With our lights down as of last weekend, I’m simultaneously both a bit jealous of the couple of houses down the block which still have theirs up, and grateful for them since it gives me something brilliant and bright to look at.
Later, I noticed that, even from the back yard, there were still reflections of our Christmas tree visible in the back yard, via the china cabinet.
It’s there if you look for it.
Filed under Christmas Lights, Photography
There’s probably only one person who might read this who would recognize it, so for you there’s context. Sort of.
For everyone else, you get to wonder how little sleep I’ve had recently and how many times a night I’ve been getting woken up with leg cramps. Or maybe it just shows.
Getting old is not for the meek.
And the thought for the day, thanks to Dr. Julie Gurner (@drgurner) on Twitter:
Filed under Uncategorized
Late. Tired. Keep It Short, Stupid!
I may have posted this at the time (I can’t imagine that I would have passed up the opportunity) but I don’t see where, so let’s go with it.
From back when I could go to NASA Socials, i.e. 2015, here’s a picture of an unpowered drone that would carry instruments and be pulled behind an aircraft at the end of a long rope or cable.
Obviously…
…it’s a toad drone.
I’ll be here all weekend. Tip your waitress!
Filed under Photography, Silly Shit
There are a lot of things in my life that all collide in January. It’s a busy time.
So far I’m keeping my head above water, but there are days when I start to see just how close it’s going to be on a project or deadline or another…
As Crash taught us, “Don’t think. You can only hurt the ball club.”
When in doubt, post a picture of a dog or cat.
Jessie was the best girl. Except, of course, when she was being a total brat and getting into a ton of trouble…
Filed under Dogs, Photography
Last Friday night the full moon looked amazing through the cloud layers that were leading the way for the rest of the big storm that hit on the weekend.
What was really odd, and not really visible at all to the eye (which makes me wonder if it’s some sort of artifact, like dew or moisture on the lens) was the ring around the moon a minute or two later.
But looking at the way there’s a thin layer of clouds from about 7:00 to 3:00, where the arc is, but no thin clouds and no arc from about 3:00 to 7:00… Maybe there was some odd boundry layer there in that layer of clouds and I was seeing the moon at just the right spot?
Who knows? I’m just throwing ideas up against the wall to see what sticks…
Filed under Astronomy, Photography, Weather
One almost immediate benefit that’s come from all of the rain that we’ve had is that the back yard is starting to look a tiny bit less barren.
With a few days of sun in between a few days of rain, for the first time since the lawn watering restrictions went into effect back on June 1st the back yard has some green to it. There’s a long way to go, but any port in a storm! (So to speak…)
Unfortunately, it’s not grass, except for a couple of patches around the sprinkler heads where there were slow drips. Instead it’s this clover-like stuff, so it’s not clear how much actual coverage we’re going to get, how sturdy or hardy it is, or anything else.
I would probably worry more about it if I owned the house. But we’ve been renting for 4+ years, and it’s ultimately not going to be my problem. I try not to be a schmuck about such things, but I’ve also got my limits on what I can afford to spend time worrying about, and someone else’s landscaping when under a strictly enforced set of water restrictions is over the line for me.
Welcome, little clover-like stuff! Don’t get eaten by the birds!
Filed under Castle Willett, Photography, Weather
Well, NorCal is getting hit hard to, but this is even more unusual for us. It started out quiet, with steady, soft rain all day. I love the sound.
I started to see news reports about some seriously bad weather heading south towards us, with places up in the Santa Barbara mountains getting over ten inches of rain in just a couple of hours. That, of course, leads to some major flooding up in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, and now we’re seeing some of that in Los Angeles County.
Then the heavy rain started.
Followed by the strong winds.
We’re fine. We live on top of a fairly large hill, so as long as we don’t have a mudslide or something taking the ground out beneath us, we’ll be just fine. If water gets to our yard, we don’t need a rescue, we need an ark! There might be some branches down and some street flooding down at the bottom of the hill, but our biggest potential concern would be a power outage or one of the big trees coming down on the house. So far, no sign of anything like that happening.
We’re in a lull for a couple of hours, but the word is that the second, BIG part of this storm is coming by tomorrow morning. Thunderbolts! Lighting! Very, very exciting!
Stay safe out there, folks!
It’s really late and it’s been a really long day.
It’s raining again, but before the clouds moved in, there were two contrails, one old, one new, converging as the planes took the same route to their destination.
Filed under Flying, Photography, Weather
As 16:00 comes and goes with no monstrously huge surge in the regional demand for electricity, the SoCal Emergency Energy Management Agency realizes that today was the day I took down the Christmas lights and they can re-mothball that backup nuclear power plant that they’ve needed ten hours a day since Thanksgiving.
The dark has returned to West Hills, as it always does sometime in January. (Okay, there were years when it was February [or March…] when the lights came down, but they always got turned off by late January.) Normally it might have been next weekend, or even the weekend after, but the weather forecast for next weekend is abysmal and the 21st isn’t looking much better. Today was actually nice (if still more than a bit muddy) so the smart money said to take my shot.
As always, the good news is that the lights that took four days to put up only take four hours to take down. And the tree is still up inside, so there’s still some holiday cheer for another few days.
The fact that my beloved Chiefs stomped on the hated Raiders and tied up the #1 seed in the AFC playoffs and the bye next week is just gravy.
Filed under Christmas Lights, KC Chiefs, Photography
I’ve been working on a tight deadline that’s going to keep me busy all weekend, and while plowing through it I found a Stanley Kubrick film fest on some cable channel. Three truly outstanding films that I’ve seen a gazillion times and they can just be background, comfort food for my soul while my brain is occupied elsewhere.
“2001”
“A Clockwork Orange”
“Full Metal Jacket”
This obviously isn’t new to anyone who’s been reading this site for nearly ten years. I started by titling this post as “Kubrick” and WordPress gave it a filename of “kubrick-3” which means this would be the fourth time that I used that exact same title…
It would be great to be watching something new. I’ve got a “to be watched” list of movies and streaming series that could keep me busy for years. I’ve got a “to be read” pile of books that could tip over and cause a 9.3 earthquake. But any of that, while intellectually stimulating, would require me to pay attention. And my attention needs to be focused. I don’t get to attack that “to be read” pile until I get past a couple of deadlines.
I hate making Chuck Wendig wait. (Read “Wanderers,” it’s outstanding. And once I get done with my re-read of that, I get to start the sequel, “Wayward,” which I am hearing amazing things about.)
Onward.
Filed under Entertainment, Paul
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