Category Archives: 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.

1 Comment

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!

Leave a comment

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!)

Leave a comment

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.

2 Comments

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

March 13, 2015 · 20:10

My Funeral

First of all, I’m fine. I’m not dying, at least, not any more than the rest of us. I didn’t get any recent news of a tumor, blocked artery, or astronomically high blood pressure, nor do I know of a bullet or a bus with my name on it.

I am not superstitious (or “stupidstitious”) about it being Friday The 13th. Today’s date means nothing other than tomorrow is “Pi Day Of The Century“! Which also means nothing, since the calendar and our measurement of time is about 90% arbitrary, but it’s a great excuse to be goofy and have pie. Mmmmm, pie…

But this song came up in my playlist the other day (see #16) and my brain got to spinning off onto a dozen tangents, as it is occasionally wont to do. (Silly brain.) So, given greater and lesser amounts of seriousness, to be updated periodically as I change my mind or come up with other goofy crap to do, here are some suggestions/requests/orders (you don’t want to be haunted, do you?) for my eventual funeral:

  1. Please do not call it a funeral. “Memorial service,” “life celebration,” whatever the politically correct term of the week is, but not “funeral.” Although as you’ll see, I want the “fun” put back in “funeral!”
  2. Someone take a LOT of pictures. I would do it, but, you know, “dead” and all that.
  3. If at all possible, start the event just before sunset, outdoors, under a clear sky.
  4. Wearing a suit and tie or fancy dress will be frowned upon, unless of course some serious (and entertaining) gender-bending is going on. Depending on the weather, if you must wear “normal” clothes, Hawaiian shirts for summer or turtlenecks for winter are okay.
  5. Extra points: Wear Hawaiian shirts with airplanes on them.
  6. Beaucoup extra points: Wear turtlenecks with airplanes on them.
  7. All things being equal, people should be encouraged to wear costumes — fannish friends might consider bringing extras for the mundane factions of my family and friends.
  8. If not into fannish costumes, mundane costumes will do. Angels, Chiefs, or Kings jerseys and/or hats are all acceptable. Their rivals’ gear will, obviously, not be acceptable.
  9. Extra points: Anyone wearing a combination of Angels, Chiefs, and Kings gear will be recognized for their creativity and given a seat of honor for the event as a reward.
  10. Beaucoup extra points: Have the Angels’ World Series trophy, the Chiefs’ Lombardi Trophy, or the Stanley Cup there for people to take selfies with.
  11. Have a flyover. My pals at the CAF will do a great job.
  12. Extra points: Get the Blue Angels or Air Force Thunderbirds instead of the CAF.
  13. Beaucoup extra points: Get the Blue Angels, and the Air Force Thunderbirds, in addition to the CAF.
  14. Everyone’s invited. (Yes, that means you too!)
  15. God’s invited (s/he’s included in “everyone”) but it’s my party, not God’s, so let’s not make any deities the Guest of Honor, ok? Either I’ll be some mythical afterlife actually talking to some deity or another (my mother’s bet) or I simply won’t (my bet). Either way, I’ll know and you won’t. (Wait, if I’m…then I won’t… Never mind.)
  16. Play “Into The West” from Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King, the one sung by Annie Lennox. I absolutely love that song and have wanted it played at my funeral memorial service ever since I first heard it.
  17. Extra points: Get Annie Lennox to sing it live with a full orchestra.
  18. Beaucoup extra points: Get Annie Lennox to sing it live with a full orchestra and Amanda Palmer!
  19. Tell jokes, tell stories, tell more jokes. I’ve done plenty of stupid things, let’s relive them in all their glory.
  20. Share my photographs, and keep sharing them for years and years beyond. They’re a big part of the proof that I was here.
  21. If I’ve managed to get any of my stories published, read some choice selections. If I didn’t break through, pick a couple of my less sucky Flash Fiction efforts to fill time until it gets dark.
  22. As it gets dark, keep the lights off (or at least to a minimum, or hand out flashlights with red lenses) so that everyone can get dark adapted.
  23. Bring out the telescopes and spend the evening (all night if you want!) with everyone taking turns looking through them at the planets, stars, nebulae, comets, moon…
  24. Whatever the venue, sing. Sing filksongs, but use the broad definition of the term (“Anything I’ve ever heard sung at a filksing”) so that things like “A Dying Cub’s Fan Last Request” are included (yeah, gotta sing that one!), and don’t limit it to just filksongs. If it feels good, sing it!
  25. With luck I will have had organs donated, so let people know what went where. I want any usable spare parts of mine used to help others when I’m no longer in need of them, and others should be encouraged to do the same. Have forms there for people to sign up for blood and platelet donations, as well as become organ donors.
  26. Serve chocolate chip cookies, Oreos, chocolate cake, ice cream, apple pie… None of this vegy plate and health food crap – life’s too short, as I will have obviously just demonstrated.
  27. Alternative idea #1: If it’s cloudy or you can’t find a dark sky location, or if it’s just later in the evening and you’re “telescoped out”, light up as many Christmas lights as you can (make it visible from space!) and then follow up with a massive fireworks display.
  28. Alternative idea #2: Have all of the above (or as much as practical) at a ball game. Angels, Chiefs, or Kings doesn’t matter. Can you just imagine a group of my family members, my CAF friends, my fannish friends, and other assorted knuckleheads taking up a whole section at an Angels game on a Big Bang Friday and partying all night?
  29. No flowers. Just because I’ll be dead doesn’t mean that we need to spend a money killing a bunch of innocent flora, most of which are probably allergens to someone in attendance. Instead, take the money you might have spent on flowers and donate it to a worthy charity. The CAF. Habitat For Humanity. UNICEF. Pick a group that’s going to deliver the biggest bang for your buck and help the most people.
  30. In other words, if you wish to donate in my memory, please pick a good, efficient charity, by which I mean one that isn’t going to piss away huge chunks of the donations on six-figure CEO salaries. Education is a huge area of interest, so maybe a group that puts disadvantaged kids through college, or just helps them get through high school. Or maybe a group that educates girls and young women in societies where they’re considered property. (You get the idea – if in doubt, read a few of my rants to see what pissed me off, then give to the group I would consider “the good guys.”)
  31. Hug The Long-Suffering Wife and my kids for me, early and often. As much as I might want this to be a silly & fun party instead of a somber & serious funeral, they might have have a tougher time than I will playing their parts.
  32. Have fun!!

I’ll see you there! (Wait, I forgot…)

Actually, by the time I plan on going, we’ll be doing all of this just to say goodbye to the meat-sack part of me. The all-important “me” part of me will be uploaded into a computer or robot and I’ll be there partying right along with you.

Beaucoup BEAUCOUP Extra Points: Upload “me” into the computer of a Goliath-class starship scout vessel, load the party and all of my friends and family on board, and let’s party on (or at least, near) all nine planets! (Yes, Pluto too.) Drop off those who want to stay back on Earth, then the rest of us will head outbound at some large multiple of c.

Yeah, that’s the best plan of all.

Leave a comment

Filed under Astronomy, CAF, Christmas Lights, Family, Fandom, Fireworks, Flying, Habitat For Humanity, KC Chiefs, LA Angels, LA Kings, Music, Paul, Photography, Sports, Writing

September 30, 2014 · 22:24

Fireworks For Kansas City

I grew up in Kansas City, among other places, but KC was where I went to grade school. The A’s were my team, and I’ve never been able to forgive them for moving to Oakland. The Chiefs are still my team.

Now I’ve been in SoCal for over four decades and the Angels are now my baseball team. But I can relate to the baseball fans of KC, passionate about their “new” team (the Royals started playing in 1969) and suffering through decades of mediocrity. The Royals won the World Series in 1985 after being perennial contenders for several years; since they, they’ve been lousy.

Yesterday my beloved Chiefs were on Monday Night Football and CRUSHED the New England Patriots, who were heavy favorites. Tonight the Royals beat the A’s in a one-game wildcard play-in game. It was an epic game, extra innings, blown leads, heart-stopping comebacks, a walk-off victory.

Next the Royals play my beloved Angels and they’ve got a lot of momentum coming in, obviously. It’s going to be be a great series, and I will feel bad when the Royals lose and the Angels go on to win the World Series. (Against the Washington Nationals, in six games…) But at least their fans can take joy in getting this far, the next step for their franchise on their way to their eventual second World Series championship.

It’s been a fantastic forty-eight hours for sports fans in Kansas City. For my brothers and sisters in spirit, here are some fireworks to celebrate!

DSCN4277 small

DSCN4283 small

DSCN4286 small

DSCN4289 small

DSCN4293 small

DSCN4297 small

DSCN4311 small

DSCN4318 small

DSCN4326 small

DSCN4331 small

Leave a comment

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

September 29, 2014 · 17:06

Tweaks & MNF

I’ve made a couple of tweaks to the site today, which you may notice in the sidebar over on the right side of the screen. “Latest Tweets” inserted, other stuff moved around and re-sized. Let me know if you like, dislike, or have problems with the updated layout.

Tonight I’ll be a bit busy with a certain midwestern NFL team playing a certain New England NFL team in Monday Night Football. I wrote last year about my one and only visit to Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City and posted several pictures from that trip in 2006. It will be an exciting 48 hours in KC, with the Chiefs at home in a premier, nationally broadcast game tonight, and the Royals next door at Kaufmann Stadium tomorrow night with a wildcard playoff game, their first appearance in the postseason in 29 years.

One picture that I didn’t use from that day because it was “blurry” actually fits in quite nicely with some pictures I’ve posted recently (here, here, and here), so here it is. Go Chiefs! Go Royals! (Even though the Royals will then get crushed by my beloved Angels in the next round.)

IMG_7289 small

3 Comments

Filed under Family, KC Chiefs, LA Angels, Paul, Photography, Travel

September 6, 2014 · 20:54

You Know What We Haven’t Seen In Forever?

All of those who correctly answered “FIREWORKS!” can take an extra fifteen minutes for lunch tomorrow. Have some fireworks from Dodger Stadium this time.

DSCN4281 small

DSCN4284 small

DSCN4287 small

DSCN4290 small

DSCN4294 small

DSCN4299 small

DSCN4314 small

DSCN4320 small

DSCN4327 small

DSCN4336 small

Why yes, we were sitting down along the first base side. How did you know?

For those of you keeping score on my sports obsessions affiliations, my beloved Angels have a six-game lead with twenty-one games to play, which I believe makes our “magic number” to win the division just sixteen. (Right? Game left minus games ahead, plus one? 21 – 6 = 15 +1 = 16.)

My beloved Chiefs open the NFL season tomorrow after a truly unbelievable year last year, going 11-5 after being 2-16 the previous year — and then collapsing in the worst “epic fail” loss in playoff history. This year? I’ll be thrilled if we’re 10-6 or 11-5 and in the playoffs again, but I think we may struggle to get to 8-8. Last year might have been an anomaly, but I will be thrilled to be proven wrong!

 

3 Comments

Filed under Fireworks, KC Chiefs, LA Angels, Photography

September 5, 2014 · 20:49

Sounds

I was just out in the back yard, standing there in the dark while the dog patrolled and marked her territory. It’s a nice night here, moon through the trees, still warm, starting to get a bit muggy — but what really struck me were the sounds.

From inside the house I could hear the Angels-Twins baseball game on the television. As I mentioned the other day, even if you’re not watching or paying attention to the game, even if you don’t care about the outcome, if you’ve been raised with baseball in your life there’s a rhythm, a form, a patois to a baseball game broadcast that’s all its own. That’s a sound that can take me straight back to childhood, back when there was only one game on television all week, the NBC Saturday Game Of The Week, and it was never my team. (At that point it was the Kansas City Athletics.) Every game was listened to on the radio, with Monte Moore calling the action. I’m sure that for other folks there’s a similar attachment to the sounds of soccer or basketball, but for me it’s baseball.

From down the block I can hear the high school football game, the first home game of the year. It’s a private high school, not the public school our kids went to, but it’s always great to hear the crowd, the band, the totally unintelligible blaring from the PA system. It would have been great to be back in Kansas City for this weekend’s season kickoff festivities for the Chiefs, but lacking that, the sound of night high school football games tells me at a cellular level that football season is here.

As Jessie finished her business, over the hill by the county line I could hear a siren start up. I remember as a kid being surprised to find that (as a general rule) different siren sounds indicated different emergency vehicles. Fire trucks don’t sound like ambulances which don’t sound like police cars. What I was hearing tonight was a police car, which made sense given that it came from that direction while the fire station was over that way and the hospital over that way. A minute later, off toward the Valley, the sound of an incoming helicopter indicated that something was indeed up over toward the freeway.

When we were in Vermont and upstate New York in June, one of the things that struck me after a couple of days was the total lack of sirens and helicopters. Between police, fire, and ambulance sirens and police, private, and traffic helicopters flitting about, you never go more than a couple of hours without hearing sirens and choppers in Los Angeles. It’s so routine you don’t even think about it until you start hearing a LOT of them. (If they’re fire engines, you live near the hills covered in dry brush, and you suddenly catch a whiff of smoke on the breeze, that’s a whole different alert level.) But in ten days in New England, I didn’t hear a single siren, nor did I see or hear a single helicopter. As with the dogs that did not bark in the night, it stood out once it was noticed.

Finally, off in the distance, going through the Santa Suzanna Pass, a train whistle could be heard. There’s a reason that sound is so synonymous with loneliness and longing, the call of the road, the desire to be off seeking adventures or a new life, all debts paid one way or the other, a clean slate wherever we end up. It made me wonder what sound evoked those feelings before the train was invented. There must have been one, the feelings aren’t new. I’m thinking it might have been the sound of honking geese heading over the horizon.

Where do those geese go, and when can I follow?

Leave a comment

Filed under Dogs, KC Chiefs, LA Angels, Los Angeles, Paul

May 9, 2014 · 23:30

The Best Distraction In History

We have invented more than a few things over time to distract us, to give us something to do while procrastinating, to take us away from what we really should be doing.

First, there was the book. I doubt anyone’s family ever started to death because the hunter/gatherer/farmer/provider in the family was too wrapped up in “The Illiad” or “Gilgamesh.” These days we’ve gotten better at procrastination, so there are many sudden sick days called in when the latest “Wheel of Time” or “Game of Thrones” book comes out.

Then came radio. How could kids be expected to study and do homework when “Terry and the Pirates” or “Inner Sanctum” was coming right into their living rooms?

Television became the king pretty quickly by the 1950’s and 1960’s. Housewives left carpets unvacuumed and laundry unwashed (okay, stereotypical, but in the 50’s and early 60’s those stereotypes were there for a reason) due to the afternoon soap operas. No one in his right mind tried to get kids to do anything on Saturday morning when cartoons were on.

Sports got onto television and men led the charge as we all found ways to change our schedules to accommodate the World Series, football playoffs, Stanley Cup finals, and March Madness. (It long ago stopped being just men, but that’s another stereotype that lingers.)

Computer games have been ruling the roost lately. How many billions of hours have the human race collectively squandered on Angry Birds, Farmville, Bejeweled, Candy Crush, Pac-Man, and on and on and on and on?

We all have our own tastes for distractions, the thing that can make us decide to throw in the towel on even trying to meet a deadline or goal. I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for books, and there are a few television shows I’ll make time for. And of course, my beloved Kings, Chiefs, and Angels, especially if (when!) they’re in the playoffs.

But there’s no doubt a new challenger for my time.

The latest Dragon spacecraft from SpaceX arrived at the International Space Station last week. Soon afterward, an equipment pallet was remotely taken from the Dragon and installed on the nadir (“bottom”, or Earth-facing) side of the station. It simply has several HD television cameras, controlled from the ground. And they’re always on. And you can watch them, LIVE, for free, from your computer or tablet or smart phone or whatever.

There are several feeds that I’ve found. This one is fantastic, with a split screen showing both the live feed video from Ustream and the ISS live tracking map from the European Space Agency. In one fell swoop, you can see what the astronauts on the ISS are seeing, and you can tell where they’re at and what you’re looking at. (Bookmark it NOW!)

Capture 1Capture from NASA & ESA

At this moment, we’re just coming up on sunrise. Sixty seconds ago the live video was black (it was night, ISS was over the Atlantic, no cities, no lights). Then we came into the sunrise on orbit (spectacular!) and the ISS got lit up brilliantly, while the ground below it is still in darkness. (If you had been in northwest Africa, inside that yellow circle surrounding the ISS on the map, it would have been an outstanding time to go outside and see it.)

The straight video feed only, live from space, can be found here. Put it on full screen, put on some tunes, and kiss the next couple of hours goodbye!

Capture 2Capture from NASA & ESA

Five minutes later, and the Earth below is coming into daylight. It’s dawn over the Mediterranean.

Capture 3Capture from NASA & ESA

Two minutes later, there’s the French Riviera and Northern Italy disappearing behind us as we head toward Turkey.

You can see what’s happening here. The system switches between cameras facing “forward,” “backward,” and “straight down.” There are brief periods when the live feed goes gray as ISS goes out of range of the TDRS satellites and ground stations, but it will be back in a couple of minutes.

Capture 4Capture from NASA & ESA

There’s Italy, clear as a bell. It looks like a lovely day there. It looks like an even more lovely day 260 miles up.

I may never get anything done again. If these kinds of views ever get boring or routine or droll, please feel free to check me for a pulse.

Capture 5Capture from NASA & ESA

Big storms over the Black Sea. (Gotta go to bed. Gotta go to bed. Gotta go to bed…)

Orbital mechanics

2 Comments

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