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“Just Thinking"
Well, I was putting this together late last night, but I got a late start because a couple of events on TV demanded my attention. First things first, if you want to be the champ, you have to beat the champ. The "Da Bums" were back-to-back champions until Thursday night, when the Brew Crew rolled into Los Angeles and completed a sweep of the defending champs on their home turf.
I don't want to come across as a hater, but I've been a Giants fan my entire life, and my second favorite team has always been whoever is playing the Dodgers. So, while the Giants are facing a lot of rebuilding, I have to admit that I enjoyed seeing Milwaukee send the champs packing.
Elated by the outcome but still not getting any writing done, I flipped over to Prime just in time to see the Seahawks tie the Broncos at the end of regulation sending the game into overtime. I stuck around long enough to see Sam Darnold throw an interception and Denver hitting a game-winning field goal. Although it's still early in the season, that was Seattle's third loss, matching the Rams with three defeats, while the 49ers remain undefeated with wins over both teams. That was some must-see sports TV.
I was reading the news this morning and saw that there are Red Flag Warnings across much of Los Angeles County as Santa Ana winds began to strengthen. Forecasters were calling for gusts approaching 70 mph across parts of Southern California, with humidity levels expected to drop to as low as 5%. I didn't hear much discussion about the weather during the game, but I wasn't listening with the sound turned on the entire game.
The forecast immediately brought back memories of the devastating Los Angeles fires of January 2025. The Santa Ana winds played a major role in the spread of those fires, carrying embers miles ahead of the flames and turning small ignitions into fast-moving infernos. Even now, less than two years later, many families and communities are still struggling to recover from the destruction. The fires burned more than 57,000 acres, forced over 200,000 people to evacuate, claimed at least 31 lives, and destroyed or damaged more than 18,000 structures. Hopefully, the warnings and lessons learned from that traumatic experience will help to prevent any disasters this year.
On the topic of weather, this year's El Niño has continued to strengthen and is expected to remain in place through the winter months. El Niño occurs when ocean temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean become warmer than normal, altering weather patterns around the globe. Current forecasts suggest a very strong El Niño will most likely continue into early 2027. For us here in California, that means a wetter-than-normal winter, with more frequent storms and heavier than normal rainfall, batten down the hatches.
This week in 1947 marks the anniversary of one of the greatest achievements in aviation history. On October 14, 1947, U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier. Much like Sir Roger Bannister's historic four-minute mile years later, many people believed it was a limit that simply could not be surpassed. At the time, aviators feared that the tremendous forces created near the speed of sound would cause aircraft to become uncontrollable or even disintegrate in flight.
That all changed when Yeager climbed into the Bell X-1, nicknamed the Glamorous Glennis after his wife. He was carried beneath the bomb bay of a B-29 and released at approximately 25,000 feet over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California, the rocket-powered X-1 accelerated rapidly, climbing to nearly 40,000 feet and becoming the first aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound. In a matter of minutes, Yeager accomplished what many experts believed was impossible and opened the door to the supersonic age.
The achievement was memorably portrayed in the 1983 film The Right Stuff, where Chuck Yeager was played by actor Sam Shepard. The film captured not only the danger and excitement of test flying but also the courage of the men willing to push beyond the known limits of flight. One of the movie's most memorable quotes, attributed to Yeager, sums up the challenge perfectly: "You're not flying against a machine, you're flying against the natural law of the universe."
Let me know what you think.
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