Category Archives: Sports

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

February 7, 2015 · 19:48

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Saturday, February 7th

‘Cause I ran a 5K today without benefit of any training, that’s why.

  • My 5K time was 44:03 officially. How “good” that might be is a matter of perspective. If I were in the kind of shape I would prefer to be in, that would completely suck. Under 30 minutes would be a good time. On the other hand, given the absolute zero training time, 44:03 and still breathing and not needing an ambulance is pretty good.
  • Every cell phone company is running ads where they show you a US map with their SuperDuper 5G+ coverage in a bright color, their 4G coverage areas in a slightly less vibrant shade, their 3G coverage area in a pale shade, and some grey areas out in Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, and about 99% of North Dakota. There’s some fine print there that I can never read, but I’m betting that part of it says something like, “Grey areas represent areas where you are up the creek without a paddle. Have a nice day.”
  • Where everyone else was in a 5K “race”, we were in a 5K “run.” (I ran with my LA Marathon training partner from 2012, who happened to live a couple blocks away and be neighbors with one of the organizers.) Early on, when everyone else was taking off into the distance and I was trying to get at least one lung to work, my goal for the day became obvious. There was a young woman who was running while pushing a stroller with twins and a seven or eight-year-old in tow. The only “racing” I wanted to do was beat her.
  • Sunday morning, grocery shopping, about 10:30. I’m passed by a frazzled looking guy who’s wearing a sweatshirt, red checkered pajama bottoms, and slippers. He’s carrying a jar of peanut butter, a bottle of vodka, a quart of orange juice, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. No one bats an eye — this is Los Angeles after all. The only question I had was, “Chunky or smooth peanut butter?”
  • The mom with the twins in the jogging stroller? We totally kicked her ass, finished at least two minutes ahead of her! WIN!! (At this point, I’ll take them where I can get them.)
  • The Long-Suffering Wife notes that I missed a couple of things in my analysis of how we’re looking for a good place to retire in a few years. I guess I thought they were obvious “givens,” but we will need someplace with good, high-speed internet. She would also like to find a place which has a good deli, but would settle for a place that has decent bagels.
  • Old note found — “Having a cat asleep on your lap when the Raccoons Of An Unusual Size start romping around on the roof can be…unpleasant.” Yes, yes it could.
  • Someone else noted that the title “Where’s A Good Place To Retire To?” should be “Where’s A Good Place To Which To Retire?” Never finish a sentence with a preposition. Fine. Granted. By the way, have you heard the joke about the cowboy and the snooty, uppity Brit?
  • Overall for my age group (male, 55-59) I finished eleventh. And no, it wasn’t out of eleven! (You know that you were thinking it, weren’t you.) It was out of thirteen. Since I was expecting to finish fifteenth out of thirteen, again, WIN!!
  • On the 101 Freeway headed toward Ventura, where they often have a 5th lane on the far right that begins where an onramp dumps traffic onto the freeway and ends at the next exit where it is a mandatory exit lane. Traffic is reasonably heavy. A handful of cars are getting on the freeway, and the first three or four are having a difficult time getting into the through-traffic lanes. As the “exit only” ramp approaches, I see that the final car isn’t hanging back to find an open spot. It’s a classic, cherry red, convertible Mustang, probably a ’65 or ’66, top down, and the driver is making an extremely aggressive move to gun it and squeeze into an open spot several cars ahead, barely making it before the lane exits. I’m figuring that it’s some kid who’s got more testosterone than brains. Then I pull up next to it a couple miles later and see that it’s a woman, probably in her late 60’s or early 70’s, boufant hairdo like something straight out of an “Animal House” sorority, wrapped up in a thin, transparent scarf like my mom always wore. She’s grinning like she just stole the car. YOU GO, GIRL!!

Remember, “I may be old, overweight, and slow — but I’m ahead of you” (Gotta get me one of those running shirts!)

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Filed under Cats, Critters, Juicy Chunks, Paul, Running, Sports, Writing

January 8, 2015 · 23:43

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Thursday, January 8th

‘Cause it’s cloudy and I can’t go comet hunting tonight, that’s why.

  • But there was a break in the clouds at sunset and I was at a location where I had a good view of the western horizon. Venus and Mercury are only 1° apart and while I could clearly see Venus of course (REALLY STINKIN’ BRIGHT!) I could not see Mercury.
  • How did people playing poker become a television “sport” complete with breathless color commentary? And why does it have to come on after the hockey game so that I have to either stop what I’m doing to change the channel or just put up with it? (Yeah, #FirstWorldProblem!)
  • There’s no “Flash Fiction” tonight (or last week) because our Grand High Phoobah Chuck Wendig hasn’t given us new assignments. Probably a holiday break sort of thing. And I didn’t participate two weeks ago just because it was about 23:30 before I realized that it was Thursday…
  • So that’s another “next clear night” thing – get the binoculars (and camera, of course), get to someplace with a good western horizon (the hill at Pierce College sounds good) and go hunting for Mercury.
  • A thing going around The Intranets today showed where it was colder here (mainly northern tier states, New England, and 99.9999% of Canada) than it was on Mars. Cool meme (yeah, I passed it on) but the “spin” on the facts that makes it true(ish) is that we’re comparing high temps for the sol on Mars to low temps for the day on Earth. The lows on Mars (apples to apples) was about -75°. Plus there’s that whole total lack of a breathable atmosphere thing.
  • Re: not realizing that it’s Thursday until 23:30 – I might have a rotten brain. Or I might just be trying to stuff ten pounds of thinking and stress into a five-pound brain pan. (That old figure of speech got mangled pretty badly there, didn’t it?)
  • In thinking about a good local place with a slightly darker sky (to do it right I would need to drive up into the San Bernadino mountains, or better yet, out to someplace like Joshua Tree, but that’s four hours each way) I realized that there’s a “wilderness” park up in the canyons near our home, between LA County and Ventura County. It’s listed as “closed at dusk” but I called, got some administrative dude, and got told that I “probably” would be fine going there after dark with a camera and/or telescope. A ranger or cop might see me, but they “probably” would leave me alone once I explained why I was there. And I was “unlikely” to have anyone close the gate and lock me in for the night. But I did need to be cautious about the coyotes. And rattlesnakes. And possibly mountain lions. And skunks, especially skunks…
  • Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch!
  • I’m going to check out that park and see if there’s a gate to be locked. If not, it might be critter time!

Remember, “There are two types of people in this world – 1) Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data”

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Filed under Astronomy, Juicy Chunks, Space, Sports, Weather, Writing

November 17, 2014 · 21:55

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Monday, November 17th

‘Cause I’ve got a 0500 wake up call for tomorrow, that’s why.

  • The aforementioned dreaded wake up is because it’s NASA Social Eve! Had a nice “pregame” dinner with three other participants who are here, and met others at the hotel. It looks like a great, varied, interesting group of folks.
  • It’s soooooo dry out here (the Santa Ana winds are blowing) that I’m getting very weird responses off of the touchscreens on my phone and pad. At least I think that’s what’s causing it, otherwise seems odd to have both of them flaking out at the same time.
  • For most of the “live” stuff tomorrow and Wednesday, check out my Twitter feed (@momdude), or if you’re not on Twitter, the last twenty or so tweets (sorry, I forget what I’ve got it set at) should be showing on the right side of this webpage.
  • The relatively new “baby” Hilton (it’s a Hilton Garden Inn) is nice enough, but the heater is REALLY FREAKING LOUD WHEN THE FAN TURNS ON!
  • It did occur to me driving up here that there’s another tourist spot to hit for the NASA Social participants who are coming in from out of state, many for the first time to this area. On your way back to LA, get off the 14 Freeway at Agua Dulce Canyon road and follow the signs to Vasquez Rocks Park. My money says that anyone coming to one of these events will immediately recognize where they are. (Beware the Gorn!)
  • Glad I brought earplugs. I thought they might be needed for the jet noise out at Edwards, but they’re definitely needed for the HVAC here.
  • WHY do they still have telephones in hotel rooms? Does anyone ever use them to do anything other than call the front desk and/or schedule wake-up calls? Who would pay $0.50 plus $0.10 a minute to call locally when everyone down to the toddlers all have their own cell phones with unlimited calls?
  • Best (maybe?) feature of the hotel is these new low-flush toilets that use an air cartridge or something to speed up the water that is used – touch the handle gently and it’s like, “By The Power Given To Me By Almighty GOD I Will Send This Waste To HELL!” I like that in a plumbing fixture.
  • I’m thinking there’s a conspiracy here between the hotel architects and the telephone handset industry…

Remember, “What do you mean it’s 5:55?!” is not the correct response when you’re driving and you’re meeting people in the lobby at 6:00.

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Filed under Juicy Chunks, Sports, Writing

October 6, 2014 · 22:29

ISS Pass For October 6th

In addition to tomorrow night’s total lunar eclipse, tonight and tomorrow night there are really high, bright International Space Station passes in the evening over the US. Check on NASA’s “Spot The Station” website (free), or the Heavens Above website (free), or any of a dozen or more other websites, or get an app for your smartphone such as “Flyby” (my favorite, a bargain at $3, also available for Android).

For the SoCal region, tomorrow’s ISS flyby is at 19:03:32, rising in the SSW, maximum elevation of 67.7°, magnitude -3.8 (super bright!). It should be a balmy 74° F and clear tomorrow night, and I realize that the timing conflicts with the start of the first LA Kings hockey game of the season and we’ll be raising our banner for last year’s Stanley Cup Championship — but it’s a really great pass. Go out and see it, you can take your tablet or phone out to watch the Kings game while you look at the ISS go overhead.

(For later tomorrow night / Wednesday morning, for the full lunar eclipse, the weather’s predicted to be 63° and clear as a bell – let’s hope!)

Of course I was out with a camera tonight.

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Fifteen-second exposure. The bright line at the upper left with red and white alternating dots is a jet leaving LAX. So is the one just above the horizone in the center, going through the leaves of our palm tree.

The ISS is just starting to rise. Look at the big tree in the lower right corner. There’s a notch in the branches at about the 10:00 position. You can see the ISS rising there.

I’m posting this picture in its full size for a reason. If you want to play along, click on the image, blow it up to full size, and see if you can see some of the other things that I was gobsmacked to see.

Hint: Look at the lower left, between the palm tree and the big airplane trail. Second Hint: It’s not a pterodactyl. I’ll spill the beans at the end of this article.

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Twenty-six second exposure, the ISS is just clearing that big tree. I’m also drawing a crowd, neighbors walking their dogs and wondering what I’m looking at. They’re all interested, not just humoring the odd guy who lives in the middle of the block (that would be me, but you all knew that), so I’m trying to answer questions and do a running commentary while I keep shooting.

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Sixteen second exposure. I would love to get a nice, long, ninety second exposure showing the ISS passing across half the sky — but this is the heart of the “world famous San Fernando Valley,” so any exposure that long would be so overexposed it would look like this one from June. You need a dark sky to do a long exposure like that.

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Fifteen second exposure. The two bright spots are lens flares caused by the street light which was right over my head. Not much of a factor when I was aiming toward the horizon away from it, but now that I’m looking closer and closer to it, the flares start.

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A thirty second exposure. See how much lighter the background sky is? Three times this exposure, six times the one above? Not going to work in this environment.

On the other hand, I’m loving the tripod setup and especially the new remote control trigger for the Canon DSLR. It eliminates almost all jitter caused by manually pushing the button on the camera, and for these pictures, it eliminates having to hold down the button for the entire length of the exposure, which introduces a lot of jitter, tripod or not. With the remote, you set the camera to “bulb” and hit the button on the remote and hold it for a second to start the exposure. From there, the camera will keep the shutter open until you hit the remote control button again, AND there’s a nice clock on the display on the camera back, letting you know how long the exposure is.

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Sixteen second exposure. Heading down behind the trees on this side of the street. If I’m alone I would have grabbed the gear and sprinted back across the street and up a house or two. (After carefully looking both ways for traffic, of course.) From there I could have watched the ISS another couple of minutes as it headed out to the NNE, and possibly even seen it fade into darkness. But I had an audience of dogs (yes, when I came in, Jessie knew that I’d been petting Ozzie, seeing other dogs) and neighbors so that wasn’t practical.

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Seventeen second exposure. (I need to remember that the Canon will do exposures up to about sixty seconds on its own, rather than having me guesstimate when to stop the exposure.) The trees are very brightly lit by the street lights in a long exposure, and the lens flares are winning.

I was still answering questions about whether my tripod was tracking the stars or the ISS, whether or not you could see the actual structure of the ISS with this gear, when’s the eclipse this week, will I have my telescopes out, will I have our telescopes out for Halloween…  (No, it’s just a regular old tripod. Nope, you need at least a 16-inch telescope, a 20-inch or 24-inch would be better, and some really fantastic tracking software. Late, late tomorrow night or early, early Wednesday morning, 3:00 AM to 4:30 AM-ish. Yes, if I can wake up. Yes, unless it’s cloudy.)

 

Remember that first picture above, the fifteen second exposure in the light polluted soup that’s LA’s sky? I know what’s up in that part of the sky, but I had no idea that you would be able to see any of it. I was wrong.

Just to the right of that tree, just below the start of the big airliner trail, you can see the brightest stars in Sagittarius. It’s generally described as a “teapot” and in a dark sky, “boiling up” out of the “teapot” is a “cloud of steam,” which is actually the Milky Way. The region is full of bright nebulae and globular clusters, easy targets for even a small telescope. (NOTE: You’re not going to see anything that looks like this spectacular image of M8 and M20 with the naked eye, even with a huge telescope. It’s what many people expect since it’s what they see on the television and internet, buy you’ll just see a ton of stars and some whitish and greyish clouds of gas. Some other time we can get into why.)

In a dark sky, it can be spectacular. I fully expected it to be invisible from this location. But lo and behold, when I looked at the image, you can clearly see hazy spots of grey nebulosity where M8 (the Lagoon Nebula), M20 (Triffid Nebula), and M7 (Ptolemy’s Cluster) are.

Gobsmacked!

Here’s an annotated image, showing the “teapot” and the different Messier objects that can be ever so vaguely seen.

 

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I guess that’s why I should try these things instead of just assuming that I wouldn’t see anything. You know what they say about “assuming”…

Check your location, go out tomorrow night and see the ISS go over! (Then go watch the Kings.)

 

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Filed under Astronomy, LA Kings, Photography, Space, Sports

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 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 1, 2014 · 22:07

Time

My routine’s been a bit irregular of late simply because of life being life and the calendar being the calendar. As a result, I’m feeling a bit “adrift” today, not sure what day it was or what time it might be. Sort of like jet lag on a big scale.

I understand all of the reasons that have gone into it. The Wings Over Camarillo airshow last weekend meant four or five days in a row where the universe played 52-pickup with my regular routine. Some job search activity this week required a re-shuffle of some of my weekly routine activities. College football started this weekend with games on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and tonight (I think today is Monday) where the last of the pre-season NFL games were all on Thursday. Given that normally it’s college football games on Saturday and pro games on Sunday, my “football-based circadian rhythm” is askew.† Then they threw in this holiday which means that the Long Suffering Wife is home an extra day, which is a good thing, but not according to the “normal” schedule.

I’m sure there are many folks out there in the world who still have chaotic, random schedules to a much greater degree than the rest of us. For example, in my college days my schedule was almost completely random with only some large-scale order to be seen. In the big picture, there were the three quarters of classes and tests along with the summer break. Most classes had some sort of regular schedule for meeting. But beyond that, between projects, papers, assignments, and most of all, my random swing-shift and graveyard-shift job to keep the bills paid, it was seriously non-linear. On a day-by-day basis I was trying to figure out on the fly when I would sleep or eat, because it was different most days from the days previous and the days following. Looking back on it, it’s a wonder that I survived (relatively) sane.

Now I’m used to the same type of schedule that most of us have. Many of us (not all, I understand) have work schedules that are predictable and repeatable. For most of us, there are significant parts of our lives that are tied to a routine weekly or monthly schedule. Even if it’s not our favorite television shows on at the same time every week (well, except for those on Fox) it might be school schedules for our kids, PTA meetings, soccer practices, AA meetings, whatever. As a society, we smooth the rough edges of coping with it all by having a bit of routine that allows us to plan ahead and lean into the turns, as it were.

Additionally, when we do something that completely throws our personal schedule out the window, such as going on a vacation, we generally know when it’s coming and can plan for it. We expect it. It doesn’t catch us by surprise. And it only disrupts our personal schedule, but the schedule of society (television, sports, church) goes on like clockwork. We’re more thrown off when a disruption catches us just a bit by surprise. If that surprise is a major disruption or catastrophe (family illness or crisis, earthquake, blizzard, flood, Kardashian sighting) then we don’t so much notice the change or absence of routine because we’re so caught up in the immediate moment while we’re in the jaws of the crisis.

It has made me think today about how our ancestors dealt with this. Ancient agrarian cultures would still have dealt with the movement of the seasons to know when to sow and when to harvest. The seven-day week goes back over 2600 years and apparently was common to many cultures independently. Western culture has it codified in large part by the Biblical book of Genesis and the Judeo-Christian creation story. Apparently the Soviets tried to change to a more “efficient” five-day week after the Russian revolution, but changed back after only about ten years. Still, it was a schedule.

But without clocks or watches, for much of recorded human history the average person knew only approximately the times of sunrise, noon, and sunset. Some might be aware of the lunar cycle. But a sense of time as we see it didn’t come by until fairly recently, in the last couple hundred years.

Which way of living is more “natural” or “correct”? I suspect it’s both, and neither. We try to get back to that when we go camping or on a retreat, but that assumes that we can turn off our cell phones and not be checking the internet every five minutes. It is nice to not have that feeling of being slaved to a schedule, but most of us don’t get to live that way for long periods, and most of don’t want to. It’s fun for a week or even a month, but then we start longing for the comfort and predictability of that routine.

Tomorrow it will continue — I’ll have to remind myself several times that it’s Tuesday, not Monday, because it will “feel” like Monday with most folks going back to work and school. Then it will be a “short” week and the weekend will be coming at us sooner than expected (never a bad thing) before we finally settle down (we hope) into a month or two of day-in, day-out routine.

Boring, but comforting. It’s all a matter of balance.

This weekend, I guess I’ve felt out of balance in that sense. Yet off in the distance of time, I can hear someone like Benjamin Franklin laughing his ass off at me for that, and beyond him I can hear some Babylonian laborer shouting that we’re all freakin’ crazy. They’re no doubt all correct.

Especially if I start talking to old Ben or that Babylonian in public!

†(Lest you think I’m obsessed with football and base my entire weekend around it for half the year — I’m not and I don’t. I’ll make a point to watch or listen to my beloved KC Chiefs play, but other than that, it’s interesting noise. While I’m doing something else, like writing, doing something on the computer, or putting up Christmas lights, I’ll have the game on. When everyone screams, I’ll watch a replay. I do the same thing during the spring and summer with baseball. I get bent out of shape very rarely if I have to miss a specific game, but it’s a comforting, ambient sound that I can pay more or less attention to as my time and other activities warrant.)

 

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Filed under Paul, Sports

August 15, 2014 · 21:43

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Friday, August 15th

‘Cause there’s family in town for a wedding this weekend, that’s why.

  • The “Panoramic Photography #1” post was the 500th for “We Love The Stars Too Fondly.”  Wow. Really, seriously. Wow.
  • Remember as a kid when you would see a VW Beetle and smack your sibling in the shoulder and yell, “Slugbug!” Now that we’re seeing Tesla’s all over the place, can we start a new tradition of shocking our travelling companions with a taser and yelling, “Taser Laser?”
  • The “Flash Fiction: Amusement” post earned the 1000th “Like” for WLTSTF. More wow.
  • Having house guests (last month it was kids, this month the Long Suffering Wife’s sister) means that you have to wear pants and close the door when you go to the bathroom. Ah, how easy it is to slip into that relaxed, living without restrictions lifestyle, and how soon we miss it when it’s gone.
  • Following the “SHAZBATT!!” post, two new followers of WLTSTF became #200 and #201.
  • In one of the more odd displays of household animal behavior seen here recently, Joey Chan today attacked, molested, and sexually assaulted the purse belonging to The Long Suffering Wife’s niece. Mind you, this is a cat who has not once that I remember in her entire life come out of hiding when there were non-household humans present. Today, with both The Long Suffering Wife’s sister and niece here, not only did Joey make an appearance, but when ape on that purse for absolutely no reason that we can determine. This may be one of the signs of the Apolocalypse.
  • Finally, over on the Twitter side (@momdude56), my list of followers is creeping up as well, now up to 56. It’s progress.
  • If the Westboro Baptist Church really wanted to make some money, they should put some points system or test on their website which lets you see your progress toward getting them to picket your funeral. Maybe some pointers on what you can do to expedite your way to the top of the list — like being a decent, loving, caring, tolerant human being instead of a flaming asshole. But I digress…
  • I’m very grateful for everyone’s support here. Your comments, “likes,” and participation are the gooey raspberry-flavored runner’s gelpacks that keep my writing fingers flying. Upward and onward!

Remember, “There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.”

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Filed under Cats, Family, Juicy Chunks, Religion, Sports, Writing

July 29, 2014 · 18:57

At The Ballpark

Tonight I’m out at Dodger Stadium with the Younger Daughter.

Yeah, we’re wearing Dodger hats. When in Rome, do as the Romanians!!

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Filed under Family, Los Angeles, Sports