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PACIFIC OCEAN (July 28, 2016) - Forty ships and submarines representing 13 international partner nations steam in close formation during Rim of the Pacific 2016. Twenty-six nations, more than 40 ships and submarines, more than 200 aircraft, and 25,000 personnel are participating in RIMPAC from June 30 to Aug. 4, in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California. The world's largest international maritime exercise, RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity that helps participants foster and sustain the cooperative relationships that are critical to ensuring the safety of sea lanes and security on the world's oceans. RIMPAC 2016 is the 25th exercise in the series that began in 1971. (U.S. Navy Combat Camera photo by MC1 Ace Rheaume) 160728-N-SI773-0705
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Still in progress as I post this...
A link to the story:
www.azfamily.com/2025/01/25/search-inmate-who-escaped-tuc...
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UPDATE!!!
Just found out that the guy WAS in our park, spotted early this morning by a neighbor who called 911. Said he walked down the street then jumped into the wash and headed East.
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You may not know this but about a mile from our house (as the crow flies) there is the United States Penitentiary - Tucson, the Arizona State Prison Complex Tucson, and the Federal Correctional Institution For Women- Tucson. That's a lot of inmates in a pretty close area.
Evidently last night close to midnight the worst happened and one of the prisoners escaped. As of right now they are still searching for him and it seems to be focused right on our neighborhood. There have been no shelter in place orders but it's always possible.
This is a command post they've got set up just down the street from us, lot's of undercover vehicles! Nothing like a good jailbreak to get us Seasoned Citizens up and out in the street!
It has been said that every generation has changes to adjust to and I don’t believe ours was much different than the changes prior generations coped and adjusted to. World War II children had all that murder and trauma, the children of the depression had the poverty and uncertainties of life, children like my grandfather at the turn of the century witnessed the evolution of things like electricity, the coming of age of gadgets to make life easier in certain ways. This is just the nature of the species to be in a constant change. Perhaps for my life this change was in the types of recreational items we consumed in pursuit of what? Happiness, experience, wisdom, knowledge? Time will let us know the results of this experiment.
This age, the now, is this the computer age, the beginning of the computer age as it seems those machines change, improve, and expand almost daily. There was a need for me to plug in an old computer system, one with Windows 3.1 as the operating system, it was probably ten years old, and it was like driving an old frail car on its last legs. How quickly the new becomes old and discarded. My current computer gurus laugh when I say I am comfortable in Windows 95, the benefits of 98, 2000, and XP being so superior to this old program I write in. When I was recently forced to examine the possibility of purchasing a replacement unit for this sick PC the number of options was incredible. I had to choose between so many computer variables, memory, ram, hard drive, video cards, speakers, size of screen, wide screen or regular and this was just in the low end category of notebooks. Processors were confusing, I had to chose between, Celeron and Pentium and Centrino all of this with the knowledge that what I purchased was going to be somewhat obsolete in a year or so.
Shift back to 1968, the summer of. Hi-jinks continued and one high led to another as young entrepreneurs were everywhere marketing pot and hashish, mescaline, LSD, and MDA, along with speed, heroin, and cocaine. We were still juiceheads having done our time learning this pastime the other items slowly got some of our dollars as we became more knowledgeable of their attributes. There was an acid trip I took early that summer when on getting off I thought I had shrunken to the size of an infant and I tried to get under the bed of the rooming house we called The White House. The guys had never seen this behaviour before, the idea of a “Bad Trip” was something the press always harped on to advance the cops theory that all drugs are bad. We didn’t like cops. That summer a groovy coffee shop opened in the basement of Vic’s’ Meat Pie store that faced onto Weston Rd, Vics was next door to the Black Cat Variety Store named after a brand of cigarettes popular at the time. Vics backroom was a dingy place, poorly lit with several tables set with single candles in coloured dishes giving off a red glow The owner served coffee and cokes and bags of chips. We dropped something, it could have been acid who remembers. Big Vic the owner had a CLOSED sign in his window out front, so we went to the back doors through the laneway that ran behind the shops and found half the kids in the neighborhood down there. Younger kids too, all high on something or the other grooving to some tunes. Two local plainclothes coppers come walking in dressed in ridiculous costumes, a lumberjack shirt for one burly goof named Criscoe and a ball cap and jeans for his side kick Smith, we spotted them right away and razzed them even though we were ripped. It was the original Mutt and Jeff show. We just left and the place emptied everyone had somewhere to go and listen to tunes, and not be disturbed.
We hung out at the Place Pigalle on Avenue Road. After the Place closed we’d go to this spot this guy from the States had opened a funky coffee shop on Dupont St not to far from the bar and we would go there half pissed and sit around listening to his eclectic tunes. This spot we called Rocheyz, but if you were to spell it correctly it would be Roches. The owner was like a Vietnam Vet kind of guy who looked like Ginger Rogers, his red hair tied in a pony tail. He was always talking about shitting in a hole, made a good mockery of consumer life and in his small way turned us on to the coffee shop ideology of former beat types like Ginsberg and Kerouac without actually preaching their names. He served weird stuff like tofu and beet juice tea, the lighting was real dim so you could just hangout forever, we heard somewhere that he was a junkie.
Most of the guys were still in High School at York Memo except for Billy, he worked somewhere maybe for the firebrick company, everything was going to change for everyone, guys were getting serious about chicks, I just wanted to party, Pete was going to St Lawrence College in New York State on a full hockey scholarship, the brothers Frank and Jack were off to Peterborough to study at the newly opened Trent University. Count was top of the class and doing quite well at U of T. I had my own directions to follow.
One day I was servicing the fire equipment at a place called McPhar Geophysics; this was located in Don Mills, a suburb of Toronto with an area that had streets full of small manufacturing plants and warehouses. Don Mills is thought of an upper middle class area of very sharp homes. In the receiving department at McPhar there was a lot of exploration gear, things like, snowshoes, canoes, axes and I guess it was like going on a movie set for me, as my eyes bulged. The closest I’d ever gotten to a pair of snowshoes was by watching the show Eric of the Yukon and His dog King, or something like that. A big swarthy guy with a beard and coveralls ran the shipping department and I wasn’t shy, I asked what this company did as he packaged neat things to be shipped to addresses printed in big lettering on the parcels, exciting names like, Rouyan/Noranda, Quebec, Kirkland Lake, Ontario, Sao Paolo, Brazil. This outfit was the leader in geophysical surveying in Canada, maybe the world as the founder of the company had invented this piece of machinery for use in WW-II to detect submarines underwater or something like that, when things get technical, remember Science class I get edgy. They found a use for the discovery in the mining industry, locating ore bodies.
Here’s how it worked. A typical set up would consist of six people, in the woods in an area, a remote area, near a mine site or a potential mining site. The party operator would put his Receiver on the ground, it was like an electronic sending unit, full of numerous incomprehensible to me buttons, switches, graphs and toggle like switches. This operator we’ll call him John Parker cause that was the guys name I trained with at the first place in Val D’Or Quebec in early January 1969. From Parkers’ receiver a number of wires with crocodile clips, each wire about twelve feet long, were unrolled and hooked up to my piece of machinery, the Transmitter. This little baby was my (the second in commands) equipment. It also had a lot of buttons and switches and a place for Parkers six wires to attach to. Maybe there were three positive and three negative wires. The transmitter was supplied power by a portable generator carried on some bodies back in a rucksack type fashion. In turn the wires were attached to longer wires, some a hundred feet long at six stations, three in front of the set up at certain intervals and three behind the set up at similar intervals. These wires were attached to eight foot steel rods which had been pounded into the ground by staff hired locally using big sledge ended axes. The gas generator was fired up and Parker would play with his buttons and ask me to change the frequency on my piece of equipment, like a parrot I would take his directions, then he would take numbers, called readings and write them into a book. Electric current was sent through the wires into the ground and our machinery somehow measured the results and this would give mining engineers the information they needed as to what direction the mineral they were mining was in or if there were any minerals worth mining for. At night it was our job, Parker and mine to take the days numbers and put them on graph paper, we had to use a slide ruler and this was a little tough for my grade nine math, especially since I’d told the owner/boss Ash Mullan that I had grade twelve which he bought since I showed up for my interview in my nice Invictus Football Team jacket, crew cut and all. I winged the night work for quite some time and thought I had invented a better way of doing the radius work, which we’ll get to in a while. After the mining engineers received these reports which I suppose they paid big money for they, if interested would send in a crew to drill the earth and take out what they call core samples that could be studied to determine the worth of the project.
For some reason this was a big thing, me leaving town to work away. It was like I was going to war which I tried to do twice, once a few years earlier the Canadian Navy turned me down for service after my final interview when they asked me my opinion on the Americans in Vietnam, I said, “they shouldn’t be there,” oops so much for saying the wrong thing about your allies, and that year 68 Bill and I tried to sign up for of all things the United States Marines. One time when we were down in Niagara Falls getting drunk at the Johns Club, a place where you went in and they took your order and like a man you’d say, “I’ll have a tray please,” and a waitress would bring you thirty small glasses of beer, and in less than an hour you were so pissed and you’d go for a leak and come back to your table and Bill had changed his name to something like Steve McQueen and he was actually on a movie shoot in the Falls and just taking a little time off for R&R and the ladies fell for it a few times! The following week after sobering up we headed back to Niagara Falls on a mission. The marines recruiting office was in a warehousey part of town in an old factory or something and they told us to go sign up for our own armed forces. I removed some kind of emblem, like a bomb shelter sign off the building and along with my other collectibles stuck it on a wall in the White House.
So it wasn’t as if this was the first time I tried to leave, it was the first time I actually got to leave. Close to my departing there was a big drunken go away, everyone was there, all the chicks we hung out with, Barb, kind of my date but we never did anything, Debbie , soon to be Jacks wife, Mickey who Pete was spending a lot of time with on the hood of his little mini car, Phyllis this Italian chick who was hounding Frank, Herbie’s girl, beautiful Ruth Hope the ministers daughter, Bill was still stagging it, it was a big thing, a big party. Mom had moved the family up to an apartment on Weston Road near Cadet Cleaners and Sid’s barbershop. Prior to that we had lived at 26 Victoria Blvd forever, the landlord, a Mr.Gowland must have sold the house. Alex was away on some secret mission we don’t really know where, rumour had it he was in the States on a football scholarship, another rumour was he was in Montreal. The younger kids were there, Kevin, Shane, Sue and Barb as well as mom who loved the teenagers coming over. The party got a little loud and out of hand, I recall the yellow cop cars parked on Weston Road, their red flashing roof top lights, then the cops coming in the front door and all of us running out the back door, and through to Buttonwood Avenue or was it Bartonville and then all of us hiding in the hedges at Bala Avenue school. We left the cops with mom who were busy asking her who was still drinking there, we all got away, we were all underage, and that’s just how it was then.
McPhar was a generous company, a few weeks prior to Parker and I leaving for Val D’Or they had me in for an afternoon, had me open up a new bank account where my cheque of $900.00 a month would be deposited, gave a start up expense cheque of $300.00 from which I was to purchase, felt lined snow boots, waterproof pants and a below zero parka. This was way before high tech clothing was available. Down on Yonge Street I found an Army Surplus shop that had neat war stuff and I bought a knee length grey parka, down filled, with a piece of dead fur on the hood. Some of the air force crests and badges were still on the sleeves. For pants I picked a pair of blue nylon jobs that were about half an inch thick with insulation. I should have spent more on boots though as the cheap dark blue zipper up snowmobile feltpaks I purchased were no match for eight hours trekking in snow at times six feet deep. My co-worker, trainer, boss John Parker met me midtown, he had rented a brand new olive coloured Pontiac four door for the drive up to Quebec, we didn’t get to far that first night as a winter storm forced us off the road in Barrie where I had a taste of a company bought motel room and a nice steak dinner, I knew right then I was going to love this gig.
Next day the snow still fell and I drove for a while giving Parker a break, it was rough driving up around Sudbury and when we turned right up towards Kirkland Lake this was the first time I’d truly been north. Prior to that us southern boys would think of Barrie as being north I would quickly discover that the North was a large area comprised of incredible terrain, long views, kind people, and a coldness that was not at all like the cold of Toronto. We made it to Val D’Or Quebec not to far from the Ontario border, perhaps an hour’s drive. Our hotel was an old two storey wood framed structure a few blocks from the centre of town which was about the size of Gravenhurst. The streets were covered in snow like a postcard. For meals there was an arrangement with the hotel to make us breakfast and a packed lunch, we would tell them how many sandwiches of what type, peanut butter(beurre d’arachide) and jam, or sliced ham(jambon), and so on. Dinners we went in to town and had a hot meal, anything within reason, no alcohol, and the company paid for everything.
Walking into town you could better understand the quietness of this village, as some kids skated and played hockey at an outdoor rink with boards, the heat from their breath coming out of their mouths, a pair of incandescent bulbs glared under round aluminum hoods illuminating the ice rink at each end. Nobody was on the streets, thick smoke poured from the chimneys of the tiny homes, some cabin like in size. The smell of burning firewood filled the air with that type of sweetness which a log of apple or some other such wood gives off. In town, I looked inside a few drinking establishments, now and then, had a couple of beers, spotted the older hookers plying their trade at the front of the bars dressed in obvious get ups, black, torn fishnet stockings, rouged cheeks and their breasts busting out from clothing that was meant for younger smaller ladies. In Ontario towns you would not see such flagrant prostitution, Quebec was more lenient, more accepting of mans need for comfort. Being on my best behaviour I mostly observed as I was learning a new trade and I did not want to jeopardize this by acting up.
Our first day in the woods was a Sunday our day off and Parker took me to a field to practice snowshoeing, I caught on immediately after falling a few times. It is quite a neat experience as the body is suspended above the snow which was quite deep, perhaps three or five feet deep. Your feet do sink in a few inches depending on the crustiness of the snow but then they stop and you learn quickly to walk like a penguin, that is with your feet intentionally pointing left and right instead of straight ahead so your snow shoes will not catch each other. To me this was like a new sport. Going up hills was a skill as was descending hills and making turns, after a while it became natural. As the day began the leather harness was easy to use as it was warm and pliable. After a day’s work it could be frozen solid and difficult to manage. Complicating matters was the fact that we wore packs to move our gear through the woods, my transmitter weighed in at ninety pounds so the effort required was high and often this would test the abilities of any man. Whoever led the party through the pre-staked areas of survey would have the added burden of breaking fresh snow so the followers had a bit of an easier walk.
Our gig in Val D’Or was not very lengthy, about three weeks. I was for the most part able to do the work with pleasure and discovered these long days out in the snow, in nature were much to my liking. There was an eerie absence of wildlife for some reason, I guess I expected to see deer and moose and bears around every corner but this was not the case. Nights in the town were so much like a Cornelius Krieghoff painting, snow covered cabins with smoke pouring from the chimneys the joie de vivre of the townsfolk. My limited French vocabulary was a valued asset as I could in short time communicate my needs in very rudimentary terms, ham of course was jambon, beurre d’arachides was peanut butter, what I then had difficulty with as I do today is the rapidity of the conversations, a smile was always available as well as at times a questioning look.
There was a short furlough in Toronto for a week while the next gig was being prepared for, it was to be in Kirkland Lake with a few days here and there in Timmins. These towns were gold mining centres from earlier times. I was flush with cash as there was nowhere to spend money in Val Dor except the occasional biere at one of the many French pubs. My finances had always been precarious. There was the matter of a small loan in the amount of about seven hundred dollars that I owed HFC and I had no intention of ever paying it. Those dupes had loaned me money for Christmas presents one year at their ridiculous rate of twenty percent. Like I was going to buy presents, I drank all the money in about three weeks. A goofy manager at the HFC office in Weston, upstairs from a shop took me in to sign some forms, swear allegiance to pay this debt, he was a Canadian version of Snidely Whiplash, an English born chap who would have been more suited to being a prison guard. Besides this debt I was in the clear and once I left Dyer and Miller and I changed addresses the loan to HFC was not a consideration and I highly recommend every body do this at least once in life, that is get a loan from some rip off organization and stiff them. Get a bogus birth certificate or something, and get a loan.
There were parties of course on my return you would have thought I’d been away for years. The following Sunday I was to make my way to Kirkland Lake Ontario via train. I’d never been on a train ride except for the time we came home from Parry Sound all drunked up on the warm Labatt 50s. At the station Frank came to see me off and at the last minute I said why don’t you come along for the ride as I had a bag of grass to smoke and he had nothing to do. It wasn’t long before we were smoking the joints, I had pre rolled them, there were about thirty, the dope was pretty mild, not like today’s killer weed. We smoked between the trains cars. Back in the coach someone was reading a book called Five Easy Pieces and if you stared long enough you could make the letters interchange sort of a mini hallucination. Six joints later and a couple of sandwiches we were in Kirkland Lake. Getting off the train we noticed the temperature was 35 degrees below zero and this was a big thing for us city boys. Parker, the boss met me at the train, I introduced him to Frank and he hired him on the spot to work on the crew which was to start soon.
Frank was kind of gangly at the time, going through a growth spurt, he was always bent over because he was taller than everyone else, he had a gentle manner and enjoyed the usual stuff, like, beer, tokes and women. I loaned him some money and he bought a suitable work outfit, some clothes as he had nothing but the clothes on his back. I recall he purchased a better pair of felt pack boots than mine, the ones with the leather uppers bonded to heavy rubber bottoms that were more waterproof especially if you put Dubbin on them at night. At the Parklane Hotel we shared a room, we had management give us an extra roll a way bed and the cost was quite minimal, they ran a tab for Frank. Meals were taken in the hotel dining room and lunches were prepared for us. As I recall the room was quite small we literally had to crawl over each other to get to the can.
We had a day off before work started and that first night in downtown Kirkland was like magic. The Beatles new recording Hey Jude was broadcast live around the world and we caught this in an empty shabby store front bar. Outside it was freezing cold but the coldness was different, it was a dry cold, the wind not holding the same sharp bite as a Toronto wind blowing off of Lake Ontario. The women were looking pretty good and I had a new pick up line, “mon petite serpent” at this the ladies would almost instantly run and hide. Doctor Doolittle was playing at the local theatre and one night we went to the show ripped on our mediocre weed, leaving the theatre singing the songs that were sung in the movie.
Work was difficult as it was cold and there was a lot of snow. Town was exciting, our hotel had a Tavern in the basement where a stripper appeared in the evenings. Her name was Patty and we affectionately called her the Portuguese Pig, I don’t know why because we never got any where with her, she had a room in the hotel and we’d always be sneaking peeks at her boobs as she changed before shows. A friend of hers named Candy was around now and then and I thought she was pretty special but again it was like we were all Toronto outcasts and this alone made us buddies. Somewhere down the line Patty the Portuguese Pig knew Bil and she had a crush on him. Nights would find us in the Tavern listening to crappy groups who kept playing a Credence Clearwater Revival song called Proud Mary and the Tom Jones tune, Green Green Grass of Home. Parker was sorry he had hired Frank because we didn’t ever have our minds on the job and we were always hung over. Bill would call regularly he was ready to escape his reality.
One night we borrowed the company car and drove to Rouyn Noranda for beers with these French Hippies, a guy and his chick whom we met the week previous at the Kirkland Winter Carnival. Rouyn was not far maybe fifty miles and while there we smoked some nice hash that they had and Frank was making a move on the chick. We got pretty high and it was time to get back to Kirkland. Frank started to drive while I was napping, we were half way to Montreal when I woke up and noticed a road sign that said Montreal ahead 150 miles, this was before the metric system had been imposed on us. We assessed the situation and turned around we were about three hours from Kirkland Lake We got back just as the sun was coming up. The boss, John Parker never had a clue. Another time we were hung over and it was bloody cold, we didn’t feel like working, I dropped my receiver climbing over a farm fence and called Parker over, he turned the machine on and had to take it to the little airport and ship it out to have it repaired. That was good for a couple of days off. Of course there were times when we had no days off, we would work fourteen days straight if the crew was willing so it all worked out.
A job near Timmins not to far away needed us so we drove over got rooms in some el cheapo hotel where Patty the Portuguese Pig and her friend Candy were working and this was great because the girls had now let us tie their bikini tops on before shows and apply the glue to the pasties and then watch as the girls pushed them on over their luscious nipples, still no touching, just looking. This trip would be my introduction to snowmobiles. At seven in the morning we left the rooms and piled into the company car, the same four door Pontiac, Parker always drove. We drove to a remote area, parked the car then a few men would show up with ski doos and drive us the final half hour into the worksite as we sat on sleds pulled by the ski doos. It was a far cry from the glamour and hot rodding associated with today’s snowmobilers. Our work was done on a frozen lake a new experience for me, there were long views of barren landscapes, tree lined lakes not a bird or animal insight. Timmins had more bars than Kirkland as unlike Kirkland it was still a thriving gold mining community while Kirkland had began to lose its roll as king of the gold mining towns. Sid Bernstein an old Jewish waiter I met later in life at the Seaway Beverly Hills Hotel had been to Kirkland in the 1930s and he talked about the boom days, the Gold Rush Fever.
Work was an endless day of carrying gear over strange moonscape like terrain, areas where no trees existed; as it was snow covered you never got a feel for the land. Parker took care of the night work being a real stickler for accuracy and a dedicated employee, he seemed content to work all day have a meal, go to his room and do the calculations with the slide ruler and chart the results inked on the special roll of graph paper for this purpose. It wasn’t ever necessary for him to socialize, have a beer with the guys, he was work oriented, I’d never met anyone like this before. John Parker came from Saskatchewan, had a degree from DeVry Tech a technical school and when he wasn’t working he had his head in some learning type book, never a novel or something fun. Yet this mismatch of personalities did not deter us from getting the work done, it was hard work, perhaps the hardest I would ever endure and I have to respect that man from Saskatchewan as he never complained always was a good leader. Later on the job I learned that the preferred employee came from a farming background as this type of person was used to long hard days in adverse conditions, and did not suffer the need of rest and relaxation. The job ended and Frank headed back to Toronto with a few dollars in his pocket and this bonding would keep us friends forever.
The ride home.
Photo from Lunar Module Orion. And from the transcript:
176 59 38 Duke (LM): You look brighter than any star or planet I've ever seen. Against that black sky.
176 59 53 Young (LM): Either that or we're rendezvousing with Venus.
176 59 55 Duke (LM): Yeah, we're coming to Venus. (Laughter)
177 08 57 Duke (LM ): Boy, you are beautiful, Ken.
177 09 00 Mattingly: That's the nicest thing anyone's said.
177 09 01 Duke (LM): Casper ...
177 09 02 Young (LM): What a rendezvous machine this is.
177 09 07 Duke (LM): Casper is really beautiful.
PHILIPPINE SEA (March 26, 2018) - An F-35B Lightning II, attached to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (31st MEU), prepares to take off from the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1). The Wasp Expeditionary Strike Group, with embarked 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, is operating in the Indo-Pacific region to enhance interoperability with partners, serve as a ready-response force for any type of contingency and advance the Up-Gunned ESG concept. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Michael Molina) 180326-N-VK310-0070
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WHEELER ARMY AIR FIELD, Hawaii (Jan. 6, 2016) - Aircrews, from 16th Combat Aviation Brigade and their AH-64E Apache Guardians hover above the tarmac at Wheeler Army Airfield before landing to train with 2-6 Cavalry, 25th Combat Aviation Brigade (Photo by Sgt. Daniel Kyle Johnson (USARPAC)
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Modèle / Model : Citroën C4 I
Affectation / Assignment : Gendarmerie Nationale, Gendarmerie Départementale / National Gendarmerie, Departmental Gendarmerie
Fonction / Function : Véhicule de commandement / Command vehicle
Mise en service / Commissioning : 2009
The Apollo 11 command module Columbia hatch exterior, as seen during the exhibition, Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission, at The Museum of Flight, Seattle. The hatch served as the entry and exit point to the command module Columbia on the launch pad and after landing.
Kabal of the Pallid Sun command Venom, for the Archon and his Incubi retinue. Minor conversion work to make it stand out from the others.
PHILIPPINE SEA (Nov. 16, 2021) - A CV-22B Osprey from the U.S. Air Force 21st Special Operations Squadron lands on the flight deck of the forward-deployed amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6). America, lead ship of the America Amphibious Ready Group, is operating in U.S. 7th Fleet to enhance interoperability with allies and partners and serve as a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jonathan D. Berlier) 211116-N-BT681-1073
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CAMP H.M. SMITH, Hawaii (Sept. 18, 2017) - Munitions from a U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps and Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) bilateral mission explode at the Pilsung Range, South Korea. The U.S. and ROKAF aircraft flew across the Korean Peninsula and practiced attack capabilities by releasing live weapons at the training area before returning to their respective home stations. This mission was conducted in direct response to North Korea's intermediate range ballistic missile launch, which flew directly over northern Japan on September 14 amid rising tension over North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile development programs. (U.S. Army photo by SSgt. Steven Schneider) 170918-O-N0132-6758
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Armee de L'Air & de L'Space Boeing E-3CF AWACS 204/702-CD heads home at FL340 as FAF9025
Earlier it had tracked North to a point over Scotland where it provided Command & Control services for on-going Exercises
for a couple of hours before returning home via the East Coast and then down over Seaford Head
276A5497
TTC Command Bus #572 sits at Queensway Garage in November 2002. This 1975 built MC 8 was ex Gray Coach. It was retired in 2005.
EAST CHINA SEA (Jan. 30, 2015) - An AV-8B Harrier, assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 265, lands on the flight deck of the forward-deployed amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) as a part of flight deck certification. Bonhomme Richard is currently deployed in the U.S. 7th Fleet Area of Operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kevin V. Cunningham) 150130-N-UF697-116
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YOKOSUKA, Japan (May 16, 2017) - The U.S. Navy's forward-deployed aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), departs Fleet Activities (FLEACT) Yokosuka for its 2017 patrol. FLEACT Yokosuka provides, maintains, and operates base facilities and services in support of 7th Fleet's forward-deployed naval forces, 71 tenant commands, and 26,000 military and civilian personnel. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Peter Burghart/Released) 170516-N-XN177-489
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PACIFIC OCEAN (June 27, 2016) - An F/A-18E Super Hornet assigned to the Vigilantes of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 151 launches from USS John C. Stennis' (CVN 74) flight deck during routine flight operations. Providing a combat-ready force to protect collective maritime interests, John C. Stennis is operating as part of the Great Green Fleet on a regularly scheduled Western Pacific deployment. (U.S. Navy photo by MC3 Kenneth Rodriguez Santiago/Released) 160627-N-GZ947-232
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Soon to be displaced from the route by a fleet of brand new Pulsar 2's, ARRIVA Buses Wales VDL Commander 2509 - CX05 AAE enters Bangor on service 5 Llandudno - Caernarfon.
This bus has now transferred to Rhyl depot!
The American Industrial Center commands the street corner with an authoritative presence that speaks to both its historical roots and contemporary purpose. Shot during the blue hour when natural light fades and artificial illumination takes over, this massive structure showcases one of San Francisco's most successful examples of industrial adaptive reuse at the Pier 70 complex.
This building's design language is distinctly different from its historic brick neighbors across the street. The warm terracotta and cream-colored facade, punctuated by hundreds of steel-framed windows arranged in a precise grid, represents a more modern approach to preserving industrial character. The exposed concrete structure with its bold horizontal banding creates a rhythm across the facade that's both industrial and elegant. It's a careful balance between honoring the site's manufacturing heritage and creating functional contemporary space.
The ground floor colonnade is particularly striking—a series of white columns creating a covered arcade that provides both practical weather protection and architectural drama. The generous ceiling height and open design of this ground-level space recall the loading docks and open bays that would have characterized the original industrial waterfront. Modern lighting fixtures illuminate the walkway, casting bright pools of light that contrast beautifully with the deep blue twilight sky above.
Looking at the fenestration pattern, you can see how the building is organized. Those massive window groupings speak to the flexible loft-style spaces within—high ceilings, open floor plans, and abundant natural light. This is exactly what creative companies, tech startups, and design firms look for when choosing office space. The industrial bones provide character that no suburban office park could replicate, while the modern systems and finishes provide the functionality contemporary businesses require.
The street scene itself tells a story about how Pier 70 functions today. A few cars are parked along the curbs, traffic signals glow red and blue, and the crosswalk striping is crisp and fresh. The overhead power lines cutting across the frame are a reminder that this is a working neighborhood, not some sanitized development that erases all traces of urban grit. That utility pole on the right and the various street fixtures ground the scene in everyday urban reality.
What's particularly notable about this perspective is how it captures the building's corner condition. Corner buildings have always been architecturally significant—they're visible from multiple directions, they anchor intersections, and they help define the character of a neighborhood. The American Industrial Center embraces this responsibility, presenting strong facades on both street frontages and creating a landmark that helps orient visitors to the district.
The lighting design deserves attention. Those glowing windows on the upper floors suggest activity within—people working late, businesses that operate beyond traditional hours. The variety in the window illumination, with some blue-toned lights visible among the warmer glows, hints at the diverse mix of tenants and uses within. Meanwhile, the ground-floor lighting creates a welcoming pedestrian environment, crucial for a neighborhood that's trying to balance its industrial past with a more mixed-use future.
Dogpatch and the broader Pier 70 area have become a laboratory for urban planners and developers interested in adaptive reuse. Rather than demolishing these massive industrial structures, San Francisco has chosen to preserve and repurpose them. The American Industrial Center represents a slightly different approach than the historic brick buildings nearby—here, the strategy was to create new construction that respects the industrial aesthetic without directly mimicking historical architecture. It's contextual design that speaks to its surroundings while maintaining its own distinct identity.
The empty streets at this hour create a contemplative atmosphere. You can appreciate the architecture without distraction, study the interplay of light and shadow, and imagine the building's multiple lives—past industrial uses, periods of vacancy or underutilization, and now this current chapter as a hub for the modern economy.
JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii (Aug. 8, 2017) - Two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers assigned to the 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, deployed from Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, flew from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, for a 10-hour mission, flying in the vicinity of Kyushu, Japan, the East China Sea, and the Korean peninsula, Aug. 7, 2017 (HST). During the mission, the B-1s were joined by Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-15s as well as Republic of Korea Air Force KF-16 fighter jets, performing two sequential bilateral missions. These flights with Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) demonstrate solidarity between Japan, ROK and the U.S. to defend against provocative and destabilizing actions in the Pacific theater. (Courtesy photo) 170808-O-ZZ999-0003
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