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
It’s that time of year again. This goes back many years, as some folks celebrate birthdays, wedding anniversaries, Christmas, and so on, I, a child of way, way too many cross-country road trips crammed into the back of a station wagon with seven siblings (and not a seat belt in sight!) play license plate games and celebrate the arrival of the new tags every year. I’ve been looking but haven’t yet seen a single 2026 tag, so I have the first one that I’ve seen.
Yes, as stated in previous years, I understand exactly how sad and pathetic this is. You’re welcome and thenk you for sharing this special occasion with me for 2024.
I am chock o’ block full of flu and COVID vaccines – come at me, virii! (Viruses? Virususses?) I’m loaded for bear!
All of which has absolutely nothing to do with this nice old picture from 2013 of one of the only two flying B-25 bombers. It’s the CAF’s “Fifi”, coming into Camarillo to spend a couple of days with the CAF SoCal Wing. (At the time it was the only flying B-25, but since then “Doc” has started flying as well.)
It’s no secret that I put up a LOT of Christmas lights and enjoy it. But they NEVER start going up before the day after Thanksgiving. Which would be two weeks from today.
But the Universe has decided that we’re shredding all norms and traditions – see “US 2024 elections,” “Constitutional rule of law,” and “fascism” for examples.
So we’re going to need all of the good cheer and happiness we can find, and if the bad guys can sell out the US government to the Nazis and Putin, how bad can it be if I put up a couple of strings of Christmas lights a few days early?
Tomorrow I’m going to get my flu and updated COVID vaccines, while they’re still legal. After that? Who knows, if I don’t feel like shit from the shots (and I rarely do) then maybe it’s time to pull out the laddars and string a few extension cords, C5s, C7s, LEDs, and icicle lights.
I came out of the office after work today (yes, I’m still working in-office, training new staff, more new staff coming just before Thanksgiving, so this may last through the end of the year) and found the final “supermoon” of the year rising over my well-decorated vehicle.
There’s been a fair amount of stress due to three large deadlines all coming due in the last week. The good news is that the final two were met today, somehow.
The bad news is that – A) there’s another one in 48 hours, so I get to hit that one hard tomorrow, and B) I’m so exhausted from everything and all of the hours that have gone into this that I can’t really celebrate or feel a lot of satisfaction. Yeah, it’s far better to have hit all three deadlines than to have blown them, but that’s my head talking, not my heart or gut.
Meanwhile, there’s a really bright moon out there and it’s clear and cool.
You can still see Vega over on the right – I’m surprised that the cell phone camera can pick out any stars at all with the bright moon.
And I’m still not back in sync after the switch out of Daylight Saving Time last week.
Once I knew what the seed pods from the Italian Cypress trees were, I found a bunch of them on the ground and I’ll be trying to see if I can get them to dry out & open up so I can try to germinate the seeds.
I also looked in the trees, and found plenty more, but there all 20-30 feet up and trying to retrieve any sounds like a really good way to break every bone in my body, so I’ll pass.
Yesterday while taking down the Halloween decorations, I found an odd little lump or pod in the front yard.
Hand for scale.
It stood out and I’ve never seen one like it before, so I was curious. Was it some sort of larva or bug? Some piece of scat or critter poop? No clue! It seemed to be dry and light, but that’s about all I could tell.
Then today when I was bringing in the weekly groceries, I found another.
Now that I was alert to their existence, I found a third one.
And a fourth on the driveway.
This one has some sort of a stem on the left side, and it’s in a huge pile of debris from the Italian cypress trees along the side of the garage, needles and small branches blown down by that tremendous wind storm here earlier in the week. And there’s the clue that solved the mystery!
I did a Google search for “Italian Cypress seed pods” and got this:
I don’t see any on the eight or ten trees we have growing there, but it’s obvious that’s what they are and where they come from. Mystery solved!
Next question – can I grow new trees from these seeds? One thing about many of the houses we’re looking at in the High Desert is that they’re a bit on the barren side from a landscaping perspective. Almost all have fencing, mostly chain link, but it would be really nice to line those long fences with Italian Cypresses eventually, both for privacy reasons and for esthetic reasons. If these four seed pods or pine cones are full of viable seeds, can I get a stack of small pots and potting soil and start my own personal forest now, then have them ready to go (albeit small) for transplant when the Willett Forever Home is secured?
Why, yes, I can!
My own little minion/Ent legion! It might not be as straightforward as winning the lottery and paying a gardener or landscape designer to buy them from a nursery and plant them for me, but it will probably be more interesting.
For some reason my brain is seeing this as a check mark symbol, even though it’s not quite that right shape at all.
But a check mark is usually an indication that something is correct or has been accomplished on a checklist, and that’s not quite the situation in so many respects, so I guess a shape that’s not quite right is appropriate.
Whatever. It’s just a pretty, wispy, fluff of a small cloud that I thought was interesting. Not seen in this picture, and the thing that drew my eye to it to begin with while I was retrieving trash barrels, were the couple of hawks riding the thermals around and through and above and below. It would be wonderful to be able to do that and daydreaming about the possibility got my train of thought at the time off on a tangent.
Being bound to the ground and everything on it is starting to get old. I need to fly again.
It would be nice to get back again this year, but that’s unlikely. One trip a year is about all I can get away with.
Enjoy the full-sized file – click on it and blow it up. My son’s truck with the flags is over to the left.
For this weekend, there’s more work, more deadlines (I can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel? Ish?) and taking down the Halloween decorations.
It’s also getting close to decision time and I know where it’s going, I’m just not happy about it. (Just add it to the list…) I had really hoped to be putting up a ton of Christmas lights at the Forever Home this year and setting the place up to make it easy to put up a ton of lights every year in the future. That’s also very unlikely to happen, so in two weeks it will be time to start decorating here, at the rental house again. I’m also coming up on the end of my current set of weight training lessons, which I was also hoping would be the last one because I would be living elsewhere, but again…
So frustrated. So tired. It’s that whole middle-of-the-marathon feeling and the only way out is through.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 