The idea of time travel is so fascinating because it taps into some of humanity's deepest desires and curiosities. At its core, it's about the ability to control the uncontrollable flow of time. This concept allows for the ultimate "what if" scenarios. We could revisit the past to witness historical events firsthand, understand our ancestors, or correct personal mistakes. Imagine being able to see the construction of the pyramids, attend a Shakespeare play as it was originally performed, or simply have one last conversation with a loved one. The allure is in the possibility of rewriting personal histories or even the course of civilization, offering a sense of power and a way to rectify regrets. This fantasy of manipulating the past and peering into the future is a powerful narrative that resonates with our innate wish for a second chance and a glimpse of what's to come.

Another reason for its enduring appeal is the inherent paradoxes and intellectual puzzles it presents. The "grandfather paradox," where one travels back in time to kill their own grandfather, is a classic example that challenges our understanding of causality and logic. These paradoxes force us to confront complex questions about free will, destiny, and the nature of reality itself. The concept of a timeline that can be altered or is fixed creates a rich landscape for philosophical and scientific debate. The fascination lies in the tension between what our intuition tells us should happen and the mind-bending possibilities that time travel introduces. It's a mental exercise that stretches the limits of our imagination and pushes us to think beyond linear, cause-and-effect relationships.

Furthermore, time travel is a powerful narrative device in fiction. It allows storytellers to explore themes of destiny, identity, and the consequences of our actions on a grand scale. From H.G. Wells's "The Time Machine" to modern blockbusters like "Back to the Future" and "Interstellar", the trope of time travel provides a framework for exploring complex human emotions and societal issues. It can be used to tell cautionary tales about the dangers of altering the past or to explore the emotional weight of living with a unique perspective on history. This narrative flexibility makes time travel an inexhaustibly fertile ground for creating captivating stories that resonate with audiences, whether they are thrillers, dramas, or comedies.

Finally, the fascination with time travel is deeply connected to our desire for knowledge and a deeper understanding of the universe. We are driven to explore the unknown, and time is perhaps the most fundamental and mysterious of all dimensions. The thought of not just moving through space but through time promises the ultimate journey of discovery. It offers the chance to see how the universe began and how it will end, to uncover the secrets of existence, and to answer questions that have plagued humanity for millennia. This intellectual curiosity, combined with the personal and emotional appeal of a second chance, makes time travel a truly captivating concept that will likely continue to fascinate us for generations to come.

Consciousness about controlling the uncontrollable.

This summer marks two years of living with this crazy woman. I honestly could not imagine not having a home without her. We are friends, sisters and everything in-between. We have talked each other out of more trees, laughed our asses off uncontrollably and cried more tears together then I can even explain. When you enter a virtual world you do not anticipate you will meet your best friend there, but it is where I found mine. Here is to unconditional love despite all our differences in personality and rolling through all our epic fuck ups together. Here’s to us!

The first time I heard this song I realized it was our song. It was a moment in time that just clicked. There is even a crazy video of all our random moments in SL I made to it. Then I heard it again on the radio the other day in a new version featuring Slash so I figured I needed to revisit it.

Stuck it out this far together

Put our dreams through the shredder

Let’s toast cause things got better

And everything could change like that

And all these years go by so fast

But nothing lasts forever

A date of "Sep 1955" is stamped on the front of this print, and I'm assuming that it may have been taken at about that point in time. Aleda is standing at the front entrance to our Omaha home...

**********************************

Some of the photos in this album are “originals” from the year that my family spent in Omaha in 1955-56. But the final 10 color photos were taken nearly 40 years later, as part of some research that I was doing for a novel called Do-Overs, the beginning of which can be found here on my website

www.yourdon.com/personal/fiction/doovers/index.html

and the relevant chapter (concerning Omaha) can be found here:

www.yourdon.com/personal/fiction/doovers/chapters/ch9.html

Before I get into the details, let me make a strong request — if you’re looking at these photos, and if you are getting any enjoyment at all of this brief look at some mundane Americana from 60+ years ago: find a similar episode in your own life, and write it down. Gather the pictures, clean them up, and upload them somewhere on the Internet where they can be found. Trust me: there will come a day when the only person on the planet who actually experienced those events is you. Your own memories may be fuzzy and incomplete; but they will be invaluable to your friends and family members, and to many generations of your descendants.

So, what do I remember about the year that I spent in Omaha? Not much at the moment, though I’m sure more details will occur to me in the days to come — and I’ll add them to these notes, along with additional photos that I’m tweaking and editing now.

For now, here is a random list of things I remember:

1. I attended the last couple months of 6th grade, and all of 7th grade, in one school. My parents moved from Omaha to Long Island, NY in the spring of my 7th grade school year; but unlike previous years, they made arrangements for me to stay with a neighbor’s family, so that I could finish the school year before joining them in New York.

2. Our dog, Blackie, traveled with us from our previous home in Riverside, and was with us until my parents left Omaha for New York; at that point, they gave him to some other family. For some reason, this had almost no impact on me. It was a case of “out of sight, out of mind” — when Blackie was gone, I spent my final three months in Omaha without ever thinking about him again.

3. Most days, I rode my bike to school; but Omaha was the place where one of my sisters first started attending first grade — in the same school where I was attending 6th grade. I remember walking her to school along Bellevue Avenue on the first morning, which seemed to take forever: it was about a mile away.

4. As noted in a previous Flickr album about my year in Riverside, I was a year younger than my classmates; but I was tall for my age, and thus looked “normal” at a quick glance. But because I was a year younger, I was incredibly shy and awkward in the presence of girls. Omaha was certainly not “sin city,” but by 6th grade and 7th grade, puberty was beginning to hit, and the girls had grown to the point where they were occasionally interested in boys. The school tried to accommodate this social development by teaching us the square dance (and forbidding the playing of songs by Elvis Presley, whose music was just beginning to be heard on the radio). I was an awful dancer, and even more of a shy misfit than my classmates; I continue to be an awful dancer today.

5. My bike ride to school was uneventful most days; but the final part of the ride was a steep downhill stretch on Avery Road, lasting three or four blocks. My friends and I usually raced downhill as fast as we could; but one day, my front bicycle wheel began to wobble on the downhill run, and my bike drifted uncontrollably to the side of the road and then off into a ditch. I got banged up pretty badly.

6. But this accident was nothing compared to my worst mishap: a neighborhood friend and I enjoyed playing “cowboys and Indians” in the woods near his home (and his younger brother usually tagged along). I had a bow and a few arrows for our adventure, and we often shot at trees a hundred feet away. Unfortunately, the arrows often disappeared into the underbrush (because we were lousy shots) and were difficult to find. Consequently, one of us came up with the clever idea of standing behind the “target” tree, so that we could see where the randomly-shot arrows landed. Through a series of miscommunications, I poked my head out from behind the tree just as my friend shot one of the arrows … and it skipped off the side of the tree and into my face, impaling itself into my cheek bone about an inch below my eye. An inch higher, and I would not be typing these words … (meanwhile, my friend's younger brother grew up to be an officer in the U.S. Air Force, and he tracked me down on the Internet, decades later).

7. In the summer of 1956, my parents decided to spend their summer vacation prospecting for uranium (seriously!) in the remote hills of eastern Utah, where my dad had grown up on the Utah-Colorado border. This entailed a long, long drive from Omaha; and it involved leaving me and my two sisters with my grandparents near Vernal, UT. My grandparents lived in a very small mining village outside of Vernal; and while they had electricity and various other modern conveniences, they also had an outhouse in the back yard. Trips to the “bathroom” in the middle of the night were quite an adventure. On the way back to Omaha at the end of this vacation trip (with no uranium ore having been found), we stopped for a couple of days of camping somewhere in the mountains of Colorado; you’ll see a couple of photos from that camping trip in this album.

8. There were no lizards in Omaha, and thus no opportunity for lizard-hunting with my slingshot—which had been a significant hobby in my previous homes in Riverside and Roswell. Indeed, there was almost nothing to shoot at … and I couldn’t find anyone with whom I could play (and hopefully win) marbles, to use as slingshot ammunition. But for reasons I never questioned or investigated (but about which I’m very curious now), there was a small vineyard in the field behind our house, and I was able to climb over the fence and retrieve dozens of small, hard, green grapes. They turned out to be excellent ammunition … but I never did find any lizards.

9. A few months before my parents left for New York, I told them about the latest craze sweeping the neighborhood: “English bikes,” with three speeds, thin tires, and hand-brakes. I desperately wanted one, but Dad said it was far too expensive for him to buy as a frivolous gift for me: at the time, English bikes had an outrageous price tag of $25. I was told that I would have to earn the money myself if I wanted one … and the going rate for young, scrawny kids who shoveled sidewalks, pulled weeds from gardens, and did babysitting chores, was 25 cents per hour. That works out to 100 hours of work … but I did it, over the course of the next few months, and when I got to New York, the first thing I did was buy my English bike.

10. Toward the end of my 7th-grade school year, everyone in my class was subjected to a vision test: we were lined up in alphabetical order, and one-by-one read off a series of letters that we could barely see on a large placard taped onto the classroom blackboard. Because my surname starts with a “Y,” I was usually near the end of the line … and by the time I got to the front, I had usually memorized the letters (because they never bothered to change them, from one student to the next) without even realizing it consciously. But on this particular occasion in 7th grade, for some reason, they decided to line us up in reverse alphabetical order … and I was the first in line. For the first time in my life, I realized that I could not see anything of the letters, and that I was woefully near-sighted.

11. When I got to New York, my parents took me to an optometrist to get my first set of glasses (and, yes, all of the neighborhood kids did begin taunting me immediately: “Four eyes! Four eyes!”) … and I’ve worn glasses ever since.

Three years after I arrived in New York, the glasses saved my vision when a home-brewed mix of gunpowder and powdered aluminum blew up in my face in the school chemistry lab (where I had an after-school volunteer job as a “lab assistant”). I suffered 2nd-degree burns on my face from the explosion, but the glasses protected my eyes. That, however, is a different story for a different time.

When other light sources are unwieldy and uncontrollable, improvise with a small flashlight, some

heat-shrink tubing, two cable ties, and an incredibly useful gadget called a third hand.

THE "TUB"--"Treatment for uncontrollable behavior"

It must have been an uncontrollable urge for western tourists to take a photograph in traditional japanese outfit. Well, it wasn't always flattering......

Cabinet card, Japan, unidentified photographer, around 1900.

Mea Culpa and apology: I'm sorry for uploading several images in fairly short amount of time. I've been processing some of the files in my pending queue, ahead of all of the new ones which will be being added now that we've moved into warm summer-like weather. Once all of the flowers are blooming, and all of the insects come out to play, I'll fall uncontrollably far behind.

Such is life, I guess. At least you get to see even more variety of what I've been shooting up to now.

This one does hold up pretty nicely in largest uploaded size.

Seeing as today is St Leonards Day, which isn't noted in any Gregorian calendar that you'll find, I thought I'd do my bit to honour this most illusory of Saints through the medium of Railway Photography.

My initial thoughts this morning were trading towards disappointment, as in my eagerness to see this train run, the fifteen minutes extra it spent at Derby, pre-departure getting later, might as well have been an hour, cursor again and again hitting the 'refresh' widget, thoughts uncontrollably flapping, teeth grinding in an impatient manner, and with much pursing of lips in a side to side type motion. Then, one quarter of an hour later, I see progress through wizened eyes. It was time to unbox my car, and hit the road, Leonard.

I arrived early at Nether Whitacre, something I was fairly proud of, which gave me chance to consider my shot.

37175, happens on the rear at Whitacre Junction, a hill away from Coleshill Parkway, and roughly one third through it's run to Landore T.M.D.

Happy St Blenarps Day.

Andy Warhol said (to quote him exactly) that "In the future everybody will be world famous for fifteen minutes." Scottish castles have mostly had their 15 minutes of fame too! Excitement came to Hudshouse in 1745.

When Bonnie Prince Charlie left Edinburgh on October 31st with his Jacobite army, intent on marching to London to recover the crown that was rightfully his father's, he used a stratagem! On the advice of Lord George Murray, his most capable military commander, he made as if to march down the east coast, where General Wade awaited him in Newcastle, but then disappeared into the hills, passing through Jedburgh and across into the Liddesdale, by way of the Note O' the Gate - the way I just came too. A description still survives of their progress down Liddesdale. One of the things I find interesting about it is that descriptions of the Uprising written by those with Jacobite sympathies tend to paint a picture of 'the noble Highlander', while Hanoverian writers describe the Highlanders as uncontrollable marauding bandits!

In 1745 the rebel army passed down the valley of Liddel. The army entered Liddisdale by the Knote of the Gate at the head of the river, on its march from Jedburgh. Robert Jardine, a shepherd who was tending his flock on the sources of the river, described the Highlanders as marching without any order as they came in sight in the weather gleam, spreading themselves over the vale, carrying off sheep and cattle, attacking and robbing every unfortunate countryman that fell in their way. Three of them seized Jardine with the intention of robbing him, but fortunately for him, he had a very small sum on his person, and even that he contrived to conceal.

(Buisting is marking sheep for identification. Done with dye these days, but with a mix containing tar back then!)

The hangings of the bed in which the Pretender slept at Larriston were lately in the possession of an old woman, Jardine, whose family lived there at that time.

Neither maps (old or new) nor the internet give any indication as to the location of the "Hielandmans Grave."

Davros suddenly receives an incoming transmission from his old foe, the Doctor!

Davros: Doctor! What do you want? Come to beg for mercy on the eve of my ultimate triumph?

Doctor: Hardly! I'm trying one last time to see if you have any reason left in you at all! Even you cannot be mad enough to actually do what you are contemplating doing! The Nightmare Child is uncontrollable! Even the Dalek Emperor feared it enough to lock it away, and when the Master unleashed it, he was so terrified he hasn't been seen since. Don't be a fool Davros, there's still time to escape, come with me!

If you are interested in my works, they are available on Getty Images.

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I think all art is about control - the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.

- Richard Avedon

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● Non-HDR-processed / Non-GND/ND-filtered

● Black Card Technique 黑卡作品

Dutch postcard by 't Sticht, Utrecht, no. AX 6604.

On 16 April 2020, French Chanson singer and composer Christophe (1945) a.k.a. Daniel Bevilacqua has passed away. Christophe became famous in the early 1960s with his hits 'Aline' and 'Oh!... Mon Amour' which he sang in French and Italian. He died of complications by the Coronavirus at the age of 74.

Christophe was born Daniel Georges Jacques Bevilacqua in the Paris suburb of Juvisy-sur-Orge, in 1945. His father was an Italian-born building contractor. Daniel grew up to be an uncontrollable rebel. He hated school with a vengeance, complaining that his studies bored him to death, and by the age of 16 the young rebel had managed to get expelled from a dozen French boarding schools and 'lycées'. Like many other young teenagers in France, Daniel was bitten by the rock & roll bug in the late 1950s. he dreamed of launching his own music career and he devoted all his spare time to practicing guitar and teaching himself to play the harmonica. Daniel went on to form his first group in 1961, becoming the lead singer and guitarist of Les Hooligans. Danny Baby et Les Hooligans performed widely on the local bar and club circuit, playing covers of Gene Vincent songs and rock & roll classics such as 'Heartbreak Hotel'. In 1965, he changed his name to Christophe and had a massive hit with 'Aline'. This slow, romantic ballad proved phenomenally successful with the French public and went on to sell over 1 million copies. It was the smash hit of the summer of 1965. Following the phenomenal success of 'Aline', Christophe went on to record a whole string of hits such as 'Marionnettes' (1965), 'J'ai entendu la mer' (1966) and 'Excusez-moi Monsieur le Professeur' (1967). Another hit was the song 'Oh!... Mon Amour' which he sang in French and Italian. Christophe wasted no time in acquiring a rock & roll lifestyle to go with his new status as leading 60's pop star. The singer soon developed a real passion for sports cars, and he was often to be seen cruising around Paris in his collection of shining new Lamborghinis. Christophe eventually became so obsessed with fast cars and powerful engines that he ended up taking part in a Formula 1 race in 1968. He composed a part of the soundtrack of the film La route de Salina/Road to Salina (Georges Lautner, 1970). The song 'Sunny Road to Salina' returned years later on the soundtrack of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004).

After a small break, Christophe returned in 1971, with Francis Dreyfus launching the record company Disques Motor and becoming the producer of Christophe records. The results were the albums 'Les Paradis perdus' (Lost Paradises, 1973) and 'Les mots bleus' (Blue Wordsd, 1974) with lyrics by Jean-Michel Jarre). They marked a turning-point in Christophe's musical style, and also heralded a radical change of image. Christophe left his squeaky clean 'Boy Next Door' look behind, re-inventing himself as a decadent and flamboyant dandy. Christophe's singing style had also changed - gone were the days of pop idol seriousness, Christophe now sang in a detached, faintly ironic way, crooning his way almost sarcastically through his new hit 'Señorita'. This new-style Christophe appeared to go down extremely well with his fans. Indeed, when the singer performed at the prestigious Olympia concert-hall in Paris in November 1974, his show was greeted with rapturous applause and hysterical cries of 'encore'. Suffering from a bout of nervous exhaustion and depression, the singer soon acquired a destructive drug habit. In 1978, he came back with 'Le Beau Bizarre'. Christophe's career appeared to be heading into a downward spiral when his wife, Véronique, encouraged him to re-release his very first hit single 'Aline'. Véronique's suggestion proved to be a brilliant idea - in 1980 'Aline' catapulted Christophe back to the top of the French charts, and sold 3.5 million copies. In 1983, Christophe released the single, 'Succès fou' (Crazy Success), followed by the album 'Clichés d'amour' (1984) on which he sang 1940s and 1950s classics such as 'Arrivederci Roma' and 'Dernier baiser', a French version of the Mexican classic 'Besame mucho'. In 1985, he wrote 'Ne raccroche pas' a song which is believed to be about the Princess Stephanie of Monaco. The following year, he wrote the song 'Boule de flipper' for Corynne Charby. In 1996, after a break, he returned with his album 'Bevilacqua'. It marked the beginning of a major Christophe comeback. For the very first time in his career, the singer wrote all of the songs on his new album, which revealed a more sympathetic, personal side to the public. Christophe, who had developed a passionate interest in synthesisers and techno, also explored the new possibilities offered by computers and he spent several months locked away in his home studio sampling voices and electronic sounds for 'Bevilacqua'. In 2001, he released another album 'Comm' si la terre penchait' (As If the Earth was Leaning At An Angle). This album confirmed Christophe's remarkable comeback and also proved his talent as an acute social observer and his ability to take new musical influences on board and weave them into imaginative new fusion styles. In February 2002, Christophe performed, in Clermont-Ferrand, his first live concert in more than two decades, followed by two appearances at the Olympia in March 2002. In 2011, Christophe took part in a tribute album for Alain Bashung two years after the latter's death. He sang 'Alcaline', a song written by Bashung in 1989 for his album Novice. Christophe released 14 studio albums in all, the most recent, 'Les Vestiges du Chaos', in 2016. As an actor, Christophe could be seen in Quand j’étais chanteur/The Singer (Xavier Giannoli, 2006) with Gérard Depardieu, Jeanne/Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont, 2019) and a few short films. He played an angel in the yet unreleased film Sol y sombra (Dominique Abel, 2020) with Jacqueline Bisset. Christophe died of emphysema after being in critical condition due to COVID-19 associated with a previous comorbidity (COPD) on 16 April 2020. In the 1960s, Christophe was in a relationship with singer Michelle Torr. In 1971, he married his girlfriend Véronique Kan and they had a daughter, Lucie.

Sources: RFI Musique, Les Gens du Cinema (French). Wikipedia and IMDb.

On Monday 21st. February 1944 the 385th. BG, part of the 4th. Bombardment Wing, 8th. Air Force was tasked to provide 34 aircraft to carry out a diversionary raid on the Diepholz aircraft depot in N.W. Germany while the main force would attack an aircraft components works at Brunswick in Lower Saxony.

Two of the aircraft that took off from USAAF Station 155 at Great Ashfield, near Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk to fly to Diepholz were B-17G, 42-31370, coded SG-O, from the 550th. BS commanded by Capt. John Hutchison and B-17G, 42-37963, coded XA-O, from the 449th. BS commanded by 1st. Lt. Warren Pease. The Hutchinson crew were flying on their 25th. combat mission and cameraman 'Bud' Creegan was aboard to capture the completion of their tour of duty. Hutchinson's regular bombardier, Ed Gamble had been ill and his place was taken by Clarence Soucek, but during the briefing Gamble asked Soucek to swap as he didn't want to miss the 25th. mission.

German defences were light and despite inclement weather severe damage was inflicted on the target.

At 15.39 the returning bombers crossed the East Anglian coast at a height of 8,000 ft. at 52-43N, 01-41E, north of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. The cloud base was at 4,000ft and was up to 3,000 ft. thick. The weather conditions were poor and Lt. Col. James McDonald, group leader that day, reduced the danger of collision by ordering the descent through the cloud in three-ship elements.

Capt. Hutchinson led one vic of three aircraft, Lt. Pease flew off his starboard wing and Lt. John Terrace flew on the port wing. Due to his position in the cockpit Lt. Terrace gave command of his bomber to Lt. Eugene St. John who had a better view of the lead bomber from his co-pilots seat. In the cloud, with no horizon, each pilot had to fly on their instruments. In the cloud it is thought that Lt. Pease may have suffered virtigo and lost control of his aircraft which entered a spin. To recover from a spin full rudder is applied in the opposite direction and the aircraft is placed in a dive, when the turn-and-slip indicator is centred the aircraft is pulled up and returned to level flight. The flight manual requires that the manoeuvre must be 'smooth and gradual' but with low height Pease and his co-pilot were struggling to do this.

When the formation emerged from the cloud St. John notice Pease's bomber was missing, then the bomber broke cloud in a very steep dive astern of Hutchinson's aircraft. With the altitude now at less than 1,000 ft. Pease flew under his leader and pulled up sharply into the path of the on-coming bomber. The starboard propeller (No. 3) of Hutchinson's bomber tore into the spine of Pease's aircraft completely severing the tail section that fell to earth. Seeing this happening St. John instinctively broke hard to port to save his aircraft. Continuing upwards, the front two-thirds of Pease's aircraft looped uncontrollably above Hutchinson's aircraft before cutting back onto it and breaking it in half, sending it crashing to the ground at Mill Dyke where it exploded on impact. The tail-less Pease aircraft swung 180 degrees towards the village of Freethorpe, miraculously flying level and making as if to crash land near Decoy Carr. The bomber slithered across the marsh before smashing into a dyke edge and exploding.

All twenty-one crew on the two bombers were killed.

B-17G Flying Fortress 42-37963, 449th BS, 385th BG

Pilot: 1st. Lt. Warren Jay Pease. Service number O-677864. Air Medal with 1 oak leaf cluster. Purple Heart. Buried at Cambridge American Cemetery in Plot B Row 5 Grave 40. He was born 19th. March 1922, at Juniata, Adams County, Nebraska. He married Marcia Kraschel in 1943.

Co-pilot: 2nd. Lt. Edward Blase Brown. Born 17th. Service number O-682781. February 1918 at Fort Benton, Chouteau, Montana and appears to have been repatriated to Fort Benton and buried in Riverside Cemetery. Enlisted in the Army Air Corps at San Francisco on the 17th. April 1942 as a Private, service number 19884120. He was single without dependants, had completed 4 years of college and worked as a clerk in a general office.

Navigator: 2nd. Lt. Bernard Kaplan. Service number O-808074. Born in Canada on 14th. June 1914. The body was returned to the States and reburied in Evergreen Cemetery, Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, Florida. On 2nd. January 1949 the body received a military escort from the US to the Beth Isreal Cemetery & Memorial Garden, Burnaby, Greater Vancouver Regional District, British Columbia, Canada where it was reburied in Row 54 A.

Bombardier: 2nd. Lt. Robert E. Jenkins. Service number O-683138. Born 25th. August 1921 at Taylor, Pennsylvania, enlisted at Greensburg, Pennsylvania on the 25th. March 1943, as Private 33441288. He was single with dependents. He had completed 4 years of high school and his occupation in civilian life was classified as semi-skilled mechanic & repairman. His body was returned to the US and reburied at Taylor Cemetery, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania.

Flight engineer./top turret gunner: Tech. Sgt. William R. Clift. Service number 14134324. Air Medal with 1 oak leaf cluster. Purple Heart. He is buried at the Cambridge American Cemetery in Grave A.7.17, having come from Hamilton County, East Tennessee. Born 1921 in Tennessee, enlisted on the 17th. August 1942 at Camp Forrest, Tennessee as Private 14134324. A married man who had completed 4 years of high school, he worked as a carpenter in civil life.

Radio operator: Tech. Sgt. William Gill Jr. Service number 15324283. Born 13th. October 1924 at Triadelphia, West Virginia. Enlisted on 7th. November at Columbus, Ohio. The body was returned to the US and he is now buried in Saint Clairsville Union Cemetery, Belmont, Ohio.

Ball turret gunner: Staff Sgt. Franklin Charles Owsley. Service number 19056375. The body was returned to the states and interred at Alamosa Municipal Cemetery, Alamosa, Colorado. He was born on the 27th. May 1910 at Grain Valley, Jackson County, Missouri. Single without dependents, he enlisted at Fort Macarthur, San Pedro, California on the 21s.t February 1941 as Private 19056375. He had previously been an actor and had completed 3 years of college.

Tail gunner: Staff Sgt. Junior Matthew Falls. Service number 35539769. The body was returned to the US and now rests in the Oak Grove Cemetery, at Bowling Green, Wood County, Ohio. He is buried next to his brother, Lt. James R. Falls, who also died in combat. He was born on the 10th. October 1922 at Cygnet, Wood County, Ohio. Single and without dependents, he enlisted at Toledo, Ohio, on the 2nd. January 1943 as Private 35539769. He had completed 3 years of high school. Prior to enlistment his employment was classified as “semiskilled structural and ornamental metal worker”.

Left waist gunner: Staff Sgt. Harold E. Dickason. Service number 35339290. Air Medal. Purple Heart. Buried in Cambridge American Cemetery. Born Illinois in 1921, enlisted at Toledo, Ohio on the 8th. September 1942 as Private 35339290. A married man who had 1 year of college education, his civilian employment was classified as “semi-skilled occupations in manufacture of miscellaneous lumber products”.

Right waist gunner: Staff Sgt. Gail Farrell Bruner. Service number 17166484.The body was returned to the US and was buried at Ruhamah Cemetery in Rantoul, Franklin County, Kansas. He was born on the 6th. September 1919. Enlisted in November 1942.

B-17G Flying Fortress 42-31370, 550th. BS, 385th. BG.

Pilot: Capt. John Neal Hutchinson Jr. Service number O-795135. The body was subsequently returned to the US and buried at Greenville Cemetery, Washington County, Mississippi. He was born on the 10th. February 1920 and enlisted at Jackson, Mississippi on the 17th. January 1942 as an Aviation Cadet. His serial number was 14070803. He had completed 2 years of college and was working as a farm hand. He was single and without dependants.

Co-pilot: 2nd. Lt. Charles Gordon Curtis. Service number O-742971. Air Medal with 3 oak leaf clusters. Purple Heart. Born 13th. December 1923 at Danvers, Essex County, Massachusetts, is buried in the Cambridge American Cemetery in Plot F, Row 3, Grave 22. Enlisted at Boston on the 7th. April 1942 in the Army Air Corps as Private 11068766. Single, without dependants, he had completed 4 years of high school and was then working as a semi-skilled mechanic and repairman.

Navigator: 1st. Lt. John Ellis Epps. Service number O-673516. Born 5th. February 1918 at Richmond City, Virginian. Buried in the Cambridge American Cemetery.

Bombardier: 1st. Lt. Edmond J. Gamble. Service number O-669266. The body was subsequently returned to the US and now lies in the Mausoleum at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Southfield, Oakland County, Michigan. The memorial plaque records that he was born in Michigan in 1918. Enlisted at Detroit on the 14th. April 1941 and was given service number 36110224. Single, and without dependants, he was a machinist prior to signing up.

Flight engineer./top turret gunner: Tech. Sgt. Roy Clark Kitner. Service number 33237387. Air Medal with 3 oak leaf clusters, Distinguished Flying Cross, Purple Heart. Born 3rd. November 1921 at New Bloomfield, Perry County, Pennsylvania, buried at the Cambridge American Cemetery, Plot C Row 6 Grave 40. He is also remembered in the Bloomfield Cemetery. Enlisted at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on the 31st. July 1942. He was previously a farm hand and was single without dependants.

Radio operator: Tech. Sgt. William Jerry Dukes. Service number 14108210. The body was subsequently returned to the US and now rests in Potomac Cemetery, Potomac, Vermilion County, Illinois.. He was born on 11th February 1921 at Collison Illinois. Enlisted at Fort McClellan, Alabama on the 17th. July 1942 as Private 14108210. Single and without dependants, William is stated to have completed 4 years of high school and his previous job was classified as “general farmer”.

Ball turret gunner: Staff Sgt. John Homer Erhardt. Service number 13023397. The body was returned to the US and now rests in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia in Section 12, Site 8122. He was born on the 9th. June 1920 in Washington, District of Columbia. Enlisted at Washington on the 4th. June 1941. Single and with no dependants, he had completed one year of high school and was then working as an insurance salesman.

Tail gunner: Staff Sgt. Joseph John Carpoinette. Service number 33349646. Air Medal with 3 oak leaf clusters, Distinguished Flying Cross, Purple Heart. Born 7th. August 1920 at Sugar Notch, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, was buried at the Cambridge American Cemetery, Plot A Row 3 Grave 12. Enlisted at Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania on the 25th. July 1942. He’d completed 4 years of High School, was single without dependants and his civilian occupation was recorded in the group “managers and officials”.

Left waist gunner: Staff Sgt. Emilio M. Corgnatti. Service number 11009774. Air Medal with 3 oak leaf clusters, Purple Heart. Born 2nd. October 1915 in Springfield, Massachusetts and is buried in the Cambridge American Cemetery in Plot B, Row 6, Grave 59. Enlisted at Springfield, Massachusetts on the 23rd. January 1942. Single and without dependents, he was educated to grammar school level, and had previously worked as a machinist.

Right waist gunner: Staff Sgt. Peter Bobulsky Jr. Service number 35324186. Air Medal with 2 oak leaf clusters. The body was returned to the States in 1948 and he now rests in Holy Spirit Cemetery, Parma, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, He was born 26th. April 1921. Enlisted in Cleveland on the 9th. September 1942. Single and without dependents, he had completed 4 years of high school. It’s not known what his pre-enlistment occupation was.

Photographer: Staff Sgt. Frank Leo Creegan Jr. Service number 17075825. The remains were returned to the US and he is now at rest in El Reno Cemetery, El Reno, Canadian County, Oklahoma. He was born in Henryetta, Oklahoma on 13th. April 1922. Enlisted at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri on the 13th. July 1942. Single and without dependents, he had completed 2 years of college, and his previous job was classified as “unskilled occupations in printing and publishing”.

The crash sites were excavated at various times from January 1964 to July 1978. The engine and collision scared propeller from the Hutchinson B-17 are displayed at Parham airfield, near Framlingham, Suffolk. Other artefacts can be seen in the Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum at Flixton, Suffolk and the 100th. Bomb Group Museum at Thorpe Abbotts, near Diss, Norfolk.

The Channel 4 TV programme 'Time Team' did an episode on this crash, first broadcast 21st. February 1999. Series 6, Episode 8.

The memorial is on Riverside in Reedham and is placed next to the village war memorial.

Constantius II caesar, 324 – 327. Medallion of four and a half solidi, Nicomedia July 325, AV 19.89 g. FL IVL CONSTANTIVS NOB C Half-length bust diademed, draped and cuirassed l., holding Victory on globe in r. hand and a sword with handle in the shape of an eagle head in l. The cuirass is adorned with medusa head. Rev. PRICIPI – IVVE – NTVTIS Prince standing l., holding in r. hand standard and in l. sceptre; behind, two standards. In exergue, SMN:. C –. Alföldi –, cf. 386 and pl. 19, 242 (Thessalonica and bust r.). RIC –, cf. 139 (Thessalonica and bust r.). Gnecchi –. Toynbee –, cf. pl. XIX, 7 (Thessalonica and bust r.). Depeyrot p. 154 (Thessalonica and bust r.).

An apparently unrecorded variety of an exceedingly rare type. One of the most impressive

gold medallion of this period in existence. A spectacular portrait and incredibly detailed

reverse composition, work of an incredibly skilled master engraver. An absolutely

unobtrusive mark on obverse field and one on edge. Virtually as struck and Fdc

Born on 7 August A.D. 317, Constantius II was the second of the three sons born to Constantine I and Fausta. At the ripe age of seven, he was appointed to the rank of Caesar at Nicomedia on 13 November A.D. 324. This outstanding multiple-solidus medallion was struck to commemorate his elevation and was probably distributed as a donative while the young Caesar was at Nicomedia with his father. After all, nothing helps to cement the loyalty of the army to a young and inexperienced leader like beautiful gold.

Despite the extreme youth of Constantius II, the stunning obverse portrait represents him as a seasoned warrior, fully prepared for battle. He wears a cuirass and cradles a parazonium in his arm while he carries a globe and Victory in his hand, all of which serve to express the imperial hopes for the young Caesar. The cuirass with small but the prominent gorgoneion on the chest together with the plain diadem that Constantius II wears connect him to Alexander the Great, who was similarly depicted and frequently imitated by Roman emperors as a means of illustrating their own greatness. Other coin portraits also represent Constantine with a plain diadem and an elevated gaze, which also play on the theme of Alexander the Great. The plain diadem on the solidus of Constantius II is a clear departure from the usual laurel wreath used to indicate the portrait of a Caesar on coins of the late third and early fourth centuries. The parazonium also seems to cast Constantius II as a living representation of Virtus, the Roman personification of manliness and martial skill who often appears as a cuirassed figure cradling this sheathed weapon. At the same time, the connection to Virtus also plays on the theme of Alexander the Great. It was a common rhetorical exercise in antiquity to debate whether the greatness of Alexander should be attributed to his fortune (Fortuna) or to his virtue (Virtus). Clearly Constantine (and no doubt all of Alexander’s other Roman imitators) preferred the side of Virtus in this question since it associated greatness with the qualities of the individual rather than uncontrollable external forces.

The reverse legend names Constantius II as “prince of the youth” – a traditional title given to imperial heirs to the throne since the time of Augustus (27 B.C.-A.D. 14). The type depicting the Caesar with standards visually presents him as having the support of the army and illustrates his right to command it. This too is traditional, with similar types used on coins already in the second quarter of the third century

NAC106, 1069

Ah, in another few weeks we'll be seeing once more this wonderful pullulation in the hedges and verges. This was Thursday 1st May 1975, the beginning of the most beautiful month of the English year. All except January have their good points, mind you. This must have been quite late in the afternoon. I'd made a special trip to the HMV shop, then on the corner diagonally opposite the Odeon, to buy the Westerns long-playing record, released that day. I've still got it, although I have no means of playing it. Which was the label that used to put out all those train recordings? It would take half an evening to disinter the record from the back of the old boiler cupboard, but it was one of theirs.

I suppose I must've gone home and given the disc a play-through, then I walked three miles to photograph the 13:15 Paddington-Cardiff, which turned up behind D1046 Western Marquis. This would've been taken as I began to make my way home afterwards ...so probably getting on for four o'clock. Alas, I can't make out the number of the "Peak" from the rather grainy photo, and made no note of it at the time. My eyesight would have been good enough in those days, but of course I was squinting through a viewfinder.

I spent many evenings wandering around this semi-countryside just beyond the suburbs of Bristol with the great pal of my youth. One autumnal evening, on the run-up to Bonfire Night, we bought a pocketful of bangers and a box of Swan Vestas. You remember the instructions that used to be printed on bangers: lay the banger on the ground, light the blue touchpaper and retire to a safe distance. Yeah right. In the field off right of this photo, as we walked along the foot of the railway embankment, my friend lit a banger. The touchpaper burned down and the fuse started "fizzing" ...as we used to say. His intention was to throw the banger, hand-grenade fashion, so that it exploded in mid-air. This had to be judged to a nicety, of course. The "fizzing" would intensify as the moment of detonation approached; one had to listen and sieze the precisely correct moment. He reached back to throw, but at that moment the banger went off. Trudging along in the darkness ten yards behind I heard the bang and a torrent of imprecations as my friend hopped around on the turf in a maelstrom of little fiery embers. It was impossible not to laugh ...and I couldn't stop. For the rest of the evening and for days afterwards I'd suddenly start guffawing at the thought of it. It sounds callous, but I could see in the moment that he wasn't hurt. I think he was holding the banger at the end by his fingertips, or perhaps it exploded at the moment of leaving his hand; anyway, there was no injury. In adulthood one's laughter is mostly synthetic; one reproduces the appearance of laughter as a signal that what one has said is meant to be received as humorous, or one extends the courtesy of receiving as funny what has been said by another. There are occasional exceptions, at intervals of many years, but one never as a grown-up laughs spontaneously and uncontrollably as one did in childhood and youth.

On Saturday evening, 3 December 1960, a full rehearsal short of actual launch was being conducted by Robert Rhodus, the Martin Company OSTF test conductor. It was the ninth attempt – all of the other attempts had failed due to minor equipment malfunctions. The missile was loaded with liquid oxygen, it was raised to the surface from the silo, and the countdown began.

However, something went horribly wrong. The entire braking system was compromised and the missile began an uncontrollable descent to the bottom of the silo, where LOX and RP1 mixed, causing a massive explosion.

In the years that followed, enormous chunks of concrete could be seen on the hills near the Titan I facility, and a complete reference system gyro was found on the Marshalia Ranch Golf Course, more than a mile away from the blast site.

Read more about our journeys to Vandenberg missile sites here >>

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A date of "Sep 1955" is stamped on the front of this print, and I'm assuming that it may have been taken at about that point in time. Patrice and Aleda are standing at the front entrance to our Omaha home...

**********************************

Some of the photos in this album are “originals” from the year that my family spent in Omaha in 1955-56. But the final 10 color photos were taken nearly 40 years later, as part of some research that I was doing for a novel called Do-Overs, the beginning of which can be found here on my website

www.yourdon.com/personal/fiction/doovers/index.html

and the relevant chapter (concerning Omaha) can be found here:

www.yourdon.com/personal/fiction/doovers/chapters/ch9.html

Before I get into the details, let me make a strong request — if you’re looking at these photos, and if you are getting any enjoyment at all of this brief look at some mundane Americana from 60+ years ago: find a similar episode in your own life, and write it down. Gather the pictures, clean them up, and upload them somewhere on the Internet where they can be found. Trust me: there will come a day when the only person on the planet who actually experienced those events is you. Your own memories may be fuzzy and incomplete; but they will be invaluable to your friends and family members, and to many generations of your descendants.

So, what do I remember about the year that I spent in Omaha? Not much at the moment, though I’m sure more details will occur to me in the days to come — and I’ll add them to these notes, along with additional photos that I’m tweaking and editing now.

For now, here is a random list of things I remember:

1. I attended the last couple months of 6th grade, and all of 7th grade, in one school. My parents moved from Omaha to Long Island, NY in the spring of my 7th grade school year; but unlike previous years, they made arrangements for me to stay with a neighbor’s family, so that I could finish the school year before joining them in New York.

2. Our dog, Blackie, traveled with us from our previous home in Riverside, and was with us until my parents left Omaha for New York; at that point, they gave him to some other family. For some reason, this had almost no impact on me. It was a case of “out of sight, out of mind” — when Blackie was gone, I spent my final three months in Omaha without ever thinking about him again.

3. Most days, I rode my bike to school; but Omaha was the place where one of my sisters first started attending first grade — in the same school where I was attending 6th grade. I remember walking her to school along Bellevue Avenue on the first morning, which seemed to take forever: it was about a mile away.

4. As noted in a previous Flickr album about my year in Riverside, I was a year younger than my classmates; but I was tall for my age, and thus looked “normal” at a quick glance. But because I was a year younger, I was incredibly shy and awkward in the presence of girls. Omaha was certainly not “sin city,” but by 6th grade and 7th grade, puberty was beginning to hit, and the girls had grown to the point where they were occasionally interested in boys. The school tried to accommodate this social development by teaching us the square dance (and forbidding the playing of songs by Elvis Presley, whose music was just beginning to be heard on the radio). I was an awful dancer, and even more of a shy misfit than my classmates; I continue to be an awful dancer today.

5. My bike ride to school was uneventful most days; but the final part of the ride was a steep downhill stretch on Avery Road, lasting three or four blocks. My friends and I usually raced downhill as fast as we could; but one day, my front bicycle wheel began to wobble on the downhill run, and my bike drifted uncontrollably to the side of the road and then off into a ditch. I got banged up pretty badly.

6. But this accident was nothing compared to my worst mishap: a neighborhood friend and I enjoyed playing “cowboys and Indians” in the woods near his home (and his younger brother usually tagged along). I had a bow and a few arrows for our adventure, and we often shot at trees a hundred feet away. Unfortunately, the arrows often disappeared into the underbrush (because we were lousy shots) and were difficult to find. Consequently, one of us came up with the clever idea of standing behind the “target” tree, so that we could see where the randomly-shot arrows landed. Through a series of miscommunications, I poked my head out from behind the tree just as my friend shot one of the arrows … and it skipped off the side of the tree and into my face, impaling itself into my cheek bone about an inch below my eye. An inch higher, and I would not be typing these words … (meanwhile, my friend's younger brother grew up to be an officer in the U.S. Air Force, and he tracked me down on the Internet, decades later).

7. In the summer of 1956, my parents decided to spend their summer vacation prospecting for uranium (seriously!) in the remote hills of eastern Utah, where my dad had grown up on the Utah-Colorado border. This entailed a long, long drive from Omaha; and it involved leaving me and my two sisters with my grandparents near Vernal, UT. My grandparents lived in a very small mining village outside of Vernal; and while they had electricity and various other modern conveniences, they also had an outhouse in the back yard. Trips to the “bathroom” in the middle of the night were quite an adventure. On the way back to Omaha at the end of this vacation trip (with no uranium ore having been found), we stopped for a couple of days of camping somewhere in the mountains of Colorado; you’ll see a couple of photos from that camping trip in this album.

8. There were no lizards in Omaha, and thus no opportunity for lizard-hunting with my slingshot—which had been a significant hobby in my previous homes in Riverside and Roswell. Indeed, there was almost nothing to shoot at … and I couldn’t find anyone with whom I could play (and hopefully win) marbles, to use as slingshot ammunition. But for reasons I never questioned or investigated (but about which I’m very curious now), there was a small vineyard in the field behind our house, and I was able to climb over the fence and retrieve dozens of small, hard, green grapes. They turned out to be excellent ammunition … but I never did find any lizards.

9. A few months before my parents left for New York, I told them about the latest craze sweeping the neighborhood: “English bikes,” with three speeds, thin tires, and hand-brakes. I desperately wanted one, but Dad said it was far too expensive for him to buy as a frivolous gift for me: at the time, English bikes had an outrageous price tag of $25. I was told that I would have to earn the money myself if I wanted one … and the going rate for young, scrawny kids who shoveled sidewalks, pulled weeds from gardens, and did babysitting chores, was 25 cents per hour. That works out to 100 hours of work … but I did it, over the course of the next few months, and when I got to New York, the first thing I did was buy my English bike.

10. Toward the end of my 7th-grade school year, everyone in my class was subjected to a vision test: we were lined up in alphabetical order, and one-by-one read off a series of letters that we could barely see on a large placard taped onto the classroom blackboard. Because my surname starts with a “Y,” I was usually near the end of the line … and by the time I got to the front, I had usually memorized the letters (because they never bothered to change them, from one student to the next) without even realizing it consciously. But on this particular occasion in 7th grade, for some reason, they decided to line us up in reverse alphabetical order … and I was the first in line. For the first time in my life, I realized that I could not see anything of the letters, and that I was woefully near-sighted.

11. When I got to New York, my parents took me to an optometrist to get my first set of glasses (and, yes, all of the neighborhood kids did begin taunting me immediately: “Four eyes! Four eyes!”) … and I’ve worn glasses ever since.

Three years after I arrived in New York, the glasses saved my vision when a home-brewed mix of gunpowder and powdered aluminum blew up in my face in the school chemistry lab (where I had an after-school volunteer job as a “lab assistant”). I suffered 2nd-degree burns on my face from the explosion, but the glasses protected my eyes. That, however, is a different story for a different time.

As Humans we imagine a lot..

As Mortals we dream a ton

But wouldn't it be nicer if

we work and strive for that

There are things beyond our realms

Situations inevitable, Feelings uncontrollable

Nevertheless it matters if we believe

you and me, above us only sky

Picture taken in very bad conditions. Bright sun and eradicate uncontrollable shades.

Stuart Friedman - The Tease

Stag Modern Novels SP34, 1964

Cover Artist: unknown

"She was driven by an uncontrollable urge to want this man..."

Life is but a dream among the wilderness....

We had an assignment to write our version of what happened in the movie Rashomon- as if we were present and witnessed the scene. Here's my version.

"I often imagine we are all lost forever in the forest called life. The more we try to find our way out, the deeper we are lost. We don’t know what’s around the bend. What is beautiful could also be dangerous… like a thicket of beautiful vines that could entangle you or like a delicious looking fruit that is poisonous .We tread cautiously, ridden with fear of the unknown. Fears that are real, and fears that are imaginary. We all witness the dance of bright beautiful sunlight and deep and dark shadows; birth and death, happiness and sadness, fortune and misfortune. If you explore you might unravel deep hidden secrets. Or you may keep seeking forever and never find an answer. Life Robert Frost says, “The woods are lovely and dark and deep”.

My art is mostly inspired by life, and hence I often go to the woods for inspiration. There is something very soothing and magical to be away from the world for a while and listen to your thoughts. But on that fateful afternoon I didn’t hear my thoughts; nor did I hear the soft rustle of the leaves or the enchanting ripples of the lake. Instead I heard the high pitched screams of a woman being raped that made me shudder without control. I couldn’t get up; I couldn’t even move… it was like my entire being was frozen. I was sitting by the jetty, and had a beautiful view of the lake and a stretch of forest with lovely pines. But what happened there turned the lake into a river of blood, the pines into swaying looming ghosts and the blue sky turned into a muddy gray and purple under which souls are crushed. I am not saying that to sound rhetoric. That is how the landscape actually turned in my head, like my mind started hallucinating just so I could watch the woman being raped by a bandit as her husband lied helplessly tied to a tree, like it was unreal.

It was impossible to register in my mind that I was witnessing a rape and murder. I was feeling like it just couldn’t happen to me, it just can’t be true. And yet the truth is there is a victim of rape every minute in the world and a victim of murder every thirty two minutes. Just take a minute and imagine. If imagining it can be shuddering, just imagine how horrid it would be if you had to experience it for real. Besides the victim, even their near and dear ones are left with scars on their memories that would never erase. That is why the woman’s husband must have killed himself. The bandit fled with the Samurai’s horse after he raped his wife. The Samurai’s wife just lied on the ground sobbing uncontrollably and then she limped to the tree to untie her husband. She must have wanted him to hold her, to embrace and reassure her, but all he did was walk past her. His behavior was very stone like. May be that’s how one becomes when faced with pain beyond endurance; you become numb. How painful it would have been for the Samurai to stay alive and remember every single moment of his life how mercilessly his wife was abused right in front of his eyes and he could do nothing to rescue her. I just blinked my eyes shut as I watched the samurai lift his wife’s dagger and motioned to shove it into his chest. I just closed my eyes and sat there never wanting to open them again. The world felt so ugly I didn’t want to see it again. And then I opened my eyes to the soft sobs of the woman as she moaned over her husband’s body. Eventually she stopped sobbing and the forest was engulfed in a deafening silence.

And then I was jolted to a state of panic and madness as my mind screamed to me, “Just run! Get away from here… This is not beautiful…Run from it all… Go away! Run! What if the bandit is still lurking around… What if he sees you? What if there is a whole gang of bandits in the forest?? Is there a safe place anywhere n earth? I just want to run to some place where no one can get me! What am I running from? Where do I want to go? Is there anyone I could rust to protect me? I need assurance, I wish I had a man to hold and comfort me! I am scared… I want to get out of the woods… which way do I go? I am lost…….”

And I just fled away from there… I didn’t walk to the woman and help her. I didn’t go and comfort her. For some reason I was afraid of her. I don’t think I can face her. I somehow feel guilty. I wish I had done something. I wish I could forget this whole incident. I wish I could go to the woods again….

I often wonder why the woman denies being raped. Why does she say she was lost in passion for the bandit? May be it is easier to blame someone else for your suffering. May be being angry and starting to hate someone you used to love helps erase pain. Yes, that must be so… She must have actually started to believe her story and blot the ugly memory of her rape. I wish she can get rid of all her ghosts…

As for me, I am still living with my ghosts. They are questions about life, about truth… They are why, and what if, and how, and why? And why… Why? Why??? Why????

I wish I could find the answers to my questions. I wonder if I could ever find my answers and make that ringing stop.

I wish I knew much more about life, but a lifetime is too short for that….. "

Hemali Tanna- VIZA 612

Many thanks to the follwing for their stock:

The beautiful model is: Chobits 22 by ~Lisajen-stock

lisajen-stock.deviantart.com/art/Chobits-22-88097850

Forest Roads Stock Pack by ~sophia-T

sophia-t.deviantart.com/art/Forest-Roads-Stock-Pack-38848422

Birds of A Feather by ~midnightstouch

midnightstouch.deviantart.com/art/Birds-of-A-Feather-4276...

[View On Black]

Make me fumble/

Make me fall/

Make my heart stop and start/

To tremble uncontrollably/

Let my eyes see fear make desire/

Keep those who long apart/

Forbid the kiss/

And leave us innocent/

Of the things some do in the dark/

Cuz Tracy is the one to me.

itsonlyfashionblog.com/2015/02/11/in-which-the-blogger-gu...

Well after constructing a LEGO Star Trek Sulu minifigure I started thinking about the scenes that Sulu was famous. The TV episode that immediately comes to my mind is The Naked Time. As the custom was an easy mod, only requiring the head from yesterday's figure, the sword from the collectible minifigure musketeer, and the torso from Dastan; I figured, why not!

Episode Plot from Wiki with some alterations by me:

On stardate 1704.2, the starship USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, beams a landing team down to a research station on the planet Psi 2000, a world in the midst of breaking up. The team finds all six of the scientists manning the station dead. The circumstances of their deaths are not apparent; however, the life support systems had been found shut down and all control systems frozen solid.

One of the Enterprise crewmen, Mr. RED Shirt, carelessly removes his gloves and is contaminated by a strange red liquid. When Mr. RED Shirt returns to the ship he notices a strange itch and begins to act irrationally. Mr. RED Shirt threatens Lt. Sulu with a knife, then attempts to turn it on himself. Mr. RED Shirt is stopped and escorted to the sickbay where he later dies apparently from the superficial wounds he caused himself during the incident.

Soon Mr. RED Shirt's bizarre affliction begins to affect other crew members and quickly spreads through the ship. They each begin to display both comical and horrific exaggerations of character.

As the affliction spreads, Sulu abandons his post on the bridge and runs around the ship shirtless, brandishing a sword, and challenging everyone to a duel. Nurse Chapel confesses her deepest desires for Spock, though Spock rejects her. Spock himself shows troubled emotions and begins weeping uncontrollably because he can't tell his mother he loves her. He tells Captain Kirk that he feels ashamed when he feels friendship toward him. Captain Kirk is also affected, first becoming overly romantic toward the ship, then exhibiting paranoia, breaking down for fear that he is losing his ability to command.

McCoy manages to avoid the affliction and finds that somehow on Psi 2000, water has changed to a complex chain of molecules and once in the bloodstream, it acts like alcohol, depressing the centers of judgment and self-control.

Oh, and the image above is inspired from a T-Shirt

Charlotte Russe trench

Vintage plaid shirt

Urban Outfitters shorts and flats

Vintage beret

Do you ever have an uncontrollable desire to “be more”? I do. And I know it’s something I’ve talked about before (ok, so I’ve killed this subject) but I obsess over improving myself... read more.

ENJOY THIS WITH GOOD LIGHT HEARTED SPIRIT

I hope shakesphere will forgive me for using a bit of artisitic licence to change his famous words to suit this picture.

When taking my daughter to Singapore Zoo, we came across this lovely bat and immediately I pulled out my gear.

To be honest, I never realized what came out of the captures until I downloaded the images in the computer.

When my girl and I saw this picture, both of us could not stop laughing. When she finally stopped laughing, she said to me "If that bat goes to "pee pee", it will go directly into its mouth"...and again started laughing uncontrollably.

The title is inspired from her words. I dedicate it to her and all the children of the world, who bring so much joy into our lives.

Photographed with Canon EOS 1D Mark III, and Canon EF 70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM Lens. Handheld

Photograph © Kausthub Desikachar

Please do not reproduce in any form without prior written consent from the copyright holder. Please contact the photographer through Flickrmail, to inquire about licensing arrangements.

I was experiencing another terror-filled day down at the Golden Ponds Park. I remember moving as fast as I could but I seemed locked in slow motion and could easily have gotten caught by this uncontrollable locust had I moved too slowly. This was one of those slasher horror films where everyone made bad decisions. "OH NO," screamed the audience! This is where the vines entangled my ankles and digested my entrails. No more "noir theater," please! I can't help it! This may have involved varying degrees of authenticity.

Just when things were rolling along famously, I am entrenched in "action" shots for the series. I repaired as much of the camera shake as I could; I didn't do too badly. There are new developments in my "action" attempts. At the time, I found a dark path under a darker sky. After checking the EXIF, I found that although I started at 70mm on the zoom I must have waited until I was cranking to trip the shutter. 44mm was reported. It seems to be a workable solution at faster shutter speeds. I got some really crisp, animated streaks during the 1 second of this capture. The one second exposure is really luxurious. I really like the zoom on this shot; this is not particularly a slight zoom like recent posts... sometimes you eats the bear and...

This was another exploding shot along the St.Vrain River, rain that day, taken near the western park boundary... zooming as fast as I could crank! I aimed next to the dappled path and cranked fast, thus making streaks. It looks like the shot was centered just off the jogger. Right on her butt would be better. That is hard to control, especially when the viewfinder goes black. This is from my stash of recent zoom experiments at Longmont's Golden Ponds. There was no camera-back spin during the zoom; the camera was on the monopod. The foliage was expanding fast in this case.

I started to crank the zoom lucked out, starting the zoom at exactly 70mm. I am getting faster. I work on dexterity. I made these shots without the monster 72mm variable neutral density filter I don't like. Instead, I shot with a darker sky so the light would be sucked out of the daytime. Dusk helps. Here is the lucky shot that happened on the shoot. This picture was a new twist; using the camera as slowly as I could hold the monopod. I am getting better at hand held motion at these. I posted previous shots that were extremely lucky. I used Lightroom and then dropped it into Photoshop to see what what might appear.

{ Press "L" for Black background }

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Song : www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHzWHzojktA

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«Ne pleure pas petite sirène.

L'océan ne devrait pas venir de vos yeux.

Ne laissez pas votre cœur chavirer.

La mer est si magique. Je la voit se fâcher, puis se plaindre et enfin montrer sa magnificence. Cette force de la nature si incontrolable, si fragile. Très lunatique. Et pourtant elle a aussi quelques chose de reposant, digne, revigorant.»

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"Don't cry little mermaid.

The ocean should not come from your eyes.

Do not let your heart capsize.

The sea is so magical. I see getting angry and complaining and finally show its magnificence. This force if the uncontrollable nature, so fragile. Very whimsical. Yet it also has some thing relaxing worthy invigorating."

Meet the Infantry Squad (Left to Right):

1. "Hagibis" - Knife Specialist. Let's just say his fast-twitch muscles are uncontrollable.

2. "Dom" - He's dirty. He's old. Donald, whose last name rhymes with "rump", got nothing on him.

3. "Arniz" - Martial Arts Specialist. He specializes with sticks and "open hand" techniques.

4. "Balitok" (APC Driver) - He got a gold tooth. And grins. And puts the pedal to the metal. And that's it, really.

5. "Sigaw" - Squad Commander. He used to herd carabaos. Now he herds, er, leads a group of misfits to war. Got TMJ from shouting the battle cry way too many times.

6. "Tirador" - Slingshot Specialist. His aim is quite pretty... as in, pretty bad.

7. "Mantu Tuli" - a.k.a. The Circumciser. He has battled with many members... *crickets*... moving on...

8. "Lorena" (APC Gunner) - She has battled with many members as well... as in dis"member"ing them. If you encounter her in battle, don't be the next John Wayne Bobbitt... Just sayin'...

Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace (MAE), Le Bourget.

This supersonic VTOL prototype was powered by a SNECMA-modified Pratt & Whitney JTF10 turbofan, redesignated TF-104B and providing cruise thrust, vertical thrust being provided by a battery of eight 1600kg Rolls-Royce RB162-1 engines mounted in pairs in the centre fuselage.

Wing root chord was increased by comparison with that of the non-VTOL Mirage, resulting in compound sweep. Following replacement of the 6300kg TF-104 by the TF-106A3 offering 7600kg, the IIIV effected its first transition to horizontal flight on 24 March 1966 and later attained speeds up to Mach 1.35.

The second prototype was flown on 22 June 1966. This was powered by an 8400kg TF-30 propulsion turbofan, and side-hinged doors rather than aft-hinged grilles covered the lift engines. On 12 September 1966, this second aircraft attained M=2.04 in level flight. But on 28 November 1966, the second prototype was lost in an accident. The aircraft became uncontrollable (in crabbing/sideslip flight tests), and the test pilot ejected and survived.but on 28 November, it was destroyed in a crash.

The production Mirage IIIV was intended to combine a 9000kg TF-306 propulsion engine (built by SNECMA) with eight 2200kg RB162-31 lift engines, and was to be optimised for the tactical strike role, with a low-level M=0.92 attack mode and a 467km combat radius with a 907kg nuclear payload. The development programme was suspended after the loss of the second aircraft and finally abandoned.

were Norse warriors who are primarily reported in the Old Norse literature to have fought in a nearly uncontrollable, trance-like fury, a characteristic which later gave rise to the English word berserk. Berserkers are attested to in numerous Old Norse sources. Most historians believe that berserkers worked themselves into a rage before battle, but some think that they might have consumed drugged foods.

Uncontrollable

Twin knights with opposite elements, but the same goal. Ahkuva is brutal and almost uncontrollably aggressive. He destroys whatever he feels is in his way. Unlike his brother, he eviscerates his enemies. When he kills, his target is a fraction of their former self. HIs favorite moments are when his brother says "have at it" at which point he goes to decimate villages.

4th Wall: These took a long time to make. Ahkuva, the shadow knight has been done for a while, but I wanted to make sure they got done right and photographed together. Ahkuva was easier to build because I had the parts ready. He uses a measure of old gunmetal, new gunmetal, and the new flat silver color, and they mesh together well because of how they're spaced out. I like the way he turned out. Comments are of course welcome.

(radio broadcast from 334-343)

..if you have recently had a wasteland Doc tamper with your Synth component, don't worry. approach one of us, or we will approach you. either way, your life is safe. you do not want to be skewered by our Assaultrons after an uncontrollable fit of rage. we'll have your component fixed, and you'll be back to your bland obnoxious personalities in no time. Liz, stop slapping me!

(it's going to take forever to finish Spectacle Island, and two work-days coming up! another story might take awhile)

The Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) is poisonous. When eaten It is known to cause hallucinations, violent stomach, upsets, uncontrollable muscle spasms and could be fatal.

When I open the eyes after a long sleep

I recognized that everything surrounding me was change

The past, the present and the future…

It’s like a trap that I can’t escape

It makes me exhausted, dizzy, uncontrollable…

But… it keeps going on and never stop

That’s why I’ve to live, live, live

Live when somebody or something rescue me

Live when somebody or something make me recognize that…

Who I am…… ♥

Shitttttt… I think I.S.L.Y… when I.S.Y.W.O, I.G.M and Uncomfortable!! I don’t know why I’ve got that feeling >”< When I’m alone and think ‘bout that… Arggggggggg… I think… I’m B.M.H :-s Are you mean to do that, huh? Or you just do it for nothing?? Damn!! How I can stop this feeling?... I wish Y.W.H and T.M.H :) I’m really, really M.Y…you know?? I wish E.I.C.S.Y :x I wish I.C.S.O.L that I.L.Y :) But… it’s just a wish :)

P/s: ai dịch dc hông =)) dịch dc mình dẫn đi coi phim, patin hay kar nữa ha :"> =)) trúng số đó mà :-" =))

--------------------

Tình hình là sắp chết với vụ đau bao tử :(( thà đau lòng vì ai đó còn hơn đau như thế này :)) đau lòng vì 1 ai đó rồi cũng sẽ hết thôi :)

Chán không có gì làm nên chơi flickr lại cho vui thôi :)) muốn chùa thì chùa :) không quan tâm đâu ha :) trên đây chỉ để bộc lộ feeling thôi =)) muốn hiểu gì hiểu :”>

Stuart Friedman - Nikki

Stag Modern Novels SP29, 1964

Cover Artist: unknown

"She was driven by an uncontrollable urge for a man strong enough to master her completely..."

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You're uncontrollable

Why be such a monster?

I’ll still take all the blame

I’ll take back all the things that I said

To escape

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For his last 9 months, Bonkers had to wear a diaper, not so much as his bladder was uncontrollable but due to his very weak legs making it almost impossible for him to step over the edge of the litter box. And, when he slept, he sometimes forgot to awaken when he had to urinate, leading to accidents. At the time, cat diapers weren't on the market in Hokkaido but Naomi found that diapers designed for pug-sized dogs was a perfect fit for Bonkers. So, he wore them most of the time (and when we took them off of him to let him dry off, we kept a wee-wee mat under him). The only bad thing about a diaper is it gave him a bladder infection...

To smoke, as an act of rebellion, while being a teenager, does not seem rebellious to me at all. It is ignorantly giving in to indoctrination from both the immediate circle of friends and the huge, aggressive cigarette manufacturers assisted by the media.

I have often reasoned with myself that if our teenagers want to rebel against society, if they strive to become independent and think for themselves, so why on earth do they fall like flies into the vicious nets of nicotine advertising pushers? Indoctrinators who don't give a damn about anything at all but their greed for money and power?

If our children achieve the understanding and grasp the fact that they are being utterly manipulated-- played smoothly like the play-dough they used themselves not too long ago-- in the hands of those guilt-free companies & fancy executives, would they let themselves be used without a fight?

These companies, who despite the hypocritical label "hazardous to your health" on their products, become more sophisticated in masking their bloody claws into trendy, polished palavers, all in order to get our children as fast as they possibly can and turn them into addicts for life, would our children then so easily fall into these well calculated traps? If they saw the catch in time?

Wouldn't our beloved children rebel against this despicable wickedness which robs them of their freedom, and in the long run of their heath as well, wouldn't they then boycott all those damned cigarettes? After all our children see us, their role models, adults who try numerous times to quit smoking, yet fail again and again and jeopardize our health. If only they would see the plot when there is still time.

My beloved Aunt started to smoke as a joke when she was only 16 y/o. Like everybody else she wanted to appear tougher than she was, she wanted to be popular. Throughout her life she inhaled large amounts of the addictive drug until her lungs were totally pierced and black with tar. She tried to quit smoking time after time, succeeded only for a week or so, went on smoking and continued to struggled for nearly 60 years. All in vain, she was doomed from her very first "supposedly innocent" cigarette.

I saw her agony, I saw her terrible suffering. I saw her die in horrible pain, totally in the merciless arms of the cruel lung cancer caused by nicotine.

If only our children could see in time the traps that are put out for them disguised as freedom of choice.

I still remember that cigarette which I deliberately took in order to aggravate my mom-- I was only 15 or 16 y/o at the time, it was my job to rebel against her, right?

It all started a few days earlier. Two of my high-school mates called me to have a cigarette with them in a hidden corner of the school yard. One of the girls, Yona was her name-- beautiful, thick long blond braid hanging heavily on her back, smart girl, bright in class-- was my idol, someone I looked up to and wanted to be as good as she, especially in mathematics, a subject I had always difficulties with. The other girl, Devorah, was already a smoker, as far as I can recall. Yona had always enough pocket money to buy cigarettes and so she offered me one. I took it and sucked on it, not really knowing what to do, but i didn't want to appear childish so I went on blowing some smoke. After a few minutes my mouth had a disgusting taste and I felt nauseated, however, I still didn't stop, all I wanted was to be like Yona, popular and at the top of our class. If she did it, it was an act of boldness and daring which I admired.

I decided to buy a packet of mint flavoured cigarettes, called Polaris at the time, mid 60's, and waited for the moment to confront my mother. The opportunity didn't take long to show up.

That Friday afternoon, after school was done for the week, Mom and I were sitting and discussing something which I can't remember now what it was. I opened my little brown leather purse, took out the unopened package of cigarettes, tore up the cellophane wrapping, pulled out a long, white cigarette, elegantly, so I thought, putting it in my mouth, waiting excitedly for the reaction of my strict disciplinary mother. I was ready for a wild fight and about to lit my liberating cigarette, my act of rebellion, when Mommy said very calmly:

"Alors, Poupetta, tu fumes maintenant?"... So I see that you have taken up smoking, huh..."

"Yes!" I said triumphantly, provocatively, anticipating the big revolution I had in mind, imagining my mother's fuming outburst and uncontrollable anger.

Well, come on, give it to me, Mom, my 15-16 years old energy boiled in me.

Well... I sat there, still holding onto that famous cigarette, but the spark from that friction I was delivering so eagerly didn't get on fire. Neither did my cigarette for that matter. It was simply dull. Mom said no more, so unlike her, I thought, she always lectured me, always. Why, only the other day she was praising Yona, who came for a visit, urging me to take after her studious nature, I who had nothing but the Beatles on my mind!

It was a total flat disappointment, no reaction was boring and so I didn't see why I should go on pretending I liked smoking when I actually despised the smell and taste of it. And if I couldn't even get Mom aggravated so why on earth bother at all.

"Here, Mommy, take it," I said handing her the brand new package of Polaris mint cigarettes.

Sulphur Bay - which is right on top of active geothermal area.

A hot pool, the gases emitted from which banished the deepest gloom in peal after peal of uncontrollable laughter.

Hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide gases emitted from the surface apparently produced a similar reaction to the dentist's laughing gas, nitrous oxide.

They also caused fainting which made bathing in the pool quite dangerous.

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The force of nature cares nothing for mankind’s fragile attempts to harness rivers or break the power of storms. We build levees, dikes, and dams, believing we can control what’s uncontrollable, but these structures are weak, and in the end, they always fail. When the levee breaks, the flood comes, swallowing the land whole, and all our efforts are erased. In the aftermath, we stand amidst the wreckage of homes, belongings, lives lost, drowning in the heavy realization of our vulnerability. The true tragedy lies not just in the devastation we see, but in our failure to grasp, until it’s too late, that we were never in control at all.

The castle of Lipnice was established around 1310 by an important Czech aristocratic family - the Lords of Lichtenburg. After them Lipnice often changed hands between various owners - always influential Czech noblemen or Czech kings (King John of Luxembourg, Jindrich of Lipa, Czech King and Roman Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg, Lords of Landstein, family of Vartenberg, family of the Trckas of Lipa and many other).

Later Lipnice was adjusted into the form of a late gothic castle residence. After the Thirty Years' War castle was reconstructed, but it quickly lost the importance it once had, as well as its original function. The last substantial building activity related to baroque conversion of the castle chapel in the 1780's. During the following centuries, the castle gradually and uncontrollably fell into disrepair, and was used as a farming estate. In 1869 the castle burned down along with the town, and became a ruin.

The first rescue actions began in 1913, and are continuing to this day with varying intensity. In 1924, the Club of Czech Tourists bought the castle for 100 Czech Crowns from the Trautmansdorf family. From 1953 the castle has been owned by the State.