Category Archives: Christmas Lights

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…

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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!

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

December 31, 2024 · 23:10

Final 2024 Sunset

Goodbye 2024. I fear that you will not be remembered fondly.

There wasn’t much special or colorful about the final sunset.

I hope that in 365 days we’re all still in a functioning country and economy. And I hope that long before then we’ll have a different view, one from our Forever Home.

C’mon, 2025. Surprise me.

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Photography, Sunsets

December 28, 2024 · 23:24

Christmas Tree Flying Again

Several years ago I bought a tree topper for our Christmas tree that had a star and a motorized bit that spun around with an airplane and banner on a wire. Two years ago when I packed it all I did a lousy job, and last year when I assembled the tree I found it to be broken. Being an expert idiot and not just a gifted amateur, I just packed it away again while broken, didn’t order a replacement, and just forgot about the problem until this year, when I found that the house elves had not miraculously repaired it for me. It was too late to order a replacement to get delivered before Christmas, but at least this year I ordered it to come in whenever it could get here so that I would have it for the future.

Today it arrived and got installed, so our Christmas tree is flying again, even if I might not be.

Maybe that will be one of the New Year’s Resolutions that actually gets kept for 2025. Maybe.

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Flying, Video

December 25, 2024 · 23:33

Merry Christmas 2024

Our Christmas was fine, filled with family and football.

I like this lower POV, wide angle shot a lot, especially with the clouds up above. I may have to play with that before the lights come down in a couple of weeks, making it look even more haunted and ominous.

My beloved Chiefs are now 15-1 with one game left and have locked up the #1 seed in the AFC playoffs starting in January. While nothing is guaranteed, they’re in a strong position to be the first NFL team to win a three-peat, three Super Bowl titles in a row.

Two of our three kids were able to be here along with spouses and in-laws, and we had BBQ shipped in from Joe’s BBQ in Kansas City, as is our wont. A good time was had by all, far too much food was eaten, at least by me. Tomorrow I start working on getting back down to my “fighting weight.” We may have some fights ahead of us in 2025 I’m thinking.

 

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Health

December 24, 2024 · 23:52

Eclectic Ornaments

Yesterday I pointed out that we put hundreds of ornaments on our Christmas tree, from a wide variety of sources. Here are some close ups.

There are two UC Irvine ornaments here (both I and one of my daughters went there) and the blue one half seen at the very top is from UC Davis (other daughter). The clear, crystal ones on the right are the annual ornaments from Sporty’s, showing a different airplane every year. In the upper left and lower right are a couple of “stained glass” style ornaments that I got even before I had kids, from a “dollar store” back when my first wife and I were dirt poor for a first Christmas together. They’re among my favorites. Finally, there’s a big, fat ass, cartoon polar bar and cub from ghod alone knows where.

Three bubble lights seen here, a couple more Sporty’s airplane ornaments, another stained glass ornament, and at the top, a hand-made Pokemon ball that one of the kids would have made in school twenty-five-plus years ago.

Same as above, plus an ornament from an trip in the last couple of years, a moose from our Winnipeg trip last year, and a very odd little art deco space capsule with an astronaut on an EVA.

More all of the above, plus a gold foil Wright flyer aircraft that I picked up at the Smithsonian Air & Space museum when I was back there about five years ago for my fifth NASA Social.

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December 23, 2024 · 23:53

How To Assemble Our Christmas Tree

It’s a fake tree, and it’s probably 10+ years old, but it still is holding up at least as well as I am, so who am I to judge?

Stack the three sections. I don’t remember this many of the built-in white lights being out last year. I would love to troubleshoot and repair them, but fixing these light strings is the bane of my existance. Probably more on this some other day.

Start putting on strings of colored lights. Six strings of mini incandescent lights is something like 450 lights. Nice!

Add two strings of bubble lights. I do so love me some bubble lights! Reminds me a lot of when I was a kid. The ones today are (fortunately) far less flammable than the ones we used in the 1960’s.

Finally, put up the stockings and the skirt, and add literally HUNDREDS of ornaments of all kinds. Some are new – we get one every time we take a trip. Some go back to before the kids were born. A lot of them are the Sporty’s annual ornaments with a different airplane every year. Some are of the “baby’s first Christmas” sort of thing, some are just stupid and goofy.

It’s chaotic and insane looking, but it’s ours!

 

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Filed under Castle Willett, Christmas Lights, Critters, Photography

December 21, 2024 · 22:52

Winter Solstice 2024

And now the Sun returns, slowly, day by day.

At the top of this image, dead center, just below the top edge, is Venus, the brightest object in the sky except for the Sun and the Moon.

And, of course, a slice of our Christmas lights, a tradition begun over hundreds and thousands of years of civilization, to celebrate holidays for many religions around this time of year, all having some sort of theme about light. Coincidence that they all have a theme of “light” and occur around the time of the shortest daylight hours and longest nighttime hours? Yeah…right.

We might know that Venus is so bright because it’s covered in endless clouds of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid and we understand its orbital mechanics as well as the exact reasons for the Earth’s seasons and the timing of the solstice, all things about which our ancestors would have been clueless, but it doesn’t change the way we feel about the short days and long nights.

Whether caused by something we did angering the gods or by the 23.44º axial tilt of the Earth, Happy Solstice!

(Please don’t anger the 23.44º axial tilt of the Earth! We have no idea where that path leads!)

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Filed under Astronomy, Christmas Lights, Critters, Photography

December 20, 2024 · 23:36

December Rose In Another Light

Yesterday I shared pictures of a beautiful yellow rose that had burst out, viewed in the bright morning sunlight as I was headed to the office.

Then when I got home, it was dark (winter solstice tomorrow!) and it was lit up in a different light.

The iPhone was unfortunately highly confused about what to focus on in that lighting, but this is an obvious learning experience for us all.

 

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Critters, Flowers, Photography

December 16, 2024 · 23:54

Full Moon, Mars, & Christmas Lights

Again, today about a day after the actual full Moon, this time with Mars trailing the Moon instead of Jupiter leading the Moon.

Click on it to blow it up to full sized – Mars is about halfway between the Moon and the house, just above the power lines, a tiny little bit to the left of being directly below the Moon.

Still no wires chewed through by the bunnies, but they’re out there. As are the gophers…

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Filed under Astronomy, Christmas Lights