Author Archives: momdude

momdude's avatar

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
October 18, 2019 · 23:39

Ash

I hadn’t driven the Volvo in a while, but I had left the windows cracked open so that it wouldn’t fry inside setting in the sun.

When I did get in there, I realized that it had been open like that while last week’s brush fires had been going on about ten miles upwind from us.

Configured like that, it made a perfect little trap for ash and debris blown by the wind. The seats, floor mats, window sills, and controls were all covered with ash, twigs, and detritus. (I love that word!)

It’s also a good indicator of how these fires spread so damn fast in high winds. All of this was obviously cool by the time it got here, probably because it was fairly light. But much closer to the fire line, where the hot, heavier stuff is being carried, the fire will keep jumping and jumping, a couple miles at a time, hot embers falling into dry brush, dead leaves, the tops of palm trees…and the cars of people who left the windows cracked open.

Something to be remembered for next time, especially if the fire isn’t ten miles away!

Leave a comment

Filed under Disasters, Los Angeles, Photography

October 17, 2019 · 23:34

Lizard Update

The “new” house (we moved up here in May, 2018) has almost as many lizards living in the yard as the “old” house (so far, none of them have appeared in the house, thank god) and it has a wider variety in terms of types, colors, and sizes. There are routine sightings almost daily, but for the most part the little guys are skittish and tend to scurry off into the bushes or under the car or up a tree trunk long before we get near.

But in the last couple of days there have been a couple of closer encounters.

First, during that big wind storm (and accompanying brush fires) a couple weeks ago, the cover for the barbecue ended up off the grill and in a pile on the porch. Yesterday evening I was picking it up. Given what’s in the yard, my biggest concern was the likely possibility of black widow spiders (they were there and got squished). What I didn’t expect was the biblical plague of crickets hiding underneath the cover. THOUSANDS of the little guys.

Fortunately I’m not bothered at all by crickets, so I simply started shaking the barbecue cover like a sheet to flick off all of the crickets. Which is when I saw the lizard on the inside, clinging on for dear life as I flapped the cover in the breeze. I didn’t want to hurt it, so I simply dropped the cover and then pulled it back so the lizard was exposed.

I expected it to take off toward the bushes like a bat out of hell, but was surprised that it took a few minutes and some nudging before it mozied on.

In retrospect, I think it was giving me the stink eye because those zillions of crickets were probably a feast of unbelievable magnitude for the lizard and I had gone and screwed up everything.

Yes, I did. It’s what I do. (Ask anyone.)

This evening I was taking the trash cans out and found this guy sunning itself on the driveway. It also wasn’t at all interested in moving so long as I wasn’t interested in stepping on it.

Back at the old house there were a couple of lizards that I saw repeatedly and I thought that they had actually gotten acclimated to me. When I was packing the car to move out, they would come right up to within a couple feet and watch. This guy had a similar behavior, but I don’t recall seeing him before.

There was a tiny, tan lizard that’s been running around by the garage doors, but just two days ago he was maybe a fifth this size. If he’s grown this much in two days, in a week it will be the size of a T-Rex.

Pretty sure that would violate the “no pets” clause in our lease…

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Critters, Photography

October 16, 2019 · 23:29

That Raven? Or Maybe…

Last night’s post was put together and posted quickly, as you could no doubt tell from the timestamp. At the end when I threw up a few words, I was wondering if the birds shown were crows or ravens.

Today I was thinking about that and went to check out what the Internet might have to say about it. (It beat being nauseous over the political news!) I found this from the Audubon Society.

Which gave me conflicting results.

The three big things I’m looking at are the tail, the beak, and the ruffle of feathers on the chin.

For a crow, the tail is square, while for a raven it’s more wedge shaped.

For a crow, the beak is a bit longer and thinner, while for the raven it’s shorter and thicker.

The ruffle of feathers is far larger and more pronounced on a raven.

So if you look at the first six pictures from yesterday of the first bird, it looks like a crow.

If you look at the final three pictures of the second bird, it looks like a raven.

At which point I realized that I was probably an idiot and shouldn’t be operating heavy machinery since I was making stupid assumptions. Specifically, I was assuming that both birds were either crows or ravens.

I think I was dealing with one of each.

Does anyone have any thoughts or more expertise to shoot down my theories, or confirm them?

1 Comment

Filed under Critters

October 15, 2019 · 23:59

That Crow

Here they are in all their glory!

Actually – crows or ravens? There’s someone I follow on Twitter, I’ll have to check their notes.

Also, that last photo, with the eye thing going on? That’s some serious “Game of Thrones” worg action going on!

Leave a comment

Filed under Critters, Photography

October 14, 2019 · 23:44

Crow Cackling

It was a lovely day and we had the doors and windows open this evening. Outside I could hear a couple of the local crows making one of their signature “cackling” calls back and forth.

Remember the crows when we first moved in here last May? They’ve come and they’ve gone from time to time, but they’re back now and quite vocal. The sound is a lot like the percussion section of the orchestra yesterday playing on the gourds or wood blocks.

I’m also here to report that I’m surprised how good the sound pickup is on the iPhone. I knew that **I** could hear the crow just fine, but I’m surprised that the video picked it up.

Leave a comment

Filed under Critters, Video

October 13, 2019 · 23:08

Fancy Music

In an effort to broaden our horizons a bit, this year we’ve picked up a subscription to a small series of concerts for the LA Philharmonic at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown.

It was spectacular!

Gustavo Dudamel is the legendary conductor and neither he, the LA Phil, the soloist, or the music disappointed.

The acoustics could not be more perfect, even sitting in the second balcony at the back.

We started by hearing two pieces that I was unfamiliar with – Sinfonia India (Symphony No. 2) by Carlos Chavez, and a Piano Concerto, “Universos Infinitos” by Esteban Benzecry. Both were wonderful.

We finished with two favorites of mine by Aaron Copland – Fanfare for the Common Man and Rodeo.

Hearing Fanfare for the first time live by a world-class orchestra was absolutely stunning. I had no idea how strongly it would affect me.

Rodeo was just a lot of fun. The way Dudamel and the orchestra played with the different instruments and musical lines was both humorous and joyous. Since it’s music for a ballet I was wondering how it might be presented differently in a ballet setting since it would be secondary to the dance. Maybe I’ll get a chance to find out some day.

If you’re in LA or visiting and you have a chance, go see the LA Phil! They do more pop music concerts at the Hollywood Bowl (“Star Wars” music, “Game of Thrones,” etc) but their classical concerts at Disney Hall are even better!

Leave a comment

Filed under Los Angeles, Music, Photography

October 12, 2019 · 23:52

Sky Crane

While the fires near us (never got closer than about 10-12 miles, but had over 100,000 people evacuated and major freeways closed for days, several dozen homes destroyed and damaged) are not out, the winds have died down, the onshore flow has resumed and raised the humidity back out of single digits, and the fires are contained enough so that the evacuations orders have been lifted and the freeways re-opened.

That having been said, the fires are still a long way from out. With the calmer winds and better humidity, the fire fighters are hitting the fires hard, particularly with “aerial assets,” that is, planes and helicopters.

One of the big helicopters (I think it’s an Erickson Sky Crane, but not 100% positive) was being based out of Camarillo (CMA) right near our hangars. It was fun to watch it come and go.

Warning – I would recommend against starting this video with the sound too loud or while wearing headphones! This sucker is really, REALLY loud.

The strobing effect of the video capture mechanism in the iPhone is also interesting – that tail rotor looks like it’s barely moving, but in fact it was going at hundreds if not thousands of RPM!

Leave a comment

Filed under CAF, Disasters, Flying, Photography, Video

October 11, 2019 · 23:38

Door

We found a new place to eat last Sunday. The food was very good, interesting, different – but also different was the door to the restaurant.

It was a mosaic of cells, each about 6 inches by 6 inches, and each filled with a different sort of seeds or nuts or spices.

On the one hand I found it beautiful and fascinating – on the other hand, I had questions. Like, how do you keep tiny critters (mice, bugs, etc) from getting in to eat the nuts? What about mold?

I didn’t ask. I just went with it being different, interesting, unique (at least, to me), and pretty.

That was enough.

2 Comments

Filed under Los Angeles, Photography

October 10, 2019 · 23:09

Wind & Fire

The Santa Ana winds have started blowing again in Southern California. (As you no doubt have heard, in Northern California the winds have also been howling and the despicable and criminally stupid officials of PG&E have turned off the power to 1,000,000+ people for several days in order to avoid liability for any brush fires that might be sparked when their horribly poorly maintained system starts breaking and dropping  live power lines into dry brush. But I digress…)

My first reaction when I got home this afternoon was the “Hawkeye Pierce” go-to response for me – humor:

“Wind damage at our house – be strong, we will rebuild!”

This had been hanging by a cup hook but twisting in the 35 to 50 knot winds it had literally unscrewed itself and fallen. Hadn’t seen that before.

Yes, there were a couple of branches down in our yard. And on the way home I had seen three separate spots where streets or business driveways were blocked by fallen trees.

But our power was still on. This barely rose to the level of “inconvenience.” Nothing like everyone who was trying to deal with a multi-day blackout caused by bureaucratic incompetence, greed, and stupidity.

Then the fires started here in SoCal. (Fortunately, nothing near us. We had enough of that shit last year, thank you very much!)

Other areas haven’t been so lucky:

Welcome to California in the era of climate change.

1 Comment

Filed under Castle Willett, Photography, Weather

October 9, 2019 · 23:36

I, For One, Welcome Our AI Overlords…

Some time late last week, while sitting on my ass and perusing the internet as is my wont when I’m trying to unwind a bit, I had a question enter my mind about the weather for Saturday when I would be out at the CAF hangar in Camarillo.

Being a savvy, hip, handsome, intelligent, completely not full of shit, modern sort of guy, I said, “Siri, what’s the forecast for tomorrow’s weather in Camarillo, California?”

Simple, eh?

Until my phone, my iPad, and my watch ALL ANSWERED AT THE SAME TIME.

And all had slightly different answers.

I’m really, really looking forward to when they start arguing among themselves about those different answers.

When it gets to physical violence, or trying to infect each other with computer viruses in retaliation, then I’m turning them all off and moving to a cave in Alberta that’s 100 miles from the nearest cell phone tower.

4 Comments

Filed under Computers, Farce