first instinct is to “desk dive,” assuming that it’s an earthquake. The repeated and rhythmic nature of the vibration events gave it away quickly – but the brain stem knows what the brain stem knows, and the PTSD memories come back quickly.

Monday we do it again!

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Filed under Castle Willett, Los Angeles

August 6, 2021 · 23:45

No Context For You – August 06th

With all of the huge machinery lumbering up and down the street during repaving this week (and it’s not over by any means, they’ll be back on Monday morning) I’ve learned things.

One is an almost childlike joy in looking at and watching REALLY BIG FREAKIN’ MACHINES!

So many buttons, valves, gauges, and monstrously large sections of metal designed to shred rock and pavement and concrete and…

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Filed under Paul, Photography

August 5, 2021 · 23:59

Where Does The Time Go?

It’s 23:55 and I’m still trying to hit deadlines…

Have a picture from Lost Wages.

Bellagio on the left (where we stayed on a previous trip), Caesar’s Palace (where we were staying this time) on the right.

Stories good and bad about both – but what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas? Maybe.

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August 4, 2021 · 22:28

ISS Pass – August 04th

It’s getting near the end of the “season” for great ISS passes here. The high beta angle period has passed and after the next few days we’ll be moving back to mostly morning passes. Like, 04:00-ish morning. Uh, no thanks!

But for tonight, there was a spectacular, almost horizon-to-horizon pass, going almost through the zenith (87º maximum) and at mag -3.8.

The problem was that it was just a bit too early and too bright to be taking longer (3 or 4 second) exposures, and even one-second exposures would be bright and potentially overexposed. But taking shorter exposures, as we’ve learned, can overwhelm the older camera and memory cards, taking pictures faster than they can be saved.

I took a shot at it, with one-second exposures and about one-second pauses between photos. The end result came out great, heading from just before the zenith to the eastern horizon, although it looks a bit more like a dashed line than normal, with the gaps being the longer pauses between shots to give the camera time to keep up.

I like it!

This is that wide angle, “light bucket” lens that I like so much, with an easy and almost perfect focus at infinity, so it looks clean and sharp. Later I went out when it was fully dark and played with what it would do in LA’s light polluted and slightly hazy skies, with interesting results. I’ll share those in the next couple of days after I get some time to go through them.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Space

August 3, 2021 · 23:37

Complex Textures

High level perspective – a bit of worn and extremely weathered log from the Mount San Jacinto State Park.

Closer perspective – an almost infinitely complex, fractal-like surface formed by strictly random, natural forces.

Alternate perspective – part of the biological cycles of an infinitesimally small speck of a planet, third rock from the primary star in a semi-deserted, backwater part of a completely average galaxy, one of a few million billion trillion completely average galaxies, returning nutrients assembled together over a century or more back to the soil and the next generation of plants and critters.

Private perspective – stunning beauty “hidden” in the world around us, “hidden” only by the fact that 99.99% of my fellow hikers walking by don’t even bother to look, let alone see.

Personal perspective – getting this wrapped up in grokking a rotting log, using all five senses, and then feeling the imperative to share with everyone probably indicates to most that there was (or is) “mood enhancing” medicinal self-medication involved. Nope, just a natural high, that John Denver school of zen, getting in touch with the Universe on a very personal and intimate level.

Or it was oxygen deprivation from being at 8,500 feet.

Either way, it was the finest kind.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul, Photography, Travel

August 2, 2021 · 23:28

I Could Drive That!

Boring sunset – clear and a million. Makes for a limited canvas for the colors to be painted on.

But wait – what’s this? It’s been a noisy and dusty and HOT day, and I think I’ve identified the source of two of those three.

I’ll bet that there’s no alarm on that thing, and maybe they left the keys in it.

How hard can it be to drive? Push a couple buttons, see what happens, learn quick!

What could go wrong?

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Filed under Farce, Freakin' Idiots!, Photography

August 1, 2021 · 23:37

Sometimes It Gets Orange Outside

Last Friday I noticed that the light coming through the living room drapes was looking very orange. This could be very good, or very very bad.

Good is a colorful sunset, somewhere on the colorful scale between “Cool!” and “HOLY GUACAMOLE, BATMAN, THAT’S SPECTACULAR!!!”

This would have been probably just below the mid-range on that scale. Definitely worth grabbing the camera for and watching while it unfolds.

Bad, of course, means something very near by is burning. We’ve seen that in this neighborhood, and at this second there are plenty o’ places on the West Coast that are seeing that in spades. We, however, are not in that crisis today.

So after busy weeks trying to cram work in so I can go on vacation with a calm mind, a busy week of vacation, a busy busy week back from vacation catching up on work, an extremely busy weekend taking care of one (figurative, not literal) brush fire after another, now it’s time to dive into a new month and a new busy busy week with more deadlines and projects and tasks and pressure than I can keep track of.

So watch the sunset, check for new lizards under the car (one was there, we had a nice talk – it wasn’t the teeny tiny one from Friday, nor Doctor Lizardo, but a new, smallish but not skittish one – warned him about the birds and the raccoon), see if the next round of roses are coming back in (not yet), and fantasize about days to come (which aren’t coming, let’s get real) where I can just read, relax, listen to music, watch movies, and do it all without a deadline or responsibility in the world.

Welcome to August. Wear a mask. Get vaccinated. Stay safe.

So I’ll wat

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets

July 31, 2021 · 23:36

No Context For You – July 31st

It’s been a really long day following a really long week – but in the end the good guys triumphed.

Congrats to all involved. You know who you are. Love you all! 🧡🧡🧡 (That’s Mars Orange, BTW…)

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Filed under Family, Photography