Slicing the air

Putting together a cool, polished, professional drone video is cool but where are all the startup/practice/learning crash videos?

I don't know (in other words, I haven't looked).

However, there is one way to find out and that's to create your own.

Therefore, here's my compilation music video of first drone flight tests.

Is it art? science? both? neither?

You decide...

More as it develops!

Who is this person trying to impersonate me 22 years ago?!

Oh, the days when I worked at GE as a schedule analyst on weekdays and a Christmas tree recycling expert on weekends?

No, that wasn't me, was it?  ;)

Huntsville Christmas Tree Recycling Project -- 1990

Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree

I never have been certain about the meaning of the Christmas tree.  Even so, it's a tradition.  Here's a video of Rhonda Vincent paper doll parts (in store) with Rhonda singing "Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree":

The first effort is rather simplistic -- more of a slideshow.  No time for more complex video production this weekend. Merry Christmas! Thanks, Rhonda, for your music, Janet Shelby for the graphics, and to my wife and family for their patience.

Enjoy!

A Simple Nod to My Mother In-Law

Retiring the Fleet

Looking 30 years back in a last day-and-a-half flurry of descent and landing:

A Dancin' We Will Go

Who says they don't have fun on the ISS?  Here's a clear example of the ISS crew members taking their shoes off and tearing up the dance floor:

Music brought you to by the following [from: http://www.barynya.com/mp3/index.stm]:

Elina Karokhina and ensemble Barynya "Balalaika Music Album"

Balalaika virtuoso Elina Karokhina & Russian dance and music ensemble Barynya compact disk Balalaika Music Album (2011). Elina Karokhina (balalaika), Leonid Bruk (balalaika-contrabass), Mikhail Smirnov (guitar, vocals). Elina Karokhina is Russia’s top balalaika player and a musician of international renown. Her speed, grace, and fluidity on the instrument must be seen and heard to believe. She began her formal training at the Mussorgsky College of St. Petersburg and continued her training at the Rimskii-Korsakov Conservatory, which included a residency in Germany. She returned to her native St. Petersburg, where she earned her Doctorate of Music/Balalaika...

SS Atlantis ascent/docking recap

For those who missed it, here's a recap of the last U.S. Space Shuttle blastoff and docking to the ISS with some bonus shots recapping the 30-year span of space shuttle missions:

Congrats to Ireland, a nod to England

In the world of sports, there's often a Dewey moment, n'est pas?

C'est la vie.

Am I a worthy investment?

How do you hold a coalition together?

Make sure seven billion are given the opportunity to get in on the deal.

A voice not to be forgotten

Thanks to the beautiful, smiling faces of the folks at the Huntsville office of the American Red Cross today - Nyesha, Janie, Doris and Juanita.  I enjoyed watching "Open Range" during apheresis process.

A nod to Welch Allyn for the blood pressure cuff used today.

And I greatly appreciate the tumbler, window shade and umbrella that show I am a platelet donor.

Will get to be WordPress whenever it allows me to log back in and post blogs.

Silence is my friend but not absence of words.  ;)

Give a nod, too, to Chavez for his sense of humour - true satire!

Continued, To Be

Feet back on Earth, narrative back on...?

Next story starts at http://treetrunkdings.wordpress.com.

Thus Endeth This Blog

The cowboy rolls up his knapsack/pup tent combo, slings it over his shoulder and steps into his rocket boots to pursue a lifelong dream.

Where he rides, there are no sunsets.

The path he takes is a lonely one, as usual.

It's always been about you, me, us, as usual, too.

He issues a voice command and off he goes.

"Giddyup, boy, let's get this show on the road!"

Whoooooosh!!!!

Surveyed Surveillance but not Susveillance

If you want to marshall the forces for caring about and carrying the planet, look at the trash thrown off to the side of the road first, put in the refuse bin second and, finally, in the lasting recycling container last.

It's what's in the name that counts.

The labels of the manufacturers/retailers printed on the trash on the side of the road tells you most about those who appear to care/know the least about species inefficiencies.

Styrofoam cups that say anything about saving the environment, like automobile adverts that tout MPG improvements, are interesting diversions but not fully effective treatments to raising the bottom line from the bottom.

Preaching to the choir is a feel-good measure.

uncontested

News update!

Shia LeBeouf cleared up the cleared-up rumour - he discovered and created Charlie Sheen and gave new life to a forgotten, out-of-original-ideas writer/director named Spielberg, not the other way around.

China banned voice overdubbing today, requiring the acting community to get its act together and complete filming scenes on the first take.

Asphalt manufacturers have claimed no-fault insurance in their divorce from customers sitting on their faulty behinds.

Are you sure LEED is misleading?

The family of the inventor of the tomahawk has filed a lawsuit in the World Court requiring all users of the word "tomahawk" in patents, copyrights and trademarks to pay an annual user fee or face criminal mischief censorship, including inducing fear in the night of attacks by tomahawk-wielding census takers.

That's all the print that fits the news!

Now, back to your planet's regularly scheduled exposure to its gravitationally-attracted power plant called the Sun.

Chamber Made

After our builder completed the work on our house and the one-year warranty expired, meaning whatever was left on the punch list had punched out and was off the clock, I went to work on excavating the echo chamber.

To you, my house looks rundown, needs exteriour repairs and probably isn't worth the price of a pretty penny, but...

Hang on a second while I rotate the dial on the lock that holds the clasp in place over the door to the outer chamber that leads to the inner chamber and away from the chamber orchestra that is out of business ever since horror-comedy film directors employed synthetic players to perfectly perform film scores like they were written and not interpreted to be heard.

25-DA-66-DE-56-ZK-09-R-22.

There!

[creaking sound, if you please, Foley, my sound assistant]

I lean against the wall of sound as if it's nature/society/species on which I normally lean and get my sustenance.

Hmm...there's something new I haven't felt/heard before.

It's the ancient voice of time, you know, like how 24 hours of real time away from the Internet feels like 7 days of virtual time away from the Internet.

I hear Nancy and Ronny Ray-gun telling me to read my astronomical charts because many of the planets are on the other side of the Sun, which can only mean one thing...

Something's going on on Saturn!

Somewhere a chip on a windshield is spreading into a crack.

Which means only one more thing...

An unexpected event is about to occur (and, believe it or not, all events are unexpected, although possibly anticipated to near 100% accuracy).

Listen to the silence between echoes again.

Waiting, waiting, waiting, writhing, waiting, weighting, waiting, waiting, rating, waiting, raining, waiting, waiting waiting.

There it is.

No WIMP here.

We're looking in the wrong place again, although wimps certainly are valuable members of society - no matter how weak they appear, they're strong at something.

If we surround ourselves with enough stuff that we can lean on, we feel very important in our specialisation, receiving accolades and marmalade with lemonade on wry toasts from the admiring crowd.

There is one, and there are two or three, who are receiving no public recognition for their work that you should pay the most attention.

Just like the Tarot card reader who predicted that Oprah would cause maelstroms in Australia, watching later as Aussies admiringly bestowed love upon her arrival, unaware that maelstrom is a general word and would not associate the flooding directly to her visit, never assume that this generation knows what's going on.

Ten steps forward and ten steps backward.  Go fifty steps forward and you fall on your face.  The same for going backward.

Seek a balance, listening to original waveforms, echoes and the absence of echoes.

Make sure your echo chamber leaves room for the unexpected.

Don't jump to conclusions by applying labels to the unlabelable.

Lean against the unbearable.

Listen without hearing.

Albino camel crickets are part of the picture that the Picts removed from the pixels.

conquistador

Charlie Sheen cleared up a rumour - he created Spielberg, not the other way around.

Only One Reason To Break The Groovy Silence

According to the North Port Sun and Suncoast Broadcasting Corp of Sarasota?:

Did ancient canals groove the Suncoast?

 SARASOTA (WWSB) — A Central Florida man believes he has discovered what’s left of a highly advanced ancient civilization by using some new technology, and says some of the evidence is right here on the Suncoast.

   “Looking further, I begin to find the real beauty in Cortez.” John Jensen is no archaeologist. He says he’s just an amatuer researcher of what’s under the water. Well, what he says he’s observed from the sky could rewrite the history of the world. “I recognize some patterns that appear to be manmade   , or at least not natural.”

   He’s identified more than 60 sites in places like Louisiana, New Jersey and Florida as what he calls ancient channels, canals and harbors. A handful are from Tampa down to Ft. Myers, including one in Englewood and one around Cortez in Manatee County. “There’s a horseshoe with a circle in the center of it, and other lines around it that suggest that they’re not natural.”

   Jensen says the sites are now about five feet underwater, and says there are underwater   banks and edges which indicate they were built before the sea level rise six to seven thousand years ago. “That’s the result of the process of digging above water, is to dump the refuse on the bank beside it.”

   “They definitely were modifying their environment. A canal system or harbor system is not that unthinkable at all.” Jodi Pracht is the Archaeologist for Sarasota County. She says our area has some of the oldest evidence of human inhabitance in all of North America, dating back between 10,000 and 12,000 years.  

   As far as Jensen’s claims she’s not so sure. “At the years this gentleman is talking about, and the level of modification ... the science does not support that.”

   At places like the Indian Mound park in Englewood there is evidence people lived here an awfully long time ago. However Jensen says his evidence suggests it’s much bigger then we ever thought. “(The diggings) probably were not made by some folks wearing leather buckskins, breechcloths and baskets on their heads.”

   Jensen says the widths  of some of the underwater waterways are larger than the Panama Canal — something which would have required some serious innovation. “Underwater sunken systems that require technology to produce that is beyond or at least equivalent to what we have today.”

   Jensen says he has uncovered some of the sites in just the past few months; perhaps finding something experts have yet to even see, let alone attempt to explain ... at least for now. “The science is very conservative. There is probably a lot more going on out  there than as a professional you would agree with out loud,” says Pracht.

   Naturally occurring or man made? How about from something not human at all? Jensen says he doesn’t know, but perhaps the answers are just beyond the water’s edge. “Depth reading and core samples will absolutely rewrite everything we know about history.”

   Jensen says his work and his theories are catching on. His website, which he says he makes no money on, is now receiving more than 25,000 hits a month.

[NP SUN 17Feb2011]

 Furthermore, Obama was born/created on the Island of Dr. Moreau, his mother revealed, a palmist told an official subsubcommittee in a closed-circuit television interview after a séance showed that alien cities off the coast of Florida were the inspiration for Dr. Moreau.

It was the main reason that John Francis, PhD, unmuted after 17 years and returned to the world of conspicuous consumption to complete the book, "The Ragged Edge of Silence."

Ignominy is no law for the excused.

Disco Taxi

"Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, por favor."

"Okay."  Tiny disco balls drop down from the ceiling with coloured spotlights pointing at them, filling the taxi with beams of light as fog rises from the floor. Bee Gees music with a Tijuana brass flare blares from tiny, hidden speakers.  "WELCOME TO DISCO TAXI!"

"You've got to be kidding?"

"No, sir and ma'am, this is Disco Taxi!"

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"As I speed through the streets of Ciudad de México, you will be required to perform dance moves made famous by international films, including those made in Hollywood, Bollywood and our own domestic film industry."

"Sounds fantastic."

"What are your names?"

"I'm Miguel and this is my girlfriend, Stephanie."

"Are you ready to play DISCO TAXI?!"

"Sure."

"Okay, if you will push the buttons on the spots where your headrests are illegally missing, the seats will automatically fold down and form a brightly-flashing dance floor...

"Great!  Okay, there are handholds along the edge of the ceiling that you can use while your partner is trying to imitate some of the famous film scenes I will call out.  Are you ready?!"

"Sí."

"Very good.  A panel of judges who are watching this disco taxi via remote cameras will rate your dance moves.  If, at any time, one of your judging total averages drops below a 5, on a scale of 1 to 10, the side doors will open and you will be ejected onto the street, no matter how fast or slow I am going."

"Uh, I don't know about that."

"Too late!  Your verbal contract has been signed!  Let's begin!"

"Tennessee University!"

Except by sitting with my wife while she watches the television, I am taking a one-week break from viewing or scanning news headlines.

I will also take into consideration the reduction of my use of electric/electronic power.

Will I stop microwaving my oatmeal (which I perform in an effort to kill any hidden bacteria or other lifeforms flowing out of the water tap)?

Will I make "sun tea" instead of heating water electrically?

Will I return to the military/outdoorsman habit of taking short cold showers?

Will I stop blogging for seven days?

The computer programmers have their assignments.

MORTIE and other networks are running on autopilot pretty well right now.

Do I say farewell or au revoir to NASCAR and Claire for a while, spending my time observing nature and gleaning stereotype behaviour from scents in the air?

I think so.

I have deeper meditation to nurture.

Despite humourous riffs, there really are bigger pictures to paint with my thoughts.

States of energy aren't the only states in town.

Freedom of speech is also freedom not to speak.

14,310 days is not very long, let me tell you.

Is there a "You Don't Know Jack" app?  Or has "Cash Cab" taken its place?

Guppies and Angelfish

The Committee asked me to get inside the thought sets of the authorities pursuing/executing the extradition of Julian Assange.

Now that we've revealed some of the tools we use, including quantum disembowelment, a few of the Committee members want to demonstrate how to locate the living relatives of those they want to control simply by probing their thought sets.

Then, when the time is right, or even when it's not, let loose a few schizophrenic thought threads into the families and immediately turn on the spotlights connected to HD webcams that are secretly following those families in their public and private lives, both on the ground and in the air (using drones flying in silent mode, stealth zeppelins and microsatellites disguised as space junk).

Obviously, you can see the Committee members are bored, having just finished their semiannual viewing of "Flash Gordon," especially the scenes where Emperor Ming toys with planets like yo-yos, not only to entertain themselves but to instruct the 0.5 member of the Committee of 7.5.

While I put my network to work on netting in so-called authorities, I am polishing the Rosetta stone of presentations that I am to give to the Subcommittee on the Advancement of Aging.

My topic for this evening's debate: Pantaloon in the Seven Ages of Man.

With this being International Women's Month, the Committee wants the Subcommittee to observe the effects of this month on the other 11 months that must be, by inference, either Domestic Women's 11/12ths Year or One Short of a Dozen Good International Men.

What better way to scientifically categorise this month than to put pantaloons on the street and record the reactions to their behaviour in this, another of a series of so-called enlightened years?

One will stuff one's face with Turkish Delights like an angelfish let loose in an aquarium full of guppies will have a few tails sticking out of its mouth after its stomach is giddily, gluttonously jam-packed with guppies.

A friend asked me why Marion Cotillard is in charge of Australia, her being French and not all that keen on politics Down Under.  I responded that the Inuit may have a thousand different words for snow but it'll do them no good when the surf's up in the Arctic Ocean and Russians are hanging ten in competition with Hawaiian megawave riders.

Okay, class, turn to page 11,943,644 of the epic poem known as the Upanishads and repeat after me, "Mesmerism messes misters' mistresses' mattresses matted meticulously, meridian matters midlatitude, mosses miss myth musters."

Small World

Wow!  My first cousin once removed, Jennifer H, was on Onion Sportsdome tonight sporting a field hockey uniform (#2).  How cool is that?

Big news on the small screen.

Now, programming regular to your back.