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Taken in Gainsville, Florida, USA at the Gainsville Raceway at the Gainsville International Qualifications.
This is my MacBook Pro Unibody 2010
For better display please press L, and if you favorite this photo press F
Le VVT Pro Tour est une course cycliste qui s'est déroulée en novembre 2024 sur le domaine de Deva en Nouvelle-Calédonie.
Buh-bye flickr pro. It's been fun. I will miss all the good friends and good times, I will never forget this time in my life. I've slacked off photography and I hope to someday get bit by that bug again, but as the saying goes "Life happens". At the moment, my life is full of strife. Three of my close family members are struggling with health issues and it's going to be a bumpy road.
I've been going though my photos here and downloading them to files on my computer. I'm feeling nostalgic and a bit weepy. I really had fun here in the flickrverse and connected with a lot of crazy excellent human beings, some of my favorite characters on the planet! You know who you are! ( I even liked a lot of the trolls, I thought they were funny!) I miss The Local most of all, and how could I forget the best thread ever...Beebo Wallace is a C*nt!
Good times.
Love and best wishes to all,
Hellgah
In each town and village on the European continent one can find a memorial or two to the military who died during the many wars. In the town of Bardolino on the waterfront is this impressive sculpture. A dead soldier is being held by a colleague on his left arm while with his right hand he inscribes the words "Pro Patria" on the stone of the plinth!
It reminded me of the poem by Wilfrid Owen "Dulce et decorum est" If ever a poem brought out the horror and stupidity of war it is this one!
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
The iFi iDSD Pro.
I came to discover ifi after a past of positive and negative experiences in the audio in the last 30 years, in the search for the holy grail of sound in my living room, I have had a lot of brands, Nad, Rotel, Mark Levinson, Linn, Sony, Cyrus, Audiolab, Pioneer, Marantz, Rega, Bowers & Wilkins, Castle Speakers, Vandersteen, Paragon Regent Speakers, monitor Audio, Kef, Mission Cyrus speakers, only to name a few.
Some of my old gear I sold until today I remember them as pieces I regret not having today, My Marantz CD10 and Marantz CD16, My Sony SCD1, my loving Levinson 383 had circuit board problem and was 14 months waiting an internal circuit board repair in the Portuguese representative of the brand, and because of that bad experience and some others in the audio world, I sold my Levinson at a low price and almost all audio gear I had, I loved that Levinson, and that warranty experience was something very negative for me as a user, I abandoned audio and that search that never ends, and for 8 years the computer and headphones was my way to interact with music, a big downgrade from what I was used to.
Six years ago I started looking for a DAC and some better speakers to my iMac, the speakers I found that in my opinion produced an acceptable sound was the Harman Kardon GLA-55, latter paired with a monitor audio subwoofer, and sound was ok, at least a better experience that the iMac speakers had, In a search for a good computer DAC I discovered the ifi brand and their range of products, a perfect match for what I was thinking.
The products made by ifi were good looking and they supported DSD and HD audio formats something I was willing to try as I own many SACD’s, DSD was very appealing format to me, I purchased the ifi iDSD, it came in a beautiful package and well built, I connected the iDSD to my iMac and clicked on play on the iTunes App, a glimpse of what I have had in the past for a fraction of the price, for me it was it, the holy grail in price paid and return that I was receiving, so I started a new journey, maybe a never ending one certainly full of new product discoveries, but at every step taken up is a more engaging and pleasant one.
So ifi brought me back to the audio experience, today my computer audio system is a little upgraded from the Harman Kardon GLA55 and Micro iDSD, I just acquired an ifi Pro iDSD that was launched in the end of May. It finely arrived and took the place of my ifi Micro iDSD Black, micro iTube 2 and micro iUSB 3.0, every person quantifies the upgraded differences obtained by each component change differently, for some is the same experience a little better and a justified investment or not, for others a small sonic achievement is a huge upgrade in the final result, for me and after some weeks of listening to the ifi Pro iDSD there is no way I could live anymore without it, so I acquired it.
The Pro iDSD has a lot of functionality that you could see on the ifi website ifi-audio.com/home/products/pro/ I will focus more on the sound and changes I have noticed from the micro iDSD Black.
The global sound grows in small big changes, the separation, fluidity, speed, soundstage of the tracks is so better defined that you can’t stop playing and thinking constantly “this one is really on another level of gear”. That’s not a subtle change, the global sound character is similar to the micro iDSD Black Label, but sounds are presented very fast, the sense of speed is really impressive, the impact, transients, instrument separation, identification of the elements on the soundstage, multiple voices are perfectly separated, it’s all there, every audio file you play on the Pro iDSD is a new experience. I do remember in the past of investing a lot more and get almost none.
If you own one of the other ifi product line like the nano, micro, or even other brand DAC of the same price level, when you connect the Pro iDSD you will have a constant audio discover on each track of your library, it’s noticeable right away if your system has the quality to show and reveal what the iDSD pro can archive you will be amazed.
The micro iDSD Black was a feat for the price, but the Pro iDSD takes every aspect from the micro iDSD BL and gives him super powers.
The iDSD Pro has almost all features you will ever need, there are two absent from the pro iDSD the XBass and 3D sound, you can have this feature in the Pro iCan, but having them in the Pro iDSD is a miss in my most minimalistic good sounding system I can have, and to add these features the pro iCan is a necessary add-on that comes with more cables and more accessories in the middle of the sound signal. The iDSD approach for me is more a puristic approach and first a DAC, all the other features come for me as a bonus, it’s a product that will reveal all elements of the sound presentation, and plays your music files from multiple formats, it’s very easy to setup and very well built, and the oled in the middle of the unit makes me in love by it
So the iDSD Pro for me it’s finesse, fireworks, emotion, love, an even better capacity of turning small detail perceptible in a way that appears natural to my ears, it’s adds macro to the texture detail in the mix, better quality bass, initially the bass appears to be less present, less present in this case of the Pro iDSD is not less bass, but a bass with musical scale and better defined, there is no 3D or XBass, but there is a lot more to take out from every track.
The iDSD Pro will not hide a bad recording, It will show without any guilt the quality of a bad studio engineer or a low quality mix, if the mix is bad it will sound very bad, but if you give the Pro iDSD a better quality track, you will make your speakers rock has they never think they would be capable of, after that you will not let the iDSD Pro go back to the store.
There are a lot of offers in this segment, some more expensive, some less, I have built my system from the beginning on the original ifi IDSD Sound Signature, so in my case it was a perfect match.
I didn’t focus on many aspects like streaming, digital filters, upsampling to DSD1024, playing directly from SD or SSD USB HD, and finely Airplay, the Airplay functionality is my favorite and there is a lot more the Pro iDSD can do, In the last weeks I tried some of this functionality for curiosity and they all shine in a way that describing it will take weeks or months, my main use will be in the desktop computer and I am loving it.
If you are serious about your audio, the ifi Pro iDSD should be one of the higher priorities on your list of a DAC acquisition. If the price is too hot, the micro iDSD Black Label could give you a lot from the Pro iDSD at a very affordable price, and is my favorite DAC in the price / sound return equation.
All devices where connect to an Audioquest Nigara, the power cables including computer and ifi IDSD Pro were with Audioquest Tornado, and Audioquest Thunder for each of the Speakers.
USB Cables in use are ifi Gemini 3.0 and Audioquest Diamond USB Cable, also used ifi iUSB 3.0 in between.
Speakers are Focal Solo 6BE.
Interconnect Linn Silver balanced.
Software used, Roon and Audirvana.
The related review is a personal opinion of the experience and use of the products acquired. All products were acquired at retail price, in normal stores that have them in stock, and I am not sponsored by any of the brands mentioned or any kind of brand.
Maceió-Alagoas
Sempre que eu vejo a flor do algodoeiro da praia, lembro do Juca, que fez uma linda foto, inesquecível, de uma delas..
então, taí, Juca..procê!
vejam a arte deste menino:
Wright Pro Hardware, family-owned shop closes after 86-year run in Cathlamet.
When the Wright family opened up shop in 1933 as a vendor in the old creamery, the second story was used as a community dance hall, Wright said. Now it store antique furniture and piles of lawn mower belts.
As customers looking to make a purchase wind their way through the maze-like piles of products, they’ll find a trip to Cathlamet’s Wright Pro Hardware is like walking through an 86-year-old time capsule.
Near the heart of the store sits a house made of buttons, shells and other “found-in-pockets” treasures, a Wright family heirloom that moved with the Wrights from Tillamook, Ore., when they relocated their hardware business to Cathlamet in 1933.
On the second floor, 1940s and 1950s pinball machines line the wall — a call back to the Wright Amusement Company the family owned in addition to the hardware store.
In the back rooms, the walls still bear the wallpaper that decorated the apartment where the late Wally Wright, third-generation family owner of the store, was raised.
The store, which takes up a full city block on Broadway, has sat relatively dormant for the last five years, with a sign on the front door telling customers to call Wally Wright if they wanted to make a purchase.
In May, Wright Hardware reopened its doors for a final liquidation sale before the family officially closes up shop.
“A lot of people said this is the end of an era, and that’s the truth,” said current owner Linda Wright, 70, who was married to Wally Wright. “For me, it is bittersweet. I’m sad to see the store close … but my husband passed away this past August, and there’s no way I can take care of the building.”
According to the Family Business Center, about one in 10 family businesses remain in the family for more than 60 years. Only 3% of family-owned businesses survive into the fourth generation, the center says.
The heirs apparent to Wright Pro Hardware are Wright’s son Mike, 39, and daughter Meg, 35. However, they both live in new cities now — Meg in Sterling, Alaska, and Mike in Royal City, Wash.
Cathlamet's Wright Pro Hardware closing after 86 years
Linda Wright, right, rings up a customer's purchase during the second to last week of the Wright Pro Hardware liquidation sale. The store is closing after lasting through three generations in the Wright family.
Mallory Gruben mallory.gruben@tdn.com
Her children are tending to their own families and careers, she said. “They have their own lives now.”
And the family has “not even thought about selling it to another family,” she added. “It’s been in the family for so long that it’s hard to think about that.”
‘An electrical pile
and a car parts pile’
Wally Wright’s grandfather, Eugene, opened Wright Furniture and Hardware in 1933 after his son — and Wally Wright’s uncle — Otis returned home from a summer as a traveling salesman. Otis boasted that he’d found a city that “didn’t seem to know there was a depression going on,” said Linda Wright.
“Most places, they would slam the door in his face. But here in Wahkiakum County, people would invite him in,” she said.
The Wrights arrived in Cathlamet on the ferry, as there were no formal roads leading into the town at the time, Wright said. At the recommendation of Herbert Faubion, the family set up shop in the town’s old creamery, which had been converted into apartments and small vendor storefronts. (Faubion’s daughter, Effie, later married Eugene Wright’s son, Art. She is Wally Wright’s mother.)
“As people would move out, (the hardware store) would take over that space until they owned the whole store,” Linda Wright said.
Eugene Wright passed ownership of the store along to his sons, Otis and Art, sometime in the 1940s or 1950s, Linda Wright said. The brothers stocked the store by buying “lots,” or entire sections of other regional hardware stores that were closing, she said. Then, they’d bring their new products back to the store.
“They’d bring it back and put it in an electrical pile or a car parts pile. … They didn’t have it organized on shelves,” Wright said.
Customers who were looking for a specific part had to ask the family if it was in stock. The owners would wind their way through the “maze” of piles and often bring back exactly what was needed, Wright said.
Growing up in the back of the store, her husband “knew where things were in the store from the very beginning,” she said.
Despite his knowledge, Wally Wright didn’t officially sign on to work at the shop until 1985, when his father, Art, died. During the decade before, Wally Wright worked as a middle school science teacher at the local school, his wife said.
“His dad had some medical problems, and when (Eugene) passed in 1985, Wally stopped in to take over. … He took it over so his mom (Effie) would have a reason to get up in the morning and a place to go to meet people,” she said.
Cathlamet's Wright Pro Hardware closing after 86 years
In 1990, Wally Wright affiliated the shop with Pro Hardware Distribution. That decision changed the name of the store and helped organize the front portion of the shop to look like a traditional hardware store, Linda Wright said.
But items piled in the back of the store were still for sale, she said, and Wally Wright continued to run the store much like his father before him.
“People were able to find what they needed (in the front of the store) without asking for help. But if you needed more than what you could see, you’d go ahead and ask Wally,” she said.
‘This is the saying goodbye’
In the nearly 45 years Linda Wright has been associated with the hardware store, she said her favorite memories all involve her husband’s joy for working in the shop.
“Wally was like his dad in that he had the ability to see a problem and figure out what needed to be done to correct it, to fix it, to make something work again,” Wright said.
Her husband especially loved Blaze King stoves, she said, and he was also quick to provide a demonstration of one of his favorite products, Corrosion X.
“He always had a small bottle of Corrosion X in his pocket. If something was stuck or didn’t turn right, he’d pull out that bottle … and he would put his drops in, wait a few minutes, and it would work,” Wright said. (The store’s stock of Corrosion X has already sold out because customers “knew what a good deal it was” when it went on sale initially, Wright said.)
Wally Wright was diagnosed with colon cancer about five years ago, his wife said. Working full days in the store was “too tiring” after chemotherapy and surgery, but he kept a sign on a door letting customers know he’d gladly lend a hand or make a sale if they needed it, his wife said.
Most of the customers by that time were long-time shoppers, Wright said, who knew that the Wrights’ store was “a place to go to find things when you can’t find them anywhere else.”
“It’s like the old standby. You know it’s there,” Wright said. “It’s like the old, worn shoes that are in the back of the closet, and you pull them out and say, ‘I forgot about those.’ ”
But Wright said she doesn’t expect the store’s closure to affect Cathlamet’s younger residents as much. Instead, those shoppers tend to patronize the other, newer hardware store, Cathlamet Building Materials, or go to “big box” stores like Lowes and Home Depot in nearby towns, Wright said.
“(Closing) will be hard for a lot of the people who have been around for a while ... but a lot of new people don’t even know we are there,” Wright said. “They don’t know the treasures that the walls hold.”
Those treasures include antique furniture, countless boxes of almost every nut and bolt known to man and decades of Wright family history.
With no family members nearby to step in for Wally Wright, this final liquidation sale will close the 86-year chapter of the family’s hardware shop.
“This is the saying goodbye,” Wright said.
The final day of the sale is July 6, Wright said, and most of the items will be marked down to 75% off starting this week. She said she wants to sell as many of the items out of the store as possible.
Eventually, Wright wants to sell the building and adjacent parking lot, so she can do more traveling and visit her grandchildren, she said. For now, though, she said she’s just taking it “one day at a time” and focusing on upholding the shop’s long-time mantra: Service, selection and satisfaction.
tdn.com/news/local/wright-pro-hardware-family-owned-shop-...
I hardly use this any more so the Pro option is a waste of time and I can't afford it - so I'm cancelling my Pro subscription and moving to a new account ... no idea what I'll leave here, or put on the new one, and frankly neither do you!
Met some nice people on here, but the internet sucks and I'm getting bored of all the greedy morons who run everything and plan to live in a hole somewhere
Bye
A beautiful detail from the alabaster tomb of Don Diego de Anaya in the old cathedral complex of Salamanca. This finely-carved sepulchre for a former archbishop of Seville dates from before 1411 by an anonymous sculptor, now called the Master of Anaya.
This detail is the Calvary scene at the head of the tomb, showing Christ on the Cross between the two thieves on their crosses. And around them we have a host of figures including the Virgin Mary who has fainted with grief.
My wife gave me a pro account for my birthday yesterday. Since I've been extra busy this month and haven't had much time to spend on Flickr or photography, I thought I should do something before the month is gone with this new gift.
This is a macro shot with my Canon S5 and a Raynox DCR-250 of the Flickr "Pro" gif as displayed by Firefox 3.05 running on Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 on the LCD of a HP Pavilion dv9000 at 1440 x 900 resolution. You can see every pixel is make up of a red, green and blue "light". It's interesting how your eyes fool you into thinking these red, green and blue lights are white!
This picture is an attempt to combine my birthday present (Pro Account) with my Christmas present (Raynox DCR-250).
And for those reading this that own an HP Pavilion dv9000, yes, my left screen hinge is broken too, just like every other one.