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 24, 2023 · 22:39

Art – August 24th

Balance. I think about it a lot.

On the one hand I can get really, really focused. Which can be good, it gets things done.

On the other hand, being that focused means that you can miss other problems, other threats, other things that need to be taken care of and might be just as important. Which can be bad, it leads to mistakes.

I sometimes get to where I was an hour or so ago and I have nothing for my daily post and I don’t want to take the time. I’m focused. I have no thoughts to share. I’ve used up all of my current pictures. I’m not going to get into the politics or news of the day because that’s a bottomless well of toxic sludge. I just want to stay focused and get things done and off of my plate!

Then I remember. College. Physics major in addition to working full time plus to make ends meet. Focused. Laser focused. I had to take a breadth class and the only thing I could find at 08:00 AM, when I got off work from the graveyard shift, was an Art 101 class. UC Irvine was legendary for “performance art.” (I’m pretty sure I’ve ranted at length about this elsewhere on this site, so search for it. If I haven’t, someone let me know, it’s a fantastic story. For now, just the summary version.) I was skeptical. To say the least. I wanted instructions to follow. I wanted to learn to draw or paint or sculpt or whatever. Get my “easy A” and get out.

As Coach Corso says, “Not so fast, my friend!”

The short version is that I learned to think. I learned to look at problems differently. I learned a skill that I can occasionally click on in my brain, to see things differently, to “think outside the box,” so to speak. And like the old joke about the guy who tells his guru that he’s too busy to meditate for an hour and gets told instead to meditate for two hours, the fact that I didn’t think I could afford the time to play around and come up with something to post tonight meant that I HAD to stop and make that time anyway.

So I did.

Nothing fancy, taking a bit of a generic photo from earlier in the week, transforming it, twisting it, transmorphing it, playing around for a while with this and that, listening to some weird ass music (Erasure, John Michel Jarre, and Enigma primarily) until I got to something that looked cool.

Balance.

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Filed under Art, Paul

August 23, 2023 · 23:16

A Special Level Of Hell

There truly should be a special level of Hell reserved for software executives who make major upgrades to perfectly functional software with zero warning.

I’m looking at you, Adobe Acrobat.

A program that I use dozens and dozens and dozens of times a day. If I’m churning out reports, easily 100+ files a day. I’ve used it for years, it’s all muscle memory for 99% of what I do, and for that other 1% I’ve got a pretty good grip on how Acrobat is organized so it doesn’t take long to figure out where to go to get something new done.

Until it’s…not.

Until I get a bunch of windows telling me how *new* and *wonderful* and *user friendly* the new version is and how it will make my work so much faster!

Maybe. Maybe once I put a few hundred hours into using it. Maybe once I sit down with some tutorials or “play” with it to first learn how to do the same tasks I already need to do a thousand times a day, then figure out what the *new* and *wonderful* version has that will let me do things so much more efficiently. Design my own menus? Great! (Later!) Set up custom commands and macros? Fantastic! (Later!) Design my own pages! Amazing! (Later!)

Right this second? I need to get my work done and I’m already under enough time pressure so I could swallow a lump of coal and shit out a diamond. So when tasks that normally take 3-4 minute now take 8-10 (or more) minutes, I’m not happy. When I have to stop and think and hunt and learn with almost every keystroke to do even the most fundamental tasks all freakin’ day long, I’m less than impressed.

The one and only saving grace, and thank god I glimpsed something about it and I remembered seeing it so I had a chance of hunting for it and finding where it was hidden, was a command something like “Turn off new version.” Hit that, pray for the best, and suddenly my fingers don’t feel broken and useless and misguided anymore.

So today went better, at least on that front. And then when I was working through something this evening my screen was hijacked and Adobe wanted to know if pretty please, wouldn’t I like to take a short survey to tell them *WHY* I was foolish and blind enough to roll back their interface, why I was so much of a Luddite that I would abandon the spectacular, new, and wonderful benefits of the new version? This was critical! They needed to know!

Boy, did I tell them!

They had limits on how much text I could put into the response boxes, so they didn’t get ALL of the comments above. Just the highlights. Maybe a little more swearing.

Do I want to leave them my phone number and email address so they can contact me if they have any follow up questions? Sure.

I’m praying they have follow up questions!

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Filed under Computers, Freakin' Idiots!, Paul

August 22, 2023 · 23:38

No Context For You – August 22nd

When attacking a problem it’s important to be able to judge when you’re in way over your head and need to call for help.

It’s a skill that I’m working on. I tend to wait way too long. Maybe this will help me learn.

Calling for help was almost an accident today, triggered by me doing something stupid that made me think the problem had suddenly gotten much, MUCH worse. It hadn’t and I soon realized that, but I also realized that I had run out of ideas on the original problem. Since help had been called for by that time, so be it. Let the experts do their work and hope that they didn’t find it was something simple that I had completely overlooked.

It wasn’t. Instead they found a Sarlacc living under the house.

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Filed under Castle Willett, Paul, Photography

August 21, 2023 · 23:41

Skyscapes – August 21st

The emergency alerts on the phone for being in a flash flood watch zone went off three times last night. Tough night. There was flooding out in Ventura County, but nothing near here. Better safe than sorry, I guess.

What’s responsible for the weirdness for the rest of the day? Who knows? The weird sleep detritus? Leftover ions from the hurricane? Leftover aftershocks from the earthquake? Mercury in retrograde?

 

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Filed under Photography, Weather

August 20, 2023 · 23:49

Passing Through The Storm

We’re fine. In our particular neighborhood we haven’t had anything particularly threatening going on, fortunately. Other folks in other areas have been less fortunate, but overall, so far, it seems as if the impacts have been within reason. I haven’t heard of any fatalities or serious injuries due to the storm beyond a couple of traffic accidents probably caused in part by the rain – but that happens any time it rains in SoCal.

I got going early this morning and went out to get our weekly groceries and our Sunday breakfast. It was just starting to rain here, even though it had been raining for several hours further south in Long Beach, Orange County, San Diego, and Mexico.

By late afternoon it had started raining much harder and the wind had come up, but again, nothing disasterous. We got a bit over two inches of rain so far (it’s still raining and expected to continue for the next 10-12 hours) and we saw winds in the 20-25 mph range, but none of the 50-80 mph gusts that were possible. No power outages. A few flooded intersections around town, but we weren’t going out! The National Weather Service said “Stay!” and I did my best golden retriever imitation and stayed!

Of course, in the middle of all of this there was that magnitude 5.1 earthquake about fourty miles from us that rattled me from side to side for about ten seconds and shook up some stuff on the shelves behind me. Who had that on their SoCal Disaster Sunday bingo card?

Meanwhile, there’s street flooding and swift water rescues going on out in Ventura, some very near Camarillo Airport where I’ve spent so much time over the last few years with the CAF SoCal Wing. Today was supposed to be the second day of the Wings Over Camarillo airshow out there (do a search, there are a dozen more posts full of pictures over the years from that show), but that got cancelled last night. Out in the desert and in particular around Death Valley National Park there was some massive flash flooding, but the park had been evacuated over the weekend so no word of any casualties. It might just have the park closed for repairs for a while.

All in all, it could have been a lot worse. And while it still is unstable out there and could still be worse tonight, I think the odds are that SoCal dodged a bullet on this one. I just doubt that it’s going to be another 84 years before it happens again.

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Filed under Los Angeles, Video, Weather

August 19, 2023 · 23:12

The Approaching Storm

The clouds were starting to roll in by sunrise this morning, and it’s been mostly cloudy all day.

Just around sunset, enough clouds broke up to let some amazingly golden rays through.

The storm track has continued to shift a bit to the east, so while we’re still under an official Flood Watch and a Tropical Storm warning, we’re now expecting about 24 hours (roughly noon tomorrow to noon on Monday) of high (but not hurricane force!) winds and a decent amount (3″-ish, probably on the higher side) of rain over that time.

We won’t flood, we’re on top of the hill, but it’s possible there could be some local flash flooding. But we’re not going anywhere, so that shouldn’t be an issue. The biggest threat that I see might be a power outage, but spoiled freezer and refrigerator contents are the worst consequences of that.

Inland in the deserts? Flash flooding is a huge possibility. Places like Death Valley could get more rain in twelve hours tomorrow than they normally get in three years. Flash floods in the past have taken out bridges over dry riverbeds on the interstates heading toward Arizona and Nevada, so that’s a concern. Lots of folks are stuck living near burn areas from brush fires, and with these kinds of rain mudslides are a possibility and they could cause significant damage. Storm surge could cause serious coastal flooding and damage along the coast and out on Catalina Island.

In short, it’s a BIG area and I don’t expect too many issues HERE, but Hilary is a major, powerful, HUGE storm and elsewhere in SoCal it could get really nasty. Let’s hope that it doesn’t.

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Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather

August 18, 2023 · 23:52

Social Media

Obviously, if you want to hear me rant and rave and share pictures and so on, there’s this site. It’s never going away if I’ve got anything to say about it, and I’ve got a ton of control over it. So – always – here.

But other than that? Well, I’ve been on Facebook for years and years and years – that’s more for a lot of exchanges with personal friends from high school, fandom, and these days, work. But you’re welcome there if that’s your thing.

Twitter? That’s been a primary social media outlet for news and political rants and all sorts of daily stuff, but it’s become so toxic that I’m pretty quickly shutting down my efforts there. I’ll still crosspost the daily links to these blog posts, but I don’t think there will be much more.

With Twitter’s destruction, I’ve now set up accounts on Mastodon, Post, Spoutible, and (God help me) Tribel. About 99% of what I’m posting on those sites is that daily crosspost to this site. It might stay that way for a while, I just don’t have the time for much more.

I’m also on Threads and Bluesky. Bluesky is where I’ve started to actually go looking for folks I know and follow from Twitter. The primary reason for that right now is that I’m getting the kind of timely information sharing regarding Hurricane Hilary that I used to get from Twitter regarding breaking news and current events. That might be critical in the next three days or so.

So if you’re on social media, look for me in just about any of those places. But if you have to pick just one, Bluesky’s probably the best bet right now.

If you’re in SoCal or Arizona or Nevada, particularly in the desert where the flash flooding is so likely and the really high rainfall amounts are expected, stay safe!

And now, because you’ve been nice enough to read (or at least scan through) this, here’s a picture of fireworks!

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Filed under Fireworks, Photography, Social Media

August 17, 2023 · 22:08

Random Old Photos – August 17th

I realize as I went looking for something somewhat specific that “random” isn’t technically correct, but whatever. It’s my site and I’ll break the rules if I want to!

As is more usual than it really should be at this point in life, I’m busier than god, tired, a bit cranky, and wanted to look at something to bring a smile that I could share. FaceBook has been reminding me all week that it was seven years ago that we were in New York City, me for the first (and so far, only) time. That was a pretty great trip for the most part, so I went looking for an image from then.

I found that I had taken a LOT of pictures in the Guggenheim Museum (big surprise!) and it wasn’t hard to find one that I hadn’t already shared here. So here you are! Enjoy!

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Filed under Photography, Travel

August 16, 2023 · 22:25

Humidity Plus Heat

Up in the mountains and high desert (not so much down here in the LA Basin and the valleys that are close to the ocean) humidity (monsoonal moisture) plus heat (over 100ºF today) gives rise to thunderstorms. So today to our north, toward Mt Pinos and the Coastal Range (on the left), the Grapevine (center) and the Antelope Valley (on the right), we saw this:

(It’s a good sized image – click on it to see it full sized!)

The big threat for the next few days however is from the south, off of Baja. Tropical Storm Hilary is building off of Cabo San Lucas and is expected to be a full-blown hurricane tomorrow. It’s expected to travel more or less due north off of Baja until it slams into Southern California and Arizona over the weekend.

It’s all still three or four days out so who knows what the weather gods will actually deliver – just based on our luck, we’ll get missed entirely and Las Vegas and Phoenix will get flooded. Still, the current model from NWS Los Angeles says we’ll get somewhere between 2-5 inches of rain, so I’m hopeful.

 

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Filed under Los Angeles, Panorama, Photography, Weather

August 15, 2023 · 23:16

Fine Feathered Friends – August 15th

For the first time this year we have a couple of nests on the front porch. There’s the mockingbird nest that seems to infuriate the red tail hawks, and the mourning dove nest up under the rafters. While the three mockingbird eggs hatched and the fledgelings were out of the nest and gone in a month, the mourning dove youngins seem perfectly happy to hang around.

Often there’s just the one.

But at the end of last week we started seeing a second one. One of these guys hit the front window late one night and then made quite the fuss sitting on the window sill. I warned him about the cats and raccoons that wander by the porch some nights, but it seemed unconcerned and was back up in the nest in the morning. Not my monkeys, not my circus!

The plan was to call these two Ben & Jerry. But then…

So… Manny, Mo, and Jack? Larry, Curly, and Shemp?

Close up there are enough differences in their markings to tell them apart. I do wonder if the one with the blue circle around their eye is the opposite sex from the two that don’t. I’m not enough of an expert on mourning doves to know, and I’m way too stinkin’ busy right now to take the time to research it.

What’s really funny is that when I go out the front door, the three of them all freeze. They’re moving enough to see that they’re alive, but it really does seem to be an instinctual response. HUMAN!  FREEZE! (Why is he talking to us? Are we supposed to understand or answer?) However, if I peek through the open drapes in the front window when they can’t see in, they’re shuffling about, grooming, fighting, and so on.

I’m going to try to not take it personally.

 

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Filed under Birds, Photography