Category Archives: LA Angels

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.

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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!

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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.)

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

September 28, 2014 · 22:07

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Sunday, September 28th

‘Cause the baseball postseason is here and my beloved Angels have the best record in baseball, that’s why.

  • In addition to the moon in the evening sky, there are a couple of bright planets. Look for them all! Last night (Saturday, 09/27) the Moon was very close to a very bright Saturn. Tonight, the Moon was getting close to a somewhat bright but very reddish Mars. The Moon will keep heading up higher into the sky each night and getting brighter, but if you’ve got binoculars, it’s a great time to be looking. Before it starts getting cold. Like GRRM said…
  • The Long-Suffering Wife cut her finger yesterday in the kitchen. I put a bandage on it, and the one immediately at hand in the kitchen cupboard was an old SpongeBob SquarePants bandage. Not a big issue, until much later, when the lights got turned off in the bedroom and she realized that it glowed in the dark. Her reaction was quite interesting, to say the least.
  • Is it unreasonable to think that our air traffic system should be robust enough so that a single disgruntled employee can cause massive disruptions of thousands of flights, leaving hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded, a mess than continues to be a mess three days later and will continue to be a mess for days more? Did no one anywhere in the FAA or Transportation Department think that there should be some sort of backup plan if a single TRACON had to go offline?
  • Jessie went out on Wednesday morning and was stunned to find her prized squirrel carcass gone from the patio sidewalk. For two days, every time she went out in back she went straight to that spot and started sniffing around and looking for it. Then she would look at me with sad, accusing, old dog eyes. I swear, I didn’t touch it, I left it there. I’m figuring there’s a coyote or raccoon or owl or hawk or crow that found an easy, more or less freshly dead meal and took off with it.
  • Pumpkin spice Oreos? Really? I will make a bold statement here — I have never had “pumpkin spice” anything. Not lattes, not beer, not cookies, not cheesecake, not ice cream, not pickles — nothing! As such, I feel fully qualified to feel like I’m the last guy who can tell humanity about the pods in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” or Charlton Heston at the end of “Soylent Green.” “It’s pumpkin spice, humans! Stop eating it! It’s sent by aliens to take over your brains! Don’t eat the pumpkin spice!”
  • At least the glow in the dark SpongeBob SquarePants bandage is on her “driving” finger. At least, that’s what we call it here in Los Angeles.
  • It’s hockey preseason and I’m learning that I need to get my gimpy shoulder into mid-season form quickly. My usual reaction to a Kings goal is to instinctively and immediately throw my arms in the air. If my arm hurts when I do that, we’ve got a problem. (The Vuvuzela of Victory only sings its sweet, sweet song during the playoffs. We have to save the juju for when it’s really needed.)
  • How much does a wagon cost these days? You know — small, red, kid sized, used for hauling toys, dirt, and little sisters. I’m asking for a canine friend.
  • The reports I’ve seen said that the contract employee who sabotaged the FAA air traffic control center in Chicago was upset because they had just been informed they were being transferred to Hawaii. Further developments and information are most certainly coming, but for the moment, let’s examine that allegation. Now, mind you, I absolutely love the city of Chicago. I spent a couple of years there as a kid (junior high school years) in the suburbs, still love going back to visit. I’ve never had a bad time there. But is it so good that when “threatened” with a transfer to freakin’ HAWAII I would go berserk? Are we talking about a different Hawaii than the one I see on TV with the beaches, the jungles, the weather, the surfing, blah, blah, blah?
  • Or the squirrel RE-ANIMATED and its rotting, evil, zombie squirrel body is stalking the trees, waiting for its chance to catch Jessie unawares so that it can WREAK ITS VENGEANCE!!
  • That comma is really important in the “It’s pumpkin spice, humans!” line.
  • Los Angeles about ten days ago, lunch time, near Beverly Hills. South of Sunset, by the Pacific Design Center, between San Vicente and La Cienega. One of the million little, itty-bitty strip malls that cover LA like scabs. As usual for the breed, this one might have had 12 to 15 parking spaces, all full. I’m sitting there eating outside when a brand new, white, shiny, Maserati Quattorporte pulls into the lot. He’s in luck! There’s a full size SUV, an Urban Assault Vehicle, just pulling out of a space. The SUV departs and the person driving (the windows were blacked out, couldn’t see them) whips it around and tries to pull into the just-vacated parking spot. “Tries” is the key word here. They back up and try again, unsuccessfully. And again. And again. All of this despite the fact that a vehicle twice as big just pulled out of that spot. Just about the time I’m ready to start laughing and go offer to park it for them, they give up. They ROAR out of the parking lot, tires screaming — because they have a Maserati Quattroporte and they have to show the world how insanely cool they are. As they leave, another SUV, just as large as the previous one, pulls in and swings into that parking spot in one try. The conclusion is obvious — despite that $140K price tag, the Maserati Quattroporte has the turning radius of a battleship and is a pig to handle in tight spaces! Well, that or someone was seriously overcompensating for something, and it wasn’t the fact that they can’t drive for beans.

Remember, “Some days you win, some days you lose. Some days it rains.” That’s deep. Really. Not even being snarky. From Bull Durham, one of the finest baseball movies ever made. (It happens to be about baseball. A bit. And other things.) ((I’ll shut up now.))

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Filed under Astronomy, Dogs, Freakin' Idiots!, Health, Juicy Chunks, LA Angels, Los Angeles, Ronnie, Sports

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.

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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!

 

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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?

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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!)

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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!

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

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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.

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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.

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

Orbital mechanics

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

April 30, 2014 · 23:25

It’s A Good Night…

…to be a fan of the LA Kings hockey team and the LA Angels baseball team (as my family is).

I had a big, important, ranty topic to talk about today, but I was up and on the freeway at Zero Dark Thirty to get to my writing group (things are going well, another thing I’m feeling good about), then spent a good chunk of the day installing a new piece of computer hardware (a Fujitsu SnapScan ix500 high-speed scanner), using it to get a big project done for the CAF first quarter closing, then went nuts on the hockey game.

As a result, I’m exhausted and would strongly recommend against thinking great thoughts, tackling complex subjects, or operating any machinery more complex than a pencil or a pen.

So as far as the somewhat trivial and pointless but still a big deal to a fan news goes tonight:

The Angels have won three in a row for the first time this year, swept a series for the first time this year, and are now above .500 for the first time since Opening Day of 2013, almost thirteen months ago. This is a good thing and we should continue to improve in order to keep me happy. (Which is, after all, what everything is about, right?)

The Kings are in the playoffs and played like crap the first two games of the series against the San Jose Sharks and then played better but lost the third game in overtime. In the history of the league, only nine previous teams had ever gone down 0-3 to start a best-of-seven series and even taken it to a seventh game, and only three of those won the series and moved on. Tonight, the Kings are the fourth with a convincing win.

The Vuvuzela of Victory sings its sweet song tonight!

As far as it not being advisable for me to be operating any machinery more complex than a pencil or pen, let’s see if I can at least debunk an urban legend about pencils and pens.

It’s a common misconception or urban myth that in the 1960’s NASA spent millions of dollars developing a pen that would write in zero gravity — while the Russians used a pencil.

This is obviously an object lesson on how stupid and wasteful NASA is with your hard-earned tax dollars, and how pragmatic and straightforward the Russians are.

Except, none of it’s true.

  1. NASA didn’t spend or “waste” millions of dollars. The pen company (Parker?) spent a few thousand dollars of their own money and then sold pens to NASA (and anyone else who wanted to buy one) for a few dollars.
  2. There was a damn good reason that NASA wanted a pen. Pencil “lead” is actually graphite, i.e., carbon, and it’s a very good conductor of electricity and highly flammable when powdered. As one writes, it gives off a powder, which in zero gravity floats around the cabin, and then can find its way into a switch or circuit. A small short circuit like this can be serious, and if there’s an arc of any kind, in a high-oxygen, low-pressure environment, that can be explosive and deadly.
  3. The Russians knew this and also started buying and using “space pens” when they became available.

So the next time someone spouts this tale, especially if they’re using it to bash NASA, let them know that they should check their facts. It’s a great story (I told it for years myself) but it’s wrong. At this point, the truth is actually far more interesting.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll pontificate on something deep and philosophical. Wait, tomorrow’s Flash Fiction Thursday. How about Friday for deep thoughts? I’ll pencil it in. (Pun intended, of course!)

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Filed under CAF, LA Angels, LA Kings, Space, Writing

March 31, 2014 · 23:27

Word Herding, Number Wrangling, And Opening Day

Today has been a good day, with many fears faced and hurdles attacked. As expected, the fears and hurdles are ahead on points, but the day isn’t done yet and I’m still swinging.

Many numbers both small and large have been herded into order so that my income taxes can be prepared. Given the last year’s employment (or lack thereof) situation, I’m not looking forward to getting any good news when all is said and done in the next two weeks. At this point, if the news is bad, at least that will mean that the news won’t be really, really bad.

But it’s necessary at times to realize that there aren’t any good alternatives, or at least none that you’re going to like. Even then it’s possible and generally necessary to distinguish between the bad and the catastrophic, choosing, and working to live with the bad and move on.

In better news, I’ve also herded many words today, something that’s also been put off for far too many days and weeks. There are always plenty of excuses to not get it done, when what is needed is a single reason to get it done anyway.

Today, I’m at 2,308 words on my way to 3,000, so it has been a good day.

More importantly, I was reading over the Chapter Six I wrote weeks ago, in order to get my head back into the story for Chapter Seven. And I really liked what I had written. It was making me laugh reading it and I was almost having trouble believing that it had come from my brain. I really like the characters, I really like the wacky, madcap, slapstick story I’ve got going.

I’m still a very green novice, groping my way through this process, but that feels like it’s a good sign.

Through it all today, it’s “Baseball New Year’s Day,” opening day for most teams. (We won’t count those two games last week in Australia or last night’s gala opening game in San Diego.) Even if your team didn’t win today, there are still 161 games left. If your team won today — don’t get cocky, kid.

As Crash Davis said in “Bull Durham” (truly one of the finest movies ever made):

“Some days you win. Some days you lose. Some days…it rains.”

That’s still some really deep stuff there.

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Filed under Job Hunt, LA Angels, Paul, Writing

March 28, 2014 · 22:48

Yet Another LA Shaker

Eleven days ago we had a magnitude 4.4 earthquake and I wrote about it and earthquakes in general. The tl;dr version: “Earthquakes are scary and can be deadly.”

Tonight we’re shaking again, this time a little bit more “briskly”, shall we say. It probably wasn’t quite up to shaking “violently”, at least not from the reports I’ve seen yet, but it’s early. This only happened less than an hour ago.

Tonight’s preliminary reading was a magnitude 5.1 earthquake in La Habra, just south of the Los Angeles – Orange county line. (It was initially reported as a 5.4, but the instant readings usually are corrected down a bit as more data is received.) A 5.1 shake is still a long way from “The Big One” (it’s coming folks, really, really) but it’s big enough to cause some damage.

So far there are only reports of some “moderate” damage with no details on what that means, other than one report of a road being blocked by a rock slide and a local fire station that’s been damaged. All of Disneyland’s rides had their safety systems kick and and stop the rides, and now they’re shutting down the park early. A few pictures of pantries and shelves dumped on the floor are popping up. We hope that there aren’t any injuries, but a 5.1 is strong enough to potentially cause them. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if by morning there aren’t at least a few dozen homes and buildings with some significant damage.

The other bit of news that’s coming out early in this one is that the earthquake occurred right on the Puente Hills thrust fault, which is the fault that was responsible for the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake. That was a 5.9 quake that killed eight people, injured hundreds, destroyed 123 homes and over 1,000 apartments, damaged over 500 homes and 2,000 apartments, with a total of over $350 million in damage. Even more importantly, it’s the fault line that runs straight under downtown Los Angeles. The downtown with all of those really, really tall skyscrapers that have never truly had the earthquake building codes tested much out in the real world.

One might be tempted to say, “Well, so what? This wasn’t a 7.5 or an 8.5 quake on that fault and all of those buildings didn’t get tested. It was just a 5.1 in La Habra.” The thing is, it’s a known phenomenon that some earthquakes, particularly quakes in the high 4’s and 5’s, are “pre-shocks,” the opposite of aftershocks. It’s not a huge likelihood, but it’s sure enough to make the USGS, Cal Tech, the fire, police, emergency services, the city emergency command posts, and everyone else involved stay on their toes tonight. The odds drop off by the hour, and they’re sort of long to begin with. On the other hand, if it does happen, we’re all gonna be in a world of hurt.

The other thing that I’m noticing with this quake (and the one eleven days ago) is how much information is available instantly on social media, particularly Twitter. CalTech and the USGS have bots set up that you can follow (I do) which will tell you immediately the time and location and magnitude of any quake, with a link to a map. That bot has been lighting up Twitter, with over twenty aftershocks in the last hour.

I also follow the LA Times on Twitter, as well as several news reporters and stations. When something like this happens, you start finding out about it far, far faster than you ever did before. (Remember the shooting at LAX last year where the TSA agent got killed? The first news reports of that were from Twitter, particularly since there were some celebrities near the site of the shooting and they have LOTS of followers.) You need to use some common sense in interpreting the raw information and know who to trust and who to take with a grain of salt. Having said that, it’s astonishing to me to see how fast information gets out if you know who to follow and get it from.

Finally, the Angels and Dodgers were playing a pre-season, exhibition game at Dodger Stadium when the quake hit. Listen to one of the great voices of the game, Vin Scully, describe it. The man’s got a story for every occasion, and he’s always calm and comforting. I swear, he wouldn’t change that tone if the alien mothership landed in Dodger Stadium. And he would have a story that was relevant for the occasion.

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