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…)
Author Archives: momdude
The Tiniest Lizard
I had thought that the new lizards generally hatched in early spring, like late April to early May. That’s when I’ve seen some of the smaller ones last year and this. But today when bringing in the trash barrels I spooked one who’s itsy-bitsy and teeny-tiny and can’t be that old, but he’s late if he’s just hatched. Whatever. He skittered, I froze, he froze, I very, very, very slowly and carefully pulled out my phone and thumbed it on, and he was nice enough to sit still for four quick pictures, leaning down a bit on each one. The he said, “Hit it, Chewie!” and jumped to light speed into the bushes.
Can you see him?
He probably isn’t more than two inches long at most. I think he was sunning himself on or under that black plastic debris that blew in today. Maybe I’ll leave it there for now. It’s a tough universe out there – we all can use a little help.
Filed under Critters, Photography
The View From The Station At The Top
Riding up the Palm Springs Aerial Tram to the station at the top of the ridge near Mount San Jacinto Peak (the Peak itself is only reachable by a steep hike of several miles and 745 meters/2445 feet elevation gain), this is the panoramic view you get looking off the balcony and into the back country.
(Clickety click on the image to see it full sized)
The Peak at 3300 meters / 10834 feet is off to the right, behind those rocks and trees.
You can see several stretches and switchbacks on the ramp that winds down to the Ranger Station in Long Valley. The website says it’s about 100 feet in elevation, but I found a topographic map that says it’s about 55 meters, which is about 180 feet. That sounds like a much more reasonable figure to me.
Filed under Panorama, Photography, Travel
Staying Ahead
Staying ahead of the aircraft – it’s a mantra when learning to fly. Flying with just one pilot, no copilot, something’s always happening or about to happen and to be safe you always want to be anticipating what’s next and being ready for it. Don’t react to what the plane’s doing, or the weather, or upcoming radio calls or course changes. Stay ahead of the aircraft.
Same thing in daily living is a good plan of attack. Whether it’s at the office, going hiking, going on a trip, or anything else. Stay ahead of the…whatever. Be proactive, not reactive.
That transition from “vacation” back to “normal” has had its challenges these last three days. My main feeling, particularly at work, is that I’m reactive, discombobulated. I need to get back to being proactive and recombobulated.
So, tomorrow. Work smarter, not harder.
Kick ass, take names.
Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.
Use your clichés, they’re your friends.
And don’t jump unless you’ve got a parachute or a honkin’ big cable attached to your back. It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul, Photography, Travel
Long Valley Flowers
Last Saturday we were in Palm Springs. One of the things that I love to do but don’t do nearly often enough is hiking out in the woods and getting out into the wild a bit.
Outside of Palm Springs is the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which goes from the desert floor (at about 2,600′ elevation and 110ºF+) to the top of San Jacinto Peak (at about 8,500′ elevation and 65ºF). At the station on the top there’s a fairly steep ramp that goes down about 100′ to the floor of Long Valley where there are a couple of short (0.75 miles and 1.50 miles) day hike trails. I took the longer, “Desert View Loop” trail.
Along the way I saw these flowers.
They really stand out!
No clue what they are. A Google image search found a lot of African flowers that are bright red and growing out of pine needle ground cover, but the closest I found for a southwest US setting was captioned “scarlet gilia, also called skyrocket.” That ‘s probably not quite correct, but it might be close.
Anyway, when I eventually go out on what I thought was going to be a 30 minute day hike over flat ground and instead spend two hours going 2.5 miles at 8,415 feet including two fairly steep trails going up a couple hundred feet and thin air with (STUPIDLY!! 🤨 Yes, I do know better 😫 ) no water at my age thinking in my poor, pathetic brain that I’m still 25 instead of 65, when that day comes and it finally kills me (I hope that day will be far in the future, but…), plant some of these on my grave. 😁
Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Flowers, Freakin' Idiots!, Health, Paul, Photography, Travel
Gator Bite
The first day back from a vacation can be it’s own special Hell. Today was survivable, but there were definitely some curve balls being thrown.
Of course there was the “back to work” thing. Remember, I really like my job and the folks that I work with, and they’re all really good at what they do and our corporate culture includes an expectation that folks who are off the clock are to be left alone unless it’s really, REALLY an emergency. We didn’t have any emergencies, so there weren’t any big surprises, just dealing with the upcoming end-of-the-month deadlines that were there before I left. And a couple of “out of left field” issues, but that can be true most any day.
The first more ominous issues came when Hissy wouldn’t start. At all. Six days of driving, somewhere between 800 and 900 miles through desert temps up to 115ºF, and she had performed like a champ. Now, with no warning, she was dead as a doornail. My first guess was that it was the battery, but I was a bit tied up with work tasks at the moment, so troubleshooting got put off until later in the day.
But I did see that she had taken a “gator bite” right on the hood.
We had a couple of things in those 900 miles that jumped up and tried to bite us. I remember suspecting that we had been hit by a “gator,” a long strip of truck tire that was lying in the middle of the freeway. It had gotten hit by a car in front of us, thrown up into the air, and bashed into us. I actually thought that it had hit at the top of the windshield (so maybe I should look for a second mark on the roof?) but right there across the hood is a nice, clear print of tire tread. Given that it could have hit the grill and busted out the radiator, or hit the windshield and shattered it (which in turn could have been problematic if I lost control of the car at 75 or 80 mph), I guess needing only a little cleanup on the hood is an acceptable outcome.
As for why she wouldn’t start? I had pulled out my jumper cables and went to attach them, only to find that the negative battery cable was completely loose. The clamp was still on the post, but barely, and the nut on the tightening clamp was ready to fall completely off. All I had to do was tighten it with my fingers and Hissy fired right back up. The navigation system was “lost” and needed to reboot and some of the radio pre-sets were erased due to the power outage, but all of that was quickly repaired. No muss, no fuss!
Some days “good enough” is simply good enough. Especially for a Monday, the first day back at work after vacation.
Filed under Paul, Photography
Home Again, Home Again
It was an interesting foray back out into the “real world” and travel for six days in a time of COVID.
We were masked whenever we were indoors, and a lot of the time when we were outdoors. Other people? Not so much. In Las Vegas it might have been 25% to 33% or so masked in the casinos, about 2% or so outside, even in crowds. About the same in Palm Springs for the general public. In Las Vegas there’s a new mask order for employees, and about 99% of them were masked. I don’t know if there’s a new masking order for the Palm Springs area or San Bernardino County (Los Angeles County does have one) but it seemed that most employees were masked up.
My biggest concern is that the times when we were indoors and had to get unmasked were when we were eating. Of necessity, most everyone else (except the employees) were eating and thus unmasked as well. We’ll see if that bites us in the ass over the next week or two.
Finally, a potential sign of impending doom comes from my fondness for this, which was in the window of a very hoity-toity, upscale boutique in Caesar’s Palace, where I would walk by it a couple times of day:
They probably had someone putting in overtime to get my nose prints, finger prints, and drool marks off the glass.
It should be noted CLEARLY for the record that I do not know how to ride a motorcycle, I have not (to the best of my memory) EVER even been ON a motorcycle, and that even if I were to start to learn how to ride a motorcycle (which could happen, I guess) it would be extremely wise to start with a much, MUCH smaller motorcycle and work my way up with experience. A good analogy would be my flying – I have been trained to fly a small, single engine aircraft such as a Cessna 150 or 172 and no matter how much I might want to fly a P-51 Mustang or an F-14 Tomcat, there’s a serious experience and learning curve between here and there.
And yet… Drool marks.
No doubt signs of a long delayed and well earned midlife crisis, perhaps. Or serious, major league dementia.
Filed under CoronaVirus, Paul, Photography, Travel
Highs & Lows
Big highs today – finally got to go up the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway to the top of Mount San Jacinto, then went for a hike.
The low was going to get a lemon-lime Gatorade out of the vending machine afterward and instead of the routine, standard, expected lemon-lime, getting this abomination from Hell:
There are some sick and demented product managers out there in Pepsiland. Just sayin’,,,
Filed under Photography, Travel
Leaving Las Vegas
Our four days in Las Vegas were up. Leaving town we passed a site where I expect to return some day as a sworn enemy.
“There is evil there which does not sleep…”
But why “as a sworn enemy” you might ask if you’re not familiar with American professional sports? “Evil”?
Oh. Yeah. That.
My current masks have attracted a bit of notice in Las Vegas. This is a good thing!
Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports
Always An Interesting Place
It cooled down a bit (low 90’s) after sunset and we were out of other set plans, so I went out walking the Strip for a couple of hours.
(Embiggenate by clickenating, as always)
“Interesting” is a great descriptor of this place – in all of the many and varied interpretations of that term!
Filed under Panorama, Photography, Travel
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 