Category Archives: LA Kings

May 1, 2024 · 23:26

Goodbye Hockey Playoff Beard

There’s a tradition in hockey of growing a “playoff beard” from the time your team gets into the playoffs until they are eliminated or win the Stanley Cup.

As a loyal LA Kings fan, I’ve NEVER done this for two reasons. First, because I HATE having a beard. It’s scratchy, it itches, and I look terrible. Secondly, while I might be the least vain person on the planet when it comes to how I look, really and truly not giving a rat’s patootie about what I look like 99% of the time, I believe that with a scraggly, thin, grey beard I look like a homeless dude far more than I look like Santa Claus or Duke Leto Atreides. It’s BAAAAAD.

So, as my beloved Kings got eliminated from the playoffs tonight in five games, while the Vuvuzela of Victory is sad and will no longer sing this year until the NFL season starts in September, when the game ended at 22:00, by 22:15 the beard was gone, painfully.

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Filed under LA Kings, Paul, Photography

December 13, 2023 · 20:35

Kings For A Night!

Out on the town on a school night!

While I try to get to a couple of games a year, left to my own devices I’m sitting closer to the roof.

But there’s this season seat holder who donates her tickets to this charity auction we participate in every year (New Directions for Youth) and we’ve won the bidding three years in a row. Maybe four?

It’s different seeing the game from down here. Somewhat great! I recommend it if you get the chance!

We’re up 2-0 after one. Three quarters left to go!

Go, Kings, Go!

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April 29, 2023 · 23:17

Ten Years Of WLTSTF

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

I guess this is sort of a big one.

10 years.

3,653 days.

3,745 posts.

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

72 videos.

10 audio clips.

2,978 total comments.

75,498 total views.

49,522 total visitors to the site.

11,438 total likes.

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

God alone knows how many words.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As do we all, I’m sure.

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

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

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

February 15, 2023 · 23:35

Random Old Photos – February 15th

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

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

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

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

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

October 27, 2022 · 20:41

A Night Out With The Family

At least, a bunch of them! We’ve got something special going on Saturday, so as long as folks were coming into town…

So far it’s been a great game, the Kings up 3-2 after one period.

Time to scrape that ice!

And let’s start the second! Go, Kings, GO!!

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Filed under Family, LA Kings, Photography

January 30, 2022 · 23:23

My Weekend – January 30th

I hope you all had a pleasant and relaxing weekend. For me – mixed results.

I got a lot of work done on a project for the CAF SoCal Wing, and while it’s “work,” and a fair amount of it, that whole gig is wrapping up so the sooner I get it done the sooner I can reclaim a bunch of my time, so that’s a net good thing.

I checked my car periodically to see if it will work, i.e., let me shift out of “park.” In six or seven checks over the last two days, it locked up three times, the rest of the time was fine. Anyone want to bet that once I get it to the repair shop this week it won’t do it AT ALL for the repair guys to diagnose?

The Kings are on the road and playing well! It’s a pleasant surprise. Perhaps they have a legit chance to get into the playoffs for the first time in about four years. They lost in an overtime shootout yesterday in Philadelphia but won today in Pittsburg.

We did not go to space today, for the fourth day in a row. SpaceX is trying to launch a satellite but after three days of lousy weather today was perfect. Right up until the point where a cruise ship sailed into the restricted area where debris could fall if there was a failure on the rocket, so the launch got scrubbed at T-0:33. They’ll make a fifth try tomorrow.

Then, of course, after a roller coaster ride of a season, where at one point we were 3-4 and folks doubted we would make the playoffs, let alone win our Division, let alone make it to the AFC Championship game, but we had turned it around to the point where we were favorites to go to our third Super Bowl in a row, getting to here with that mind blowing last second comeback and overtime win last week – after all of that, we choked after building an early 21-3 lead and lost in overtime this week.

Yeah, that sort of sucks. A lot. I’ll live, I’m an adult, I understand that 31 of the 32 teams all finish the season with a loss, I remember that there were years and years when an 8-8 season was a triumph and we never even fantasized about making the playoffs at all, and now we’ve been in the AFC Championship game for a ticket to the Super Bowl four years in a row, we’ve cashed that ticket two of those four years, and we won the Super Bowl in one of the two appearances. (*deep breath*) Nonetheless, this stings.

After a bit of “destruction therapy” (crushing soda cans for recycling, they make a very satisfying “crunch” as they collapse into little hockey puck sized bits of jagged aluminum) it was time to go out with the old:

…and in with the new.

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in sixteen days! (Assuming they can settle the lockout/strike issues by then.)

Let’s hope that the week ahead will be productive and non-stressful for all. (HAH!) It’s time for the stress levels from politics, COVID, and “life” to back away from that red line on the meter.

 

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

September 30, 2021 · 23:13

My October 2021 Wish List

And so we’re officially 3/4 of the way through 2021. I will say that, at least for me, it’s better than 2020, but that’s relative, not absolute. It hasn’t been a great year so far, or even a good one. But it’s slightly less horrible than 2020, and the four years of horror that preceded.

Sure, The Former Guy is gone. At least, gone-ish. We still have to deal with all of the monsters, fascists, and subhuman slime that are today’s GOP in the Senate, House, Supreme Court, a thousand lower courts, and so on. And TFG is still spewing BS on a regular basis. But at least he doesn’t have his finger on the nuclear missile button.

And I do have a great job now with people I really like working with, which was not always the case four or five years ago. So I’ve got that.

And while we’re still eyeballs deep in COVID and the unspeakably insane, evil, and psychotic anti-vaxx crowd, so far all of us in the family are in good shape.

But again, that’s all a case of, “Cool! We personally have only a 72% suckage rating, while last year it was 82% and for many folks even now it’s in the 98%+ sucakage range!” Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

So I have a wish list for October. I’m not going to wish for the statistically ludicrous (yes, winning the Lottery is always a given, I would love a nine-figure bank account, thanks!) or any fantasy-based  ridiculousness (i.e., having that whole GOP crowd vanishing off the face of the Earth and being transported physically to the deepest depths of Hell by an Act of God) but I do have a few changes, simple and not-so-simple, that I wouldn’t mind seeing.

In no particular order:

  1. Can the Chiefs pull their collective heads out of their collective asses and start playing like a team that’s been in the last two Super Bowls and would like to be there again this year?
  2. Along another sports line, while the Angels have again broken my heart by playing so below their expectations, can the Kings, just starting the 2021-22 NHL season, return to their Stanley Cup form and bring joy to my soul?
  3. Can I never again see one of these spam ads online? I’ve lost track of how many HUNDREDS of them I’ve seen (and deleted and blocked and muted and cursed to Hell) over the past two months or so. It’s always the exact same video and always the exact same text, even though the “sponsoring” account is always different. “blumbergfamilydentalcare” is selling these kinetic art pieces instead of, you know, doing family dental care? (Sorry, might be some funky HTML formatting there)
  4. Can we get a ton of “back burner” items taken care of at work (which got pushed there after two months of “OH GOD, we’re all gonna die!” priority items) and also not have any more of the latter pushing them back onto the back burner? I’ve got a feeling the year-end is going to get hairy, and it would be nice to have a basic level of accomplishment and a clean slate going into that.
  5. Ditto for the CAF hangar work
  6. Can I please get this string of minor, non life threatening, annoying as hell medical and dental things to just stop and leave me alone? This “growing old” thing sucks and I would like to talk to a manager.
  7. Can the juncos return soon? Instead of Solo Junco I’ve now seen two this week, but I miss having a couple dozen every day, fighting the finches over the bird seed.
  8. May I please get a little bit of time every now and then (maybe even every day?) to just sit and read a bit?

I’m thinking if the Universe is in a good mood, I might get at least bits and pieces of four of the eight wishes. We’ll see. (And I’ll take that Lottery thing as a bonus – I’ve earned it.)

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Filed under Health, KC Chiefs, LA Kings, Paul, Politics

February 9, 2021 · 22:31

What Could Possibly Go Wrong – February 09th

Chugging through my day, dealing with the usual…

My office desktop that I connect to in order to run our accounting software pops up with a message that there’s a Windows update it’s ready to install. Okay… I had heard that there’s one out there. The timing’s a bid odd, middle of the day and all, but sure, go for it.

Less than five minutes later, I’m back online. No problem.

About a half hour later, my office laptop, which I use to connect to that office desktop, gives me the same message about a Windows update. Sure…

Less than five minutes, no problem.

An hour or so later, my personal desktop, which I use for about 99% of everything else in this year of “work from home” (which is more like “live at work” sometimes), gives me the same message. Sure…

It goes through the usual Windows update screens with the progress reports and the spinny-balls thing and the warning about not turning of your computer…

And I get this:

Wait! What?

Ten minutes later both monitors are blank, but the computer still seems to be on. I’ll wait.

A half hour later, nothing on the screens, no beeps, no error messages, nada, zippo, zilch. Starting to sweat a bit – I’ll wait.

An hour later, having started a new book (pretty good so far, “The Second Star” by Alma Alexander), nothing, nothing, none, nada, zilch. I’ll wait. It’s time for Zoe’s Extraordinary Playlist anyway. (WHAT! You’re not watching the show yet??! Jeez louise… Your loss. Best new show since probably Game of Thrones or The Good Place.)

Another hour later, we’ve gotten through the end of Zoe’s “fall finale,” check the computer and find the status quo. It looks like it’s on, but no sounds of any disks running, no blinking lights showing any CPU activity, nothing showing up on the screens. I know it said, “Do not power down your system,” and I’m a big proponent of following computer instructions in bold, red text, but c’mon. It’s been almost three hours.

So I hold the power button until it shuts down, give it a minute for the capacitors to discharge, then power it back up. Only to be met by about twenty seconds of disk activity, a click, and a shutdown.

Shit.

I blame myself. I’ve got a dentist appointment first thing tomorrow and I hate going to the dentist about as much as I hate getting a colonoscopy, and I had been whining about needing and excuse to not go. It’s that whole “Monkey Paw” thing – be careful how you word those wishes. Having to do emergency computer surgery in order to be able to work from home without doing EVERYTHING on that laptops isn’t quite what I had in mind as an excuse. But I guess I wasn’t specific enough.

Try the reboot again. Same.

Breathe. Think. I’ve been fiddling with computer since (literally!) before there were IBM PCs. I started doing hardware and programming on paper tape on a PDP-8 using 32-bit machine language, one command at a time. I can do this…

Unplug the system and let it sit. Perhaps it’s not quite in a completely powered down state yet. There’s “off” and then there’s “OFF.” To make sure we’re getting a clean reboot, let’s make sure it’s OFF. Wait another fifteen minutes. (What did the Kings do tonight? Lost 4-3 in a shootout. At least we got the one point, but still in last place. I guess now that I won’t be wearing my Chiefs gear I should get out my Kings jerseys.)

Now, once more with feeling and four part harmony…

The system comes back online normally and seems to be working.

Some days the gods are just fucking with you to make sure that you’re not getting cocky. (Those would be days that end in “y.”)

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Filed under Computers, LA Kings, Photography

February 20, 2020 · 19:27

Kings Hockey Redux

Out on the town two nights in a row!

I’ve spent my share of games in nosebleed seats, but tonight will not be that night.

Fourth row doesn’t suck – let’s hope the Kings don’t either!

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Filed under LA Kings, Photography

February 8, 2020 · 23:59

Panoramic Hockey

This will be quick – I just came up for air from being buried in accounting and righteous indignation on social media and realized it’s 23:59

Again, from last Saturday.

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Filed under LA Kings, Panorama, Photography