Had a busy day today getting all the shopping done for the next week. We were all ove the South Bay getting stuff in Manhattan Beach and in Torrance. When I got up this morning it was raining and it drizzled all day long. I took this panorama from the front porch. Click on the image to view the panoramic large size.

After Thanksgiving, Santa Claus comes to Torrance neighborhoods to kick off the Christmas Season. Sponsored and escorted by the Torrance Police Officers Association, Santa arrives on his sleigh drawn through the streets by a truck, since his Reindeer are reserved for the actual Christmas Eve Flight.

In this video, Santa and his entourage pass directly by our house to a spot around the corner where he offers candy canes to the kids who board the sleigh to visit.

The Great Crash of November ‘07 is where we had two computers die within a few days of each other. First, the laptop stopped working and a couple of nights later, the power supply in my old desktop computer went out. This made me wonder what could be next. My question was answered the night before last when the big 36″ TV croaked with a loud snap and burnt smell right after. I’m not asking about anything else for fear of another self-fulfilling prophecy.

The hard drive in the old laptop started making noises like somebody doing something bad to a cat. It completely died shortly thereafter. I’m going to try and see if there is a way to recover the data from it, but if not, then it’s not going to be a big deal. Last year, I started backing up all our photos and other files to one of those monster external hard drives. We might lose some data, but at least it’s minimized.

The old Dell desktop didn’t lose any data - it just stopped working. I removed the hard disk from it and installed it into another desktop that we use upstairs. The upstairs computer is now downstairs to fill the gap caused by the failure. All of my old files are there although there are some problems activating some of the software I use. Also no biggie.

Moving the computer downstairs was the only the start of our recovery. The next step is shown in the image (click for a large view). The new Dell 1721 Notebook arrived yesterday as an early Christmas Present.

Now to figure out which flat-screen HDTV is going to replace the old smelly CRT-type TV.

Verna snapped a picture of brand-new 45 auto shells in the box over the weekend. I cropped it down to get this nice close-up of our new fat boy cartridges.

Lenticular (lens-shaped) clouds indicate an atmospheric wave condition, where the wind follows an up and down path, often in the downwind side of mountains. Pilots know that this condition and the appearance of lenticular clouds means there is a very high likelihood of moderate to severe to extreme turbulence in the area.

This particular cloud seen here was west of Point Vicente on the California Coast in October after some rain moved through the area. Click on the image for a larger view.

This nice bunch of gazanias is currently providing color on the patio. I snapped this picture as we were getting ready to clean up the guns after our weekly trip to the range.

Every few months, we head off to the Gun Show. Today, we took the drive down to the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, CA.

As most of those who attend gun shows know, there are few guns and almost everything else. We saw jewelry, crystal and optics*, polished rocks, luggage, apparel, bumper stickers, safes and just about anything related to firearms. There is also plenty of stuff having nothing to do with guns or shooting, including a couple of “Ron Paul for President” booths.

* The Swarovski Group manufactures optics for guns as well as fine crystal and jewelry. One enterprising couple has a booth where Pop is selling Scopes in one half and Mom has a nice selection of crystal in the other half.

At one point, an especially pushy saleswoman was hawking stuffed pillows that transformed into “bed pets.” “Lady,” I said, “do you think I came to a gun show to buy a freakin’ pillow?”

In spite of all of the non-gun stuff, we bought a couple of magazines for the new Warthog and Glock 30 pistols, a “Glock” T-shirt, a “Route 66″ tote bag, some silhouette targets and a thousand rounds of .45 ACP.