Category Archives: KC Chiefs

April 29, 2023 · 23:17

Ten Years Of WLTSTF

It snuck up on me. It wasn’t until this afternoon that I realized that today is the 10th anniversary of my starting this website.

I guess this is sort of a big one.

10 years.

3,653 days.

3,745 posts.

8,921 images. (90%+ are taken by me. The rest are images from the news, from cell phone screen captures, and so on.) To be perfectly honest, some of my favorite images of those 8,921 were posted yesterday. Still just a bit gobsmacked by that.

72 videos.

10 audio clips.

2,978 total comments.

75,498 total views.

49,522 total visitors to the site.

11,438 total likes.

1,827 followers (730 from WordPress, 703 from Twitter, 280 from FaceBook, 10 from Tumblr, 58 from post.news, and 46 from Spoutible)

God alone knows how many words.

The last time I either was too busy or, more likely, simply forgot to post anything was April 10, 2020. Since they I’ve posted 1,115 days in a row.

In total there have only been fourteen days of those 3,653 days when I didn’t post anything at all.

I’m not only here (which is probably the most reliable source since I have the most control over the site’s existance) but also on:

  • Twitter (@momdude56)
  • Facebook (/paul.willett.56)
  • Mastodon (@momdude)
  • Post (@momdude)
  • Spoutible (@momdude)
  • Instagram (@momdude56)
  • Tumblr (pauljwillett)
  • Snapchat (pauljwillett)
  • Hive (@momdude)
  • BlueSky (waiting for an invite, but I’ll give you three guesses what it will be…)
  • Email (pwillett@ix.netcom.com)

I hope that at least a few of the 1,827 folks who get notified every day that I’ve posted something take a minute to look and/or read and get a moment of zen or pleasure from it. I enjoy creating it.

As always, I hope that in the next year there are many more occasions to share a pretty picture, a goofy story, or something clever.

As always, I hope that in the next year there will be many fewer occasions to descend into a venting rant about something stupid, annoying, or depressing.

As do we all, I’m sure.

As a lovely parting gift, couple of favorite pictures from the last year:

Stick around for the next year. It’ll be a slice!

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Filed under Airshows, Astronomy, Birds, Christmas Lights, Critters, Entertainment, KC Chiefs, LA Angels, LA Kings, Los Angeles, Paul, Photography, Sports, Sunsets, Writing

February 16, 2023 · 23:31

Leftovers

Following the party on Sunday, there were leftovers. Salads for the next week, soft drinks, BBQ, beer, desserts…

…and enough red & yellow M&Ms (plain AND peanut) to feed a battalion.

To get the monocolor M&Ms you have to buy them in one pound or two bound bags. Most folks at the party were snacking on the other appetizers and the Crumbl cookies and the M&Ms were pretty and admired but not eaten.

So much for my diet!

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Filed under Castle Willett, KC Chiefs

February 15, 2023 · 23:35

Random Old Photos – February 15th

With the NFL season over and my beloved Chiefs having won their second Super Bowl in four years and their parade through downtown Kansas City held today…

With the NHL season about 2/3 done and my beloved Kings hanging onto 2nd place in their division and in a good position to make the playoffs and make a run at what would be their third Stanley Cup…

…it’s getting time to think about Angels baseball! Pitchers and catchers reported to spring training yesterday, position players report on Monday, and we’re about ten days out from the first spring training game, about forty days out from the first regular season game.

This photo I found from ten years ago, March of 2013, when my son and I were in Arizona for a couple of spring training games. The rest of February, and March, and already into April is looking busy, busy, busy, but it’s not THAT far to drive for a long weekend, right?

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Filed under KC Chiefs, LA Angels, LA Kings, Photography, Sports

February 12, 2023 · 23:56

Super Bowl Champions Again

It was a GREAT game, very evenly matched, very tight, comebacks by both theams, could easily have gone either way. In the end, my beloved Chiefs prevailed for their second Super Bowl win in the three Super Bowl appearances in the last four years, and the franchise’s third Super Bowl win overall.

May be an image of 4 people, people playing American football and text that says "IHDE OMBARDI TROPHY CHIEA SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS H" (From The Kansas City Chiefs)

The party here was a ton of fun, a good time was had by all! Tons of snacks, both ours and those brought by friends and guests.

There was much to eat and drink, desserts, all highlighted by BBQ up the ying-yang from world-famous Joe’s BBQ in Kansas City.

In the end, I was grateful to once again pop the champagne.

And now? Sleep. Much needed sleep…

It was a great day!

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Filed under Castle Willett, KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports

February 11, 2023 · 23:41

The Stage Is Set

If you’ve read this site for very long, you know that I’m a passionate fan of the Kansas City Chiefs football team. (Kansas City is one of the places I grew up, the grade school years.) If you’e American and haven’t been under a rock for the past two weeks, you know that the Chiefs are in the Super Bowl tomorrow against the Philadelphia Eagles. It’s their third trip to the Super Bowl in four years, having won three years ago and lost two years ago.

Tomorrow we’ll be throwing our “traditional” Super Bowl party for family, friends, and coworkers. We’re ready to rock & roll!

We’ve played Tetris with the fridge to get everything in.

The “spare” fridge out on the back porch is responsible for holding all of the cold beer, water, and soft drinks.

The champagne is ready for cooling, the margaritas for mixing, and the red wine for those who swing that way. (We don’t have a ton of the “proper” glassware, but we’re not going to lose a single second of sleep over that. If push comes to shove, we have an industrial sized package of “Chiefs’ Red” Solo cups.

We ordered in an emergency package from Joe’s Kansas City BBQ, a legendary hallmark BBQ site from a city legendary for its BBQ.

Of course we have desserts – I’ve heard a lot about this new cookie place taking the world by storm and they opened one nearby… Why not?!

While I’m obviously hoping for and expecting a Chiefs win, I’m also expecting a legendary Super Bowl between two great teams that are very evenly matched.

We should have invited a cardiologist!

Enjoy the game, y’all!

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Filed under Castle Willett, KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports

January 29, 2023 · 23:48

On To Super Bowl LVII

First of all, the most important question – why do we still use Roman numerals to identify the Super Bowls? What a stupid affectation!

Regardless, as anyone interested will know, my beloved Chiefs won an incredibly tough battle against the Cincinnati Bengals and won the AFC Championship this evening and will be going to the Super Bowl in two weeks to face the Philadelphia Eagles. That game is expected to be epic and practically a toss up, although the Eagles are favored by two points in the inital Las Vegas betting line.

I’ll need the two weeks to rest and recover. It was a high stress game and wasn’t decided until there was only eight seconds left in the game. It had a little bit of everything.

Suddenly, as January winds down, February starts to look busy. Possibly bordering on hectic. After an extremely busy December and January I was thinking there might be a chance to throttle back a bit, but there’s a family thing, and now the Super Bowl is more than just another game and might require a party (if the pieces can fall into place, primarily COVID related), and oh, did I mention, I applied for a three-day NASA Social in Florida for the Crew 6 launch currently scheduled at the end of February?

The odds of getting selected to participate in the NASA Social might be slim-ish, maybe 1 in 10? (A wild guess, at best.) But if that comes through, then A) I’ll have some truly fantastic things to share on this site for weeks and months to come, and B) when March rolls around I’ll need about a month’s nap.

It’s one of those “theory vs reality” things, also known as, “Be careful what you wish for!” In theory, it’s great to be getting to my age and still be really active and living life with gusto. In practice, it can be daunting and occasionally exhausting. However, when presented with the options (c’mon, NASA Social selection committee!!), I’m hoping I continue to come down on the side of the “YOLO!! LEEROY JENKINS!!” response.

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Paul

January 28, 2023 · 23:32

Fixed That Flag

First thing this morning.

That’s mucha more better!

The Christmas tree also got taken down and the last of the interior Christmas decorations put away today. See you again in ten months!

Of course, all of the interior Chiefs decorations stayed up. Priorities, man! Priorities!

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography

January 27, 2023 · 22:52

Penultimate Red Friday – January 2023

A Chiefs Kingdom tradition is Red Friday. Before every game, the town lights up in red, everyone wears red, and so on. It’s a Chiefs thing.

Here that also means putting up one of this years’ “Chiefs Kingdom” flags on the flagpole. Yes, the neighbors know where my passions lie.

For several days it’s been pretty much straight out with the gale force winds. Even then it looked odd but I couldn’t quite put my finger on how or why. Now I see that it’s simply upside down.

Something to fix tomorrow. The game’s Sunday. Win and we go to the Super Bowl, lose and go home one step short for the second year in a row.

If the NFL is one of your things, enjoy the games on Sunday. GO CHIEFS!

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports

January 7, 2023 · 20:54

The Dark – 2023

As 16:00 comes and goes with no monstrously huge surge in the regional demand for electricity, the SoCal Emergency Energy Management Agency realizes that today was the day I took down the Christmas lights and they can re-mothball that backup nuclear power plant that they’ve needed ten hours a day since Thanksgiving.

The dark has returned to West Hills, as it always does sometime in January. (Okay, there were years when it was February [or March…] when the lights came down, but they always got turned off by late January.) Normally it might have been next weekend, or even the weekend after, but the weather forecast for next weekend is abysmal and the 21st isn’t looking much better. Today was actually nice (if still more than a bit muddy) so the smart money said to take my shot.

As always, the good news is that the lights that took four days to put up only take four hours to take down. And the tree is still up inside, so there’s still some holiday cheer for another few days.

The fact that my beloved Chiefs stomped on the hated Raiders and tied up the #1 seed in the AFC playoffs and the bye next week is just gravy.

 

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Filed under Christmas Lights, KC Chiefs, Photography

December 24, 2022 · 22:32

Christmas Lights 2022 – The Tree

We’ve seen the outside lights – of course, there’s also a tree inside.

There might be another theme to our fall and winter decorating… Sorry, subltety isn’t one of my strong points.

As always, our tree decoration “theme” is “NO STINKIN’ THEMES!” Colored lights, white lights, bubble lights. Sporty’s annual aircraft ornaments going back almost 20 years, ornaments from when the kids were small, annual ornaments from when we’ve traveled after the kids have grown up and left. The star that has the motorized airplane towing a banner. You name it, we’ll throw it up there someplace.

It’s us.

I hope all of you have a wonderful and enjoyable Christmas tomorrow!

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Filed under Christmas Lights, Family, KC Chiefs, Photography