Category Archives: Fireworks

April 5, 2025 · 23:52

Angels Stadium Fireworks

Night two of the 2025 Family Baseball Road Trip. Tonight the Angels’ bats got hot, we hit four home runs, our pitching and defense were solid, and we beat Cleveland 10-4.

Better yet, after Saturday night home games, there are fireworks! I LOVE FIREWORKS!

Oh, and speaking of LA sports, the Kings were playing the Edmonton Oilers this afternoon. The Oilers are the team that we’ve played (and lost to) in the past three years in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and they’re almost certainly going to be the team we play again this year in the first round, starting in about two weeks. We’re fighting them for position, currently ahead of them by two points, and winning today would extend that to four points and guarantee the Kings a place in the playoffs. Our hotel in Anaheim didn’t have that channel on their satellite feed, so we went out and found a sports bar and watched it there. It was a fantastic Kings win!

 

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Filed under Fireworks, LA Angels, LA Kings, Photography, Sports

July 4, 2024 · 22:43

Are We Still Doing This?

Democracy, that is. We’re hip deep in fireworks, which is a good thing. Whereas democracy seems to be on shakier ground.

These are actually from an international competition in Montreal in August 2009, but “close enough for government work!”

 

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Filed under Fireworks, Photography, Politics

December 31, 2023 · 23:16

New Year’s Eve 2023

2023 has most certainly delivered its share of stress and angst, hasn’t it? But now it’s behind us.

Gone, but not forgotten, and its detritus and loose ends and ongoing chaos is likely to stretch all the way through 2024 and beyond. What worries me the most is that in 366 days (remember, 2024’s a leap year!) we’ll look back on today’s state of the world as “the good old days.”

But I’m something of an eternal optimist in the end. It’s probably a byproduct of my Catholic school programming, but I have to have faith that there will be good things (love, adventures, ball games, concerts, plays, travel) that will outweigh the bad (politics, wars, hatred, pandemics, Raiders fans). And maybe even some of those bad things will be defeated, or at least nudged back toward the light.

Despair is a danger. Getting so overwhelmed that we give up just allows the evil bastards to win, so I don’t recommend that course. It’s hard, but let’s keep our eyes on those good things, but let’s do it with our eyes open and our brains engaged.

New Year Resolutions? As we generally do them, it’s bullshit, so let’s not. Yes, we all want to lose 10 pounds and promise that we’ll exercise more. But we all know that by about next weekend we’ll be craving that pizza and not feel like getting off the couch on the weekend, so why set ourselves up for certain disappointment and depression? If you want a New Year Resolution that you can easily keep, try this one – “I’ll never vote for another Republican again, from President down to assistant dog catcher trainee, NO MATTER WHAT!” See, you’ve already improved the world and given yourself some peace of mind!

Instead of strict resolutions that will only get broken and make us feel like failures, let’s try to focus on self care and making our individual worlds better.

I had mentioned passions a while back – try writing down a few of those and thinking about how much you actually allow yourself to indulge or participate in them. When I did that I found that there are a lot of them that I’ve almost completely set aside (until “later”) because of “priorities.”

For example, “reading” is something I love to “waste” time on so much, but the To Be Read pile is growing much faster than things are being taken off of it and I’m not buying that many new books. I’m just not allowing myself the time to “waste” reading for pleasure.

“Flying.” Yeah, when was the last time I was in the left seat? It’s been years.

And so on. For me, “travel,” “music,” and “astronomy” are high on the list. While I make time every now and then for a taste, I rarely make time to really immerse myself and explore and grow.

So I recommend that we all spend 2024 actively, intellectually, passionately identifying the things that we’re missing, the things that we long for, the things that bring us joy, and putting in the effort to make time for those things in our lives.

Who’s with me? We’re taking back our lives! We’re taking back our passions! We’re no longer going to be satisfied with “good enough!”

WE RIDE AT DAWN!

Welcome, 2024.

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Filed under Fireworks, Photography

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

April 10, 2023 · 23:51

Back To Work Monday

My usual Monday greeting on all texts and emails is “Happy Monday!” But everyone know that I’ve got the volume on the sarcasm subwoofer turned up to an eleven.

So after a weekend full of ballgames and seeing family, it was time to get back to work.

As with most days that end in “y” there are imminent deadlines and reports due and a full “back burner” if all of that gets done.

I’ll admit that I had some doubts that I would hit this particular set of goals, but being stubborn and dogged (two of my strong suits) got things out the door.

Then the great work by the rest of the team, got things reviewed and approved and off to keep everyone happy.

That’s a victory, and as tired as I might be, it felt good. Maybe even more so for being so tired. It’s wonderful being part of a great team.

So, victories call for celebrations. This might not have been a victory like winning the Super Bowl, or getting my pilot’s license (fourteen years ago as of last week – WOW), but it still counts.

So celebrate your victories with me as I share even more fireworks from Saturday night. We know there are more than a few defeats and disappointments out there to suffer through. Celebrate when you can.

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Filed under Fireworks, LA Angels, Photography

April 8, 2023 · 23:32

First Fireworks In A Long While

I think the last fireworks I saw were for the July 4th celebration while at Baycon last year, but they were several miles away. It’s not the same.

Last night we went to the Angels home opener. There were a lot of cool things, but we lost 4-5. Tonight we went back and saw a victory, an exciting game, and Saturday night fireworks after the game.

This doesn’t suck. And then we got lucky and got out of the parking lot quickly (last night we left in two minutes after we started the car, but we sat in the car and chilled to let traffic clear for almost an hour) so that when we got back into our hotel parking lot, we found that we were right under the Disneyland fireworks finale.

MORE non suckage!

I hope that your weekend is also great and your Easter tomorrow is fun.

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Filed under Fireworks, LA Angels, Photography

December 13, 2022 · 23:28

After A Few Days Off

The problem with taking a four-day weekend, especially at an incredibly busy time of year, is that you’ve got to come back to work.

Mind you, I truly enjoy my job, what I do, and in particular, who I work with. (That’s not even bullshit!) But I also get to live in the real world, where there is stress and a limited number of hours in the day and my body isn’t 100% sure what day of the week it is or what time zone I’m in.

So enjoy this picture from the Christmas tree lighting at Six Flags Fiesta Texas. With a few fireworks.

I need some sleep.

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Fireworks, Photography, Travel

July 4, 2022 · 22:36

I Saw Fireworks!

We’re out of town, and I wasn’t thrilled by the idea of going to hunt for a local fireworks display, not knowing the areas, neighborhoods, parking, and so on. But there’s a third floor balcony on the hotel, looking out over the freeway toward the bay, so I figured there was a chance that some of the local communities might have displays that we could see. A few other folks from the remnants of the con thought the same, and we weren’t disappointed.

It might have been from a couple miles away, but it still beat what we’ve had for the last couple of years. I’ll take it!

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Filed under Fandom, Fireworks, Photography, Travel

July 4, 2021 · 23:10

War Zone

The Fourth of July. Last year’s celebration were muted, at best, due to COVID. This year we have to celebrate (I guess?) extra hard, first to make up for last year, second because we survived. There might be a few other things to celebrate this year as well, like the fact that we still have a country.

Anyway, despite the fact that we’re in a severe drought, it’s dry as a bone, it’s been hot as hell, and all of these fireworks are illegal as hell – it was a freakin’ war zone out there for two or three hours. Still some going off now after 23:00.

Here’s what a small sample looks like.

Here’s what a small sample (different sample than the one shown above, to be clear) sounded like.

And here’s what the finale from the Warner Center show (or possibly the Pierce College show) looked like, the iPhone flipping in and out of focus, from about six miles away.

Happy Birthday, America.

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Filed under Fireworks, Video

July 4, 2020 · 23:05

Full Moon Rising With A Side Dish Of Eclipse

SOOOOOO much happening today! Bird adventures! Lizards! Airplanes! BBQ! Fireworks (all illegal – see my video on FaceBook!)

But we’ll deal with those later. Let’s talk about catching the full moon rising over the Santa Monica Mountains (between Tarzana/Encino and Santa Monica) while also being partially eclipsed! It was only a penumbral eclipse but that still astonishing and at least 100 x more beautiful than my pictures can portray! But I’ll share them anyway.

Thanks to the Star Walk app on my iPhone, I was pretty sure it was going to come up right about there. Which just meant I had to find a hole through the trees on the hillside below me.











For a view of the bigger picture:

From there it was a not-so-quiet yet relaxing couple of hours of listening to the barrage, along with the peepers down the hill, a couple of nighthawk’s circling above, a pair of owls pissed off with all of the explosions, and the wind through the trees.

I had put away the good cameras, but before I came in I took a shot at a picture using the iPhone which I didn’t think was up to the job. I’m glad I tried – I was wrong!

Upper right, way overexposed, the full moon. Dead center, bright through the tree, is Jupiter. To the lower left of center, just inside of that big branch from the center tree, much dimmer than Jupiter, is Saturn. Below it all, the San Fernando Valley in all of its illegal fireworks glory.

I hope you had a safe Fourth if you’re in the US, wore your mask, and stayed physically distant if you went anywhere.

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Filed under Astronomy, Fireworks, Photography, Space