1) Photos

I have wanted to take a photo of this man for a couple of years. He always wears his chainmail. Usually he’s skating-by on his skateboard, or reading in the library.

He was OK for the portrait. I didn’t ask him his name (D’oh!), but we talked about the skateboard (in the shop), the chainmail (a gift from his spouse from museumreplicas.com), and as always, I gave him my card so that he could ask for a digital copy of the photos.

These started out as the same image, but I applied different post-processing in order to achieve a smooth-balanced image, and an end-of-the-world gritty image. They are also cropped differently. Hopefully they each tell a different story.

I hope that you like this as much as I do.

Love Garden is a record store at 822 Massachusetts Street, Lawrence KS 66044.

I like this image, and I hope that you will too.

Foxtrot is a shoe store at 823 Massachusetts Street, Lawrence KS 66044.

I overexposed it for if your monitor is too dark. Most are actually too bright. That’s how they come in the box. Any boxed monitor could be the one that ends up in the store display, and people tend to buy the one that is brighter. Of course every company does this, so they end up universally too bright.

I like this as-is, and I hope that you will too.

The converging verticals are intentional. Yes, images look better without them, but this one looked weird when I minimized them in post.

I hope that you like this image as much as I do.

This is my daughter Gershwin. She is in-line for something-or-other at Walt Disney World. Gershwin is originally from Azerbaijan. Coincidentally, the woman in back looks like her.

I hope that you like this image as much as I do.

This is my daughter Gershwin. She is in-line for something-or-other at Walt Disney World. Gershwin is originally from Azerbaijan. Coincidentally, the woman in back looks like her.

April 21, 2012

April 21, 2012

I hope that you like this image.

Taking photos of moving vehicles in the dark is hit-or-miss [rimshot/].

Here are my first two homemade CAT Scans. Impressive?

Cliff Bleszinski used to have a site called catscan.com. His fans would send him cat scanography, and he would post in on the site.

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Making a composite from a low-res low-contrast image is challenging.

I don’t know who created the original I THINK THIS MIGHT BE PHOTOSHOPPED image.

I hope that you like this image as much as I do.

I hope that you like this image as much as I do.

I hope that you like this image as much as I do.

This is the ceiling of the Douglas County Courthouse at 1100 Massachusetts Street, Lawrence KS 66044.

I rode with pilot Pat Cannon during the 2001 Highland Village Balloon Festival. Mr. Cannon won the Balloon Federation of America National Championship a number of times, so this was an incredible opportunity to see just how precise balloon piloting can be.

The challenge was to fly a minimum distance, and put a bean bag on a target.

We met at the event’s location for the pre-flight pilot meeting. Balloons are best-piloted during early morning or early evening (the Trey Ratcliff hours), so this was very early in the day.

We participated in the First Flight Ceremony. In my case this involved the pilot saying some words, and pouring champagne on my hair, but I observed other folks participating in another secret version.

We drove to the location, unfolded the balloon, and filled it with hot air (see image above). A number of other pilots followed our chase vehicle, and began their flights from nearby (see image below), but there was nothing special about that location piloting-accuracy-wise. Mr. Cannon chose that location because that’s where he wanted to land at the end of the event. The location chosen was a new development under-construction. The roads where there, and were free of debris, but construction had not yet begun on any of the homes. We used one of the roads like a heliport.

Before preparing to take off, the pilot launched a small black helium balloon called a pie-ball. He used a sextant to follow the pie-ball, and estimated the wind’s speed and direction at various altitudes. (My Google-fu tells me that “pie-ball” is short for “pilot-balloon”.)

The pilot steers the balloon by choosing a direction, and then going to the altitude who’s wind is blowing in that direction. The balloon requires a certain amount of time to get to any chosen altitude, so the pilot needs to plan for that, and the intervening wind vectors, at each step.

Before leaving the pilot told me that we were going to:

1. Fly over Lake Lewisville
2. Make a 90-degree direction-change over the lake
3. Fly to the target, which was here, and then
4. Fly back to our starting place.

That’s exactly what he did:

1. We flew a right-triangle
2. Mr. Pat Cannon tossed his bean bag within 2-feet of the target’s center and then
3. We then returned to the chase vehicle. No chasing required.

My legs were shaking uncontrollably during the first half of the trip. I have an extreme fear of heights. Motorcycle riding in bad weather has helped me cure much of that since then, but I don’t avoid an activity just because it makes me uncomfortable. That’s core to who I am.

One amazing thing about ballooning is that you can hear everything on the ground. Your vehicle is travelling at exactly the speed of the wind. Sound is as clear as if their were no wind at all.

People run out of their houses to see the balloon. This is early morning, so they are half-dressed. They notice that the pilot can see them in their night-wear and then run back into their houses.

Boaters were also on the lake to see the balloons. Pat Cannon brought his basket down to visit some boaters. He was able to have the bottom of the basket skim the water, but our feet never got wet, and I never saw any water on the basket floor. Another balloonist attempted to do that too, and his basket immediately laid-down on its side in the water; he, and his passengers did get wet.

Are angry landowners a risk when landing? Yes. Pat Cannon told me about a landowner that started shooting his balloon as he flew over the shooter’s property. He was not even trying to land there. Mr. Cannon was well-prepared with the two-way radios that pilot’s use, a GPS, and even a mobile phone. The shooter was surprised when the police arrived at the scene. (Robert Munafo told me that people like to shoot trains too.)

Pilot Pat Cannon is an extremely skilled pilot. He has most of the existing pilot endorsements. He flew helicopters for the US Army during the Vietnam War. He is a FAA safety examiner, and he regularly flies Mitsubishi MU-2s for Turbine Aircraft Services, Inc. where he is a Principal.

Larry Pegram Lean – AMA Sign – at Hearland Park Topeka, Image © 2009 Paul Danger Kile http://dangerismymiddlename.com

I really like this one. There is so much to see in it: the worn knee pucks, the details on the Sidi boots, the beautiful blues on the titanium exhaust, the miss-matched red paint, the top of the chain losing slack because Larry is opening the throttle, the fact that the Leo Vince exhaust ad off-track overpowers the Akrapovic logos on the bike. You can even read the Ohlins logo on the forks (in higher res), and brembo logo on the brakes. Larry leans so far that his tires are worn in places that aren’t even meant to touch the ground.

Ducati left US racing, for the most part, so what did Larry do?  He build a Ducati team. If Ducati ever comes back full-tilt, then they will already have a team that they can promote to factory-level support. This is what Micheal Jordan (yes, that one) should have been doing instead of using suasion to change the rules.

My lenses are cheap, my camera focuses very slowly, and neither the body or the lenses have anti shake features. My best shots involve a ton-of-luck. I see the pros not taking pictures of every bike, and I just don’t get it. Riding like this is amazing. It should be captured and appreciated again-and-again.