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having dashed down to the end of the car park to catch the pilot as I turned back I noticed this. who parked a 66 on my car?
Imagine thick mists... Two caravels far out at sea, tossed between the icy Antarctic Circumpolar Atlantic and the warm Agulhas currents, each barely 100 tons, one named Sao Pantaleao, under the command of Bartholomeu Diaz. As luck would have it they were not dashed to pieces on these craggy coasts but they missed seeing the shoreline altogether on their outbound trip. Returning from their easternmost anchorage well around the Cape near Mosselbaai, they made landfall on April 23, 1488 at what they called Agualada da Sao Jorge, today Struisbaai. This longest sandy beach in South Africa is only a few miles east off the southernmost point of the African continent named Agulhas in 1502 by sailors who noticed that their compass needles pointed due north here with no variation between the true and magnetic poles. Diaz had not realised that this was indeed an important geographical occasion. He thought the Cape of Good Hope - on the way east he'd missed seeing Table Mountain which had then apparently been thickly covered by clouds - to be the point most southern.
This photo looks east-southeast towards Cape Agulhas, which is only about 10 miles straight across the white dune. My back is towards the remote farm of Aasfontein and I am on the edge of the property of Brandfontein. The rocks are covered by what I think is Xanthoria parietina, common orange lichen.
The Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet here; the water is fiercly cold yet quite energizing. But not enough to want to have been on the Sao Pantaleao!
This little girl was in the middle of a busy street all by herself! My wife dashed into traffic to save her.
The Vet says she’s healthy and about three weeks old. We’ve been bottle feeding her every few hours for the past couple days.
I’ll be thankful when she’s weaned and house broken!
She’s a part of our family now. The dogs love her and the other cats seem tolerant.
Mubarak, the grandfather of a family I have visited over the last 3 years. They live in a very small village, largely abandoned, in Oman. When I arrived this year one of the children riding his bicyle saw me coming around the corner, he spun round and dashed back to his house to tell the others I was coming. They wern't expecting me. There was no way of contacting them. These episodes make my journeys travelling alone worthwhile. If I was part of a group, or even with my wife or family, it would be unlikely that contacts and invitations to have coffee & dates, or even stay for a day or so, would be made. I don't see the grand Cities or the contrived displays of culture etc for the tourist trade, but I feel I do see and experience life with the real people of Oman.
My article and photography have been published by the British Omani Society, in their 2015 Review.
You can access it here :- www.britishomani.org/annual-review
Click on the '2015 Review', go down, the article is on pages 12/15.
It’s very easy and safe, even I can do it!
With the afternoon's weather turning out as well as it did, I dashed up to Crag Foot to have another stab at 37057.
I arrived shortly before the train, seen here heading towards Silverdale and its ultimate destination of Carlisle, via the Cumbrian Coast. 37421 was the leading loco'.
10.51 Derby - Carlisle.
Tue 13th February 2018.
With thanks to Phil Metcalfe for suggesting this location.
With great expecation of a spectacular sunset quickly dashed by a large band of cloud on the horizon I got out my 10 stop ND which I knew would warm everything up and add another layer of interest. I set up right on the warters edge and shot with an exposure time of 347 seconds which allowed the incoming waves to move the seaweed about giving the foreground an odd look. As it was getting dark very quickly I knew I had to start lengthening the exposure but the waves were starting to slap against the tripod so I stopped the exposure knwoing it would be underexposed a bit but I actually like the effect of the vignette. On the RAW file and my edited master I just cannot get rid of the banding occouring in the sky from the colour transitions - the tug of a film system becomes stronger!
there is a good 54 crop in there too, what d'you think?
I love photographing horses without a bridle or saddle on. But too often they are kept in fields or paddocks free of obstructions to stop them running into things and hurting themselves. I headed out this morning hoping for low lying mist but all I found was a thin hazy fog that just created thin light that offered no contrast at all. And so my hopes were dashed as I headed over towards Longnor. But I suddenly saw a group of horses that seemed to have congregated under some trees for the night. But the moment I pulled up they started to move and two had already moved out of shot before I got out of the car with my camera. And I grabbed this shot before the black and white horse and another behind turned and ventured off down the hillside.
They weren't perfect conditions but I felt it so rare to find a group in this sort of setting, that I was pleased at least to get something from an otherwise uninteresting morning
Very dull morning, failed to photograph anything, but dashed outside when I realised there was a bit of a sunset in the garden.
Also uploading 3 archive general shots from Norfolk, all some years ago
Toxicity: Mildly venomous (Not medically significant to humans except those who are hypersensitive to any type of venom e.g., ant bites or bee sting).
A fast moving snake and like most keelbacks it is a great swimmer too. It will dashed into any nearby stream or river when it feels threaten. Sometimes it will slide away.
Also known as red-sided keelback
Distribution: Brunei Darussalam, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia (Peninsular Malaya and East Malaysia), Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
This was taken the other evening after we had some 'stormy' conditions locally, I saw the light and sky shaping up quite nicely so I dashed up to my local haunt at the reservoir, I managed to grab two or three good shots from the outing.
EXIF
lens Sigma 10-20mm f/4
Filter HiTech 0.9 / 0.3 NDGrad
captured: 2007:05:31 20:20:19+01:00
focal length: 12.0mm
aperture: 16.0
shutter speed 1/4
shutter mode Manual
exposure bias
metering mode Multi-segment
iso: 100
I had left for the evening tonight, just in time to get caught in a shower of very heavy rain.
Five minutes later (after picking up some groceries), the sun had emerged and a rainbow was evident over Edinburgh Castle. So, I dashed back into the office and was able to grab this rather nifty shot with my Canon Powershot G9 (which I almost always carry with me).
Now I'll just sit back and wait for the offers flooding in from postcard companies. ;-)
Chicago Botanic Garden
I was photographing the waterlily when this sparrow dashed across my frame and luckily my quick finger was able to capture a glimpse of the action.
A few seconds before I took this shot the adult coot had been perched next to their chick on this piece of wood. Then this Heron landed, obviously thinking the chick would be its next meal. The Heron hadn't planned for the parents brave response though, the Coot stood its ground whilst the chick dashed left into the nearby reeds. The result? The Heron gave way and flew off to look for an easier meal elsewhere.
Hi, my friends! Here it is a blue hour view of the Tree of life at Expo 2015 in Milan.
My family and I dashed off the Expo 2015; not much time and chances to take photographs, nevertheless I tried to capture a moment of the light and water show of the Tree of life, the symbol and arguably the single greatest attraction of the event. Not a masterpiece, admittedly, nevertheless I am glad to share this with you :-)
The Tree of Life, a 37 meters structure made of steel and wood, has a great symbolic appeal and an incredible scenographic impact - especially by night. The lighting system of the Tree, spread over its elaborately woven wooden structure, produces beautiful, everchanging streaks of coloured lights moving along the lines, endowing the whole structure with a pulsating life. During the evening shows the lights and the fountains dance together at the rhythm of the music in an evocative coreography, so that you can imagine to contemplate a magnificent recapitulation of the miracle of life on our Mother Planet :-)
It is interesting to know that the design of the wooden structure of the Tree has its roots deep in the Renaissance, intimately recalling the beautiful paving of Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome ( = Capitoline Hill - not the copy of the White House in Washington), which was designed by Michelangelo in 1534 as a part of his redesign of the whole place. Due to the shape of the square, Michelangelo's decoration is oval-shaped, whereas the Tree of Life is circular.
I hope you will like this shot; we will go back there and I hope to have better opportunities to capture this beautiful Tree of Life.
Every time I have observed these small waders they have always dashed away from incoming waves. However, this bird was actively running into the waves and feeding in and under them.
The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Psalm 118:22-23
GOD IS IN CONTROL
Co-worker Ron Boyd-MacMillan writes in his epic volume, Faith That Endures, "Your life's purpose may remain a mystery to you, as may the events of your world, but that's okay. God is in control. We are relieved of the responsibility of understanding everything and the need to change it."
R. J. Thomas was a Welsh missionary with a burden for the xenophobic hermit kingdom of Korea in the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1865, while in China, the opportunity he had been waiting a lifetime for arrived. An American ship, the SS General Sherman, was going to steam up the Taedong River to the capital, Pyongyang, in hopes of luring the Koreans into trade. Thomas bought a berth on the ship, hoping to meet some scholars in Pyongyang who spoke and read Chinese, and he took as many Chinese Scriptures with him as he could carry on board.
When they reached Pyongyang, they were not welcomed. They got stuck on a sandbank and the ship was set afire. As the crew waded to shore, they were killed by the waiting Koreans. Thomas also waded to shore. Before he could speak, a club swung with murderous force dashed his brains into the water, but his killer noticed he had emerged with books. He picked up a couple of the sodden books. Drying them off, he separated the leaves and saw that they were nicely printed. He could not read but decided to paper the outside of his house compound with the pages, as was the custom at the time.
Imagine his astonishment when he returned from the fields a few weeks later to find a clutch of scholars earnestly reading his walls. One of these scholars became a Christian by reading a Gospel portion plastered onto the wall. A generation later his nephew assisted in the first translation of the New Testament into Korean in Shenyang, China under the supervision of another little-known missionary, John Ross from Scotland.
R.J. Thomas never lived to see the fruit of his labor or his prayers for Korean people. He died, his life's purpose unfulfilled, his potential unrealized. For anyone aware of Thomas's death, his life was a mystery for years afterward.
But his life was not in vain. The meaning of life does not consist in what we make of it, but in what God makes of it. Success is not about achievement or what we make of ourselves. It's about placement, or what God makes of us. We take the lesson from the persecuted church that it is okay to die quite unaware of our life's meaning. We can rest in trust that God, in His mercy, has used us to help build His eternal kingdom.
RESPONSE
Today I leave my placement, my purpose, my potential in the hands of a good and loving God.
PRAYER
May I ever realize that You are in control and thus truly allow You to be Lord of my life.
.
Standing Strong Through The Storm:
A daily devotional message by SSTS author Paul Estabrooks
Wild South Africa
Kruger National Park
I quickly took just this one photo before I dashed off. They were less than 20 meters away.
Lower Manhattan, 9:28 PM. The air is muggy, ensured by a constant drizzle that pelts the brick and mortar labyrinth. On a particular branch of this urban stretch sits a defunct sauna which, in outward appearance, is of no more import than its neighbors.
Through the natural drum of the downpour, a series of unorganized whirs and clanks can be identified, and then, a disproportionate shape lurches out of the grey veil and stalks along the parking lot on tall, winding stabilizers. It is a man riding atop them, his torpid state in opposition with the arms’ erratic lunging. They allow him to descend gradually as he reaches the awning outside the dead establishment, and the ensemble of flesh and machinery bobs to a standstill.
With an efficiency gained through repetition, Doctor Otto Octavius commands a tentacle to pluck the damp trilby from his head, resulting in a few droplets tagging his neck. He huffs, and sways a little like he wishes a bed would catch him. Then his lower-left pincer punches the lock out of the door and he lumbers inside.
Rain patters against the panes and roof. The sauna’s interior is even heavier than it is out in the streets; clearly, the back rooms are not out of service, nor locked. The light implements, on the other hand, are characteristically dark.
“Sauron!” barks the arrival. “It’s a dungeon in here! … Even Warren’s lairs aren’t this repellent…”
Over the din of the weather, a response slithers to Octavius’ ears:
“I hear now that thou wouldst barter with me. What is thy price?”
“Quoting the Silmarillion, hmph. So you do take your name from Tolkien,” a blasé Octavius verifies. “I happen to be aware of the swift betrayal met by the character offered the same. Come to think of it, it was the undoing of his companions as well. Showing our hand a tad early, are we?”
“As if.”
Sounding like a heavy tarp being splayed, something unfolds from the rafters above the waiting room, to Octavius’ left. It swoops down, and across to the reception area. Octavius sizes up the wide figure; its only prominent features in the gloom are three points, devilishly crowning its shoulders and head.
“Plead your case, Doctor, and I, Sauron, will be the godsend to your campaign.”
One of Octavius’ claws snips at the air. “It’s you who needs to impress me, Doctor.”
“Bah!” Sauron screeches. “You were not already satisfied by my resume?!”
“As for my ‘price’,” Octavius reprimands, “I submit to you a part to play in removing the thorn in our sides: Spider-Man. My end of the bargain was final; your contribution is what we will be reviewing.”
This ruffles Sauron. “I just wanted to say the quote, damn you!”
Octavius, frowning, flips open the dossier provided by a tentacle rooting through his trench coat. “Firstly, you claim a kill on one of the X-Men operatives. ‘Cannonball’.”
“Yes. Full disclosure: He came around.”
“From dying.”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it just the way?” Octavius muses, continuing. “Flight capabilities. Energy-draining touch. Expertise in genetic modification. Professional hypnotherapist, and by extension, able to turn desired targets against one an-“
“FFFFIRE-breathing!” reminds Sauron, as he belches out a cone of flame over the duo’s heads. His form—that of an anthropomorphic pteranodon—is brilliantly exposed for an instant.
Octavius rubs the indentations on his nose, made by his shades. “I have a man that flies. I expect to be bringing in more that specialize in illusions and biological weapons. Should I become truly desperate, I do, regrettably, know a particularly intolerable vampire. With ALL of these candidates, in fact, I have greater familiarity, than I do you. Bearing this in mind… tell me why I might have need of you.”
“Did I not breathe fire before your mammalian eyes?!”
“I’m enthralled,” Octavius snarls. “You have thoroughly wasted my time. Good night!”
“I have the Spider-Man’s true name!” Sauron squawks after his departure.
“YOU-“ Octavius’ arms rattle, and he slams the door shut, jerking back around. “LEAD WITH THAT! BLAZES, MAN!”
Sauron hops over to a specific drawer in the front desk, crestfallen. “Just once I would like fire-breath to seal the deal.”
“How on Earth could you know the man behind the wall-crawler’s mask?”
“As it were: By saving his life. My other half did, that is.”
Octavius looks at his claws. They look back. “Your marital partner..?”
“What?” Sauron blinks softly, then shakes his beak. “… No, my former identity, Karl Lykos; that veritable pheasant! He banished himself to the Savage Land, allowing himself no interaction with superpowered persons, that which must be consumed to bring forth my glorious form!”
He produces a videotape from the drawer, and motions for Octavius to follow him to the flatscreen intended for patrons. There, Sauron had seemingly brought his own cassette player. Octavius’ lower-right tentacle sighs.
Sauron pops in the tape. “But much to Lykos’ dismay, the Savage Land beckoned adventurers. Spider-Man arrived and, unprepared for the trials that awaited him, was transformed, by the mutant Brainchild, into a feral arachnoid beast-“
“Why couldn’t he have contacted me?..” laments Octavius.
“-and was set loose upon the nobler natives of the Savage Land. Lykos prevented a massacre by sapping the false mutation from the Spider-Man, but at the cost of unleashing me! Lykos witnessed the vigilante’s face as he reverted… and I was freed.”
“And you managed to put the face to a name, how? Lykos knew his alter-ego?”
Sauron tuts. “Now now, if I told you everything, it would take no time at all for a man of your acuity to piece things together… and—my usefulness expired—you would cast me off.”
“Like a broken. Crayon,” says Octavius darkly.
“In that event, I shall keep my leverage! Ah, it wasn’t rewound.” Sauron pecks at his remote, and the VCR begins complaining.
“Armed with this secret,” Sauron resumes, “I made my way to New York. The brief ’taste’ I got of the Spider-Man’s power told me that he was… an individual kind of delicacy; the likes of which, I have found in only the most astonishing of X-Men. A full meal of one such person… I imagine it could facilitate my control over Lykos for years. A decade, even.”
“The X-Men, again,” Octavius notes the recurring topic, unsure. “Are you yourself, categorically, a ‘mutant’?”
“A titan among mortals, created by a metamorphic virus carried by apex organisms that were thought to be long-extinct!” boasts Sauron. “Oh yes, but ‘mutant’ will do. Blasphemy! Lumping me in with the same barbarians that…”
Sauron irascibly tosses around more cables.
“‘That’, what?” Octavius presses.
“Never mind, you! See here, my near-triumph over our common enemy!”
On cue, the display’s fuzzy picture and static subsides into the rustling of foliage. The camera was being pushed in short bursts through dense grass. Narrating the footage was an extraordinarily phony English accent; it was Sauron’s.
“It is here, in the undergrowth, where we will have a chance-“
Sauron grunted from behind the camera, likely performing a leopard crawl.
“-to spot Ka-Zar’s courtship ritual with the She-Devil.”
Sauron—not in the video—starts mashing buttons feverishly. Octavius grimaces.
“Never before has this unique mating behavior been documented to be released to the general… oh. Oh balls.”
The choppy audio picks up the far-off bellows of a woman, then those of a man. The camera view is shown shuffling for a moment, when a wooden spear embeds itself in the muck, inches from the lens. The visuals blur, and flapping can be heard. Then a very deep, feline snarl. Then a girlish yawp from Sauron. The last image is of two rows of pure-white incisors, when present-day Sauron finally locates the fast-forward feature.
The rain still beats down while the tape zips along.
“I was feeling silly.”
“You are detestable.”
“Yes, well… never let it be said that Sauron, Master of Malice, was too much the Boy Scout!” the villain recovers. “NOW, see here…”
The video plays at regular speed, and one of Sauron’s hands is seen clutching a mason jar, turning it over to agitate the sizable arachnid it houses. The creature has an atypically vibrant exoskeleton, and repeatedly attacks the glass at the slightest upset of its prison. The chuckling of both Saurons harmonizes.
“Before stowing aboard a ship braving the Drake Passage, I stowed with me a deadly specimen: One of many ready-made weapons housed by the Savage Land,” Sauron explains proudly. “Aggressive on her best days, and positively bloodthirsty when she’s carrying her young.”
A zoom-in showcases scores of fibrous pouches speckle the animal’s abdomen.
“My plan was direct. Elegant. No extraneous moving parts… so to speak.”
The perspective cuts to Sauron’s feet lighting on the uppermost ledge of an apartment building.
Octavius shoves past Sauron to absorb every pixel on the monitor. “This is where he lives? Where is this??”
Sauron ignores him. “The first snag came up before I even began. Spider-Man somehow saw me coming.”
Doctor Octopus’ concentration on identifying any landmarks on the skyline is broken. He squints at Sauron, almost disgusted. “That’s half of his act: Sensing things. I’m sorry, how many times did you say you actually fought-“
“Watcha doin’ up here, bud? Migration been rough this year?”
Sauron rack-focused to Spider-Man, on the adjacent ledge.
“Orchestrating your demise, morsel. You and I have a dinner engagement.”
Sauron smiles approvingly at his own delivery in the video. “I had that one written beforehand.”
Spider-Man tilted his head. “Oh hey, you’re recording this? Hi future-me, who’s going to be looking at this and finding all of bird-man’s embarrassing shower karaoke.”
“Lord above, he doesn’t shut up for anyone,” Octavius mutters.
The screen rocks from Sauron hobbling to a ventilation duct. “Mock your doom. Mock Sauron the Unspeakable! But YOU will be the one caught in a web this time.”
Sauron brandished the jar containing his spider.
“Awww…” Spider-Man cooed at it, wiggling a finger playfully. “Here’s the thing: I don’t have your Ring of Power or whatever you’re here for, but I’m going to have to insist you round up any and all Shelobs you have on your person and hit the road. I’m telling you, they’ve got a serious policy about pets, the guy two doors down from me had to have a friend look after his chinchilla for-“
“Quit your drivel! I am antagonizing you!”
“-of course Ms. Rasmussen has an emotional-support dog, that’s really the only exception! Hey! If your spiders help you detect low blood-sugar, you may be able to convince the landlord-“
“Enough!” Sauron crowed. His wicked smile could practically be heard through the recording. “They’re waking up.”
“That’s ominous,” Spider-Man decided. “‘kay I’ll take that now.”
The vigilante’s web-shooters both fired; the left, snaring the spider’s glass, and the right tangling around Sauron’s wing, and part of the camera’s lens. Before Spider-Man could reel in his catch, Sauron coughed up a fiery jet that snapped the sticky band leading to the jar, then dashed the vessel straight through the grating of the duct beside him.
The eyes on Spider-Man’s mask enlarged. “Oh god!”
He sprang after the lost jar, but the camera swirls and Sauron’s great wingspan blindsided the hero back onto the gravel at the far end of the roof. Sauron jabbed through the remaining webbing as his adversary rolled upright. Spider-Man didn’t try for the vent again; he flipped over the ledge, calling,
“Storks are really supposed to deliver babies wrapped in blankets! Just sayin’!”
Sauron pursued, capturing the image of Spider-Man swinging himself through a window two stories below.
“This,” Octavius commentates, “is not… entirely uninspired. Having him chase thousands of tiny tasks with minds of their own…”
“… so that he’s too distracted and tired to stop my killing stroke,” Sauron finishes.
The escapade carried on with Sauron peaking into the apartment. Spider-Man had interrupted a family of four’s board game.
“I’m real sorry but I need you to call the hospital,” he appealed to the parents, “tell them there might be a whole bunch of people with venomous spider bites at this location! You need to help me get everyone… where’s all the vents in-“
A clump of infant spiders dropped out of the hallway air conditioning system and spread like water across the wood flooring. The family screamed, and Spider-Man yanked a bookcase off the wall to spin one-hundred-and-eighty degrees on its corner and flatten the horde. He then webbed over the vent.
“REALLY sorry,” he apologized again. “Please go, bang on doors, and don’t let these things get on you!”
Spider-Man perked up as if he heard something, and immediately launched through the front door. Sauron clambered inside, trailing the family as they too exited. From the apartment entryway, the mic picked up Spider-Man’s cries for the building to be evacuated. Bouncing from one room to the next, he would pound on and occasionally break open the door in order to block off the endless invasion of hatchlings. Soon after multiple tenants had become wise to the situation, the fire alarm was activated.
Sauron kept his distance all the while, observing Spider-Man’s fatigue from his unabating alertness. The hero traversed the walls; back and forth he sped, several minutes into fighting the disaster and only just now moving on to clear the next floor of danger. Back and forth, for all the good he could do. His shouts had grown hoarse. Back and forth.
“EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET OUT! … -J’s going to burn me at the stake when this story makes the ne… ‘-ider-Man unleashes minions on unsuspecting families!’… -lding that dumb coffee mug, and using that voice, too!”
Doctor Octopus appears bored with the uncut footage. “Let’s cut to the chase, yes?”
“This… is the chase… Oh, very well,” Sauron begrudgingly conforms, realizing Octavius’ limbs are poising threateningly.
The tape skips, and Spider-Man—defending a male resident—is facing a kitchen teeming with the newborn killers. Sauron had been gradually encroaching on his prey as the exertion took its toll on the web-slinger’s faculties, and had now barged through the home’s entrance, meters away.
To make an example, the monstrous hybrid roasted some of the furnishing to his left, then pointed the camera back to Spider-Man.
“Are you quite through?”
“Running late, dear,” Spider-Man shot back unenthusiastically.
He bumped the civilian out the window to their backs, hastily calculating and fastening to the poor man a web that would rappel him to the street. The hero salvaged his own fall with three fingertips on the sill, shifting his momentum with a kick that would send him into the next apartment over. Sauron, anticipating the maneuver, crossed his room with a combative glide and ripped down the dividing wall, right onto the arriving Spider-Man, who was pummeled by insulation, a metal stud and a full china cabinet.
Sauron put the heat on his opponent by slicing his shin. Spider-Man retaliated with more webbing, but his larger rival shielding himself with the backs of his wings, then subsequently pulled the young man—and his left-hand web-shooter—into his waiting beak, which wedged into the gadget, rendering it inoperative. This was followed up by a stab to the do-gooder’s abdomen, pinning him to the carpet for agonizing seconds. The villain then gripped Spider-Man by the throat, a portion of which was no longer even negligibly protected by red and blue spandex, due to a tear. The captive choked and flailed. As his very life-force was being stripped, Sauron relished his prize off-camera.
“Ah. As good as I remembered.”
Spider-Man built up some vitality, and cracked him over the jaw. Sauron’s taloned foot put the second web-shooter out of the fight.
“Rest now,” Sauron chided. “Rest. It’s possible you saved them all; isn’t that a lovely thought? And you can always hope the first-responders are prepared. The spider’s toxicity is of a most exotic variety, however…”
Spider-Man’s words were strangled. “You endangered all these people… AAUGH… to get to me. Big…”
One hand tore free from Sauron’s trap,
“BIG”
and then the other.
“Mistake,” he said ferociously, as though possessed by an unrevealed, primal side of himself.
He took Sauron’s webbed wings in each fist, shredding palm-sized sheets out of them. Now it was Sauron who screamed. The image quakes violently from a wild blast of fire. The screen then goes blue.
The sauna is again silent; even the rain has moved on. Sauron hangs his head.
Octavius starts at the blank display, feeling cheated. “Well?”
“I fled! Time had run out, and there was no leeway in my plan for trading blows. It was only for his incomplete commitment to rescuing the building that the Spider-Man gave me up.”
Sauron hits “Eject”.
“I failed to factor in that his concern for bystanders might be as emboldening, as much as detrimental, to him.”
“There is much to repurpose with this course of action. Your efforts are commendable,” Octavius praises, but seems perturbed. “… In all my years, trying to best him, I’ve never seen him use his adhesion so… ruthlessly.
“It wasn’t that alone,” Sauron corrects. “It burned. Enough to undermine my own hold. These mutants, they’re full of such surprises. Tricky little devils.”
Octavius’ demeanor is made irritable in an instant. “No… now this has been avoided far too long: Your obsession with the mutants. You mean to tell me you’ve thought Spider-Man is one of their kind??”
“Naturally. They worked side-by-side in the Savage Land-“
Octavius’ upper-right tentacle squeaks as a pained rodent would. The doctor’s face nearly glows red. “Know-nothing! … inept layman! You almost killed the Spider-Man, robbing the rest of us... when you have no quarrel with him?!”
“Do not try to disillusion me, Octopus!” Sauron rebukes. “You wish to get rid of me, but recycle my genius! Spider-Man is one of the Brotherhood, and I-“
“He is neither an X-Man nor part of that supremacist cabal… THOSE are separate entities too, you might be interested to learn!” growls Octavius, pacing as he does so. “They wear uniforms and start wars! Spider-Man helps old ladies with their grocery bags and throws the same three puns at you when you happen to be given the name ‘Octopus’ by the news!”
The gears turn in Sauron’s brain. “… I would… still very much like to feast on his energies…”
Octavius roars, hurling a magazine rack. “You’ve been cutting in on our vendetta… the TRUE foes of Spider-Man! How could you be so blinded to the obvious? What did the Brotherhood do to you warrant this utter lapse in reasoning??”
Sauron squirms, like a child caught fibbing. “Nothing. Nothing of-“
“WHAT, you boob?!” Octavius demands.
“They killed my wife!”
…
“They wanted my power, and they used me to kill my… my Tanya. Oh…”
Sauron burrows into the waiting room’s sofa, weeping.
Knee-deep in the exceedingly awkward interlude, Otto Octavius finds himself whisked into the past: An unprecedented, reflective condition for him, since having chosen this sinister path. A fateful day pierces the villain’s psyche. A particular laugh embraces a small, brackish heart, confronting him with a name he had hoped yet hated to drown.
“Mary.”
Sauron slurps up some snot. “Who?”
Octavius’ resentment of Sauron transitions to momentary pity. Pity, to envy. Envy, right back to resentment.
Octavius stares down at him. “Maybe there’s less distinction between you and Lykos than you’d care to admit, or maybe there never was a distinction. Whatever the case, whichever of you is in there, I’m speaking to a lovesick idiot! And your wife lies dead, waiting for you, still!”
“I-I don’t…”
“YOU SHOULD FEEL BLESSED! Having faces to put to the injustice! That she wasn’t taken from you by an accident, and all you have left is an abyss to yell into! You have the opportunity to exact your pound of flesh! Find the ones that wronged you… Get it RIGHT this time, and end them! Let your wife rest!”
“You…” Sauron sits up. “You should really see someone about these types of things.”
Octavius gnashes his teeth, and stomps toward the VCR player.
“What are you doing?”
“Collecting my compensation!” Octavius jiggles the device, unsure of how to dislodge the halfway-expelled cassette. “If you insist on being a useless dolt, I will use this tape to extract any and all clues to Spider-Man’s identity!”
Sauron dives for the tape, snatching it away and defensively backing into a potted fern. “No! My home movies are on there too!”
“Out of my way!”
Sauron’s mouth glows like a forge. “Never!”
Octavius curses in frustration. Weighing the odds, he gives it up and storms off once more through the parking lot.
Sauron peeks out from the business’ entrance. “W-where are you going?”
“To rethink EVERYTHING to do with how I will find competent applicants! Never, I repeat, NEVER contact me. And I do mean ‘ever’!”
The doctor’s lower-right tentacle waves a goodbye to Sauron. Octavius keeps grumbling, well out of earshot of his bane.
“Four hours walking through sewers… for this. Never again. They’ll come to me. I’m in charge. A nice office to work from… yes…”
***
“Aaaaalllright, so you’ve got your account’s password, bio, all of that how you want it?”
“I believe so,” Sauron acknowledges, nibbling on a claw.
“Great! You can click the ‘Complete’ button; it’ll be green,” Screwball instructs over the video chat.
Sauron complies. “… There are little hearts raining down.”
“That should mean you’re all set, let me refresh. Ooh, sweet PFP my guy!”
The icon shows Sauron lounging in a wingback chair, with a derby hat precariously positioned on his crest.
“Oh, yes, well-“ Sauron blushes.
“On. Fleek.”
“I really should repay you in some way,” maintains Sauron.
“Listen, you hold onto Spider-Boy’s real name for me if I’m ever hurting for views, and that’s payment enough.”
Sauron glances over his desk to at a folded Daily Bugle newspaper, preserved from years past: The last piece he had needed, to the puzzle of the person behind Spider-Man’s mask. In an undeservedly small article, abruptly detailed is an expedition, taken by the socialite Warren Washington III, into the mystifying, Antarctic region dubbed “the Savage Land”. As photographed, accompanying Washington had been the column’s own author: An unassuming journalist named Peter Parker. His was the face Lykos had seen appear on the monster that he stopped all that time ago, just before Lykos himself had become another monster needing to be cured.
“Certainly, but,” Sauron taps his mousepad, evaluating. “you’re sure you wouldn’t like me to put in a word for you with this alliance Octopus is convening?”
Screwball sticks her tongue out. “They’re way too mainstream, my audience would think I’m getting desperate. But hey, if you ever get back into a crime kick, I could always use a camera with wings!”
“My leave from supervillainy will be… quite extended. Recent events have caused me to, well, reconsider where I may find fulfillment.”
“C’est la vie. Caaatch you later, dino-dude!”
Screwball’s feed closes out.
“They’re not dinosaurs…” Sauron protests, but returns to his new media platform.
“A match, already? … ’madamedracheXO : 33, mutant : Self-made entrepreneur : Flexible with long-distance relationships, fire-breathing is big plus.’ Hmm.”
***
~ DOCTOR OCTOPUS’ nefarious exploits will return in INTERVIEW WITH AN OCTOPUS: BLACK CAT! ~
After leaving Mary in Adelaide with her Grandmother Veall I dashed back to Sydney siezing the engine out of Hay, towed to Balranald then got the same truck and tow to Narrandera where I got a new Exchange engine fitted.
Taken from the top of the building containing Grandma Crowle, Florence, in Kings Cross opposite the El Alamein Fountain.
I popped in for a catch-up visit after a year away. Never saw her again..
See an old collection here…. Below…
This squirrel and I had a telepathic conversation for a while until it dashed off in search of food. I think it is called a red squirrel, isn't it?
{Please see full size for more details. This is a 100% crop from the original. I didn't get a chance to change to a telephoto lens when I saw him. Alas!}
Woke up early yesterday and dashed out to get this just as the sun had risen - this is the property across the road from me. Have a fun filled weekend!
West Pond, Parsonsfield, Maine.
Panorama view just after sunset today on the pond, I was not expecting this kind of color as we had an overcast sky all day with periods of drizzling rain and very high humidity.
This scene caught me by surprise as I was upstairs on the computer and noticed that the light outside was getting reddish, I looked and grabbed my camera and dashed across the street to the pond and caught this scene.
So many times, I've gone out to take some pictures in the glorious LA sunlight, only to have my hopes and dreams dashed against the rocks of reality and overcast skies.
That day, though, that day the skies could do no wrong. And neither could Chelsea...and neither could I.
Well, I told the story before how, after a drive of 150 miles through the dark to get to a business appointment I arrived early and dashed across to Hartlepool to see if I could get a photo of Steetley pier. And having pulled on a coat over my suit and donned welly boots I rushed along the coast and down to the beach to get to the far side of the pier....only to discover my camera was not in my back pack. I had left it behind the seat in my car.
So all I had time for was to take a few shots with my phone. This is one of them.
It appears to show a thermonuclear missile strike hitting downtown Hartlepool.
Great Egret
Ardea alba
Was on the Bird Walk Coastal Access Trail in Sonoma County, CA, USA, when this large egret dashed across right in front of me. No matter how often I see these, I'm always struck by how elegant they look in flight. So beautiful and photogenic.
Thank you for your views, faves and comments. Deeply appreciated.
Seen on my garden path today by Huw as he was lifting up the last of the trays of flowers he was planting up. I was indoors prepping to go away when I heard his excited shouting. I dashed out as quickly as I could, but was in so much haste that the settings were all wrong on my camera - I'd have preferred a narrower f/ stop .... yet I'm over the moon to have seen one because it's a first. Another shot in comments...
A Spyglass for you, and you, and you!
Ever wanted to evade the longships of the law? Wanted to raid and pillage, but you couldnt see the shore? Maybe you just wanted to watch a unicorn but every time you got close enough to see it dashed off?
Well, multifarious has a solution, its a telescoping eye device we [and others ebfore us] called a spyglass!
make it your own, choose between elather and wood for the base, and dozens of metal combinations for the other 4 parts!
use one hand, or two!
Most kids wanted to be or fight a pirate at some point.
Now, with this custom mesh, and custom animated spyglass, you can join the chase, or the fray yourself!
Or even just use it to look for rare or magical creatures and fauna. the options are unlimited!
there are 3 versions, the difference being left hand hold, right hand hold, or both hands hold the spy glass.
if your spyglass misbehaves after a relog or a teleport, or your ao decides its the boss, a touch near your hand should fix this.
you can also re-texture every part except the glass and inside!
click the spyglass for a menu. you have wood and leather options for the base, and multiple metal options for the 4 tubes, and some for the rings as well. make it your own!
I've also included decor options, and a few attached to your avatar locations for the collapsed one. the decor and static worn ones are equally modifyable
All spyglasses ARE modifyable. You can resize them. The scripts, notecards, and animations inside are no transfer, no modify. It is a good idea to make a copy before you modify one. Its is not a good idea to rip out scripts without being careful, rip out the wrong script and you wont animate your avatar anymore.
Buy it on MP marketplace.secondlife.com/p/M-Spyglass-Set/23536876 or inworld here: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Ocean%20Bay/198/63/1831
Megadolomedes sp.
Family: Pisauridae
Order: Araneae
During the repair work on a wooden bridge across a small lake, three spiders were disturbed. Two of them dashed away; running across the surface of the lake, using the surface tension of the water. This third one stayed behind. I am guessing they were all the same species.
Dr. Robert Raven, an arachnologist and senior curator of the Queensland Museum kindly provided the ID:
"It is the female of the giant water spider, genus Megadolomedes. One species, australianus, goes from Sydney south, and the other one in the area is one I named johndouglasi, after the man who has set up the Tasmanian spider bases. It isn’t possible to be sure which species without carefully examining the genitalia".
(Many thanks Robert!)
Size was about 10 cm leg span.
Location is Batemans Bay, NSW, Australia
DSC06680
After a stormy day in the Dales I was heading back along the road to Lothersdale and the sky went orange. I dashed out of the car to grab this shot then the heavens opened and I got soaked but got the shot I wanted.
As soon as I had my horse saddled, I threw myself unto the horse and galloped off towards the king's palace. As soon as I arrived I rushed up the stairs and dashed into the throne room to tell the king of the news I had heard. As soon as the king heard this news he sent a messenger to tell prince Jarius to meet the leaders of Lenfeld about signing the treaty. He told me that a large group of outlaws were going to attack my home town of Balanire. I was outraged by this news. I told him that I would take my men to battle this threat. He agreed to my proposal and I left the throne men to gather my men.
to be continued in "gathering the men" coming on Tuesday.
I know that I haven't posted in a while and thought I should get back into this so I am.
Hope you all enjoyed the story.
please leave a like and comment
thanks and have an awesome day
At least that is what the Western Australian tourist folk say. They are right. The dashed things are everywhere.
Running late tonight, dashed down to the harbour to get a photograph while the potatoes were cooking!
Scrabster Harbour, Caithness, Scotland.
I dashed out into the garden to come up with a photo for the day 10 mins before I had to pick the children up from school. There had been a brief shower so I was looking for droplets but came across this obliging butterfly instead.
Hoping the title name gets you attention! Yes I dashed right in ,took the shot,and dashed right out again! No permission!
One of Orkney's most imposing monoliths, the Watchstone stands a short distance to the north-west of the Standing Stones of Stenness.
Towering over the Brig o' Brodgar, the solitary stone giant stands at the point the Stenness and Harray lochs meet.
Just over 5.6 metres high (around 19 feet), we know the Watchstone was once one of a pair of standing stones, outliers to the Stone of Stenness circle, that perhaps marked the approach to the to the Ness of Brodgar. Radiocarbon dates show that the site dates from at least 3100BC
I was just standing near it in the mist when I suddenly became aware of something 'solid' above me. Looking up I saw a fogbow forming overhead. I dashed to the car boot and grabbed a wide-angle lens. It only lasted a few minutes. No time to find a more interesting composition
A fog bow, sometimes called a white rainbow, is a similar phenomenon to a rainbow; however, as its name suggests, it appears as a bow in fog rather than rain. Because of the very small size of water droplets that cause fog—smaller than 0.05 millimeters—the fog bow has only very weak colors, with a red outer edge and bluish inner edge.
Abandoned old mansion in Coudersport, PA. Here is some information I found online about this place from Pennsylvania Magazine: "This is the Old Hickory Tavern, hotel and restaurant on North Main Street. It was built in 1880's by attorney Franklin W. Knox who was impressed by a similar house he saw in Pittsburg and decided to build one exactly like it in Coudersport. Subsequent owners named it ’Old Hickory,’ in honor of Andrew Jackson, the celebrated military commander in the Battle of New Orleans who was later elected President. More than two decades have passed since the Old Hickory was in operation. A tavern in the basement had remained open for several years after the restaurant and hotel were no longer in business. Dorellenic Corporation, owned by the John Rigas family, purchased the property in 1987. For several years, the Rigases' intended to renovate Old Hickory with a goal of operating it as a bed and breakfast, primarily for guests of Adelphia Communications Corp. Any chance of that was dashed when Adelphia plunged into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002. The building had fallen into a state of disrepair by the time Polliard bought it. He did some initial repair work, but in recent years the weather, pigeons and other natural elements have taken a heavy toll."
There was only a one-day window of decent weather between a snow event and the arrival of arctic conditions, so we dashed to Prairie Mountain. The wind was howling at the top as usual, but didn't pose a problem. We ascended the normal route up the south flank, but took the long way back, descending the northwest flank and following Prairie Creek. We walked over 11 1/2 km's return distance, gaining around 840 m's with all the ups and downs, taking 4 1/2 hours to do so.
Glorious evening in the garden, so dashed out with the camera and captured this hardy geranium with the evening sun backlighting the petals.
We had a red aurora alert tonight, grabbed the camera and dashed out. Too much light polution to see anything sadly
A wonderfully colored sunset bids 2017 goodbye at Death Valley.
As I was throwing my gear in the car I thought I would call my buddy Bill McIntosh and see if he would be up for a quick banzai run over to Death Valley for a final shoot of 2017. Coincidentally Bill was doing the exact same thing after he also notice the indications on the radar. When we left the house we decided that we would stop for a quick bite along the way. Half hour after we hit the road Bill let out a moan, I thought O.K., what did he forget at the house. but it wasn't odd for Bill to make odd sounds during our drive time but it's usually much later just before arrival at a location, sounds like uh-and awe, but this was a moan, one I've heard myself make that same moan on occasion usually while thinking of stuffing something scrumptious in my facehole. I inquired and he said he saw something along the side of the road, that's normal, a Crispy Creme sign, that's not. So much for KFC or Burger King, looks like a ridiculous amount of sugar is on the menu today, hope I don't crash before we get there, LOL. When we arrived I bounced out of the car and dashed of down to the playa like a kid at disneyland. During my sugar induced scouting, I found this bog along the edge of the lakebed, I carefully worked my way across the surface and promptly sank in the mud to my ankles, drats, I was hoping to avoid the salt-mud all over my shoes but now I was committed or should I say cemented to my location. LOL. What a way to say goodbye to 2017!!!!!
Thank you all for being so supportive over the past year. I deeply appreciate your encouragement and am truly grateful for that. If you like my photos then please share them with your friends or add it to your gallery, and as always your views, comments, faves, and support are greatly appreciated!!
I wish you all the best in 2018!!
If you have any questions about this photo or about photography in general, I will do my best to help, just post a comment or send me a Flickr mail and I will respond as quickly as possible.
For those of you new to photography, I would like to provide you with some very helpful videos, they should help you get more from your photography. They where very useful to me while I was learning and I hope that they will help you out as well. Just click the link below and there are pre-made playlists on everything you could ever want to know about photography. I hope you enjoy them and as always my friends "Happy Shooting"
www.youtube.com/user/EricGaildot21Studios/playlists?sort=...
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We finished yarding our train, 23M, at Colehour yard about 30 minutes ago. Evidently, Park Manor is short on power and we're instructed to take our locomotives there.
Hoping for a quick move, our hopes are dashed by the dispatcher. We are told that a ship is ready for departure and has asked that the bridge be raised.
On average, from the time that the bridge begins to open until it locks back in place is 30 minutes to an hour. At first, I was not pleased at the prospect of one more delay. But as the old saying goes, When you have lemons, make lemonade!
From where I stopped the engines at CP 509 to the bridge required about a quarter mile walk. I made a quick stop at the bridge tender's shanty to share a hello, introduce myself, and have a job briefing. Then it was time to scope out a few photo ops and start clicking the shutter.
The boat, CSL Laurentien, was backing down the Calumet River. Tug boats were positioned for and aft keeping the ship centered as it approached the bridge. It was amazing to watch the tugs work in unison as they navigated the ship through the narrow confines of the waterway. The men and women who work the waterway are talented and well skilled in their crafts.
Here we see the bridge of the Laurentien passing by one of the long unused NYC spans. As I stood here watching the ship, I tried to imagine Great Lake ships of the past waiting in the river for the 20th Century Limited to pass by. But that was decades ago and now this bridge sees nothing. The rails are gone, ties lead to nowhere.
While I am not a ship fan, I do see the allure. It was a fascinating experience watching the Laurentien head towards Lake Michigan. I hope you enjoy this up close experience showing how a major rail line coordinates operations with a completely different mode of transportation.
After the logs running early we dashed up gasping to Lunds Viaduct just in time to intercept 35018 making the last couple of miles to Ais Gill look easy. 1Z65 09.15 Scarborough - Carlisle "The Great Britain XI" Friday 20 April 2018