Summer's Long Afternoon

The fireweed are in full bloom and night is returning. Summer is nearing an end. Another month and we'll be heading into autumn. Where has the time went?

Caption Contest!

Add your caption, win no prizes, get a good laugh!

2012 U19 Girls Rec. Champions

I did not take this photo.

I'm posting it on my blog though because I didn't have my camera when the girls won the Cook Inlet Soccer Club's 2012 U19 girls Rec. division championship.
They beat a team that had beaten them on three separate occasions during the season and was a heavy favorite to take their 3rd straight title.

The game ended in a 1-1 tie. A 10 minute extra period also ended tied. A five shot per team shoot off ended tied and we finally prevailed during a sudden death shoot out. I'm really proud of these girls for showing character and coming from behind to win.  Especially against a team that was actually more of a comp. team playing beneath their collective talents.

Great job ladies!

In Memorium...

In lieu of the shootings in Aurora Co., it seems the media is in over-drive, focusing on the shooter, who he was, what were his motivations, what was his life like... ad nauseum. Witnesses are trotted in front of the camera to describe the grisly horror of those moments in the theater for the titillation of the couch potato audience. Only too happy to comply and get their 15 minutes of fame. Already political grist is being made out of this tragedy. I've even seen such items on Flickr for God's sake, subtly advocating disarming the law abiding public.

Perhaps everyone should just STFU and take a moment in silence for those who didn't live to see the next day. Perhaps we might even reflect on the fact that we who do get to see another day, maybe ought to try to act like it might be our last. Maybe, just maybe if we really gave a shit...

Nah, that's crazy talk!

Through the Fog

My wife is an avid reader, more so than me. She also has very good taste in her reading material. It's almost uncanny. So when she recommends a book or an author, I usually try to read it/them.

Yesterday a book came in the mail that she ordered. God's Hotel, by Victoria Sweet who is in addition to an author, a real doctor. Obviously I haven't read it, yet but it seems very interesting. 

From the inside flap, More than 20 years ago, Dr. Victoria Sweet arrived at San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital, intending to stay for a brief time. A descendant of the Hotel-Dieu (God's Hotel) that cared for the sick poor in the Middle Ages.Laguna Honda was the last alms house in the country. ...
At Laguna Honda lower-tech but human-paced, Sweet had the opportunity to practice a kind of "slow medicine" that has almost vanished, and falling under the hospital's spell, she decided to stay. Gradually, her remarkable patients transformed the way she understood medicine. Alongside the modern view of the body as a machine to be repaired, they evoked an older idea, of the body as a garden to be tended. God's Hotel is their story, and the story of the hospital itself, which--as efficiency experts, politicians, and architects descended, determined to turn it into a modern "health care facility"-- revealed its own surprising truths about the essence, cost, and value of caring for the body and soul.

Needless to say, she has first crack at it, but I intend to read it as soon as she's finished. I've already sneaked in a few pages in the first chapter, and she's made comments to me as she reads it. I think it will be an interesting read. I'm giving it a premature endorsement.

Summers Past

Bettles

This is a tonemapping of a scan of a negative taken around '95 of the beautiful Bettles greater metro area. I had posted this way back when I first started photo-blogging, but I like the added vibrancy that the tonemapping gives it.

 

Countryside

Decidedly not Alaska.

This photo was taken in Wayne County, Ohio.
I grew up not far from here and this was the view from the back yard of the home of an old friend I stopped to visit. We have remained friends over the years and still occasionally keep in touch. She's a grandmother now.

Though it isn't the stark and wild beauty of Alaska, the mid-west has a beauty of a different sort and all its own and no less magnificent in its way.

Lately I have been re-reading a book I was fortunate to read at a much younger point in my life, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. He was arguably one of the last great Roman emperors. His meditations still ring true and reflect the stoic philosophy he was reared in and adhered to throughout his life.

"It was my tutor who dissuaded me from patronizing Green or Blue* at the races, or Light or Heavy** in the ring; and encouraged me not to be afraid of work, to be sparing in my wants, attend to my own needs, mind my own business, and never listen to gossip."

* The colors of the rival charioteers in the Circus. Roman enthusiasm for these races was  unbounded; successful drivers earned large fortunes and became popular idols.

** In one form of gladiatorial combat (the Thracian) the opponents were armed with light round bucklers; in the another (the Samite) they carried heavy oblong shields.

Still rings true today...

Regarding the Weather...

...Somedays you're the windshield,
somedays you're the bug.

If we waited for good weather to fly, we wouldn't be flying much at all.
DeHavilland Beaver, on floats.
Leaving King Salmon to fly out to Katmai.

Right of Way

A short while back, I spent a week at Katmai Nat. Park (work related) during the fall. The park closes down for the winter in mid-September. Already overflowing with bears coming down to the Brooks river to feast on the salmon carcasses and the remaining live salmon, it gets even more crowded with bears after the people are gone.

Here we were walking up the trail, past the boarded up Brooks Lodge and adjacent cabins when we came up on this fellow in the photo. As we were on foot and about only 30 yards away, we let him go on at his leisure and stayed where we were until there was more distance between us.

Though they were more interested in packing down as much fish as possible before hibernation and weren't interested in humans, I still can't help the hair from standing up on the back of my neck when I'm this close to a brownie and all I can do in any emergency is throw my camera at him.

World Wide Webs

This is a rework of an unposted oldie, using Photomatix 4.
Taken wih my old point & shoot.

Tough Life at the Top

As these trees will testify.

I've spent the last day and a half setting up the new desk top and getting everything transferred and/or re-installed. I also moved the modem, router, desks, etc. to a more accommodating location.
I usually can keep my computers for five to six years before upgrading. So I also went from XP to Windows 7.

I'm really getting tired of the continual upgrades and forced changes from Micro-soft which seem to me to occur strictly to generate revenue. I'm thinking of trying out Linux on my old box to see how I like it. If anybody has anything worth saying about it, good or bad, I'm listening so please don't hold back.

Generations Apart (02)

Though only approximately sixty years separates these two elegant and beautiful aircraft, it seems like a vast ocean of time culturally.

Here's to the hope that everyone has a safe and enjoyable Independence Day (July 4th). Also let us remember what it took to gain our freedom, what it takes to maintain that same freedom, and what the true cost of freedom is.

Another Infra-red Image

This was also taken Saturday evening using my Rebel Xti.
Focal length: 27mm
Apterture: f/25.0
Exposure: 30sec.
ISO:200

Late Saturday Afternoon

My daughter and I went for a bike ride late yesterday afternoon. It was clear, sunny, and very windy, but a great day to ride. I took this on the 'Bird to Gird' trail while heading towards Girdwood. If you look closely, down near the lower right corner at the very bottom, you can see a bike wheel in the frame.

I have been trying to do infra-red photography, off & on, for the last month or two and the results have been less than encouraging. However I think that yesterday was a step in the right direction.

This was taken with my old Rebel Xti and my Tamron 18-270 lens. I used a Neewer (Chinese knock off) 720nm filter. The filter was less than $20.00 and I figured why not, since I didn't know what I was doing and it's anywhere from $80.00 to $120.00 for an infra-red Hoya filter.

This was shot RAW, in monochrome,
ISO:200
Exp: 30sec
Focal length: 21mm
Av: f/22.00
Minimal post-processing

What seemed to make a difference was holding my thumb over the eyepiece while taking the exposure so as to prevent unwanted light from entering the shot. Go figure...

Well, after two months' leave from work, I return to the job tomorrow. Things at work were slow, so I took advantage of the slow time to take leave and get several long neglected projects done around the house. Also to catch up on my reading and relaxation. I've really enjoyed this time, but that ends tomorrow morning, or should I say gets throttled back. I will try to keep posting more frequently but depending on how busy I am, it may be weekly.

Dark Eyed Junco

Canon EOS 7D
Focal Length: 200mm
Exp: 1/198 sec.
Av: f8/0
ISO: 400

From the Nat. Geographic Site:
Dark-eyed juncos are unique sparrows that nest on or near the ground in forests. In winter, they typically form flocks and often associate with other species, including chipping sparrows, pine and palm warblers (in the southeastern United States.), and bluebirds. When disturbed the entire flock suddenly flies up to a tree, usually perching in the open and calling in aggravation at the intrusion. Polytypic. Length 6.3" (16 cm).

Identification A fairly lean sparrow with a long notched tail and a small pinkish or horn-colored bill (bicolored in dorsalis). Two prominent white outer tail feathers in most subspecies; 3 outer­most in the “white-winged.” Most subspecies have a gray or brown head and breast sharply set off from a white belly. Otherwise highly variable.
Male: typically darker with sharper markings.
Female: typically browner with more indistinct markings.
Juvenile: heavily streaked, often with a trace of  adult pattern

"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."
-Eric Hoffer

Light At The End Of The Tunnel (Revisited)

These days we not only have the 'light at the end of the tunnel,' but thanks to the wonders of modern technology, also light inside of the tunnel.

Further information regarding the "Fast and Furious" debacle, courtesy Jeff G. at  Protein Wisdom

Shit’s getting real.

In re: executive privilege, below is the full letter sent by Rep Issa to the President.  My favorite part:

During the June 19th meeting, the Attorney General stated he wanted to “buy peace.” He indicated a willingness to produce the “fair compilation” of post-February 4th documents. He told me that he would provide the “fair compilation” of documents on three conditions: (1) that I permanently cancel the contempt vote; (2) that I agree the Department was in full compliance with the Committee’s subpoenas, and; (3) that I accept the “fair compilation,” sight unseen.

As Chairman of the primary investigative Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, I considered the Attorney General’s conditions unacceptable, as would have my predecessors from both sides of the aisle. I simply requested that the Department produce the“fair compilation” in advance of the contempt vote, with the understanding that I would postpone the vote to allow the Committee to review the documents.

The short meeting in the Capitol lasted about twenty minutes. The Attorney General left the meeting and, shortly thereafter, sent an eight-page letter containing more than forty citations requesting that you assert executive privilege. The following morning, the Deputy Attorney General informed me that you had taken the extraordinary step of asserting the privilege that is designed to protect presidential decision making.

In his letter, the Attorney General stated that releasing the documents covered by the subpoena, some of which he offered to the Committee hours earlier, would have “significant, damaging consequences.”  It remains unclear how — in a matter of hours — the Attorney General moved from offering those documents in exchange for canceling the contempt vote and ending the congressional investigation to claiming that they are covered by executive privilege and that releasing them — which the Attorney General was prepared to do hours earlier — would now result in “significant, damaging consequences.”

An Infrared Black & White

Messing around with with an infrared filter yesterday afternoon.

The First Day of School...

is always hardest on kids and parents...

The Country's In The Very Best Of Hands...

                                                     (hat tip to Instapundit for the title)

This is a photo blog and I don't like to digress onto politics and current events here, but I sometimes feel required to do so. Today is one of those days.

Today we digress a wee bit to acknowledge 'Fast and Furious' cover up by the Obama administration of the botched, illegal, and fatal Fast and Furious operation. Attorney General Eric Holder was found in contempt of Congress and as a last minute attempt to avert this, it was announced that the documents sought by the Congressional committee investigating this matter were protected by 'Executive Privilege.' The utter hypocrisy and sheer cynicism displayed by this administration is breath taking and makes Nixon at his worst look good by comparison.



We're talking about the Fast and Furious operation where automatic weapons were deliberately funneled to violent Mexican drug gangs by the A.T.F.. Unlike the tired old Watergate scandal in which the democrats and their MSM bitches have incessantly flogged for the last 40 years, this illegal operation is where agents of a U.S. Federal agency knowingly provided weaponry to criminal gangs across our borders. This resulted in hundreds of Mexican deaths and the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

You would think that this would be major news, in all media venues and if this were a republican administration, it would be, but it's not. ABC news leads with the weather. Brian Williams calls it more of our broken politics.


I am linking to a few posts for anyone who hasn't been paying attention to this unfolding tragedy.

Another View of Whittier Small Boat Harbor

Above is another view of the small boat harbor in Whittier. Though just a short drive from Anchorage, it is on the other side of the Chugach Mountains and borders on Prince William Sound.

A map of Prince William Sound, one of the premier boating, fishing and recreational areas anywhere, period. Prince William Sound was named by George Vancouver in 1778 to honour George III's son William IV of the United Kingdom.

A majority of the land surrounding Prince William Sound is part of the Chugach National Forest, the second largest national forest in the U.S. Prince William Sound is ringed by the steep and glaciated Chugach Mountains. The coastline is convoluted, with many islands and fjords, several of which contain tidewater glaciers. The principal barrier islands forming the sound are Montague Island, Hinchinbrook Island, and Hawkins Island.

Jacob's Ladder

A Jacob's Ladder is a basic spark-gap device. As described in Wikipedia...

"A spark gap consists of an arrangement of two conducting electrodes separated by a gap usually filled with a gas such as air, designed to allow an electric spark to pass between the conductors. When the voltage difference between the conductors exceeds the gap's breakdown voltage, a spark forms, ionizing the gas and drastically reducing its electrical resistance. An electric current then flows until the path of ionized gas is broken or the current reduces below a minimum value called the 'holding current'. This usually happens when the voltage drops, but in some cases occurs when the heated gas rises, stretching out and then breaking the filament of ionized gas. Usually the action of ionizing the gas is violent and disruptive, often leading to sound (ranging from a snap for a spark plug to thunder for a lightning discharge), light and heat.

Spark gaps were used historically in early electrical equipment, such as spark gap radio transmitters, electrostatic machines, and x-ray machines. Their most widespread use today is in spark plugs to ignite the fuel in internal combustion engines, but they are also used in lightning arrestors and other devices to protect electrical equipment from high voltage transients."

You can easily make one for that "Dr. Frankenstein's Lab" look. They're great for trick or treat. To make the one in this photo, I took a boiler transformer, the old magnetic type, not the newer electronic ones. I removed the electrodes and replaced them with #12AWG solid copper wire. The wire was shaped so that at the closest point, they were separated by approximately 1/4". As the wires rose up, the separation became greater. Plug it in and you're off!

A note of caution, I did this in my garage so as to not accidentally catch anything on fire. Also so curious pets or kids don't stick their noses into the arc. (Think taser.)

Portage Lake in Spring

Handmade Portraits: The Bone Carver from Etsy on Vimeo.

Scammon Bay Approach

This is a tonemapping of a scanned Kodachrome slide taken back in 85 or 86. I was in the co-pilot seat of a Cessna Caravan that was landing at Scammon Bay. This was taken with my Minolta XG-1. I posted this before, some time ago, but I like the effect the toneapping gives it (Photomatix 4.1).

LIGHT from Matt Kleiner on Vimeo.

The Goalie's Eyes Say It All

From my daughter's hockey team this past season.

Country Livin...

This past week, a brown bear was shot and killed about a mile from our house in a residential neighborhood, near a park I used to take my daughter to when she was small. The article link is here. Some of the comments are pretty stupid.
Here's a link to a map showing the tracking of some brown bears in the Anchorage area. Not the usual problem a city of this size would have in most places.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

Canon EOS7D, Tamron 18-270mm lens, ISO:200, Focal length: 18mm, Ap: f8.0, Exp: 1/794 Circular polarizing filter used, hand-held.

A photo looking WNW, towards the mouth of Turnagain Arm. This is at extreme low-tide. Turnagain Arm is one of the two locations in North America where you can observe a bore tide. We were expecting a pretty good bore tide today. Unfortunately, the local media had publicized this fact, so it was a real zoo along the highway. I wanted to get out to a good vantage point to take some photos of the incoming tidal bore, away from any crowds,kids,tourists, etc.. I asked my daughter if she wanted to go along and she said yes, so we drove down to Bird Point and trudged out (through marsh) to an isolated point where you would have a great view. That's where I took the above photo.

As we awaited the bore tide, my daughter announces that she has to get back for a soccer game. Some discussion ensued, but we packed up before the incoming tide arrived and went back to our car. I wasn't real pleased. Then on our drive home, she gets a nose bleed, a real gusher of a nose bleed. I have a box of kleenex, which she's going through like nobody's business. She's a mess, the inside of my car looks like Ted Bundy had borrowed it for the weekend, I didn't get the photos I went there for and we are going to be late for her game. Some days are like that.

But the bore tides are cyclical. I like to view them and I've seen many of them. I'll see more, and hopefully get some good shots of them to post. But your kids only grow up once. That's something well worth remembering even on 'those days.'


Canon EOS7D, Tamron 18-270mm lens, ISO:800, Focal length: 270mm, Ap: f6.4, Exp: 1/395 Circular polarizing filter used, hand-held.
Finally, here's an interesting item, via 'Small Dead Animals';

Venus in Transit

I took this yesterday, (obviously).
Using a Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-4.5 lens.
fl: 270mm
iso: 100
Ap: f36
Exp: (1/500), 0.002sec.
Exp. Bias: -5EV
I also used an adjustable neutral density filter dialed almost to opaque. The only post production enhancement is the color saturation. The original image was almost in black & white.

Grandeur

From "The People's Cube"...

* Condecession: set-asides or subsidies to groups one feels sorry for.

* Defaulty setting: Something incorrect that's widely believed because it was the first explanation proposed rather than because there was any actual evidence or proof.

* Dimprovement: A bad, dimwitted improvement that isn't better, often worse. (Can you say New Coke, Vista operating system or nationalized health care?)

* Feelosophy: positions and policies adopted because they make you feel good or virtuous rather than on any reasoned basis or because they could possibly work.

* Iconoklatch: group of nonconformists who uniformly conform to an "alternative" set of standards.

* Infopinion: The intermingling of news and opinion so that it's hard to tell which is what. Often called analysis.

* Literateur: Someone who talks about and refers to books they've never actually read. Think Wealth of Nations or Das Kapital.

* Malapropitization: Needlessly adding prefixes and suffixes to words to make yourself sound erudite, more scholarlisticalful.

* Nincomproof: A line of thinking both logical yet so unreasonable only an idiot or an intellectual would buy it.

* Oprahtunity: The chance to cash in on fame in one area in another area you really have no qualification for. (Al Gore for instance.)

* Psychophant: A lunatic follower of a lunatic leader. (See Marxist-Leninist)

* Sophistreatment: A "fake but accurate" film treatment. Such as any "documentary" film by Michael Moore, or docudrama by Oliver Stone.

* Shamnesia: a condition where one cannot remember personal details or incidents on the advice of their attorney.

* Spoofemism: Play on words making fun of a euphemism. Like calling a bald guy "tonsorially challenged."

* Xenotopia: Something you find unbearable but, strangely, other people desire.

* Preachable Momement: pompous blather masquerading as wisdom

* Quackification: phony, over-hyped or bogus credentials

* Propagandate: an official proclamation which is total baloney

* Compretention: simulated competition, as in two family members running for the same senate seat (also see "public option")

* Negatiate: a negotiation in which one party gives everything away in the very beginning (see "Polish-Czech missile defense")

* Factate: to feed false or irrelevant factoids to gullible supporters for wider dissemination

* Hopeable: susceptible to false or unfounded hopes; idealistically gullible

* Bidentify: to locate and recognize a gaffe-prone official idiot

* Intaxicate: to become drunk with political power, especially with regard to fiscal authority

* Anthropogentrification: the process by which one comes to believe baseless, fraudulent or convaluted theories due to frequent association with self-styled elitists and pseudo-intellectuals

* Clodify: to make idiocy into law

* Wrightisms: The act of damning the nation you live in, and blaming unpopular religious groups for your problems.

* Correctify: to collaborate on fixing something in such a way that only the already-solved problems get "treatment", whereas anything that actually needs attention is dismissed or left alone (See Health Care Bill).

* Legistrate: to conflate the legislature's duties with those of the judiciary. Also known as "legislating from the bench" (see Judicial Activism).

* Extra-Sensory-Deception(ESD) - the ability to communicate absolute garbage through a teleprompter directly beamed across tv into gullible minds full of mush

* Self-Bidentity- seeing yourself as far more competent than you actually are

* Pressoteric- Insight belonging only to members of the Fourth Estate

* Historectomy- removing evidence of past events to promote an agenda

* Stimulation- giving the illusion of fixing the Economy while actually lining your own pockets

* Fundle- to touch a taxpayer's money for your own pleasure

* Acornicopia- a bountiful display of illegitimite votes

* Genufliction- bowing to a dictator to purposefully offend your own people

* Procrasstorial- apearing to be carefully weighing an opinion as a cover for screwing around and not doing your job

* Obesequezy (n.): the feeling of nausea that one experiences upon watching a lemming perform an act of political ingratiation.

* Sacroshanked (adj.): Having been attacked, sometimes mortally, by a religious fanatic.*

Memorial Day 2012

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived." -- Gen. George S. Patton

05/27/12

After Dinner...

I saw this over at Instapundit's site and thought it was very much worth passing on.
150 year old photos from the American West.  These were taken by Timothy O'Sullivan in the 1860's & 70's and are from the Library of Congress. Take a few minutes and have a look. It's well worth your time.

Roller Blading on the Coastal Trail