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 7, 2019 · 22:10

Milestone For The Big Blue Max

I told you it would happen!

I kept waiting for the transmission to blow out or some maniac doing 100+ mph in the rain and traffic to take me out in the last mile, leaving it forever stuck on 199,999 miles – but nothing like that happened.

It was uneventful, except for possibly the trivial and inconsequential coincidence that it happened EXACTLY in front of my office, which happens to sit right next to the freeway. That was a tiny bit weird and random.

On to the next 100,000 miles! She may be neither small nor zippy (like Hissy is) but she’s reliable and reasonably comfortable. And we’ve been through a lot together.

Which brings up another point. I know that my kids name their cars and give them personalities because I do and in that sense I’m either an outstanding, super cool role model or a terrible, psychotic one. But does anyone else do this?

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Filed under Castle Willett, Paul

December 6, 2019 · 22:10

Life Commentary In Eleven Words

Some days this just describes the whole shebang:

Stupid server.

Time to count backwards, slowly, in German, from Dreihundertsiebenundvierzig, then reconnect.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul

December 5, 2019 · 23:04

The Red Trees

A couple of weeks ago some of the trees at work went from green to bright yellow overnight. Today I noticed that the trees out in the parking lot had gone red.

 

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Filed under Los Angeles, Photography

December 4, 2019 · 23:17

Friday Night Lights

Well, the pictures are from last Friday. We didn’t see the moon or any clear sky here for the last couple of days.

After a long day of putting up lights, while I was starting to put ladders and boxes and extension cords and tools away because it was getting dark, I spotted the crescent moon and bright Venus off in the west.

I like my Christmas lights, but it’s tough to compete with the light show in the sky some times.

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Filed under Astronomy, Christmas Lights, Photography

December 3, 2019 · 22:17

What’s Up With ATC Tonight?

As I’ve mentioned, we live pretty much right under the extended centerline for Burbank runway 8, which leads us to have 737’s and the like overhead at about 4,000′ all day long. Since I’m an airplane nut, this is not a problem.

It also means that I’m pretty used to which direction planes are coming from 99.99% of the time. So when I’m busy on the computer but I hear one coming from an odd direction, it makes my ears prick up.

When a second one follows, I pull out FlightAware to see what their flight paths are.

(Image from FlightAware)

That first plane (a United flight) came in from the northwest (not so unusual), then did a big 360° turn over Hidden Hills (pretty unusual) before he got lined up and had just exited stage right toward final approach. (For reference and scale, from our house at the blue dot, the 405 Freeway and Van Nuys airport there are about half way to Burbank.)

The second guy (a Southwest flight), currently over Tampa Avenue, came in a bit more normally from the north over Simi Valley, looped a little wide, but was now on final.

Then the third plane (Alaska Airlines Flight 1150) followed the second plane and made an even bigger 360° out over the Santa Monica Mountains and Malibu!

What’s up with Air Traffic Control (ATC) tonight?

Let’s step outside and look toward the southwest and Malibu, shall we?

Yep, there he is!

And, yep! There he goes!

A weather-related issue? Possibly. You can see a storm cell over Topanga State Park to our south. There’s a front moving in and some of the showers were supposed to get severe, but that wasn’t supposed to happen until tomorrow morning.

Spacing? ATC maintains minimum separation between aircraft and if there are a few coming in all at the same time, someone might get told to take the scenic route and linger for a few in order to not crowd anyone else.

Whatever. I got my own personal mini air show! The day got better!

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Filed under Castle Willett, Christmas Lights, Flying, Photography

December 2, 2019 · 23:00

Kotter Was Here

Found in the back yard this weekend.

Forget about Kilroy.

Kotter was here.

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December 1, 2019 · 23:02

Getting Close

The old blue bomber of a mom-mobile van (my 2001 Chrysler Grand Caravan) is finally almost at another big landmark:

I usually only drive it out to the CAF hangar and back on Saturdays these days, and that’s just to keep the fluids circulating and everything getting a little workout. It’s my “spare” vehicle, which is handy when kids come into town (like for the wedding last month!) or when I need to haul a bunch of crap (like when we moved last year!).

It’s about 65 miles out to the hangar and back, so next week should do it. Let’s home it doesn’t do a “Blues Brothers mobile” ten seconds later!

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November 30, 2019 · 23:12

Snow To The North

I understand that snow isn’t that big of a deal to most folks – it happens at least every now and then. Even here in La La Land it’s right there in the mountains for several months of every year and you can see the snowy mountains from time to time, and there are ski resorts within a two or three hour drive of downtown LA.

But the snow level doesn’t always get as low as 3,000 feet. When it does, for a couple of days every few years, the lower mountains that surround all of our valleys and coastal areas can get several inches and look picture postcard like for a day or two

Looking north from Camarillo Airport, you can see the mountains north of Ojai, Santa Paula, and Fillmore.

Hines Peak and other smaller mountains in the area go up to about 6,300 feet, more than high enough to pick up some decent snow accumulations.

Beyond them, Mt. Pinos goes up to 8,848′ and can often have snow until late spring.

This morning at the hangar it all looked very scenic. Then an afternoon and evening of soaking rain came and I’m sure the snow will all be gone below about 7,000′ by morning. But for the Sierra and ski resorts up above 10,000′ it will be an excellent start to the ski season!

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Filed under CAF, Photography, Weather

November 29, 2019 · 23:46

Fiat Lux 2019

The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally the first day of the Christmas lights going up. This year is the latest that Thanksgiving can ever be, November 28th, so there’s no time to delay.

After years of putting up massive numbers of lights at our old house, we moved about eighteen months ago into a much smaller place. So last year was a bit of a learning experience. This year, having one Christmas worth of experience, it went a bit better on day one.

While the lights often look like fine spider webs of colored or sparkling luminescence, there’s a blob over the garage door that defies that.

It’s more like a black widow spider web in form rather than one of those gorgeous, symmetric, orb weaver webs. Just a weird blob of lights in a glob or a clot.

Blob. Glob. Clot.

Might have to do something about that.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Christmas Lights, Photography

November 28, 2019 · 23:53

Thanksgiving 2019

I was curious so I went to see what I wrote her last Thanksgiving. I see that I was probably tired and a bit overwhelmed by the events of the holiday. We had just been through a large brush fire a few weeks earlier. There were a lot of stressors in our lives.

I wrote, “Let’s all hope that next Thanksgiving we can all be thankful that those crises are less threatening than they are this Thanksgiving.”

It’s next Thanksgiving. On a personal basis, a number of issues are better, some much better. On a national, historical, planetary basis, those crises are worse, not better at all.

NEXT Thanksgiving – people, we’ve got to do better!

On a much more granular level, it was a lovely Thanksgiving feast. I hope that you and yours had a wonderful holiday as well.

Tomorrow we start the Christmas lights, weather permitting.

Damn, Thanksgiving is late this year!

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