Category Archives: KC Chiefs

Modern Day Catherdrals

With some of the most magnificent modern architecture in the world being on display with our sports stadiums, I’ve heard it said that they are our modern-day cathedrals, the equivalent of Notre Dame in Paris and St. Paul’s in London.

Given the way we worship our sports teams and players, that might be more true on a couple of different levels.

SoFi Stadium is covered with this translucent film to keep everything dry, but it’s open at the ends and sides, so if we really get a storm it might be dry-ish.

Still, it’s gorgeous and geometrically intricate and amazing. That’s a LOT of steel and concrete in very delicate balance, fighting off gravity.

The pillars, the curves of the structure, seemingly defying gravity. A much different vibe than Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. Much more sterile and cold.

Hovering up near the top, I couldn’t help but wonder how many calculations were done and what their models and assumptions were regarding earthquakes. The Newport-Inglewood Fault system runs all over this area, from the Newport Beach area up along the coast to the UCLA – Century City area. It’s now believed to be capable of delivering an earthquake in the M7.5 range, which is massive. Aside from all of the other damage that would cause to houses, businesses, utilities, highways, and highrise office buildings, I was wondering where the breaking point is here – in the roof structure or in one of those massive columns?

I don’t want to be anywhere near here if and when we find out. In fact, when that day comes, I wouldn’t complain if I’m in Kansas City or points east.

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Filed under Disasters, KC Chiefs, Los Angeles, Photography

Sunday At SoFi

SoFi Stadium in Inglewood is where the LA Chargers and the LA Rams play football. Today my beloved Chiefs were playing their division rivals, the Chargers.

It’s a stunningly gorgeous stadium and facility.

We were up in the nosebleed seats, but could still see everything just find, assisted by that GINORMOUS video scoreboard.

My beloved Chiefs did not play particularly well and made way too many mistakes with penalties and turnovers.

Our quarterback, #15 there, is pretty good. Good enough, so we’re 4-0 now. All four wins have been “ugly,” but a win’s a win.

As is usually the case with Chargers games (we’ve gone here, at their previous smaller venue before SoFi opened, and their old home down in San Diego) a huge percentage of their seats get resold to fans of the opposing team. Thus our nickname, “Arrowhead West.”

And since we’re just a couple miles from LAX, we get to watch planes on short final while waiting out in the parking lot for our shuttle bus back to the offsite parking location. This was a British Airways A380, floating up there exactly the same way that bricks don’t.

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports

Running A Tiny Little Bit Warm

Which is unusual, normally I tend to be a half degree F or so on the cool side.

Whatever.

You may safely assume that I met my absolutely drop dead deadline even if I failed miserably to meet my desired deadlines, I’m upright and taking nourishment, and celebrating the Chiefs’ win bringing them to 3-0 for the season.

*makes that little pop noise with my little finger in my mouth and spins my index finger about in a celebratory manner*

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Paul, Photography

With 76,415 Of My Closest Friends

Game Day!

I flew in, my son drove, bringing along his fabulous tailgaiting gear and flags.

 

Several hours of pre-game at Arrowhead Stadium is referred to as “The World’s Greatest Tailgate Party” and it’s a reputation that’s well earned.

There’s a picture posted on here from December, 2018 taken at almost this exact same spot, on a MUCH chillier day. Mid to high 80’s today, well below freezing that day.

Our flyover came from the US Army who sent a selection of helicopters.

The view was great, but there were a LOT of steps to climb to get here.

I was having a really great time. Many of the 76,000+ friends are seen.

We won, 26-25, and are now 2-0 to start the season. Our stupid mistakes made it a much closer game than it should have been.

Uhhh…duh? It’s Arrowhead Stadium, one of the loudest crowds in the world. Of course it was loud!

 

 

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Travel

Next Adventure

When we set this up three or four months ago, I knew there was a tight window at work to fit it in. If I had known then what I know now, specifically the unexpected things that have happened and made that window soooooooo much tighter, I never would have made plans. But that was then, this is now, and here I was on a plane.

I’ll admit, I spent a good deal of time in the last week thinking about cancelling the trip. And much as with the April trip to Texas to see the eclipse, I’m travelling with my work laptop and a stack of paperwork and files on memory sticks and I’ll be spending way, way more time coding and doing data entry from my hotel room than I might otherwise spend at the WWI Museum, or the Atkins art museum, or at the Negro Leagues Baseball museum, or trolling BBQ places. C’est le vie!

Over Palmdale Airport and the Antelope Valley, looking south toward the mountains and the LA Basin, there’s an unbelievable amount of smoke from multiple huge brush fires that have been burning for days.

Can you see the cargo 747 at the bottom, flying a few thousand feet below us?

Lake Havasu and the Colorado River are an easy landmark to spot.

My office in the sky. I lucked out and our flight was only about 1/3 full, so there was plenty of room to stretch out, get the laptop fired up, and get two hours of work in.

Somewhere over the Oklahoma panhandle or so, some small town was getting pounded. We saw several big thunderhead cells, but this was by far the biggest.

Today was International Observe the Moon Day – DONE! There it is!

I think of windmills for power generation as being more of a Western states thing, more of a mountain pass thing, but there sure were a lot of them out in eastern Colorado and western Kansas! I don’t know if they still call the wind “Mariah,” but they sure call it “Kilowatt!”

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Travel

Proof Of Life – September 9th

Too many deadlines, coming at me like freight trains…

It’s also getting windy, so that won’t help the two huge fires burning up in the mountains. Nowhere near us, but up around Big Bear and down in Orange County it’s getting ugly.

Speaking of ugly, I just noticed how the flags are beating the crap out of the paint on the roof of the Volvo. At 13 years and 90,000 miles, that’s the least of that vehicle’s problems.

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Weather

The Quest For The Three-Peat Begins

In the NFL’s “Super Bowl era” teams have won back-to-back Super Bowls nine times. (Eight teams – the Steelers did it twice.) The most recent occurance, of course, was my beloved KC Chiefs winning the last two years.

No one has ever won three in a row. But the Chiefs have a chance now. They’re actually favorites to pull it off.

Tonight was opening night for this NFL season. We, of course, decorated for the season.

We, of course, also decorated the cars.

The Chiefs started the season well, beating the Ravens in a repeat of last year’s AFC Championship game. It was tight – on the last play of the game the Ravens thought they had scored a touchdown that (with the gimme extra point) would have sent the game to overtime, but video review showed that the receiver came down with just half a toenail on the line and out of bounds. Great fun!

And just before the game was over, there was a launch out of Vandenberg, which I livestreamed on Facebook. (Here!) The rocket shows up above Castle Peak at 2:45, and I think it was pretty much visible (I picked the second stage back up on camera at 5:11) all the way until it disappeared over the horizon to the south. (Here!)

 

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography

Think Cool Thoughts

As with much of the country (and the world these days), it’s been HOT this summer. Here in LA it’s getting up above 100°F for the next couple of days, and I was thinking that it would help to “think cool thoughts.”

That got me to thinking, “When did I last see snow?”

I’m not talking about seeing it on the mountains off in the distance – that happens a couple of times every winter here, even in SoCal. (Mountains going up well over 10,000 feet will help that process. That’s why there are ski resorts within an hour’s drive of downtown LA.) I’m talking about seeing it right there, where I can make a snowball.

The first thing that came to mind was April 2018, when we went to Toronto for the FilkOntario convention and I got inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame.

And then it occured to me that we had actually seen snow falling at a slightly more recent date, even if it hadn’t been enough to stick.

A couple days after Christmas 2018 we were in Kansas City for the Chiefs game (after having been in Seattle for the game there on Christmas Eve) and we saw some flurries. The rest of the weekend was clear(-ish) and just COLD.

So think cool thoughts, know that the snows and fall and flannel will return, and know that 2018 had a LOT of great adventures!

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Filed under Fandom, KC Chiefs, Photography, Travel, Weather

Superb Owl 2024

We were ready.

BBQ imported from Joe’s BBQ in Kansas City. So many appetizers and snacks and sides and salads and sodas and drinks and beers.

So many friends and family.

A good time was had by all. The game was close all the way, going into OT for only the second time in Super Bowl history.

There was tension, there was suspense, and in the end there was cheering and champagne.

There were a lot of lousy years for Chiefs Kingdom in the 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s, and 2000’s. There were only a handful of playoff appearances in a span of almost 50 years, and no playoff wins.

But we’ve been in the AFC Championship game for a ticket to the Super Bowl six years in a row. We’ve won that game gone to the Super Bowl four of the last five years. And we’ve won the Super Bowl three of those four appearances.

Next year will be next year. For now – it’s good to be a Chiefs fan.

Oh, by the way, Angels pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training camp on Wednesday.

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Filed under Castle Willett, KC Chiefs, LA Angels, Sports

Back To The Super Bowl

Yet another excellent day for Chiefs fans. We were underdogs, playing on the road against a Ravens team that had a better record, was the #1 seed, and on paper should have handled us handily.

That’s why they play the games. They made several mistakes, we didn’t, and we won 17-10.

That was our sixth straight AFC Conference game, and we’ve won four of the six to go to the Super Bowl. Four Super Bowls in five years? I’ll take it!

Now the preperations start for our Super Bowl party. We’re hoping for an eclectic group from family, some of my co-workers, and some of the Long-Suffering Wife’s former co-workers. It should be fun!

The Chiefs Kingdom flag flies at Castle Willett. This will be exciting, win or lose on February 11th.

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Filed under Castle Willett, KC Chiefs, Photography, Sunsets