First Sighting of the Year

 This afternoon, while sitting on my porch, I saw the first Monarch butterfly of the year on its way north from Mexico. This will be a new generation that will come back this way as a third generation in fall on its way to the mountains of northern Mexico where it will winter.

The size of the wing span was very large. It was every bit as large as a black swallowtail, upwards of 3-3 1/2 inches across. The color was about as bright was I have ever seen on a Monarch, too. Now, that I know they have made it this far on the central flyway, I'll start watching the reporting stations to see how they progress North. The Great Lakes are still getting snow and that could be a problem in their migration.

Update on Texas Blue Bonnets

 The Blue Bonnets are showing signs of a bumper crop this year after the hard freeze of winter. The State Flower is still expected to peak the end of March thru the mid-April. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is a trusted information center on Blue Bonnets. The Indian Paint Brush are Orange and white and can be found in areas along Texas Highways like the Blue Bonnets.

Portals Do Exist Somewhere and I Might Have Found One

Tuesday two weeks ago,  I went to bed like I always do. Basically it's an old habit from the Great Lakes days. Being on Eastern time there, the news is on at 11 p.m.  That's where my world went crazy. Crazy as in I woke up on the floor and the Fire and Rescue were trying to communicate with me through solid walls. I do remember telling my self, this stuff must stop!! The next thing is that they are stretchering me out of the house. Arriving at my hospital, it soon had flashbacks that this trip was different than the last two, but very very much like the first trip at the end of 2019. The next thing I heard was that 15 units of blood had just been ordered. Long story short. I had another massive internal bleed. Story shorter, it was the blood thinner that I had be prescribed over the last ten years. It had done it's job alright, but there was the odds that something like this was going to happen eventually. My cardiologist had said at various times that there wasn't much on the market that could reverse the gastro-doc and the admitting physician bid me farewell having tested me out on clear-liquids and the like to make sure the bleeding had stopped. 

It took me a bit to get my computer working again. It seems that my IP was doing something or were having problems. At any rate, it took me almost 7 hours on the phone to get things back to normal and working with the software that I need for my pictures. One of the first articles that I read on the web was something that I have been following for some time. 

John Ratcliffe, former Director of National Intelligence under the Trump Administration said that, "There have been a lot more UFO sightings than has previously been made public." This was like a pre-curser to the time running out before the Pentagon is expected to  releases its  report by June 1 on UFOs that has been declassified. Last year, the number of sightings had increased to 6,600 world wide. 

I'm not saying that I believe in UFO's. What I am saying is that using the power of math, it really is a matter of National Defense to know what is out there. As the government prepares to release a declassified report on UFOs, now that the well known UFO videos (three, in fact) have been fessed up as an actual happening that took place. The amazing thing that came from the article was the fact that satellites had recorded movements that the military have a hard time explaining.

There may be a reason that the fabled Area 51 is in a ring of mountains in the Nevada desert. Maybe, the portal every one has been looking for, is actually at Area 51??????? Stranger things have happened before.

Second Shot for Covid-19 is done.

 FEMA was running the  first shots and the second shots all from one facility at Fair Park today. It was even more smooth than the first shot that was taken there last month. In fact, a Captain for the Dallas Fire Department administered my second shot right on the shuttle bus. I have no complaints about Dallas County's part or the FEMA part. If there were to be any short coming, it would have to be in the communication portion of their websites and the info about walk-ups vs. drive-thru. There are lots of people who don't drive today anymore and that over site created mountains of stress. It seems that they finally got it worked out and once you could actually make an appointment, things did go very smoothly. Thanks to all the personnel and volunteers at Fair Park and the FEMA crews for a job well done.

Now,  I have one final thing on my list to do and all the pre-storm cancellations and the like, will soon be a thing of the past. Then, it is to be hoped that I can continue to get back out in the field on discovery missions to find new material of the editorial variety. But, most of all, just being out and in nature is the best medicine of all for body, mind and soul. 

I'm going to take a couple of weeks of no doctor's appointments, no itinerary of any sorts. Following a year of mask and social 6-foot observances, plus no power, no water and not even sitting on the porch a bit, I will be glad to see this massive loss of human life, and suffering of families get out of Dodge. 

Let the guy have his cigar.

Spring House Cleaning Has Begun

 Let me say this before you get all upset. There Is No Normal Anymore. It's time to begin a new normal. Even the world of pictures is changing. When I started 20 years plus 20 years ago, stock photography was dominated by the old line press. United Press International, Associated Press and the Reuters. Today, it's anyone's guess as Australia gave Facebook's Zuckerburg a whooping! Big Time. Social Media has upset a world that ran just fine until they got involved wanting to point the finger at an and every thing. They seemed to have forgotten that when you point your finger at someone three are pointing back at you. I grew up in a fine Corporate World run by topnotch people and people and company names you could trust. You put loyalty in those companies. In my life time, three big ones have had my loyalty and not a one of them today---nearly 60 years later--- uphold that loyalty that they were founded upon. My loyalty hasn't changed. But their loyalty to customers sure has.  Walgreens, Kroger, AT&T (Ma Bell). I have shopped there for 60 years or more. The Big Department Stores are in shambles. J.L. Hudson,gone. Macy's, J.C. Penney's are dropping like flies in the bankruptcy courts one by one and struggling to just stay above water. Don't you see, it isn't just change with the times, it's a whole different  look of what once was just normal. I've never been afraid to embrace change. You have to change. You change. You mature, you get older. Live moves on. But this upheaval of change is like a colony of termites eating away at forty year old wood. The foundation might last but the house isn't. Yes, I'm talking about the fundamental foundation of democracy but not in the scope of what we have just seen at our capital and other landmarks. That isn't change. Yes, I'm talking about Loyalty and what it has always been as a magnetic force between company and customer, but not in the scope of what we see today in the dog eat dog war between the two.   

House cleaning can also be looking back at where you started and see how far you have drifted off that mid line. I've been cleaning house the past twenty years and it's a slow process to bring things back in line. But, it can be done. First, you have to want to change. Second, you have to develop a system that lets you change. Everyone is different. Everyone is their own individual character. Everyone is human, inside and out.I never want to change that. I do want to change the cruel and violent attitudes I see brewing every day. So like with us, in our change, congress and state legislature must change and remember that we sent them to the state house and the capital to work for us--not themselves. They get paid to work, not exercise in the Senate gym or take leave of their state when the power grid almost implodes. That  kind of change is totally necessary. It is a must for civilization and societies to survive.

Mars,Rover,Perseverance,Lands,Pictures Already, WOW! Nominal again.

I like it here, thank you very much. And thanks to NASA for the uses of this image. Usually, I don't use the NASA shots because so many already do, but on occasions such as this, I will reclaim a bit of my tax penny.

 

 It's been a long time since I sat on our living room floor and watched the beginning of the NASA era of launching things, then animals then humans into space. It was the last frontier, but as we have long sense discovered , in the new frontier, a new frontier is developing.In those days, Gene Kranz was a friend of my father. He was mission director during Gemini and Apollo programs. He was also in charge of the first lunar landing. He also served as NASA's second Chief Flight Director. In West Toledo, Gene was the man.

I can still remember the most gut wrenching anticipation I have ever experienced. My wife and I were in a new Volkswagen Beetle on I-71. As we crossed the Ohio River from Kentucky into Ohio, coming across our car radio, was the spine chilling words: "Houston, Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed." Later that July day in 1969, Neal Armstrong, was confirmed to have made that transmission. Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin's landing on the moon was historic with Armstrong and Michael Collins, who stayed in orbit doing experiments and taking pictures. while Armstrong, then later, Aldrin were on the moon. I remember thinking at the time, he's (Collins)  up there all alone. And he was. Especially when his orbit was on the back side of the moon and the rest of the crew was down below miles away. That, to me, would be something that would take me a lot of time to wrap my brain around. 

This afternoon listening ( and watching NASA tv ) as Perseverance clicked off the various stages to landing at Jezero Crater on Mars, went like clockwork. Remembering we still have one of the twin set of rovers from the last mission still working to make important research about the Red Planet.  

As I have gotten older and software has allowed equipment like the rover to do as much research if not more, than humans, my favor falls on this kind of mission over using humans.Sending humans to the moon is one thing, sending them to places that are months of travel just to get there and months to get back, to me, does not respect human life with our ability to keep up medically or other things, like some one dying unexpectedly when you are months from home base. But, there are those that would disagree. 

Nice Job NASA guys. Nice Job.

Texas Grid Failure Becomes (planned?) a Political Hot Potato

 Yep. Start with the Chairman of ERCOT Board that doesn't even live in Texas not to mention 4 others. Add a Governor that is seeking reelection, stir in the lies about the wind farms in west Texas, sprinkle and a dash of passing the buck and voilà. The results are as expected with government and private partnerships as one could imagine.

When the same players are seen appearing time and time again in the mix of things tagged for such events, one begins to wonder not only why, but why? That's the old reasoning lesson taught in junior high of  "I wonder what I wonder when I wonder it." In short, it is when a red flag goes off in the brain. And with the recent power grid implosion at ERCOT  (Electric Reliability Council of Texas:a lot of red flags started popping up.( https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2021/02/16/ercot-board-under-fire-texas-five-out-state-members/6768919002/).The Austin American Statesmen article is certainly one point of view and  a signal of red flags.From a political sidebar, ironically, Trumps' Jersey Casino Hotel went out with an implosion at the same time the power grid was failing in Texas. Trump raised a lot of money in Texas for the Republican Party. (https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2021/02/16/texas-gov-abbott-calls-ercot-reform-emergency-item-amid-blackouts/6765855002/)

Still, with at least 5 of ERCOT board members not only not living in Texas, with one living in the Toronto area, Texan's should be mad as heck at ERCOT, TXU Energy, Florida Power and Light, General Motors.NRG and Luminate Energy

Elections do roll around soon. Cold has a way of coming back to your memory at election time with your memory of  loss, discomfort and pain.