May 6, 2021 · 23:59

Jumbos

I’ve mentioned just how much I enjoy hearing the big 747 jumbo jets (usually cargo runs to Asia) coming out of LAX and flying right over our house several times a day. The other interesting thing to me is just how attuned I am to hearing that really deep, bass rumble as they go overhead.

(Image: Flightradar24 app)

On this day, the one I heard was shown in red, with its flight path indicated. But when I saw that, I saw another one following it (circled, over Santa Monica Bay). So I grabbed the camera. (DUH!)

I spotted it coming up from the south, probably just off of the Malibu coast, about fourteen miles away.

Closing fast and climbing.

From the first picture to the last, less than two minutes passed.

As with the Vogon Destructor Fleet, jumbo jets float there the same way that bricks don’t. (In this case it has a lot to do with thrust and lift…)

Right overhead.

Almost into the Sun. I can see the headlines now…

“Local man goes blind looking at Sun through telescopic lens while taking pictures of ordinary cargo jet out of LAX – stupidity expected to be involved.”

Off it goes to the north.

Finally vanishing from view off to north, again, probably fifteen to twenty miles to the north, right about…

(Image: Flightradar 24 app)

…here! Off to Inchon in South Korea. Hopefully a boring thirteen hours!

 

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Filed under Flying, Photography

May 6, 2021 · 23:31

Cackling Raven

I’m sure there are actual official names for the sounds that this raven is making, but I don’t know them, so I’m going to go with “cackling.”

He was probably 40-50 feet overhead and just sounding off in all of his glory. Of course, so were the wind, the lawnmowers (tomorrow is trash day, so most of the gardeners are out in front of it), the motorcycles, the planes overhead…

I think you can still hear him, sounds a lot like some exotic percussion instrument from South America, clacking and clicking his staccato clattering. (Although the compression that YouTube uses might have wiped out some of the finer audio details.) In particular, at about the 16-20 second marks it comes through, and again just before the end at about 0:26.

I hope you can hear him!

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Filed under Critters, Photography, Video

May 5, 2021 · 23:59

Sixty Years Ago And Six Hours Ago

Sixty years ago today I remember my father dragging me out of bed well before dawn and having me watch the black & white TV coverage of Alan Shepard’s 15-minute suborbital flight.

(All images: NASA)

After hours and hours of delay (including the infamous incident with no provisions for certain bodily functions in long, long unexpected delays), Shepard became the first American in space.

America wouldn’t put an astronaut in orbit until February 20, 1962, seven and a half months after Shepard’s flight.

It was a first step for the United States and NASA, desperately looking to catch up with the Russians in the Cold War symbolism of the Space Race.

Six hours ago, SpaceX finally was able to successfully fly and land one of their Starship spacecraft.

SN15 (Serial Number 15) succeeded after the previous four test vehicles (SN8 through SN11) either landed hard and exploded, landed upright and then caught fire and exploded, or never even made it to the landing pad in anything less than a gazillion pieces (after exploding).

But today was the day they did it. Space is hard.

In a couple weeks they’ll test SN16. It might explode, it might not.

In a couple months they’ll be testing SN-thirty-something. It will have a ton of improvements and probably by that point be starting to carry a full crew interior and life support systems.

By the end of the year they’ll be testing the “Super Heavy” boosters which will be designed to boost the Starships into orbit before landing themselves much like the current Falcon 9 boosters do. (In the next week or so, possibly as early as Friday or Saturday, they’ll fly a Falcon 9 for the tenth time.)

Within a year or so they’ll be flying Starship SN-fifty-or-sixty-something into orbit, and then landing and re-using and re-launching ALL OF IT.

Within two or three years (okay, maybe four or five) they’ll be flying Starship vehicles to the moon, with crews of dozens at a time.

Within ten years (I know, they say four to five…) they’ll be sending cargo Starship vehicles to Mars. Crewed vehicles will follow to Mars soon after.

Where will they be in sixty years?

 

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May 4, 2021 · 23:03

Flowers – May 04th

Coming up on three years next week that we’ve been renting this house and there are still surprises.

Around the corner of the front yard where I rarely go unless a circuit breaker has tripped or I’m putting up Christmas lights, I’ve found this huge patch of flowers.

I’ve never seen the flowers blooming like this, or even at all over in this somewhat hidden corner. There’s a  big patch of bare dirt over here, and I always thought this area was just some sort of ground cover.

I don’t know what sort of flowers these are, although I might guess that the white and yellow ones are some sort of daisy? I don’t know about the smaller reddish and yellow ones.

These are partially hidden from the sidewalk as well, especially for a short dude such as myself. The house and yard are up on an embankment from the sidewalk and I might or might not see them from the street. The flowers might be in bloom for a very short period. Or I might simply be going full Charlie Gordon in my old age.

But they were pretty this weekend!

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Filed under Flowers, Photography

May 3, 2021 · 23:32

Random Old Photos – May 03rd

July, 2007, a flight from Burbank to Oakland. (Pro tip – if you can avoid LAX and go out of Burbank or Long Beach or Ontario, DO SO! It might cost $20 more, but the lack of additional wear and tear on your nerves makes it worth every penny.)

On final approach to Oakland, off to your left there is San Francisco Bay and the massive salt ponds, side by side with housing tracts packing folks in like sardines.

Which got me to thinking about how long it’s been since I went anywhere or was in a plane. June, 2019, coming up quick on two years. Soon, again…

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Filed under Photography, Travel

May 2, 2021 · 22:34

Fine Feathered Friends – May 02nd

A new visitor! I’m very excited, especially if this one sticks around and brings friends.

I had noticed, briefly, because these little flying gremlins are quick, a flash of red on one of the hummingbirds zooming around the yard. With the new feeders, there are more of them – “more” meaning that it seems at swarming/feeding time just before sunset there are maybe 8-10 of them zooming about instead of 4-6 of them. I know we have Rofous hummingbirds, and we have what I think are black-chinned hummingbirds.

I finally got a good look at this guy today and my first thought was “ruby throated hummingbird” because I know I’ve heard of them and it’s a widespread species. Then I found out that they’re rarely seen west of the Mississippi and never on the West Coast.

So what is it?

The Cornell Lab Merlin bird ID app immediately told me this was a male Anna’s Hummingbird. That bright magenta head is a dead giveaway for this part of the world.

The biggest issue I’m having right now is that (as the hummingbird literature discusses) we have a dominant Rufous hummingbird that tends to chase off other hummingbirds from the feeder. In order to prevent that, we need to put up two or three other feeders around the yard, away from this one. That should allow others to come in and have the “boss” Rufous abandon his territory. Or at least chill out a bit.

And I’ll get the chance to get some better pictures of them all. They are a wonder to watch as they zip and zoom about!

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Filed under Birds, Critters, Photography

May 1, 2021 · 23:35

Dos Conejos

The big crowds of bunnies that occur in the front yard don’t happen until well after dark. Earlier, starting a half-hour or so before sunset, there’s usually two rabbits in the back yard.

If there’s an owl around (do those trees off the edge of the hill look familiar?), this would be their time to make a move.

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Filed under Critters, Photography

April 30, 2021 · 23:54

The Very Large Grasshopper

I remember grasshoppers when I was a kid in Kansas City that were maybe an inch long or so. This isn’t one of those.

This guy was at least 3-4 inches long. Probably venomous, probably had two inch long fangs hidden there someplace, probably would go for my eyes and inject things into my brain where they would fester and grow…

Okay, sorry, three-year old Paul sort of took over there. Don’t even get me STARTED on snakes…

As always with small critters, it’s a matter of how many half steps can you carefully take toward them before they flee. (And if they do are they going to fly off into your face and go for the eyes… Again, sorry.)

Nope, didn’t fly for the eyes. Instead went to the hedges.

This might not have been his best strategy, since that hedge is full of birds. Some of them, like the juncos and finches, aren’t much bigger than he is.

On the other hand, the mockingbirds, towhees, and the crows and ravens from above will take him for a snack in a hot second.

He finally managed to get away from my side of the hedge and my prying camera at least. Good luck with the birds!

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Filed under Critters

April 29, 2021 · 21:44

Happy 8th Birthday, WLTSTF!

8 years.

2,921 days.

3,014 posts.

7,111 images. (About 90% are taken by me. The rest are images from the news, from cell phone screen captures, and so on.)

62 videos.

7 audio clips.

2.6K comments.

And despite the pandemic and lockdown and quarantine (or possibly because of it) I’m now getting these “You’re on a 384-day streak on We Love The Stars Too Fondly!” notices every day on the app.

No pressure…

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Filed under Paul, Writing

April 28, 2021 · 23:47

No Context For You – April 28th

I *hate* it when that happens…

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Filed under Computers, Photography