Last Sunday, caught this Navy E6-B bird flying west of the refuge. Apparently they were on a west coast tour. #E6B #AvGeek A small white airplane flying against a clear blue sky. It is a four engine jet.

Saw a bad-ass Tarantula-hawk Wasp at the refuge. I haven’t seen tarantulas around these parts, though. #SacramentoWildlifeRefuge #Pepsis #TarantulaHawkWasp A black bodied and orange-winged Tarantula-hawk wasp with long orange antennae walking on a rocky dirt surface.

Rabbits all day at the refuge this pleasant summer morning #SacramentoWildlifeRefuge #Rabbits A wildlife scene featuring a jackrabbit with large ears sitting on a trail, framed between two hiking trail signs. There’s lots of tall, dry grass and on the horizon, a clump of trees.

In X-Plane 12, flew from KLAX to KJFK in the classic 747-200. I came in hot and then a bit low, but everyone got off the plane in short order so guess everyone’s happy 😅  #XPlane12 #FlightSim #YawmanArrowA 747-200 in classic United tulip livery on approach to KFJ 31L. There are three red and one white PAPI lights, indicating the aircraft is a bit low. The plane is flying over some water, with the runway rapidly approaching. Manhattan skyscrapers can be seen in the distance. It's a partly cloudy day.

My RaspberryShake detected the M7.1 earthquake from super early this morning Pacific time. Here’s the USGS link: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us6000nith/executive

#RaspberryShake #Earthquake #CitizenScience #Japan

A seismopgraph of the 7.1 earthquake off the coast of Southern Japan. Shows a strong, though kind of fuzzy signal that starts strong compared to background and slowly fades out.

It’s really disappointing that Amazon can’t be bothered to make reasonable delivery schedules in my own nick of the woods. It’s not a new problem! UPS is unionized & they do fine.

On Geekwire: “Driven away: Overloaded by Amazon, rural delivery companies reach the end of the road”

Well, I cannot help but be excited that Tim Walz is a Geographer and a GIS practitioner.

If you have a Yawman Arrow Controller, X-Plane 12, and the Felis 747-200, here’s my amateur-hour FlyWithLua script (on GitHub) to enable the Yawman Controller to have multifunction buttons to control the aircraft #YawmanArrow #FlyWithLua #Lua #XPlane12 #FlightSim

Smoke from thr Park Fire has, for the first time, obviously made it to the surface of the west side of the Sacramento Valley. I can smell it and the Purple sensor reports above 170 AQI #ParkFire #CAWx #AirQuality

The screenshot displays an air quality index (AQI) reading of 178 for Channel A and 177 for Channel B, alongside a historical graph and various particulate matter measurements. From the My Purple Air iOS app.

Plex is nice. Random album radio FTW. Even better that I can augment my local library by adding albums from Tidal 🥳

The temperatures are in the 70s and it is quite overcast with clouds and smoke. So we took advantage of the fall-like weather and went to Black Butte Reservoir. Here are Western Grebes, a Double Crested Cormorant, a Robin, and an Osprey A group of Western grebes swimming in a body of water. The image is taken from a distance, showing the long, curvy necked  white and black birds spread out across the water’s surface. A cormorant flying low over a body of water with its wings outstretched. The water surface appears calm with gentle ripples, reflecting the bird’s silhouette. A red breasted Robin sits in a bush with red berries and green foliage. It has a speckled white and black face. An osprey, white and brown, is perched high on top of a utility pole surrounded by power lines. The background is a green orchard with some dry grasslands. Large trees with dark green foliage is visible on the left and right of the bird.

I guess this is one way Scrubjays cool themselves off? All splayed & fluffed out with its beak wide open. This jay is very comfortable around us so it often hangs out under our patio messily gorging on seeds for caching elsewhere. It likes to bravely stare at us 😆 A blue scrub jay bird has its wings spread out, feathers fluffed out, near a rectangular container filled with birdseed on a sunlit concrete surface. Dried vegetation and gravel are visible in the background.

A better view of the Park Fire pyrocumulous from the other side of the Sacramento Valley. #ParkFire #CaWx A photograph taken from inside a vehicle shows a large agricultural field in the foreground, with rows of trees extending to the horizon. In the distance, plumes of pyrocumulous smoke rise into the sky, indicating a fire. The car’s side mirror is in view.

Park Fire from way across the west Sacramento Valley near Orland ☹️ #ParkFire #CAWx A suburban street scene featuring a gas station, several vehicles, and an American flag on a pole. The clear blue sky is contrasted by pyrocumulus clouds in the background. A red curb in the foreground reads “NO PARKING FIRE LANE.” Trees

Today’s Sonos app update restores most local library functionality. Here I go with app and firmware updates 🤞

At Medford, Oregon airport, two fire fighter tanker aircraft on final approach on July 17, 2024. A DC-10 (registered N522AX/TKR512) and a C-130 (registered N382CG/TNKR138). #AvGeek #C130 #DC10 #PlaneSpotting #TankerAircraftA three engine DC-10 firefighting aircraft is about to land with its landing gear out. The aircraft is painted in bright orange and white colors with the tail number “912” and near the nose a “10 TANKER” decal. An aerial view of a Coulson Lockheed C-130 firefighting aircraft on approach with its squat looking landing gear out, with visible registration number N382CG and tanker number 138 painted on the tail. The plane has “Coulson” written on the fuselage. It’s a hazy day.

Apple moving drivers away from kernel space to user space on macOS suddenly makes sense. #macOS

With all the CrowdStrike insanity, glad I’m off work today. But hoping my org didn’t get hit too hard!

Today I’m at Medford just for the evening. So here’s a photo straight out of the camera of tanker 912, a DC-10. #TKR912 #DC10 #Fujifilm #AvGeek A large DC-10 aircraft converted as a retardant drop tanker has three engines and is positioned on a runway, with mountains in the background. The airplane is close to a hangar, and a fence with a “No Trespassing” sign is visible in the foreground.

So my spouse noticed her Kindle Lock Screen is now trying to sell Large Language Model slop 😖 A Kindle screen displaying the cover of a book titled “The Science of Sleep.” The cover features a stylized landscape with mountains, a crescent moon, and stars under the title. Below the image, a button labeled “Read now” is present. There’s a subtitle the looks vaguely like “ullocking the secceltes fon resttfulll nights”