ArsTigris🐅🐉

Vinyl Halloween “costume” from 1980: a bad polyethylene mask of a licensed character, and a vinyl onesie bearing the copyrighted IP with even worse “artwork”. The “costume” pictured consists of a polyethylene mask of the Star Wars character Yoda, if Yoda were a blue chimpanzee with elf ears. The onesie is blue, and the upper half is decorated with white dots representing stars. A large drawing of what can only be described as Yoda’s overweight second cousin twice-removed is highlighted by a thick yellow border. The logo for “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” is printed on the outfit’s upper-left shoulder/breast. Not pictured: the godawful stench of poorly-cured vinyl, cheap plastic, and industrial airbrush paint.

Vinyl Halloween “costume” from 1980: a bad polyethylene mask of a licensed character, and a vinyl onesie bearing the copyrighted IP with even worse “artwork”. The “costume” pictured consists of a polyethylene mask of the cartoon character Strawberry Shortcake. The onesie is patterned like a red & white antique sun dress, and the upper half is adorned with the cartoon’s eponymous title card. The bottom half bears the likeness of the eponymous lead character sitting with a cartoon cat among green leaves. Not pictured: the godawful stench of poorly-cured vinyl, cheap plastic, and industrial airbrush paint. My sister had the absolute misfortune of having worn a copy of this costume as a child.

As Halloween nears, let’s take a moment to reflect on the TRUE holiday horrors Gen-X and early Millennials suffered at the hands of our parents.

Behold the “costumes” my sister and I wore for Halloween in 1980, and despair!
😬

Commodore PET, the first computer I ever used in grade school. Always loved seeing one as a prop in one of my favorite movies!

Update: vet confirmed the crow will be transported to wildlife rehab after initial treatment, then released in the general area where it was found once (s)he’s healed up.

Took it to the local emergency vet, which is a wildlife trauma intake vet. Hoping the crow gets to a good wildlife rehab to heal.

It was a beautiful bird; vibrant bluish-black plumage. Wish I’d got pics, but that wasn’t the priority in the moment. Ah well…

Folks called and asked for help catching an injured crow. Young adult, possible broken right wing.

It was scared, but very gentle & let me approach after a couple minutes. Let me pick it up (carefully to not aggravate the bad wing) & place in a box for transport.

Seaplane rating is a bucket list item for me. Cool consolation prize for your nonrev bad luck!

Review from 3500 feet MSL above Vista, CA looking north.

View west toward the Pacific Ocean from 3500’ MSL above Valley Center, CA.

The Pala Casino Hotel and RV Resort seen from 3500 feet MSL. The wing strut of a Cessna 172 is visible in the lower left corner of the photo.

Aerial view of a quarry in Valley Center, CA I’ve never noticed before. 🙂

A few more photos from today’s flight. 🙂

Cumulus clouds east of Palomar Mountain/Cleveland national Forest. Photo from 3500’ MSL over Valley Center, CA.

Cumulus clouds east of Palomar Mountain/Cleveland national Forest. Photo from 3500’ MSL over Pauma Valley, CA.

Convective activity east of Palomar Mountain/Cleveland national Forest. Photo from 3500’ MSL over Valley Center, CA. The propeller blade of a Cessna 172 sweeps through the frame.

View to the southeast from 3500’ MSL over Valley Center, CA. Distant cumulus clouds are visible, with Valley Center and Escondido in the middle foreground. The blue engine cowl of a Cessna 172 appears in the bottom near foreground of the image.

Today was a practice & “just flying around” kind of day. Convective activity to the east made for some pretty scenic skies around SoCal. Photos from the Fallbrook/Valley Center/Pauma Valley/Escondido area.

Unbelievable footage from NOAA’s Hurricane Hunters inside the eye of Hurricane Erin.

Simply incredible.

With rampant puritanical extremism trying to take over, I want to make it clear:

I don’t care what kinks or fetishes you draw.

If I don’t like it, I don’t look.

I can curate my space and mute words I personally don’t like. You can too.

I would absolutely eat this. Perhaps only once, but still…!

View to the NE in the en route climb toward Big Bear, CA. This was taken around 5-6000’ MSL. I think, anyway - I was busy on the radio most of the way up & didn’t have time to take my own pics LOL. Those *aren’t* clouds in the distance (haze layer). Yuck.

San Bernardino mountains, photo taken as we flew through Angel Pass at 9,500’ MSL en route to Big Bear City, CA. Summer greens and browns paint the mountains, and the azure sky crowns them.

Watercraft on Big Bear Lake as we turned east toward the airport. Photo has been leveled (original was taken while in a turn). I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many boats on the lake all at once before! Not like I see the lake every day, but still… Lots o’ boats!

Me, trying to understand a garbled ATC radio transmission, if the look on my face is any indication. Audio quality on 132.2 was… not great in this area yesterday. 🤷‍♂️ I’m wearing a brown shirt, aviation headset, and black ball cap. Karen, my wonderful copilot and photographer, smiles while she takes our selfie. She is wearing a red shirt & aviation headset, and has a tattoo of a bee & flower on her arm. We are seated in the cockpit of a Cessna 172M. We are near Vista, CA & climbing through ~3000’ MSL. Through the back windows, the shore of the Pacific Ocean and the communities of Oceanside & Vista can be seen in the distance below. A Stratux ADS-B/FIS-B/GPS receiver is affixed to the rear window.

The haze layer yesterday looked gross, but apart from that it was a really nice flight to Big Bear! A bit bumpy on the flight back south, but the air smoothed out by Banning Pass.

Photos by my wonderful copilot, Karen!

Cessna 172 parked at Big Bear City, CA airport (L35). Mountains, other parked planes & clear blue sky are in the background.

Beautiful day to fly to Big Bear! More pics later. 😎

Motorboat Cruise
Peoplemover/Rocket Rods
Mission to Moon/Mars
Skyway
Starcade
Mike Fink Keel Boats
House of Tomorrow/Princess Grotto
Carousel of Progress/America Sings/Star Wars Landing Bay

Probably forgetting a couple…

Gettin my diet back on track, starting right f’ing now.

Also got my bike tuned up and rode about 3 miles today. Not a lot, but it’s a start! Scary to realize how out of shape I am, but it’ll come back.

I lost 90 pounds just by diet & exercise before, so 50 should be a cinch!
😄

About two years ago I injured my back and left knee & had to stop biking. Also let my diet go to shit as lassitude took root. So, no surprise that I’ve packed on close to 50 pounds since then.

Enough is enough.

Werewolf Fury slot machine at Pala Casino in SoCal. The slot machine depicts a black werewolf holding out a fistful of gold coins

Werewolf Fury slot machine at Pala Casino in SoCal. The slot machine depicts a black werewolf holding out a fistful of gold coins, with the game denomination screen shown. The game has vibrant rainbow-pattern perimeter lights.

Werewolf Fury slot machine at Pala Casino in SoCal. The slot machine depicts a black werewolf holding out a fistful of gold coins, having just paid out a $14 jackpot. One of the reels shows three werewolf busts, while the others show various game symbol elements.

My RV & Jeep parked at Pala Casino RV park at twilight. The sky is a rich purple fading to light lavender, with small puffy clouds. Trees are silhouetted in the background. The foreground is lighted by decorative string lights hung from the RV’s salon slide-out.

Stayed the week at Pala Casino’s RV park & found the furry-bait slot machine!
🐺😄

It… it did not treat me very nicely. That $14 win was the biggest one I got in the hour or so I played it. 😓

Bonus pic of my RV & Jeep at twilight. 🙂

View toward Los Angeles from the Catalina airport administration Tower.

Catalina airport Courtyard with tile map of the island.

Beauty and the Beast 😆

Carlsbad flower fields just west of Palomar Airport. Photos taken by my wonderful co-pilot on departure. 🙂

Catalina Avalon Airport seen from the pattern downwind leg for runway 22.

Catalina’s eastern coastline on final to the airport landing runway 22.

Catalina airport

Spectacular skies today; couldn’t resist another trip out to Catalina!

Nicely done sir, congrats!

Photo of the lunar eclipse on 13 March 2025 from my porch. Clouds from an earlier weather system are scattered near the moon. iPhone 15 Pro Max 0.5x wide angle.

Photo of the lunar eclipse on 13 March 2025 from my porch. Clouds from an earlier weather system are scattered near the moon. iPhone 15 Pro Max 1x zoom.

Photo of the lunar eclipse on 13 March 2025 from my porch. Clouds from an earlier weather system are scattered near the moon. iPhone 15 Pro Max 2x zoom.

Photo of the lunar eclipse on 13 March 2025 from my porch. Clouds from an earlier weather system are scattered near the moon. iPhone 15 Pro Max 5x zoom.

Got a break in the clouds to see tonight’s lunar eclipse right at totality. Was very cool - wish I’d had time to set up the ‘good’ camera & lenses. iPhone pics don’t do it justice!

1999 & was a political shitshow for years after. Original intent was to convert to commercial use (ala Norton AFB->KSBD). Would’ve benefitted both LAX and SAN travelers. NIMBY factions eventually won, even though commercial ops would’ve been quieter & cleaner than military ops. Got NO ops instead. 🙄

MCAS El Toro airbase. The ELB VOR is still there!

View to the west from inside a Cessna 172 at 3500’ over Bonsall, CA.

View to the north from inside a Cessna 172 at 1500’ over Carlsbad, CA.

View to the east from inside a Cessna 172 at 3500’ over Carlsbad, CA.

Went flying today. That is all. 😁😎🛫

It's Nice To Be Disliked (By One Of Those)

So, you gonna do something about it or nah? Step up and do your job!

The last week has been one outrage after another, and so far you and your party have done zero point crap to halt or impede any of the dictatorial spew coming from the Oval.

A photo of the moon and Mars shortly after the recent conjunction. Mars is visible as a dot just above the moon and slightly off-center to the right.

Took a pic of the moon Monday night shortly after the conjunction, and was surprised Mars is actually visible in the shot (small dot above the moon & slighly off center). Not bad for a cell phone shot, hand-held, in a brightly-lit area.

#moon #mars #conjunction

Catalina Airport observation building & palm trees against a flawless, sunny blue sky

Sunlit patio at Catalina Airport restaurant. The old hangar is in the background. The sunny sky is perfectly clear.

Departing Catalina Airport at ~4500’. Sunlight reflects off the calm waters of the ocean. The island is visible below the wing of a Cessna 172.

Me and my girlfriend! :-) Cruise flight over the Gulf of Santa Catalina. Flying the R172K Super Hawk XP.

It took a couple weeks (annoyingly), but I finally got my 1st flight of 2025 in this past Sunday! Quick trip to Catalina with my girlfriend for lunch and some famous “killer” cookies. 🙂

#flying #cessna #catalina #killercookies #hundreddollarhamburger #aviation

Being sick sucks. 🫥

Thanks for the birthday wishes!!