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James River State park, VA.
Garvis Family Thanksgiving
The meal included but was not limited to, turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, Brussel sprouts, butternut squash, dinner rolls, salad, and cranberry relish.
In a potluck style dinner where everyone pitches in and makes a dish no one has to shoulder the whole weight of the feast.
With 10 kids in the Garvis family, half of them being married and having kids of their own, opportunities to get everyone together are few and far between. In this controversial time to be getting together every precaution was taken to ensure the safety and health of all involved,
Three tables were put together and chairs from the second cabin had to be brought in to fit every one.
Decorations were almost nonexistent to keep things simple.
I am just.... completely run down. Even after having a long weekend! Between this room mate drama, being sick, and a few other pieces of shit, I have been run down. Yet, I've still managed to attend classes... No more gym this week because I nearly threw my back out and have to wear one of those embarrassing back braces until I can function without it. My appetite is nearly nonexistent. My confidence and emotions are shaken beyond recognition. I was doing so well, and feeling so great! It's amazing what people can do to make you feel worthless and like you're this horrid person. Rock bottom ain't a pretty place.
On another note, I got a fridge so I can actually have COLD Brita water, as well as some orange juice in the morning that isn't watered down from the cafeteria tap. Also, TWO firedrills in a ROW at 4:30 and 5:45 didn't help me feel the greatest, either. As for now, I'm battling more sniffles and sneezles and some pretty horrid chills.
Chart showing the elevation changes for benchmark CO-C-32. Subsidence from 1982-1986 was very minor or nonexistent. During this time period only one very small geothermal plant was operating. In 1986 the Vulcan plant came on line more than tripling the production of fluid and increasing the subsidence rate at this benchmark. The production of fluid continued to increase with a series of new power plants coming on line: Elmore, SS-3, Del Ranch 1989, Leathers, SS-2 1990, SS-4 1996, and SS-5 CE Turbo in 2000, and so has the rate of subsidence.
Miss my head, miss my heart, miss my lungs
Be what you want to be
Watch what you want to see
Killed for fun
Down a hole, up a rope
Down some pills, up some hope
This karma machine only takes quarters
New age soldier, new age soldier
Everybody's all right
Everything is automatic
Everybody's all right
Everything is skin deep (*)
Ho-ho-ho hippy is back on flickr!
It's been a rainy Christmas and there won't be any masterpiece in these days, just a few cliché shots like this one :D
Ok, there has never been a masterpiece on my flickr stream, but that's a technical detail nobody should care about ^____^
PS: no post processing, as usual. The background has been cut out by a midget living in my zoom lens :D
PSSSS: I was waiting for the next rain cloud and started playing with a nonexistent depth of field and more than 200mm handheld, just to make things easier *___*
(*) "Everything is automatic" by Matthew Good
N88TH
From EAA Website:
Tom Hamilton, EAA 111356, designed the Glasair to be an efficient airplane; it was fast yet fuel-efficient and had a practical building time. The prototype, called the Ham2, was an all-composite, female molded, side-by-side two place aircraft. It was conventional in design as far as aerodynamics go with a good-looking appearance.
Originally, Tom had designed his airplane with tandem seating, but he ran into a few problems. The biggest problem was center of gravity travel, especially when soloed from the front seat. Flying from the rear seat proved to be awkward, cramped, and blind, especially forward through the other person’s head. Baggage space was almost nonexistent and passenger’s weight became an issue.
Tom decided to switch to side-by-side seating, which eliminated many of these problems. He saved weight by not having to duplicate instruments and controls, gaining plenty of room for IFR avionics without going to very costly miniature instruments. The Ham2 could handle a pilot up to 6 feet 2 inches in height, while all the succeeding Glasairs had an additional three inches in the canopy. Side-by-side seating can make an airplane less aerodynamically efficient, but it didn’t affect the Ham2 at all in the speed department.
The Ham2 was the prototype for the Glasair, which became an airplane that many consider ideal for cruising around in with a friend. The Glasair is able to carry two full-sized people in comfort, operate out of short fields, and throw in a roll or a loop every once in a while.
Utility and efficiency were at the heart of the Glasair design, and Ham2 was what started it all. Tom wrote a feature story about the airplane in the August 1980 issue of Sport Aviation, and then donated the Glasair prototype Ham2 to the EAA Aviation Museum in 1986.
Length: 19 feet
Wingspan: 23 feet, 3 inches
Empty Weight: 835 pounds
Gross Weight: 1,400 pounds
Maximum Speed: 230 mph
Cruise Speed: 206 mph
Seats: 2
Powerplant: Lycoming O-235
Horsepower: 150 hp
They Live, We Sleep
Artist Statement
“We are living in an artificially induced state of consciousness that resembles sleep. The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent.
They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it.
They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices ...their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness.
We have been lulled into a trance.
They have made us indifferent, to ourselves, to others; we are focused only on our own gain. They are safe as long as they are not discovered ...that is their primary method of survival.
Keep us asleep, keep us selfish, keep us sedated...they are dismantling the sleeping middle class.
More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.”
– They Live
This photographic body of work is inspired by John Carpenter’s 1988 film, “They Live.” The movie was also credited by Shepard Fairey “as a major source of inspiration for his own subversive brand of street art.” They Live was the basis for his use of the word ‘OBEY’ that became his main campaign and a popular clothing brand consequently.
The protagonist of the movie, an unemployed drifter named "Nada," accidentally comes across a box of sunglasses. After putting a pair on, he realizes that they are quite special. He sees the world in black and white and discovers that it's not what it seems. The series of images I have created are like those unique sunglasses that Nada stumbled upon, aim to show the world to the viewer for what it truly is. I hope they will help people to take into consideration what they sacrifice by blindly following self-serving governments and corporations’ agendas.
Through this photographic project my intent is to encourage people to be more aware of the habitual ways of living that we have been thoughtlessly following for most of human history. It seems as though the human race would have learned by now to not put their trust in the hands of the misguiding ruling class. Unfortunately most of the humanity is still in the state of mindless consumerism and simply does not realize that their decisions, their entire lives are being manipulated.
If I'd known Bailey* when she was in her youth/prime, I would've turned her into a hell of a disc dog...
Even now, she'll fetch until her almost nonexistent teeth chatter and you put the toy away and force her to lay down for some rest. Five minutes later, she's ready to go again...
View On White & large.
Shambaugh explains the relationship between productivity and wage growth.
Since the 1970s, the typical U.S. worker has experienced either a minimal or nonexistent increase in wages. What can and should be done to promote the economic growth that will lead to higher earnings for more American workers? How do we ensure that these gains are broadly shared, resulting in robust wage growth for as many workers as possible?
On September 26, The Hamilton Project at Brookings hosted a forum on wage growth in The United States. The forum began with introductory remarks by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, and a fireside chat with Jason Furman, professor of practice, Harvard Kennedy School, and Lawrence Mishel, president, Economic Policy Institute. The fireside chat was moderated by Catherine Rampell, opinion writer, The Washington Post. A panel discussion will follow the fireside chat, featuring panelists including: Jared Bernstein, senior fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Robert Greenstein, founder and president, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; and Heidi Shierholz; senior economist and director of policy, Economic Policy Institute; the panel was moderated by Jay Shambaugh, director, The Hamilton Project.
In conjunction with this event, The Hamilton Project released a new framing paper exploring wage trends and the economic forces that underlie them.
Photo credit: Ralph Alswang
The atheists blame God and religion for all of humankind's problems. Such proves the shallowness of atheism's manner of thinking. A nonexistent being cannot take blame for anything which happens to occur in the Universe. "Religion" is merely a word which is used to classify a set of human opinions and therefore cannot take either credit or blame for any of humankind's behavior.
God's nonexistence exonerates God from all blame for humankind's failure. Since humankind lacks free will it is quite impossible to blame humans for the failure of humankind. Humankind's failure then represents nothing more than a failure of evolution, an evolutionary dead end and proof that a primate can behave with the same sort of amorality exhibited by diseases and viruses and cancer and natural disasters.
Although humankind isn't innocent humankind is helpless and beyond the reach of any cure for the affliction and curse known as "human nature". Humankind has known about the existence of this problem for thousands of years: It is the reason why religion was invented and why humans have wasted thousands of years praying to imaginary gods for help and rescue and salvation and peace.
In the scientific era, humankind's cry out to God has been replaced by humankind crying out to space in search of a wise and intelligent and benevolent alien intelligence to provide the cure which God failed to provide. Such a wish is as much nonsense as religion and represents not science fiction type thinking but fantasy thinking.
Humankind is alone in the Universe. There's nobody out there listening for some signal of intelligent life from the Earth. The Universe beyond the Earth is absolutely sterile. Humankind is absolutely and eternally alone.
Once humankind finishes driving itself extinct the Universe will have precisely zero human-like intelligent life forms. This is true even if the Universe is infinite in size.
It's raining in California at last! The first potent storm of the season finally gives the state a good soaking, including SoCal where rain was virtually nonexistent so far this season. I miss driving in the rain! Right after I was done with work, I went straight to observe the rainy weather. Due to all this rain, localized flooding was possible in flood-prone areas. Surely, we are having a weather pattern that was completely opposite of last month's epic dryness. Is it now safe to say that California's rainy season is finally here?
(Video footage taken from around San Jose, CA on Monday evening, January 8, 2018)
Weather update/forecast:
A powerful storm had battered California with heavy rain, mountain snow & gusty winds. A connection of subtropical moisture was present and had helped aid in bringing heavy rain to parts of the state. Heavy rain fell around NorCal Monday and into early Tuesday morning with approximately 3.50 inches of rain around San Francisco & Sacramento. While rainfall was forecast to be more sporadic over NorCal for the duration of the storm, heavy rain was more intense in Central/SoCal into Tuesday night. T-storms with small hail & lightning weren't out of the question as the low pressure system itself drifted inland with the added atmospheric instability. Gusty winds have continued to kick up along the coast and over the mountains as the storm drifted inland. Sporadic power outages were possible... This widespread rainfall had put a dent in the state's precipitation deficits, as well as put an end to the wildfire season at last. Looking ahead, more rain was on the horizon. Is the state's rainy season finally starting to kick in despite a slow start? Fingers crossed...
See the notes for identifications. When I checked the names against IPNI, I found several epithets that do not exist. If anyone can identify the misnamed plants, please comment.
The Dorstenia "lancifolia" is now identified as Dorstenia foetida.
Biology Greenhouse, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA.
This house has everything wrong; ugly colors, a ridiculous arcade, a lack of windows, a poor choice of materials, ugly roof pitches, a poor sense of scale, an unappealing portico, an ugly garage conversion, an ugly, cheapie door. nonexistent landscaping, lack of contrasting color, no ornamentation, soggy t111 siding, ugly fieldstone, an unpruned trees pouring termites on to the roof, this house has it all.
Next, Jay Shambaugh, the director of The Hamilton Project and a senior fellow in the Economics Studies program at Brookings, presented the Hamilton Project's research on wages.
Since the 1970s, the typical U.S. worker has experienced either a minimal or nonexistent increase in wages. What can and should be done to promote the economic growth that will lead to higher earnings for more American workers? How do we ensure that these gains are broadly shared, resulting in robust wage growth for as many workers as possible?
On September 26, The Hamilton Project at Brookings hosted a forum on wage growth in The United States. The forum began with introductory remarks by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, and a fireside chat with Jason Furman, professor of practice, Harvard Kennedy School, and Lawrence Mishel, president, Economic Policy Institute. The fireside chat was moderated by Catherine Rampell, opinion writer, The Washington Post. A panel discussion will follow the fireside chat, featuring panelists including: Jared Bernstein, senior fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Robert Greenstein, founder and president, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; and Heidi Shierholz; senior economist and director of policy, Economic Policy Institute; the panel was moderated by Jay Shambaugh, director, The Hamilton Project.
In conjunction with this event, The Hamilton Project released a new framing paper exploring wage trends and the economic forces that underlie them.
Photo credit: Ralph Alswang
These are my personal notes taken during a geology presentation. I give them here because they may be of some interest. Do not expect the notes to always be in complete sentences, etc.
-----------------------------------
Recognizing Eolian (i.e., Wind Blown) Deposits on San Salvador Island & Beyond
Presented by: Mario Caputo (retired from: Earth Sciences and Astronomy Department, Mt. San Antonio College, Walnut, California, USA)
23 June 2010
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How does wind interact with sediments? Sediments can be moved by wind, water, and glaciers. Wind is a turbulent transport agent.
What makes eolian deposits? Wind moves bedforms (dunes). Dunes make eolian deposits.
Example: erg (sand sea), Namib Desert, southwestern Africa.
(blogs.britannica.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/namib3sma...)
Example: Kelso Dunes, eastern Mojave Desert, California - has linear dunes (aka seif dunes; aka longitudinal dunes) - the wind runs parallel to crest of dunes.
(www.nps.gov/moja/planyourvisit/images/walking-kelso-dunes...)
Eolianite - rock formed by wind-transported sand of carbonate grains, not quartz & feldspar sand grains. [Eolianites are varieties of limestone.]
Given a steady supply of sand and a good, persistent wind, dunes will form.
Example: Michigan - reworked glacial sediments.
Example: Great Sand Dunes, Colorado - reworked Medano River sediments, derived from the Sangre de Cristo Range.
(www.nature.nps.gov/geology/geologic_wonders/images/star_d...)
Example: Barchan dunes of Utah - sediments are reworked from wind-blown sands of the Entrada Sandstone.
Sand can withstand several cycles of formation, deposition, lithification, and erosion. A famous exception is at White Sands, New Mexico, which has gypsum sand - it is quite soft (H=2) - it doesn’t survive like quartz, so it doesn’t travel far.
(feel-planet.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/white-sands-na...)
Basic eolian processes & resulting strata:
Wind ripple strata - “topset” strata and “foreset” strata or cross-bedding (sloping/slanting units).
Wind ripples, grainflow (sandflow), and grainfall make cross-bedding.
Bahamian limestones consist of aragonite (CaCO3) sand grains.
Utah sandstones have quartz (SiO2) sand grains. The Navajo Sandsone, Page Sandstone, and Entrada Sandstone are all siliciclastic eolian units there.
How sand is transported:
Wind creates a shearing effect above a sand grain. Get lift (Bernoulli Effect), like an airplane. Wind-blown (lifted or pushed along) sediment populations consist of fine sand - 1/16 mm to 1/2 mm.
Sand moves by: 1) sand slides; 2) rolling; 3) saltation (bouncing), triggered by the impact/strike of another grain. Saltation trajectories can be high. Example: sand stinging your legs during windy times.
Wind “impact” ripples: ripple length (spacing) = saltation length (trajectory controlled by wind speed & bounce height).
Forming wind ripple strata:
Ralph Hunter, now a retired USGS geologist, liked to dig out beautiful trenches & smooth the walls to see wind-blown sand deposits. (Need moist sand to trench & carve with a machete.) Such trenches show that wind ripples move up as they move laterally - climbing ripples (myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/talbot/cdgeol/Sediment/StratSed/75...). This is the result of horizontal & vertical vectors. These control the angle of climb. Ripples climb. Sediment deposits look horizontal, but they do have angular discordance. There wouldn’t be a deposit if the ripples didn’t climb.
In the Page Sandstone (~140 million years old, Paria Wilderness, southwestern Utah), you can see the angle of climb.
At the front of each ripple is a zone of erosion. If bedforms are moving horizontally, previous ripples get chewed up - don’t get a deposit. If ripples climb, you get a deposit.
On San Salvador Island in the Bahamas, wind ripple marks are rare, but they occur at French Bay in the Grotto Beach Formation. Wind ripple marks are well exposed in the Jurassic Page Sandstone of southwestern Utah’s Paria Wilderness. In both units, the ripple marks match up.
There is an index of width-to-height that only wind ripples have.
Pinstripe bedding - white stripes are microledges - seen in the the Rice Bay Formation at North Point on San Salvador. Darker bands/gray bands are recesses. So, see alternating light-dark ledges-recesses.
(www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/16223972926)
Can see the same thing in the Moab Sandstone Member of the Entrada Sandstone of Utah.
In thin section, can see that some layers are cemented and other layers are not cemented. This is the result of differential packing. The more closely packed layers end up being better cemented. The closely packed, better cemented portions are in the basal part - they form white stripes - little ledges.
The upper portions are coarser-grained, not as well packed, are darker, end up being not as well cemented, and form recesses.
The overall result is small-scale reverse grading. This happens even though wind-blown sand is well-sorted. Wind is the most efficient sorter of sediments.
Grainflow Processes:
Ex: Silver Lake State Park, western coast of Michigan.
(www.flickr.com/photos/richardthompson/3496551579)
Grains at the summit of ripples fall down at the brink point - get avalanching down the lee side.
Grainflows in the eolianite limestones at North Point Peninsula on San Salvador Island are thin to nonexistent. So, the original North Point dunes were small.
Sandflows in cross-bedding form recesses in San Salvador’s Rice Bay Formation and in the Jurassic Page Sandstone at Lake Powell (Monkey Wrench Gang country).
(www.flickr.com/photos/sara10041966/4076923585)
(upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/EdwardAbbey_TheMon...)
_________________________________
Recess (Sandflow)
(not well cemented)
_________________________________
Ledge (Grainfall) (well cemented)
_________________________________
Grainfall Process:
Sand is conveyed up the windward side of a dune. The finer sand grains of wind ripples get swept beyond the brink point and form grainfall deposits - smooth, unrippled surfaces without evidence of flowage.
Grainfalls are difficult to identify in the rock record. They are relatively easy to see in modern settings.
Can identify grainfalls encasing sandflow lenses in the Jurassic Page Sandstone & in the Grotto Beach Formation of San Salvador.
Grainfall deposits in the rock record are recognized by looking for sandflow lenses encased in thin ledges (= finer-grained than sandflow lens).
San Salvador eolianites - grains are marine in origin - marine framework grains - ooids, bioclastic grains, algal fragments - they get washed up on beaches by waves and tidal currents. Then winds blow the sediments into dunes. Sediments get reworked by wind & vegetation - vegedunes.
Whole dune-form preservation occurs by plant stabilization and early cementation. You don’t see that in quartz-rich dunes.
Topset strata, brinkset strata, foreset strata are also seen on Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas.
Reactivation surfaces represent pauses in dune movement and sand movement.
Can see updip pinchout in carbonate eolianites in the Bahamas - you never see that in quartz dunes preserved in the rock record.
San Salvador's North Point Peninsula outcrops have sandflow lenses (recesses) in grainfall deposits (ledges).
Quartz can be frosted in any environment. Frosted grains are no longer a reliable indicator of wind-blown origin.
Water ripples have higher amplitudes than wind-blown ripples.
Symmetrical ripples - can watch them form in the shallow waters around San Salvador Island in the Bahamas. Sediments get swept back-n-forth in ripple troughs, resulting in the buildup of sediments at the edges of troughs - the result is symmetrical ripples.
(www.flickr.com/photos/jsjgeology/15046816692)
Rolling & sliding mechanism of grain movement - creep.
Black basalt sand dunes occur in Hawaii. Basalt sand dunes also occur on Mars.
Bedding is only visible is there’s slight differences in grain sizes and/or grain mineralogies.
Swash laminations form in high flow regime conditions. A sheet of sand gets deposited. Swash has a higher velocity than backwash - get a two-fold lamination (swash-backwash).
Won’t see ripple forms in swash deposits. Will see parting lineations.
Can also get ripples migrating up the lee side (downwind) of dunes due to the presence of an air eddy in the trough between dunes.
----------------
Neuroeconomists have suggested additional policies, including warning buyers of lottery tickets that their chances of winning are practically nonexistent and imposing mandatory “cooling off” periods before people make big-ticket purchases, such as cars and boats.
—John Cassidy, The New Yorker, September 18 2006
leica iiic
film
colinhuggins.bandcamp.com/track/philip-glass-opening-from...
NY Times, Dec. 4 2011
Colin Huggins was there with his baby grand, the one he wheels into Washington Square Park for his al fresco concerts. So were Tic and Tac, a street-performing duo, who held court in the fountain — dry for the winter. And Joe Mangrum was pouring his elaborate sand paintings on the ground near the Washington Arch.
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Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Kareem Barnes of Tic and Tac collected donations on Sunday.
Enlarge This Image
Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
Joe Mangrum showed his sand paintings on Sunday.
In other words, it was a typical Sunday afternoon in the Greenwich Village park, where generations of visitors have mingled with musicians, artists, activists, poets and buskers.
Yet this fall, that urban harmony has grown dissonant as the city’s parks department has slapped summonses on the four men and other performers who put out hats or buckets, for vending in an unauthorized location — specifically, within 50 feet of a monument.
The department’s rule, one of many put in place a year ago, was intended to control commerce in the busiest parks. Under the city’s definition, vending covers not only those peddling photographs and ankle bracelets, but also performers who solicit donations.
The rule attracted little notice at first. But the enforcement in Washington Square Park in the past two months has generated summonses ranging from $250 to $1,000. And it has started a debate about the rights of parkgoers seeking refuge from the bustle of the streets versus those looking for entertainment.
At a news conference in the park on Sunday organized by NYC Park Advocates, the artists waved fistfuls of pink summonses while their advocates, including civil rights lawyers, called on the city to stop what they called harassment of the performers.
“This is a heavy-handed solution to a nonexistent problem,” said Ronald L. Kuby, one of the lawyers.
The rule is especially problematic in Washington Square Park, performers say, because there are few locations across its 10 acres that are beyond 50 feet from a memorial or fountain — whether the bust of Alexander Lyman Holley, who introduced the Bessemer steel process to this country, or the statue of the Italian liberator Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Then there is the park’s international reputation as a gathering place for folk music pioneers and the Beats.
“Washington Square is the live-music park of New York City, and it would be close to impossible for any one of us to follow these regulations,” said Mr. Huggins, who has received nine summonses with fines totaling $2,250.
But Adrian Benepe, the parks commissioner, argues that there is ample room for performers away from the monuments. And, he added, a musician who is not putting out a tin cup is welcome to sit on the edge of the fountain or under a monument.
“It’s the whole issue of the ‘tragedy of the commons,’ ” he said. “If you allow all the performers and all the vendors to do whatever they want to do, pretty soon there’s no park left for people who want to use them for quiet enjoyment. This is a way of having some control and not 18 hours of carnival-like atmosphere.”
Gary Behrens, an amateur photographer visiting from New Jersey, applauded the city’s efforts to rein in the performers. “I’m O.K. with the guitar, but the loud instruments have taken over the park,” he said.
The lawyers and advocates, however, challenged the idea that street performers were selling a product as a vendor does. And threatening a lawsuit, they faulted the city for creating what they called “First Amendment zones” through the rules.
“Is this place zany?” asked Norman Siegel, the former director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “You bet. Public parks are quintessential public forums. Zaniness is something we should cherish and protect.”
Park visitation has soared along with the rise of tourism in the last 15 years, and with it vendors and artists interested in a lucrative market.
Mr. Benepe insisted that the rules would not scare off future music legends.
“If Bob Dylan wanted to come play there tomorrow, he could,” he said, “although he might have to move away from the fountain.”
Oddly, the dispute coincided with the 50th anniversary of the so-called Folk Riot in Washington Square Park, when the parks commissioner tried to squelch Sunday folk performances. Hundreds of musicians gathered in protest, the police were called in and a melee ensued.
In April, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wrote a letter commemorating the Folk Riot, saying he applauded “the folk performers who changed music, our city and our world beginning half a century ago.”
Greenstein also comments on policy to combat wage stagnation.
Since the 1970s, the typical U.S. worker has experienced either a minimal or nonexistent increase in wages. What can and should be done to promote the economic growth that will lead to higher earnings for more American workers? How do we ensure that these gains are broadly shared, resulting in robust wage growth for as many workers as possible?
On September 26, The Hamilton Project at Brookings hosted a forum on wage growth in The United States. The forum began with introductory remarks by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin, and a fireside chat with Jason Furman, professor of practice, Harvard Kennedy School, and Lawrence Mishel, president, Economic Policy Institute. The fireside chat was moderated by Catherine Rampell, opinion writer, The Washington Post. A panel discussion will follow the fireside chat, featuring panelists including: Jared Bernstein, senior fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Robert Greenstein, founder and president, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; and Heidi Shierholz; senior economist and director of policy, Economic Policy Institute; the panel was moderated by Jay Shambaugh, director, The Hamilton Project.
In conjunction with this event, The Hamilton Project released a new framing paper exploring wage trends and the economic forces that underlie them.
Photo credit: Ralph Alswang
Taken with a Samsung Maxima Zoom 105XL point & shoot in the summer of 2007. I was finishing off the roll of Fuji Superia that had been sitting in it for over five years. Most of the scans from this roll were awful. This shot was okay, but the colors were nonexistent. I cleaned it up in Topaz DeNoise AI, then worked the image over in Photoshop.
July 27 2007, 4:22PM.
The Postcard
A postally unused carte postale published by Lévy et Neurdein Réunis of 44, Rue Letellier, Paris. The card, which was distributed by des Magasins Modernes, has a divided back.
Le Château de Chastellux
The Château de Chastellux is a French château with elements from the eleventh, thirteenth, fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is located in Chastellux-sur-Cure in the Yonne, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.
The château is still inhabited by the family who built it, a rarity in France. The oldest existing part of the building, the Saint-Jean tower, was built c. 1080 AD.
The main building was the first part of the château to be registered as a Monument Historique in 1925. The Saint-Jean tower and the surrounding buildings were later classified in 1976 and 1989 respectively.
Early History of the Château
Chastellux takes its name from a place called Castrum Lucii located on the banks of the Cure, 15 km from Avallon. Initially, the building was a Roman fort made of wood and stone. There remain many traces of Roman influence in the region, including the Mosaic of Chagnats which was found in a local field and is currently on display at the museum of Avallonnais, in Avallon.
The oldest evidence of presence of the lords of Chastellux on the current site of the château is an account of a hearing at 'The ancient Saint-Jean tower in 1116'. The hearing was about a property dispute between local barons and clergy of the Abbey of Molesme.
For ten centuries, the château of Chastellux did not stop being enlarged, embellished and restored by successive generations of the family.
Planted on a rocky peak surmounting the Cure, its strategic location helped to protect the castle from attack.
In the twelfth century, the château became a fortress, comprising tall towers linked by a thick battlement and guarded by a walkway. Wooden buildings, which were backed along the walls, were used for livestock and the storage of animal feed.
Comfort in the early days was nonexistent, and quality of the accommodation played a very minor role compared to the defensive role of the fortress.
The tower of Saint-Jean is the last remnant of this fortress. The tower, one of the oldest in Europe, consists of five levels. The staircase leading to the floors was cut into the thickness of the wall (a thickness of 3.5 meters at ground level). On the second floor is a dungeon accessed through an opening in the floor. The roof is topped with a lantern containing the warning bell, to alert the château inhabitants to impending danger.
In the 13th. century a larger building was built. The year 1240 was inscribed on a stone wall, providing a date of construction of the guard room, which is the second oldest structure after the tower of Saint-Jean.
Recent History of the Château
The château suffered considerable damage during the French Revolution. All the old medieval weapons were stolen in 1792, and the winery was looted and its contents auctioned.
On the 5th. August 1793, the furniture and archives of the
château were seized, and priceless paintings were burnt at Place Saint-Julien Avallon, currently the site of City Hall. All traces of the family blazon, found on woodwork, painting or a decorative element were destroyed.
Under the Restoration, César Laurent Chastellux renovated the château and its grounds. He removed the decorative additions of the eighteenth century, and fully restored its medieval decor.
In 1975 a chimney fire set fire to the roof and attic of the château. The tower of Amboise still bears the traces of this fire.
Several films have been shot at the Château de Chastellux during the 20th. century. These include 'Mon Oncle Benjamin' (1969), 'L'Épingle Noire' (1982), 'Le Fantôme du Lac' (2004).
Visiting the Château
The castle is privately owned, but has been open to visitors since 2008.
They Live, We Sleep
Artist Statement
“We are living in an artificially induced state of consciousness that resembles sleep. The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent.
They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it.
They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices ...their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness.
We have been lulled into a trance.
They have made us indifferent, to ourselves, to others; we are focused only on our own gain. They are safe as long as they are not discovered ...that is their primary method of survival.
Keep us asleep, keep us selfish, keep us sedated...they are dismantling the sleeping middle class.
More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.”
– They Live
This photographic body of work is inspired by John Carpenter’s 1988 film, “They Live.” The movie was also credited by Shepard Fairey “as a major source of inspiration for his own subversive brand of street art.” They Live was the basis for his use of the word ‘OBEY’ that became his main campaign and a popular clothing brand consequently.
The protagonist of the movie, an unemployed drifter named "Nada," accidentally comes across a box of sunglasses. After putting a pair on, he realizes that they are quite special. He sees the world in black and white and discovers that it's not what it seems. The series of images I have created are like those unique sunglasses that Nada stumbled upon, aim to show the world to the viewer for what it truly is. I hope they will help people to take into consideration what they sacrifice by blindly following self-serving governments and corporations’ agendas.
Through this photographic project my intent is to encourage people to be more aware of the habitual ways of living that we have been thoughtlessly following for most of human history. It seems as though the human race would have learned by now to not put their trust in the hands of the misguiding ruling class. Unfortunately most of the humanity is still in the state of mindless consumerism and simply does not realize that their decisions, their entire lives are being manipulated.
el cubista wall es mi casa del color
While rustling these shapes into the frame, someone in a passing car yelled out, "There's nothing to see."
"I see colorful, nonexistent rectangles."
Unlike most of Trippy's meretricious* tales, for which evidence is at best tenuous and more often nonexistent, rare production stills recently discovered in the archives of late fantasy film historian Forrest J. (Forry) Ackerman appear to substantiate Trippy's claim to have worked with director Fritz Lang on Lang's epic silent era production of Die Nibelungen.
OAS. Organization of American States. 35th Assembly 2005, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida USA.
i was inspecting services in Florida,
including commercial and civil services.
letter to the OAS:
to OAS mar 09 2011
james mcashan. security consultant.
candidate for the Congress
of the United States of America.
i have plans for development of the Americas
as a powerful integrated unit.
combined we could soon have
an equivalent government resource
of one trillion dollars per day.
i have spoken to thousands of people
in the USA, Mexico, and the world about this:
thousands have been positive for my election or appointment
(some US Congress members and others in primary government
were hired not elected.
all are hired, payed, or preselected before they are elected.)
i provided
volunteer security inspection
at the 35th session
of the OAS general assembly.
i patrolled the back
of the convention center
and asked a female SWAT agent
in full armour
if she was going skydiving.
i checked the back and left.
a motorcycle patrol and 2 local police squad units
stopped me in mid-street
with weapons aimed at me.
response was rapid, but wrong.
i am working
on that world military problem.
i also went to Ciudad Mexico en solo
to inspect that dangerous place
in detaill.
i have inspected thousands of structures and services
as a volunteer not compromised or corrupted by employment.
i am now poor. i have not been paid.
i have had much abuse.
i am very ill. a stroke.
please support me
and in my appointment
as an independent candidate
for the US Congress.
- james dennis mcashan
jamesmcashan.web.officelive
james_mcashan on plixi (photos)
jamesmcashan on flicker (photos)
They Live, We Sleep
Artist Statement
“We are living in an artificially induced state of consciousness that resembles sleep. The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent.
They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it.
They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices ...their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness.
We have been lulled into a trance.
They have made us indifferent, to ourselves, to others; we are focused only on our own gain. They are safe as long as they are not discovered ...that is their primary method of survival.
Keep us asleep, keep us selfish, keep us sedated...they are dismantling the sleeping middle class.
More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.”
– They Live
This photographic body of work is inspired by John Carpenter’s 1988 film, “They Live.” The movie was also credited by Shepard Fairey “as a major source of inspiration for his own subversive brand of street art.” They Live was the basis for his use of the word ‘OBEY’ that became his main campaign and a popular clothing brand consequently.
The protagonist of the movie, an unemployed drifter named "Nada," accidentally comes across a box of sunglasses. After putting a pair on, he realizes that they are quite special. He sees the world in black and white and discovers that it's not what it seems. The series of images I have created are like those unique sunglasses that Nada stumbled upon, aim to show the world to the viewer for what it truly is. I hope they will help people to take into consideration what they sacrifice by blindly following self-serving governments and corporations’ agendas.
Through this photographic project my intent is to encourage people to be more aware of the habitual ways of living that we have been thoughtlessly following for most of human history. It seems as though the human race would have learned by now to not put their trust in the hands of the misguiding ruling class. Unfortunately most of the humanity is still in the state of mindless consumerism and simply does not realize that their decisions, their entire lives are being manipulated.
This is a house of the roma people (gypsies) living in the Wester Carpathain mountains. The picture was shot in February 2006. It was extremely cold outside (minus 10 degrees Celsius) and I was struck by the poor conditions these people live in. The house has a single room, in which all 7 members of the family lived. The roof was nonexistent- it was just a piece of water-tight cloth affixed with some pieces of wood.They washed their laundry in the freezing cold river than ran in fron of the house and dried it on the porch in front.
Device:Nikon D800
Lens:VR 70-200mm f/2.8G
Focal Length:145mm
Aperture:f/2.8
Shutter Speed:1/60s
ISO Sensitivity:ISO 800
OK, I blame the hair on shoulder and visible bra strap on my nonexistent assistant. Pretty girl credits go Joan Day.
The cotton pygmy goose or cotton teal (Nettapus coromandelianus) is a small perching duck which breeds in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, southeast Asia and south to Queensland.
Small individuals of this species are the smallest waterfowl on earth, at as little as 160 g (5.6 oz) and 26 cm (10 in). White predominates in this bird's plumage. Bill short, deep at base, and goose-like.
Male in breeding plumage is glossy blackish green crown, with white head, neck, and underparts; a prominent black collar and white wing-bar. Rounded head and short legs. In flight, the wings are green with a white band, making the male conspicuous even amongst the huge flying flocks of the lesser whistling duck, which share the habitat. Female paler, without either black collar and only a narrow or nonexistent strip of white wing-bar. In non-breeding plumage (eclipse) male resembles female except for his white wing-bar. Flocks on water bodies (jheels), etc.
The call is a peculiar clucking, uttered in flight
They Live, We Sleep
Artist Statement
“We are living in an artificially induced state of consciousness that resembles sleep. The poor and the underclass are growing. Racial justice and human rights are nonexistent.
They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it.
They have created a repressive society and we are their unwitting accomplices ...their intention to rule rests with the annihilation of consciousness.
We have been lulled into a trance.
They have made us indifferent, to ourselves, to others; we are focused only on our own gain. They are safe as long as they are not discovered ...that is their primary method of survival.
Keep us asleep, keep us selfish, keep us sedated...they are dismantling the sleeping middle class.
More and more people are becoming poor. We are their cattle. We are being bred for slavery.”
– They Live
This photographic body of work is inspired by John Carpenter’s 1988 film, “They Live.” The movie was also credited by Shepard Fairey “as a major source of inspiration for his own subversive brand of street art.” They Live was the basis for his use of the word ‘OBEY’ that became his main campaign and a popular clothing brand consequently.
The protagonist of the movie, an unemployed drifter named "Nada," accidentally comes across a box of sunglasses. After putting a pair on, he realizes that they are quite special. He sees the world in black and white and discovers that it's not what it seems. The series of images I have created are like those unique sunglasses that Nada stumbled upon, aim to show the world to the viewer for what it truly is. I hope they will help people to take into consideration what they sacrifice by blindly following self-serving governments and corporations’ agendas.
Through this photographic project my intent is to encourage people to be more aware of the habitual ways of living that we have been thoughtlessly following for most of human history. It seems as though the human race would have learned by now to not put their trust in the hands of the misguiding ruling class. Unfortunately most of the humanity is still in the state of mindless consumerism and simply does not realize that their decisions, their entire lives are being manipulated.
Believe it or not, this photo was taken with the same camera used for the photo below. I cropped it to square because the vignetting was so large. I was rather baffled at this result, although I suppose it makes sense with the ultra-wide angle -- yet this one is more squashed than the other.
On the left is me being ghostlyly obese, and Scott on the right attempting to be nonexistent, just because he can sit more still than I can. Exposure was something between three and five minutes, on Ilford multigrade photo paper.
And credit for the title goes to Scott.
"But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic – their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground..."
(notice the "green light" by by the clasp!)
I've been working on this off and on for the last couple years and decided it was about time I finish it. What really drove me to finish it was that G-System Qubeley I did while back.
It came with a LED to light up the (nonexistent on the kit) eyes and I decided that it didn't look right and the LED didn't really fit in the Qubeley's head. But a quick test fit and some surgery inside the Gogg's head and tah-dah! Perfect! So I started finishing this build that had been an off and on thing (I was showing the Gogg's hands to a friend at my 36th birthday party- I'm 38 as I'm writing this. lol).
Paint is a bunch of custom-mixed Gunze stuff (I think they released a dedicated Gogg set, but I missed it). Weathering is oils and powders. And decals are by the always wonderful Samuel. Base groundwork is made with Sculptamold. The Gogg is HEAVY so I wanted to show the wet ground bulging around it as it sinks down after coming ashore (it's an amphibious MS).
While the other shots are better lit, they don't represent how the Gogg's mono eye looks under normal lighting. As a result, the mono eye doesn't appear as large and fuzzy as it does in the anime and games. So here are shots that show the Gogg in normal lighting with the mono eye looking big and menacing-- as it should be.
The Cotton Pygmy Goose or the Cotton Teal, Nettapus coromandelianus is a small perching duck which breeds in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, southeast Asia and south to northern Australia.
Small examples are the smallest waterfowl on earth, at as little as 160 g (5.5 oz) and 26 cm (10.5 in). White predominates in this bird's plumage. Bill short, deep at base, and goose-like.
Male in breeding plumage is glossy blackish green crown, with white head, neck, and underparts; a prominent black collar and white wing-bar. Rounded head and short legs. In flight, the wings are green with a white band, making the male conspicuous even amongst the huge flying flocks of the Lesser Whistling Duck, which share the habitat. Female paler, without either black collar and only a narrow or nonexistent strip of white wing-bar. In non-breeding plumage (eclipse) male resembles female except for his white wing-bar. Flocks on water bodies (jheels), etc.
Call: A peculiar clucking, uttered in flight
It is largely resident, apart from dispersion in the wet season, but Chinese birds winter further south. It nests in tree holes, laying 8-15 eggs.
This is an abundant species in Asia, although the slightly larger Australian race appears to be declining in numbers.
Found on all still freshwater lakes (jheels), rain-filled ditches, inundated paddy fields, irrigation tanks, etc. Becomes very tame on village tanks wherever it is unmolested and has become inured to human proximity. Swift on the wing, and can dive creditably on occasion.
Cotton Teal is the smallest duck you can find in China. According to the bird expert, this female one is the first Cotton Teal record in Shanghai after 1955 and the first photo record in Shanghai. I am a lucky man.
Haiti and the Louisiana Purchase
The Haitian Revolution, one of the most remarkable events in human history, destroyed French Emperor Napoleon I's dreams of creating a new French Empire in North America and opened the door to the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States. The Purchase, combined with the Lewis & Clark expedition that traversed it, was a great triumph of Thomas Jefferson's presidency, but at the same time the Purchase opened up vexing political and constitutional questions that may, in the end, have undermined Jefferson's vision of an expansive yeoman's republic, extended the system of slavery, and pushed the country onto the road toward Civil War.
The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic. Although hundreds of rebellions occurred in the New World during the centuries of slavery, only two, the American revolution that began in 1776 and the Haitian revolution that began in 1791, were successful in achieving permanent independence. The Haitian Revolution is regarded as a defining moment in the history of Africans in the New World.
Although an independent government was created in Haiti, its society continued to be deeply affected by the patterns established under French colonial rule. The French established a system of minority rule over the illiterate poor by using violence and threats. Because many planters had provided for their mixed-race children by African women by giving them education and (for men) training and entrée into the French military, the mulatto descendants became the elite in Haiti after the revolution. By the time of war, many had used their social capital to acquire wealth, and some already owned land. Some had identified more with the French colonists than the slaves, and associated within their own circles.
Their domination of politics and economics after the revolution created another two-caste society, as most Haitians were rural subsistence farmers. In addition, the nascent state's future was practically "mortgaged" to French banks in the 1820s, as it was forced to make massive reparations to French slaveholders in order to receive French recognition and end the nation's political and economic isolation. These payments may have permanently affected Haiti's economy and wealth.
In 1789 Saint-Domingue, producer of 60 percent of the world's coffee and 40 percent of the world's sugar imported by France and Britain, was the most profitable colony the French owned. It was the wealthiest and most flourishing of the slave colonies in the Caribbean. The lowest class of society was enslaved blacks, who outnumbered whites and free people of color by ten to one. The slave population on the island totaled almost half of the one million slaves in the Caribbean by 1789. They were mostly African-born. The death rate in the Caribbean exceeded the birth rate, so imports of enslaved Africans continued. The slave population declined at an annual rate of two to five percent, due to overwork; inadequate food, shelter, clothing and medical care; and an imbalance between the sexes, with more men than women. Some slaves were of a creole elite class of urban slaves and domestics, who worked as cooks, personal servants and artisans around the plantation house. This relatively privileged class was chiefly born in the Americas, while the under-class born in Africa labored hard under abusive conditions.
In France, the majority of the Estates General, an advisory body to the King, constituted itself as the National Assembly, made radical changes in French laws, and on 26 August 1789, published the Declaration of the Rights of Man, declaring all men free and equal. The French Revolution shaped the course of the conflict in Saint-Domingue and was at first widely welcomed in the island. At first, wealthy whites saw it as an opportunity to gain independence from France, which would allow elite plantation-owners to take control of the island and create trade regulations that would further their own wealth and power. So many were the twists and turns in the leadership in France, and so complex were events in Saint-Domingue, that various classes and parties changed their alignments many times. However, the Haitian Revolution quickly became a test of the ideology of the French Revolution, as it radicalized the slavery question and forced French leaders to recognize the full meaning of their revolution.
On the night of 21 August 1791, the slaves of Saint Domingue rose in revolt and plunged the colony into civil war. The signal to begin the revolt was given by Dutty Boukman, a high priest of vodou and leader of the Maroon slaves, during a religious ceremony at Bois Caïman on the night of 14 August. Within the next ten days, slaves had taken control of the entire Northern Province in an unprecedented slave revolt. Whites kept control of only a few isolated, fortified camps. The slaves sought revenge on their masters through “pillage, rape, torture, mutilation, and death”. Because the plantation owners long feared a revolt like this, they were well armed and prepared to defend themselves. Nonetheless, within weeks, the number of slaves who joined the revolt reached approximately 100,000. Within the next two months, as the violence escalated, the slaves killed 4,000 whites and burned or destroyed 180 sugar plantations and hundreds of coffee and indigo plantations.
One of the most successful black commanders was Toussaint L'Ouverture, a self-educated former domestic slave. Like Jean François and Biassou, he initially fought for the Spanish Crown in this period. After the British had invaded Saint-Domingue, L'Ouverture decided to fight for the French if they would agree to free all the slaves. Sonthonax had proclaimed an end to slavery on 29 August 1793. L'Ouverture worked with a French general, Étienne Laveaux, to ensure all slaves would be freed. He brought his forces over to the French side in May 1794 and began to fight for the French Republic. Many enslaved Africans were attracted to Toussaint's forces. He insisted on discipline and restricted wholesale slaughter.
The last battle of the Haitian Revolution, the Battle of Vertières, occurred on 18 November 1803, near Cap-Haitien. It was fought between Haitian rebels led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the French colonial army under the Viscount of Rochambeau. On 1 January 1804, from the city of Gonaïves, Dessalines officially declared the former colony's independence, renaming it "Haiti" after the indigenous Arawak name. Although he lasted from 1804–1806 several changes began taking place in Haiti. Transnationals became the backbone of Haitian identity as the territory's social structure changed becoming once again an agricultural society in a state of semi-serfdom. A tiny minority of state officials and civil servants were employed, who were exempt from manual labor, included many freed colored Haitians. This major loss was a decisive blow to France and its colonial empire.
On 1 January 1804, Dessalines, the new leader under the dictatorial 1801 constitution, declared Haiti a free republic. Haiti was the first independent nation in Latin America, the first post-colonial independent black-led nation in the world, and the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion. The country was crippled by years of war, its agriculture devastated, its formal commerce nonexistent.
The Haitian Revolution was influential in slave rebellions in the United States and British colonies. According to Haitian writer Michael J. Dash, the U.S. government feared that a successful slave revolt in Haiti would inspire a similar revolt in the United States. The revolution likely inspired a temporary increase in slave rebellions in the US, and this scared Southern plantation owners concerned about their own slaves rebelling. This fear resulted in a growing conservatism in US political culture, and leaders began to turn against the ideology of the French Revolution when they saw its influence in the Caribbean.
In 1807, Britain became the first major power to permanently abolish the slave trade. However, slavery was not fully abolished in the British West Indies until 1833. It continued in the French colonies until 1848. The Haitian Revolution stood as a model for achieving emancipation for slaves in the United States who mimicked Toussaint L'Ouverture's actions. L'Ouverture remains a popular figure to this day.
I took this today on my way home from visiting my mom at her work.
Lately, I've been pretty quiet and to myself. I haven't really been going out or seeing anyone like I usually do. Things with my love life have pretty much plummeted to rock bottom. It's honestly nonexistent nowadays. I'm trying little by little to help myself move forward, but my mind and heart still seems to be in the past.
I miss him.
Unlike most of Trippy's meretricious* tales, for which evidence is at best tenuous and more often nonexistent, rare production stills recently discovered in the archives of late fantasy film historian Forrest J. (Forry) Ackerman appear to substantiate Trippy's claim to have worked with director Fritz Lang on Lang's epic silent era production of Die Nibelungen.
Day 235, The 365 Toy Project.
10 May 2009.
Ok so basically before march break my life collapsed in my face. I lost two of my best friends, I moved, I was losing faith in life and like I was starting to become depressed and stuff. But then teens conference was coming up and I honestly didn't want to go there because I would have rather played some COD Ghosts, Played Dota 2 and hang with my friends but like I went because I was supposed to sleepover at Andrews house and like yeah (A personal thank you to Beth, Marcus, Andrew and Janice for being there for me then and now because without you guys I would probably be super depressed and not be living my life the way I am. for being my rocks through this dark time for me and like just being such good friends and everything for me) . So at TC I made friends Like Johanna, Jenny, David and Alison (Team Anchor represent). So like on the final night we were watching like this thing of Jesus crucifixion and like Aaron was getting crucified and like I cried and like accepted that I have sinned more then a normal person should and like I accepted Jesus. Ok so like now I've changed a lot as a person. I have cut down my swearing until the point that it is almost nonexistent. I am so happy now a days because I now know that I have someone else that has my back. God has blessed me with so many blessing (A nice new FAM, Beth, Andrew, Marcus and Janice, a house over my head, smart and etc). Like I am happy becoming a "Goody Goody christian boy". I have put God first instead of my schooling or my personal greeds which is honestly the hardest thing to do for me because i can be self centered. I am proud to be a Christian because it is who I am and I know that I will only get stronger in my faith with God!! yeah if you want me to say more message me or approach me whenever you want to and we can talk
This is what happens when I put an entire cream puff in my mouth. Thanks to Ashton for capturing this glorious moment.
I took photos of The GNU Deal for about 5 hours. They bought me this lovely bowl of Vietnamese soup, and my dislike of Pho went from moderate to nonexistent! Just add cock sauce and you're good to go. Amiright?
Song of the day: It's an album. Go listen to The GNU Deal.
Follow me and my shenanigans:
We surely didn't expect our short stopover in San Francisco to provide a major wildlife viewing experience, but a cacaphony of jubilant howls led us to the docks near Fisherman's Wharf, where something like a hundred California Sea Lions were lolling about happily in the afternoon sun.
It's a curious enigma in evolutionary biology that the fossil record of Pinnipeds is so sparse, or, in many cases, nonexistent. The oldest known seal in the book of rocks dates from the Oligocene, some 30 million years ago, and there is precious little fossil evidence of the transition from a terrestrial to an amphibian mammal.
It's thought that this family of creatures returned to the sea some 40 MYA, with researchers divided into two camps, those who favor a branching off from the Ursids, ( Bear-like animals) and those who advocate a descent from the Mustelids ( the genus which includes Otters and Mink),.... But, Nobody really knows. Perhaps some amazing fossil find will shed some light on this, as recent discoveries have done regarding the ancestry of Whales.
Photo by Oscar Leiva/Silverlight
Comasagua is located in southwestern El Salvador in the Balsamo coastal range between San Salvador and La Libertad departments. The Balsamo Range is a coffee producing area with 3,452 coffee farmers with 33,502 ha of coffee. These coffee-dominated watersheds on the south slopes of the Balsamo mountain range are the water sources and recharge areas for water sources for the towns and villages in the upper watershed plus numerous fast-growing tourist cities and towns in the coastal zone directly south of Comasagua, including the city of La Libertad. The high elevation coffee farms in Comasagua produce high quality coffee. Nevertheless, most farms have yields far below potential and investment continues to be limited. Coffee rust hit many of these farmers severely in 2012.
There has never been a significant water resource management program in this area; the water issues are serious and highly conflictive within these watersheds. Collaboration between municipalities, communities and coffee producers is considered weak to nonexistent.
My lashes are virtually nonexistent. So, I think being able to adhere false eyelashes should be on my bucket list. I've tried and can't do it. But, I won't give up.
Okay, on New Years Day, 2011, on that bridge, I wasn't contemplating anything more drastic than photographing the bridge and, if possible, its bridge plate.
The plates were long gone, but that wasn't what was troubling me.
The pressing need of a car repair, inconvenient in time and dollars, was on my mind, with some other things that now seem too trivial to note, to remember, for that matter, since memory doesn't serve me as I type this.
The day was beautiful, though, crisp, clear and breezy, and we were starting 2011 exploring, maybe following that up with some Mexican food.
A fellow with a pack had been walking toward the bridge, along the fence line at the edge of the drainage easement. He was dressed warmly, with a stocking cap and worn trousers and very very worn shoes.
As we were returning from a futile quest for the bridge plate on the north end of the bridge and better luck with an angle for a shot, the fellow was standing on the sidewalk on the south end of the bridge.
We stopped to wish him a Happy New Year and to comment on the beauty of the day. His English was less than perfect and my Spanish is (I'm ashamed to say) essentially nonexistent, but he managed to eloquently communicate that it was indeed a good day, when people could meet and greet in such a way and share good will. He communicated how fortunate we three were, with health and friends and love and basic needs met.
Occasionally casting eyes and hands toward the sky, as he spoke, Julio made clear where he felt the source of all this wealth resided.
Handshaking and hugs were certainly appropriate and were shared.
When I asked if I could take a picture of him, he swept the knit cap off his head and struck this pose.
We left feeling that whatever worries we'd brought to the bridge were not really so important after all.
If, as old movies would have us believe, special encounters can happen at this time of year on bridges, and if those encounters might also be experienced by those with too too trivial concerns, then Julio might, someday, look very good with wings.
Just a warm up to see if I still got the stuff.
ahem.
Orion is the off-the-record, no limits, last resort option for one of the few governmental offices that I aren't puppet to the major corporations.
While NINE (New InterNational Enforcement) remained free of the corporations, it realized that its power was basically nonexistent due to the rest of the government functions being puppets. It created the Orion project in order to use what power it had to create a secret, brutal, and elite group that could illegally do what NINE was meant to do: protect the peace and rights of the people.
While sometimes employing questionable ethics, Orion is the secret hand that fights both chaotic hackers and corporate mercenaries on behalf of the abused common people that fill the dark residential districts of the city continent.
While imperfect, they are one of the few pure lights in the dark future.
Another cyberpunk gun.
I'll answer a few foreseen questions right now:
1. It is caseless.
2. While the the mag feeds at the very back, that is not where the mag is. As is common in guns of this theme, the mag doesn't feed directly below the bolt/firing mech.
3. This was done to look cool, as all my guns are, and thus there will most likely be many technical issues which I never considered.
Oh, yes, in case you are interested, here is the pastie:
feel free to modify.
comments and feedback are very welcome.
EDIT: no ninjas this time, hurrah!