The clouds were beautiful, the sunset dramatic, and the rain was soft, if cold.
There’s nothing like a light rain right in the middle of the LA Friday evening commute to help one clarify your opinion of your fellow human beings and the human race in general.
But I got home. No bent metal. No blood spilled.
And the clouds were beautiful.
Filed under Los Angeles, Photography, Weather
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!
Filed under LA Kings, Photography
The past two months and more have been a pressure cooker, with one seemingly impossible deadline and fantastically ridiculous workload after another. (You might have noticed if you read this regularly.)
Now…
There’s a bit of calm. (Feeling like I’ve come through a huge storm, I’m hoping this calm period isn’t the eye of the hurricane with the need to very soon fight my way back out the other side.)
The major deadlines at both my paying/day job and my volunteer/weekend job are behind me. There’s time to see what I need to catch up, what’s been shoved off onto the back burner. Which includes a LOT of movies we didn’t get out to see. Like that latest “Star Wars” film. It’s still out there, right?
Well, yes and no. I was looking at the upcoming weekend and it seems that by then it will only be in about six or seven theaters in the entire Southern California area, and the nearest one is 40 miles away. That sucks!
But it’s still at the theaters just around the corner a bit – tonight and tomorrow. And tomorrow we’ve got another commitment in downtown LA.
We went for it. Saw the film. Even stayed awake through the whole thing!
You may all now start discussing the spoilers. I grant you my permission!
When you get there early, before everyone else, you can go talk to the planes all by yourself.
(Click to view full sized image)
Enjoy the silence.
Filed under CAF, Panorama, Photography
The deadline’s here. I only got two hours’ sleep last night getting things done, and then was up early to get out to the hangar.
It was a lovely day.
When I got to the hangar and turned on my computer, it went into an update that took almost two hours, so I was trying to work from my iPad for a while.
It was a lovely day.
It was warm-ish with just a little breeze, a wonderful day to fly. We had folks doing training, but I did not go flying. I spent most of the day inside doing auditing and accounting and Spanish Inquisition-ish things.
It was a lovely day.
At one point when we were sending up the PBJ, I went out and noticed this long, thin contrail cutting through the few light, whispy, thinly scattered clouds.
It was a lovely day.
Filed under CAF, Photography
At my level, it’s not about “winning.” The Kenyans are not trembling in their running shoes.
You’re only “racing” against yourself.
Do the absolute best you can, and finish if you can with the best result you can.
And try again next time with the resolve to do better.
The deadline is almost here, for better or for worse.
Filed under Paul
We’re exploring LA’s cultural options a bit more – first it was the start of a series of LA Philharmonic concerts at Disney Hall, tonight it’s the first of a small subscription series at the Ahmanson.
I haven’t been to the Mark Taper Forum or the Kirk Douglas Theater yet (they’re all here in the Music Center complex) – maybe next year. I can only take so much culture at one time.
Tonight it’s “The Last Ship,” staring the one and only Sting. I haven’t seen or heard much about it in advance except that it’s good, because, well – Sting!
Right?
Filed under Los Angeles, Music, Photography
The race is on – tight deadlines, crushing pressure to get things done, the finish line coming into sight, not clear if I’m going to make it or not. Some times I’m feeling pretty good, then something pops up that slows me down and I’m starting to get a little panicked. But I suck it up, put my head down, and keep slogging on. Things get back on track, but the pressure never goes away.
A lot of it is routine, rote, and I’m already exhausted, so the mind wanders. There’s music to keep me going, but when you’re this tired and trying to focus but also just trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other, the emotional roller coaster is open for business. One song will get me going, cranked up to an eleven, played on repeat two or three times. Another will remind me of something or someone and suddenly I’m on the verge of tears. Through it all, I have to keep moving.
Finally a milestone is reached. That’s great, even if it’s not necessarily the one that I was hoping to reach tonight. But the battle plan had to shift a bit so as long as we’re still making progress in putting the whole puzzle together, I’ll take it.
Through it all, I’m reminded yet again of the similarities and lessons learned in other activities that might seem to be completely unrelated.
Am I running a marathon? No, but that’s where the lessons and similarity comes from. The work for the past weeks and month have been back and forth between the real, day job and the upcoming audit for the hangar. For the past two weeks the major, monstrously huge hurdle for the immediate time has been cleared at work, so it’s been pedal to the metal on the audit, which starts on Monday morning.
It will be fine – I really can see the finish line. But it’s going to be close.
And I’m glad that I learned so much from running a marathon or three.
Maybe when both of these tasks are behind me I should do that again.
Filed under CAF, Deep Thoughts
It’s bad that it’s so long – California law requires managers to take recurring training of at least two hours every two years.
It’s really bad that the voice acting is so truly horrendous – were there no high school drama classes that needed the work?
It’s really, REALLY bad that the “story line” was so incredibly lame – this shit makes Hallmark Christmas movies look like Shakespeare by comparison.
It’s beyond really, REALLY bad that the “quiz questions” that you periodically take with a “big quiz” at the end were so obvious and common sense and just plain freaking STOOPID that I’m quite confident that I could have skipped the entire thing and simply taken the quizzes, been done with it all in five minutes, and STILL have gotten about a 98% correct score.
But the worst part?
There are soooooooooooooooooooooooooo many snarky remarks, come backs, snappy answers to stupid questions, and absolutely hilarious jokes that could be made – and every one of them would be a violation of the sexual harassment policies being taught.
Wait – the worst worst part is that I’ve got to kill two hours doing this again in two years.
Does it actually cut down on sexual harassment?
Sucker bet.
Filed under Paul
Or is it a taco? It’s a fine line I might have been dancing around without a care in the world.
As a rule, I’m not one to post pictures of my food. However, this homemade burrito/taco just struck me as a particularly photogenic and colorful piece of cuisine.
For the record, it tasted wonderful. And despite the somewhat dry and cracked tortilla, there was minimal structural damage while eating it. (i.e., I didn’t end up with most of it in my lap or eating it with a fork.)
Filed under Castle Willett, Photography
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