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

One Finish Line Crossed

It’s been a busy few months…

Being in charge of an accounting department, the nature of the beast is that it’s one deadline after another. Monthly financial reports, annual budgets, audits, tax returns. It’s an endless cycle.

There are ebbs and flows. And as with wave motion in physics, sometimes the waves overlap, synchronize, and add together and you get hit with a monster.

Today was that deadline for me and it got met. Barely. As in, emailing out reports at 10:10 for a 10:15 meeting. But it’s good work, solid, everyone’s happy. The nature. The beast.

The feeling afterward really does feel like finishing a marathon. It might not be a triumph, might not be your personal best time, might not even be the time you trained for – but you finished.

From 2010, the first endurance event I ever tried, the Avon Walk in Santa Barbara, a marathon (walking, not running) on Saturday and a half-marathon on Sunday.

I feel like I should be scarfing down bananas and Gatorade…

Tomorrow the next race starts, the next turn of the cycle. As always, working toward smoothing out the troughs and crests, looking for some smoother sailing. But being ready to burn the midnight oil and go to Red Alert when the shit hits the fan.

There will be shit. There is a fan.

This is known.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul, Photography

Cutting It Close

Deadlines tomorrow, hours and hours and hours of head down, shoulder to the grindstone, nose to the wheel, not even sure what day of the week or time it is.

Thank god my watch beeps at me occasionally, so I can go, “Oh, shazzbatt!”

Fortunately, I have a steady supply of photos of me being goofy or wearing something bizarre or silly, be it an odd hat, sweatshirt, or a giant CHIEFS! onesie.

Having no sense of shame or embarrassment is the gift that keeps on giving!

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Paul, Photography

A Good Day For Chiefs Fans

If you pay any attention to American professional football, you probably know that we’re down to the last four teams in the playoffs and next week there will be two games to determine who will meet in the Super Bowl in Las Vegas in three weeks. If you have been here any length of time, you know that we’re huge fans of the Kansas City Chiefs.

Somewhat unexpectedly, even to die hards like me, we find ourselves in next week’s AFC Championship game against the Ravens. I’m not sure that many folks gave us much of a chance a few weeks ago. While we started something like 6-1 (it’s really late, I had the Gala Friday and I’ve been working all weekend on the budget that’s due this week, I’m really tired, so I’m not going to look it up, you can Google it yourself) we went something like 4-6 in the last part of the season, including a loss to the hated Raiders. While we won our conference, for the first time in several years we did not have a bye the first week of the playoffs, and tonight we had a playoff game on the road for the first time in several years. (Other than for the Super Bowl, obviously, which is at a neutral site.)

Buffalo had several opportunities to win the game, but they’re the ones who had the dropped and missed passes and missed field goals tonight, so the Chiefs won and will have a shot next week at going to their fourth Super Bowl in five years. Not bad.

It’s nerve racking, and there are plenty of other things out there shredding my nerves to begin with, but winning is nice!

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Filed under KC Chiefs

January Juncos

The bird population of Casa Willett is doing its usual bird things. The house finches are starting to hunt for nesting real estate. The ravens cackle in the trees. The hawks soar. The hummingbirds feed incessantly. The mourning doves act like a freaking biker gang, chasing off the squirrels and the other birds when the morning feeding comes. And the juncos returned a couple of months ago, as they seem to every year.

There are at least five of them in this picture from this morning. They blend in well with the muddy background and there were at least a dozen flitting about, so others might be eluding me.

We have the pair that seem to be here all year around, but in the winter the whole flock shows up. They are cute as all get out.

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Filed under Birds, Castle Willett

Gala

My first ALS gala. Wow! And it’s 23:33 already?

A good time was had by all!

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Filed under ALSA Golden West, Photography

Distant Planet, Quarter Moon

Through a thin layer of clouds, directly overhead at sunset tonight, there was a bright, distant planet quite near a bright quarter Moon.

Can you see it? Click on the image to look at it full screen.

There it is! A pair of binoculars will bring out the Galilean moons.

But now the storm comes and we will see none of this for the next several days.

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Filed under Astronomy, Photography

Old Hawk Picture

To be clear, it’s an old picture of a hawk, not a picture of an old hawk.

This was up at the top of Mt. San Jacinto outside of Palm Springs in the summer of 2021. I saw this gorgeous red-tailed hawk, but he obviously wasn’t thrilled with hikers or tourists and wouldn’t let me get too close.

I also love all of the structure and detail in this old fallen tree trunk.

I don’t know what Mr. Hawk is staring at so intently, but I’m betting it ended up being lunch!

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Filed under Birds, Photography, Travel

Eye In The Sky

An old picture from the observation area at Van Nuys Airport – one of the local television news helicopters.

A good reminder that, even if I don’t have the time to get current and start flying again right now, I really should make the time or find the time to go sit out at VNY for an hour or so and watch the aircraft come and go. Better yet, maybe a trip down to LAX to one of the parks underneath the approach paths where the photographers and plane spotters gather.

Not this week. Or next…

Maybe February.

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Filed under Flying, Photography

Random Old Photo – January 15th

Yet another “proof of life” post…

In honor of the victory at Arrowhead by my beloved Chiefs in sub-zero temperatures…

It wasn’t from this weekend and it wasn’t sub-zero, but it was most certainly colder than I’ve been in many, many years.

This is from the December 30, 2018 game we saw at Arrowhead, a week after seeing the Chiefs play the Seahawks in Seattle. That was a great trip!

And we beat the hated Raiders to boot!

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports, Travel

But The Food’s Really Good

Inside of the men’s room door in a Mexican restaurant we’ve been to a few times, located in a part of town we normally don’t frequent.

Lots of what I assume to be gang names – but no cartoon dicks and no outright obscenities that I can see. So maybe it’s performance art instead of grafitti?

That is one hideous shade of green, however!

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Filed under Los Angeles, Photography