Bewabic

Taken at Bewabic State Park in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Bewabic

Upper Falls

A lone tree out on a rock, overlooking the Upper Falls in Yellowstone National Park.

Upper Falls

Devils Tower

The sheer face of Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming.

Devils Tower

Pine Cones

Taken on a Fall nature walk with my family.

Pine Cones

Forest Floor

Taken on a Fall nature hike with my family.

Forest Floor

Boeing P-26A

Taken at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

Boeing P-26A

Fire

Patterns in the backyard fire.

Fire

Waterlogged

Fallen timber on Fortune Lake in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Waterlogged

Sacred Cow

The Sacred Cow was Franklin D. Roosevelt’s personal plane.  The term Air Force One was not used at that time.

Sacred Cow

Stronger

The kids, parents, and staff from the hemoncology department at Seattle Children’s Hospital created their own music video of Kelly Clarkson’s song Stronger.  If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself crying and smiling at the same time.  Having held my mother’s hand as she died following a 15+ year battle with leukemia, I know a little something about the pain that comes with this disease.  I can not, however, even begin to imagine how it must feel to watch your own child go through this.  I know that I’ll be saying a few extra prayers tonight.

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This next video takes a little look behind the scenes during the making of the Stronger video.

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A Dog’s Brain

If you’ve ever wondered what your dog is thinking… well, it’s really not that complicated.  Just refer to the following flow chart to answer your questions:

Best Guard Dog EVER

Nobody’s going to mess with this guy’s bike!

For Sale…

I got this in an email from my Aunt. Make sure to read all the way to the end:

For Sale: One F***ing useless cat!

Walking On Air: Video From Space

This video was shot from the International Space Station.  Absolutely stunning, is how I would describe it!  Do yourself a favor and crank up the HD and go full screen.

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BEAR!!!!!

Imagine you’re just walking down your front walk, in the middle of the city, checking your text messages, when all of a sudden…BEAR!!!

This guy’s reaction is priceless.

Remember This Name: Jeremy Wuitschick

On April 10, 2012, Jeremy Wuitschick was on the bus on the way back to school after Easter break.  Suddenly, the bus driver started having a seizure and the bus careened out of control.  Jeremy, a 13 year old, leaped into action and grabbed the steering wheel.  He got the bus back on the road and managed to bring it to a stop.  This young boy’s parents should be extremely proud.  Their son displayed the kind of bravery that is rare even in adults.  Way to go Jeremy!

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Mag-40: Part 3

Day two of the Mag-40 class began with a high probability of thunderstorms.  Because of this, it was decided that we would spend the entire day in the classroom.

We began the day with an in-depth discussion on the legal aspects involved in the use of deadly force. Much of what Mas covers in the Mag-40 class is focused on when you can legally use deadly force, the factors that go into that decision, and what the repercussions might be afterward.  If, God forbid, you are forced to resort to deadly force, you need to be able to explain to a jury why you did what you did.  The days material wasn’t all legalese, however, we spent the better part of the afternoon covering the management of a deadly force encounter.   Mas lectured about threat levels, how to hold a subject at gun point, interacting with witnesses and the police, choosing a lawyer, post shooting trauma, and much more.  We spent about 12 hours soaking it all in and finally called it a day at about 9:00pm.  This was a long, hard day and my butt was killing me.  Instead of meeting for dinner with a few of the other guys, I decided to head back to the hotel and relax for a bit before hitting the sack.

Day three was to be primarily a range day due to the possibility of rain the day before.  We met up at the classroom and caravanned out to Herman Gunter’s range.  As on day one, we were split into two shooting groups of about 18 each.  While one group was shooting, the other would be reloading magazines and getting ready for their turn.  We started off by shooting one handed with both strong and weak hands.  I did much better at this than I thought I would, in fact, I actually shot slightly better with my weak hand!  We practiced shooting from cover by employing a crouching stance, high kneel, and low kneel.  Each of these drills became progressively harder as we backed further away from the targets each time.  We ran several reloading drills, striving for not only speed, but smoothness.  It was during these drills that I pinched the palm of my hand between the magazine and the gun and gouged a little chunk of skin out.  As injuries go, it was pretty minor, however, the dang thing just wouldn’t stop bleeding.  Luckily I had snarfed one of the hand towels from the hotel that morning and I kept it with me to soak up the non-stop trickle of blood.  The dang thing stung like crazy and, wouldn’t you know it, happened to be right where the fingernails of my other hand pressed into while gripping my gun.  I was a little worried as to how this would affect the rest of my shooting.  Add to this the fact that my my hands were getting so worn out from the high volume of shooting we did that I had a hard time using my thumb to activate the safety.  On a normal day during the Mag-40 class, you might shoot about 125 rounds of ammo.  On this day we went through about 300!  I’ve done my share of shooting, but this was more than I’ve ever done in one sitting.  300 rounds of .45acp ammunition can beat the crap out of you.

We wrapped up at the range in the late afternoon and headed back over to the classroom for some more lecture.  By the time we were done for the night I was exhausted.  As much as I simply wanted to hit the sack, I arranged to meet with one of the other guys for dinner and some study time.  The next day was to be both our shooting qualification test, and the written test.  We grabbed a Subway sandwich and hit the books for an hour or so before calling it a night.  I spent the next hour cleaning my gun and relaxing.  That pillow never looked so good.

To be continued…

Save A Buck..or Several Hundred

For most of my life I’ve had better than 20/20 vision.  It came in handy when I was a flight instructor many years ago, and it sure helped out as a photographer!  Eventually, my eyesight began to deteriorate because of a condition that infects countless other poor souls:  Old age.  At first it wasn’t too bad and I could fight off this scourge by simply keeping a stash of dime store reading glasses at strategic locations around my house and car.  Eventually, however, I had to face up to the fact that I was actually going to need real glasses.  Not only did I need glasses, I needed bifocals.  My distance vision wasn’t all that bad, but my near vision had gone the way of the dodo.

For several years I bought all my glasses at the local Lenscrafters.  A decent pair of no-line(progressive) bifocals would run me about $300 to $400 dollars, and this was on sale!  This rather large expenditure made me put off updating my prescription for way longer that I should have.

Well, no more people!  I’m now a loyal supporter of Zenni Optical.  I had listened for over a year to a coworker singing Zenni’s praises and finally decided to give them a try.  I got my eye exam locally and then ordered a pair of progressives from Zenni.  I chose a set of Zenni’s cheapest frames for $6.95.  I upgraded the standard lenses to polycarbonate and added their premium anti reflection/anti fingerprint coating.  I also ordered a pair of computer glasses that are basically a singlevision lens adjusted for a portion of my near vision magnification.  My total for this order was only $78.  That’s a far cry from the $400 my last pair cost me here in town.  I sat back and waited the three weeks until they arrived.  Long story short, they’re wonderful!  They fit comfortably and the prescription was perfect.  To my eye, these glasses were of the same quality as any I’ve found at local eyeglass stores.  I then went ahead and ordered another pair of progressives and a pair of progressives with a sunglass tint added.  Total for this order was only $95.70.

After I had worn all three of my glasses for a while and made sure I was happy with them, I talked my wife into ordering some for herself and my daughter.  Let me sum it up this way:

  • 2 pairs of polycarbonate no-line bifocals, one pair of computer glasses, and a pair of no-line bifocal sunglasses for me:  Total = $173.70
  • 1 pair of singlevision glasses and 1 pair of singlevision sunglasses for my wife, and one pair of singlevision glasses for my daughter:  Total = $43.75
  • Grand total for SEVEN pairs of glasses: $217.45

To me, this is now a no brainer:  I got seven pairs of very nice glasses for just over half the price of ONE pair of glasses bought locally.  I no longer have to live in fear that I’ll damage or destroy my glasses and have to shell out another $400 for a new pair.

Ordering from Zenni couldn’t have been easier.  Their website is easy to navigate and there are pop-up help screens for each of the items that you might have questions about.

The only problem that I had was with the pair of progressive sunglasses I ordered.  I wore these for several days and they just didn’t feel right.  I would get a headache if I wore them for more than a few minutes.  This is an obvious indicator that the prescription is wrong.  Now, normally the procedure with returns at Zenni works like this:  You send the glasses back and Zenni checks them out.  If there’s a problem Zenni will remake the glasses and send them off to you.  They will only refund 50% of the order price if you are returning the glasses for any other reason.  In my case, I needed the glasses sooner than it would be possible if I went this route, so Zenni kindly agreed to cross ship some new glasses and then refund the full amount of the glasses if they were defective (they were).  The replacement glasses were spot on.  I don’t expect people to be perfect, I simply expect them to live up to their end of the bargain and Zenni did just that.  Kudos to them!

A few additional notes if you’re planning on ordering from Zenni:  Do not buy the premium “Oleophobic Fingerprint Resistant Anti reflection Coating.”  Instead, order the basic anti reflection coating.  The premium coating costs about $11 more and is no better.  Also, I ordered the 80% amber sunglass tint.  I really like the tinting on my old Ray-Bans and I was hoping that Zenni’s amber tint would be very similar.  My fear was that it would be more like the hideous amber/yellow tint that “Blue Blocker” sunglasses have.  I needn’t have worried as it turned out to be almost identical to the Ray-Ban tint but not quite as dark.

In summary, run, do not walk, to the Zenni Optical site to buy your next pair of glasses.  I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Carrier Operations in HD

This is a pretty cool video showing FA18 carrier operations aboard the U.S.S. Carl Vinson.  It’s in HD, so crank up the resolution and watch it full screen.

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