Back when I was in school teachers would always scare me with stories of how my exploits would end up in my permanent record. I believe this is it! – Geoff Fox
We’re in Vegas, baby.
Stef made her connection to Los Angeles by the skin of her teeth. By the time we got to her gate the Cs were boarding.
Helaine and I can be more leisurely. Our flight to Orange County is almost two hours away.
We walked the terminal looking for a place to eat with the football game on. That’s how we came to the Tequileria.
We’ll have some Mexican food and try to drag our heels. We’d like the food to last through the game.
We will be home before this night is out. Honest.
We are somewhere over Iowa. It’s dark out on this turbulent night over the plains. From time-to-time I see small towns, but from this vantage, Iowa is mainly empty.
We’re heading home with a stop and change in Las Vegas.
One row behind, Stef is lying across all three seats. To my right, Helaine is asleep. I just woke up. We are bushed.
Three days and two nights in motion! Our trip was brutally short.
Today has been an awful weather day in the Midwest. Tornadoes. Downpours. Wind. The biggest action was south of Milwaukee, though our weather wins no prize.
On time departure! All things considered, big surprise.
We handed our Dodge Charger (ugh) back to Dollar and walked into the terminal.
Helaine and I handed our boarding passes and licenses to the TSA gatekeeper at MKE’s C Concourse. She pointed to the right. In front of us was a line. She was pointing to the airport equivalent of an HOV lane.
“You won’t have to remove your shoes or belt,” she said. “You’ve been pre-screened.”
Stef, following behind but traveling to LAX instead of SNA, wasn’t as lucky.
I tried not to look this gift horse in the mouth. Why us? Why now? Is it because we’ve flown so many times recently we seem trustworthy, or was it random luck?
Our flight is unusually empty. There are 60 empty seats.
Sully had some trouble keeping it on the center line as we rolled down Runway 24. The plane rocked from side-to-side on-the-ground and in-the-air.
It never felt like we were in danger. It just took a few minutes to feel like smooth modern jet travel.
Taking off marked the end of a weekend of accomplishments.
My parents new apartment is a little more homey than when we arrived. There is food in the ‘fridge, towels in the bathroom and some scattered lamps. A tiny TV is hooked to the cable, as is a router for WiFi.
The bulk of the furniture arrives Monday with all sorts of deliveries scattered through the week.
We split into teams Saturday. The girls shopped with my mom. The men went with my dad. Think whirlwind. All things considered my parents held up reasonably well.
I’m sure my folks are still a little… maybe a lot… disoriented. This kind of move is huge. So much of it was accomplished out of their sight. They’ve jumped on a merry-go-round in motion!
My mom would rather be back in Florida. My dad’s more a realist. They need a ready backstop. Assisted living sounds clinical, but the words fit. Staff is there to assist. Our family is there to assist too.
Helaine, Stef and I stayed with my niece Melissa and her husband Mark. We were their first guests! Hopefully they took pride in what they did, because they were great hosts and their home… their first home… is beautiful.
Before we planned on helping my folks, we planned on coming to Milwaukee. This trip was to celebrate my sister’s sixtieth. We had an amazing “Chef’s Table” experience, eating in the kitchen at Shully’s in nearby Thiensville.
There are loads of pics coming, so I’ll wait with details. It was a first for me. Very cool concept, exceptionally executed. Our table was loud with laughter. Our little family doesn’t celebrate together often enough.
It will be well after midnight when we get home to Irvine and Stef to Hollywood. We will all sleep well tonight.
Ninety five percent of the time flights from John Wayne takeoff and land toward the south. That’s where the rich folks live! To appease the beach communities there are noise abatement procedures outbound from SNA.
Takeoffs are so unusual, the pilot usually briefs the passengers so they’ll know what they’re about to experience is OK!
Today Sully actually stood in the aisle holding the PA’s telephone handset upside down as he explained. At the end he proclaimed, “God bless America.” That got a round of applause, but somehow felt weirdly creepy.
Please don’t misunderstand. I’m all for God blessing America. It just seemed an unusual setting.
We took off and climbed to 800 feet. Then the pilot dropped the nose and pulled back on the throttle. You hear and feel it right away. The plane slowed as the engines spooled down.
Unless it’s your first flight, you instantly know it’s wrong.
Once we cleared the shore, up went the revs and nose. It couldn’t have taken more than a minute or two.
This is a new route for me. We headed north, just offshore, over the Pacific. Then, around Silicon Valley turned inland flying by San Jose Airport and Stanford University’s football stadium.
I could see the San Francisco and Oakland skylines as we headed up the bay toward SFO.
We’re back in the air now, over the Sierras. There’s a little snow below. It’s the exception, not the rule.
There is WiFi on this flight, but the payment processor is broken. No Internet for me. I’ll post this after we land from Milwaukee.
We’re at John Wayne Airport. Yeah, that John Wayne. This is SoCal where actors trump pols. Burbank’s airport is name for Bob Hope!
SNA is much more civilized than LAX… and a lot closer to home! We can get here in under 20 minutes.
The problem with smaller airports like this is lack of non-stop flights. LAX has one daily non-stop to Milwaukee. Our plane goes to Milwaukee, but first it stops in San Francisco. After Milwaukee it continues to LGA in New York City.
Our plane isn’t here yet. I hope that’s not a problem.
I just spoke to my sister. She’s in the car with my folks. Everyone’s in Milwaukee.
Today was the day. After sixteen years my folks sold their Boynton Beach condo and moved from Florida to Wisconsin.
I know. Who moves from Florida to Wisconsin, especially with winter nearly here? In this case it’s not just a good move, it’s the best move!
My parents are moving to an assisted living facility near my sister, brother-in-law and their family. My folks will be within minutes of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
No one wants to see their parents need a place like this, but it’s the reality. Living alone was no longer an acceptable solution. We all knew it.
Tomorrow, Helaine and I fly to Milwaukee. Stef is already on-the-way. It’s a trip scheduled before my parents decided to move. We’re going to celebrate my sister’s milestone birthday… a number so immense I dare not print it.
Now there’s a bonus reason.
My parents don’t get out much anymore. We, on the other hand, will be out-and-about. Please Milwaukee, don’t be too cold!
Growing fruit in our tiny yard seems so exotic… and yet, we did! This afternoon Helaine picked our first lemon.
There’s not much you can do with one lemon other than make sure it’s sour. It was!
The first “Obamacare” numbers are out. They’re numbers, right? What could be easier than that?
Let the spin begin!
So we’re totally clear now, right?
Outside, in the “California Room” just under a window from our family room sits a tiny lemon tree. It’s 18″ tall, tops.
The tree was planted already showing a few tiny green lemons. I told Helaine they were Crazy Glued on to sell more trees!
Don’t laugh. It worked.
The first lemon has turned yellow! Be still my heart.
I’m not sure what to do? How do you know it’s ripe? I haven’t been in Californian long. Citrus knowledge is tough to come by in Connecticut.
Growing season is long over in the east, but all my plants are still thriving. Gardenias are blooming. Hummingbirds are sipping at the feeder.
Eating fruit grown in our own yard is a California fantasy Helaine and I share. Check one off the bucket list.
This is one of those things scientists do because they can!
Recently, the Cassini spacecraft was positioned on the nighttime side of Saturn, with the planet blocking the Sun. That meant a chance to photograph Saturn’s rings, Venus, Mars, seven Saturnian moons and Earth–all in one shot.
And, yes, if you click to see the full resolution image, Earth is a blue dot!
Normally, because of the Sun’s brightness, a photo like this couldn’t be attempted. Cassini’s sensors would be damaged or destroyed.
Though the photo was taken in July, NASA only published it this week. An annotated version is on top with the clean image below.
Pretty damn cool.
Math was my favorite subject. Maps and graphs draw me in. The rhythm of the atmosphere fascinates me. I was very lucky to find weather.
I don’t study the atmospheric charts as intently as I did while forecasting every day in Connecticut. I still look.
Forecasting here is different.
Since we arrived in late June few fronts have passed through. None were strong.
Most of the ‘weather’ has been spawned by localized effects close to ground level and the wind direction. Easterly winds are mostly dry and often hot. Westerlies are cooler (though never cold).
Wednesday we get an offshore flow. In other words, easterly winds. Here’s what the Weather Service forecast office for Los Angeles says in their tech discussion:
WITH THE AMOUNT OF WARMING TAKING PLACE ALOFT…CLEARING SKIES…AND THE STRENGTHENING OFFSHORE FLOW…A WARMING TREND SHOULD TAKE PLACE FOR WEDNESDAY. TEMPERATURES WERE BUMPED UP SLIGHTLY FOR WEDNESDAY FOR THE COASTAL AND VALLEY LOCATIONS WHERE COMPRESSIONAL HEATING WILL TAKE PLACE.
We’ll get close to 90°. Not bad for November 12th.
The ocean’s effect on SoCal is immense! Take a look at the map at the top of this entry (click to enlarge). Ocean water off the East Coast is warmer. The cooler water here is a stabilizing factor. It’s not the humidity pump the Gulf Stream can be.
One of the models, the GFS, has light rain or drizzle Friday and Saturday. Close to the coast, Saturday is likely a no Sun day! Unusual.
Everything you need to know about this little event is packed in the lowest 5,000 feet of the atmosphere. An airplane climbing out from LAX will break into the sunshine in the first two minutes of flight! I’m not yet used to that.
The GFS goes out to the 21st. Through that period all the active weather is north of us or on the right side of the country. This spotty precip is the worst we see.
I need Steve! Really. Steve, I need you.
For at least 25 years in Connecticut Steve kept my cars running. Yes, we became friends, but first he was an honest auto mechanic. He was my honest auto mechanic.
I sent Steve a text this weekend. Could he drive over?
There’s a problem with my SLK230. The car’s 15 years old. It’s entitled to need some attention from time-to-time.
The car drives well when driven gently. But, if you really step on the throttle the car hesitates and misses.
So, zero to 80 in 30 seconds, no problem. Zero to 80 in 10 seconds–not gonna happen.
My guess is it has to do with air to the supercharger. I like that solution because the symptoms fit similar experiences online and it’s not too expensive to repair.
Not having Steve makes the problem more troubling.
I looked online to get a sense of who’s liked. With 171 reviews on Yelp, almost uniformly positive, The Auto Clinic was chosen.
We just dropped off the car. Geoff, smiley, friendly and wearing clean overalls, traded my little car for a piece of paper.
Does his properly spelled name serve as a good omen? The verdict comes tomorrow.
“Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That’s not my department,” says Wernher von Braun. — From the song “Werner von Braun,” lyrics by Tom Lehrer
The misconception about Earth orbit is, it’s gravity free. Nope. Sorry. In fact it’s gravity that keeps orbiting satellites from flying off into space.
Satellites aren’t free of Earth’s atmosphere either. Though very thin, there is air up there. It’s enough to add a tiny frictional component to orbital calculations.
If left in orbit long enough that tiny bit of drag begins to pull satellites back toward Earth. That’s what happened tonight with the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer – GOCE.
It was not unexpected. Without asking our permission GOCE was built with little concern for its demise.
The satellite was launched in 2009 to map variations in the Earth’s gravity. As the exaggerated image above shows, gravity isn’t the same everywhere. Knowing more about this force should allow scientists to know more natural phenomena like ocean circulation and Earth’s core. I have no problem with this science.
However, there is a part of GOCE that troubles me greatly. The satellite fell to Earth as an unguided missile a few hours ago! Sketchy estimates say 75% burned harmlessly before reaching ground. That left about 500 pounds intact. That was always the plan from day one.
Authorities have tried to be reassuring.
“In the 56 years of spaceflight, some 15 000 tonnes of man-made space objects have reentered the atmosphere without causing a single human injury to date.”–Heiner Klinkrad, Head of ESA’s Space Debris Office
True indeed… but why is there a “Space Debris Office” if this is harmless, like tinsel from the sky?
I’ve seen other quotes reminding us 2/3 of the Earth is covered by water and much of the rest of the planet is uninhabited. This was the same logic 16 year old learner’s permit holder Stef used to explain why she neither stopped nor looked while leaving our driveway. “There are never cars on our street,” she said at the time.
As of this hour no one’s called Progressive’s Flo to complain about space junk in the trunk. We were lucky.
This isn’t the first and probably won’t be the last time scientists play Russian roulette with incoming. Is this really the best way to do it?
I am the defacto IT guy for my cousins who run a law practice here in town. The days of file folders full of papers are fading away. Nearly everything is computer generated and computer stored.
A NAS (Network Attached Storage) unit might be a good idea for their office. It would allow everyone access to the files they need, even from outside the office. And, it would add one more layer of backup. They are justifiably paranoid about backup.
I went on Amazon.com to do some research this morning. The comments on the right are for a Western Digital unit.
WD is a big, respected company. I drive by their headquarters (which could be used as the set for a futuristic sci-fi movie) here in Irvine all the time. There’s a Western Digital drive in my new computer.
Here are four of the latest comments:
Can you make a decision based on reviews like this? You can’t.
Suggestions are still to come. I’m no closer than when I started.
I was thinking about commercials a few days ago. The knee jerk reaction is to poo poo them. However, some commercials get knit into the fabric of our lives.
When the Giants are playing at the Meadowlands and that 5-note whistle comes on, I have to think of PC Richards. It’s involuntary.
In Connecticut there is Bob Kaufman who turned a whiny voice into TV magic! Is there any larger TV advertiser on the East Coast? I doubt it!
I met Bob at a New Haven Ravens game years ago. He seemed like a nice guy. I bought two love seats and a sofa from him. Good value and very comfortable.
There’s another iconic Connecticut Bob from Bob’s of Milford (though I’m not sure his name is actually Bob). Helaine always thought Bob’s, “He just wants to get you a loan,” was, “He just wants to get you alone.” That would be creepy.
Every market has them. In Philadelphia there was Ben Krass who sold suits in South Philly. Cleveland had JB Robinson Jewelers with stores “across the street from, but not in” some mall.
I’ve got a favorite in SoCal. It’s Mike Diamond.
Our plumbers will show up on time and smell good or the house call is free. That’s a promise.
Yup, Mike Diamond is the smell good plumber! Is there any better positioning possible?
Here’s what all these advertisers have in common–their shtick works! It’s not how polished the message is, but whether the message resonates.
Don’t you want a smell good plumber?
Do you think Twitter is worth $24,460,000,000? I’ll make it easy for you. Twitter is worth $24 billion and change. The market says so. Multiply outstanding shares by price and voila.
Twitter’s new stock issue opened at $24 and closed at $44.90. Twitter makes no profit. Its loss per share is $1.11.
Why is it being bid up?
Where have we seen this before?
The chart at the top of this entry shows the tech heavy NASDAQ index since 1974. That big spike around 2000 is the “Tech Bubble.” If you bought at that peak, you still haven’t made your money back!
I use Twitter every day. Twitter and Facebook are how I promote my blog entries and get the word out on projects I’m involved in. I’ve sent over 14,000 tweets.
Compared to Facebook, my response on Twitter is tiny. Maybe it’s not that way for everyone, but I can’t be alone.
I suspect most people don’t quite ‘get’ Twitter and how to set up an account that serves them. Today I heard 30% of those who go on Twitter abandon their account. Twitter is too hard to understand.
The problem with all this money going to Twitter is, it’s not going elsewhere! I worked in TV where we competed against the Internet. We had bills to pay every month. The Internet media saw a profit somewhere in the future. It’s tough to compete against that business plan.
Owning a TV station today is not what it once was. Eyeballs are tougher to come by. The pie is sliced into smaller pieces. Viewers are shortchanged as less is spent serving them. And, like Twitter, the competition often isn’t required to turn a profit.
I’m scared we’ll see this bubble burst as it’s burst before. Bubbles hurt the economy. Selfishly, bubbles hurt me personally. My 401-K is heavily in the market and subject to these gyrations.
This whole Twitter run-up today seems irrational. That’s because it is.