From our trip last December, the final game of the regular season for the Kansas City Chiefs, against the hated Oakland Raiders.
It was cold. The crowd was ***LOUD***! We stomped them, 35-3.
We got to see four games last year. Two in LA, one in Seattle, and this game in KC. This year we’re highly unlikely to get to any games since the Chargers’ “home game” against the Chiefs is in Mexico City next month.
Arrowhead Stadium is a holy place to a lifelong Chiefs fan.
Truly somewhere special!
Filed under KC Chiefs, Photography, Sports, Travel
One thing that the new job has a bit of (not too much) which the old job didn’t is a commute in LA traffic. To get to my old office in the morning or back home at night was 10-15 minutes or less and with the grid of local streets available there were a hundred different routes to take if one street or the other was blocked by an accident or something. The new job is 20-45 minutes in the morning (depending on if there’s an accident in the bottleneck through the Calabasas Grade on the 101 Freeway) and typically 40-60 minutes back home in the evening.
*sigh*
Today there was the additional complication of multiple brush fires in the area, which despite being 20 to 40 miles away, filled the air with smoke and ash.
Map from arcg.is/0Pvq0f using data from County of Los Angeles, Esri, HERE, Garmin, METI/NASA, USGS, Bureau of Land Management, EPA, NPS, USDA | FEMA NSS, EGIS | USGS, GeoMAC, Esri | County of Los Angeles, Esri, HERE, Garmin, METI/NASA, USGS, Bureau of Land Management, EPA, NPS, USDA | NOAA, Esri | NASA, Esri
For those of you not familiar with the Los Angeles area, I’ve indicated the general area of home (red circle, red arrow) and the new office (red circle, green arrow). That freeway (white line) where it says “Calabasas” is where the 101 Freeway goes through the Calabasas Grade between the San Fernando Valley (Canoga Park, Winnetka, Reseda, Encingo, Granada Hills, etc) and the Canejo Valley (Agoura Hills, Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks).
Someone at the office noticed the smoke about 16:00 and our first thought was that for it to be that thick there must be a fire nearby – fortunately, that was not the case. Still, here’s the view from the office parking lot when I left at 17:00. I wish there was a way to convey the choking stench in the air.
I knew the commute would be tough for a couple of reasons, even though the fires weren’t near us. First, people get freaky when it smells of smoke and your eyes are burning and you’re starting to cough and it’s hazy and threatening… It’s a very base, animalistic response from somewhere way down on the brain stem left over from our lizard ancestors.
Secondly, with that “Basin” fire at the junction of the 101 and 405 Freeways 20 miles ahead there would be massive slowing. Part of it is people slowing down to simply watch the fire and smoke near the freeway, some of it is the reduced visibility. A lot of it is that many surface streets used as commuting shortcuts in that area had been shut down as fire crews moved in and possible evacuations were set up.
Sure enough, about two exits after I got on the freeway near the office, I saw this:
For reference, if there isn’t any traffic at all, this sign generally shows 7 minutes to Topanga Canyon and about 18-20 minutes to the 405 Freeway.
Welcome to LA – bring fire extinguishers!
Filed under Disasters, Los Angeles, Photography
When last we left our plucky heroes…
For those of you who are relatively new to this site, in the “old days” I used to post a lot of long, multi-part posts with pictures from various trips. (Use that “search” box over there to look for “Shanghai,” “Seoul,” or “Kyoto,” or look through everything in the “Travel” category.)
Over two years ago things got very busy in the “life” category and the travel series I was in the middle of (one of my favorites because the trip was so great and I had SO much fun on it) was showing off my first trip to New York City. Part #16 was posted on 18-May-2017, part #17 on 11-Jul-2017, and then part #18 didn’t post until 01-Jan-2018. Part #19…never got posted until today.
Let’s see if we can get back to resuming some of those earlier collections of posts. I enjoyed them.
In summary: New York City had a life of it’s own in my head. In early August 2016, I visited there for the first time. On the first afternoon we visited Central Park and were there for hours, despite the jet lag. Day One started with a tour of the Intrepid and the Space Shuttle Enterprise, followed by the full two and a half hour cruise around Manhattan – south down the Hudson River into the Upper Harbor, up the East River under the “BMW” bridges, past Midtown and the UN, into the Harlem River, back south into the Hudson River, underneath the George Washington Bridge, past Grant’s Tomb, and finally back into port. To finish Day Two we had a death march to find a cab, went to the Mets game, left early only to miss the best part, and inadvertently stiffed a nice cab driver. Bright & early on Day Three we headed out toward Liberty Island – it’s hard to take a bad picture there, then went to Ellis Island. Bank on Manhattan, we went to World Trade Center Museum, which was emotional & grueling. Day Four started out with a trip to Times Square, after which we headed to the Empire State Building.
From the top of the Empire State Building, looking to the northwest, across the Hudson River into New Jersey.
Looking north-northwest up the Hudson River, you can see the George Washington Bridge, connecting Upper Manhattan to Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Looking almost due north. You can see Central Park starting a couple miles away.
The view to the northeast. You can see the top of the Chrysler Building, the UN Building, Roosevelt Island, the East River (which isn’t a river) and Queens on the other side.
Looking southeast across Lower Manhattan to Brooklyn you can see the “BMW” bridges, or in this case, the “WMB” bridges – Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. Also, far, far off in the distance is the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge.
Almost due south you have Manhattan laid out before you, the One World Trade Center tower rising above it all, with Liberty Island and Ellis Island out in the harbor, Jersey City across the Hudson.
To the southwest, Liberty Island and Ellis Island, the Hudson River, lots of very expensive real estate, and New Jersey.
To the southwest, New Jersey across the Hudson River. (Insert jokes from “Hamilton” here.)
Back around to due west, across the Hudson River to Weehawken, New Jersey. In between those two groups of tall buildings by the river on the right you can just catch a peek of the USS Intrepid Museum.
Filed under Photography, Travel
Never let it be said that I wasn’t easily amused!
Day Two at the new job was still a flood of new information but there was a bit of settling in, which is a good thing.
Afterward, I was a little out of gas, but my car was way, WAY out of gas. Since the station with the lowest current prices (while yet remaining exorbitant!) also had a drive-through car wash, I took the opportunity to get rid of two month’s worth of dust and grime.
As I saw on a bumper sticker the other day, “My car isn’t dirty! It’s drought tolerant!!”
Is that the eye of Sauron beckoning me from beyond the huge, flapping, rubber brushes? Or just the guy in front of me deciding that he’s going to back up into me instead of going out through the blower?
Filed under Photography
Those of you who follow me on FaceBook and/or LinkedIn might have seen something posted late last Friday night, a status update of sorts, but I’ll make a note of it here for the rest of you, since it is something that I post about at times – after almost four years with Homes for Families, I’ve left to take a new position. Beginning today, I’m the Director of Finance and Administration for the ALS Association Golden West Chapter.
This was not a move that I made lightly or without a great deal of soul searching. I loved the work that H4F has done and continues to do. Just look back at some of the posts that I’ve done here, for the Builder’s Ball, the WE Build, going Over The Edge, and the recent “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” build, among others. I have many friends there and I truly wish nothing but the best for all of them and for the company.
But when I was contacted by a recruiter I thought it a prudent move to at least be aware of what other options might be available. When I found another organization with a fantastic mission helping people, and organization that truly went out of its way to not just see whether or not I was right for them but if they were right for me, it was an opportunity that I couldn’t in good conscience pass on.
The move explains a great deal of whatever discombobulation you might have seen on this site in the past five or six weeks. This was not an easy decision, and I’ve been putting in a lot of time to tie up as many loose ends at H4F as possible before my departure. There’s been some lost sleep…
Now I’m diving in at the Golden West Chapter and after one day I’m spinning, but in a good way. As expected, there are a gazillion new things to learn, people to meet, names to remember, and last but not least, the lock code to the men’s room to remember!
So far, so good.
It’s adventure time!
Filed under ALSA Golden West, Homes4Families
Tomorrow’s a big day, so here’s something simple so I can get to bed early. Well, earlier than normal. Which, sort of by definition, is way too late…
Filed under Photography
From last Sunday’s visit, some pictures showing the outside lobbies and stairwells of the concert hall, taken as we were waiting for the elevator. Not only is the venue spectacular from an acoustic standpoint with an iconic exterior, but the interior architecture is also amazing. Lots of it reminds me of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
Wait – where are my pictures from the Guggenheim? What do you mean, I never finished the “New York, New York” series of pictures from our August 2016 trip? What the hell have I been doing for the last twenty months, slacking off?!!
Filed under Los Angeles, Photography
I hadn’t driven the Volvo in a while, but I had left the windows cracked open so that it wouldn’t fry inside setting in the sun.
When I did get in there, I realized that it had been open like that while last week’s brush fires had been going on about ten miles upwind from us.
Configured like that, it made a perfect little trap for ash and debris blown by the wind. The seats, floor mats, window sills, and controls were all covered with ash, twigs, and detritus. (I love that word!)
It’s also a good indicator of how these fires spread so damn fast in high winds. All of this was obviously cool by the time it got here, probably because it was fairly light. But much closer to the fire line, where the hot, heavier stuff is being carried, the fire will keep jumping and jumping, a couple miles at a time, hot embers falling into dry brush, dead leaves, the tops of palm trees…and the cars of people who left the windows cracked open.
Something to be remembered for next time, especially if the fire isn’t ten miles away!
Filed under Disasters, Los Angeles, Photography
The “new” house (we moved up here in May, 2018) has almost as many lizards living in the yard as the “old” house (so far, none of them have appeared in the house, thank god) and it has a wider variety in terms of types, colors, and sizes. There are routine sightings almost daily, but for the most part the little guys are skittish and tend to scurry off into the bushes or under the car or up a tree trunk long before we get near.
But in the last couple of days there have been a couple of closer encounters.
First, during that big wind storm (and accompanying brush fires) a couple weeks ago, the cover for the barbecue ended up off the grill and in a pile on the porch. Yesterday evening I was picking it up. Given what’s in the yard, my biggest concern was the likely possibility of black widow spiders (they were there and got squished). What I didn’t expect was the biblical plague of crickets hiding underneath the cover. THOUSANDS of the little guys.
Fortunately I’m not bothered at all by crickets, so I simply started shaking the barbecue cover like a sheet to flick off all of the crickets. Which is when I saw the lizard on the inside, clinging on for dear life as I flapped the cover in the breeze. I didn’t want to hurt it, so I simply dropped the cover and then pulled it back so the lizard was exposed.
I expected it to take off toward the bushes like a bat out of hell, but was surprised that it took a few minutes and some nudging before it mozied on.
In retrospect, I think it was giving me the stink eye because those zillions of crickets were probably a feast of unbelievable magnitude for the lizard and I had gone and screwed up everything.
Yes, I did. It’s what I do. (Ask anyone.)
This evening I was taking the trash cans out and found this guy sunning itself on the driveway. It also wasn’t at all interested in moving so long as I wasn’t interested in stepping on it.
Back at the old house there were a couple of lizards that I saw repeatedly and I thought that they had actually gotten acclimated to me. When I was packing the car to move out, they would come right up to within a couple feet and watch. This guy had a similar behavior, but I don’t recall seeing him before.
There was a tiny, tan lizard that’s been running around by the garage doors, but just two days ago he was maybe a fifth this size. If he’s grown this much in two days, in a week it will be the size of a T-Rex.
Pretty sure that would violate the “no pets” clause in our lease…
Filed under Castle Willett, Critters, Photography
Last night’s post was put together and posted quickly, as you could no doubt tell from the timestamp. At the end when I threw up a few words, I was wondering if the birds shown were crows or ravens.
Today I was thinking about that and went to check out what the Internet might have to say about it. (It beat being nauseous over the political news!) I found this from the Audubon Society.
Which gave me conflicting results.
The three big things I’m looking at are the tail, the beak, and the ruffle of feathers on the chin.
For a crow, the tail is square, while for a raven it’s more wedge shaped.
For a crow, the beak is a bit longer and thinner, while for the raven it’s shorter and thicker.
The ruffle of feathers is far larger and more pronounced on a raven.
So if you look at the first six pictures from yesterday of the first bird, it looks like a crow.
If you look at the final three pictures of the second bird, it looks like a raven.
At which point I realized that I was probably an idiot and shouldn’t be operating heavy machinery since I was making stupid assumptions. Specifically, I was assuming that both birds were either crows or ravens.
I think I was dealing with one of each.
Does anyone have any thoughts or more expertise to shoot down my theories, or confirm them?
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We Love The Stars Too Fondly 