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The Competition Results Are In
This is a long one, but I think it is worth a cursory read. :)
My last post was no accident. I was hoping it would be a lead-in to this post, and that I would be posting some good news from the photo competition. I am happy to say that I am.
Sunday afternoon, Kendra and I drove back down to Monterey for the awards ceremony. Before I go any further, let me break down the contest.
First, there are two divisions, "Novice" and "Open". A novice cannot have made more than $200 from selling photography or have won more than three 1st or 2nd place awards in three separate photo competitions. Kendra is a novice. Everyone else is in the "Open". I was in this division.
You may enter no more than five total images, and no more than three in any one category. The categories are "Wide Angle", "Macro", and "Behavior".
After my disastrous first dive, I went with wide angle for my second dive. I had a much more enjoyable dive as I am generally more successful with shooting wide angle. The conditions and choice of reef were better, too. This did require a longer swim, which leads me to a funny story.
Two years ago, I competed in this very same contest. Kendra was just along for the ride. I wanted to maximize my chances of getting that winning shot, so I insisted on doing three dives. Now, I've done three dives in a day many times. Heck, I've done six dives in a day. From a boat. Ten years ago.
Needless to say, three dives in one day is just too many. The cumulative effect of three long swims out to the site, on the dive, and back to shore coupled with the trudging up and down steep beaches with 80 pounds of dive and camera gear resulted in my legs completely and utterly cramping on the swim in from the third and final dive. I have never had such pain and cramping in both my legs at the same time. We're talking complete cramping of quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves.
At one point, I was laying on the bottom, clutching my camera in one hand, both legs immobilized in pain, and clawing the sand with my free hand, pulling myself to shore, one arm length at a time. When I grew tired of this futile mode of transport, I inflated my BC jacket in order to rise to the surface and determine how far I was from shore. My legs would simply not work.
Meanwhile, Kendra is witnessing all this and laughing. Ultimately, she had to tow me in to shore, and I barely could walk up the beach.
Fast forward to this year's competition, and I knew three dives was out of the question. But I'm two years older, and still not much of a beach diver, preferring my kayak as the main mode of getting me to the dive site. So here we were, ending out second dive, and my left leg seizes up. Yep, complete and total upper leg cramp. As it loosens up, my right leg starts to seize. Memories of 2007 come flooding back, and I can only laugh...in between the flashes of pain.
Needless to say, I made it ashore, without assistance I might add.
Images were submitted back in Monterey. I submitted the maximum three in Wide Angle, one in Macro, and one in Behavior. Kendra submitted two in Wide Angle, none in Macro, and none in Behavior.
Back at the awards ceremony, Kendra and I wondered just how well we would fare. The Behavior category yielded nothing. Not unexpected considering Kendra didn't enter, and my shot was an afterthought. The Macro category was the same as Behavior.
Wide Angle is where the dynamic duo of Kendra Karr and Jim Patterson shined. Kendra won first and third in the Novice division. I won First, Second, and an Honorable Mention in the Open division. Wow! We were shocked and humbled to say the least. We also realized that we would both be competing for the "Best of Wide Angle" distinction wherein the judges choose their favorite of the two divisions' 1st place winners.
And Kendra did me One Better. She won "Best of Wide Angle".
Read Kendra's post to hear how the contest ended, it should be fun and entertaining.
And here are my three winning shots. Keeping with the theme of the contest, these are unedited, straight from the camera. All I did was add my signature and resize for Flickr. That's it.
Zakouma is an unusual park when compared to the better-known national parks of East or Southern Africa, because on normal game drives through the park, you simply don’t see elephants, except for the handful of bulls, that hang around the airstrip and the park HQ in the area of the park that is actually called Zakouma, elsewhere you just don’t see them, not unless you are actively looking for them and know in advance where they are. You won’t drive around a corner and find a small herd feeding beside the road as you might in a park like say Ruaha in Tanzania, to understand why this is the case, you need to know the tragic history of Zakouma’s elephants.
For roughly 6 months of the year between June and November Zakouma National Park is almost entirely inundated with floodwaters, at this time elephants would often disperse into the surrounding area of what is now the Salamat Faunal Reserve. During this time Arab horsemen from the Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan would come to hunt the elephants, as they had done for perhaps several hundred years. Traditionally a group of up to 20 horsemen armed with lances would charge a herd aiming to separate out one of the elephants, picking one with good tusks. A single horseman would then ride in front of this elephant to draw its attention and get it to pursue him, allowing the other men to ride in and spear it from behind with their lances. They would aim for the elephant’s hamstrings in its hind legs, these if severed would bring the animal down and ensure it could not get up again. Huge numbers of elephants were killed this way and in response the surviving herds in the region, have learned that at the first sign of horsemen, their best defence is to bunch up into tight groups, to ensure that no individual can be separated out.
Today this is no defence, the horsemen are Janjaweed militiamen and members of the Sudanese armed forces and they come not with the lances used by their ancestors, but with AK47s, belt-fed machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. This habit of bunching up into a single large herd, has meant that the poachers can easily kill 50-60 elephants in a single attack by simply machine gunning the terrified animals as they try to escape. In 2005 an aerial count found 3,885 elephants in Zakouma and the surrounding area, in under a decade the population was reduced to just 430 and had stopped breeding due to the constant stress. Since African Parks took over Zakouma the poaching has been almost entirely stopped and the elephants are breeding again, they have not lost an elephant to poaching in 6 years at the last count in 2021 the population had reached 636.
These bulls are some of the ones that lives in the area around the park HQ, there is always water for them and plenty of food here, and in the recent past this area would have been much safer than the rest of the park.
Regional Transportation Authority F40PH 130 north of the C&NW station in Chicago, Illinois on May 12, 1983, Kodachrome by Chuck Zeiler. The two single level cars were private cars owned and operated by Commuter Associates, Inc. for the exclusive use by their membership. The cost was $900.00 a year plus the RTA monthly pass, pretty good deal if you lived in the northern suburbs of Chicago. The locomotive was named Richard D. Newland, and you might say, who the heck was that. This is what I found so far, from: www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=11941
In RTA’s beginning, two of the original suburban RTA board members were Richard Newland of Waukegan and Daniel Baldino of suburban Cook County.
And from the May 28, 1976 newspaper, THE DAILY HERALD: The suburban directors apparently blocked the budget transfer to demonstrate their power to hamstring RTA operations. Their action came after Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley publicly attacked the suburbs for getting more than their share of the RTA pie. Richard D. Newland, board member from Waukegan, said the suburban directors won their point and now are willing to compromise. "I think we can work that out.", Newland said, "We certainly don't want anyone to work for nothing." The RTA staff also announced a new regional fare structure cannot go into effect until Sept 1.
And this from the June 30, 1975 RTA Annual Report: RICHARD D. NEWLAND Mr. Newland, the president of the Bank of Waukegan, represents the five outlying counties served by RTA. He left a promising professional baseball career ( Cincinnati Reds ) in 1951 to enter the University of Wisconsin School of Banking. A native of Iowa, Mr. Newland received his bachelors degree from Drake University. He is active in Lake County civic affairs, serving 10 years as an officer of the Y.M.C.A. and as a director of the Waukegan School Board. He has also been comptroller of the North Shore Sanitary District. As temporary treasurer of the RTA, Mr. Newland has added to RTA working capital through prudent investment of funds. His term expires June 30, 1978.
Hoof fancied a chill out evening surfing at Polzeath, which coincided nicely with a shot I had in mind from this beach.
So we secured Hoofs long board to his saddle and I packed some dry clothes.
You may laugh but Hoof subscribes to the surfing channel on Sky Atlantic and he knows all the phrases like, no waves, no glory, plus if it swells ride it, and drop in, pull in, kick out. Boy is he hip.
Off we went Hoof loves taking the scenic route so we roared past the Rumps near to this popular surfing location at over 100mph, yes he has had a new heads up display fitted when he did a tour of the Williams racing factory back in the summer.
I on the other hand had a shot in mind which would inevitably mean me getting quite wet. So on went an old pair of shorts and a pair of sawn off wellies.
As always I do take my safety very seriously so setting up was done with this in mind, but hey no pain no gain and into the water I go.
A great evening was had by all.😎🐎🏄♂️😂😂
Thank you for looking, I very much appreciate the favs and comments especially, have a great weekend.🍷🍷
P.S. Horace went to the gym in order to stretch his ham strings.🐷
Ah, I hurt my hamstrings so bad trying to get this shot. Gurrrr. My legs are going to be killing me tomorrow. Was it worth it though?
I like the rotation on this :D tehe.
The song stuck in my head right now is called Linoleum by NOFX - And if you like punk rock, you might enjoy it. Well, if you like punk rock, you'll probably like NOFX in general (but you may not have ever heard of them - they tend to avoid the media). They have tons of songs, and like 15 albums. I believe they've been around like 20 years now. Boopboopdedoopdooop. I'm sleepy.
Doesn't this look cross-processed? It's not. Hehehe. I'm so sneaky.
Thinking about posting another video on Flickr just to say hey
Maybe when I hit 7,000 views?
kg stretches her hamstrings before a workout one week after winning her natural bodybuilding show.."favorite this?"
So 2014 has nearly time to look back and reflect on the year that has just been. For many it has been a good year and for others it hasn’t, sadly this year has been really really shit. Throughout this year I have encountered an extremely rare injury that resulted in my hamstring’s snapping over each other and tearing off of the bone every time I extended my leg which was excruciatingly painful. To get rid of this my surgeon saw only one option and that was to strip my femur of half of my hamstring. Having that done has resulted in so many more issues such as extreme nerve damage and my leg becoming so weak due to a lot of the muscle being removed, this has dominated my life this year and has impacted everything in my life particularly school which I nearly failed this year. But despite this horrible shit year I myself as a builder have come a long way in my building skill and status on here. A positive of me being injured would be that I had a lot of time to build, and because of that I have produced quite a lot of mocs and scenes throughout the past 9 months. My favourite of which would have to be my Naga Sadows temple on Yavin 4 scene which is also my most faved. I also have you guys to thank as you all have been so awesome with your feedback and support, its always great that despite what happens in my life you guys are always still here and this amazing community, so I would like to thank you guys.
Next year I have a ton of scenes and a few mocs planned mostly from the Star Wars Expanded Universe and the Avatar Universe. Brickvention is in a few weeks which I am looking forward to for many reasons, mainly because I get to hang out with some awesome builders and people like Dayton and Jack for 3 days. 2015 will be a challenging year as well, as it is my final year of high school before I go off to University. Next year is also my final full year as a TFOL before I turn 18 which is a bit scary but overall it doesn’t really make a difference.
Above is a collection of my favorite photos from this year, unfortunately I am running off of limited internet so I was only able to tag a couple of people in this photo so don't get annoyed if I forgot to tag you.
I hope you all have an amazing last few days of 2014 and I will see you on the other side which will then be 2015.
Thanks Tristan
via Tumblr ift.tt/26a3WjC
For scuba diving instructor Emma Ascher, having a healthy mind and body was vital to her everyday self-confidence out on the water. After letting her diet and exercise habits slip and feeling less than comfortable in her denim cut-offs, she rekindled her love of the weights room and is back looking taught, toned and terrific.
Three months ago I was living and working on a tiny island in Thailand, which meant I spent a lot of time in a bikini. I had never been overweight but in the preceding months, I had gotten out of shape and I decided something needed to be done. Around the same time, my friend gave me a copy of WH&F and I read it cover to cover! I was hooked and decided the BodyBlitz challenge was exactly what I was looking for.
After registering, I joined the only gym on the island. It was tiny and dominated by men. I felt really intimidated at first and just bumbled around trying out different machines. But then I did some research and put together some fitness plans with the help of WH&F, bodybuilding.com and YouTube. Within a couple of weeks I felt much more confident and I developed a passion for lifting.
This challenge has given me everything I could have ever wished for. It provided focus and an end date to aim for. I have seen big changes in my body and overhauled my attitude and mindset. My confidence and passion for life has been reignited and I have no intention of stopping my fitness journey anytime soon.
Read on for her thoughts on overcoming challenges, workout motivation, treats and goals.
On overcoming challenges:
The biggest obstacles I faced were the after-work drinks and the treats my boyfriend would bring home for me. Convincing other people that I was serious about a lifestyle change was the most difficult thing.
The first week was the hardest in adapting to the healthy eating and exercise. Getting up early to work out, and eating vegies instead of pizza, is tough to start off with. But after just one week I could see and feel the changes and that spurred me on. After the first month, I was in a groove and it became more of a habit. My body clock adjusted to the early mornings and exercise made me feel accomplished for the rest of the day. My taste buds changed and I craved fruit and vegies instead of processed, high-salt carbs.
On workout motivation:
Exercise was initiated because I wanted to lean down and muscle up, but it goes way deeper than that now. It improves my mood and confidence, which reflects back in my career, relationships and ambitions.
On food swaps:
My attitude to food changed a lot. I now view food as fuel for my body and not just a pleasurable pastime! I still enjoy food but now my body craves clean protein and vegetables.
I moved country right in the middle of my challenge, which meant living with my parents for a few weeks. They were incredibly supportive and my mum had a fridge stocked with fresh foods. After a couple of weeks, they were noticing the weight loss too.
On treats:
I did occasionally indulge myself but I would try and be smart about it. If I knew I was going out for dinner, I would eat really clean for breakfast and lunch so I could enjoy a full meal without feeling too much guilt. I would combine my family events with cheat meals and I would make sure I trained legs the day after to put the extra calories and energy to good use. This prevented me from any guilty feelings the day after that were sure to derail me from my end goal.
On measurements:
The ‘before’ pictures are a necessary evil. They were depressing to take because I didn’t like what I saw but they definitely helped motivate me to change. The 'after’ pictures are much more fun and are an even bigger motivation to continue. My after picture will one day be my new before picture!
'Before’ and 'after’ measurements work the same way. The before measurements can be demoralising, but it’s also the first area you see changes. I think documenting pictures and measurements are vitally important to showing progress and maintaining motivation.
On goals:
Having an end goal date really helped me stay on track through the challenge. And knowing that I had submitted those awful 'before’ pictures made me determined to see as big of a change as I could manage in the time allowed. I never want to look like that again.
My new goal is to live a happy, full and balanced life. My diet and exercise is always a top priority for me but I realise that sometimes you just have to live. I love my active and clean lifestyle, but if I fancy a drink and dinner with my man, then I’m going to go for it. I hope to inspire other women out there and make them realise that it’s never too late to start a healthy lifestyle and to regain control of your body and mind
What she did
Monday: 30 minutes on Stairmaster and weight training (glutes and hamstrings)
Tuesday: 20 minutes on Stairmaster, 20 minutes on treadmill walking on an incline and weight training (shoulders and arms)
Wednesday: Yoga class and weight training (legs)
Thursday: 30 minutes on Stairmaster and weight training (back, chest and abs)
Friday: 20 minutes on Stairmaster, 20 minutes on treadmill walking on an incline and weight training (glutes and hamstrings)
Saturday: Functional fitness class and foam rolling
Sunday: Rest day
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Read more …
from Women’s Health & Fitness Combined Feed ift.tt/1SUo6EF
via IFTTT
The KEY is to use the right cut of The Cow-
From The Hind Leg- a section near the hamstring,
officially called "super digital flexor muscle" .
It has very distinct marbling of tendons all throughout the meat;
turning quite soft and tender in a soup or stew.
Happy Textured Thursday Flickr friends! Friday is in sight.
Titibasana or Firefly pose is one of my favorite yoga asanas. This image shows the first step to getting to Titibasana. Next step is to extend legs straight up. Problem is that I hurt my right hamstring 3 weeks ago during yoga practice and can't fully extend right leg. This happened because I pushed my body too far. I am not happy about this at all but taking it as a lesson - be kinder to my body.
Elephants very quickly learn where they're safe and where they're not, this bull is one of a small group that hang around the Zakouma HQ area during the dry season. After everything that these elephant's have been through it's remarkable that any of them are willing to trust humans at all. However they are such intelligent animals that not only do they know where there safe but they also know who their friends are and these bulls that come to the Park Director Rian Labuschagne's house, have learned to take water from a garden hosepipe.
For roughly 6 months of the year between June and November Zakouma National Park is almost entirely inundated with floodwaters, at this time elephants would often disperse into the surrounding area of what is now the Salamat Faunal Reserve. During this time Arab horsemen from the Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan, would come to hunt the elephants as they had done for perhaps several hundred years. Traditionally a group of up to 20 horsemen armed with lances would charge a herd aiming to separate out one of the elephants. A single horseman would then ride in front of this elephant to draw its attention and get it to pursue him allowing the other men to ride in and spear it from behind with their lances. They would aim for the elephant’s hamstrings in its hind legs which if severed would bring the animal down and ensure it could not get up again. Huge numbers of elephants were killed this way, in response the surviving herds in the region have learned that at the first sign of horsemen, their best defence is to bunch up into tight groups to ensure that no individual can be separated out.
Today this is no defence, the horsemen are Janjaweed militiamen and members of the Sudanese armed forces and they come not with the lances used by their ancestors, but with AK47s, belt-fed machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. This habit of bunching up into a single large herd has meant that the poachers can easily kill 50-60 elephants in a single attack, by simply machine gunning the terrified animals as they try to escape. In 2005 an aerial count found 3,885 elephants in Zakouma and the surrounding area in under a decade the population was reduced to just 430 and had stopped breeding due to the constant stress. Since African Parks took over the management of Zakouma in 2010 the poaching has been almost entirely stopped and the elephants are breeding again the population now stands at around 470.
Zakouma is an unusual park when compared to the better-known national parks of East or Southern Africa, because on normal game drives through the park, you simply don’t see elephants, except for the handful of bulls, that hang around the airstrip and the park HQ in the area of the park that is actually called Zakouma, elsewhere you just don’t see them, not unless you are actively looking for them and know in advance where they are. You won’t drive around a corner and find a small herd feeding beside the road as you might in a park like say Ruaha in Tanzania, to understand why this is the case, you need to know the tragic history of Zakouma’s elephants.
For roughly 6 months of the year between June and November Zakouma National Park is almost entirely inundated with floodwaters, at this time elephants would often disperse into the surrounding area of what is now the Salamat Faunal Reserve. During this time Arab horsemen from the Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan would come to hunt the elephants, as they had done for perhaps several hundred years. Traditionally a group of up to 20 horsemen armed with lances would charge a herd aiming to separate out one of the elephants, picking one with good tusks. A single horseman would then ride in front of this elephant to draw its attention and get it to pursue him, allowing the other men to ride in and spear it from behind with their lances. They would aim for the elephant’s hamstrings in its hind legs, these if severed would bring the animal down and ensure it could not get up again. Huge numbers of elephants were killed this way and in response the surviving herds in the region, have learned that at the first sign of horsemen, their best defence is to bunch up into tight groups, to ensure that no individual can be separated out.
Today this is no defence, the horsemen are Janjaweed militiamen and members of the Sudanese armed forces and they come not with the lances used by their ancestors, but with AK47s, belt-fed machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. This habit of bunching up into a single large herd, has meant that the poachers can easily kill 50-60 elephants in a single attack by simply machine gunning the terrified animals as they try to escape. In 2005 an aerial count found 3,885 elephants in Zakouma and the surrounding area, in under a decade the population was reduced to just 430 and had stopped breeding due to the constant stress. Since African Parks took over Zakouma the poaching has been almost entirely stopped and the elephants are breeding again, they have not lost an elephant to poaching in 6 years at the last count in 2021 the population had reached 636.
Zakouma had become famous for what was often described as the largest elephant herd in Africa, simply because the majority of the park’s elephants were congregating together in a huge unnatural mega-herd, that would include bulls that would normally have been pushed out. Besides sticking together for protection, the elephants also like to remain in the thick bush and woodlands, avoiding open areas of the park, this is why you just don’t see them when driving around. Just in the last couple of years the elephant herd has started to split into several big herds instead of just one, but they still stay deep in the bush, doing their best to avoid people entirely.
The best chance of seeing them is at the Bahr Salamat, where they have to come every day to drink, if you can anticipate which part of the river they will come to, and position yourself so that they won’t be aware of your presence, you can have an amazing elephant experience. When we tried to find them, despite receiving tracking information from the park HQ, (some of the elephants are wearing tracking collars) and having a ranger to assist us, we were not lucky, instead of seeing the whole herd come to drink where we had chosen to wait, we just saw two single bulls. The herd did come to drink but at a different stretch of the Salamat, not too far away, unfortunately we missed them.
What are the hamstrings?
The hamstrings are a group of muscles that cross the hip and knee joints and are responsible for walking, running, jumping, and many other physical activities. The hamstrings flex the knee joint and extend the thigh backward to propel movement. 1 Located at the backs of the legs, the hamstrings are the opposing muscles to the quadriceps.
Kennedy Falls aka Gluteus Mash
North Fork Blackwater River
Blackwater Canyon Trail
Monongahela National Forest
West Virginia
This waterfall is slowly beginning to make it's way into my top 5 favorite waterfalls. It's rugged foreground and bright colored rocks makes this one of the more beautiful in the State. This is the second time I've been to this falls, prior to this visit I was one of only a handful of people to have photographed this falls. This day Randy, Brent, George and I were joined by several great folks and photographers at nearby Douglas Falls for the hike down to the falls. Joining us were, Jim Hopkins and his friend Randy, DonnaWV and Rabbit. Except for Randy, Donna and myself no one else in the group had ever seen this falls. The hike down isn't really that bad except that it is a steep decent and there's no trail to follow. The only place it gets a little hairy is near the falls as you have to walk along the ledge, hold on to trees and then scramble down the hillside. Interestingly the most treacherous place to walk is the actual riverbed as those red/orange colored rock are unbelievably slippery, especially when wet. Even with anti-slip shoes on it was like walking on 10w-30. This is the location that good friend Jason Haley took his now infamous spill last year where he half tore his hamstring and had to climb out from down here, a feat I can't believe he succeeded in. Jason would go on to have to have surgery and would be down for about 6 months. He's good as new now and back to having fun!
The interesting color of the rocks in the riverbed was created by an acid wash when the waste water from a abandoned upstream acid mine drained into the river and the resulting corrective measures to treat it discolored them. The event, which happened approximately 10 years ago, killed all the wildlife that resided in the river. Only recently have wildlife returned, but only to drink the water, for now the river is still dead.
So, for some reason, this is the class that I’ve invested the most time into.
To be honest, he’s actually like really *really* hard to play properly. Seriously, I watched a YouTube video and the guy there agreed with me-
I still think Spy is a really fun and interesting class considering that you need a lot of psychological knowledge and game sense in order to play him well. He’s like, manipulation incarnate, because you have to play each individual player’s hamstrings just right in order for you to get a kill.
In fact, that’s probably what separates a good Spy player from a bad one.
He still stinks in 6v6 though.
Don’t play Spy in 6v6.
Custom-wise, it’s pretty simple. I forget what headpiece I used exactly, but eh, I say it works lol
5 years ago today marks the day that I first made my Flickr account and joined the lego community. I've made some great friends over the years both online but also in person such as Dayton who I see very regularly. Flickr in the past was a place for me to escape to where I was able to be accepted for something I was passionate about, nowadays I'm not so reliant on flickr and the lego community, however I still haven't lost interest in lego thats for sure. I still build a lot, but I don't post nearly as much as I used to, in some ways lego has been something that I've grown to enjoy keeping to myself, however I'm still definitely going to post more this year.
Since its my 5 year anniversary I've decided to do something that I've never done, a tag. So enjoy this glorious photo.
1.This photo was taken on the way to BV, Tristan likes him some hash browns
2.I’m 19 and am doing a Bachelor of Global Studies majoring in International studies at University, it is much fun
3.I’m also learning Chinese, not sure if that’s a mistake as of yet
4.My favourite games include, all the Halo games (except Halo 5, it’s a fucking disgusting game both in design and story), the Mass effect trilogy, Fable 2, the Lara Croft Reboot, the Elder scrolls IV and V, and Assassins Creed 4
5.I tore my hamstring and had it removed in 2014, much fun
6.I’m not a big fan of sport, however I’m very into fitness eg bar exercises, pushups, running etc.
7.I’m currently part of a gang in which I’m currently the alpha, the gang is the Densewhitebois which consists of Forgotten Days, Saberdaber, Refyls, Jacka, Reconbrixcustoms, Ben Cossy and Sandmirror
8.Some of my favourite movies include, all Star wars movies (except TFA, I’m still trying to get my head around it), the LOTR trilogy, Princess Mononoke and the Neon Demon
9.My favourite genre to build in is probably Star Wars, however as of recent I’ve grown very fond of castle
10.I’m currently working on the next scene in my Life of a Jedi series (almost 2 years since I’ve done a scene for it)
11.This year I’m hoping to build some Halo related things
12.Sometimes I evolve into Angery Tristan when Dayton (forgottendays) is around.
Thanks for reading scrubs, I look forward to the years to come on flickr.
- Thanks Tristan
Myosource Cheer Combo that includes Kinetic Bands plus a free stunt strap to help Cheerleaders improve jumps and stunts. Visit www.myosource.com/cheer-gymnastics-dance/ for more information
Not intending to offend anyone with sincerely held religious or a-religious beliefs, I have to say I enjoyed Mr. Hall's dark comedic riff apparently prompted by the corona virus testing debacle and the resistance of some so-called religious leaders to enforce the social distancing guidelines which continues to hamstring US efforts to deal with this pandemic.
Read the whole article at
www.patheos.com/blogs/laughingindisbelief/2020/04/new-tes...
Zakouma is an unusual park when compared to the better-known national parks of East or Southern Africa, because on normal game drives through the park, you simply don’t see elephants, except for the handful of bulls, that hang around the airstrip and the park HQ in the area of the park that is actually called Zakouma, elsewhere you just don’t see them, not unless you are actively looking for them and know in advance where they are. You won’t drive around a corner and find a small herd feeding beside the road as you might in a park like say Ruaha in Tanzania, to understand why this is the case, you need to know the tragic history of Zakouma’s elephants.
For roughly 6 months of the year between June and November Zakouma National Park is almost entirely inundated with floodwaters, at this time elephants would often disperse into the surrounding area of what is now the Salamat Faunal Reserve. During this time Arab horsemen from the Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan would come to hunt the elephants, as they had done for perhaps several hundred years. Traditionally a group of up to 20 horsemen armed with lances would charge a herd aiming to separate out one of the elephants, picking one with good tusks. A single horseman would then ride in front of this elephant to draw its attention and get it to pursue him, allowing the other men to ride in and spear it from behind with their lances. They would aim for the elephant’s hamstrings in its hind legs, these if severed would bring the animal down and ensure it could not get up again. Huge numbers of elephants were killed this way and in response the surviving herds in the region, have learned that at the first sign of horsemen, their best defence is to bunch up into tight groups, to ensure that no individual can be separated out.
Today this is no defence, the horsemen are Janjaweed militiamen and members of the Sudanese armed forces and they come not with the lances used by their ancestors, but with AK47s, belt-fed machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. This habit of bunching up into a single large herd, has meant that the poachers can easily kill 50-60 elephants in a single attack by simply machine gunning the terrified animals as they try to escape. In 2005 an aerial count found 3,885 elephants in Zakouma and the surrounding area, in under a decade the population was reduced to just 430 and had stopped breeding due to the constant stress. Since African Parks took over Zakouma the poaching has been almost entirely stopped and the elephants are breeding again, they have not lost an elephant to poaching in 6 years as counted last year in 2021 the population is now 636.
This bull is one of the ones that lives in the area around the park HQ, there is always water for them and plenty of food here, and in the recent past this area would have been much safer than the rest of the park.
Andoni Plain battle. Two Plains Zebra, aka Burchell's Zebra, (Equus quagga) face off in a terrible dominance battle where the dust flew and blood was visible. The Zebra on the right is trying to hamstring the Zebra on the left that was actually the aggressor. Image taken in Etosha National Park of Namibia.
The We're Here! gang is visiting the Shots About Nothing group today. I'm on my back with one leg in the air, doing nothing. Pulled a hamstring. Rest...Ice...Compression...Elevation.
*sigh*
via Tumblr ift.tt/2dKb549
There’s no denying our Instagram feeds are a prime source of motivation. So we’ve sourced seven of the best social media accounts to help you stay motivated and inspired, grouped by your goals.
For fat-loss fortitude
A Google search of ‘fat loss’ will see enough returns to bring on a migraine. We’ve sorted the sensible from the silly so you can maximise your shred.
Alexa Towersey @actionalexa
What you get:
Along with inspiring quotes and epic action shots (no squatting in a G-string here, folks), Towersey posts weekly examples of fat-burning circuits and booty-building exercises for you to try at home. And as a woman with years of experience and who trains some of Sydney’s top models, you are inclined to take her advice. With a scientific yet readable caption style, Towersey regularly reminds you of why rest, recovery and stress management are integral to your fat-loss goals – ’cause, let’s face it, it’s easy to forget come Monday morning.
What you don’t get:
Half-naked selfies or long opinionated rants, thank goodness. Just knowledge, working examples and ancillary training methods so you can max your goals.
Top tip:
“Train for your objective. Training to put on muscle is very different to training for strength, which is different to training for weight loss and different again to training for a specific sport. Remember, movement is not always progress. You can run in place and never get anywhere.”
Tom Venuto burnthefatblog.com
What you get:
Tips on leaning out from a natural bodybuilder – because why wouldn’t you take advice from those whose job it is to eradicate fat? A science boffin, Venuto posts about once a week and covers current fitness controversies – from the science behind eating more fat to whether you should be performing a crunch. If you’re looking for less-ordinary tips with the backing of a lab coat and academic studies to give you an edge, Venuto is your man.
What you don’t get:
One-size-fits-all workouts, training programs or nutrition plans. This blog is all about current research and the underlying factors affecting progress than cookie cutter routines. Sure, there are example workouts scattered here and there, but it’s not the place to go for daily pre-workout inspiration. You will have to plan your training yourself.
Top tip:
“Doing nothing but cardio is a mistake. But cutting out cardio completely is also a mistake. The truth lies in the middle. Maximum fat burning occurs when you combine cardio training and weight training together. For health and weight maintenance, I would suggest three short cardio workouts per week, about 20 to 30 minutes per session. But for maximum fat loss, I recommend four to seven days per week of cardio or other vigorous physical activity for 30 to 45 minutes (based on results) at a moderate pace.”
NEXT: Muscle madness
For muscle madness
If you’re looking to hit up the weights room to improve strength, tone and support fat loss (or just to look bad-ass – guilty!), these are the web accounts set to inspire.
Lauren Simpson (Snapchat: laurensimpsonnn)
What you get:
This young Sydney-sider is the perfect combo of body composition inspiration and information. You’ll be spoilt with regular rig/ab selfies as she preps for her next bikini comp, behind-the-scenes access to her numerous photoshoots, supplement discount codes, high-protein recipes and – our favourite – weighted workouts ripe for screen-shotting. She even encourages it.
What you don’t get:
Anything cardio based – she just doesn’t do it (ectomorph and naturally lean body shape perks). Simpson is renowned for her powerlifting and hypertrophy protocols to create the curves that have seen her win a recent WBFF pro card, so she may be hard to relate to for those looking to drop fat and create curves more steadily.
Top tip:
A recent leg workout from her Snap stream:
Superset
» Paused squat – 3 sets of 5 reps
» Hamstring curls – 3 sets of 5 reps (toes turned out, heels touching)
» Pendulum squats – 5 sets of 15 reps
» Split squats – 4 sets of 8 reps (each side, back foot elevated)
Nia Shanks (niashanks.com)
What you get:
Blog posts from a qualified trainer about everything from staying motivated to fat loss, but we particularly love her spiels on weight training. Not only do you get specific workouts and training programs based on your goals and time constraints (often with supporting video content), she also explains why you are doing what you are doing – whether that be a certain rep range or using a particular piece of equipment. It’s probably more suited to the intermediate weight lifter – although there are some body weight posts and beginner variations if you are just starting out.
What you don’t get:
Blogs about hitting the weights room to improve ‘flaws’ in your physique. Conversely, you also won’t get the ‘just love yourself as you are’ psycho-babble. Shanks finds a way to balance our mental health and self-confidence with our realistic desire to improve.
Top tip:
“If you strength train with the primary goal of improving your performance in the gym, you are setting yourself up for success. Unlike cardio, strength training is a great way to set positive, motivating goals that will keep you going in the gym week after week, month after month, and year after year.”
NEXT: For flexi fitness
For flexi fitness
The yogi yodas need their social fill too. To bring the zen to your computer screen, here are our top picks for scientific knowledge and practical tips to deepen the stretch.
Kate Kendall @activeyogi
What you get:
Let’s face it – sometimes we just want to chill on the couch, look at some pretty pictures and be inspired to hit the mat in the morning. Aussie-born and -bred yoga instructor Kate Kendall’s Instagram account is our go-to for beautiful bendy moves in obscene scenery. Her captions remind us to get outdoors, be with friends and just stretch. Plus, it’s always kind of interesting to see where her career as a Blackmores ambassador and her own yogi studio take her – whether that be instructing nighttime silent disco yoga sessions or standing side by side with other fitspo celebs.
What you don’t GET:
Actual informative tips on the practice of yoga – for that you will need to head to one of her classes.
Top tip:
Kate shared this quote from Sharon Gannon, founder of Jivamukti Yoga: “You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state.” Deep.
Rachel Scott rachelyoga.com
What you get:
Yoga enthusiast and the director of Teachers’ College and Development YYoga, Rachel Scott’s website is all about education. With clean lines and easy-to-read spacing, her blog posts range from the quick and simple step-by-step instructions on a particular pose to a moving diary-style entry on anxiety and depression and how yoga has helped to heal. Encompassing the merging of spirituality and physicality native to true yogis, her blog posts are beautiful, short, sharp and informative, and you can pick and choose what you read depending on your mood or motives for the day – the archives are pretty extensive.
What you don’t get:
Regular updates – admittedly her posts are usually one or two a month, but at other times they are more sparse. If consistency is key to building your relationship with your blogger, then maybe look elsewhere.
Top tip:
“Our mats are not places to be perfect, or even places that we have to be particularly happy. They are places to be authentic. The mat is a place where it’s okay to cry. They are places to give ourselves permission to feel, practise self-care, and use our beautiful physical bodies to potentially shift our experiences. We can move with our feelings rather than cover them up.”
NEXT: For running ragged
For running ragged
For those who love to hit the pavement, these steady-state cardio training accounts will help get the blood pumping.
Deena Kastor @deena8050
What you get:
If you are well and truly sick of an Insta-feed filled with puppies, children (yes, he/she is adorable but…) and green smoothies, take a look at former Olympian Deena Kastor’s running Insta account. Her photographs will have you pining for an active holiday or a stroll around your nearest river with regular snaps of stunning sceneries from her track of that day. Her captions are a mix of inspiring quotes, reflections on the running life and diary entries of her favourite events and experiences. Okay and yes – the odd dog/child/green smoothie does pop up (she has all three). We love it really.
What you don’t GET:
Boring activewear selfies or overtly posed stretches. Refreshingly real, Kastor would rather give you a glimpse of nature and push you to pull on the running shoes rather than her own (albeit lithe) body.
Top tip:
“When faced with a challenge, it’s easy to feel small, but go down that trail as fast and safely as you can and feel as majestic as the mountains that stand over you.”
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Read more …
from Women’s Health & Fitness Combined Feed ift.tt/2ebd6Zi
via IFTTT
Make no mistake : Mr hitched-up lycra-shorts is not flaunting his perfectly conditioned gluteal muscles and hamstrings! He is just trying to even out his tan in order to avoid being mistaken for a cyclist ... and at this very moment, he is also trying to refill his water bottle without taking a shower in the 5°c water!
Thompson Track, Te Aroha
It started as a couple of hour ride up from Te Aroha and turned into a 2 day bush bash in mud and rain.
The bikes were a Gas Gas 700SM, Honda CRF300 Adventure and my Montesa 4Ride.
The rough road up to the summit was pretty easy for all of us. Big rocks and potholes on a clay bed but no real problem. That took about 25 minutes.
Then I found a track going down the other side and we decided to follow it.
Within 500 metres was the first slip; that should have warned us off but no, we soldiered on...........and on and on a on! For hours we battled bogs, bush slips and trees.
Finally, we decided we were not going to make Katikati on the other side. The bogs were too big and the GasGas and Honda too heavy.
We turned around and started back up but the rain set in and made it harder.
We decided to leave the two heavy bikes behind and come back the next day for them. Between the three of us, we rode and hauled the little Montesa 4Ride 260cc trials based bike to the top and I rode on down to get help. On the way down, I lost the front wheel on a slippery rock, fell and tore my hamstring. It was a lot of pain but I got up and rode on.
I found a couple in town with a double cab ute who agreed to come with me to the base of the trail so we could drive the other two back to town; they finally walked out around midnight!
The next day we went back to get the bikes left behind.
I waited at the bottom with my torn hammy and acted as the emergency system just in case. The other two took my Montesa back up to cut 2-3 hours off their walk then walked into the bush to rescue the other bikes with a winch, folding spade and tree saw.
2 expert hard enduro racers had contacted me offering help so I said yes please!
They turned up abpout 2.30pm and rode in to help. Then half an hour later, 2 more riders turned up to help.
The 2nd two riders didn't go far enough to find the others and came back. They'd seen my Montesa just over the top but that was all.
By 6pm I was getting worried and ready to call emergency services (the boys had a satelite rescue device so I knew they may have set that off).
They hadn't and, just before I called emergency; they all came back down some 5 hours after entering. Our 2-3 hour adventure ride had turned into a 2 day balls out test of skill, endurance and planning. On the way up, we didn't just ride, we stopped and planned our way through every obstacle.
Nobody was hurt at all until I fell off on the way down in the rain and we all had wet weather gear and plenty of spring water.
Staying in the bush for the night would have been cold but not a life or death issue.
What a ride! What an experience a what a great bunch of people Kiwis are to drop everything, drive hundreds of km with bikes on the back to help us!
Zakouma is an unusual park when compared to the better-known national parks of East or Southern Africa, because on normal game drives through the park, you simply don’t see elephants, except for the handful of bulls, that hang around the airstrip and the park HQ in the area of the park that is actually called Zakouma, elsewhere you just don’t see them, not unless you are actively looking for them and know in advance where they are. You won’t drive around a corner and find a small herd feeding beside the road as you might in a park like say Ruaha in Tanzania, to understand why this is the case, you need to know the tragic history of Zakouma’s elephants.
For roughly 6 months of the year between June and November Zakouma National Park is almost entirely inundated with floodwaters, at this time elephants would often disperse into the surrounding area of what is now the Salamat Faunal Reserve. During this time Arab horsemen from the Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan would come to hunt the elephants, as they had done for perhaps several hundred years. Traditionally a group of up to 20 horsemen armed with lances would charge a herd aiming to separate out one of the elephants, picking one with good tusks. A single horseman would then ride in front of this elephant to draw its attention and get it to pursue him, allowing the other men to ride in and spear it from behind with their lances. They would aim for the elephant’s hamstrings in its hind legs, these if severed would bring the animal down and ensure it could not get up again. Huge numbers of elephants were killed this way and in response the surviving herds in the region, have learned that at the first sign of horsemen, their best defence is to bunch up into tight groups, to ensure that no individual can be separated out.
Today this is no defence, the horsemen are Janjaweed militiamen and members of the Sudanese armed forces and they come not with the lances used by their ancestors, but with AK47s, belt-fed machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. This habit of bunching up into a single large herd, has meant that the poachers can easily kill 50-60 elephants in a single attack by simply machine gunning the terrified animals as they try to escape. In 2005 an aerial count found 3,885 elephants in Zakouma and the surrounding area, in under a decade the population was reduced to just 430 and had stopped breeding due to the constant stress. Since African Parks took over Zakouma the poaching has been almost entirely stopped and the elephants are breeding again, they have not lost an elephant to poaching in 6 years at the last count in 2021 the population had reached 636.
Zakouma had become famous for what was often described as the largest elephant herd in Africa, simply because the majority of the park’s elephants were congregating together in a huge unnatural mega-herd, that would include bulls that would normally have been pushed out. Besides sticking together for protection, the elephants also like to remain in the thick bush and woodlands, avoiding open areas of the park, this is why you just don’t see them when driving around. Just in the last couple of years the elephant herd has started to split into several big herds instead of just one, but they still stay deep in the bush, doing their best to avoid people entirely.
The best chance of seeing them is at the Bahr Salamat, where they have to come every day to drink, if you can anticipate which part of the river they will come to, and position yourself so that they won’t be aware of your presence, you can have an amazing elephant experience. When we tried to find them, despite receiving tracking information from the park HQ, (some of the elephants are wearing tracking collars) and having a ranger to assist us, we were not lucky, instead of seeing the whole herd come to drink where we had chosen to wait, we just saw two single bulls. The herd did come to drink but at a different stretch of the Salamat, not too far away, unfortunately we missed them.
Zakouma is an unusual park when compared to the better-known national parks of East or Southern Africa, because on normal game drives through the park, you simply don’t see elephants, except for the handful of bulls, that hang around the airstrip and the park HQ in the area of the park that is actually called Zakouma, elsewhere you just don’t see them, not unless you are actively looking for them and know in advance where they are. You won’t drive around a corner and find a small herd feeding beside the road as you might in a park like say Ruaha in Tanzania, to understand why this is the case, you need to know the tragic history of Zakouma’s elephants.
For roughly 6 months of the year between June and November Zakouma National Park is almost entirely inundated with floodwaters, at this time elephants would often disperse into the surrounding area of what is now the Salamat Faunal Reserve. During this time Arab horsemen from the Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan would come to hunt the elephants, as they had done for perhaps several hundred years. Traditionally a group of up to 20 horsemen armed with lances would charge a herd aiming to separate out one of the elephants, picking one with good tusks. A single horseman would then ride in front of this elephant to draw its attention and get it to pursue him, allowing the other men to ride in and spear it from behind with their lances. They would aim for the elephant’s hamstrings in its hind legs, these if severed would bring the animal down and ensure it could not get up again. Huge numbers of elephants were killed this way and in response the surviving herds in the region, have learned that at the first sign of horsemen, their best defence is to bunch up into tight groups, to ensure that no individual can be separated out.
Today this is no defence, the horsemen are Janjaweed militiamen and members of the Sudanese armed forces and they come not with the lances used by their ancestors, but with AK47s, belt-fed machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. This habit of bunching up into a single large herd, has meant that the poachers can easily kill 50-60 elephants in a single attack by simply machine gunning the terrified animals as they try to escape. In 2005 an aerial count found 3,885 elephants in Zakouma and the surrounding area, in under a decade the population was reduced to just 430 and had stopped breeding due to the constant stress. Since African Parks took over Zakouma the poaching has been almost entirely stopped and the elephants are breeding again, they have not lost an elephant to poaching in 6 years as counted last year in 2021 the population is now 636.
This bull is one of the ones that lives in the area around the park HQ, there is always water for them and plenty of food here, and in the recent past this area would have been much safer than the rest of the park.
Zakouma is an unusual park when compared to the better-known national parks of East or Southern Africa, because on normal game drives through the park, you simply don’t see elephants, except for the handful of bulls, that hang around the airstrip and the park HQ in the area of the park that is actually called Zakouma, elsewhere you just don’t see them, not unless you are actively looking for them and know in advance where they are. You won’t drive around a corner and find a small herd feeding beside the road as you might in a park like say Ruaha in Tanzania, to understand why this is the case, you need to know the tragic history of Zakouma’s elephants.
For roughly 6 months of the year between June and November Zakouma National Park is almost entirely inundated with floodwaters, at this time elephants would often disperse into the surrounding area of what is now the Salamat Faunal Reserve. During this time Arab horsemen from the Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan would come to hunt the elephants, as they had done for perhaps several hundred years. Traditionally a group of up to 20 horsemen armed with lances would charge a herd aiming to separate out one of the elephants, picking one with good tusks. A single horseman would then ride in front of this elephant to draw its attention and get it to pursue him, allowing the other men to ride in and spear it from behind with their lances. They would aim for the elephant’s hamstrings in its hind legs, these if severed would bring the animal down and ensure it could not get up again. Huge numbers of elephants were killed this way and in response the surviving herds in the region, have learned that at the first sign of horsemen, their best defence is to bunch up into tight groups, to ensure that no individual can be separated out.
Today this is no defence, the horsemen are Janjaweed militiamen and members of the Sudanese armed forces and they come not with the lances used by their ancestors, but with AK47s, belt-fed machine guns and rocket propelled grenades. This habit of bunching up into a single large herd, has meant that the poachers can easily kill 50-60 elephants in a single attack by simply machine gunning the terrified animals as they try to escape. In 2005 an aerial count found 3,885 elephants in Zakouma and the surrounding area, in under a decade the population was reduced to just 430 and had stopped breeding due to the constant stress. Since African Parks took over Zakouma the poaching has been almost entirely stopped and the elephants are breeding again, they have not lost an elephant to poaching in 6 years at the last count in 2021 the population had reached 636.
Zakouma had become famous for what was often described as the largest elephant herd in Africa, simply because the majority of the park’s elephants were congregating together in a huge unnatural mega-herd, that would include bulls that would normally have been pushed out. Besides sticking together for protection, the elephants also like to remain in the thick bush and woodlands, avoiding open areas of the park, this is why you just don’t see them when driving around. Just in the last couple of years the elephant herd has started to split into several big herds instead of just one, but they still stay deep in the bush, doing their best to avoid people entirely.
The best chance of seeing them is at the Bahr Salamat, where they have to come every day to drink, if you can anticipate which part of the river they will come to, and position yourself so that they won’t be aware of your presence, you can have an amazing elephant experience. When we tried to find them, despite receiving tracking information from the park HQ, (some of the elephants are wearing tracking collars) and having a ranger to assist us, we were not lucky, instead of seeing the whole herd come to drink where we had chosen to wait, we just saw two single bulls. The herd did come to drink but at a different stretch of the Salamat, not too far away, unfortunately we missed them.