My How Time Flies: Ah 1 and Ah 2

It was mid May of 2013 when I first meet Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg in a very big white tent on the tarmac of the executive aviation area at DFW International Airport. The name of Bertrand Piccard was more familiar to me having followed his efforts to fly around the world or across the Atlantic in  balloons. Another, who I had known, had tried the balloon thing and splashed down in the North Atlantic bobbing around for three days until a Russian Trawler had picked him up and saved him from hypothermia. Karl was every bit excentric in that way but had made a few million along the way but was more excited about the adventure than money and the journey was just as excited. Racing in the latest of designs in sailing boats from New Zeland to New York was just as much fun to Karl and his sailing experience may have kept him afloat until his rescue. I'm just saying, it might have.

Still, meeting Andre and Bertrand was an honor for me and their own excentric personalities had propelled them across the United States in Solar Impulse 1 after lift off at Moffett Field in the Bay Area. They were very much aviators and had crossed paths with excentric aviators like Karl and Sir Richard Branson in more recent years beyond Lindberg and the Spirit of St. Louis. Albeit Lindberg's son today is a friend of both Andre and Bertrand and support their efforts.It's like Jack Lemmon once said:" If you are a success at what you do, you send the elevator back down as many times as you can."

Now, Solar Impulse 2 has begun its trip RTW (round the world), departing from Abu Dhabi to Oman on the first leg piloted by Andre. The second leg was Bertrand from Oman to Ahmedabad, India. SI2 is scheduled to land again in Phoenix as it makes it way around the earth. I am hoping that the trip will bring them to DFW again, although I cannot be sure at this point if that will be the case. Frankly, I really don't want to know at this early stage of their trip.

My best wishes to the two co-founders of this project, Bertrand and Andre, their wives and families, their chase teams, support teams in Morocco where their mission control functions. They proved that they can fly from the west coast of the US to the east coast and not use a drop of fuel. The bigger proof is the future of solar energy which I  support for the current generation and the generations to follow. Aviation has led the way for so long, it isn't surprising to see aviation leading again with bringing solar energy into the forefront once again. Congratulations on your RTW endeavor Bertrand and Andre. My prayers are with you all.

Co-Founder and Pilot Andre Borschberg at DFW International 24 May 2013 during Solar Impulse 1 "Flight Across America"

Co-Founder and Pilot Bertrand Piccard at DFW International 24 May 2013 during Solar Impulse 1 "Flight Across America"

Texas Wonderland, Scene 2

Under another Winter Storm Warning. Accumulations are for freezing rain, sleet and several inches of snow!

Honey Salvadori-- Hits a Home Run

"I think a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it." -- Author unknown

"Citizen journalism is about being in the right place at the right time." --Honey Salvadori

"Professional photography is about having the insight and analysis to know how to report a story and get beyond the superficial."  --Honey Salvadori

 Yesterday, over 2100 viewers submitted their photos to a local Fox News station. More yet came into the archives of the ABC and NBC and CBS affiliates.

But the real story did not come from the network affiliates rather, they came from the TxDot cameras that the affiliates aired or were pulled up on personal computers, notebooks and iphones in the hands of individuals. First came a day of sleet, freezing fog, mixed with freezing rain. That was a typical Texas nightmare on the roads. The next day came the light, fluffy, powder dry snow fall. That was just a pure nighmarish experience amplified.

Even the television stations put their "Reed Timmer" type "Intimedator" trucks on the road. Driving from miles south to miles north of the metroplex only to find that the 40-car pileup was only 17-car and later confirmed to be 15 cars total. Well, I guess if you count the two semi-tractor trailer rigs in the mess, the 17 number would hold water. But the TxDot cameras were the thing to watch. Seeing adult men and women on 2-3-4 and even 5 high tier flyways stuck-- get out of their cars-- and walk around on the roadways of major interstate highways was insane. To make things even more insane was to see cars turn around on the ramps and drive in the opposite direction thinking that they were going to get down and out of their current situation. Even police cars. Others, just choose to put their cars in reverse and back down the ramps with on-coming traffic coming at them.

Nothing proved to me more about how to spend federal highway dollars more usefully than this past Friday afternoon at the movies watching all that unfold. What needs to settle over any area that has traffic problems albeit congestion, winter weather, tornados, floods, hurricane, sandstorms or landslides is a massive educational program. It is obvious that there is little common in common sense. Too many school children have been graduated with 12-years of political correctness, wording of the pledge of allegiance, bringing cupcakes to school, dress codes, not allowed to bring medication and turn it over to the school nurse, or which teacher should be allowed to carry a handgun rather than teaching the basic reading, {W}riting and {A}rithmetic in school.

No one can get beyond the superficial anymore. One can have all the insight that there is to have but unless there is a fundamental element of not just having a degree but have a whole lot more  (and I mean more) thought of insight as to what to do with it once it is awarded, society becomes  more diluted. We really are not as smart as we think we are. It's a falsehood of education, big time. Take the teacher that must use her own money to buy supplies for her class verses the coach at the school that doesn't have to worry about outfitting his team with the latest fashions from feet to head and top to bottom. What is wrong with our educational system? How did we get so far off the basics?

I didn't have to use a single expressway ramp!!

I haven't been as cold talking pictures as I was with this one!

It's a known fact that photography sharpens and trains the eye. A photographer begins to look at the world much differently later on than early on, but it all starts at the very beginning of picking up a camera and looking through the view finder. As Honey said in her interview with Alamy, "citizen journalism is being in the right place at the right time", but seeing what you actually see, is a learned experience that most of us Americans are missing, while the rest of the world is not.

02March2015: corrected a previously edited sentence that did not remove the old error but incorporated it in the new correction.  "It's a known fact that photography training the eye." It should have read: "It's a known fact that photograph sharpens and trains the eye."

Ice Returns to North Texas Roads!!

The present conditions in the Dallas/Ft.Worth Metroplex is danger on the roads. Stay off the roads if you don't have to be out. There is between 0.5 of an inch to 1-inch of sleet and ice on the roads. The temperature is in the twenties so any melting from the pre-treating of brine and later the spreading of sand on the roadways has made for slick black ice driving

If you have lived up north, especially in the snow-belts around the Great Lakes, from northern Minnesota to upstate New York on down to the eastern seaboard, you would want to laugh at a little bit of ice on the roads here in Texas. As every one knows, the roads are not "salted" here in Texas. The next big question that every one ask next is: why?  That's a simple question but has a much more difficult answer. Some of it is technical. Some is financial. Some is political. Some is just plain stubborn thinking. When you get right down to it, however, the answer lies in basic physics and chemistry.

Concrete is one of the marvels of man-made useful products. It's contents are found in nature and in abundant supply. It's easy to make in large quantities. It's also very porous. That means liquids will be soaked up by the material. While that isn't a large-scale problem on roadways up north, it is here for two additional reasons. Most roadways up north are asphalt, but mostly concrete in Texas. Again, the why question pops up. Well, asphalt does not work so well in Texas sun when temperatures hit 100 plus during the summers. Although, there is new asphalt technologies helping that problem somewhat.

Concrete when exposed to the corrosive nature of salt wears concrete down much faster, especially when it is in bridgework, flyways and multi-level ramps. Gravity even helps the aging process along even more rapidly than on roadways.Have you ever seen an asphalt support column holding up an overpass? No, and  I don't think that you will, either. All that concrete needs reinforcing bar to strengthen the concrete structure. You don't have rebar in the asphalt roadways but you do in the bridgework over topographical elements roadways over valleys, rivers, railroad tracks and other criss-crossing roadways etc.,etc.Then, there is the hundreds of miles of open roadways from one side of the state to the other that requires concrete roadways and that requires reinforcing bar as well.

While rebar is not always "blue" when used in roadway and bridge construction, "rust" is not a cause for rejection on such projects. In fact, rust has an adhering effect to concrete. Yet, the government and state departments of transportation require a rubberized coating called "epoxy" on rebar used on federal and state highways financed with  federal construction dollars.  Not only does it run up the cost of the rebar significantly, it also doesn't stop the concrete from creating weak spots around the rebar and with heavy traffic over bridges, gravity takes it toll  on big chunks of concrete falling onto the roadways below. That is a life-threatening situation that is a totally undesirable situation.

The next thing to consider is that here in Texas, the big bottle necks occur on the three,four and even five tier high roadway interchanges and the more numerous one and two tier roadways. Dallas has some 5,000 bridges or more while Ft. Worth has some 3,000 plus bridges. That is far more bridges per square mile than most major cities in the US. When TxDot builds or re-engineers a major interchange, the cost of those products can be one-billion plus dollars. In the last 15 years in north Dallas, I have seen more than a hand-full of these construction projects. The projects are not really upgrades, rather they are major re-engineered or totally new and this is just catching up with the growth while planning into the future 50-years or so.The growth rate for the Metroplex has been reported as adding a minimum of 1,000 new residents per day. In the last 15-years, I have seen major stretches of farm land for miles become  solid-rooftops with a distance between homes being about the width of the average subcompact car.

Reinforcing Bar without Epoxy Coating

TexDot puts the bridge population in the Metroplex at 7500 and counting!

There are also reports that developers are now within 25-miles of the Red River!  Before that happens however, I see east, west and southern growth taking over more that what I see currently.

Rock salt on that many bridges and 14-16 lane roadways would break-the-bank in maintenance alone. So, take the little wintery mix and stay home and enjoy the fireplace or just read a good book! It all makes sense to me now and I'm not ready to see rock salt on my car any time soon!

Father, Forgive Me For I Have Sinned

Today was one of those "go to the doctors" days. Why I schedule appointments so early is beyond me. To even make matters worse, the scheduled appointment that I made in the office for my future visit is 40-minutes earlier than today's appointment. Go figure. There was good news to be found during today's visit. It seems the new medicines are working like they are supposed to work. I got to see the  chart with the latest run after the pace test. It was very obvious that something was working well as the graph showed a marked decrease and that is the results the doctor and I were trying to achieve. 

When I was called to come get the vitals done, starting with the weigh in, I stepped up on the scale  and said to the scale: "forgive me Father for I have sinned". Since the last visit, I had been out to eat with my brother, went off the sugar wagon and had some donuts---and some killer double chocolate ice cream---and, oh! least I forget, the dutch apple pie. I figured that if I had been to confession in real time, three hail Marys and three Our Fathers would not be enough to cover the atonement for that list of no-nos. In all fairness, the dutch apple pie with  double chocolate a la mode was really good.

After bidding farewell to the doctor, nurse and receptionist, I headed back toward the pharmacy. We are under a Winter Storm Watch for a sleet and freezing rain event beginning tomorrow and going through Monday so I really wanted to get my errands done and get home and pray that no one looses power from any ice bringing down power lines. I have a fire place but have not used it in so long that I would not want to use it if the heat did go out. Maybe I should have a chimney sweep come check out the chimney again.

The wait at the pharmacy was right on cue. The technician said it would take 20-minutes to re-fill the script and that's exactly what it took time wise. Next stop would be K-rogers.  I always spend a bit more at the grocery. It's just one of those things that I don't even worry about anymore. I am still taking weight off for the most part, despite the extra pound gained at the doctor's office. Of course, we didn't do the less three pounds deduct for clothing, shoes, jewelry, etc.,etc. It's taken some wrangling to keep the health in eating, but for an old man, I've done very well. Of course, now you have to watch everything because you don't want a Type II diabetic to sneak up on you. Still, I do reward myself for sticking to my healthy life style diet.

Forgive me father for I have sinned. It's been three weeks since my last confession. I'm Presbyterian by the way. And, of course, before someone gets their knickers all out of sort, I am not making fun of  my Catholic friends and family. There could be a full length novel on religious cross-overs in the written text don't you know.

This image is available from the author through FeaturePics. Just click on the image and order this great graph royalty free.

Heading Toward Green

Valentine's Day with Cupid as its mascot has done its fly-by for this year. It now swings out into space on its way around the calendar orbit toward 2016 and its return. Fat Tuesday, Carnival or Mardi Gras, comes screeching  to a halt  at midnight to anything goes partying for another year. Already the multi-colored plastic eggs,  fake green grass, baskets and white stuffed bunnies are beginning to appear in the stores. It's another endless cycle in the marketing, advertising, and retail commerce world and I thought steel mill rolling schedules were odd in size rotations to even more odd when customers and billet stockpiles rearrange themselves almost over night.

 Besides, it's getting close to ice cream season. It was 78-degrees F on Saturday and I had to fight the steering wheel in the car as I drove by the two  neighborhood Braum Ice Cream stores on the way home. And Bill Gates said he is worried about machines taken over. I wonder if his car gets strong-headed in Redmond around ice cream stores? When I was a kid, my grandfather would take me in his wagon to the back of his farm when he missed a cow during  calving season. Never once, did I see him touch the reins on that wagon. All he did was to talk to his team of horses and they took us right back to the barn. Maybe my car already knows that Braum's is the place for ice cream runs. I should try that with my car when I'm out during ice cream runs this year. I'll get back with you on that.

That 78-degrees of yesterday is sinking pretty fast tonight as two separate cold fronts are bringing snow and ice dangerously close to me both tonight and tomorrow and Tuesday. While I still like snow, I don't like ice here in Texas. The thing about ice is that it takes down big trees and when they fall, they fall on power-lines and that takes out electricity. I heat with electricity, not gas. When you hear ice-talk here generally, people don't like to drive on ice. I'm pretty cool with driving on ice and snow has never been a problem. But, not having any heat becomes a health issue and that worries me. So I'm thinking about talking dance lessons on line to learn how to ward off the ice. It sure does not work for rain. Hopefully, it works for ice.

A long time ago, I was scheduled to fly out of Atlanta one morning for High Point, North Carolina. The problem that morning was that Hickory, North Carolina had gotten 2-inches of ice over night and nothing was going north that early morning." Maybe by 10", the airlines said. They were working on it. Long story short, they found a 4-prop that, " could probably get out of Hickory" one of the ticket agents said. "They will pick us up and take us back to High Point'', the agent again responded. The old plane had the familiar markings of Piedmont Airlines, the forerunner of US Air. First time I ever had to chip an inch of ice off a rental car,too, but I got to High Point that same day. I'm so glad that I don't have to do things like that any more. As it turned out, that plane in Hickory was a re-schedule of equipment. If that plane had not been in Hickory for what ever reason, I would have had to redo my entire schedule for that east coast run. I guess it was about then that I started not to like ice storms.

So, if I get a good report from the cardio guy that is coming up,clearing the way to St. Patty's Day weekend, I'll be a happy Irishman for sure. Don't need a dance for that one......we've got a few stored up for that weekend come rain or come shine.

Lower Greenville Avenue is one of the three largest parade routes in the US on St. Patrick's Day.

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!