Showing posts with label experimental. Show all posts
Showing posts with label experimental. Show all posts

Thursday, January 6, 2022

On The 12th Day of Christmas It Was Cold and Windy As Could Be

                             A Vendor making these before it was a fashion statement on one's arm.
                                             Things I find on the way to finding other things.

 The week  of  Christmas we were in the 80s°F for several days. Since then, it's been in the teens and 20°F to 40s°F. Tomorrow morning its gonna be 20°F with wind chills of 15°F. Thank you Santa. Your Polar Express is a holiday train in Grapevine for the kids, not for the rest of the Metroplex. Christmas is over, so lets get back to those mid 50s°F to 60°F. Any time now, Buddy!

All kidding aside, I like some cold weather. My time in the Great Lakes saw 17°F below zero during the blizzard of '78 so I know what cold can be like. But, just because it gets cold, when the earth is tilted away from the sun, means that all these people taking 10-minute rocket rides into space  need to stay put here on earth. It's the old cause and effect thing. You are shaking up the Jet Streams, don't you see.(Harvey, did that last launch move the needle any on the balance gauge?) Oh, you think it's that secret program in Alaska that is shooting lasers into the center of high pressure systems to change the weather. And here I thought that that program was over already. Now I"m between a rocket launch and a laser beam. Imagine that!

 Seriously, though, it's been a crazy ride in 2021. I am glad to leave it behind. I was looking back to when I was me, and not some surgical experiment.  2019. Surgery. 2020.Surgery. 2021.Surgery. I do admit that 2021 under the knife was in the very early part and since then, I have been trying to regain my muscles and balance walking. The one thing that has suffered more than me is my photography in the overall scheme of things. I've always said:" when you create the beast you have to feed it." Feeding the beast takes about 250 shots a day with a sale ratio of 5:30. I gave up the live feeds and I shot what I could to keep some workflow flowing toward that goal. Then, it occurred to me that what I really wanted to do at my stage in life was to shoot interesting textures and create abstracts. I have experimented with them on and off in my down time and it has grown on me to the point that I have done some abstracts on my Zazzle account. I've gotten some pretty good response from people thus far as to the fact that they like them. 

So, as 2022 begins. I am not giving up on my photography. I'm just going to experiment with some new aspects of it technically. You will still be able to see my images on the blog. But I am getting ready to start listing with one or two agencies instead of the six that I now use. Making a selection will take a little time away from my photography for a short time, but in the end, it will be better for me and my readers and my photography as a whole. Hang tight, I'll keep you posted on the process and where my workflow lands. I'll also get a much better deal on my royalties, too!  Most will not notice a big change from the past. I've got images Google hasn't found yet!! Unk. Unk.But my agents will notice.  Some more than others. But as is said in Midtown Manhattan, "you'll have that from time to time. Yes you will."

Things that were fine but got more fine with redevelopment and a couple of thousands of new residents living across the sidewalks.


Saturday, February 3, 2018

Saturday, May 25, 2013

SolarImpulse

Andre Borschberg
A full wing width view of SolarImpulse.This is the second engine on the left wing
The temporary hanger for the SolarImpulse airplane.
Bertrand Piccard
The fact that the experimental aircraft, powered by solar cells on its wings and tail, has flown from San Francisco (Moffet Field,Mountain View,California) to Phoenix and then set a long distance record for a solar-powered aircraft by flying from Phoenix to Dallas is amazing of and within itself.

Even more amazing is that the technology developed and displayed by this amazing flying machine isn't totally about an airplane. It's about the multi-uses the technology makes available from houses to all kinds of energy-efficient sources to power motors,drives,machines and things that have not even been conceived.

It takes visionaries to lead the way and pioneers to carry out those visions.Two such men that I only knew by what I had read about until Friday jelled when I stood only a couple of feet from Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard. Piccard had piloted the craft from Moffett to Sky Harbor,Phoenix and Andre Borschberg had set the new long-distance record by flying the longest leg of over  800 miles from Sky Harbor to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport early Thursday morning.

They were not the first-two pioneers that I have know. In 1976, Karl Thomas was unsuccessful in piloting a hot air balloon from Maine to Europe, dropping into the North Atlantic and being picked up by a Russian trawler a few days later. Karl was not only a visionary and pioneer, he was ex centric and fully brilliant.

So, to stand in the presence of two great men with visions and pioneering spirit was once again an amazing moment. Good Luck to the entire project of Solarimpulse and the staff that makes the machine as an organization work.



It All Started in the wee hours of May 28th when 80 MPH winds was tossing everything against the side of my house.

 Those winds were substained for well over 40 minutes. The results were trees everywhere down or large branches broken off. One of my bus ro...