Continuation of a standard...Squirrel!!

I wanted to continue with what and where I was going with last nights blog... "A trip to Rome... no.. sorry Bath! True true.. Bath was full of roman "baths" at one time.. and you can find then still around therein. If you read the history of Bath you will know it all... I read it and it was quite interesting.

Aquae Sulis ("the waters of Sulis")... or go read the wiki on it all.... its not quite all there and a lot of the color is washed out and sorry if you lose your clothing while bathing but hay... you have been warned.

Water, water...hot water.... 

So I went and thought about the runs I want to take... and danged if its a lot of running about... which really makes me thing its better to do parts and not all at once. I mean .. here is the list...

Green Run... Orford, Sizewell, Framlingham, Baxhall, Bentwaters, Woodbridge, Cambridge, Biggleswade ( its too funny a place not to go to ), Cheltenham

Red Run... Stonehenge, Avebury, Silbury hill, Glastonbury, The Tor, Old Sarun..etc..etc...etc

Blue Run, Weston-Super-Mare, Burnham, Taunton, Heddons Mouth, Exeter..etc etc etc

I probably could do all that but I would probably miss a bunch of shots I really want for hurrying. 

It would be much better to do the week thing... hit Bath and Bristol and Framily. Then come back another week for two of the three then come back for more. I have to think about this more. Problem is when I do I keep getting distracted with things and places and people. 

Too much.....

Royal Crescent.

 Not the exact position.. which is true of ever clip I added.. but this area... I wont say how I want to shoot it nor why now. but there are a massive amount of shots needed here.

The Combe split.

 I used to have nightmares of this exact spot. It was when I was five so.... I have analysed it and understand that fear at that time.. pretty cool. Now I want pictures of it from different places. This place has Weight.

Corner entrance to Victoria Park.

Another very Heavy place in my mind. Here, about 30 yards in on your left and a few other places I wont go into. 

Not sure what people believe or think or consider but there are places I consider to be like a depression in the gravity field for the psyche. There are other places in the world... The pool in Kaysville at the Far West Motel... The train tracks in Phillipsburg and the tunnel there abouts. Picasso's restaurant in Brindisi... 

You know what I mean?

Oh well..... Im tired.. long day...

Here is my facebook banner and logo... had to use the worm again... check out the top of its head... no one noticed...

A cool sign that had to be modified a bit.

Logo... fun.

See the GoPro on his head.. and strap under the chin.. had to draw all that in... sheesh!

Oh.. the camera too!.

My left hand has been numb all day... irritating!

This cracked me up!

Explanations.

I remembered I was going to explain what I meant by multi layered photo shoot on the 5/3 blog... So I will explain below. Its convoluted and there are parameters that must be met in a specific order or somewhat priority listing. Thing kinda revolve around a picture first and people first and first first.

The worm says... Get all the things HERE! No.. this isn't the "Most Important" location or person.. it being not a person... well.... its a well.. Explanations below sheesh!

Alright...here being the crossing of two pathways in Victoria Park, Bath England. Way back when I lived here.. Okay.. not exactly there... I am not sure they would let me if I wanted to but.... Nearby... I lived nearby... and used to scream havoc all over this area.... This exact location I hold dear because as a child we had a picnic with friends very near this location and it has a wonderful view of the lower park. Its pretty cool.

Here is the picture I took about 22/23 years ago.. its been on my wall for ages... It cost me a fortune at the time to print it so large... It was taken with my Minolta on film!! It also has poor quality.. but its still my favorite.

From where the worm is pointing looking left or West. A special place.

I have had the plan to get home.. or England and Bath particularly and while there shoot all the things. Lots of things had and yet have to be done before I can go over and have my way with the pixels and grass.

On the top of that varied list is family and friends ( extended family ). Must visit all the families!
I intend to.. but its gets interesting there.

I also intend to take as many shots of as many things as I can. I have a list of things and views and items and it goes from there. I will explain that..maybe tomorrow....

That leads to the multi layered shooting. I am going to try and capture segments of the surroundings while I am taking pictures. I will have the Kodak 360 and also my GoPros with me and will set those up in places I am not taking pictures of for specific time segments. This should capture the sounds and wind and people and animals and things. The only item I can't capture is the smell. Sadly.

The other thought is how long. If I go over by myself I can range far and near with unlimited time, which means I only have to sleep when I am too tired to go further. This makes it easier to run 18 hour days and or take naps if I plan on doing night shooting. I plan on doing a lot of it in specific places. I could drag along someone to keep me company or steal a friend there to come with me.

If I go by myself I can sleep in the rental car and only get a room every other day to clean up. So many options... I even have three runs set up in Goggle ... Shown below.

All three primary runs.. Red, Blue and Green. All start and stop at Bath. Not that these are the only runs but the most important to me but they dont show exactly where I want to go... just close.

In no order...

The blue Runs from Bath to where my Mother partially grew up and the family had a farm. Also spots a friend says is wonderful, beautiful, and special.. so I HAVE to go that way.

Green run. From the West to the East to where I grew up and where our family spent a lot of time.

 Red run. This hits a bunch of touristy spots that I want to do.. I have a plan if its too busy too.. I can explain that too. Later.

Or on the first run I can just go for a week and spend it all in Bath and Bristol area with the framily. LOL.

Nothing saying side trips cannot be made from Bath from time to time. So many options and choices.

If I were to say that I could go over twice a year that could ease up the need to hit everything everything and just put it at most everything.

Framily comes first though....really.....

I am not going to put a GoPro on my head though.... well I don't think I am going to.... maybe...

More on this tomorrow.... Consider this a first installment of an invasion planning guide.

My facebook banner for the day was a good posterization of my left burner... hah!

Day.... 150!

Logo was a bit of fun.

See Fiesta falls in there too... and that is important too. Lets see how complicated I can get this.

Friends... I intend to see you, talk to you, visit with you and take pictures of you when you aren't looking... sorry... its who I am.

Hehehehee.....

Roiling Disturbances

Wow...now thats what I call weather! This morning the clouds were in and around the Sandia Mountains and it was great to grab a few shots. The colors were base golds and oranges..not a silver blue around. Loads of virga too. THe moon was bright behind me on the Western edge of the mesa. It was a pointedly waiting day...

And it did..until twenty minutes to three when I would have been walking out to my truck.. then hell broke loose. We lost both radars to comms errors that had to be verified then reported and right on the top of that the phone system went nuts. All of this pointing to our service provider. As soon as I could report it they found the socket / plug / port that was crashed and got it back up. Everything went bright green... It was totally insane hour and a half. THen there was a problem with a desktop profile and that took our ITO another bunch of time to locate the possible problem and cleared it. Nuts... By then it was so late and the rains and hail were crashing down.. well they were before but we had no time to bother with it except for some gleeful sounds from the ops floor... very strange.

Back to this morning.... I took some shots.... Sky.. moon..mountain...plane on hold... cool stuff..

On the edge.

 East


Poised.

West.

Upside.

 Big sky.

Roilings

Edge of darkness.

Blue Wash

Wind towers view.

Standby.

On the pad.

A quick run outside and back in again.... We have a nice view except for all the hangers to the east. Barbed wire fences, planes, cars....and stuff.. but you can sometimes catch it just right.

On the way home caught a nice double rainbow.. and a nice picture of my pond... I was hoping for more light on the flowers but I make it home in time to catch the light. It was impressive how excited the atmosphere was with all the water in it. There was light everywhere... everything was glowing and throwing off micro colors. I wished I had had the time to use the main camera but I didnt... the rainbow show was with my phone.

See how bright the colors are... it was very wild.

Clarity.

Through the glass door and at a distance but still cool.

My facebook banner  is from a shot over the weekend.. I liked it and wanted to post it and laugh. Even the logo was from today.... the moons!

Modded for the daily count.. can you find it?

The moon was super cool.

I am off to find things..... I guess its gonna be a snack instead.... maybe a little milk.

Such exciting times!

Wicked Weekend.

How am I feeling you ask... Not better. But we wont go into that. Hoping this week will let me feel well enough to work. You know you are supposed to have a massive amount of party fun to feel like this.

Well I did have fun but .... well you know what I mean. I missed a bunch of outtake pictures from my phone so I am going to post those below but first.....

I ran into some interesting things on the internets and I wanted to share a few... after my comments yesterday of there being nothing out there tech wise that is worth spending hard earned money on....okay so these aren't to spend money on unless you don't have a D7100 Nikon yet. But I digress..

Distopian artwork.. Amazing... very surreal. Impressive.

This guy is great. I watched his whole youtube video on the settings of the 7100. He is comfortable, interesting, clear and concise with a bit of humanness in there. I have watched a lot of youtube videos on this subject and his was the best of the best. I have the web link saved so I can refer back to it when I need to.

His link... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTTBp2ZyHWs

The Nikon D7100 is the peak of DX cameras. I bought it while owning two D300s. Why? Because this camera was 24 mpix and had almost all the bells and whistles of the D300. It did have video on the top but I don't care about that. What was not quite apparent is that the 7100 has a damn lot of whistles and bells too tucked into multi switch layers and menus. The video above clearly shows how to get to all the settings I need.

Surprisingly I have specific setting that I want and I get very upset when they aren't set right or the camera wont do what I want it to do. I want a single focal point that I can lock that focus on, recompose and shoot multiple shots. I want my RAW and jpeg at the finest and highest quality I can get. I use auto ISO until I don't and then I want to be able to change that quickly.. and I found out how to do that with one push and a twist. No digging through multi level menus as in the D300. I love the D300 and they are set exactly like I like but its quite a difference on how to do that from the 7100.

Since I am planning on traveling soon .. home first then elsewhere I want to make sure I can get from program mode and into aperture and manual modes quickly without having to reset a bunch of stuff. I want a lot of little tricks for setting up for long exposure shots and also some Night shooting. So far so good. I still need to make up some quick notes in my phone so I can refer to it. I do also want to pick up another lens. I may borrow one before I go..maybe a Nikkor 18 to 300 or 50mm with excellent low light settings. Tripods I have.. a good sturdy manfrotto a cheap tripod, carbon fiber mono pod and a gorilla grip. I am good there. Each for its needs. I will go into how and what I want to do maybe tomorrow.... Its going to be a multi layered shootout in the OK corral. Ill splain later.

I ran across this and it made me laugh out loud... heavily....I may have figuratively fallen on the floor too. I do really hope there was a pillow on the floor for the poor thing but damn if it was not a rib cracker. You can just see the thought process... Light... outside.. I can get there.. leap... fail....Then.. THEN!!! He tries again!... And AGAIN!... It has to be a male rabbit.

Oh the poor rabbit. 

Yes I know its a Gif. 

Here are the shots I took on my phone cam ( 13 mpix ) on Saturday that I failed to post anywhere.

Morning coffee stop.

 Turbulent skies in the background. I have stopped dispensing money into Starbucks company but I will buy one when I go out to fly or crew.. few and far between.

Resting View.

Parked on the side road watching the balloons show up at the field we fly out of. windows down. Cool morning air with that sage smell wafting..music playing... Not a bad start to a day.

A quick clip of video staring at the Sandias with Tangerine Dream playing in the background. No Selfies..... yet.

One of the bummer things on the mesa is the un-biodegradable trash.. not a lot but enough to irritate.

That selfie.... Yeah..... I forgot I did this..... makes me laugh.

Ill try not to do more of those...

My facebook banner for the day was pretty much due to the ill feelings getting to my stomach and out of my head.. so head is kinda clear but now my stomach is very very upset. Sigh.

Day 152. Have to buy springs.. have to have them installed. Really have to do a trailer sticker.

I am .. really.....

I wonder chicken? Maybe some ice cream? Maybe just the ice cream???? 

Worthy of it all

Overdone, cooked, toasted....

It was a fantastic day of picture taking of "all the friends" ( Hollys Birthday Flight! ) ( Her first flight at this age!! ) and Ted and and and ... so many fun things going on at the same time. So many premium events happening altogether and the running ( slowly ) around trying to get "ALL THE SHOTS" was a wipe out time. Some balloons we have not seen out much and great Pilot and Crew work. 777 shots on the main and 65 of the Fisheye.

Then there were the skies which were turbulent and full of moisture but even the virga got in line...broke in sections and dispersed. Off to the North and West the clouds went flat and high and round but stayed away until we were done and gone. There were also some interesting things laying about wherever and whenever I stopped to catch a shot of something I thought was worth it and interesting.

I edited a bunch but only loaded about 15 to Facebook for now. Things like this can be overdone. I will load some of the others later but will hold back with posting 50 of the same thing. I did get some really different angles and I did try to push it as far as it would go. Below are the outtakes I really liked... Not the uuber favs, but cool ones.

The Touched Clouds

The depth!

Pibal

 The only balloon picture here.

Missing Instructions.

 Someone is gonna be in trouble.

Spirals in Nature.

 Pretty and sharp.

Fallout Flashbacks

Bottlecaps out int he desert.... very big flashbacks.

Fuzzy Whites.

 Not a clue what this plant or weed is but it was pretty.

Knotholes in the Dust.

 Yes, well it is interesting when you find very old boards.

Prettys

Another weed in the desert but nice enough when its not in my yard.

I didn't crop any of the shots. I would if I felt it later maybe... Oh...except the first one. As normal there are a lot of extra shots to get through and edit. I was playing with reverse curve processing to pull more out of the shadows.

I am pretty exhausted. I really pushed it since I felt pretty good until I walked back into the house. Even after a shower and a nap I am feeling on the edge or ugh. Not sick but very uncomfortable. Something like overheated and now the stomach is getting fussy. A semi reverse of Wednesday.

Pretty much going to sit here and whine for a while....

I haven't even gone and looked at the tech sites yet... Maybe Ill do that next. A quick comment of the tech thats coming out now.... its all rather boring. Watches and pads and boring. There isn't anything good tech-wise coming out... Not really.. nada.... Cameras... little mods and super extra costs and in the end they have removed other things but still want more money ( we give you more focal points but lower the megapixels kid of thing )... for what? Computers.. meh. Car tech.. meh.... house tech... meh meh...

Might be the way I feel.

Lets get out there and see what toys there are to find.... Hard drives? Vid cams? tablets?

Oh.. my facebook banner and logo today.... Nice close up of the Sandia mountain ridges. Pretty cool with the clouds low and wandering... and I got pachisi on my computer again, so yay.. I have played three times. Trying to behave and not play it all the time... which seems easier now.

Lovely details.

I lost that game. Sigh

Passing Life

Wonderful morning this morning. Out to my truck to find out it had been broken into and rifled... however abrupt it was and lacking in anything worth money except the latest oil change docs and a bunch of insurance paperwork.. Felt bad anyways on top of feeling bed from yesterday and still got my butt to work and did the work things.

Thank goodness I never leave anything out there except a few old tools and carabiners and balloon cards. Or at least I think its all there. Have to look tomorrow but I feel to bad now to try to do any deep searching.

Work was good. Got a television up and a phone headset installed and programmed. Some paperwork done and some numbers verified. Waiting on next week for some decisions and make some decisions on training for myself. I want to do some stuff but there are either prerequisites they want which I am so fat past it would be wasteful to do or the costs are insane. 900 dollars to watch a video feed of some people telling you things.. please. Also the time range is bad. Funds have to be spent way before the other things I am looking for are going to come up and open so that leaves me in a dilemma. No good choices here. Hence some conversations.


Im not sure I mentioned my blogging conditions... well.. sometimes I have a very limited blogability due to lap-dog-itus. Here you will see me working very hard to write and its all balanced upon the back of a very cantankerous and spoiled dogs back. I try not to peck at the keys too hard when she refuses to move.

I was going to stop on the way home and get some Bohek pics down by the river but sitting in the truck and remembering the...ugh... jerk was in there pawing at my stuff...well.. I went and got my truck washed instead.

Droplets in the carwash..... something something from BladeRunner... hah!

Dutiful sudsing.

Volcanic waxwash.

I bet the truck feels happier and I feel happier.. now if I could just tuck her in the garage without it being so very tight in there... Got the alarm system working now so good luck next dumbass.

Whew... what you didn't see was that I went out for a bit... it was an amazing time. Educational.

Tomorrow there is a ballooning flight and it involves a birthday and a person who will be a new balloonist at that age..... yeah.... YEAH!!! She says its all crap so I expect some pushback.

The Old Timers Rally is this weekend down in ROswell... and I always try to promote it because its a fun time. I need to see if I can get back in next year. Loads of fun... So..... I took an old newspaper clipping of the UFO crash event and tweaked it for the rally.... It was a lot of fun to do...

Logo for the day was an easy one to produce.

OKay.. gotta get ready for the early morning balloon flight thing..and COFFEE!!!!!