N367HP Just Landed At Vila do Porto

Matt Guthmiller, the 19-year-old MIT student from Aberdeen, South Dakota, has just set his 6-seat, single engine, Beechcraft Bonanza 36 piston, down on Santa Maria Island, Via do Porto, Azores, after the 8-hour and 14 minute flight from St. John's Newfoundland, Canada, on his 42- day solo flight around the world. His aim is to set a new record for the youngest person ever to circumnavigate the globe and holds his commercial pilots license.. The current holder was 21 years old when he captured the record.

Matt has his complete itinerary posted on his facebook account. Since I do not do facebook, you can check it out on your own. Most of the circumnavigate routes are pretty much the same and being an avid aviation geek, I don't want to know his route until he flies it. That's half the fun of following his trip.

Frankly, an 8 hour flight over the Atlantic in a Beechcraft Bonanza solo would be enough to get a big "NO" from me. I've flown in such an aircraft. The ceiling for a craft like that is 11,500 feet. Matt was doing most of the flight at 9,000 feet but did hit the max for a couple of hours of the flight. He had a good tail wind and was right on time landing. Flying over great expanses of water is not my thing. I've meet several who have done so and it's not their favorite part of flying either. Never-the-less, Matt made it to the Azores and gets a big congratulations in his early legs of his trip.

Thus far:

El Cajon, Ca to Aberdeen, S.D. [5-31-14]  9hr.8 min
Aberdeen, to Teterboro, NJ   [6-2-14]  6hr.34 min
Teterboro, NJ to St. John's, Newfoundland, CA [6-4-14] 6hr.28 min
St. John's, Newfoundland, CA to Santa Maria Island, Vila do Porto, Azores  [6-6-14] 8hr. 14 min
Credit photo from Matt's FlightAware post on FlightAware.com

Matt Guthmiller  enroute around the world

Photo Courtesy of FlightAware.com

New Re-Designed Snoopy One

Seldom do I see any of the Goodyear flock of blimps anymore. They are very much out there. It seems to me that the Met Life fleet is seen more these days. In fact, the last three times that I have seen one, it was the Met Life Snoopy, although I don't recall if it was One, Two, or Three. I just know it was not "J".

The Goodyear flock has undergone several name changes with the latest being done by a vote on the Internet. There is the Spirit of Goodyear based  at the old Wingfoot Lake Hanger in Ohio and outside Akron. The "Spirit of America based" in California. "Spirit of Innovation" based in Pompano Beach, Florida and the "Ling Hang Zhe" in China.

Like Goodyear, Met Life has a blimp in China, too. The info pack makes mention of four (4) but does not give much data on Snoopy Three that flew briefly. It may be the one in China as the "J" is for Japan. That leaves "Snoopy One" and "Snoopy Two" here in the states. Snoopy One winters in Florida, Georgia and Texas, while Snoopy Two winters in California, Nevada and Arizona.

With my Nikon down because of technological problems in its soft wear, I'm shooting with the Olympus and the long lens isn't as long as the Nikon by 50 mm. While shooting a new measuring device used by the USGS (United States Geological Survey)  the  Snoopy One was hanging out over the area of the Dallas Farmers Market, but did make its final pass coming closer to where I was and giving a snap shot as it would rise and descent in fairly strong headwinds from the northeast. At one point it looked to be over the Klyde Warren Park and Uptown but because of the winds, it appeared to be holding still for a very long time. It's just one of those things. You can't be every where at the same time, but you can be somewhere and still get a shot for the fun of it. Outside of my stock images and Fine Print images, that's what I like about photography. It affords me an outlet to keep the old ticker ticking with exercise and fresh air and to me, it's just down right fun when you see something like the blimps in town or Solar Impulse at DFW. The next big event will be the  double shot of A-380s on a daily basis landing at DFW in October and seeing a Virgin America landing daily at Love Field. Blimps are still extremely fun because of the ground crew array of vehicles that travel with the blimps. If you have ever seen the full detail in action, it's semi tractor-trailer and tour buses is it's  traveling pit crew more or less. What a sight. On the Met Life site, there is a picture of Snoopy inside a Southwest hanger with the tour bus and crews. Come to think about it, the ground crew for a blimp is very much like the ground chase crew for hot air ballooning. It's just a  larger envelope and more technological staff (i.e., radio crews, etc.,etc.).

Most likely, the blimp was on it's way to the Fed Ex St. Jude Classic in Memphis, Tennessee coming up on it's schedule tour booking.

 

Gone Barefoot'n

Some things just lend themselves to a camera's lens.

 The nice thing about White Rock Lake is that there are many docks that give visitors a close-up look at wildlife, especially this time of year when little ducks are being hatched. The birds are also nesting and going out and coming in to feed their hatchlings.

The reeds grow in certain areas and not in others. Where there are reeds, not only are their some water moccasins but also red-wing blackbirds, various species of ducks besides mallards and turtles. In short, there are multiple examples of wildlife compressed into  small areas. Not only do the boardwalks give a clean view of the lake  off-shore, the boardwalks also provide a walk-way to observe nature close-up.

Here are a few shots with a little twist.

Shoes and socks at the edge of the lake. No owners in sight!

One of the boardwalks along a reed patch



A male Red-wing Black Bird in his courtship dance.



30/05/2014 updated

Iron Horse Rumbles

Rumble This On Down the Rails.


Even the run-of-the-mill box car can fool you sometimes. As a teen, I spent an afternoon helping to unload one shipped to AG Warehouse, a co-op owned grocer warehouse. Some will recognize the Shur Fine label. My grandfather had been a member and I remember hearing him talk to his customers about the good purpose AG was founded on. My mother was 3 years old when AG was founded. Today, the group has grown covering the Great Lakes to the Gulf. I will forever remember that rail car.

 Most every one knows what a standard box of Jell-O looks like. It's about 2 ounces in weight,3/4 x 3 x 3 inches in size. When packaged by the manufacturer, there were about 5 rows of single boxes. Each row was 20 boxes wrapped in brown craft paper. Nothing unusual about that. But, in a box car, usually, products are loaded on pallets. These were not on pallets, but had been hand loaded one package at a time and that meant that they had to be unloaded  by hand. At 60-tons, do you know how many of those little boxes it takes to fill a box car? That's why to this day, I do not like the smell of Raspberry Jell-O. That fine powder in the air in close quarters would be considered a health hazard today. Then, it was just an afternoon experience. Whenever I see a box car parked next to a warehouse-type building, I still smell Raspberry and think about that afternoon.

 

A Big Change and A New Discovery

Some of you will remember that when the "big boy" of Union Pacific was being readied to be pulled to Frisco and the rest of the collection of old cars and engines were being pulled out with little or very short notice, a trip to Fair Park was just about every weekend. Since the final move, there has been no need to go down to Fair Park. Yesterday, on my shoot list was a brief note that I should check out what was being done with the land were the "museum" of trains had previously occupied. It would also give me a chance to get my cardio-walk in with almost perfect weather. An old weatherman taught me years ago that when you add the temperature and the humidity together and the total is more than 130, you are going to  sweat like a rain storm. Below that and you feel comfortable. The humidity was dropping and the temps were about average for this time of year so that did make for a perfect weather day to be walking.

When  arriving at Fair Park, the valet parking was set up at a couple of entrances. Talking to the parking attendant, they waved me through to go on an park in the self parking area. If you have ever been to Fair Park, you know that it is 177-acres and from one end to the other. You could snake out about a mile and a half of distance; since there are three routes of museum buildings, you can triple that distance. Add midway and  Cotton Bowl stadium and the row of building from the old Women's Museum building to Music Hall and the former museum of Nature and Science to the Hall of State complex, to the aquarium and outdoor arena where they feed the manta rays in a Sea-World-like atmosphere, to the Discovery Gardens and the butterfly house and I know I have left out a few besides the exhibition halls in front of the musical dancing water shows. but that's just from the old train museum to the geographic center!

 Fair Park is one big place. I've long said that it could be Dallas' second jewel with White Rock Lake being the first jewel in the crown. Although, I have written before that in comparison, the old Elitch Gardens at 38th and Tennyson Street, in Denver, was 77 acres of mass, Fair Park is 100-acres more! It's Texas, folks!

The area where the trains once were displayed is now all landscaped with all the old fences and light poles gone. I had not realized until I saw what had been done, what an eye sore the "train museum" had been on Fair Park. Sometimes, the real beauty comes in other forms of new attractions and change. We are all creatures of habit and whether we like it or not, some times, change is a way to move us forward as a human being.

But, the surprise came from the other half of Fair Park. As I walked toward Pennsylvania Avenue and First Street, I discovered a historical marker in front of WRR-FM 101.1 studios. Yes, the city of Dallas also owns and  runs the classical radio station. Somehow, I had missed the marker over the years. It is in need of some up keep, too. But, it gives a history of the station (more than 102 years ago). WRR is not exactly like some of the other classical stations around the country but the format is much the same and in some ways, better. It's that Texas branding again, folks. Unique.

Another discovery appeared. While I have seen it in the past, I do not think I have actually seen it on the road before, but I think the WRR van is cool in a subtle way. A very subtle way. As, I crossed over to the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue, I walked toward the former Starplex complex, an outdoor lawn of grass and seating where concerts are held. A music venue. In early 2000, it was  renamed the Smirnoff, and now it's under the Gexa Energy Pavilion name. The west entrance also has the Belk box office. I walked through the parking lot from First to Second street and down  Second along side the Texas Discovery Gardens to where I had parked. It was a good walk. There was also an education in the historical marker at WRR and while I have passed it a few times chasing trains, I had never seen the actual venue of the old Starplex. Remembering when it was announced that it would be built, Mom would tell me about the progress as it was being built. Those were the days when I was trying to save the world single-handily. Before someone sat me down and said to me," it takes a lot of drops of water to fill up the bucket. You can't fill a bucket with one drop. Change."

So, the cardio-walk was good. The educational experience was good. The weather was good. I'm knocking off  pounds with diet and exercise. I feel good, too. I'll warn you ahead of time. There is a bit of classic(al) humor in a couple of shots.



Ludwig's van on the side and the highly classical,"Dude, Bach off" on the rear doors. You might also remember that Bach was a pedaler. He played pipe organs and the pedal keyboard is played with the feet. Get it? Pedaler. And don't forget to click on an image so it opens up in a viewer.

The Historial Market for WRR

Under a new Name, the old Coca-Cola Starplex is alive and well.

So, cool. Also, check out the sticker on the lower left bumber:  Strauss Relief

Already It Is Late Spring

 

One day at a time--this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering
----unknown

Careless Whisper

George Michael's, "Careless Whisper," might be the "at bat" song for a major league baseball hero, but I can also tell ya that it was played a lot selling hot roll coils like these, long before it was the "at bat" favorite.