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
August 20, 2019 · 22:49

Wings Over Camarillo – Panorama Two

If you get there right after the gates open you can stake out your claim to a spot right up on the flight line.

Of course, what most people don’t realize is that some of those planes in front of you might have to get in back of you after flying some time during the day, and some of the planes in back of you might have to get out in front of you to go fly some time during the day. We work hard to set things up so that’s kept to a minimum, but when it happens, you’ve got to get out of the way.

But it’s a great set to have if you can hold onto it all day!

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Filed under Airshows, CAF, Paul, Photography

August 19, 2019 · 22:31

Wings Over Camarillo – Panorama One

Yep, out of the frying pan… So few hours for sleep…

Think of good thoughts, happy memories. Like last Saturday, on the ramp before the crowds got too big…

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Filed under Airshows, CAF, Panorama, Photography

August 18, 2019 · 23:03

Wings Over Camarillo – Sunday

It was a really good airshow. No one got hurt. No metal got bent. The crowds were good and they went home happy.

I tried several times to do a FaceBook Live, but that pretty much was a bust. I got one video posted on a delayed basis on Saturday and a brief one live this morning, but the really great one from late this afternoon that the little indicator said was live apparently went straight into the Twilight Zone instead. (Standing about ten feet away from an F-18 as it does its engine start… REALLY FREAKIN’ LOUD!!) The good news is that I had my good video camera rolling at the same time, so we’ll see how that comes out.

Then, as everyone was packing up and bugging out and those of us hosting the show were cleaning up and wrapping up loose ends we got a cotton candy sunset.

And now, out of the frying fan, into the fire. Take care of yourselves this week, friends!

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Filed under Airshows, CAF, Photography

August 17, 2019 · 23:23

Wings Over Camarillo – Saturday

Well, that was fun!

Nothing bad happening here, by the way.

In the many years I’ve been going to our local airshow we’ve never had any pyrotechnics. In an area where we have brush fires on a regular basis, things that go “BOOM!!” can freak out the locals.

They’ve been warning folks for weeks:

It will be interesting to hear how many calls there were to 9-1-1 anyway.

But it was a fun show. And I like the booms.

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Filed under Airshows, Photography

August 16, 2019 · 22:05

Staring Into The Fridge

After a couple of weeks of 10+ hour days at work, this weekend at the airshow, while a lot of fun that I’m looking forward to, will also be 12+ hour days. And with the reality-show related event going into overdrive on Monday at work, it looks like just one long, long day after another for at least a couple of weeks.

So you may have days in there when the best I have the energy to post here will be a handful of pictures from the WordPress phone app just as “proof of life.”

How run down and tired am I?

Tonight I caught myself after probably a full minute or more with the door to the refrigerator hanging open as I leaned on and stared in. It was dinner time, that was fine. the problem is that I had come into the kitchen because I had just zapped some leftovers in the microwave, which is next to the refrigerator.

I could have stared in that fridge all night long – the hot food was still going to be in the microwave.

Oh.

Yeah.

See you at the airshow, probably way too damn early tomorrow.

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Filed under Airshows, Paul

August 15, 2019 · 23:17

Shedding Load

Even though I don’t have an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) certification on my pilot’s license (in other words, I haven’t been trained to fly by instruments alone in clouds and lousy weather, so it’s Visible Flight Rules and relatively clear skies only for me right now), I do enjoy subscribing to an online series by PilotWorkshops.com that gives IFR scenarios and asks you to think through how you would handle them.

The current one talks about someone flying IFR when the alternator dies and they’re on batteries, which won’t last long enough to get to where they need to go. The need to start shutting down systems and instruments (“shedding load”) in order to stretch the batteries as far as they can go, while not turning off anything that they absolutely need.

If you’ve ever seen the excellent “Apollo 13” movie from Ron Howard, you might recognize a similar issue there. The fuel cells exploded, so the CM (Command Module) was shut down while they lived off of the LM (Lunar Module) systems. But the LM doesn’t have a heat shield and can’t survive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Only the CM could do that. But its batteries were so drained and limited that turning systems on just before re-entry would overload them and shut everything down, leaving the crew to die in an out of control re-entry. The backup crews on the ground had to find just the perfect sequence of systems to turn on that would let them function without tripping the system into overload.

I know the feeling. It seems it’s been month after month after month at work where it’s been one crisis after another, and now we have a new project coming at us like a freight train. (You can see a bit about it here.) It should be great for the organization, but we’re trying to do months worth of work in just a couple of weeks, and it’s exhausting.

Add in the fact that my work at the CAF SoCal hangar has been “exciting” all year. THEN add in the fact that this weekend is our annual airshow at Camarillo, so I’ll be putting in a lot of hours all weekend.

And on Monday, after that long (but hopefully fun!) weekend, the work event goes into overdrive, ramping up to a week where I’ll pretty much be working 12+ hour shifts every day for about seven to nine days.

So…

I’m looking to do some load shedding.

What am I doing that’s expendable, or can be delayed or put onto a back burner?

And when I’ve done that and I’m still like the Apollo 13 simulations where I’m tripping the system into overload on every try, what is there that can still be done away with? And then, what next that I was sure I absolutely can’t do without but maybe need to reconsider and be viscous about prioritizing?

It’s not a matter of cutting fat but sparing bone – it’s more like, “How much bone can we truly afford to lose? And can we actually afford to lose 10% more than that? 20%?”

Damn, that Labor Day weekend’s looking pretty nice right now! But the only way out is through.

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Filed under CAF, Homes4Families, Paul

August 14, 2019 · 23:25

Two Steps Forward, Three Back

I might be doing that wrong.

But it would explain a lot.

As discussed from time to time earlier, the lessons learned in training for and running marathons need to be remembered when not necessarily running a marathon in the literal sense, but most certainly running one in the figurative sense.

Some times you run slower than you planned, but you keep running. Some times you can’t keep running, but you keep walking. Some times it’s simply enough to stay on your feet until things improve.

It’s easy to get discouraged with so much to get done, so little obvious progress, so little rest or sleep, and so many frustrating things just waiting to spark anger.

Some days, just getting through it has to be enough.

Tomorrow’s another day. Maybe it will be better. Maybe it will just be another day to stay on your feet. Or maybe it will be a day you get knocked down and just want to stay there.

Get up.

Stay up.

Keep moving.

When you have to be, you’re stronger than you know you can be.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts

August 13, 2019 · 23:38

Joy Should Be More Than Simply The Absence Of Misery

Hardly PhD level  insight.

However, this evening I had the “joy” of fixing a toilet and while doing so I pondered the meaning of “joy.”

There is NO joy in repairing a toilet.

I’m sure there are some among us who would invoke “a sense of pride in a job well done” or some such bullshit. Perhaps. But that is not “joy.”

No, the closest I can come to feeling good at all about twenty minutes spent on repairing a toilet is that we can be truly miserable if the toilet remains broken.

So, in repairing the toilet, we avoid those hours, days, and (the way my schedule looks right now) the potential for weeks of dealing with the inconvenience and mess and misery of a broken toilet.

But – joy should be more than simply the absence of misery.

We need working toilets in our lives. And tonight, at least in Casa Willett, we have them.

We also need some joy in our lives. The more, the better! That, unfortunately, might be a bit more rare and elusive.

I hope you’re being more successful in that pursuit.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Deep Thoughts

August 12, 2019 · 22:30

Better Than A Poke In The Eye With A Sharp Stick

Getting out of work at 20:15 sort of sucks. Knowing it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better sucks even more.

Having this sort of view off of the parking lot deck doesn’t really make up for it, but as the title says…

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Filed under Los Angeles, Photography

August 11, 2019 · 23:26

Water Drops On Porch Plants

The front porch and the nice bench there hadn’t been hosed down and cleaned off in a while, so I took care of that this afternoon. (I also startled a reasonably large lizard who was minding his own business behind a planter, but he wisely decided to scurry off into the bushes rather than stick around for conversations about lizard life.)

In the process, water got sprayed onto the bushes just in front of the porch, turning them into a zillion little prisms just as the sun set.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Photography