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 3, 2021 · 23:42

In Transit To A Different Phase

A week ago these were gorgeous, stunning. Now…

…it seems to me that they’re still stunningly gorgeous.

Beauty and worth are not binary, yes or no, on or off.

The colors might have faded, the blooms wilted… But think of the invisible judgement inherent in those words. “Faded.” “Wilted.”

They’re still colorful, elegantly textured, incredibly complex natural constructs.

They’re just in transit to a different phase of their existence. It might no longer pigeonhole conveniently into our arbitrary definition of beauty – but they are still beautiful.

How many other things in the world around us are in the same position?

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

February 2, 2021 · 23:52

Fine Feathered Friends – February 02nd

These guys have probably been around a while but I’ve considered them to be pretty generic – maybe not so much!

The Cornell Merlin app IDs all of these photos as a Yellow-Rumped Warbler.

There’s definitely some yellow on those rumps.

Now that I know what to look for, it’s really obvious when they’re flying – that yellow patch is really prominent.

This guy, however, wants to give me the stink-eye for talking about his butt. Sorry, dude!

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Filed under Critters, Photography

February 1, 2021 · 23:57

Rumbling

Maybe I’ve been to too many airshows (like there could ever be such a thing!) or maybe I’m just attuned to the noises that planes make, but I’ve recently noticed something and tested out my theory yesterday.

Sometimes when I’m working in my home office I will hear a deep rumbling that will last for several minutes. It’s plenty loud enough to get my attention, almost like a large semi idling while parked outside – but we’re on a narrow side street at the top of a freakin’ huge hill, so we get very, very few big trucks up here. They can come up here – the trash trucks are weekly visitors, and every now and then we’ll get a big moving truck or something, but they’re rare. So when I start noticing these sounds several times a week, I got curious.

Yesterday it was cloudy and cool, and that might have helped with the acoustics. But when I heard the sound and it had been going on for a minute or two, long enough to register, I went outside to look. The sound was quite distinct, but fading off to the north. A quick check of my FlightRadar24 app confirmed my suspicion:

We may be on a very narrow, steep hill which discourages trucks, but we’re also directly under the flight path for jumbo jets heading from LAX to Asia. While a great many of the newer big jets have much quieter engines, the older jets are noisy, and many of them have been converted for cargo. That rumbling I had just heard was a KAL cargo 747 headed to Seoul.

Is it repeatable?

Two hours early I heard it again and didn’t wait, immediately went outside. Too cloudy to see anything, but the app showed that it was another cargo 747 headed to Seoul, this time from Atlas Air.

I love the sound of jet engines in the morning! Or, in this case, the late afternoon and evening. Or whenever.

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Filed under Flying, Los Angeles

January 31, 2021 · 22:14

No Context For You – January 31st

Has this felt like the longest freakin’ month, following the longest freakin’ year, in anyone’s recent memory? Like, I’m sure for those living in Europe or Asia or even here in the US during 1939 through 1945 had their own fair amount of stress, and I’m not sure we can really claim to top that. Then there was that Civil War in the 1860’s, the Black Death in the 1300’s, and so on and so on.

It’s not a competition.

But in our lifetimes, and I’m getting close to being officially “old” by government standards, this is pretty unprecedented.

On the other hand…

A lot of my personal issues revolve around my workload. Between my job (year-end, budget, annual Board Meeting – and mind you, this is the best job and the best work crew that I’ve ever been with) and the hangar (again, year end, audit coming up, some “issues” that had to be dealt with on a tight schedule) and personal life (holiday, Christmas lights, plus all of the “normal” stuff that needs to fit into the schedule, plus the aches and pains of getting older and this shoulder that’s acting up) I’m trying to stuff ten pounds of pickles into a five-pound pickle bag. Remember those guys who used to spin plates on top of tall bamboo sticks on The Ed Sullivan Show? Yeah, I feel like them with about a dozen plates going and trying for just one more…

The good news is that I’m winning some of the battles, particularly this week. The annual budget, a HUGE project, has been approved and most everyone’s happy. Other big “drop everything” projects that popped up in the middle of the budget process have paid off. There’s progress and I can see the end of the tunnel on preparations for the hangar audit. And so on.

So the accomplishments feel great – let’s not forget that there are hundreds of hours of follow up and implementation and then all those things that got shoved off onto the back burners to get the high priority items done, and…

The accomplishments feel great. Oh, and someone’s favorite football team is going to be in the Super Bowl for the second straight year this Sunday, so that might be spectacular as well. And things in Washington are…better? That helps.

As for the photo, I suspect it’s the equivalent of a “butt dialed” phone call, somehow accidentally triggering the camera while I was carrying the phone. Maybe Siri thought that I wanted her to take the picture. She’s a eager little minx, always willing to please, but sometimes a little bit too eager.

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Filed under Photography

January 30, 2021 · 23:47

Someone Hates Rainbows – Or He Hates Me

My money’s on me…

Just after the rainbow pictures from yesterday, I noticed a woodpecker out in the neighbor’s tree, then in ours. I was trying (with marginal success) to get some pictures and in the process suddenly noticed that someone was LOUD and appeared to be seriously pissed off with me (sound up!) –

The way he started circling made it clear to me that he didn’t like me being in the yard – what have I ever done to him?

The video stops when I shut down the iPhone to try to get some pictures of him with the good camera in the other hand. He kept squawking at me for another 10 or 15 seconds, but as soon as I brought up the camera with the telephoto lens, he was outta there!

Crows can be very smart – I wonder if he saw the device with the big snout pointed at him (my camera, not my face…wiseass) and thought that it might be a weapon. Unless he stops by again to yell at me and deigns to chat, I guess we’ll never know.

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Filed under Critters, Video

January 29, 2021 · 20:25

Chasing Rainbows

Which sounds like it should be a song…and apparently is, at least three times. But this isn’t about that.

Scattered showers all day after some pretty solid rain last night. Great! We needed it! Finally, this afternoon about 16:00 I noticed some sunlight out in front. But it still looked damp and drizzly. Good conditions for rainbows, right? Low, bright sun in the west, dark, moody clouds in the east, drizzle in between?

Well…okay. Sort of weak, off to the north, but those white, low clouds just above the rooftops lend atmosphere? Maybe today’s not the day for rainbows after all. So I went into the house and looked out the back doors to the east…

WOWSERS!!

These pictures really, REALLY don’t do justice to how stinking BRIGHT this rainbow segment was. I’m sure it’s a combination of the bright sun behind us and the dark clouds overhead and behind it, but jeez louise!! It was like some kind of Hollywood special effect, or a cartoon ad for some kids’ cereal!

Maybe for some reason this lens/camera combination isn’t picking up the colors. What about the other camera?

Better… What about the cell phone?

Better! And part of the problem is all of the bushes and trees in the way. Move! Bob and weave! Serpentine!!

There we go! It was amazing, truly.

I played with the exposure settings on the iPhone a couple of times – some seemed to work and bring out more contrast in color.

To the naked eye, it was trivially easy to see the (left to right, inside to outside) violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red bands. And even more amazing, it was out there for a good half hour or more. It faded a bit after those first couple of minutes, but it stuck around for a while!

Maybe that’s a sign. We could use some beauty and peace and calm in the world right now. There’s plenty of good out there, but it’s a royal pain to have to sort through so much bullshit to find it. Having it splashed across the sky so much that it literally makes you yell “WOW!” when you see it? That’s a good thing.

 

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Filed under Photography, Weather

January 28, 2021 · 23:08

Sixty Seconds Of Rain

It’s finally arrived after days of anticipation – the first big rain of the season in SoCal. Here – enjoy sixty seconds of the cool (47°F), dark, sounds of the rain in the back yard:

 

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Filed under Video, Weather

January 27, 2021 · 23:47

Fine Feathered Friends – January 27th

So, now that we have some time to breathe, and even more importantly, breathe OUT and not just keep inflating ourselves and building toward a point where we pop like a balloon (a horrible, bloody, gory, ‘splody meat balloon), I’ve noticed a few new visitors to the yard. Or, at least, I’m getting better at catching them on camera and the Cornell Lab Merlin app for IDing birds is a pretty neat tool for making the identification.

This guy was in the front yard last week (you can tell it was last week, because the sun was out) and while I knew he was some sort of sparrow (probably)…

…the markings on his head made me think that he wasn’t a common sparrow.

Merlin ID’d him as a White-crowned Sparrow. See, he looks impressed that I figured it out!

Actually, I think that these birds only have one thought when I’m taking their picture, and that’s, “LEAVE ME ALONE, I’M EATING! Do I bother you when you’re trying to catch or find your dinner and eat it?!”

Fair point.

But it’s my yard, so get over it.

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Filed under Critters, Photography

January 26, 2021 · 23:42

Random Old Photos – January 26th

Almost eight years ago. Coincidentally the same trip when I took the picture that became the header photo for this site a month later (and still is).

Angels spring training in Arizona, this game at Tempe Diablo Stadium. In back of the field there’s a big hillside. Personally, I would rather pay the $10 (or whatever) to sit in a seat and have access to food, drinks, bathrooms, and a decent view rather be up with the rattlesnakes and scorpions (a decidedly non-zero probability in those parts), but that’s just me.

It’s also weird looking at these pictures (and I’ve been noticing it a lot in videos of all sorts of sporting events from previous years) and seeing no one even dreaming of wearing a mask or practicing social distancing.

I doubt we’ll see that opportunity for spring training in March of this year.

Well, belay that. It is Arizona, and they haven’t been real strict about COVID restrictions. There’s a reason that the San Francisco 49er’s played their last few games out of Phoenix, and the San Jose Sharks are right now playing their “home” games there. It’s possible that for spring training in seven or eight weeks they’ll have some fans in the stands.

We won’t be among them, even if it is “legal.” If the last four years have taught us anything, there’s often a world of difference between “legal” and “smart.” And in those cases, “legal” can also lead to “dead.”

Even if the rattlesnake doesn’t bite you on the leg while you’re traipsing through the desert mountainside in shorts and flip-flops.

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Filed under Los Angeles, Photography

January 25, 2021 · 22:56

Art – January 25th

Too cold for real world scuba diving in LA today, so with the help of Photoshop, we’ll go there virtually.

Sort of.

Deadlines have been met. Accomplishments have been recorded. Credit has been bestowed.

Damn, I’m tired.

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Filed under Art