Operation Fix-A-Cat update

A while back, I mentioned an on-going collaboration with one of my neighbors to round up some of the local stray cats and get them fixed before we had another kitten explosion. The first two participants were Blackie, one of last year's kitten crop, and Shyler, one of the friendlier toms. Next was Muffin, a pretty female with the appearance of a Himalayan. This weekend, we released two more: Fluffy, one of Blackie's littermates, and Buster, another somewhat-friendly tom. In addition, there have been two others who were sufficiently unfriendly that they went straight to animal control, making a total of seven that we've dealt with so far. We still have at least one more of Blackie and Fluffy's littermates targeted for 'tutoring' as well as at least one more regularly-seen tom. After that, we'll see; the bill's starting to get a bit steep. Here's the 'happy cat' photo album:

It's hard to take a decent picture of an all-black cat, especially inside. Here's Blackie outside last week, next to the trap with her sister Fluffy inside.

And, they're off! Shyler showing off the results of his 'tutoring'. Shyler is the cat of many names, as I first started calling him 'Shylock' when I first saw him. After it became apparent that he was going to stick around, I researched Shylock in Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice) and found that the character was not a particularly nice person. As the name didn't seem appropriate for a fairly friendly cat, and since my neighbor could never get it right anyway, I morphed it into Shyler. Meanwhile, the appointment at the clinic was made in the name of 'Johnny Cat' because he always seemed to be 'Johnny on the spot' when it was feeding time. Now, while my neighbor calls him 'Skyler', it's become apparent that while he's nice to us, he's not at all nice to the other cats, so maybe 'Shylock' was right after all. Here he is right-side up:

Muffin is another johnny-on-the-spot; whenever I go outside, she comes to 'help'.

Fluffy, still in the trap. My neighbor has a hard time telling Fluffy and Muffin apart, although when seen together they're easily distinguishable.

Here she is after surgery in the 'post op' crate. We got lucky with her, as it turned out that she was already pregnant. I had been concerned about Blackie when she went in, as she had been definitely showing signs of being 'in heat' a couple of weeks before, but apparently didn't become pregnant. With Fluffy, there was no indication at all that she might be pregnant. I'm counting this one as a definite win - no new kittens this time!

And here's Buster, so named because I was watching a Mythbusters re-run when I found him in the trap; the Mythbusters' crash-test dummy is dubbed "Buster". He's a fairly recent arrival - I first noticed him around Thanksgiving. I strongly suspect that he was abandoned or dumped, as he's lost weight since I first saw him and he readily took to being held and petted; he also had no difficulty with the litter box (some of the others, particularly Fluffy, Blackie, and the gray tabby that did the number on my hands, all preferred to sit in the litter box). Shyler especially does not like Buster; I'm hoping that now that they've both been fixed the almost daily fights will subside. Just in case, though, my neighbor has recently armed herself with a couple of water guns.

Sports fans

Some of you may have heard about a little sporting event coming up this weekend in Tampa, Florida. Featuring the Arizona Cardinals versus the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Superbowl is the biggest thing in American football. We see some sports-theme paint jobs pass through LAX, along with various visiting teams. Most of this has nothing whatever to do with the Superbowl, but then I'm not a football fan:

The favorites this year are the Pittsburgh Steelers. We have several Steelers fans in the tower, and they can't seem to let us forget it.
I apologize for the quality of this shot, but this was the one and only time I've ever seen this airplane in LA.

This US Airways Airbus sports the logo of the Arizona Cardinals, the underdogs in this year's Superbowl. Out of sheer contrariness, I hope they kick @$$!

The Philadelphia Eagles lost out to the Cardinals this year.
The Steelers beat somebody else, but I don't have a picture of an aircraft featuring that team's logo.

The sports motif isn't limited to football.

Nor is it limited to professional sports. (Is there a Texas A&M plane? I haven't seen or heard of one, but then Aggies in airplanes . . . )

View from the tower

Earlier this week, somebody asked me the title of the blog, and that's today's theme: Views from the tower. All of these shots are from the tower, with no other particular topic other than I think they're neat pictures. Enjoy!

We get to see some incredible sunsets over the Pacific.

A while back, I mentioned that Cathay Pacific had started bringing B777's to LAX. This is the only shot I've got of one so far, and they seem to have gone back to all B747 service here.

I never get tired of this view: All those pinpoints of light are airplanes on final for LAX.

This month's full moon rising. The standing lenticular clouds are an unusual sight here, and indicate some strong winds aloft.

Northwest 2, in Delta colors, has just arrived on runway 24 right. That's Santa Monica bay and Malibu in the background.

The full moon setting in the west. In the second shot, the moon is behind a cloud bank, but the reflection can still be seen on the water.

A fallen soldier comes home.

A couple of smoky pictures. In the upper shot, there's a fire on the back of one of the hills, creating a smoke cloud above the ridge. Santa Ana winds pushed the smoke offshore, creating the waves seen in the second shot.

A couple of sunrise shots.

Another early morning arrival, with downtown LA in the background.

Nighttime views of Terminal One and Terminal Four.

Outside of a control tower, you're not likely to get to see a B757 from this angle.

Just call me Anthony

It's Monday in my world, so for today's edition I'm serving up a recap of my weekend. No more cat attacks, so overall it went well. Despite my still sore paws, I did manage to get some chores done:

The roses got their annual winter pruning. This reduced some of them from nearly six feet tall to less than half of that. I also cleaned up a lot of the underbrush that some of them had accumulated with low lateral canes and suckers. The resulting plants look denuded in comparison to what they were, and it took four trips to the dumpster with my muck bucket to clean up all the detritus.

The next day I spent puttering about in the hangar, doing some work on the Baron and some general cleaning up. About a year's worth of stuff I'd accumulated for Goodwill got loaded into the back of the Rover and delivered. Goodwill, I learned, will not accept used computer printers - even if they're still packaged in their original boxes with manuals. So those went to the electronic recycling place near the airport. While I was there, I saw a huge warehouse, easily the size of a Costco or Super Walmart, filled with pallets of old computers, monitors, printers, and TVs. All of it now destined to not end up in a landfill somewhere. As an aside, a developer in the LA area is now developing a site that was once a landfill. Apparently the hundred acres of real estate with about a half-mile of freeway frontage was too valuable; they're now reclaiming about half of the area for development. What was once a large hill has been reduced to grade level. I wonder where it all went . . .

And yesterday, after having lunch with a friend and giving him his overdue Christmas present, I headed home for an evening of watching the latest season of Mythbusters (thanks Pop!). It was while I was washing dishes (after first replacing all the guts in the faucet) that I realized that I still had another friend's Pyrex dish from our New Year's Eve get-together. A quick call ascertained that she would be at the theater for rehearsal, so we coordinated a meeting there. I have a bit of history with the Long Beach Shakespeare Company, so I stuck around to meet the show's director and watch the rehearsal. The show in the works is the last of the successful Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas, The Gondoliers. They were working on the blocking, which is where people enter, where (and how and when) they go, and where they exit. Or at least that's how it started out. There was also some work done on lines and lyrics as well as costumes. The director was a little thwarted by the absence of one of the principals, though, and in a moment of directorial frustration he turned in my direction and said "Steve, would you mind standing over there as Giuseppe please?" While my name isn't Steve, I obliged - after all, the guy had eaten some of my birthday cake (the one I didn't get) and signed the card. A short time later, while working through a scene in the second act where Giuseppe actually is supposed to say something, he asked "Matthew, can you read lines?" So then I had a script in my hands as well. A bit further on, we got to a scene with a song and dance. Since I don't know much about dancing and they hadn't yet choreographed the dances anyway, I had to make it up as I went. And while I had a script, I hadn't the song lyrics. Fortunately the song in this particular scene was a choral number; I discovered that the words "chiquita banana" fit nicely in lieu of whatever they were supposed to be, and everyone seemed happy with that! At the end of the evening, as the director was finishing up with his notes to the cast, he said "And thanks to Anthony for stepping in tonight - Great job!" So, call me Anthony . . .

And now, for all you aviation folks, something new: My first attempt at video. My current camera, a Panasonic Lumix FZ18, has the ability to shoot video as well as stills (and probably a whole plethora of other features that I have yet to stumble upon). I dabbled with this a bit the other day, and managed to catch a few arrivals on the north side. Here's the best of the lot, the arrival of a Korean Air B747-400 on runway 24 right:



Okay, maybe not the most exciting thing to see, but hopefully not too bad for a first attempt at both capturing video and incorporating it into the blog.

And that's the news. Here's another link for more about The Gondoliers