Too many deadlines, coming at me like freight trains…
It’s also getting windy, so that won’t help the two huge fires burning up in the mountains. Nowhere near us, but up around Big Bear and down in Orange County it’s getting ugly.
Speaking of ugly, I just noticed how the flags are beating the crap out of the paint on the roof of the Volvo. At 13 years and 90,000 miles, that’s the least of that vehicle’s problems.
Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Weather
As with much of the country (and the world these days), it’s been HOT this summer. Here in LA it’s getting up above 100°F for the next couple of days, and I was thinking that it would help to “think cool thoughts.”
That got me to thinking, “When did I last see snow?”
I’m not talking about seeing it on the mountains off in the distance – that happens a couple of times every winter here, even in SoCal. (Mountains going up well over 10,000 feet will help that process. That’s why there are ski resorts within an hour’s drive of downtown LA.) I’m talking about seeing it right there, where I can make a snowball.
The first thing that came to mind was April 2018, when we went to Toronto for the FilkOntario convention and I got inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame.
And then it occured to me that we had actually seen snow falling at a slightly more recent date, even if it hadn’t been enough to stick.
A couple days after Christmas 2018 we were in Kansas City for the Chiefs game (after having been in Seattle for the game there on Christmas Eve) and we saw some flurries. The rest of the weekend was clear(-ish) and just COLD.
So think cool thoughts, know that the snows and fall and flannel will return, and know that 2018 had a LOT of great adventures!
Filed under Fandom, KC Chiefs, Photography, Travel, Weather
The sky was almost stupidly blue and cloud-free, except for one broad north-south band that had to be at a different temperature or moisture content or something, since little puffy clouds where there and as jets went through it the left little contrails.
As is not uncommon, there was a rumble and yet another cargo 747 was headed from LAX to Asia. It may have been 11,000+ feet up, but the deep almost subsonic thrum of those four big engines is pretty easy to identify.
(Image from FlightRadar24 app)
I moved a bit so that I could see it through the trees. Can you find it overhead to our north?
This will be one of the things that I miss at the Forever Home, wherever that might be. In Apple Valley and Hesperia there are a couple of small airports, and one of the houses I’m really interested in lies just a half-mile or so from the end of one of the runways, but we won’t see any big jet traffic like this, more like the light, private aircraft that go in and out of Whiteman, where I learned to fly in Pacoima.
Filed under Flying, Forever Home, Photography, Weather
We had some high-level moisture moving through today, but no rain and none in the forecast for the next ten days.
It’s not like there are spots in the next ten days where there’s at least a 10% chance of rain, or a couple hours where we have maybe a 20% chance.
It’s 0.00% every second of every day for the foreseeable future.
We could use the rain, especially up in Northern California where we have some HUGE brush fires going on.
But we’re on our own, no divine intervention on the horizon.
Filed under Photography, Weather
Lots of nice, pretty, high clouds today – no rain for us.
I was hoping we might get a colorful, gorgous sunset with these clouds around to be a canvas for all of the colors, but they were gone by then, and we just got a nice gradient effect. Nice, but not spectacular.
We all could use a little bit of spectacular right now.
Filed under Photography, Weather
It’s been a while since we’ve had a really pretty sunset.
For weeks now it’s been “clear and a million.” Sometimes we’ve had some smoke in the air to give things an orange hue, but for the most part it’s been unspectacular.
Today we have some moisture and humidity coming in, so there are clouds and some variation to the sky.
It was very nice. If only we could get some rain out of these clouds, or better yet, rain and a thunderstorm.
Filed under Photography, Sunsets, Weather
As you’re walking/hiking/climbing your way from the parking lot near the top of Mount Ascutney to the actual top of Mount Ascutney, you have the option (assuming you’re a masochistic, delusionsal fool who has conveniently forgotten that you’re 68 years old and you sit at a desk all day) of going off on about a 0.2 mile side trail pretty much straight up to get to Castle Rock. I couldn’t recall ever having gone that route in the past, and they had a BOGO special on delusional that day, so off I went.
It’s not so much extra climbing and altitude gain as it is going the hard and steep way just to see a big rock with a view. I had a good time and apparently lived.
You’re probably still 100 feet or so below the summit and off to the side, but the views are nice as you pop out of the side of the heavily forested mountain and can see for quite a ways.
Sitting on Castle Rock and looking back in, there are a great many trees that look like this. The Vermont winters can be brutal, cold, icy, and windy, and the first rank of trees next to the rock are fully exposed to those elements. They’re doing their best, but they regularly get the shit kicked out of them. Yet all of them still had some fresh, green spring growth somewhere. They weren’t dead and they weren’t giving up.
And when I slipped and almost fell off of the freakin’ rock, they were there for me to grab onto.
These trees are my favorites. We are kindred spirits.
Filed under Deep Thoughts, Photography, Travel, Weather
Back in LA, it’s clear as a bell during the day and cloudy, gloomy, and foggy every morning (“May Gray” has turned into “June Gloom” – IYKYK) but last weekend in Vermont there were some wonderful clouds almost every day.
I just wish that it had been a little bit more cloudless at night. Those stars the first night were spectacular!
Filed under Photography, Travel, Weather
I truly love having a window seat on an airplane when traveling. It’s a complete mystery to me why every single person on the plane has their window shade down every second. How can you NOT be looking out the window?
But I’m always in the middle seat these days, for reasons. Except for today.
We didn’t know it at the time, but there was an accident on the freeway leading to Logan International in Boston, causing a HUGE traffic jam and causing several folks on our flight to miss the flight. So some folks back in economy seats got the option to upgrade to Business or First Class, and took it. One of them was the guy who had the window seat in our aisle, so he boogied up front to luxury, while I got to shift over to the window and The Long-Suffering Wife and I got some elbow and leg room with the empty middle seat there.
I might have taken a lot of pictures.
There were some impressive thunderhead storm cells building up over the upper Midwest, so the views were great, even if the turbulence was not appreciated by everyone.
But c’mon folks! If we’re that jaded about these kinds of views right outside our windows that we can’t be bothered with, maybe we don’t deserve to make it when all is said and done.
I love binging “Ted Lasso” reruns as much as the next guy, but I can watch them any other time, without all of the lagging and breakups. Look at the reality that’s waiting for you if you care to look!!!
Filed under Flying, Photography, Travel, Weather
Having lost all sense of time, in regards to what day it is or what time of day it is, I’m still “mining” the ton of pictures that I took on the eclipse trip to Texas earlier this month.
This panorama was taken from a rest stop in New Mexico, just to the east of Las Cruces, where I was about to head into that thunderstorm, which indeed did have high winds, lightning, thunder, heavy rain, and light hail. It was spectacular!
Filed under Panorama, Photography, Weather
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 