A Wilderness of Ordinary Places
View allAll Photos Tagged Contingency
It was amazing to see the Indigenous participation in Sharm El Sheikh. With more than 300 delegates, the Indigenous contingency was one of the biggest at COP27. Community leaders came to Egypt from every corner of the world to share the stories of their communities and advocate for the rights of Indigenous Peoples during the climate negotiations.
Their engagement is so important as the territories of the world’s 370 million indigenous peoples cover 24% of land worldwide and contain 80% of the world’s biodiversity.
Indigenous peoples have continued to resist the occupation and deforestation of lands they have lived in for centuries. They also understand the importance to protect the forests in the interests of combating climate change. They also know the potential for their decision-making power at a local and global level that may contribute to saving the planet.
It will be critical that indigenous communities have funding and authority to ensure their rights are respected so they can choose for themselves the level of their integration into the global economy.
Reworked an old one with the trial version of Lightroom 4 Beta...some nice new features if you like Lightroom. We are getting a little snowstorm today so hopefully will see some pretty snow shots from the New England contingency. Have a great weekend.
” When life closes a door, it opens a window. And then, zombies climb in and eat you.”
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☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ TANAKA ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠
Mask - Hardman Reaper @ NEO Japan
⛧ Unrigged and Resizable
Track Suit - Okinawa Track Suit @ Mainstore
⛧ Jake, Legacy
Bat - Chained Baseball Bat @ Mainstore
⛧ 3 Bento Idles and 1 Hot animation
⛧ Blood Particles
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☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ Codex ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠
Gauges - Itadaki Gauged @ Fetish Fair
⛧ Swallow
⛧ Human &Pixie
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☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ Badwolf ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠
Rings - Ruthless Rings (UPDATED for Reborn) @Mainstore
⛧ For Ebody, Jake, Kupra, Legacy M/F
⛧ Wear 1 or wear all
Few things are more satisfying than going to a beautiful place that you have to slap on some boots and do some exertion to get to a place no vehicle or casual walk can reach. I also say this with a bit of melancholy as the number of years I have left that I can pull this off are dwindling down to a few. Still it was a beautiful day and one of the most enjoyable hikes I've done in a while. However I took so much time savoring nature's beauty by the time I got back to my car the sun had already set well below the horizon and it was minutes away from getting totally dark though I had a small but high powered flashlight in pack for that contingency.
I mentioned yesterday that this sunset on Greens Beach in northern Tasmania was taken just as the world was being plunged into a series of lock downs. They continue in many parts of the world, as the toll from COVID-19 continues to grow. It was an extraordinary experience to be there at the time, but looking back now it seems to stand as a fitting memorial to those who have departed from us this year.
In a world of radical contingency ("things just happen"), there is no rhyme or reason to all this. Calling on a god to intervene is exactly the same as blaming that god for what has happened. Better be like the mystics and remain silent, and let Eternity reveal itself beyond the language of the gods. As that great mystic poet William Blake wrote:
"He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Live's in eternity's sunrise."
But the heart still cries even if we still our minds. And so from the suffering Israelites in the Babylonian exile came the cry of the heart: "Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy." (Psalm 130:1).
The music I have chosen to share with you today is Sir John Tavener's best known choral piece. He wrote it for a dear friend in 1993, Athene Hariades, who was killed in a cycling accident. He took the words of a Greek Orthodox nun, Mother Thekla, and put them to some truly ethereal music. But just four years later this "Song for Athene" would become a lasting choral tribute to Princess Diana as the world watched her funeral in tears.
So here is "Song for Athene" which begins with the line I have taken as my title, "May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." And linking this with William Blake we can add, May our earthly sunset be transformed to Eternity's sunrise.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK3bIQxMMEg
"Alleluia. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Alleluia. Remember me, o Lord, when you come into your kingdom.
Alleluia. Give rest, o Lord, to your handmaid who has fallen asleep.
Alleluia. The Choir of Saints have found the well-spring of life and door of paradise.
Alleluia. Life : a shadow and a dream.
Alleluia. Weeping at the grave creates the song : Alleluia.
Alleluia. Come, enjoy the rewards and crowns I have prepared for you."
- Sir John Tavener (1944-2013) "Towards the Musica Perennis" www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK7Qkxt8FNs
I always want to see firsthand how glaciers help carve the distinctive jagged peaks and wide valleys of the Canadian Rockies. The Iceline Trail satisfies my intense curiosity about nature and relentless passion for hiking with my camera gear.
I took the Iceline Trail/Celeste Lake/Yoho Valley Trail (17 km loop, 700 meters elevation gain) as it offers a heavy dose of high-impact scenery including waterfalls, sub-alpine forest, glaciers, tarns, meadows and lakes. This is also a great weather contingency option if the weather turns bad and you need to get down into the tree line.
Painted for Conrail, stenciled for IC, pulling tonnage for CN, an uncommon powder blue "devil" and contingency give a good tug to the Waterloo-bound manifest traffic on M33791 04, curving across Catfish Creek and commencing its climb out of the Mississippi River valley and the city of Dubuque, IA, wreaked by delays and running hours behind. The likely culprit for the this M337's unusually late mid-afternoon departure from Dubuque has cleared out but left copious evidence in its wake, most conspicuously in the white powdery substance coating the ground and plastered to the flanks of the lead locomotive.
The tri weekly Pittsburgh & Ohio Central ASL job pops out of Bells Tunnel and over Chartiers Creek before surrounding itself with patchy, but vibrant fall colors. This former PRR branch is a largely underappreciated gem in the Pittsburgh area, yielding many unique and different perspectives to be seen.
Despite a large contingency of businesses located alongside or within earshot of the branch, G&W has no intentions/interests in re-expanding the traffic on the line save for almost entirely all plastics traffic.
Wishing all of you a successful, peaceful, prosperous, and healthy new year.
This is probably the most atypical vantage I’ve shared for a New Year’s image from Seattle. The original place I had in mind was in downtown Seattle, but the view of the Space Needle was obstructed by one of what seems like HUNDREDS of omnipresent construction cranes that dominate the entire region. It was the same view I captured for New Year’s 2012, and I was hoping to improve upon it.
Completely deterred, with 55 minutes until midnight, I contemplated a contingency plan. This led me on an impromptu voyage to Harbor Island, the largest manmade island in the United States, operated by the Port of Seattle.
The skyline is to the right of the Space Needle, but far enough in distance that including the skyline would have severely diminished the Space Needle, thus underwhelming the thrill of the fireworks display emanating from its structure.
What you’re viewing are the railways for transporting cargo in and out of the city, along with some warehouses, facing northwards at the outline of Queen Anne Hill, one of the city’s most popular neighborhoods, with the iconic Space Needle at its southern end.
I like the composition for this New Year’s photograph as it’s unusual and my first that does not incorporate downtown Seattle.
If you have three minutes, please enjoy TIA’s 2015 Photographic Retrospective Video.
TIA’s Vue Atypique Newsletter: Year-End Edition.
TIA OFFICIAL WEBSITE / VUE ATYPIQUE / TIA TWITTER / TIA OFFICIAL BLOG / TIA INSTAGRAM
STS-135 (ISS assembly flight ULF 7) was the 135th and final mission of the American Space Shuttle program. It used the orbiter Atlantis and hardware originally processed for the STS-335 contingency mission, which was not flown. STS-135 launched on 8 July 2011, and landed on 21 July 2011, following a one-day mission extension. The four-person crew was the smallest of any shuttle mission since STS-6 in April 1983. The mission's primary cargo was the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) Raffaello and a Lightweight Multi-Purpose Carrier (LMC), which were delivered to the International Space Station (ISS). The flight of Raffaello marked the only time that Atlantis carried an MPLM.
“The secret of the imperfection of all things, of their inconstancy, their fragility, their falling into nothingness, is that they are only a shadowy expression of the one Being from Whom they receive their being. If they were absolutely perfect and changeless in themselves, they would fail in their vocation, which is to give glory to God by their contingency.”
—Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island
The “I,” the human being, is that level of nature in which nature becomes aware of not being made by itself. In this way, the entire cosmos is like the continuation of my body. But one could also say that the human being is that level of nature in which nature experiences its own contingency. Man experiences himself as contingent, subsists by means of something else, because he does not make himself by himself. I stand on my feet because I lean on another. I am because I am made. Like my voice, which is the echo of a vibration, if I cease the vibration, it no longer exists. Like spring water rising up–it is, in its entirety, derived from its source. And like a flower which depends completely upon the support of its roots. So I do not consciously say “I am,” in a sense that captures my entire stature as a human being if I do not mean “I am made.” The ultimate equilibrium of life depends upon this. The human being’s natural truth, as we have seen, is his nature as creation–he exists because he is continually possessed. And, when he recognizes this, then he breathes fully, feels at peace, glad.
--The Religious Sense, LUIGI GIUSSANI, pg 106
37610 passes a flooded Brentingby on 28th October 2019 working 3Q76 March - Derby RTC test train
This is my 1st real effort at getting a reflection shot as there arent many possibilities, if any, round our area
Whilst I was there a chap from Environment Agency turned up to check the water level. Apparently this area is flooded deliberatly to prevent Melton Mowbray from flooding. Although the amount of water this season is exceptional he said there were further contingencies to prevent larger flooding
15-November-2024
This sort of denim color aberration was given by the combination of blue sky and blue sky highly reflective pure white (albedo 0,9 out of 1) ice crystals that extensively covered the upper valley in a completely shady part.
A sort of blue hour given by weather-landscape contingencies.
In the case in the photo it is a mixed phenomenon of hoar frost and hard rime, as it is caused by low clouds from thermal inversion, but pushed towards the upper valley by a light wind from the north-east, which explains why it is not present in the lowest part of the valley, but suspended at a slightly higher altitude,
Despite it being its 3rd West Country appearance in just under 2 months, an effort has to be made to catch the stunning 37688 in equally as stunning weather. After bringing down 5 ex EMR trailers as part of a contingency plan owing to the IET saga, 37688 was tasked with collecting them just over two weeks after bringing them down. 37688 thunders past Marsh Mills on the return run ready to climb Hemerdon bank. The working was 5Z41 0900 Laira T.& R.S.M.D. - Crewe H.S.
The idea for the Blue Ridge Parkway was born when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited the newly constructed Skyline Drive in Virginia in 1933. Then U.S. Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia suggested to the president the road should be extended to connect with the recently established Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Roosevelt convened the governors of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee and asked that a planning team be created. On November 24, 1933, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes approved this “park-to-park” highway as a public works project.
With a budget of $16 million, Ickes hired Stanley Abbott, a New York landscape architect, to oversee the project, and Abbott’s vision of a chain of parks and recreational areas with preserved viewsheds began to take shape. A study was conducted to determine the best route for the Parkway with the recommendation being a leg of the highway from the Blowing Rock, NC, area extend over the Unaka Mountains into Tennessee, connecting with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The decision was met with great controversy, particularly by the city of Asheville, NC, which found itself in dire economic straits at the height of the Great Depression. The Asheville Chamber of Commerce and other city leaders joined forces to lobby against the proposed route in favor of a road that passed through their city. An intense campaign began in Washington with the states of Tennessee and North Carolina each vying for a different path for the Parkway.
The Asheville contingency employed the influential U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Josephus Daniels, to lobby on their behalf. Roosevelt had served under Daniels as Secretary of the Navy when Daniels was Defense Secretary under Woodrow Wilson, and the two men were friends. Daniels managed to sway the administration to favor the Asheville route and construction began September 11, 1935, near Cumberland Knob, North Carolina.
Most of the construction was done by private contractors, but a variety of New Deal public works programs were also employed, including the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Emergency Relief Administration (ERA), and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). When World War II began, approximately 170 miles were open to travel and another 160 miles were under construction. By the early 1950s, only half of the Blue Ridge Parkway was completed.
In the mid-1950s, the National Park Service launched a ten-year development program, called Mission 66, to mark the 50th anniversary of the agency's creation. The plan included an accelerated effort to complete construction of the Parkway by 1966. This initiative was very successful, finishing all of the Parkway’s construction with the exception of 7.7 miles at Grandfather Mountain, North Carolina. Grandfather owner, Hugh Morton, objected to the proposed construction at Grandfather, citing the fragility of the mountain’s ecology.
After years of negotiating, the revolutionary Linn Cove Viaduct – which had been constructed from the top down to protect the mountain’s terrain – opened in 1987, completing the Blue Ridge Parkway’s continuous 469-mile route.
You can see images of the viaduct here:
www.google.com/search?q=linn+cove+viaduct&rlz=1C1CHBF...
Personally, I think they succeeded - you can see how they minimized the impact to the area.
The Other Mohawk Crossing. Amtrak Empire Service makes daily trips over the Mohawk River over 2 different bridges from Schenectady, New York, but not on this bridge. As part of the process of requalifying crews over this territory for contingency planning, CSX Train P939 with AMTK 130 (Phase II, P42DC) leading is seen heading from Pattersonville, New York to Hoffmans, New York on the morning of Thursday, June 29, 2023. This span is normally only used by CSX freight trains.
52 Weeks : Week 9 : 2020
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A few years back I picked up painting rocks when visiting a friend in Florida. The town where she lives is very active with a large contingency that paints rocks. I spent some time with her painting rocks and when I returned back home to New England I thought I would continue because it was fun and something I could do with my grand niece. Anyway, I painted a lot of rocks and now they sit in this beautiful, extremely old carved bowl, which is more interesting then these rocks, but the rocks are colorful and that is my project theme this week. COLOR
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Week 9:52 COLOR (February 26th - March 3rd)
"The world changed from having the determinism of a clock
to having the contingency of a pinball machine."
~ Heinz R. Pagels ~
Love the way a traffic cone has been placed at the front of the boat just in case you might miss it.
The Southern Cross is one of the most popular representations in the sky for observers in the southern hemisphere. Four stars give the constellation its characteristic configuration:
1. Acrux, at the foot of the cross, is the brightest of the four at magnitude 0.67 (and is the 13th brightest in the sky). Although a single star is visible in the image, Acrux is a sixfold system 321 light-years (average) from Earth.
2. Mimosa (below in the image), is second in order of brightness with a magnitude of 1.15. It is also known by the name of Becrux and is a spectroscopic binary system 278 light years from Earth.
3. Gacrux, the head of the cross, is third in order of brightness with a magnitude of 1.63. It is a red giant 88 light years from Earth.
4. Delta Crucis, also known as Imai, is the least bright of the quatern, with a magnitude of 2.70. Delta Crucis is in the process of evolving into a red giant.
An important group of star clusters enrich the view of this magnificent region of the sky, such as NGC 4755, known as The Jewel Box, under Mimosa. Caldwell 97 and Caldwell 100 can be seen above in the image on the Gacrux and Delta Crucis side. But surely what is most striking are the dark areas surrounding the foot of the cross. It is the most important of the dark nebulae in our sky, known as the "coal sack."
If you visit Argentina, don't miss the opportunity to go to a dark sky and look at the stars. After the astonishment, after feeling and assuming our enormous finiteness and contingency under that magnificent starry sky, look for the Southern Cross, the smallest, but the most notable of the 88 constellations in the sky. It is always visible, not hidden, and the sack of coal can be seen with the naked eye.
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Details:
nova.astrometry.net/user_images/7940925#annotated
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Nikon D5600.
Nikon 75-150 lens (in 100 mm).
23 minutes of integration.
Iso 1000.
f/3.5.
Processed with Siril and Gimp.
April 30, 2023 - 00:38 UT (average time).
Rural area, Concordia, Entre Ríos, Argentina.
CFS Operatives patrol outside a highlands outpost.
Due to recent events happening around the galaxy, several worlds partnered with the Confederacy of Free Systems felt the need to fund and establish several military garrisons. This is meant to reduce the time needed to implement potential contingency plans in the event that their worlds or assets are occupied by outside forces.
Built for Eurobrick's Factions
Note: So the story behind this build is that I originally planned to use this building for another moc, but as I progressed, it felt like I didn’t achieve the look that I wanted in regards to the building. Thus, I took the building, modified it a tad, and bam. This is the end result.
Incomplete forms
Scratched inscriptions
Contingency of all that is
Leitz Wetzlar Germany Elmarit CF 150mm f2.8
con·tin·gen·cy
a future event or circumstance which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty.
Similar:
incident / happening / juncture / possibility / accident / chance
a provision for an unforeseen event or circumstance.
the absence of certainty in events.
in philosophy: the absence of necessity; the fact of being so
without having to be so.
Train Sketching
Panormou station
M3 subway Athens to the Airport
Gouache wash
A4 Maruman Sketch pad
September 30 2025
I had planned to use acrylic throughout this entire trip. But as an engineer my mindset often reserved room for contingencies. So unconsciously before I departed I put a package of gouache, a water filled brushpen and a light thin detachable sketch pad in my backpack. Such has proven more than useful as near the end of the trip nearly all my acrylic had exhausted or dried out so much that I could no longer achieve color saturation. This is such an example.
I know you're thinking I'm heartless
I know you're thinking I'm cold
I'm just protecting my innocence
I'm just protecting my soul
I'm never gonna let you close to me
Even though you mean the most to me
'Cause every time I open up, it hurts
So I'm never gonna get too close to you
Even when I mean the most to you
In case you go and leave me in the dirt
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Part III
I couldn't watch as he fell over the edge of the balcony. He was long gone before gravity took him - scrambler rounds were good for that. One muzzle-press to the temple. One squeeze of the trigger. A quick laser-bore through scalp and skull to clear the way, and the scrambler itself follows before your mark can blink. Their brains get turned to pudding in the next instant, and then they never blink again. Quick and clean. I'm told that the most the vic feels is a 'little pinch,' like the Docs used to say before giving an injection back in the day. Back when doctors were still human, and not emotionless CareBots.
"You and me, we don't get to leave behind pretty corpses," that used to be his joke when we were partners. Every time we had a close call and one or the other of us was bleeding out of places we shouldn't be, he had to say it. I laughed and agreed every time. Even when I didn't feel like laughing.
I loved him for that. Being able to make me smile and laugh when nothing and no one else could.
Scrambler rounds were expensive as hell. A pack of six could clear out a whole paycheck. Years ago, after one of our first big paydays together, he splurged and bought some. Sat me down that night and split them with me three-and-three. We made a promise then. He'd save his last scrambler for me, and I'd save my last for him. Just in case. Contingency planning.
I'd scoffed and shrugged, but I agreed all the same. Never thought I'd actually use it.
It wasn't long before I felt the first heavy drops of sooty rain hit the brim of my hat, then more across my shoulders. A second or two later, my AR HUD flashed an acid content warning; I shouldn't stay out in it for long. And I wouldn't. There was just one more thing left to do.
I finally looked down, long after I heard the heavy sound of body hitting pavement. There he lay on his back, stories below me, with arms and legs akimbo. Just then I had a funny little memory from decades ago of what snow used to look and feel like. A memory of flopping backwards into two inches of ash-grey flakes, already half-melted, and making grimy angels.
Laying there like that, in a slow-growing pool of his own blood, he looked like he was making one now. Lifeless blue eyes gazed up at the falling rain, every drop of it born from the endless cloud cover haze of the city. Apart from that pool of blood and another thin trickle from one corner of his vaguely-agape mouth, he looked fine. Like he was just stunned from taking a nasty spill. And as the rain fell heavier and heavier, all that red was slowly washed away.
A pretty corpse.
That night, I stayed out in the icy, contaminated rain far longer than I should have. He didn't move. So neither did I.
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