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
January 26, 2025 · 23:45

Surprise!

Trying to cram about two weeks of work into two days, it’s been a long weekend. And then this starts happening again, pretty much just like last weekend.

Not as high as last weekend, and the worst of the chills have stayed away, but I still would have preferred to te a 24 or 48 hour nap instead of a 24 or 48 hour cram session for our Budget meeting tomorrow.

Lessons learned while training and running marathons in the past have come in handy – sometimes when you really, really want to just sit down and rest and drop out, you need instead to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, regardless of the circumstances.

Or “Set SCE to AUX!” Same.

Leave a comment

Filed under Critters, Health, Photography

January 25, 2025 · 23:52

Cascading Failure Modes

We get three & four years of severe drought. Water rationing. Extreme limits on watering the lawn (unless you’re a golf course owned by a billionaire). Lawn, open areas, trees, all get brown and dry and ready to burn. We get brush fires.

Then we have two years of above-average rain. Good, now we can water the dirt in our yards. Everything out in the wildlife areas gets green and lush.

Another year of drought. All of that new green growth gets brown and dry and extremely flammable. We burn again, tens of thousands of acres in four major and a dozen-plus minor fires all over the city and county and Ventura County, Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, San Diego County… An area the size of New England is on extreme fire watch for weeks, THOUSANDS of homes and businesses are gone.

Mind you, because they’re not in the news every night, most people think those fires are out and done. They’re not. They’re just more or less contained and not threatening any more structures and homes. But as of right now the 23,448 acre Palisades fire is still only 85% contained. The 14,021 acre Eaton fire is at 95% containment.

Oh, good, here comes a few days of rain. That will help put out the fires.

Well, yes, it will, but…

This will be a “good” rain in that it should be mild, less than an inch of rain total over three days combined, with relatively little chance of any big downpours or thunderstorms with lightning, which could start new fires.

But we now have something on the order of 50,000 acres locally that’s newly burned, most of it in canyons and steep hillsides, and any hard rain will start to cause mudslides and flooding. Barren hillsides will erode like crazy with nothing left in the way of brush and trees to hold the topsoil together. It’s time for the next disaster in the chain!

On the other hand, listening to the rain in the night and smelling the petrichor is wonderful.

Leave a comment

Filed under Critters, Disasters, Los Angeles, Photography, Video, Weather

January 24, 2025 · 23:48

That’s A Lot Of Mourning Doves

Ten of them here, and that’s not even half of them. At one point there were more than 25, but they keep scurrying around and flying in & flying out, so it’s hard to keep track.

They do love the morning back yard buffet! Right up until a hawk flys over (the hawks love the morning back yard buffet as well, but for slightly different reasons) and then it’s a mass exodous to get airborne and off to the relative safety of the trees.

Leave a comment

Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography

January 23, 2025 · 23:55

No Context For You – January 23rd

Pretty colors and desperation. Need more of the former and less of the latter.

Leave a comment

Filed under Art, Critters, Photography

January 22, 2025 · 23:08

Smoke & LAPD

The two are unrelated, so far as I know.

Another large fire broke out this morning, 25+ miles north of us up by Castaic and Lake Hughes. Again, we’re safe, but this time the winds, still blowing STRONG from the north, are blowing the smoke over us. Not chokingly thick, no ash falling, just brown clouds overhead. (The two bars of white lights are not the UFO mothership come to take me away and probe me, more’s the pity. I would love to get away… Nope, reflections from my office ceiling lights, that’s all. The horizontal streaks are the dirt and bird shit that’s been deposited and streaked everywhere with the few minutes of light showers we had two months ago.)

I went outside and walked to the corner to get a different view without the glare and reflections off the office window glass. In addition to the brown clouds off on the left, on the other side of the street on the left the entire block is the new training facility and corporate headquarters for the LA Rams.

Then, about 4:15, we started getting buzzed by an LAPD helicopter. He was orbiting above, barely clearing the 20-ish story office buildings across the street, and in a TIGHT circle. (Dodging more alien motherships, obviously!)

The problem was directly across the street from us, where there were 6+ LAPD cruisers with someone pulled over in the parking lot outside of the BofA branch and Ruth’s Chris Steak House there. Lots of lights, sirens, a fire truck and ambulance showed up, and the police were pulling folks from a car, putting them on the ground, and handcuffing them.

Tough to get finished up and out the door at the end of the day when there’s a free show going on outside!

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Critters, Disasters, Los Angeles, Photography

January 21, 2025 · 23:58

Go-Bags Of Days Past

Last week we threw together a half-dozen “go bags” as we had a large brush fire lighting off less than two miles from us. We were lucky and it burned away from us (a bit over 1,000 acres) and we never had to evacuate. But we were ready.

Mine are still there because we’ve had one “Red Flag” warning after another for the past two weeks. No more fires near us, but as long as they’re ready, why pack and unpack as needed?

I think by this weekend I’ll be able to put the cameras and laptops back on the shelf, as well as refiling all of the passports, tax returns, birth certificates, and so on.

The three days of “emergency” clothing? Let’s keep that loaded and ready to go, I’ve got plenty of spare shirts, socks, jeans, and whatever.

In the closet we have the five standard family bug out bags (two adults, three kids back in the day) that are filled with FAST evacuation needs, presumably in the event of a major earthquake. Thus the hard hats, whistles, rope, gloves, water, snacks… If the 6-10 brushfire go bags are being tossed willy-nilly into the back of cars as the flames approach, these will be next.

It’s also been a good exercise in thinking about additions and next steps. The world has changed since I first put these bags together. Now I want to make sure that I can re-charge our phones, so some portable batteries, cables, headband LED lights and that sort of thing all need to be added. But I’ll want them all to be fully charged if the shit hits the fan, so I’ll have to find a place to line up five of each, keep them charged 24/7, and then when we get the “GO!” signal, pull them and drop one in each bag.

It’s also given me a chance to think about what’s next if we have ten minutes to bug out instead of three minutes. Boxes of pictures, artwork, signed editions of books, the computer boxes (ignore the monitors and mice and keyboard and anything you can buy in two seconds at Target).

Plan ahead.

Leave a comment

Filed under Critters, Los Angeles, Photography

January 20, 2025 · 23:53

Proof Of Life – January 20th

What a depressing day. And it’s just Day One.

I didn’t have to go anywhere today (working from home) so I deliberately picked my comfiest sweatshirt so that I would be warm and snuggly, even though it is old and ratty and worn. I’m old and ratty and worn too, so we’re kindred spirits.

I wish that I had answers, but days like this I’m not even sure that I know the questions.

Leave a comment

Filed under Critters, Paul, Photography

January 19, 2025 · 23:43

Arrowhead Memories

It’s been a good weekend for my favorite professsional American football team, as we won yesterday (with room to spare, a two-score lead at the end, which we haven’t done a lot of this year).

Making smart ass comments to the family (as I am wont to do occasionally, like, on days that end in “y”) I noted the weather for Arrowhead Stadium for next Sunday night, just in case anyone was making plans to attend the game in person. My son asked if I was (I am not) and I was a bit set aback and slightly depressed to realize that it’s not money that’s the deal killer here, it’s the time and critical deadlines. (Not that the money would be insignificant, and we’ve got a house to buy this year, but it wouldn’t be a deal killer.)

Nope, the only way I could go, even with a winning Lottery ticket and fundage to incinerate at will, would be to fly out on Saturday, spend Sunday in KC for the game, then fly back. Even if I had the hypothetical “wealth of Midas” and could take a private jet to minimize time screwing around with TSA, the airlines, and the usual cross-country travel fandango, we’re still talking 24-36 hours, and with the commitments at work and the annual Board Meeting at the end of next week, I simply couldn’t take that 24-36 hours off without failing on those tasks and letting a whole lot of folks down (folks who I like and admire and enjoy working with).

So if those six magical tumblers align and the bank has to hire new staff just to keep adding zeroes to my bank balance, I can go to NOLA for the Superb Owl in three weeks, I guess. By that time, win or lose, succeed or fail, the deadlines will be in the rearview mirror and I’ll have some time.

Unless something else comes up then…

Meanwhile, I got to thinking about past trips to Arrowhead, a holy place, sacred ground, for folks like me.

My first visit was Thanksgiving, 2006, a surprise plotted by my wonderful wife and kids. It was the first time there was a third, Thanksgiving night game in the NFL, and the Chiefs were hosting. We already had a trip planned to the St. Louis area to have Thanksgiving with my son, who was in the Air Force and stationed at Scott AFB in southern Illinois, so they got tickets, surprised me, and we drove across Missouri to see the game. Ausgetzeichnet!!

For the holidays in 2018 we had an opportunity to go to Seattle to watch the Chiefs play the Seahawks on Christmas, then fly to KC for a week to see them finish the season against the Raiders. Given the season and the fact that both stadiums are open and roofless, it was appropriately freezing cold for both. We stomped on the Raiders and had excellent seats, so that was a wonderful experience.

In September of this year, of course, you’ll remember that I flew in to meet my son for this year’s Week Two game. We won a close one (we’ve had a ton of close ones this year!!) and it was another great experience.

When I was a kid growing up in the metro KC area (on the Kansas side, over by Wyandotte County Lake, very near where the huge race track is now) and learning to love the Chiefs and A’s, both of them played at Municipal Stadium near downtown and that’s where I saw my first Chiefs game (with Lenny Dawson at QB) in 1966. Now we have Arrowhead, and while I’ve seen the Chiefs at a handful of other stadiums (San Diego, the LA Coliseum, the LA Galaxy’s soccer stadium that the Chargers used for a couple of years, Seattle), nothing compares to Arrowhead.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Critters, KC Chiefs, Photography, Travel

January 18, 2025 · 23:38

Semi-Darkness

The first night when the Christmas lights are off are always sad and dark, figuratively and literally. Taking a picture

from the same spot as last night shows that the camera still sees plenty of light, primarily by taking a 30-second photo, where my regular, old eyeballs see the scene as being MUCH darker. With the Moon just rising over behind the house and the big, backyard tree, it’s just the porch light, the street light over my head, and a couple of neighborhood porch lights. In the end, that’s more than enough so that the darkness isn’t complete enough by any means to see many stars at all, while also not being bright enough to be of much good.

We’re caught in the middle.

My beloved Chiefs prevailed today in the AFC Division Championship game (whatever it’s called – the second round of the playoffs) and will move on to host the AFC Conference Championship game next Sunday evening. I’ll take it since I am nervous about next week’s potential to be a complete and total clusterfuck.

As a side note, while I try to keep this site more or less PG-rated, I do notice that certain pithy four-letter, Anglo-Saxon terms have started getting more relevant and more frequently used in general by me, and could end up sneaking in here more often. I disagree with old maxim that use of those words shows you have a limited vocabulary. I have a wonderful vocabulary, and I think I have pretty good command of it, but the Universe seems to be deteriorating rapidly, and sometimes those words are the most appropriate ones.

Just a heads up…

Leave a comment

Filed under Christmas Lights, Critters, KC Chiefs, Photography

January 17, 2025 · 23:47

Last Light 2025

I think after the Chiefs’ game tomorrow, it will be time to start taking down the Christmas lights. Everyone else on the block did it at least a week ago, most two weeks ago.

At least we had an almost full Moon out there tonight to dress up the sky. As well as a trio of rabbits on the ground over on the righthand side.

Surprisingly, the rabbits didn’t chew through any wires this year. They’ve done that for at least the previous three years, but something kept them honest this year.

It’s probably one last look at this particular view. I think I probably said this last year as well, but this year I mean it more – next year I hope we’re at the Forever Home.

And hey, the pulldown on the WordPress page for the Classic Editor was back today! Yeah!! One less thing to be pissed off about!

Leave a comment

Filed under Astronomy, Christmas Lights, Critters, Forever Home, Photography