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
March 3, 2024 · 19:02

We’re Duuuuned

Or at least, that’s the plan!

When “Dune” came out three years ago we went to see it in IMAX on the last day it was there in the big screen format – and the projector was broken. So I don’t take anything as a sure thing.

(The good news was that we got our money back, of course, and also got six or eight comp tickets. We also did eventually get to see it in IMAX when it made another pass through a month or two later, plus again about two weeks ago.)

Tonight’s only Day Three of the new movie’s run, and even if tragedy were to somehow strike twice (highly unlikely!) there will be plenty of other opportunities.

No, so far the biggest tragedy tonight looks to be that they’re sold out of the bizarre sandworm popcorn bucket toppers. I sort of wanted one – but I’ll live.

SHAI HALUD!!

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Filed under Entertainment

March 2, 2024 · 22:00

Sunset – March 02nd

I was fortunate this evening to get a quick heads up from a good friend that the sunset going on outside at the moment was “epic.”

She wasn’t wrong! It had been vascillating between damp, showers, rain, and downpours all day, but being back in “damp” mode (it’s raining again now) meant that some sunlight was getting through.

Then, about two minutes later, these spectral vapors just materialized out of thin air.

The air was saturated with moisture, cool, and apparently right on the edge of condensation into clouds.

Some small eddy or disturbance, probably with a breeze coming up the canyon and getting some lift, cooling and spinning just a bit, caused these to puff into visibility.

A stray late sunset, pink and orange ray of sunlight found a hole and poked through like a spotlight, catching them against the dark background of the thicker, unlit clouds off in the distance.

Knowing what causes it doesn’t make it any less spectacular. (But all of those stupid wires!)

So I ran down the hill to the spot where I watch SpaceX launches out of Vandenberg, free from wires. Those couple of minutes cost me in terms of less color and sunlight, but the two wraiths were still lit.

Barely! Between the sunlight fading and the disturbance that had caused them dying out, they were vanishing, the visible moisture evaporating and being absorbed back into the air as equilibrium with the surrounding local atmosphere was reestablished.

And then it was gone. Almost – I caught just the slightest trace of color to the left of that palm tree crown. (And then I had to climb back up that hill to get home!)

EPIC! Indeed.

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather

March 1, 2024 · 22:57

Very Odd Clouds

I’m no meteorologist, but I look at clouds a lot and pay attention and I like to think I’ve got an above average grasp of the way things work, so when I see something new and different and odd I tend to pay attention. And take pictures.

I didn’t say I always take good pictures. But in this case I wasn’t sure how long the phenomenon would be stable and visible, so ignore the wires and the puffy clouds in the foreground, and look at the nine or ten horizontal, parallel (-ish) lines of clouds beyond, somewhere out over Ventura County.

Except for at airshows where there are multiple planes in formation burning smoke oil, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this.

I actually considered at first that it might be from aircraft flying in formation, but the smoke trails there are never this thick.

After a couple of minutes it looked like a burst of high altitude winds started to sweep across part of the lines on the right side, disbursing and scattering the lines.

It’s still linear on the left (and further to the right, but it was tough to see through the foreground clouds) but in this middle section everything was getting mixed and smeared out across the sky.

Going to research this online is an adventure. First of all, searching for “clouds that look like plantation shutters” will get a psychotic and psychedelic AI essay that made *NO* damn sense at all. Totally wacko, and not in a good way.

Secondly, searching for “clouds in horizontal, parallel lines” is a little bit more productive. These are apparently “altostratus undulatus” clouds. They don’t seem particularly uncommon. Something about them this day made them stand out and grab my attention.

And I had a camera nearby!

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Filed under Photography, Weather

February 29, 2024 · 23:04

Fractal In A Flash

The ash tree that had suddenly lost 90%+ of all of its leaves in the last week suddenly is exploding with new growth.

The brown, hard, barren branch endings now have soft green shoots…

…which have smaller shoots…

…which have smaller shoots and seed pods…

…which have smaller budding wannabe leaves.

It’s like a Mandelbrot set brought to life.

Or vice versa.

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

February 28, 2024 · 23:23

Who Is In Charge Of Emojis?

Every now and then I see that there are new emojis being released and upgrades to the existing emojis. For example, a couple years ago all of the emojis showing hands or faces were upgraded so they could be black, white, brown, yellow, etc for different ethnic backgrounds. 👍🏻

Who’s in charge of this? Who approves the new emojis to be added? I need them to give me a call ASAP.

We need an emoji for “a can of worms.” In fact, we need three of them, small, medium, and large, just like the thumbs up with the different skin tones.

We can start text messages to our bosses and supervisors with the “small can of worms” emoji when they need to be aware of something, but we’re handling it, it’s probably going to be just fine, but just in case it comes back around and we don’t want them to be surprised or blindsided, we’re going to give them a couple of details.

Messages that start with the “medium can of worms” would indicate that they probably need to pay attention and you need some help. You might be playing outside of your weight class on this one and could use some immediate help.

Then there’s the “large can of worms” emoji. This would be for when the IRS or police are at the office door with some unpleasant paperwork, or the pregnant woman from accounting took a tumble on a wet floor and went ass over tea kettle down a flight of stairs. This emoji might need a sound effect to go along with it, perhaps something of a siren or the Robot from “Lost In Space” shouting, “Danger! Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!” (Okay, how many of you read that in the Robot’s voice and flailed your arms up and down while doing so?)

I guess the level beyond that could be an emoji for a single huge sandworm from “Dune,” which could be a great tie in to the movie that opens this weekend. (Yes, I have tickets already.) For a sound effect you could have a legion of Fremen shouting, “Shai Halud!” It would be up to your boss to figure if the proper response would be to get out the hooks and ropes and mount up, or run like a bat out of hell for a rock outcropping.

Can someone get on that? And while they’re at it, maybe add an emoji for “a barrel of monkeys.” Memos to your boss shouldn’t ALL be bad news!

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Filed under Farce, Silly Shit

February 27, 2024 · 23:47

No Context For You – February 27th

I’m not sure what I was looking for in all of my pictures and fiddling with art effects and stuff.

I’m pretty sure this wasn’t it. But just as the Dark Knight is the hero we need even if he can’t be the one we deserve, this might be the image we get, even if it’s not the one we need.

Or something.

Pretend it’s profound. Maybe if enough of us believe it will be. Sort of a Tinkerbelle thing.

I had what might be a profound revelation today. I’ll have to think about it.

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Filed under Art

February 26, 2024 · 23:35

Clouds – February 26th

I didn’t think we were supposed to get more rain before next weekend – the forecast was for something like a 10% chance.

No one bothered to tell the rain that came through however.

Stupid, illiterate, uninformed rain! It was just as wet, however.

Time to reset the timers to keep the sprinklers off for another few days.

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Filed under Photography, Weather

February 25, 2024 · 23:02

Fine Feathered Friends – Red Tailed Hawks

It’s spring. Love is in the air. So were a half-dozen red tailed hawks!

Earlier in the day there had been four red shoulder hawks harassing the ravens and crows, so when I first saw these six later in the afternoon I though it might be them. They were pretty high up there.

But as they started to come down lower and pair off a bit it became clear that they were red tailed hawks.

They settled in, circling and soaring about 500-600 feet up.

Then all of a sudden this one buzzed me at about 50 feet. It was like the “sneak pass” at a Blue Angels or Thunderbird airshow.

I wasn’t complaining!

It gave me a great opportunity to get some much better pictures.

I was also looking for the notch missing from the wing of one red tailed hawk that we’ve seen for a couple of years. I didn’t see it.

I don’t know if that means that the bird that had the notch of feathers missing grew them back, if they just weren’t here today, or if they didn’t make it through the winter. These might be their offspring. I’ll keep looking, it was quite distinctive.

One one that had buzzed me climbed up with the others. I guess they figured that I was mostly harmless.

They were dancing and coming together in what I assume is a mating ritual. Every now and then a couple would seemingly lock claws and fall for a ways before releasing each other.

Mating? Fighting? Both? I don’t know. But they were going fast when they were doing it, so I got a LOT of blurry, unuseable photos!

They are magnificent animals and it’s spectacular to see them!

I hope that I get more chances to see them up close. And when we find “The Forever Home” I hope it’s someplace that has its own population of hawks and other raptors!

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Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography

February 24, 2024 · 20:48

Are You Going To Rain Or Not?

Ambivalent clouds.

Are you going to rain or not? The dark bottom part is raggedy and threatening, but the top isn’t so sure at all.

The top part wants to rise, go up to 10,000 or 20,000 feet, get icy and thin.

These guys over here already developed an altitude and they’re just blocking a touch of sun. (Eventually the lower, thicker clouds blew off toward Las Vegas and rained there.)

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Filed under Photography, Weather

February 23, 2024 · 22:48

Artifact Or Insight

The almost full moon is very, very bright through a thin layer of broken clouds.

It’s a well known phenomenon to get a 22º circle around the moon when it’s seen through a high layer of ice crystals, but I’m pretty sure the circular rainbows seen in these pictures are something different, even if they might be distantly related.

If that color is more or less true, these are more like rainbows. But I wonder if the effect is real, or an artifact of how the iPhone sensor is trying to record what it sees, and how the iPhone software tries to fiddle with what data gets recorded so that it looks “real.”

Granted, when you look at the moon like this, there appears to be a pale, colored ring. So does the iPhone enhance that to make visible what the human eye can only hint at? Does it give us an insight into the universe around us that our mere human senses can just barely register?

Or are the sensor and software trying to add 2 + 2 and  getting 37 because they’re pre-programmed to expect an answer in the high thirties (-ish)?

Reality is not what it used to be – and this is when I’m 100% cold sober!

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Weather