This Past Autumn

A photo taken on Turnagain Arm, from this past October.
Here's hoping that everyone has a good New Year's!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Here's hoping that everyone has a Merry Christmas and a great 2009!

The Solstice Approaches

Into the darkest time if the year....

The Snow Line Inches Down

P.J. O'Rourke has written an article for the weekly standard that nails this last election perfectly.

Myself, I finally realized that it is possible to fool most of the people most of the time.

Can WInter Be Far Behind?

And Now For Something Completely Different

These photos were taken on September 20th in San Francisco at the 13th annual Alcatraz Invitational Swim, which is hosted by the South End Rowing Club.

The weather was in the high fifties, the water temp was 62. Approximately 500 other folks and 'yours truly' were taken on two ferries to within a couple hundred yards of Alcatraz Island, where we jumped off and swam back to town, around a mile and a half away.

Here are some photos from that morning. Some taken by me, others, obviously taken by others who are sharing them. Thanks. It was a great time and lots of fun.

Early morning registration the day of the event.

Marching two blocks from the registration location in front of the SERC building, to the ferries.

On board and ready to go. Me in the red cap.

Out the door, three at a time.


Go time.

Swimming for it.

Some perspective from 'sea-level.'


Ofcourse during the swim, you need to pause, look and reflect.

Safely back on shore.

Irish coffees at the Buena Vista afterwards.

Not catch & release

Taken at Brooks River, Katmai National Park with a Canon Digital Rebel XTI, 1/125, Av=8.0, ISO=400, handheld

Cloudbreak

Taken with a Minolta Weather-matic, dual fixed focus 35mm. camera & Fuji Provia 100 film, hand held.
This was atop a hill outside of Dutch Harbor where there were WWII lookouts and gun emplacements.

Russian Orthodox Priest's House, Unalaska

The Holy Ascension Russian Orthodox Church was originally built in Unalaska, Alaska around 1825. Though, I'm not sure, I believe that the priest's house may have been built sometime in the 1880's. It is presently under renovation, as you can see.

This was taken with a Minolta weather-matic, fixed dual focus 35mm. camera and Fuji 100ISO Provia film.

Lookout Post for ships that never came

The view out of the lookout post atop a hill at Dutch Harbor, Alaska.
This lookout is part of a larger shore gun battery that was defending Dutch Harbor during WWII. The remnants of the facility are still up on the hill and it's now a historical site. Today, the facility lies in decay. There would have been far worse places to have been assigned to during the war.

Dutch was bombed in June of 1942 by the Japanese. It was the only aerial bombing of a city on the North American continent during the war. Sixteen people were killed and numerous others were wounded.

Unalaska, Alaska

Reflections

Memorial Day

Vision & Perception

"In a 2001 study published by Nature, Frank S. Werblin, professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley, and doctoral student Boton Roska, M.D., showed that the optic nerve carries ten to twelve output channels, each of which carries only minimal information about a given scene.”

“Although we have the illusion of receiving high-resolution images from our eyes, what the optic nerve actually sends to the brain is just outlines and clues about points of interest in our visual field. We then essentially hallucinate the world from the cortical memories that interpret a series of extremely low resolution movies that arrive in parallel channels."

-The Singularity Is Near, by Ray Kurzweil pp.186

Downtown Eagle in January, -35 and windy

Happy New Year!