Category Archives: KC Chiefs

September 24, 2017 · 22:41

Sunday Football

In the fall in the United States on Sundays, there’s a thing called the National Football League. In this part of the world, the team formerly known as the San Diego Chargers have now moved to Los Angeles. My childhood loyalties are to the Kansas City Chiefs, a fierce rival of the Chargers.

The Chargers are in an unenviable position where the people of San Diego hate them for leaving and the people of Los Angeles couldn’t care less about them. They don’t have a home stadium here – their eventual home will be shared with another team (the transplanted Los Angeles Rams, who used to be the St Louis Rams, after previously being the Los Angeles Rams) and for the moment the Chargers are playing in Stubhub Center on the college campus of Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Stubhub Center is lovely and new and no doubt a high end soccer stadium by US standards. By NFL standards, it’s not even a decent minor league stadium. It seats 36,000 max, while almost all other NFL stadiums start in the 60,000+ range and from there get really BIG.

We got there about two hours before game time, were surprised that we could get into the stadium that early, so we sat in the shade and chilled. It was lovely.

The other thing about being a transplant team is that you don’t have a legion of loyal fans. Look at any other NFL stadium, you’ll see a sea of fans wearing the home team colors, jerseys, and paraphernalia. The Chiefs wear red, the Chargers powder blue – see what the crowd looked like during the game?

The game itself was exciting as the Chiefs took off to an early 14-0 lead after several HUGE Chargers mistakes.

The Chargers made a game of it, but the Chiefs pulled away at the end, despite playing a bit sloppy and making way too many penalties.

With a late touchdown to put it away, my beloved Chiefs won 24-10. We’re now 3-0 on the season, the final undefeated team in the American Conference.

Many thanks to my son for the surprise visit from overseas and the tickets, and to my daughter’s boyfriend (a Chargers fan) for putting up with us all.

Oh, by the way, I probably won’t be speaking much tomorrow. Or maybe Tuesday. I did a lot of screaming today…

 

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports

January 16, 2016 · 22:49

Small & Zippy

I got my first good test of my new car out on the open freeway today. I see why the cruise control is there. Finding myself being small and zippy, even with a little four-cylinder engine, after fifteen years driving a battleship-sized “soccer mom-mobile,” it’s easy to find yourself cruising at… Well, let’s say it was far enough above the posted speed limit to give decent odds on getting my second speeding ticket sooner rather than later.

Here she is:

File Jan 16, 19 36 50 small

I have, of course, named her “Hissy.”

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Filed under Castle Willett, KC Chiefs, Paul

January 9, 2016 · 23:26

They’re On To Me

I swear, you can’t make this stuff up. (Well, you can, and I can, but I’m not.)

Coming home from the hangar (had to make it in time to watch my beloved KC Chiefs demolish the Houston Texans 30-0 for their first playoff win in over twenty years) I get off the freeway. About two blocks north, out of a side street behind me pulls out a blue sports care. It pulls up beside me at the light.

It’s a Maserati Ghibli.

Okay, so I already suspected that something’s making them more common. Whatever.

I get to the next major intersection and turn right. The light blue Maserati has pulled in behind me and follows.

I drive three or four miles north, then turn left off of the main street onto a secondary street, away from all of the businesses and into the housing tracts. The light blue Maserati follows me.

Now we’re seeing behavior that is…unexpected.

Up over the hill and down the other side. I turn left at the stop sign onto the tertiary street that leads into “strictly middle-class land,” where no Maserati has ever gone before. The light blue Maserati follows me.

This is now full blown creepy, sort of.

Finally turn right onto our short street. Nothing here but us chickens. The light blue Maserati hesitates at the stop sign…then follows me.

We’re just a handful of houses from the corner so I’ve got time to swing into the driveway, get out, and be standing on the sidewalk watching him as it goes by. The driver, a guy, is going slowly, actually looking the other way, as if he were lost and looking for an address.

Sure! That’s what he wants me to think he’s doing!

He passes me, gets a house or two past ours, then finally picks up speed and heads off down the street.

They’re on to me. My story the other day has exposed some super secret cabal, or possibly an alien invasion that’s underway under our very noses. Now the “Maserati people” (who no doubt come from pods) know that I’m a threat to expose them.

If I’m not heard from again, rescue me! I’ll no doubt be in the trunk of a Maserati Ghibli, my mouth covered with duct tape, blindfolded, and handcuffed.

Wait – do Maserati’s have trunks?

Never mind.

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Filed under Farce, KC Chiefs

December 26, 2015 · 22:39

Saturday Night In The Spam Bin

Casting about for a topic, much like a puppy scampering after a lief blown in the wind (it’s a Norwegian puppy, apparently), I spy with my little eye a note from WordPress that informs me “there are 444 comments in the spam folder.”

Oh? Really. Surely there must be some true gems of wisdom in there to admire as I listen to the “Saturday Night Safety Dance” on SiriusXM. TURNED UP REALLY LOUD!!

(Right now it’s Annie Lennox & The Eurythmics, “Sweet Dreams“)

Kaitlynn says, “Do not push me.”

No context for you, says Kaitlynn! She sounds like she’s on the edge, ready to snap. One wonders if her alarm clock failed to go off this morning, leaving her to run off to work without coffee or a shower, only to find once she got there that she was being assigned to a twelve hours shift without bathroom breaks in customer service and returns on the day after Christmas when every unhappy consumer in South Gloustenberry is trying to exchange or return whatever crap their mother-in-law saw fit to re-gift or dump on them.

This has been mere speculation.

(“Oh, Yeah!” by Yello is now blasting through my office. My head is bobbing.)

“Helpful info. Fortunate me I discovered your website by accident, and I am surprised why this twist of fate did not took place in advance! I bookmarked it,” says Beatrice.

Beatrice sings the siren song of poor grammar in spam, but not because she (or, more precisely, her cheap, black market, Nigerian software) speaks lousy English. No, Beatrice is playing the long con. She wants you to think that she’s ignorant. But we know that she’s not. However, she bookmarked this site – see, it says so right there. So now she knows that we know. But we know that she knows that we know. Except that she knows that we know that she knows that we know. Which is extremely clever of us, because we know that she knows that… Oh, hell, Beatrice is just a lonely old lady in Ogaminan, hanging around the official post office, looking for a good time on a Saturday night. Just like you and me.

(“Love Shack!” Love shack, baby!)

According to Glinda, “Excellent goods from you, man. I have understand your stuff previous to and you are just extremely excellent. I actually like what you’ve acquired here, certainly like what you are stating and the way in which you say it. You make it enjoyable and you still care for to keep it sensible. I can not wait to read far more from you. This is actually a great website.” Well, she’s got that last part right. And I do care for to keep it sensible. “Extremely excellent”? Well, duh! It’s no wonder that Glinda is a wise and good witch. But I’ve always thought she was a real sanctimonious bitch for not telling Dorothy about the powers in the Ruby Slippers earlier. “You had to learn for yourself” my ass, how ’bout a little help here?

(“Take On Me” by A-ha. One of the best, still love that rotoscoped animation!)

Annette wants us to know, “The larger the pipeline, the larger the water sprinkles will certainly be. Remember that beyond the hookah shaft is often constructed of a steel that could rust.” I hate it when my hookah shaft rusts. I will now be indebted to Annette for life because she has warned me about this hazard. (No, my old hookah hasn’t rusted, working just fine, thanks, no problems, none at all, not that I think about it much and it’s not a euphemism damn it, why do you ask?)

(“Dead Man’s Party” by Oingo Boingo! I am filled with sorrow that I never got to see Boingo live. Sigh…)

Shanel says, “They can be just as important as the medical side of things. In order to save money on your air travel, you can opt to buy tickets for a roundabout trip. With a size twice that of Manhattan island, the asteroid was first discovered by Gustav Witt on August 13, 1898.” Shanel seems to have been smoking some seriously weird shit. Either that, or she didn’t listen to Annette and now her hookah shaft has rusted. Shanel seems a bit unfocused. But we’ll have to remember to throw a 118th birthday party for that asteroid next August 13th.

(“I Melt With You” by Modern English is up, the Bass Meltdown Mix. I mean, what ELSE would you play in the Saturday Night Safety Dance?! C’mon, hum along with the bridge!)

“Though cats are generally sociable dogs, not every guy lives easily with a associate. A few like a solo living.” That’s what Cleveland Browns Apparel has to say. Obviously, Cleveland Browns Apparel is so depressed about the butt-kicking her team is going to get tomorrow by my beloved Kansas City Chiefs that she’s started drinking so heavily that she can’t tell the difference between cats and dogs. I’m guessing that she’s living solo, whether she likes it or not.

I do wonder why almost all of the spam messages come with female names if they don’t have some sort of sales pitch for a name. “Michael Kors Handbags” is not an account ID that’s going to discourage a belief that your message is spam. Every single other one that I see uses a female name. Rowena. Valerie. Freda. Jacquetta. Deborah. Carla. Mary. Susan. Reno. Cathy. Vicki. Kamela.

Wait…

(The really, REALLY Not Safe For Work Unedited Version of “Eighty-Eight Lines About Forty-Four Women” comes on as I start to realize that Shanel and Annette may have been a bad influence on me tonight. The universe might be messing with my head. Or vice versa. Wow, man, look at all of the colors! Farm house!)

Fade to black. Delete all in spam queue.

 

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Filed under Farce, KC Chiefs, Music

December 6, 2015 · 20:28

Depth Of Field

As I’ve noted before, there’s often a discrepancy between knowing something in your head and “knowing” it.

For example, I “knew” the whole time I was looking for a job that when I got one, my priorities and how I spent my time would change. When I was looking for a new job, I was working at the CAF and occasionally doing some consulting work, but that was all pretty loosy-goosey when it came to scheduling and time allocation.

When I had days when I wasn’t out at the hangar, I was filling out applications, looking for opportunities, writing, working on stuff around the house, and so on. Again, pretty loosy-goosey. There might be times when certain things had to be done at a certain time, but for the most part, I did what I did when I wanted to do it, putting my own pressure on myself to get things done on time.

Now, of course, it’s 09:00 to 17:30 (or later) at the office, then Saturday’s committed to being out at the hangar. That leaves just Sunday, which still has to start with breakfast with the Long-Suffering Wife and groceries, then see how much can get fitted in , despite the fact that I’m supposed to be resting at some point. (Having my beloved Chiefs beat the hated Raiders helped today.)

There were a couple of live events I had on the calendar today which would have been really cool to go see. Last night I was trying to figure out which one to go to, or even how to get to both… But I still need to get more of the Christmas lights up, we need to be ready to start sending out Christmas cards this week, we need to get the tree up, I’m behind on a bunch of other stuff such as tracking our personal finances, so we didn’t even try to get to either event. Despite that, time constraints meant I got only a fraction of those other things done either.

Then there’s sleep. As you might have noticed, most of my posts show up between 23:00 and midnight local time. In particular, during November almost all of the NaNoWriMo posts were posted between 23:55 and midnight. The fact that I didn’t have to be up at 06:00 had a lot to do with that.

Now I do have to be up at 06:00, or at least by 06:30, and I have to be alert and intelligent (hey, shut up down there in the peanut gallery!) when I get to work, so going to bed at midnight or 00:30 or 01:30 is a really bad idea.

To recap, significant changes, which are all for an excellent reason, I “knew” they would all be happening, and I’m thrilled they are – but knowing that and executing the plan are two different things.

Thinking about this tonight, it occurs to me there’s a physical effect that mimics this. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

In optics and photography, there’s an inverse relationship between aperture and depth of field. It’s not exactly advanced theory in photography, but most people aren’t aware of it. If you’re not familiar with the term, depth of field refers to the distance between the point near you where objects come into focus and the point further away where they go back out of focus.

If it’s very bright and you have your lens closed down to limit the amount of light entering (small aperture) you’ll get a very deep depth of field. Everything from very close to the lens all the way to the horizon will all be in focus. This is why scenes shot in broad daylight always show your family, the monument behind them, and the mountains in the distance behind everything all in good focus. It’s also why television and motion pictures always have those huge lights.

Bright –> small aperture –> deep depth of field –> almost everything in focus.

Conversely, if it’s dim, forcing you to open the lens way up to bring in more light (large aperture) you’ll get a very narrow depth of field. There might be a lot of things close to you that are out of focus, and a lot of things in the distance that are out of focus, but there will be a very narrow band in between that is in focus. This is useful to know if you want to take a picture that really draws the viewer’s attention to something in particular, you close down the lens so your subject is in sharp focus, while everything else blurs.

Dim –> wide aperture –> narrow depth of field –> almost everything blurry, only your subject in focus.

It’s similar to what’s happened to my priorities and scheduling.

While I was looking for a job, I had my mental aperture wide open. I had a huge depth of field. I was ready for anything, open to all sorts of options and possibilities, and everything was in focus, near to far. I was “a mile wide and an inch deep,” as they say.

Now, my mental aperture has shut down. I’ve got a very narrow depth of field. The new job, making sure I’m successful there, making sure I have time to spend with The Long-Suffering Wife and other family, my CAF duties – those few items are in sharp focus. Meanwhile, everything else is sort of fuzzy and catch as catch can.

I’m not sure it’s an observation which is particularly useful or profound, but I thought it was interesting.

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Filed under CAF, Christmas Lights, KC Chiefs

December 1, 2015 · 22:25

Downgrading FaceBook

As many (most?) people do these days, at least in our society, a growing amount of my Internet access goes through my phone. In particular, I have an iPhone 6+. I also have a lot of apps, for a lot of different specific uses.

I try to be organized. Additionally, some of the uses I need apps for are potentially extremely time-critical, i.e., apps relating to piloting a plane. If I need weather information or radio frequencies or data in a crisis or emergency, I don’t have the time to flip through dozens of screens trying to find the app I need.

My “front page” is where all of my “1st tier” apps are, stuff I’m using a couple dozen times a day. The next page is apps that I use pretty often, but not quite as much as those 1st tier apps. Third page is flying/piloting apps. Fourth page is astronomy apps. Fifth is travel apps. Sixth is business apps. Seventh is a whole slew of utility apps, grouped into subdirectories by topic – music, finance, news, sports, reference, and so on. Finally I have a screen with all of the stupid built-in apps that I’ll never, ever use but I can’t delete.

One of the apps that’s been on Page One since Day One is the FaceBook app. I joined FaceBook in January, 2009 and looking back, it was used immediately for getting in contact with friends from high school. We were coming up on our 35th reunion in the summer and FaceBook became a key for connecting long-lost friends and getting out information about the reunion. It was used afterwards for sharing pictures, and used even more in 2014 for the 40th reunion.

Since then there are other groups of friends who I’ve connected with. Classmates from Pepperdine, friends from science fiction conventions, cousins and relatives, and keeping in close touch with my kids when they’ve been scattered all over the planet.

In addition, my personal site here also posts to FaceBook when I publish a new article, and a number of my friends only see this site by finding it on FaceBook.

That’s why FaceBook has been a “1st tier” app.

Today I moved it back to that second page, and if it keeps getting less useable and more annoying, it’s headed toward page seven.

Why?

I used to see ads once a day, maybe twice. Now I see dozens a day.

The ads all have an option that says, basically, “I never want to see an ad from these guys again.” You’ll see ads from other obnoxious and annoying companies, but at least you’ll never see that one again. Except that choice is apparently exactly as useful as the “close door” and “open doors” on an elevator. It’s an idiot button, there to make you feel like you’re doing something when it fact it makes absolutely no difference at all. There are a couple of particularly annoying ads that I’ve seen, and flagged, for four or five days in a row. I expect to see them tomorrow again.

The algorithms that pick the ads are useless. I’ve seen ads for Denver Broncos jerseys day after day after day. Anyone looking at my timeline for more than five seconds will see that I’m a HUGE fan of the Kansas City Chiefs and hate the Broncos with the white-hot fury of a thousand suns.

I do not see posts from people that I’ve flagged as critical, and family. Things my kids post I never see in my timeline, only find them by going to their timelines and hunting for the missing posts.

Meanwhile, there are people I’ve flagged as “acquaintances”, just one small step above unfriending them, yet I see every single thing they post, no matter how little it matters to me.

It’s gotten to the point where I can scan back a day or two in my timeline and not see my own posts!

I used to load FaceBook to stay in contact with my friends and family. Now I load FaceBook to spend the next hour swearing and deleting one useless piece of crap after another.

Why bother?

Out of curiosity, how much revenue does FaceBook earn by having a useless, annoying ad show up in my timeline, to only be deleted a fraction of a second later? I have never, EVER gone to one of those sites or pages or made any kind of purchase. NEVER. So some version of an “official” NFL Pro Apparel Shop paid FaceBook a fraction of a cent to spam me? Over the course of a month, even with more than a dozen obnoxious ads a day, FaceBook makes what, twenty-five or thirty cents?

How about if they offered a paid version with zero ads, controls that actually worked, and a timeline that shows everything from the people I’ve flagged as most important? Maybe $3 a month? I would pay that in a heartbeat IF IT WORKED, and FaceBook could make ten times as much money!

Nope, that wouldn’t make any sense at all, would it?

Instead, with the app on my first page, every time I go there for any other important app, which is about 100 times a day, there’s that little red dot showing a dozen or more new messages. And I’ll know that of those dozen, at least eleven will be deleted on first sight.

Fine, that annoying red dot an sit on page two where I’ll only see it once or twice a day. Or on page seven where I’ll see it every day or so, maybe.

Or on page eight, where I haven’t been in a month.

Good strategy, FaceBook!

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Filed under Computers, KC Chiefs

October 11, 2015 · 17:56

When To Walk Out

We have a Sunday morning routine where we go out to breakfast before grocery shopping. Over many years we’ve gone through a few favorite restaurants, but for the past year or two it’s been a deli in the same shopping center as a mid-sized grocery store.

The grocery store is not the best we’ve ever been to (smaller store, smaller selection) but their service is generally pretty good. The bigger stores with the bigger selection seem to also all have lousy service, so it’s a trade off. (There do exist stores with good selection and good service, but they’re much further away from home and tend to be more expensive… More trade offs!)

The deli is not the best we’ve ever been to but their food is decent and usually we’re okay with them.

Not today.

We were in a bit of a hurry – the football game with my beloved KC Chiefs was starting in an hour, but we figured we had plenty of time. (If only we had known how badly the Chiefs were going to choke yet again, but that’s a story for another day.) More importantly, we were really hungry.

As usual we went in, were seated, and the bus boy (is there a better term than that these days?) got water for us. The place was less than half full and there were two waitresses. We started reading our newspaper, waiting for someone to take our order.

No one ever came by.

How long does one wait in this circumstance, particularly when you’re a “regular”? It wasn’t like we were off in a corner, we were right in the middle. We tried to catch someone’s attention, but got nowhere.

It’s not like the waitresses were overly busy. They both were chatting, schmoozing, joking around, having a good time socializing with both the other customers and the other employees.

It would be one thing if they had been busy. I’ve sat for far longer in places that were being slammed while being shorthanded. (Go to any large convention, science fiction or otherwise.) In college I worked in the food service industry for a while, I know how hard it can be.

But when we’ve simply been forgotten, or ignored? Hello?

Perhaps we should have been more aggressive about getting someone’s attention. Perhaps.

Instead, after about fifteen minutes, we just got up and walked out to go get our groceries. The owner/hostess at the door was wondering what was going on but I wasn’t in the mood to engage. The Long-Suffering Wife told her that we were leaving because no one had ever come and taken our order.

So here are the questions for the group mind – in such a circumstance, do you raise your voice, let someone know that you’re pissed (and hungry), set off a signal flare, or do you walk? And if you walk, how long do you wait before heading out?

Now we need to find a new place to eat next Sunday morning.

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Los Angeles, Paul

October 4, 2015 · 17:03

New Growth

Not that I thought that anyone was lying awake nights worrying about my stressed and leaf-dropping ficus trees, but when I went out into the back yard with the mighty mighty dog beast today, I found all of the trees in question to be popping out with new leaves and sprouts!

File Oct 04, 14 00 12 small

I know that this is a new development because I remember checking yesterday to see if anything was happening and I saw absolutely nothing new, which was disappointing.

File Oct 04, 14 01 05 small

Today, however, probably a third of the barren branches have at least a handful of new leaves sprouting. Perhaps the trees noticed me checking yesterday and figured it was time to put it in gear.

File Oct 04, 14 01 29 small

They also seem to be sprouting right out of the primary trunks as well, so I’m guessing new branches? I didn’t think these things could get bushier, but considering how little I know about them (and what I’m doing here), the odds are good that I’m wrong about that as well.

File Oct 04, 14 02 01 small

Hooray, the trees aren’t dead!

Yet.

I just hope they haven’t been talking to the philodendrons (pothos plants?) out on the front porch. (Which I still haven’t killed, despite my best efforts.)

On a day when my favorite baseball team comes up one game short in getting to the playoffs (pitchers and catchers report to Tempe Diablo when?) and my favorite NFL team, which had been a favorite to win their division, dropped to 1-4 and can’t do anything right to save their lives, having non-dead trees is a big deal!

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

September 2, 2015 · 23:16

A Silly Question Was Asked

There’s an upcoming niece’s wedding. There will be an official photographer at the ceremony, of course, but for several of the other more casual events, The Long-Suffering Sister-In-Law asked The Long-Suffering Wife if I would be bringing a camera on the trip.

It’s like the woman never met me for cryin’ out loud!!

Ahem, yes. Yes, I was planning on bringing a camera on the trip. Or two. Or six if you count the iPhone and iPad, or eight if I have to borrow The Long-Suffering Wife’s iPhone or iPad. We may have this covered.

Besides the wedding (which I’m sure will be splendid and joyous and such) is there anything else of interest in Fort Wayne, Indiana, “Jewel Of The Midwest?” (Actually, a quick check online shows that Des Moines, Cincinnati, and Kansas City trying to establish themselves with that moniker. Which is stupid – it’s obviously Kansas City. GO CHIEFS!)

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Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Travel

August 31, 2015 · 23:07

Odds & Sods For Monday, August 31st

Item The First: This is odd:

Site Stats

Normally this site percolates along with a handful of hits per hour. It’s not bad, but it’s not going to get any buyouts from Google or Medium any time soon. Three weeks ago there was a spike where it went up to 31 views in one hour, which I think was a record for WLTSTF. I may know what and/or who caused that one.

Then last week there was a one-hour long spike up to 47 views in an hour. No clue.

And today this. Again, no clue as to who or what.

Note, this is not a bad thing. I put this out there in order for it to be read and shared after all. But it just is odd that it’s happening and I’m curious. I’m also hoping that it’s a “good odd” as opposed to a “disastrous odd.” Since I’m pretty sure I know what the first one was, I’m also pretty sure (not certain) that it was a good thing and got good (if limited) results. I can hope for the best.

Cryptic? It’s that “elephant” thing again.

Item The Second: Good thing that football season is about to start and hockey training camps are about to open. I guess I’ll just have to live with the Chiefs taking the Super Bowl and the Kings winning the Stanley Cup this year. It doesn’t look like the Angels are going to even make the playoffs, let alone win the World Series.

Item The Third: I mentioned back at the end of April how great that month had been. The road has gotten decidedly rockier since then. This isn’t to say that there haven’t been some great things in the last four months (New Horizons, Vermont, our airshow, and so on) but there have definitely been some significant disappointments and issues to go along with them.

All in all, August? Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, okay? September? You and I need to talk and set some boundaries and goals, right here and now.

Item The Fourth: Tomorrow night (US time) there will be another crew going to ISS on a Russian Soyuz. Launch time for the “Expedition 45/Visiting Crew” TMA-18M is scheduled for 00:37 Thursday morning EDT, which will be 21:37 Wednesday night PDT. As usual, you can watch live on NASA-TV or on your computer using any of the free apps that bring NASA-TV over your internet connection.

For a few days the ISS crew will be back up to nine, before dropping back to its usual six. Remember the good old days when the Shuttle was flying and we routinely had thirteen up there for a couple weeks at a time?

Item The Fifth: Finally, there will be a full lunar eclipse on the night of September 28th (evening of September 27th in the US). Here in LA and on the US West Coast we’ll only see partial phases, but this eclipse will be perfectly positioned for all of Western Europe, Western Africa, the US east of the Mississippi River, and 100% of South America. I’m sure I’ll be reminding you of it later and giving more exact times, but if you want to see it, now’s a good time to stick it on your calendar.

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Filed under Astronomy, KC Chiefs, LA Angels, LA Kings, Odds & Sods, Space, Sports, Writing