SC's Pseudo-Blog
Post comments at the forum!
3 February 2025
Well, winter is finally here for real, no more of this freezing fog stuff. Snow started falling lightly here around 0600, and it's still falling lightly now nearing 1700. In between we had some pretty real snowfall, which I (being a well-traveled desert dog) would describe as moderate. But it snowed all day, so we got about 6 inches. That's a lot for where we live, I've never seen this much snow in our yard. The Mount Ashland web page says they've had 8 inches of snow in the past 24 hours, but I don't know which 24 hour span of time that refers to. For today'ssnowfall I'd expect 12 to 18 inches up there at the ski resort.
So this turn of weather prompted us to do a little bit of response prep, mostly in terms of making sure devices were fully charged and that we can keep essential systems running in the event of a power failure. The utility lines in our immediate neighborhood are underground, but they connect to the feeds on aerial spans. Numerous parts of the valley are without power right now, virtually every interruption caused by snow-loaded tree branches ... or whole trees, falling onto the power lines. We could lose our power too, even though the physical interruption might be miles away. I figure better to be prepared, right?
Tomorrow we get a break from the precipitation ... maybe. The forecasts change almost hourly, because the system seems to have stalled over our corner of the state. We may get intermittent light snow, we may not. At some point, though, the overnight lows are going to get below freezing, and we could see overnight temps in the teens by next Monday. Of course the storm will be gone by then, we'll be under moderately clear skies. During the day the snow will be melting, and overnight it'll be freezing, so mornings are going to be fun whether you're walking to the corner coffee shop or hauling heavy over Siskiyou Summit.
I'm glad I'm retired, and can just watch from the sidelines.
Any of you furs following the NHL? We have been. We're a house divided, La Conejita thinks the Vegas Golden Knights are all that, while the Perro Viejo is inclined towards the Colorado Avalanche. Both teams are doing well, both are playoff contenders. Meanwhile, the 2025 Four Nations Playoffs are starting on the 12th in Montreal. It should be a bit of fun, watching guys that are professionally bitter rivals play together on the same team against their own professional team mates, just by virtue of what nation they hail from. We're looking forward to it!
Anyway, that's all the news that's fit to yap about. I hope you all are well and warm and safe this winter.
Catch ya later!
25 January 2025
I saw a post from Kel at the PF Forums this morning about the weather. Apparently it's a little chilly where he lives. It prompted me to share this with you. It's what happens when fog freezes, I guess. It was 24° when I took this shortly after sunrise, and there was some fog. I'd never seen this before.
Remember that I grew up and raised pups in soCal, where the winters were more about fires than cold weather. A cold snap down there meant 50°, or if it was really miserable 45°. Here in the Rogue Valley we're about 9° latitude farther north than where I grew up, and at a higher elevation surrounded by mountains on most sides. Our winters get below freezing. Sometimes we'll see sub-freezing temps all day, but mostly the daytime temps hover in the 30s or low 40s, and then get down into the 20s at night.
This winter has been dry. We had some "aerial rivers" push through in November and December, but except for the morning fog it's been bone dry around here so far this year. The weather-guessers (apologies to Tigermark for the slur) say we're supposed to see some snow in about a week, but I'm skeptical. The mountains are pretty and fun, but they also shield us from most of the precipitation that pushes in from the ocean to the southwest, and some of it from the northwest. The mountains get a lot of rain an snow, but not so much us. I've never shoveled a driveway here.
Anyway, todays image with a bit of verbosity to go with it. Carry on, catch ya later!
15 January 2025
Hey guys. You can thank Tigermark for this update. He sent me a message the other day, asking how my family was dealing with the massive fires that are still, as I write this, active in southern California. I'm not going to dive into that subject, at least not now. This is all about the gentle nudge Tiger's message gave me a gentle nudge towards attempting ... again ... to reconnect with the furry genre and community. Now I admit, my presence in the community over the years has been confined mostly to the Planet Furry Forums. As far as I know, it is the only place where I have maintained and contributed to a presence, never mind how sporadic and sketchy that presence has become lately. So I will do two things:
I will start blogging again. Nothing serious, just a way of catching up with folks who might be interested in what I'm doing these days. I'm not very good at keeping up with individuals these days. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say I'm not very good at initiating the process of keeping up. My bad, but at least blogging is a first step towards resuming regular dialog with folks I miss.
I will not harbor any illusions about getting back to my stories. I have chattered here and there about them, about making myself sit down and creating more content. But that's the problem, I'd have to make myself do it. In the past my creative writing ... story-telling, was spontaneous. Call it having an active muse. I'd get an idea that would lodge between my ears, and I'd retain that intelligence long enough to spend an evening or two writing it down. That muse has been gone for years ... a dozen or more. I know what caused my muse to disappear, and I can't recreate the conditions which might lure it back. So it is what it is. Except for brief flashes, briefly illuminated scenes of momentary clarity regarding characters or situations they are in, there's just not that much there. I blame that in part on my memory, which is deteriorating due to a head cluttered with un-necessary stuff from a writer's standpoint. I also blame my stubborn resistance to using any kind of tech, easily to paw, to record the content of these flashes. I have a phone in my pocket that could easily lend itself to that task, but ... as I said, it is what it is.
What I will chat about, well, you'll just have to stay and check it out. As a member of the gear-head, mech tech, gun-dog calling (as I have been told), I suspect you'll find a lot of stuff about off road vehicles (particularly Jeeps), overlanding, travel in general, aviation, railroading, history, photography, edged and ballistic weaponry, two way radio systems (I was a telecomm tech for a few decades), and anything else that wanders into my head on the spur of a moment.
So ... let's catch up.
As I alluded to, we (my wife Brigid and I) spend a lot of time in Jeeps. We own three of them. We also enjoy doing this:
OVERLANDING
14 September 2024, near the Owens River Gorge, northwest of Bishop, California.
This is what many refer to as "overlanding." It is basically living off grid ... any amenities or infrastructure you require to be safe and comfortable, you need to bring them with you, and you need to bring enough of it so that you can be off grid for several days ... or weeks, or months, as you desire and your equipment is capable of. We like to get "out in the sticks" for a few days to enjoy our natural surroundings. But after no more than four or five days, we need to get back to civilization long enough to refuel, restock, and clean up. Then we go back out for more. We do this primarily in the western US, but we have ambitions that include the greener side of our country, and Canada and Alaska as well. We'll see how that goes.
Overlanding can be as simple as throwing a tent and a couple of sleeping bags in your trunk with some type of stove to cook on (unless you plan to find, cut, and burn firewood once you're in camp), clothing, cooking utensils, food and water. We're kind of at the other extreme, I suppose, as we have a small trailer that allows us to have a lot of things at our disposal that most folks may not consider "necessary." Like a refrigerator, a hot water heater (with a shower attachment), a 40 gallon water tank, dual propane tanks, and lots of storage space. Oh, and did I mention the queen-size bed in the tent on top? Our rig also has a lot of other stuff. For details, look here.
22 July 2024 somewhere northeast of Lucin, Utah. It's 105°F in mid-afternoon.
We are near where the original First Transcontinental Railroad route branched away from the current mainline at a small railroad station called Lucin.
That old railroad grade is known as the "Promontory Route."
Also near Lucin, still 105°F.
Our Jeep, long known as the Little Red Beast, is also well loaded, as you can see. It's a 2017 Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon, Hard Rock edition. I'll say this for the motorheads: Dual Dana 44s, 4:10 gears, factory e-lockers and swaybar disconnect, part time 4:1 transfer case, six speed manual, LT255/75-R17 BFG All Terrains. There is a long laundry list of other things I've done to this rig, if you're interested click here. Suffice to say that loaded for the trail as you see it, it weighs about 6400 pounds. Jeep people are wincing at that, at least the ones who have bothered to learn what the GVWR of these vehicles is.
8 October 2024, on top of Frazier Mountain west of Gorman, California.
We are here supporting the removal of a two-way radio system from a vault. You can see one of the several towers on this mountain in the background.
Livin' large on the Los Padres National Forest!
Somewhere in the eastern Sierra, 22 May 2024.
24 October 2024, Brigid (AKA "La Conejita") and her birthday present in Oakhurst, California.
The Little Red Beast is maybe getting a bit long in the tooth. He turned 8 years old a month ago, and has 135,000 miles on the clock. Still going strong, still lots of life left, but that damn stick shift ...
So meet Bonnie Blue, Brigid's 2024 Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon. It was built on the same template as the LRB was, the only major difference is that Bonnie has an eight-speed automatic transmission and came from the factory on 35" tires (which included some augmented suspension system components). It also has a factory mounted (and warranted) Warn winch hiding behind the front bumper. Oh ... it also has this funny glass thing in the dash that lights up and shows pretty pictures, maps, plays music and videos, links to her phone, etc. The LRB was fancy with a AM/FM/CD player with an auxiliary input. Brigid is definitely in the 21st century with this rig!
It took us six years to discuss and save up for this rig, but the wait was worth it! It's exactly what she wanted.
We are slowly upfitting Bonnie with systems and equipment that will allow her to become our front line tow vehicle. She is stronger than the LRB ever was because she has <motorhead lingo> a full floating rear axle </motorhead lingo> rated to tow 5000 pounds, compared to the 3500 pounds the LRB can tow. As our overnight temps are dipping well below freezing these days, our upfitting activities have tapered off somewhat. But I have materials to knock off at least three major projects with her as soon as the driveway gets warm enough to work on (warmer than 50°F, at least). Until then ... well, bonus blogging time!
PHOTOGRAPHY
Brigid and I both carry digital camera systems with us when we travel. She's at least as big a photography nut as I am, but we tend to point our cameras at different things. And that's cool. Here's a couple of my recent efforts:
15 March 2024, a pooch having fun on the beach near the north end of Lincoln City, Oregon.
I was about 125 yards away from him and maybe 50 or 60 feet above him. My Canon 5D with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Lens, ISO 320, f/10 @ 1/500th.
Yosemite Mountain Sugarpine Railroad engine # 10, taken at the end-of-track loop 26 October 2024. She is seen here "decked out" for Hallowe'en.
# 10 is a 1928 product of the Lima Locomotive Works, is a 3-truck Shay C-3 70 ton class geared locomotive.
The 81.6 ton oil-burner is reputed to be the largest Shay Locomotive ever built.
Taken with my Samsung A53 phone, ISO 50, 5mm focal length, f/1.8 @ 1/60th.
This image actually indulges three of my passions at once; photography, railroading, and history.
Taken in the cupola of the caboose at the end of the train hauled by the locomotive above. My son Mike and his younger daughter Lennon, enjoying the ride.
Brigid loves taking selfies, and I'm glad. 15 March 2024 near Oceanside, Oregon.
Turning 65. Another one of Brigid's photographic efforts.
Don't ask me to explain why three candles. This was at my cousin's house, she made the cake, and I asked no questions.
It was delicious.
So yeah, we've been knocking around in the sticks some, spending a lot of time with family, working on our home, watching a few hockey games, and just enjoying being alive and reasonably healthy. The previous year was absolutely lost as far as my blogs here at The Range are concerned, hence this little bit of catching up. Moving forward I will try and put something up here, just as soon as something interesting happens.
... did I just mention hockey?
4 December 2024, the Jack Daniels Club on the 300 level of the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.
The Ducks hosted the Vegas Golden knights, Brigid's favorite team.
She is wearing one of Mark Stone's "away jerseys", while I am wearing Lubomir Visnovsky's "home jersey."
The night was a birthday gift from Brigid, front row seats at center ice, next to the home team's penalty box.
The Ducks lost 4-1, but it was a great, high-energy battle down to the last horn. We had a blast.
Don't laugh, back in the day Lubo was a hell of a defenseman who played both ends of the ice. His shot from the point was like a cannon.
Anyway, this will do for now. We'll get after it again soon. Catch ya later!
Don't care to communicate via the PF Forums? Email me!