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
December 27, 2019 · 23:46

It’s A Fine Line

…between tradition and madness.

The cards were received two weeks ago, and signed about ten days ago.

The mailing list has been updated and edited for address changes, returns from last year, and those who are no longer celebrating with us.

The inserts have been written, edited, and printed.

The labels have been generated and printed.

The first batches of cards are in the mail, more will go out tomorrow, the rest by the end of the weekend.

Hey, when you get your card, look at the “Total Eclipse” stamps we’re using this year – put your thumb or finger on the eclipsed sun for a few seconds and the full moon appears! How could I *not* get these and use them?

If you don’t get your card in the next week, well – do I have an address for you? Only you can solve that issue.

As for “madness,” since it’s still something I really enjoy, and since I have a fair number of people tell me how much they enjoy getting our cards every year, I’m going to say it’s still “tradition.” And a good one, at that.

Watch the mailboxes!

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Filed under Castle Willett

December 26, 2019 · 23:37

Never Too Many Christmas Lights

So, here’s the “new” lights I put up on the far side of the driveway this year, as seen from the back yard, looking toward the street, as I was doing the traditional Christmas Day BBQ last night:

A) Because they’re pretty and I like them, and;

B) Because all of a sudden instead of relaxing at this time of year, between the holiday and shopping and wrapping and trying to get the (late, late) cards done and in the mail and work and the budget and prepping for year-end close and the hangar and prepping for year-end close and annual audits for both coming at me like a freight train, I’m slightly busier than God, so posting a single picture and a (relatively) short rant, it’s all I have time for if I want to at least get five hours of sleep tonight… (wait, has this thing been on the whole time?)

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Photography

December 25, 2019 · 18:48

Christmas Day 2019

I hope that everyone had a Christmas Day that was as calm or exciting as they wanted or needed, with as much or as little drama as requested, and that everyone had been good (enough) this year so that Santa brought them what they wanted.

If you didn’t get everything you want, it’s never to early to start planning for next year.

Here’s a short video of our lights turning on:

And a picture of what it looks like after dark:

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, y’all!

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Filed under Castle Willett, Christmas Lights, Photography, Video

December 24, 2019 · 23:50

Christmas Eve 2019

It was a new Christmas Eve tradition – Chinese dinner

The tree and presents are ready.

I hope you and your family have a most happy holiday filled with laughter and love, no matter what your celebrations entail.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Christmas Lights, Photography

December 23, 2019 · 23:42

Full Of Holiday Cheer Yet?

Someone at the office who will remain nameless (it wasn’t me, really – I wish it had been, it was brilliant) brought in an inflatable, life-sized figure from a popular Christmas movie. It was set up where it stared at me all day. (Brilliant!)

Then I was staying late to get something finished up and came around the corner to find it STILL trying to scare the crap out of me even when deflated.

So, are YOU full of holiday cheer yet?

No? Better get your ass in gear, Bubba, it’s Christmas Eve in twenty minutes!!

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Photography

December 22, 2019 · 22:57

Bizarre Perspective

The season advanced, the neighbor’s trees with the giant, dried up leaves finally had enough, the wind picked up, and in a matter of fifteen to twenty minutes between the time I left the house and the time I came back, there were leaves everywhere. In the street. Filling the gutters.

All over our lawn.

In the bushes

 

On the porch.


The offending trees next door.

It struck me that I have a bizarre perspective on this sort of thing, especially compared to that from my childhood. On the one hand, from the viewpoint of my life here, both in the “here in this particular house” and in the “here in Southern California” frame, this was an unusual and noteworthy event. I made everything look different. On the other hand, from the viewpoint of my much younger self, growing up in the midwest and New England, this was absolutely normal and borderline trivial.

There was a voice shouting in my head, just a bit shocked at my attitude. Perhaps with the tiniest bit of outrage.

It’s. Just. A. Few. Hundred. Leaves. Falling. Onto. The. Grass. In. Fall!!!

In Vermont, by mid-October there were parts of our yard where we would literally be knee-deep in leaves. We had a couple of maple trees that would turn bright red so it all looked very pretty, but it was more of a chore to clean up than an event. The first few hundred leaves falling didn’t mean that a novelty was being presented to us – it simply meant that it was time to get raking.

Yet here in SoCal – not so much, at least not these leaves, today.

I found it somewhat disconcerting, odd, yet couldn’t shake it every time I saw the leaves out there.

So I took the pictures and chose to share the story and my accompanying feelings of disconnect.

Will I start raking the leaves? Nope. That’s why the landlord has gardeners. Not for me to deal with.

Which is also more than a little bit disconcerting.

 

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December 21, 2019 · 23:24

Maintenance Hangar After Dark

It’s the off season for air shows and most of our ride programs. It’s time for annual inspections and maintenance. After hours tonight the new hangar had a large party going in it (event location rentals are a significant source of our operating revenue), the museum hangar was dark, but the maintenance hangar was still bustling with activity.

The PBJ bomber’s starboard engine has been re-hung and is being prepped for testing. Both props just got checked and are on a holding stand on the left.

Our SNJ-5 “290” was pulled in for some routine maintenance.

Our new PT-19 trainer is being checked out thoroughly before being put into the fleet.

The F6F Hellcat (wings folded) is undergoing her annual, while the little Navion is having her prop worked on. Off in the distance, the party was going strong, with guests walking in getting a chance to see the aircraft inside.

Never a dull moment with sixteen aircraft!

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Filed under CAF, Photography

December 20, 2019 · 23:19

Solstice 2019

Contrary to what the Evangelicals might want you to believe, the solstice really is “the reason for the season.”

It’s the longest night of the year. Our ancestors, whose most advanced technology was that newfangled “fire,” knew what today was. Their lives depended on it. Millennia of hard-won wisdom had taught them when to plant, when to harvest, when to hunt, when to store, all based on the cycles of the stars and the sun.

Orion’s bright these days (well, except for Betelgeuse, but that’s another story), the days are short, the nights are long, and those who didn’t understand the wheres and whys of it all had to have wondered every year if this year might be the year that the days just kept getting shorter and shorter until they disappeared altogether.

But it wasn’t. From here, over the next weeks and months, the days will get longer and warmer and the world will turn green again.

Either as an offering to the unseen, unknowable gods or as a celebration of having made it to the day alive, celebrations centered around the solstice go back to the dawn of time. Myriad tribes, nations, and religions have all appropriated the occasion time after time for their own celebrations (looking at you, Christianity!), mainly to avoid standing out like a sore thumb and getting killed for their beliefs.

Today it’s all about the commercialism and that portly dude with the white beard and red suit, our own appropriation of the time for our own true religion. Well, that and Hallmark Christmas movies. Which might be the next wave of appropriation.

It’s parties, year-end pressure, the pressure to find the perfect gifts, all topped off with maybe a touch of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

And lights. To fight the darkness, even when we lived in caves, we fought off the darkness with light. If the skies couldn’t provide it, we would make our own and light the path for the warmer days to find their way back to us. That tradition carries back right to the strings of lights covering our yard, house, and bushes. I’m not sure that our prehistoric ancestors would have understood the 20,000 tiny, colored LEDs, but they would have appreciated it.

Tomorrow the day will be a little bit longer.

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Filed under Astronomy, Christmas Lights

December 19, 2019 · 21:18

High & Fast

As always on a crisp, cold morning, when the contrails are razor sharp…

…I wonder where they’re going and wishing that I was going along.

Christmas with family? A holiday getaway from the daily grind? A honeymoon? A funeral?

Off they went to their adventures. Off I went to my routine.

On general principles, I started the day behind on points.

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Filed under Photography, Travel

December 18, 2019 · 23:01

New York, New York (Pictures Day 21)

In summary: New York City had a life of it’s own in my head. In early August 2016, I visited there for the first time. On the first afternoon we visited Central Park and were there for hours, despite the jet lag. Day One started with a tour of the Intrepid and the Space Shuttle Enterprise, followed by the full two and a half hour cruise around Manhattan – south down the Hudson River into the Upper Harbor, up the East River under the “BMW” bridges, past Midtown and the UN, into the Harlem River, back south into the Hudson River, underneath the George Washington Bridge, past Grant’s Tomb, and finally back into port. To finish Day Two we had a death march to find a cab, went to the Mets game, left early only to miss the best part, and inadvertently stiffed a nice cab driver. Bright & early on Day Three we headed out toward Liberty Island – it’s hard to take a bad picture there, then went to Ellis Island. Bank on Manhattan, we went to World Trade Center Museum, which was emotional & grueling. Day Four started out with a trip to Times Square, after which we headed to the Empire State Building. The views of Manhattan were spectacular! Then we went to Yankee Stadium for a game.

Because it was Alex Rodriguez’s final game, there was a huge crowd and a big pre-game ceremony planned. The weather, on the other hand, had other ideas and the grounds crew got ready to roll out the tarp.

And not a moment too soon. We were just a row or two under the 2nd deck overhang, so we were relatively safe from being too soaked.

As the storm moved over the stadium, the winds started roaring (see the flags?) and the underside of the storm cell looked like movie special effects for “all Hell’s going to break loose.”

Despite the fact that it was something like 90 minutes before sunset, it got black as night with thunder rumbling constantly out of the clouds right overhead. Good thing we weren’t sitting right next to a humongous yellow steel pole sticking up in the air a hundred feet or so, right?!!

That sick yellow color on the underside of the clouds doesn’t make you feel better about the situation when 30 seconds before it was pitch black.

ARod was out there trying to be ceremonial. My concern was that he was out there with his family and a few dignitaries while the end of the freakin’ world was rolling in from the west. Don’t they understand what bad PR it would be for ARod and his family to be killed by lightning in the middle of this farewell ceremony?

And these dudes out there warming up? I can only conclude that they wanted to make sure that ARod didn’t get fricasseed alive alone by Thor throwing thunderbolts. Probably a team camaraderie thing. Or they’re really freakin’ stupid, I could go either way.

The skies finally opened up and they cut the ARod ceremony short. See, there IS a god!

The rain passed after a half-hour or so of downpour and the game finally got underway . We almost never leave a ballgame before the end, but we were exhausted and chose to bug out early. Someday I’ll get back to Yankee Stadium and take a more thorough tour, camera in hand.

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Filed under Photography, Sports, Travel, Weather