Door from 1681.

 

"The Piarist College in Litomyšl is a former religious house of the Order of Pious Schools founded in 1640 and serving its purpose until 1950. Together with the Church of the Discovery of St. Kříže, the building of the former Piarist gymnasium and the monastery gardens form the Piarist area of ​​Litomyšl. The building has been protected as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic since 1958, it was restored by the Piarist order in the post-Soviet period, and currently the building is used by the Faculty of Restoration of the University of Pardubice as studios and a student dormitory.

 

Litomyšl (German: Leitomischel, Leutomischel) is a town in the Svitavy district of the Pardubice region on the Czech side of the former land border with Moravia. It is located 17 km northwest of the district town of Svitavy (which was itself the seat of the district until 1960) and 13 km southwest of Ústí nad Orlicí. Litomyšl covers an area of ​​less than 34 square kilometers in the central part of the Svitava Uplands on the Loučná River at an altitude of 330 meters. The cadastral area of ​​Litomyšle includes the territorially independent parts of Kornice, Nová Ves u Litomyšle, Pazucha, Pohodlí and Suchá. Approximately 10 thousand inhabitants live here.

 

The name of the city comes from the Old Bohemian personal name Ľutomysl. Litomyšl received city privileges in 1259 (confirmed in 1263) from King Přemysl Otakar II as a vassal town of the local Premonstratensian monastery, whose lily symbol was adopted by the town as its coat of arms. The development of the city is closely linked to its lordship - first ecclesiastical (Premonstratensian monastery, bishopric of Litomyšl), later secular (Kostková from Postupice, Pernštejn, Trauttmansdorff, Valdštejn-Vartenberk, Thurn-Taxis). A number of leading personalities were born or worked in the city, including Bedřich Smetana, Alois Jirásek, Bozena Němcová, Josef Váchal or Olbram Zoubek.

 

The castle hill and the city itself offer a combination of historical architecture (the Renaissance castle on the UNESCO World Heritage list, the Baroque Church of the Finding of the Holy Cross and the Gothic Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross) with modern artistic trends (revitalization and projects by Josef Pleskot ). A number of events and festivals take place in the city throughout the year (Smetanova Litomyšl, Litomyšl Days of Baroque Tradition, ArchiMyšl, MD Rettigová Gastronomic Festivals). Litomyšl is therefore often referred to as a "modern historical city".

 

Bohemia (Latin Bohemia, German Böhmen, Polish Czechy) is a region in the west of the Czech Republic. Previously, as a kingdom, they were the center of the Czech Crown. The root of the word Czech probably corresponds to the meaning of man. The Latin equivalent of Bohemia, originally Boiohaemum (literally "land of Battles"), which over time also influenced the names in other languages, is derived from the Celtic tribe of the Boios, who lived in this area from the 4th to the 1st century BC Bohemia on it borders Germany in the west, Austria in the south, Moravia in the east and Poland in the north. Geographically, they are bounded from the north, west and south by a chain of mountains, the highest of which are the Krkonoše Mountains, in which the highest mountain of Bohemia, Sněžka, is also located. The most important rivers are the Elbe and the Vltava, with the fertile Polabean Plain extending around the Elbe. The capital and largest city of Bohemia is Prague, other important cities include, for example, Pilsen, Karlovy Vary, Kladno, Ústí nad Labem, Liberec, Hradec Králové, Pardubice and České Budějovice, Jihlava also lies partly on the historical territory of Bohemia." - info from Wikipedia.

 

Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.

 

Now on Instagram.

 

Become a patron to my photography on Patreon or donate.

Some pictures taken by the late Michael Cleary in 1999. Not long before Tramlink opened and the 130 lost its purpose as the principal link to Croydon. The 130 is very different today.

Scabious in the setting sun's light

“A future “space taxi” capable of transporting “passengers other than trained astronauts” to earth orbital stations “or to any point on earth within 45 minutes” was described to 150 international scientists meeting in Palo Alto today.

The single-stage, multi-purpose rocket launch vehicle would be “recoverable and reusable,” Douglas Aircraft Company engineer Phil Bono said.

The week-long event is sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).

He told the space scientists from Britain, France, Germany and Italy that by refueling in earth orbit, the Douglas designed satellite could also land passengers and cargo on the moon.

 

SPACE FIGHTER

 

Bono said the giant rocket could also have military applications including “the jet fighter of the space age…”

 

Unfortunately, the rest of the article was omitted when affixed to the verso.

 

8.5” x 11”, so likely original Douglas Aircraft Company-produced for professional presentation, and in this case, press purposes, hence it not being appropriately handled. Fortunately, and despite such, it’s still retained its gloss.

 

Gorgeous airbrush work by either "Pisakov" or "P. Isakov"...unfortunately, either way...nothing on him/her. Drats.

  

Also, from the excellent “ATOMIC ROCKETS” website:

 

“The Saturn Application Single-Stage-to-Orbit (SASSTO) is from Frontiers of Space by Philip Bono and Kenneth Gatland (1969).

 

In 1966, when winged space shuttle designs were being studied, the Douglas Aircraft Company was doing a cost-benefit analysis. They were comparing reusable space shuttle costs to throwaway two-stage ballistic boosters. Somewhere along the line they took a look at whether it was possible to make a reusable single stage ballistic booster. The SASSTO was the result. The payload was not much, but it was enough for a Gemini space capsule. A Gemini would transform the SASSTO into a space taxi or even a space fighter, capable of satellite inspection missions. Without the Gemini it could deliver supplies and propellant to space stations and spacecraft in LEO.

 

Bono pointed out how inoperative satellites could become space hazards (although the concept of the Kessler Syndrome would not be created until 1978). A SASSTO could deal with such satellites in LEO (Bono called this Saturn Application Retrieval and Rescue Apparatus or SARRA). Even better, such satellites could be grabbed and brought back to Terra for refurbishment and re-launch. This would be much cheaper than building an entirely new satellite from scratch, which would interest satellite corporations. Only satellites in LEO though, communication satellites in geostationary orbit would be out of reach.

 

The interesting part was on the base. Conventional spacecraft trying to do an aerobraking landing need a large convex heat shield on the base (for example the Apollo command module.). Unfortunately, a reusable spacecraft has a large concave exhaust nozzle on the bottom, exactly the opposite of what you want. Tinsley's artist conception for the "Mars Snooper" had petals that would close over the exhaust nozzle sticking out of the heat shield, but that was impractical.

 

Douglas' solution was to use an aerospike engine with the spike truncated (which they confusingly call a "plug nozzle", contrary to modern terminology). The truncated part became the heat shield, the untruncated part around the edge was the aerospike engine.”

 

At:

 

www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/surfaceorbit.php#sa...

  

Additionally, and more directly, from the equally excellent SECRET PROJECTS Forum website, posted by Donald McKelvy/user “Triton” on 24 August 2009, apparently taken from Mr. Bono’s document/presentation at the above referenced SAE Conference Proceedings:

 

“In late 1966, the vertical launch & landing SSTO proponents at Douglas Aircraft Co. carried out a study to determine whether ballistic VTVLs might be cost-competitive vs. winged VTHL TSTO vehicles in the small payload class. Previous NASA & USAF studies had generally assumed ballistic single-stage vehicles might make sense for unmanned heavy-lift payloads but winged TSTOs were invariably chosen for small manned near-term missions. Consequently, Douglas had to define a small VTVL SSTO manned "space taxi" to demonstrate the key elements of the concept (aerospike engine, lightweight structures, ballistic reentry, vertical landing, actively cooled heatshield etc.) The resulting vehicle became known as "Saturn Application Single Stage to Orbit". Notable design features included an aft-mounted liquid oxygen tank to reduce the difference between vehicle center of gravity & center of aerodynamic pressure, and a hydrogen cooling system for the main engine to provide thermal protection during reentry. Thermal analysis indicated that although the engine itself would be adequately protected by this system, the areas located above the exhaust nozzles would not. Consequently, the designers had to resort to an ablative, expendable material (200 kilograms of Armstrong Insulcork 2760) bonded to the aluminum structure although it would increase the maintenance cost. The oxygen/hydrogen mixture ratio was 6:1 rather than 7:1 since the designers felt a high oxygen ratio would degrade the exhaust velocity & payload capability. 50% hydrogen slush was used to reduce the volume of the fuel tank. The 36-segment plug nozzle propulsion system would have operated at a pressure of 1500psia. It would be used for ascent, orbit insertion, de-orbit and (beginning at an altitude of 760 meters-) the final landing burn. The vehicle would carry enough propellant for hovering for 10 seconds before landing at an unprepared site, if necessary. The estimated landing accuracy of 1853 * 3700 m was not regarded as a major concern since the Gemini 6-12 flights achieved an average touchdown dispersion of only 6.85km although the capsule had essentially no maneuvering capability below 30.5km altitude. The reentry cross-range capability was about +/-370km, permitting a safe landing at El Paso, TX or Wendover Range, UT after 2-3 orbits from Cape Canaveral. Wendover was the preferred emergency landing site since SASSTO easily could have been returned from nearby Hill AFB to Cape Canaveral in a "Pregnant Guppy" S-IV-B transport aircraft.

 

SASSTO had a payload capability of 3,629kg to a 185km orbit and the standard payload would be a 2-man Gemini spacecraft protected by a jettisonable fairing to reduce drag losses during ascent. This would provide a safe emergency escape system for the test pilots, and the Gemini ejection seats, heatshield, parachutes etc. (1542kg in all) could later be removed as the flight test program increases confidence in SASSTO reliability. Douglas envisioned this vehicle as a "space fighter" capable of satellite inspection missions, or space station resupply flights lasting a maximum of 48 hours. It could also deliver 2,812kg of liquid hydrogen to a spacecraft in Earth orbit.

 

Since SASSTO was loosely based on the Saturn S-IV-B rocket stage, Douglas also proposed an expendable version for use as a more capable upper stage with the Saturn IB and Saturn V launch vehicles. The expendable SASSTO stage would have had a burnout mass of 7,400kg and carried 85,729kg of oxygen + hydrogen propellant. The stage was thus of a much more lightweight construction than the standard S-IV-B (12,949kg + 104,326kg LOX, LH₂) and the new aerospike engine would have been more efficient as well (464s specific impulse vs. 426s for the J-2 engine). Consequently, the Saturn V's payload capability would have been boosted by 8-11t as well. The Saturn IB's basic 15876-kilogram payload capability to a 185km orbit would have increased to 23814-25855kg depending on whether SASSTO would be flown in expendable or reusable mode. The latter version was known as SARRA (Saturn Application Retrieval and Rescue Apparatus) and was intended for returning stranded Apollo crews from the lunar surface.

 

Finally, the Douglas design team also compared the cost of SASSTO with two different all-rocket VTHL TSTOs: a winged 1st stage plus lifting-body 2nd stage (center) and winged first & second stages (right). All three vehicles were designed for a 2,812-kilogram payload although the lifting-body TSTO only was able to carry 2,086kg due to center of gravity problems. No attempt was made to estimate the marginal launch cost since there were too many unknown factors. VTVL SSTO would however be expected to yield a significant operational advantage since only a single vehicle must be maintained and the VTVL SSTO does not require a landing runway. SASSTO was expected to cost $1.1. billion to develop (=$5.88B at 1999 rates). The winged VTHL TSTO would cost 2.2 times as much to develop as SASSTO while the smaller lifting-body TSTO variant would be 50% more expensive. The winged and lifting-body 1st unit production costs would be 4 and 2.7 times higher than the SASSTO 1st unit cost, respectively. The general conclusion was that the complex winged or lifting body TSTO shapes result in added liftoff and manufactured weights of a more expensive construction than ballistic wingless SSTOs. For example, the lifting-body TSTO dry mass (12,274kg + 2,086kg payload) is 2.4 times higher, and the winged TSTO weighs 3.6 times as much (18,176kg + 2,812kg P/L) as SASSTO at touchdown. The gross liftoff weights bear the relationships of 1.0 (SASSTO; 97,887kg GLOW), 1.25 (lifting body orbiter TSTO; 122,245kg GLOW) and 1.91 (wing-body orbiter TSTO; 187,020kg GLOW). In that case, is the combination of lower reentry g-loads, better maneuverability (landing go-around with jet engines) and improved cross-range really worth the cost of carrying wings...? Although TSTO thus appears to be uncompetitive vs. ballistic single-stage RLVs for small payloads, the authors admit that requirements for higher payloads (22.68-45.6t) may yield rapid increases in propellant mass fraction for winged two-stage vehicles, making TSTO more performance/cost-effective.

 

Liftoff Thrust: 1,232.655KN. Total Mass: 97,976kg. Total Length: 18.8m.

 

Payload capability: 3,674kg to a 185km low Earth orbit.

 

Stage Number 1: SASSTO. 36 x plug-nozzle engines (1500psia pressure, 1:6 mixture ratio). Gross Mass: 97,976kg. Empty Mass (core vehicle only): 6,668kg. Thrust: 1,232.65-1,557.5KN. Isp=367-464s. Length:18.8m. Width: 6.6m. Propellants: LOX/slush LH₂.

 

Bibliography:

 

"Enigma of Booster Recovery - Ballistic or Winged? -- Bono, Senator & Garcia, SAE Conference Proceedings 1967/0382/ p.57”

 

At:

 

www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/douglas-rombus.4577/#pos...

 

Further:

 

www.pmview.com/spaceodysseytwo/spacelvs/sld017.htm

Credit: PMView Pro website

  

Finally...possibly the best write-up of Mr. Bono's career that I’ve come across:

 

"Philip Bono was a renowned space engineer who was probably 30 years before his time. He was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 13, 1921. He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1947 with a B.E. degree in mechanical engineering, and served three years in the U.S. Naval Reserves.

After graduation in 1947, Mr. Bono worked as a research and systems analyst for North American Aviation. His first "tour" with Douglas Aircraft Company was from 1949 to 1951, doing structural layout and detail design. From 1951 to 1960, he worked primarily in structures design at Boeing. Between 1947 and 1949, he worked at Northrop Aircraft R&D. From 1984-1986, he was general manager of Cal-Pro Engineering Consultants doing structures integration and subsystems stress analysis. From 1966 to 1988, he again worked at Douglas Aircraft after Douglas' merger with McDonnell Aircraft where he did the majority of his advanced space design work. He pursued single-stage to orbit space launch vehicles as being simpler and cheaper than conventional launch vehicles. He then proposed to make these vehicles reusable.

Among Mr. Bono's designs were: One Stage Orbital Space Truck (OOST) Recoverable One Stage Orbital Space Truck (ROOST) Reusable Orbital Module, Booster, and Utility Shuttle (ROMBUS), Ithacus, Pegasus, Hyperion, and Saturn Application Single Stage To Orbit (SASSTO). Although his visionary designs were never actually built, his contributions pioneered the advancement of the Space Shuttle, a vertical take off & horizontal landing version of the SSTO spacecraft. From his ROOST design onwards, Bono advocated space launch vehicles without wings, usually using rocket-assisted vertical takeoff and landing (VTVL) configurations. He patented a reusable plug nozzle rocket engine that had dual use as a heat shield for atmospheric reentry. In 1965 and 1967, he obtained two patents for a Recoverable Single Stage Spacecraft Booster. In 1969, he co-authored with Kenneth Gatland "Frontiers of Space," which was published in several languages. Less than three months after Bono's death, the first McDonnell Douglas launch vehicle based on his pioneering work on VTOL, a research test vehicle the DC-X (Delta Clipper), began a largely successful series of test flights.

Among his many awards and recognitions, the Council on International Nontheatrical Events recognized Mr. Bono for his motion picture, "The Role of the Reusable Booster." His ROMBUS design was featured in the "Flight to the Moon" attraction at Disneyland in Anaheim, California in 1967. He was granted Charter Membership in the International Astronautical Academy in 1960, and acknowledgment by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1963, 1965, and 1966 through 1968. He achieved Fellowship in The British Interplanetary Society in 1961, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1972. His wife of 43 years, Camille, died in November 2014. His son Richard and daughter Patricia, both live in Costa Mesa, California, and daughter Kathryn Hickman lives in Livermore, California. Philip Bono died on May 23, 1993 at the age of 72 in Costa Mesa, California."

 

From/at:

 

oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c88s4vjz/

Credit: Online Archive of California website

Busways 119, a Leyland Atlantean / Alexander dual purpose, is seen at Gateshead Interchange on route 10 to North Kention just weeks before the long standing cross tyne services were chopped.

veduta di Porto Maurizio dal porto di Imperia Oneglia

 

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You may use this image for NON-PROFIT purposes ONLY, however a credit and source link must be given/shown.

© Luca Lubatti photography - all rights reserved.

THE TOWER OF REFUGE, ALSO KNOWN AS ST. MARY’S ISLE, IS A SMALL STRUCTURE ERECTED UPON A PARTIALLY SUBMERGED GRANITE REEF, ORIGINALLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF OFFERING SHELTER TO SHIPWRECK VICTIMS UNTIL HELP COULD ARRIVE.

SITUATED IN DOUGLAS BAY, THE TOWER CAME INTO BEING AFTER RNLI FOUNDER WILLIAM HILLARY PETITIONED FOR A SANCTUARY TO BE BUILT ON ST MARY'S ISLE. A PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION PLUS £78 OF SIR WILLIAM'S OWN MONEY MET THE BUILDING COSTS OF £250. TOWER OF REFUGE WAS COMPLETED IN 1832 AND IS 12.5 METERS HIGH AND 52 METERS AROUND ITS CIRCUMFERENCE.

THE REEF ON WHICH IT IS BUILT WAS PREVIOUSLY OFTEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DAMAGE AND SINKING OF SHIPS AND SO THE TOWER PROVIDED BOTH A VISIBLE WARNING FOR INCOMING SHIPS AND A REFUGE FOR THOSE IN DISTRESS.

THE TOWER IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC HOWEVER ACCESS IS DIFFICULT DUE TO ITS LOCATION. WHEN THE TIDE IS LOW ENOUGH, IT IS A POPULAR ACTIVITY TO VENTURE OUT IN THE BAY TO THE TOWER. VISITORS DO SO AT THEIR OWN RISK AND MUST BE AWARE OF RISING TIDES TO AVOID BECOMING STRANDED.

THE TOWER OF REFUGE ALSO FEATURES ON THE REVERSE SIDE OF AN ISLE OF MAN 5 PENCE COIN.

 

All dresses made from one thrift shop blouse - just used the elastic parts and sewed up the backs - hems were done

**jacket & sweater from Barbie**

© This photograph is a copyrighted image. Please do not download this image to use or distribute for any other purpose without my expressed consent.

Use without permission is ILLEGAL.

 

In the middle a multi-purpose complex, called "De Rotterdam", designed by Rem Koolhaas. On the second photo a close-up of this building. It was opened yesterday.

 

Photographer: Rick Ligthelm for TravelMag.com

 

if you want to use this photo free of charge, please link to www.travelmag.com

Male lions have impressive manes that serve multiple purposes. The mane is a symbol of masculinity and plays a vital role in attracting mates and intimidating potential rivals. It also serves as a defense mechanism during fights, providing protection to the head and neck. The size, color, and length of the mane can vary among individuals, with darker manes being more attractive to females. However, some male lions may have smaller or non-existent manes due to factors such as heat and nutrition.

Albert Docks, Liverpool

Cross purpose - idiom - An usually unintentionally contrary purpose

 

Not only because of the directions of the butterflies, but also because how absolutely mixed up this image is season-wise.

 

A MUST for lightbox, please.

Dundalk based AS11 a Bus Eireann Alexander Dennis Enviro 300 built for Bus Éireann School bus services on behalf of the Department of Education and Science.

How cool to see so many different wrens recently. Getting better shots of wrens I have already seen, Rock Wren, Canyon Wren and Marsh Wren. Then, finally seeing the tiny Pacific Wren (finally) for the first time!

 

For fun, I looked online to see what a group of wrens were called and it said 'herd' or 'chime'. While they obviously aren't flocking together, I am calling them a chime for the purpose of this series.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I Do Not Condone Any Acts Of Vandalism Nor Do I Participate In Such Criminal Activity. I Am Simply An Observant and Take Photos Of This Graffiti You Have Come Across. ALSO I Will Not Condone Any Usage Of My Photos To Support Any Legal Matter Involving These Acts Of Vandalism Therefore YOU ARE NOT WELCOME TO VIEW OR TAKE THIS MATERIAL For ANY Purpose...

F-4 Phantom – 5195 units produced, 63 years of production/service, dozens of monographs, modelling plans, etc., what can go wrong? Well, actually quite many things. Still, after a few setbacks, here it is, my latest model

 

About the jet

The history of McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II started back in the mid 50’, with the first flight taking place on 27th May 1958. Initially, the F4H-1 (the initial designation before the tri-service unification) started as an unsolicited proposal from McDonnell Douglas, which actually didn’t get much interest. Only after the problems of other Navy fighters led to the necessity of acquiring a new general-purpose fighter, the Phantom as we know could get its chance. After winning the competition against the Vought’s F8U-3 Crusader III submission, the F4H-1 went to service in 1961, with a new designation of F-4B (starting in 1962). Even though F-4B was a revolutionary design for it time, it still had a number of deficiencies, with the most serious ones being slightly too high approach speed, and its AN-APQ-72 radar lacking the look-down, shoot-down capabilities, performing poorly against the ground clutter. As a consequence, after delivering 649 F-4B, in late 1966 McDonnell introduced a new, improved version – the F-4J. This version featured a revised and strengthened internal structure, more powerful J79-GE-10 engines (the smokeless, 10B version was introduced later in 1978), new, wider tires (resulting in bulges on the top part of the wings), a few aerodynamic improvements for decreasing the approach speed (changes to inboard leading edges and slotted stabilator), and most importantly, new AWG-10 radar, with solid-state elements and prominent look-down, shoot-down capabilities. The F-4J served through the Vietnam war until the late 70’, together with the F-4B, and later F-4N (upgraded F-4B). After that, starting from 1978, the selected 265 F-4J underwent an upgrade to F-4S standard (the initial idea was for 302, but the number was reduced), featuring smokeless J79-GE-10B engines, improved electronics, and leading-edge maneuvering slats, similar to those on USAF’s F-4E. In this variant, Phantoms served until 1987 in USN, and 1992 in USMC. In the meantime, 15 F-4J were also sold to UK, to fill the gap left by FGR. 2 Phantoms (F-4M) deployed to the Falkland Islands. These aircraft, known also as F-4J(UK) Phantom F.3s, served from 1984 to 1991. Interestingly, they were greatly appreciated by the RAF pilots, with most of them considering them superior to British Spey-engined variants, mainly due to the much faster response of the J-79 turbojets, in comparison to Rolls-Royce Spey 203 turbofans.

 

About the building process

While I’ve always appreciated the F-4, I was never a “Phantom Phanatic”. In fact, the idea for this model came to me by accident – I was a bit stuck with other projects, and thinking about different solutions, the idea that 2x3x1 curved slopes would make for an excellent Phantom fuselage went through my mind. I thought that these easy, boxy shapes of F-4 would make for a nice relax after the complex shapes of my F-14 and MiG-29, and so I started. Unfortunately, I made a huge mistake at the very beginning – I used the blueprints from the book, without validating their correctness first, which later cost me a lot of headaches.

Before going further, I should mention some of the F-4 models by other people, which were a huge inspiration to me. Of course, there is an excellent F-4B by Mad Physicist , a beautiful F-4B by Carl Greatrix , and a whole series of different F-4s by Justin Davies. However, from the viewpoint of my model, three Phantoms were of particular importance for me. The first one is F-4N by Jonah Padberg. Even though I’ve ended with a very different cockpit design, I’ve started with the modification of his 3-stud wide canopy and angled cockpit section. The next model, is a F-4B by Maks, who made an excellent, SNOT version of the Phantom, which to a large degree influenced some of my design choices. Lastly, there is a huge, 1/15 scale F-4J by crash_cramer, which might be my favorite LEGO model ever. Similarly as in the case of my F-14 Tomcat, I tried to emulate some of his techniques in a smaller scale.

The first assumption was to go for the 3-stud wide canopy, similarly as in my MiG-29. Such solution is much more accurate in this scale and makes the model look much more realistic in my opinion. In fact, I’m so pleased with the outcome here that I will likely rebuild my F-14 in near future to similar standard. The construction itself started with the wings. I’ve always came under impression that similarly to F-15, the angle for the leading edge is 45 degrees. Well, not really. Instead, the angle is 51 degrees, which effectively eliminates any plate-based solutions, leaving the brick-built wing as the only valid option. So instead of getting a nice, simple, sturdy 45 degrees wing, I had to go with a brick-built one, which combined with the main landing gear solution and folding mechanism, proved to be a nightmare. After figuring it out, the next challenge was to design the angled cockpit area. Here, the solutions from Jonah’s model were of great help. With those two pieces in place, the rest went relatively smoothly, leading to the stage presented in WiP pictures. And then, having 85% of a model ready, I checked the validity of my blueprints. I was able to get my hands on the original F-4 factory drawing on the Aviation Archives website, and all my drawings turned out to be off by a considerable margin. Fortunately, I’m not the only person dissatisfied by the quality of available blueprints, and I was able to find this awesome website, with a set of 100% accurate drawings, based on the factory ones, including the cross-sections. That was good news, the bad one was that my fuselage was too short, too high, and too wide. So I had to lower the whole fuselage by a plate, elongate it by 2 studs, and modify it from 10-stud wide, to 9-stud wide. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that hard, but after lowering the fuselage, it became evident that the angling of the front section is too steep. This, in turn, required a complete revision of the already most problematic section, consuming an awful lot of time. But after all these problems, I finally got a model, with which I am quite satisfied.

 

About the model

The model represents a McDonnell Douglas F-4J Phantom II in a 1/33 scale. The camouflage is based on the F-4J from VF-96 squadron, BuNo. 155800, callsign “Showtime100”, deployed on the USS Constellation aircraft carrier in Vietnam, around 1972. This particular aircraft, on the 10th of May 1972, was credited with 3 MiG-17 kills, being flown by pilot Lt Randy Cunningham and RIO Lt(jg) Willy Driscoll. This effectively made them the only Navy aces of the Vietnam war, as they already had 2 kills on their account. You may also note that they flew a “borrowed” plane, as the name on the cockpit is that of Lowell “Gus” Eggert, who later commanded the USS Constellation from 1974 onward. As usual, the model possesses a number of features: openable cockpits, working flaps, foldable wings, working horizontal and vertical tails, retractable landing gear and tailhook. I’m rather pleased with the functionality, as most of the features, especially the landing gear, are much more reliable than in e.g. my MiG-29. The loadout comprises 4 AIM-7E Sparrows, 4 AIM-9G Sidewinders, and a centerline 600 gal. fuel tank. Also, under the wings, there are outboard pylons for two 370 gal. fuel tanks, which are visible on some of the photos. The credit for the stand design goes to Jerac. There is a small discrepancy in the camouflage – in principle nearly all USN phantoms had an all-white underside, with an exception of some late 80s’, extremely dull, low-vis versions. Unfortunately, due to the brick-built nature of the wing, I was unable to make them white on the bottom. For a moment, I contemplated utilizing huge white stickers, but it wouldn’t look all that great, and it would make the wings extremely modification-unfriendly. Still, the final effect is not that bad. So, please enjoy, and let me know what is your opinion on this model.

 

© This photograph is a copyrighted image. Please do not download this image to use or distribute for any other purpose without my expressed consent.

Use without permission is ILLEGAL.

 

Cross purposes.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I Do Not Condone Any Acts Of Vandalism Nor Do I Participate In Such Criminal Activity. I Am Simply An Observant and Take Photos Of This Graffiti You Have Come Across. ALSO I Will Not Condone Any Usage Of My Photos To Support Any Legal Matter Involving These Acts Of Vandalism Therefore YOU ARE NOT WELCOME TO VIEW OR TAKE THIS MATERIAL For ANY Purpose...

Enquanto o pessoal combinou o Soft Pastels com algum tom fofinho pra manter o 'soft' do nome valendo, eu tasquei num tom forte pra que os glitters se destacassem... E gostei um monte! O esmalte de base foi presente de aniversário adiantado duma amiga querida, é muito bom de se esmaltar - ah, pincéis da OPI... Por que todos os pincéis do mundo não são como o de vocês? ;/ - e achei que combinou demais com o glitter da Dany - ele também fica muito legal sobre um esmalte acinzentado ou algum azulão, além de qualquer verdinho/azulzinho pastel...

 

Tem um daqueles macros-que-denunciam-as-falhas-todas aqui!

 

Este e o Purple Storm estarão à venda na fanpage da Dany e na Maria Gastadeira, ainda nesta semana...

 

1 x Base Casco de Cavalo, Ludurana

1 x Fortalecedor 4x1, Fortilon

2 x Purple With a Purpose, OPI

1 x Soft Pastels,

That's not allowed to use this image on any website, blog or other media for any purpose without my explicit and written permission.

Salmon serve so many purposes. For fishermen, when they are running strong, they area a sought after source of a tasty meal and part of a leisure activity that they love so much. In nature, salmon are a classic example of how life's cycle works and illustrative of the will of a species to procreate. For the bear, it's a way to fill and fatten up in preparation for the winter's hibernation ... a very quick and easy meal. While I love salmon, probably more than the average person, this bear can have these salmon, for they are ready to spawn out and are not really fit for human consumption. These bears don't care though and the floating feast is ready for the taking. :-)

 

Not sure how things are these days on the Russian River, but I'm hopeful that our luck will continue. Fingers crossed! LOL

 

Well, it's now at the 1 day mark ... the bags are about 80% packed, but our excitement level has already reached higher than that. Hoping for wildlife galore and lots of photographic opportunities - both wildlife and landscape.

 

Thanks for stopping by to view and especially for sharing your thoughts and comments.

 

A new blog post gets published tonight and will post regularly while we're on our adventure. :-)

 

© 2014 Debbie Tubridy / TNWA Photography

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The Queensland Government Printing Office (former) was located between George Street and William Street, south-east of Stephens Lane, between 1862 and 1983, and consisted of a number of buildings. As the first purpose-built government printing office in Queensland, the Government Printing Office played an important role in administration of the colony and then the state of Queensland. The former Government Printing Office complex, which demonstrates the quality and evolving styles of the work of the Colonial/Government Architect's Office between the 1870s and the 1910s, currently consists of two buildings, built over three different periods: a three storey brick building facing William Street constructed 1872-74; a three storey brick building erected along Stephens Lane between 1884-87; and a three storey brick extension to the Stephens Lane building, constructed along George Street between 1910-12.

 

A government printing office was required in Queensland after separation in 1859 when the establishment of the new Colonial Government generated a need for the printing of Hansard, the official report of the proceedings of the Houses of Parliament. Many other items were also printed on the premises, including postage stamps, Government Gazettes, Acts of Parliament, annual reports of departments, survey maps, text books, electoral rolls, school readers, and banknotes.

 

The dissemination of Hansard and other government information to the public is vital to the healthy operation of a democracy, ensuring that the business of parliament is accessible to all, and facilitating transparency regarding government decisions. The printing office was therefore integral to the operation of the Queensland Government - and its importance was reflected by its proximity to Parliament, the quality and scale of the printing office buildings, and the quality of the documents produced.

 

The Queensland Government Gazette was first printed by Theophilus Pugh, publisher of the Moreton Bay Courier. Pugh was replaced by William C Belbridge of the Queensland Guardian, who became the first official Government Printer by March 1862. That year the first purpose-designed government printing office in Queensland, a two storey timber building (not extant) designed by Queensland's first Colonial Architect, Charles Tiffin, was built facing William Street on a ridge running parallel to both William Street and George Street.

 

Since the 1820s the north bank of the Brisbane River and the adjacent ridgeline has featured a concentration of government and associated activities and uses. This ridge was the site of administration buildings for the Moreton Bay penal settlement, which relocated from Redcliffe to Brisbane, occupying this site from 1825-1839. When the penal settlement closed, the remnant infrastructure was used by surveyors as a basis for the layout for the new town of Brisbane. Set at right angles to the river, the prisoner's barracks determined Queen Street, while the line of buildings along the ridge determined William Street. Streets surveyed parallel to these streets, including George Street, formed Brisbane's rectangular grid. The house and kitchen of the Commandant of the penal settlement stood on land just south-east of the Government Printing Office, until the Commandant's buildings were demolished c.1861

 

While a range of buildings and activities occurred along George and William Streets after Free Settlement began in 1842, the government maintained its dominant presence in the area. At some sites, such as the Commissariat Stores and Botanical Gardens, earlier uses were continued. The establishment phase following the creation of Queensland in 1859 saw the new colonial government reserve land parcels and construct a range of buildings to facilitate its functions. The building of Government House and Parliament House along the eastern end of the George Street alignment in the 1860s firmly entrenched the physical reality of a government precinct in the area.

 

Due to this government precinct, the Government Printing Office's immediate neighbour to the north-west, the 1851 United Evangelical Church, became a government telegraph office in 1861; hence the naming of ‘Telegraph Lane' between the telegraph office and the printing office. This laneway from William Street to George Street was later renamed Stephens Lane.

 

As Queensland grew, so did demands on the Government Printing Office. The 1862 timber building was altered in 1863 and 1864, and in 1865 an ‘L' shaped three storey brick and stone building (not extant), also designed by Tiffin, was constructed to the rear (north-east), using day labour It included an underground cistern with a domed top (location unknown) and was connected to the 1862 building. By 1872 the complex included a small engine room, workshop and stables (none of which are extant) behind the 1865 building. That year James Beal (Government Printer 1867 to 1893) requested a new building to cope with the increased work of the Government Printing Office and in August 1872 the Secretary for Public Works recommended that Francis Drummond Greville (FDG) Stanley prepare a plan.

 

FDG Stanley immigrated to Queensland in 1861 and became one of the most prolific and well known Queensland architects of the late nineteenth century. In 1863 he became a clerk of works in the Office of the Colonial Architect. Upon Tiffin's retirement in 1872, Stanley became Colonial Architect, holding the position until 1881 when he entered private practice.

 

Stanley wanted the new building at the Government Printing Office to be constructed with machine-pressed bricks, which were not yet produced in Brisbane. At the time it was reported that he wanted ‘to provide as much accommodation as possible in a plain substantial building, without striving after architectural display. The structure, however...will have really a handsome and imposing appearance'. Tenders were called in October 1872 and the tender of John Petrie, for £4,751 plus £170 for machine pressed bricks and £50 for internal dressing, was accepted. The building included stone footings, brick walls, cast iron airbricks to the understorey and at the ceilings, cast iron columns (ground and first floors, front wing only), and water closets (WCs) and a lift at the end of the rear wing on each floor. The roof was steeply pitched to assist ventilation. Construction was estimated to take six months, but the new office was not completed until 1874, with delays being blamed on a shortage of bricklayers. The machinery was installed and gas lights were fitted by April 1874, and the finished cost was £5331/3/6

 

The front (William Street) wing of the new building stood on the site of the 1862 building, which had been demolished in late 1872. The new William Street building had an ‘L' shape and extended onto the (recently repurchased) land previously occupied by the Commandant's residence, wrapping around the south-east side of the 1865 building. It had an arcade to the street frontage of the ground floor, and the roof was covered in Welsh slate to reduce the risk of fire. Narrow rear verandahs were located on the north-west side of the first and second floors of the rear wing. The ground floor included a public counter, offices, newspaper room, and a large publishing room in the front wing, with a store in the rear wing. The first floor consisted of a composing room in the front wing, with a drying room in the rear wing; while the second floor contained a binding room in the front wing and a ruling room in the rear wing. It was connected to the 1865 building, which included a machine printing room on the ground floor, the engraving and lithographic work on the first floor, and machine ruling and book binding on the second floor.

 

In 1879 the neighbouring telegraph office (former church) was converted into the residence of the Government Printer, and in 1880 the engine room at the rear of the 1865 building was enlarged and the stables were demolished. More land was purchased in 1883, prior to further expansion of the Government Printing Office complex onto land to the south-east. A master plan for the Government Printing Office, drawn in 1884, planned a ‘U' shaped building along Telegraph Lane, George Street, and returning along the south-east side of the complex, wrapping around a new engine room. It also planned a replication of the William Street building on the other side of a ‘cart entrance' from William Street to the engine room, but this never occurred.

 

Instead, between 1884 and 1887 three new buildings were constructed, all by John Petrie: a three storey brick building along Telegraph Lane, with a short elevation to George Street; a two storey brick engine room (not extant) to the south-east; and a two storey brick Lithographic Office (not extant) south-east of the engine room. The 1880 engine room extension to the rear of the 1865 building was demolished around this time.

 

John Petrie's tender of £13,043 (initially for a two storey building on Telegraph Lane and the engine room) was accepted in July 1884, plus an extra £8000 in 1885 for the addition of a third storey to the Telegraph Lane building, plus the Lithographic Office. The Telegraph Lane building, which was separated from the 1865 building by a yard, included a basement; a machine room on the ground floor; reading rooms, fount, paper, material and store rooms on first floor; and a composing room on the second floor. The design has been attributed to John James Clark, Colonial Architect from 1883-85. The engine room was completed in late 1885, and housed steam engines and generators which supplied electricity for Queensland's Parliament House from 1886, plus smaller steam engines for powering the Government Printing Office's machinery. The other two new buildings were finished in early 1887.

 

Changes were later also made to the older buildings within the complex, including the addition of four cast iron columns on the first floor of the front wing of the William Street building in 1890; increasing the height of the 1865 building in 1891 to improve ventilation; and lowering the level of William Street in 1892, requiring construction of a concrete plinth to protect the foundations of the William Street building. In 1897 the brick wall between the public office and accountant's office in the William Street building was removed, with the addition of an extra iron column in its place. In 1900 zinc roof sheets on the flatter section of the roof of William Street building were replaced with galvanised rib and pans steel. In 1903 the level of Telegraph Lane, which by now had been renamed Stephens Lane, was lowered. Nearby, in 1901 the neighbouring former church was demolished to allow construction of an Executive Building which later became the Land Administration Building.

 

The ongoing development of the city and its wharves downstream from the original convict site meant that George Street had become more important than William Street by this time. A three storey brick extension of the Stephens Lane building along George Street, which became the new ‘front' for the Government Printing Office, was commenced in 1910, while an additional three storey brick extension (not extant) between the Stephens Lane building and the William Street building required the demolition of (with possible incorporation of parts of) the 1865 brick building. The George Street wing was built by Thomas Hiron, who tendered £21,450, while the Stephens Lane infill building was constructed by J Maskrey, who tendered £2896. The George Street wing was finished around mid 1912.

 

The 1910 plans for the George Street wing were signed by AB Brady, Government Architect, and by Andrew Irving, acting deputy Government Architect, while 1911 plans are signed by Thomas Pye, Deputy Government Architect. However, the design of the George Street wing has been attributed to Edwin Evan Smith, a draughtsman who had assisted Thomas Pye with the design of the Executive Building, and who later became the State Government Architect for Victoria. Smith, also a painter, potter and sculptor, and an examiner in modelling for the Brisbane Technical College, designed the sculptures on the building. These include two freestanding devils on the parapet above the main entrance and a relief carved devil's head, directly above the entrance. Traditionally, devils are a symbol of the printing trade, generally accepted as representing printer's apprentices.

 

These details were sculpted by well known Sydney sculptor, William P Macintosh who arrived in Sydney from Edinburgh in 1880 and from 1890 was Sydney's leading architectural sculptor. He received many commissions in New South Wales; his major work being the Queen Victoria Markets. Macintosh arrived in Brisbane in 1903 to complete his major Queensland work, the Executive Building, and was also responsible for the sculptural details on the former Government Savings Bank.

 

The George Street wing connected with both the 1887 Stephens Lane building and the 1887 Lithographic Office, forming a ‘U' around the engine room. It was symmetrical, with the main entrance in the centre and secondary entrances and stair halls either side of the central section. There was an electric lift adjacent to each stair hall, and a basement. Whereas the roof of the Stephens Lane wing was supported on timber queen bolt trusses, the George Street wing used timber queen post trusses; and while cast iron columns had been used to support the main floor beams in the Stephens Lane wing, hardwood columns were used in the George Street wing. It appears that the new building was considered a model for Government Printing Offices, as the South Australian Government Printer requested copies of the plan to assist in the design and extension of the Adelaide Printery building.

 

Two storeys were also added to the engine room c.1910, and its use appears to have changed at this time to include a Sterro Room and workshop on the ground floor; men's and women's clubs, dining rooms and lavatories on the first floor; reading rooms on the second floor; and lavatories and toilets on the third floor.

 

In 1910 plans the George Street wing's basement included stock rooms and a strong room; the ground floor (from the south-east to the north-west) contained an extension to the lithographic room (from the adjacent Lithographic Office), dispatch room, offices and a public counter; while the first floor contained another extension to the lithographic room plus bookbinding (an extension to the Stephens Lane wing's bookbinding floor). The second floor was used by compositors, in an extension of the function of the second floor of the Stephens Lane wing.

 

By this time the William Street building had been reduced to secondary or service functions, including printing of railway tickets. The ground floor was a store, the first floor was used as a machine ruling room, and the second floor was the artists and process workroom. Around this time new windows were inserted to the top floor and new dormers were added to the roof (all since removed), and the toilets and lift at the end of the rear wing were demolished. From the end of the first floor rear verandah, a gallery ran to the former engine room and the Lithographic Office.

 

In 1912 electricity was connected to all buildings on the site by the Edison and Swan United Electric Light Company Ltd. Various other improvements were made to the building over the years, including strengthening of the floors and installation of fire sprinklers. By 1916 there were three small, one-storey buildings (stores and a workshop, not extant) in the corner of the complex, located between the William Street building and the Lithographic Office. Soon afterwards, the importance of the Government Printing Office in disseminating information to the public was demonstrated. In November 1917 the Australian military conducted a night raid on the Government Printing Office to seize copies of Hansard which the Federal Government did not wish circulated, as they covered debates in the Queensland Parliament on military censorship and the conscription issue. The military also temporarily took possession of the Government Printing Office in August 1918, this time to prevent coverage of statements made in the Queensland Parliament about the treatment of Irish and German internees.

 

Changes to the site continued before and after World War II. In 1924 some of the roof slates of the William Street building were replaced with iron sheets, and more were replaced in 1933. In 1952 toilets were built at the rear of William Street building, and in 1959 the Lithographic Office was extended towards the engine room and a concrete floor was laid to most of the ground floor of the Stephens Lane wing. In 1970 a new metal-clad building (not extant) was constructed south-west of the Lithographic Office, demolishing the c.1916 workshop.

 

Meanwhile, the immediate post-war years of the late 1940s saw the Queensland Government begin to expand their activities considerably in Brisbane city. Most public servants were then located in the Treasury and Executive Buildings in George Street and in offices in Anzac Square. The shortage of office accommodation in the centre of Brisbane, and the need to address future requirements, led to a phase of governmental property acquisition in the city. The purchase of properties on George and William Streets between the Government Printing Office and Parliament House was a key focus, in addition to other acquisitions on Charlotte, Mary and Margaret Streets.

 

The consolidation of government ownership and usage along George and William streets led to a number of schemes being investigated by the state to further the development of a ‘government precinct'. By 1965, a masterplan had been developed that involved the demolition of all buildings between the old Executive Building and Parliament House, to enable the construction of three high-rise office buildings in a ‘plaza setting'. However, only one of these was built - between 1968 and 1971 a new Executive Building was constructed south-east of the Government Printing Office. By the early 1970s the 1960s plan for the precinct was considered no longer suitable and a number of other proposals for the area were explored.

 

A 1974 ‘George Street Masterplan' involved lower-rise buildings spread out over greater areas and the demolition of the Belle Vue Hotel and the Mansions. A major influence in ultimately shaping the layout of the area during the 1970s was the growing community support for the retention of older buildings within the government precinct, especially the Belle Vue Hotel and the Mansions. Spearheaded by the National Trust, the government-related associations and links between buildings, their architectural qualities, and aesthetic contributions to the area were highlighted in submissions to the government and in the public sphere. The unannounced June 1974 removal of the balconies of the Belle Vue Hotel was a deliberate action by the State government to degrade the visual appearance of the area, and drew further attention to the conservation cause.

 

In April 1979 Cabinet adopted a recommendation for a schedule of demolition work to further the development of the government precinct. The Belle Vue Hotel was to be demolished, but the Mansions and the original section of Harris Terrace were to be retained, renovated and adapted. On 21 April, three days after this decision, the Belle Vue Hotel was demolished in the early hours of the morning, a notorious event in the history of heritage conservation in Queensland.

 

The Government Printing Office moved to new premises in Woolloongabba in October 1983, and a number of former Government Printing Office buildings were demolished in 1986-87 to make way for a four storey Executive Annex, connected to the 1971 Executive Building, and a four-level underground car park. The Lithographic Office, former engine room, the two remaining c.1916 buildings, the 1970s building, the toilets at the rear of the William Street building and the Stephens Lane infill building were demolished. The construction of the car park under the site of the engine room and up to the south-east side and rear of the rear wing of the William Street building removed the remaining archaeological traces of the Commandant's cottage and kitchen with cellar, although the material was recorded by staff from the Queensland Museum. The Commandant's cottage and kitchen wing are defined in outline by contrasting coloured bricks and sandstone in the new paving laid in 1987. The remaining section of the Commandant's cottage would have been under the footprint of the rear wing of the William Street building, but construction of a small basement (c.1987) of reinforced concrete beneath the rear wing would have destroyed any surviving material.

 

In 1989 the Queensland Museum Sciencentre moved into the William Street building, and prior restoration and renovation work undertaken in 1986-88 included: the demolition of non-original dormer windows and restoration of the clerestory, reconstruction of the roof framing and replacement of the corrugated iron roofing with slate and galvanised steel sheeting, and reconstruction of the rear verandah. Removal, reconstruction or restoration of doors and windows took place, and some external openings were sealed, while some new windows and doors were inserted. The existing ground floor slab and flooring was replaced, along with sections of the front wing's timber flooring on the first and second floors. The rear wing's floors were replaced with reinforced concrete suspended slabs. Other strengthening of floors utilised steel beams and trusses, and all casements were replaced as pivot windows.

 

The George Street/Stephens Lane building was renovated between 1987 and 1991 with work including: replacement roof sheeting, the formation of new walls where the Stephens Lane infill building and Lithographic Office had been demolished, construction of a glass-walled arcade on the south-east wall of the Stephens Lane wing, a tiered theatre at the south-east end of the second floor of the George Street wing, removal of the original lifts in the George Street wing and installation of two new lifts and toilets at the George Street end of the Stephens Lane wing, a new stairwell at the south-west end of the Stephens Lane wing, plus a light court extension from the basement to the courtyard and a link from the basement to the underground car park.

 

The Sciencentre moved from the William Street building into the George Street/ Stephens Lane building in 1992, from where it operated until 2002. In 1993 the William Street building's interior was remodelled for commercial use as the Public Services Club, and in 2005-6 the George Street wing was refurbished for use by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, with a complete new fit-out and closure of the main entrance.

 

In 2017, under the Queens Wharf Project, a major development in the central business district of Brisbane, both the Government Printing Offices and the Public Services Club were refitted and restored for commercial use.

 

Source: Queensland Heritage Register.

Permission granted for journalism outlets and educational purposes. Not for commercial use. Must be credited. Photo courtesy of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

©2023 SDPB

Each square is 6x6.

Sharpie on drawing paper.

Concern: The Past

Principles: Figure to Ground & Rendering Form

 

It took me a while to figure how I wanted to pursue the idea of "the past" because it can be interpreted on many levels including a historical, personal, or philosophical perspective. I eventually decided to incorporate feminity with the past that utilized high contrast design principles to mimic a figure to ground relationship and a minimalist design. My work was inspired by Ellsworth Kelly's color-blocking techniques and Kara Walker's politically stirring, high-contrast work. Each square is meant to depict the relationship between men and women overtime and how times leads to a continual growth of complexities in society. The first square (from the left) shows an equal balance between men (black) and women (white) because before developed society ever emerged, men and women were merely creatures who served equal purposes in this world — to survive. As humans became more intelligent, men in developed society found ways to minimize a women's voice and diminish her importance / exploit her well-being for their own purpose. Eventually, by the 20th century, women took great strives in American society, and women were granted the right to vote by 1920. The newly emerging lines in the third square represent this first wave of feminism. The fourth square thus depicts the second wave of feminism where women entered the workforce more rigorously in the 1970's. Finally, the last square depicts the modern era — one where the complexity between the sexes has grown the greatest. Because women were marginalized so greatly for centuries before, we can no longer reach the simple harmony and equality of the past, but emerging voices have helped acquire more rights for women within the political, economic, and social constructs of society. The last square also appears so circuitous to underscore the entangled issues of race and sexual orientation in the modern era. Feminism and the idea of feminity needs to be intertwined within all human beings, not just expressed or only accepted in women. As these complexities continue to grow on the page, progress will be further achieved.

The purpose of the Oratory was to accommodate funeral services before burials took place in the cemetery, but it was also used as a kind of cenotaph for housing monuments to the deceased, including works by several noted 19th century sculptors. St James' Cemetery

Network Rail Stoneblower DR80303 passes through Southcote working Reading Triangle Sidings to Woking Up Yard.

A question arises, keeps coming by, demanding attention. It wants to be seen, wants to be answered. Must be answered if tranquility is ever to be reached. This question has been visiting me daily for a long time and my hesitant answers are never to its satisfaction.

 

It’s the question of the meaning of life, the purpose of being. Big and small.

What is my role in this biggest of all plays?

  

It never tells me, whether I have found the right answer. It never gives me certainty, that the right answer will be found.

  

Maybe I have it in my own hands to determine which answer is the right one…

Or is the answer hidden within, waiting for me ever since the beginning to finally pay attention. To defy all doubts and objections and give it reason to grow at last?

  

Do we have a purpose to fulfill in life or do we create our own? And how do we know or decide what it is?

Arches National Park is a national park in eastern Utah, United States. The park is adjacent to the Colorado River, 4 miles (6 km) north of Moab, Utah. More than 2,000 natural sandstone arches are located in the park, including the well-known Delicate Arch, as well as a variety of unique geological resources and formations. The park contains the highest density of natural arches in the world.

 

The park consists of 310.31 square kilometres (76,680 acres; 119.81 sq mi; 31,031 ha) of high desert located on the Colorado Plateau. The highest elevation in the park is 5,653 feet (1,723 m) at Elephant Butte, and the lowest elevation is 4,085 feet (1,245 m) at the visitor center. The park receives an average of less than 10 inches (250 mm) of rain annually.

 

Administered by the National Park Service, the area was originally named a national monument on April 12, 1929, and was re designated as a national park on November 12, 1971. The park received more than 1.6 million visitors in 2018.

 

As stated in the foundation document in U.S. National Park Service website:

 

The purpose of Arches National Park is to protect extraordinary examples of geologic features including arches, natural bridges, windows, spires, and balanced rocks, as well as other features of geologic, historic, and scientific interest, and to provide opportunities to experience these resources and their associated values in their majestic natural settings.

 

The national park lies above an underground evaporite layer or salt bed, which is the main cause of the formation of the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths in the area. This salt bed is thousands of feet thick in places and was deposited in the Paradox Basin of the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago (Mya) when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with debris eroded from the Uncompahgre Uplift to the northeast. During the Early Jurassic (about 200 Mya), desert conditions prevailed in the region and the vast Navajo Sandstone was deposited. An additional sequence of stream laid and windblown sediments, the Entrada Sandstone (about 140 Mya), was deposited on top of the Navajo. Over 5,000 feet (1,500 m) of younger sediments were deposited and have been mostly eroded. Remnants of the cover exist in the area including exposures of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale. The arches of the area are developed mostly within the Entrada formation.

 

The weight of this cover caused the salt bed below it to liquefy and thrust up layers of rock into salt domes. The evaporites of the area formed more unusual "salt anticlines" or linear regions of uplift. Faulting occurred and whole sections of rock subsided into the areas between the domes. In some places, they turned almost on edge. The result of one such 2,500-foot (760 m) displacement, the Moab Fault, is seen from the visitor center.

 

As this subsurface movement of salt shaped the landscape, erosion removed the younger rock layers from the surface. Except for isolated remnants, the major formations visible in the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone, in which most of the arches form, and the buff-colored Navajo Sandstone. These are visible in layer-cake fashion throughout most of the park. Over time, water seeped into the surface cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained. Wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Many damaged fins collapsed. Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections. These became the famous arches.

 

Although the park's terrain may appear rugged and durable, it is extremely fragile. More than 1 million visitors each year threaten the fragile high-desert ecosystem. The problem lies within the soil's crust, which is composed of cyanobacteria, algae, fungi, and lichens that grow in the dusty parts of the park. Factors that make Arches National Park sensitive to visitor damage include being a semiarid region, the scarce, unpredictable rainfall, lack of deep freezing, and lack of plant litter, which results in soils that have both a low resistance to and slow recovery from, compressional forces such as foot traffic. Methods of indicating effects on the soil are cytophobic soil crust index, measuring of water infiltration, and t-tests that are used to compare the values from the undisturbed and disturbed areas.

 

Geological processes that occurred over 300 million years ago caused a salt bed to be deposited, which today lies beneath the landscape of Arches National Park.[ Over time, the salt bed was covered with sediments that eventually compressed into rock layers that have since been named Entrada Standstone. Rock layers surrounding the edge of the salt bed continued to erode and shift into vertical sandstone walls called fins. Sand collected between vertical walls of the fins, then slightly acidic rain combined with carbon dioxide in the air allowed for the chemical formation of carbonic acid within the trapped sand. Over time, the carbonic acid dissolved the calcium carbonate that held the sandstone together. Many of the rock formations have weaker layers of rock on bottom that are holding stronger layers on top. The weaker layers would dissolve first, creating openings in the rock. Gravity caused pieces of the stronger rock layer to fall piece by piece into an arch shape. Arches form within rock fins at points of intense fracturing localization, or weak points in the rock's formation, caused by horizontal and vertical discontinuities. Lastly, water, wind, and time continued this erosion process and ultimately created the arches of Arches National Park. All of the arches in the park are made of Entrada Sandstone, however, there are slight differences in how each arch was developed. This allows the Entrada Sandstone to be categories into 3 groups including Slick rock members, Dewey rock members, and Moab members. Vertical arches can be developed from Slick rock members, a combination of Slick rock members and Moab members, or Slick rock members resting above Dewey rock members. Horizontal arches (also called potholes) are formed when a vertical pothole formation meets a horizontal cave, causing a union into a long arch structure. The erosion process within Arches National Park will continue as time continues to pass. Continued erosion combined with vertical and horizontal stress will eventually cause arches to collapse, but still, new arches will continue to form for thousands of years.

 

Humans have occupied the region since the last ice age 10,000 years ago. Fremont people and Ancestral Puebloans lived in the area until about 700 years ago. Spanish missionaries encountered Ute and Paiute tribes in the area when they first came through in 1775, but the first European-Americans to attempt settlement in the area were the Mormon Elk Mountain Mission in 1855, who soon abandoned the area. Ranchers, farmers, and prospectors later settled Moab in the neighboring Riverine Valley in the late 1870s. Word of the beauty of the surrounding rock formations spread beyond the settlement as a possible tourist destination.

 

The Arches area was first brought to the attention of the National Park Service by Frank A. Wadleigh, passenger traffic manager of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Wadleigh, accompanied by railroad photographer George L. Beam, visited the area in September 1923 at the invitation of Alexander Ringhoffer, a Hungarian-born prospector living in Salt Valley. Ringhoffer had written to the railroad to interest them in the tourist potential of a scenic area he had discovered the previous year with his two sons and a son-in-law, which he called the Devils Garden (known today as the Klondike Bluffs). Wadleigh was impressed by what Ringhoffer showed him, and suggested to Park Service director Stephen T. Mather that the area be made a national monument.

 

The following year, additional support for the monument idea came from Laurence Gould, a University of Michigan graduate student (and future polar explorer) studying the geology of the nearby La Sal Mountains, who was shown the scenic area by local physician Dr. J. W. "Doc" Williams.

 

A succession of government investigators examined the area, in part due to confusion as to the precise location. In the process, the name Devils Garden was transposed to an area on the opposite side of Salt Valley that includes Landscape Arch, the longest arch in the park. Ringhoffer's original discovery was omitted, while another area nearby, known locally as the Windows, was included. Designation of the area as a national monument was supported by the Park Service in 1926 but was resisted by President Calvin Coolidge's Interior Secretary, Hubert Work. Finally, in April 1929, shortly after his inauguration, President Herbert Hoover signed a presidential proclamation creating the Arches National Monument, consisting of two comparatively small, disconnected sections. The purpose of the reservation under the 1906 Antiquities Act was to protect the arches, spires, balanced rocks, and other sandstone formations for their scientific and educational value. The name Arches was suggested by Frank Pinkely, superintendent of the Park Service's southwestern national monuments, following a visit to the Windows section in 1925.

 

In late 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a proclamation that enlarged the Arches to protect additional scenic features and permit the development of facilities to promote tourism. A small adjustment was made by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 to accommodate a new road alignment.

 

In early 1969, just before leaving office, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a proclamation substantially enlarging the Arches. Two years later, President Richard Nixon signed legislation enacted by Congress, which significantly reduced the total area enclosed, but changed its status. Arches National Park was formally dedicated in May 1972.

 

In 1980, vandals attempted to use an abrasive kitchen cleanser to deface ancient petroglyphs in the park, prompting park officials to recruit physicist John F. Asmus, who specialized in using lasers to restore works of art, to use his technology to repair the damage. Asmus "zapped the panel with intense light pulses and succeeded in removing most of the cleanser".

 

Climbing Balanced Rock or any named or unnamed arch in Arches National Park with an opening larger than 3 ft (0.9 m) is banned by park regulations. Climbing on other features in the park is allowed but regulated; in addition, slacklining and BASE jumping are banned parkwide.

 

Climbing on named arches within the park had long been banned by park regulations, but following Dean Potter's successful free climb on Delicate Arch in May 2006, the wording of the regulations was deemed unenforceable by the park attorney. In response, the park revised its regulations later that month, eventually imposing the current ban on arch climbing in 2014.

 

Approved recreational activities include auto touring, hiking, bicycling, camping at the Devils Garden campground, backpacking, canyoneering, and rock climbing, with permits required for the last three activities. Guided commercial tours and ranger programs are also available.

 

Astronomy is also popular in the park due to its dark skies, despite the increasing light pollution from towns such as Moab.

 

Delicate Arch is the subject of the third 2014 quarter of the U.S. Mint's America the Beautiful Quarters program commemorating national parks and historic sites. The Arches quarter had the highest production of the five 2014 national park quarters, with more than 465 million minted.

 

American writer Edward Abbey was a park ranger at Arches National Monument in 1956 and 1957, where he kept journals that became his book Desert Solitaire. The success of Abbey's book, as well as interest in adventure travel, has drawn many hikers, mountain bikers, and off-pavement driving enthusiasts to the area. Permitted activities within the park include camping, hiking along designated trails, backpacking, canyoneering, rock climbing, bicycling, and driving along existing roads, both paved and unpaved. The Hayduke Trail, an 812 mi (1,307 km) backpacking route named after one of Edward Abbey's characters, begins in the park.

 

An abundance of wildlife occurs in Arches National Park, including spadefoot toads, antelope squirrels, scrub jays, peregrine falcons, many kinds of sparrows, red foxes, desert bighorn sheep, kangaroo rats, mule deers, cougars, midget faded rattlesnakes, yucca moths, western rattlesnakes, and collared lizards.

 

A number of plant species are common in the park, including prickly pear cactus, Indian ricegrass, bunch grasses, cheatgrass, moss, liverworts, Utah juniper, Mormon tea, blackbrush, cliffrose, four-winged saltbrush, pinyon pine, evening primrose, sand verbena, yucca, and sacred datura.

 

Biological soil crust consisting of cyanobacteria, lichen, mosses, green algae, and microfungi is found throughout southeastern Utah. The fibrous growths help keep soil particles together, creating a layer that is more resistant to erosion. The living soil layer readily absorbs and stores water, allowing more complex forms of plant life to grow in places with low precipitation levels.

 

Among the notable features of the park are the following:

Balanced Rock – a large balancing rock, the size of three school buses

Courthouse Towers – a collection of tall stone columns

Dark Angel – a free-standing 150 ft-tall (46 m) sandstone pillar at the end of the Devils Garden Trail

Delicate Arch – a lone-standing arch that has become a symbol of Utah and the most recognized arch in the park

Devils Garden – many arches and columns scattered along a ridge

Double Arch – two arches that share a common end

Fiery Furnace – an area of maze-like narrow passages and tall rock columns (see biblical reference, Book of Daniel, chapter 3)

Landscape Arch – a very thin and long arch in the Devils Garden with a span of 290 ft (88 m) (the longest arch in the park)

Petrified Dunes – petrified remnants of dunes blown from the ancient lakes that covered the area

The Phallus – a rock spire that resembles a phallus

Wall Arch – located along the popular Devils Garden Trail; collapsed sometime on August 4/5, 2008

The Three Gossips –a mid-sized sandstone tower located in the Courthouse Towers area.

 

Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.

 

Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.

 

People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.

 

Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 12th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.

 

The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.

 

Archaeological evidence dates the earliest habitation of humans in Utah to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Paleolithic people lived near the Great Basin's swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds, and small game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the mega-fauna died, this population was replaced by the Desert Archaic people, who sheltered in caves near the Great Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of cattails and other salt tolerant plants such as pickleweed, burro weed and sedge. Red meat appears to have been more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost unoccupied for 1,000 years.

 

The Fremont culture, named from sites near the Fremont River in Utah, lived in what is now north and western Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from approximately 600 to 1300 AD. These people lived in areas close to water sources that had been previously occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some relationship with them. However, their use of new technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont technologies include:

 

use of the bow and arrow while hunting,

building pithouse shelters,

growing maize and probably beans and squash,

building above ground granaries of adobe or stone,

creating and decorating low-fired pottery ware,

producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as petroglyphs and pictographs.

 

The ancient Puebloan culture, also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the Southwest United States, including the San Juan River region of Utah. Archaeologists debate when this distinct culture emerged, but cultural development seems to date from about the common era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people was around the 1200 CE. Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings. They were excellent craftsmen, producing turquoise jewelry and fine pottery. The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also built structures, some known as kivas, apparently designed solely for cultural and religious rituals.

 

These two later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to have established trading relationships. They also shared enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the cultures may have common roots in the early American Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct throughout most of their existence. These two well established cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about 1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.

 

In about 1200, Shoshonean speaking peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have originated in southern California and moved into the desert environment due to population pressure along the coast. They were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle utilizing roots and seeds, including the pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah country. The Shoshone in the north and northeast, the Gosiutes in the northwest, the Utes in the central and eastern parts of the region and the Southern Paiutes in the southwest. Initially, there seems to have been very little conflict between these groups.

 

In the early 16th century, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southeast also saw a new people, the Díne or Navajo, part of a greater group of plains Athabaskan speakers moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo, this language group contained people that were later known as Apaches, including the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.

 

Athabaskans were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the 17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to the people in the Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah and western Colorado.

 

At the time of European expansion, beginning with Spanish explorers traveling from Mexico, five distinct native peoples occupied territory within the Utah area: the Northern Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Navajo.

 

The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cíbola.

 

A group led by two Spanish Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. All of what is now Utah was claimed by the Spanish Empire from the 1500s to 1821 as part of New Spain (later as the province Alta California); and subsequently claimed by Mexico from 1821 to 1848. However, Spain and Mexico had little permanent presence in, or control of, the region.

 

Fur trappers (also known as mountain men) including Jim Bridger, explored some regions of Utah in the early 19th century. The city of Provo was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah is named for a brigade leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. In 1846, a year before the arrival of members from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, the ill-fated Donner Party crossed through the Salt Lake valley late in the season, deciding not to stay the winter there but to continue forward to California, and beyond.

 

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormon pioneers, first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, the U.S. had already captured the Mexican territories of Alta California and New Mexico in the Mexican–American War and planned to keep them, but those territories, including the future state of Utah, officially became United States territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10, 1848.

 

Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found no permanent settlement of Indians. Other areas along the Wasatch Range were occupied at the time of settlement by the Northwestern Shoshone and adjacent areas by other bands of Shoshone such as the Gosiute. The Northwestern Shoshone lived in the valleys on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake and in adjacent mountain valleys. Some years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley Mormons, who went on to colonize many other areas of what is now Utah, were petitioned by Indians for recompense for land taken. The response of Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, was that the land belonged to "our Father in Heaven and we expect to plow and plant it." A 1945 Supreme Court decision found that the land had been treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone had been recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States.

 

Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons had to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems, laid out farms, built houses, churches, and schools. Access to water was crucially important. Almost immediately, Brigham Young set out to identify and claim additional community sites. While it was difficult to find large areas in the Great Basin where water sources were dependable and growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.

 

Shortly after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the community of Bountiful was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands purchased from trapper Miles Goodyear in present-day Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and Provo were founded. Also that year, at the invitation of Ute chief Wakara, settlers moved into the Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of Manti. Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in Fort Lemhi, Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada and Elk Mountain in east-central Utah.

 

The experiences of returning members of the Mormon Battalion were also important in establishing new communities. On their journey west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through southern Nevada and the eastern segments of southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, a senior Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for settlement sites, minerals, and other resources. His report encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in Iron County, near present-day Cedar City. These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.

 

Prior to establishment of the Oregon and California trails and Mormon settlement, Indians native to the Salt Lake Valley and adjacent areas lived by hunting buffalo and other game, but also gathered grass seed from the bountiful grass of the area as well as roots such as those of the Indian Camas. By the time of settlement, indeed before 1840, the buffalo were gone from the valley, but hunting by settlers and grazing of cattle severely impacted the Indians in the area, and as settlement expanded into nearby river valleys and oases, indigenous tribes experienced increasing difficulty in gathering sufficient food. Brigham Young's counsel was to feed the hungry tribes, and that was done, but it was often not enough. These tensions formed the background to the Bear River massacre committed by California Militia stationed in Salt Lake City during the Civil War. The site of the massacre is just inside Preston, Idaho, but was generally thought to be within Utah at the time.

 

Statehood was petitioned for in 1849-50 using the name Deseret. The proposed State of Deseret would have been quite large, encompassing all of what is now Utah, and portions of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young as a symbol of industry and was derived from a reference in the Book of Mormon. The petition was rejected by Congress and Utah did not become a state until 1896, following the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1895.

 

In 1850, the Utah Territory was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore (named after President Fillmore) was designated the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital.

 

The first group of pioneers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with this first group in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. Slavery didn't become officially recognized until 1852, when the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners were passed. Slavery was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.

 

Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the federal government intensified after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' practice of polygamy became known. The polygamous practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854, would be one of the major reasons Utah was denied statehood until almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.

 

After news of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS Church were quickly viewed by some as un-American and rebellious. In 1857, after news of a possible rebellion spread, President James Buchanan sent troops on the Utah expedition to quell the growing unrest and to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor with Alfred Cumming. The expedition was also known as the Utah War.

 

As fear of invasion grew, Mormon settlers had convinced some Paiute Indians to aid in a Mormon-led attack on 120 immigrants from Arkansas under the guise of Indian aggression. The murder of these settlers became known as the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Mormon leadership had adopted a defensive posture that led to a ban on the selling of grain to outsiders in preparation for an impending war. This chafed pioneers traveling through the region, who were unable to purchase badly needed supplies. A disagreement between some of the Arkansas pioneers and the Mormons in Cedar City led to the secret planning of the massacre by a few Mormon leaders in the area. Some scholars debate the involvement of Brigham Young. Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the massacre site.

 

Express riders had brought the news 1,000 miles from the Missouri River settlements to Salt Lake City within about two weeks of the army's beginning to march west. Fearing the worst as 2,500 troops (roughly 1/3rd of the army then) led by General Albert Sidney Johnston started west, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City and neighboring communities to prepare their homes for burning and evacuate southward to Utah Valley and southern Utah. Young also sent out a few units of the Nauvoo Legion (numbering roughly 8,000–10,000), to delay the army's advance. The majority he sent into the mountains to prepare defenses or south to prepare for a scorched earth retreat. Although some army wagon supply trains were captured and burned and herds of army horses and cattle run off no serious fighting occurred. Starting late and short on supplies, the United States Army camped during the bitter winter of 1857–58 near a burned out Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Through the negotiations between emissary Thomas L. Kane, Young, Cumming and Johnston, control of Utah territory was peacefully transferred to Cumming, who entered an eerily vacant Salt Lake City in the spring of 1858. By agreement with Young, Johnston established the army at Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.

 

Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, between Carson City, Nevada and Omaha, Nebraska completed in October 1861. Brigham Young, who had helped expedite construction, was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials. Soon after the telegraph line was completed, the Deseret Telegraph Company built the Deseret line connecting the settlements in the territory with Salt Lake City and, by extension, the rest of the United States.

 

Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory (and their fort auctioned off), leaving the territorial government in federal hands without army backing until General Patrick E. Connor arrived with the 3rd Regiment of California Volunteers in 1862. While in Utah, Connor and his troops soon became discontent with this assignment wanting to head to Virginia where the "real" fighting and glory was occurring. Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his bored and often idle soldiers to go out and explore for mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County, and some miners began to come to the territory. Conner also solved the Shoshone Indian problem in Cache Valley Utah by luring the Shoshone into a midwinter confrontation on January 29, 1863. The armed conflict quickly turned into a rout, discipline among the soldiers broke down, and the Battle of Bear River is today usually referred to by historians as the Bear River Massacre. Between 200 and 400 Shoshone men, women and children were killed, as were 27 soldiers, with over 50 more soldiers wounded or suffering from frostbite.

 

Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and Utah local militia.

 

On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.

 

Main article: Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century

During the 1870s and 1880s, federal laws were passed and federal marshals assigned to enforce the laws against polygamy. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church leadership dropped its approval of polygamy citing divine revelation. When Utah applied for statehood again in 1895, it was accepted. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.

 

The Mormon issue made the situation for women the topic of nationwide controversy. In 1870 the Utah Territory, controlled by Mormons, gave women the right to vote. However, in 1887, Congress disenfranchised Utah women with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. In 1867–96, eastern activists promoted women's suffrage in Utah as an experiment, and as a way to eliminate polygamy. They were Presbyterians and other Protestants convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian cult that grossly mistreated women. The Mormons promoted woman suffrage to counter the negative image of downtrodden Mormon women. With the 1890 Manifesto clearing the way for statehood, in 1895 Utah adopted a constitution restoring the right of women's suffrage. Congress admitted Utah as a state with that constitution in 1896.

 

Though less numerous than other intermountain states at the time, several lynching murders for alleged misdeeds occurred in Utah territory at the hand of vigilantes. Those documented include the following, with their ethnicity or national origin noted in parentheses if it was provided in the source:

 

William Torrington in Carson City (then a part of Utah territory), 1859

Thomas Coleman (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1866

3 unidentified men at Wahsatch, winter of 1868

A Black man in Uintah, 1869

Charles A. Benson in Logan, 1873

Ah Sing (Chinese man) in Corinne, 1874

Thomas Forrest in St. George, 1880

William Harvey (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1883

John Murphy in Park City, 1883

George Segal (Japanese man) in Ogden, 1884

Joseph Fisher in Eureka, 1886

Robert Marshall (Black man) in Castle Gate, 1925

Other lynchings in Utah territory include multiple instances of mass murder of Native American children, women, and men by White settlers including the Battle Creek massacre (1849), Provo River Massacre (1850), Nephi massacre (1853), and Circleville Massacre (1866).

 

Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah began to become known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley are instantly recognizable to most national residents. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.

 

Beginning in 1939, with the establishment of Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. This also spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.

 

During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s, growth was phenomenal in the suburbs. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time, and West Valley City is the state's 2nd most populous city. Today, many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas.

 

In 2012, the State of Utah passed the Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act in an attempt to gain control over a substantial portion of federal land in the state from the federal government, based on language in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894. The State does not intend to use force or assert control by limiting access in an attempt to control the disputed lands, but does intend to use a multi-step process of education, negotiation, legislation, and if necessary, litigation as part of its multi-year effort to gain state or private control over the lands after 2014.

 

Utah families, like most Americans everywhere, did their utmost to assist in the war effort. Tires, meat, butter, sugar, fats, oils, coffee, shoes, boots, gasoline, canned fruits, vegetables, and soups were rationed on a national basis. The school day was shortened and bus routes were reduced to limit the number of resources used stateside and increase what could be sent to soldiers.

 

Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and the steel plant was put into progress. In April 1944, Geneva shipped its first order, which consisted of over 600 tons of steel plate. Geneva Steel also brought thousands of job opportunities to Utah. The positions were hard to fill as many of Utah's men were overseas fighting. Women began working, filling 25 percent of the jobs.

 

As a result of Utah's and Geneva Steels contribution during the war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden.

 

One of the sectors of the beachhead of Normandy Landings was codenamed Utah Beach, and the amphibious landings at the beach were undertaken by United States Army troops.

 

It is estimated that 1,450 soldiers from Utah were killed in the war.

Main Street - El Dorado, CA

 

Wallis & Steevens General Purpose Engine 2932 Seen at the 2023 Steam on the levels event at Westonzoyland pumping station.

 

Taken with a Nikon D7000

© This photograph is a copyrighted image. Please do not download this image to use or distribute for any other purpose without my expressed consent.

Use without permission is ILLEGAL.

Photos from this album were shot in a lab for documentation purposes.

 

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My first completed work this year; a Lancia 037 from the official Lancia Martini rally team. Once more I have built this out of genuine Lego in 1:11 scale.

In the early eighties, a new rally class was launched: Group B. It allowed manufacturers to enter with a car that was made in small series (only 200 road cars and 20 competition cars), that allowed dedicated purpose built designs. The Fiat Group had been successful with the 131 and Lancia Stratos, and decided to develop a new car based on the Lancia Montecarlo type together with Abarth. The name “037” was not just a number. It was actually the 37th project Lancia and Abarth did together.

 

The car was purpose built for rallying , with a tubular frame and Kevlar lightweight bodywork. The small 2.1 litre engine had a compressor and in its final version boosted around 350 hp. It entered competition in 1982, but as the car lacked 4WD it became soon outclassed by the Audi Quattro and Peugeot 205 Turbo16 during 1984 and 1985. Before that it was however quite successful; especially in 1983 when it took the World Championship. Late 1985 the “037”was replaced by the more powerful four-wheel driven Delta S4; Lancia’s second and last Group B car. The class proved quite dangerous, and after a number of accidents was stopped in 1986.

 

My Lego model is based on the 1985 Monte Carlo rally entry by Henri Toivonen. It is scaled 1:11, and has around 1800 bricks. It is fully functional with detailed suspension, opening doors and hood/bonnet. Every aspect of the car is recreated in detail. It is also a “scratchbuilt”, and one-off. There are no instructions available for this model.

 

The stickers are once more a great cooperation with my buddy “JaapTechnic” (www.jaaptechnic.com/), and are about as big an effort as building the car.

Some background:

Simple, efficient and reliable, the Regult (リガード, Rigādo) was the standard mass production mecha of the Zentraedi forces. Produced by Esbeliben at the 4.432.369th Zentraedi Fully Automated Weaponry Development and Production Factory Satellite in staggering numbers to fill the need for an all-purpose mecha, this battle pod accommodated a single Zentraedi soldier in a compact cockpit and was capable of operating in space or on a planet's surface. The Regult saw much use during Space War I in repeated engagements against the forces of the SDF-1 Macross and the U.N. Spacy, but its lack of versatility against superior mecha often resulted in average effectiveness and heavy losses. The vehicle was regarded as expendable and was therefore cheap, simple, but also very effective when fielded in large numbers. Possessing minimal defensive features, the Regult was a simple weapon that performed best in large numbers and when supported by other mecha such as Gnerl Fighter Pods. Total production is said to have exceeded 300 million in total.

 

The cockpit could be accesses through a hatch on the back of the Regult’s body, which was, however, extremely cramped, with poor habitability and means of survival. The giant Zentraedi that operated it often found themselves crouching, with some complaining that "It would have been easier had they just walked on their own feet". Many parts of the craft relied on being operated on manually, which increased the fatigue of the pilot. On the other hand, the overall structure was extremely simple, with relatively few failures, making operational rate high.

 

In space, the Regult made use of two booster engines and numerous vernier thrusters to propel itself at very high speeds, capable of engaging and maintaining pace with the U.N. Spacy's VF-1 Valkyrie variable fighter. Within an atmosphere, the Regult was largely limited to ground combat but retained high speed and maneuverability. On land, the Regult was surprisingly fast and agile, too, capable of closing with the VF-1 variable fighter in GERWALK flight (though likely unable to maintain pace at full GERWALK velocity). The Regult was not confined to land operations, though, it was also capable of operating underwater for extended periods of time. Thanks to its boosters, the Regult was capable of high leaping that allowed the pod to cover long distances, surprise enemies and even engage low-flying aircraft.

 

Armed with a variety of direct-fire energy weapons and anti-personnel/anti-aircraft guns, the Regult offered considerable firepower and was capable of engaging both air and ground units. It was also able to deliver powerful kicks. The armor of the body shell wasn't very strong, though, and could easily be penetrated by a Valkyrie's 55 mm Gatling gun pod. Even bare fist attacks of a VF-1 could crack the Regult’s cockpit or immobilize it. The U.N. Spacy’s MBR-07 Destroid Spartan was, after initial battel experience with the Regult, specifically designed to engage the Zentraedi forces’ primary infantry weapon in close-combat.

 

The Regult was, despite general shortcomings, a highly successful design and it became the basis for a wide range of specialized versions, including advanced battle pods for commanders, heavy infantry weapon carriers and reconnaissance/command vehicles. The latter included the Regult Tactical Scout (リガード偵察型). manufactured by electronics specialist Ectromelia. The Tactical Scout variant was a deadly addition to the Zentraedi Regult mecha troops. Removing all weaponry, the Tactical Scout was equipped with many additional sensor clusters and long-range detection equipment. Always found operating among other Regult mecha or supporting Glaug command pods, the Scout was capable of early warning enemy detection as well as ECM/ECCM roles (Electronic Countermeasures/Electronic Counter-Countermeasures). In Space War I, the Tactical Scout was utilized to devastating effect, often providing radar jamming, communication relay and superior tactical positioning for the many Zentraedi mecha forces.

 

At the end of Space War I in January 2012, production of the Regult for potential Earth defensive combat continued when the seizure operation of the Factory Satellite was executed. After the war, Regults were used by both U.N. Spacy and Zentraedi insurgents. Many surviving units were incorporated into the New U.N. Forces and given new model numbers. The normal Regult became the “Zentraedi Battle Pod” ZBP-104 (often just called “Type 104”) and was, for example, used by Al-Shahal's New U.N. Army's Zentraedi garrison. The related ZBP-106 was a modernized version for Zentraedi commanders, with built-in boosters, additional Queadluun-Rhea arms and extra armaments. These primarily replaced the Glaug battle pod, of which only a handful had survived. By 2067, Regult pods of all variants were still in operation among mixed human/Zentraedi units.

  

General characteristics:

Accommodation: pilot only, in standard cockpit in main body

Overall Height: 18.2 meters

Overall Length: 7.6 meters

Overall Width: 12.6 meters

Max Weight: 39.8 metric tons

 

Powerplant & propulsion:

1x 1.3 GGV class Ectromelia thermonuclear reaction furnace,

driving 2x main booster Thrusters and 12x vernier thrusters

 

Performance:

unknown

 

Armament:

None

 

Special Equipment and Features:

Standard all-frequency radar antenna

Standard laser long-range sensor

Ectromelia infrared, visible light and ultraviolet frequency sensor cluster

ECM/ECCM suite

  

The kit and its assembly:

I had this kit stashed away for a couple of years, together with a bunch of other 1:100 Zentraedi pods of all kinds and the plan to build a full platoon one day – but this has naturally not happened so far and the kits were and are still waiting. The “Reconnaissance & Surveillance” group build at whatifmodellers.com in August 2021 was a good occasion and motivation to tackle the Tactical Scout model from the pile, though, as it perfectly fits the GB’s theme and also adds an exotic science fiction/anime twist to the submissions.

 

The kit is an original ARII boxing from 1983, AFAIK the only edition of this model. One might expect this kit to be a variation of the 1982 standard Regult (sometimes spelled “Reguld”) kit with extra parts, but that’s not the case – it is a new mold with different parts and technical solutions, and it offers optional parts for the standard Regult pod as well as the two missile carrier versions that were published at the same time, too. The Tactical Scout uses the same basis, but it comes with parts exclusive for this variant (hull and a sprue with the many antennae and sensors).

 

I remembered from a former ARII Regult build in the late Eighties that the legs were a wobbly affair. Careful sprue inspection revealed, however, that this second generation comes with some sensible detail changes, e. g. the feet, which originally consisted of separate toe and heel sections (and these were hollow from behind/below!). To my biggest surprise the knees – a notorious weak spot of the 1st generation Regult kit – were not only held by small and flimsy vinyl caps anymore: These were replaced with much bigger vinyl rings, fitted into sturdy single-piece enclosures made from a tough styrene which can even be tuned with small metal screws(!), which are included in the kit. Interesting!

 

But the joy is still limited: even though the mold is newer, fit is mediocre at best, PSR is necessary on every seam. However, the good news is that the kit does not fight with you. The whole thing was mostly built OOB, because at 1:100 there's little that makes sense to add to the surface, and the kit comes with anything you'd expect on a Regult Scout pod. I just added some lenses and small stuff behind the large "eye", which is (also to my surprise) a clear part. The stuff might only appear in schemes on the finished model, but that's better than leaving the area blank.

 

Otherwise, the model was built in sub-sections for easier painting and handling, to be assembled in a final step – made possible by the kit’s design which avoids the early mecha kit’s “onion layer” construction, except for the feet. This is the only area that requires some extra effort, and which is also a bit tricky to assemble.

 

However, while the knees appear to be a robust construction, the kit showed some material weakness: while handling the leg assembly, one leg suddenly came off under the knees - turned out that the locator that holds the knee joint above (which I expected to be the weak point) completely broke off of the lower leg! Weird damage. I tried to glue the leg into place, but this did not work, and so I inserted a replacement for the broken. This eventually worked.

  

Painting and markings:

Colorful, but pretty standard and with the attempt to be authentic. However, information concerning the Regults’ paint scheme is somewhat inconsistent. I decided to use a more complex interpretation of the standard blue/grey Regult scheme, with a lighter “face shield” and some other details that make the mecha look more interesting. I used the box art and some screenshots from the Macross TV series as reference; the Tactical Scout pod already appears in episode #2 for the first time, and there are some good views at it, even though the anime version is highly simplified.

 

Humbrol enamels were used, including 48 (Mediterranean Blue), 196 (RAL 7035, instead of pure white), 40 (Pale Grey) and 27 (Sea Grey). The many optics were created with clear acrylics over a silver base, and the large frontal “eye” is a piece of clear plastic with a coat of clear turquoise paint, too.

 

The model received a black ink washing to emphasize details, engraved panel lines and recesses, as well as some light post-shading through dry-brushing. Some surface details were created with decal stripes, e. g. on the upper legs, or with a black fineliner, and some color highlights were distributed all over the hull, e. g. the yellowish-beige tips of the wide antenna or the bright blue panels on the upper legs.

 

The decals were taken OOB, and thanks to a translation chart I was able to decipher some of the markings which I’d interpret as a serial number and a unit code – but who knows?

 

Finally, the kit received an overall coat of matt acrylic varnish and some weathering/dust traces around the feet with simple watercolors – more would IMHO look out of place, due to the mecha’s sheer size in real life and the fact that the Regult has to be considered a disposable item. Either it’s brand new and shiny, or busted, there’s probably little in between that justifies serious weathering which better suits the tank-like Destroids.

  

A “normal” build, even though the model and the topic are exotic enough. This 2nd generation Regult kit went together easier than expected, even though it has its weak points, too. However, material ageing turned out to be the biggest challenge (after all, the kit is almost 40 years old!), but all problems could be overcome and the resulting model looks decent – and it has this certain Eighties flavor! :D

 

The Cities of Troy are historical stone labyrinths created for numerous purposes. In its big version it is said that they were constructed to confuse any enemy who entered the maze.

 

The other version you can see here is created by hundreds of small stones. The seven or sometimes eleven rings symbolize the cycle of life and its constantly recurring renewal.

 

More information here: The history of Troy Town mazes

 

Check out my new art gallery: Click here

Taking flight at Edwards Park.

 

This image was processed by first passing the raw file through DxO PureRAW 4 for noise reduction and lens correction purposes, before importing the resulting DNG file into Capture One Pro for further editing / processing.

In 1948 AEC launched its underfloor engine bus, designated Regal IV, and the following year built a prototype vehicle in conjunction with Park Royal vehicles for demonstration purposes. A 9.6 litre horizontal engine was mounted behind the offside wheel.

 

In May 1950, the prototype entered service on loan to London Transport (LT), allocated to St. Albans garage for route 355 and registered UMP227. It later also worked for LT out of Reigate garage.

 

Subsequently demonstrated to several other provincial operators, in 1951 it returned to AEC where it was used by engineering staff for development work. From these evaluations, London Transport ordered 700 chassis but with Metropolitan Cammell bodies which became the RF class.

 

At AEC Southall, UMP227 had most of the seats removed and was used as a staff vehicle whilst still wearing its London Transport green livery.

 

In 2008, UMP227 was purchased by a consortium of London Bus Museum members and donated to the Museum. The restoration was completed in October 2013.

It is interesting when a new purpose is given to a place... the historic flour mill in St. Jacob's, now converted into artisan shops, a coffee shop and a small museum.

via in Your Eyes ezine ift.tt/1kyZlEr

Sam Poh Temple, Cameron Highlands ...

cwwongphotography.blogspot.com/2011/01/purpos e.html#comments

Framed by 28. října (28th October) looking south.

 

"The Holy Trinity Column (Czech: Sloup Nejsvětější Trojice) in Olomouc, in the Czech Republic is a Baroque monument (Trinity column) that was built between 1716 and 1754. The main purpose was to celebrate the Catholic Church and faith, partly caused by feeling of gratitude for ending a plague, which struck Moravia (now in the Czech Republic) between 1713 and 1715. The column was also understood to be an expression of local patriotism, since all artists and master craftsmen working on this monument were Olomouc citizens, and almost all depicted saints were connected with the city of Olomouc in some way.

 

It is the biggest Baroque sculptural group in the Czech Republic. In 2000 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as "one of the most exceptional examples of the apogee of central European Baroque artistic expression".

 

The column is dominated by gilded copper sculptures of the Holy Trinity accompanied by the Archangel Gabriel on the top and the Assumption of the Virgin beneath it.

 

The base of the column, in three levels, is surrounded by 18 more stone sculptures of saints and 14 reliefs in elaborate cartouches. At the uppermost stage are saints connected with Jesus’ earth life – his mother's parents St. Anne and St. Joachim, his foster-father St. Joseph, and St. John the Baptist, who was preparing his coming – who are accompanied by St. Lawrence and St. Jerome, saints to whom the chapel in the Olomouc town hall was dedicated. Three reliefs represent the Three theological virtues Faith, Hope, and Love.

 

Below them, the second stage is dedicated to Moravian saints St. Cyril and St. Methodius (Czech Metoděj), who came to Great Moravia to spread Christianity in 863 (St. Methodius became Moravian Archbishop), St. Blaise, in whose name one of the main Olomouc churches is consecrated, and patrons of neighbouring Bohemia St. Adalbert of Prague (Czech Vojtěch) and St. John of Nepomuk (Czech Jan Nepomucký), whose following was very strong there as well.

 

In the lowest stage one can see the figures of an Austrian patron St. Maurice and a Bohemian patron St. Wenceslas (Czech Václav), in whose names two important Olomouc churches were consecrated, another Austrian patron St. Florian, who was also viewed as a protector against various disasters, especially fire, St. John of Capistrano (Czech Jan Kapistránský), who used to preach in Olomouc, St. Anthony of Padua, a member of the Franciscan Order, which owned an important monastery in Olomouc, and St. Aloysius Gonzaga, a patron of students. His sculpture showed that Olomouc was very proud of its university.

 

Reliefs of all twelve apostles are placed among these sculptures.

 

Olomouc (UK: /ˈɒləmoʊts/, US: /ˈoʊloʊ-/, Czech: [ˈolomouts]; German: Olmütz) is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 102,000 inhabitants and its larger urban zone has a population of about 400,000 inhabitants (2024).

 

Located on the Morava River, the city is the ecclesiastical metropolis and was a historical co-capital city of Moravia, before having been occupied by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years' War. Today, it is the administrative centre of the Olomouc Region and the sixth largest city in the Czech Republic. The historic city centre is well preserved and is protected by law as urban monument reservation. The Holy Trinity Column was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 for its quintessential Baroque style and symbolic value.

 

Moravia (Czech: Morava [ˈmorava]; German: Mähren) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.

 

The medieval and early modern Margraviate of Moravia was a crown land of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown from 1348 to 1918, an imperial state of the Holy Roman Empire from 1004 to 1806, a crown land of the Austrian Empire from 1804 to 1867, and a part of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. Moravia was one of the five lands of Czechoslovakia founded in 1918. In 1928 it was merged with Czech Silesia, and then dissolved in 1948 during the abolition of the land system following the communist coup d'état.

 

Its area of 22,623.41 km2 is home to about 3.2 million of the Czech Republic's 10.8 million inhabitants. The people are historically named Moravians, a subgroup of Czechs, the other group being called Bohemians. The land takes its name from the Morava river, which runs from its north to south, being its principal watercourse. Moravia's largest city and historical capital is Brno. Before being sacked by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years' War, Olomouc served as the Moravian capital, and it is still the seat of the Archdiocese of Olomouc. Until the expulsions after 1945, significant parts of Moravia were German speaking." - info from Wikipedia.

 

Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.

 

Now on Instagram.

 

Become a patron to my photography on Patreon or donate.

Starship Class

""The "Starship" term denotes a large, multi-purpose vessel capable of taking on a variety of tasks during an extended mission, often at some distance from central authority. Therefore an extraordinary amount of authority is granted to the captain of such a ship.""

 

Before the "Constitution" there was the "Starship", as seen on the Enterprise's original dedication plaque – I'm curious, if they will use it on Pikes ship… I'm pretty excited for "Strange New Worlds", according to the trailer the Enterprise is back to "awesome"!

 

More information about the MOC on Rebrickable: Starship Class

Reflecting in those puddle after the rain we should examined in the light of the Ageless Wisdom teachings, we are reminded of the great occult maxim "As Above So Below" The mural shows the right eye, the left eye and the middle eye. This tower is the symbol for not only all three schools, but also the meaning and purpose of life itself. Vertical rods/constructs are considered archetypal symbols of the phallus. As the dual serpents address the concept of gender, the staff serves as an emissary of transference between body and mind, physically and spiritually. The rod could also be viewed as a conduit between the mundane and ethereal.. The puddle is male, the tower is female and the horizontal line is the child, the source of both the other building, for we all begin life as a child. The upper side, the feminine pathway, explores the human nature of emotions and feeling, both positive and negative, sexual energy and birthing, death, certain psychic energy, and everything that is not logical.As guided from within, outwards. “As above, so below” and vice versa, Solar Systems are born, die and come to birth anew in cycles of activity and rest, as does wo-man. There is a constant flaming out and dying down of activity in every department of nature, corresponding to the alternations of ebb and flow, day and night, summer and winter, life and death. In the beginning of a Day of Manifestation it is taught that a certain Great Being (designated in the Western World by the name of God, but by other names in other parts of the earth) limits Himself to a certain portion of space, in which He elects to create a Solar System for the evolution of added self-consciousness. He includes in His own Being hosts of glorious Hierarchies of, to us, immeasurable spiritual power and splendor. They are the fruitage of past manifestations of this same Being and also other Intelligences, in descending degrees of development down to such as have not reached a stage of consciousness as high as our present humanity, and therefore these latter will not be able to finish their evolution in this System. In God — this great collective Being — there are contained lesser beings of every grade of intelligence and stage of consciousness, from omniscience to an unconsciousness deeper than that of the deepest trance condition. During the period of manifestation with which we are concerned, these various grades of beings are working to acquire more experience than they possessed at the beginning of this period of existence. Those who, in previous manifestations, have attained to the highest degree of development, work on those who have not yet evolved any consciousness. They induce in them a stage of self-consciousness from which they can take up further work themselves. Those who had started their evolution in a former Day of Manifestation, but had not progressed far at the close, now take up their task again, just as we take up our daily work in the morning where we left off the previous night. All the different Beings, however, do not take up their evolution at the early stages of a new manifestation. Some must wait until those who precede them have made the conditions which are necessary for their further development. There are no instantaneous processes in nature. All is an exceedingly slow unfolding, a development which, though so exceedingly slow, is yet absolutely certain to attain ultimate perfection. Just as there are progressive stages in the human life — childhood, youth, manhood or womanhood, and old age — so in the macrocosm there are different stages corresponding to these various periods of the microcosmic life. A child cannot take up the duties of fatherhood or motherhood. Its undeveloped mental and physical condition render it incapable of doing such work. The same is true of the less evolved beings in the beginning of manifestation. They must wait until the higher evolved have made the proper conditions for them. The lower the grade of the intelligence of the evolving being, the more it is dependent upon outside help. At the Beginning, then, the highest Beings — those who are the farthest evolved — work upon those who have the greatest degree of unconsciousness. Later, they turn them over to some of the less evolved entities, who are then able to carry the work a little further. At last self-consciousness is awakened. The evolving life has become Woman-Man. The right eye is controlled by the left brain; it’s male knowledge. Although the right eye “sees” directly to the right brain, this is not what the Egyptians were communicating. It is not the “seeing” but rather the interrupting of the “seeing” information that was important here. It is the left brain that makes this interruption of what is seen; it controls the right side of the body, and vice versa. In the same manner, the Left Eye of Horus, controlled by the right brain, is female knowledge.What happens on one level of reality also happens on every other level; the microcosm and macrocosm behave alike. A revolution occurred during the 20th century in our understanding of the nature of the physical universe. This change is extremely important to religion, for it eliminates a basic conflict between science and religious belief. Prior to this change, our scientific beliefs were based on an approach that was initiated in the 17th century: "We live in a mechanical universe, and we are simply complex machines." This scientific notion that man was purely a mechanical system contradicts what is probably the core of religious belief, namely the idea that mind-like or spirit-like factors can make a difference in human behavior. The religious outlook assumes that a human being, acting on basis of conscious choices, is NOT equivalent to a mechanical system, whose every action is completely determined by direct interaction between tiny neighboring bits of matter. 20th century science, however, has shown that the earlier mechanical concept of reality to be incompatible with empirical facts. To cope with this failure of earlier ideas, physicist made a breakthrough change. Physical theory was converted from a theory about the physical world itself into a theory of WHAT ONE COULD KNOW about the physical world. Human experience was introduced into the theory and made fundamental. This was to be later known as the Copenhagen interpretation. It had drawbacks.For example, while it brought human knowledge into physical theory, it also renounced the possibility of understanding the underlying physical reality. It set our limits of understanding. It was the eminent mathematician John von Neumann and Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner to reincorporate physical reality. They did this by casting the new physics into a theory of the interaction between our conscious thoughts and our physical brains. This was known as von Neumann-Wigner formation of quantum theory, and rationally incorporated conscious thoughts into the basic dynamics. Physics was not yet ready to tackle the problem of interaction between our thoughts and our brain. It was some time before this was scientifically feasible for this kind of proof. Now however, there is a huge and rapidly growing field of experimental data on this question of the connection between minds and brains.

This shift in science is important significance to religion. It removes the basic contradiction between the older scientific claim that human beings are essentially mechanical robots, while religion maintains than man is not ruled by matter alone. The new physics now dynamically entangles our conscious thoughts with the quantum representation of the physical world. There is a plethora of competing theories arising from many disciplines to account for the psychophysical expressions of consciousness in function and structure. The only comprehensive theory must be one that is based in nondualism, and accounts for such self-organizing mindbody manifestations as spontaneous healing or self-recovery, or even the placebo effect. The mind-matter connection is intimately linked to any speculations we can make about alleged mind-over-matter phenomena. In fact all psi phenomena, including such nonlocality demonstrations as the “simple connections” of telepathy, ESP, or synchronicity in general are related to this problem of an underlying or connecting field through which information exchange is instantaneous and unimpeded.The leading contender for such a field, vacuum fluctuation or quantum foam, was proposed by David Bohm. Turbulent motion in this highly excited, subquantal field leads to the emergence from virtuality into actuality of quantum entities which just as quickly dissolve back into the subquantal sea. This same ocean of virtual or metaphysical “stuff” has the property of containing, storing, and transmitting information about the nature of matter and even thought. The observables of nonlocality and psi cry out for some form of interconnection between phenomenon separated in space and/or time. The concept most generally used in physics to account for spatial and temporal interconnection is that of a field. Fields themselves cannot be observed, and so can be considered meta- or beyond physical. Yet the influences propagating through them are observable, eventually. Mind, memory, and consciousness may be such phenomena. Is there one massive holographic field that actually exists in nature in the sense of Bohm’s holomovement? And if so, how does this relate to our consciousness and our relationship to the cosmos. And what is the mechanism by which this universal force interfaces within our organism? When we recognize that we really are that, that nature lies within our deepest structure and function, we come to understand that we are not separate from the whole of creation. We recognize that “I AM THAT I AM.” Everything including ourselves, is deeply connected in one holy movement. The quantum vacuum, the energy-field that characterizes the ground state of the universe, possibly furnishes the indicated ‘fifth field,’ the hidden variables of chaotic yet deterministic micromotion that bootstraps all energy/matter into existence. This plenum could transmit as-yet-unknown effects. This quantum foam, which Wheeler called superspace, consists of a pure massless charge-flux.

We argue, along with Laszlo that, “The conclusion to be derived from the considerations presented here is that the four-demnsional manifold Einstein described as spacetime is likely to be more than a geometrical abstraction. As the energetically superdense quantum vacuum, it may be a physically real field, limiting the velocity of light and other matter-particles and transmittingg a variety of effects, including, but not limited to, gravitation and electromangetism. We may well ask, then, whether the field would also transmit the kind of effects associated with psi.”

Waves of this purely informational (scalar) force could create a potential gradient where quantal motion triggers scalar waves in the vacuum, and these propagate by alternately compressing and rarefying its virtual-particle gas. Scalars are neither ‘light’ nor ‘matter’, but longitudinally propoagating fluctuations below the energy-threshold of particle pair-creation.This produces a self-generating cosmological feedback cycle which translates into interference patterns created by the motion of charged particles modifying the local topology of the vacuum. The modified vacuum field modifies in turn the motion of the particles, (Laszlo, 1993, 1994).Fourier show that any three-dimensional pattern can be analyzed into a set of regular, periodic oscillations that differ only in frequency, amplitude, and phase. Specific waveforms can be exact representations of spatiotemporal objects--thus we have a “Holographic Universe.” Analysis shows that the signals transmitted through the vacuum field are precisely of the psi variety, because information in that field is holographic, and because the propagation of the holographic interference patterns is quasi-instantaneous. Therefore, this virttual field might provide a metaphysical foundation for a broad range of psi phenomena and psychophysical interaction, including self-organization and healing. The quantum vaccum is a highly anomlous universal energy realm of pure potential. It is both the source and destination of all matter in the universe, and thus of any form of consciousness which may emerge through its autopoeitic process. The human brain, with its pronounced and constant state of chaos, could receive and amplify such signals, expressed both consciously and unconsciously in our biophsyical self and our ephemeral thoughts and intuitions.The von-Neumann-Wigner formulation provides the basic logical principles that govern the interaction between thoughts and the brain. It provides prima facie evidence that human thoughts are linked to nature by nonlocal connections. What a person chooses to do in one region seems immediately to effect what is true elsewhere in the universe. This nonlocal aspect can be understood by conceiving the universe to be not a collection of tiny bits of matter, but rather a growing compendium of "bits of information." This profound shift about the nature of reality has not yet sunk in culturally. It will happen by the promotion of understanding of the radical shifts wrought by quantum theory. Most quantum physicists are interested more in applications of quantum theory than in its deep implications. Most now agree that a conception of physical reality is informational in character, not material. Our conscious thoughts ought eventually to be understood within science and that when properly understood, our thoughts will be seen to DO something; they will be efficacious. From what most quantum physicists now understand, certain ontological claims can now be made. 1. The "physical world," as understood in quantum theory, is a store of information, and this information is NOT imbedded in hordes of tiny particles (as they were in classical theory). The information is stored in a mathematically described structure that specifies propensities for certain events to occur. This events (paradigms) include the acquision of information by human agents.2. Conscious events should eventually be understood in science, and these events should be efficacious. They should have a real effect on our actions. The von Neumann-Wigner formulation of quantum theory achieves these ends. It has never been seriously broached in science, not because it was considered unimportant, but because it was deemed too difficult. Pertinent data seemed insufficient and restrictive. This has changed because science has changed.The six sided star in the structural support of the tower incorporates the Duality, Male and Female (Unity), the Blade (upward pointing triangle) and Chalice. The blade represents the Physical, and the Chalice represents the Spiritual realm. It is sometimes referenced as the fire and water triangle as well. Moloch, Chiun and Remphan are all names for the star god, Saturn, whose symbol is a six pointed star formed by two triangles. Saturn was the supreme god of the Chaldeans. The hexagram is referred to the talisman of Saturn. The hexagram was brought to the Jewish people by Solomon when he turned to witchcraft and idolatry after his marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter. It became known as the Seal of Solomon in Egyptian magic and witchcraft. The six pointed star was adopted as the family crest or shield by the Rothschild family during the 19th century,he helped to finance Eiffel. Heavily associated with alchemy, Leo, the Lion, the Double Lion, Routi, refers directly to the Sun as being a source of knowledge. Leo, is one of the constellations of the Zodiac. The Zodiac, is a direct reference to the Sun. The Sun’s position at midday during the time of the Egyptians coincided with the midsummer solstice. Leo was a constellation of the summer.

The theme of Illumination, Knowledge, or Secrets being kept “under the Lion’s Paw” is a recurring motif.There are lions on the first floor belly. The spiral effect the descending forces of the tower, that indicates an expansion of knowledge, and the undulating dance of cosmic forces. Such dualities include:

Asleep/Awake Illness/Health Separation/Unity Male/Female

Left/Right Binding/Loosing Wax/Wane Water/Fire Sun/Moon

Yin/Yang Light/Dark Good/Evil Upper/Lower. If you take it a step further, you notice the dual intertwined snakes form a double helix DNA strand; Serpent DNA specifically. If the serpent is a biological anthropomorphism of DNA, then we can attribute the Ouroboros to cycles of DNA change.Let us examine this slide which I feel holds many secrets. First you have the sun and moon in opposite positions which proves the world has been put on a purposeful pole shift done at the hands of man.

 

In the East where the sun is supposed to rise you now have the moon or crescent where there is a Brother with a sword with an eagle or falcon upon it where he is shielding his eyes from the light because it is either too bright or he cannot see because he is blinded by the darkness.

 

In the West where the sun is supposed to set, you now have the sun with a brother who can see clearly what is going on as he holds the staff and serpent.

 

In the middle is the LORD OR LORDS and KING OF KINGS who represent the union of both and has risen above the Abyss on the wings of destiny. The Phoenix or Rex Mundi who represents not only the union of East and West, but also AS ABOVE SO BELOW.

So what does it mean?

 

The microcosm is oneself, and the macrocosm is the universe. The macrocosm is as the microcosm, and vice versa; within each lies the other, and through understanding one you can understand the other. The primary idea behind this is that the “above” refers to what is visible in the sky. The below, refers to Earth. This creates an equality as it explains how the Earth is a microcosm of the configuration of the planets in the solar system. It draws the connection that the Earth is affected by planetary orbits. This concept also affects various levels of reality: physical, emotional, and mental What happens on any level happens on every other.

 

The concept has not only been a practice, but an attempt to replicate and do a better job then YHWH himself. This is why alchemy and astrology play such an important role in the Illuminati.

 

In Alchemy, there is a process which Mercury and Lead can supposedly turned to Gold. The Gold isn’t the main goal. It’s to understand the process of how mercury or lead changes into gold. Man wants to replicate and modify what is on the Earth into their standards.

 

The same goes for Astrology. The elite not only observe all of the astrological signs, but use them to construct the architecture of this tower.

 

There will come a time when it will have been in vain that Egyptians have honored the Godhead with heartfelt piety and service; and all our holy worship will be fruitless and ineffectual. The Elohim will return from earth to heaven; Egypt will be forsaken, and the land which was once the home of religion will be left desolate, bereft of the presence of its deities.

 

They will no longer love this world around us, this incomparable work of YHWH, this glorious structure which HE has built, this sum of good made up of many diverse forms, this instrument whereby the will of YHWH operates in that which he has made, ungrudgingly favoring man’s welfare.

 

Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven; the pious will be deemed insane, the impious wise; the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good.

 

As for the soul, and the belief that it is immortal by nature, or may hope to attain to immortality, as I have taught you; all this they will mock, and even persuade themselves that it is false. No word of reverence or piety, no utterance worthy of heaven, will be heard or believed.

 

And so the Elohiym will depart from mankind – a grievous thing and only evil angels will remain, who will mingle with men, and drive the poor wretches into all manner of reckless crime, into wars, and robberies, and frauds, and all things hostile to the nature of the soul.

 

Then will the earth tremble, and the sea bear no ships; heaven will not support the stars in their orbits, all voices of the Elohiym will be forced into silence; the fruits of the Earth will rot; the soil will turn barren, and the very air will sicken with sullen stagnation; all things will be disordered and awry, all good will disappear.

 

But when all this has befallen, then YHWH the Creator of all things will look on that which has come to pass, and will stop the disorder by the counterforce of his will, which is the good. HE will call back to the right path those who have gone astray; he will cleanse the world of evil, washing it away with floods, burning it out with the fiercest fire, and expelling it with war and pestilence.The double tetrahedron visible in the structural's forms of the tower can be referred to as the interdimensional vehicle for travel, the Merkaba. It also incorporates the Duality, Male and Female, the Blade (upward pointing triangle) and Chalice. The blade represents the Physical, and the Chalice represents the Spiritual realm. The Star of Solomon can also represent Jerusalem.The Square and Compass is the Blade and Chalice, God and Goddess in the act of Creation, and within the Star we find the Heavenly Luminaries or the Eyes or Spirits of God (the Planets). The symbols on the star represent the astrological portion of the symbol, Jupiter, Venus, the Moon, Mercury, Mars and Saturn, with the Sun being at the center. Zoroaster’ teachings mentioned earlier in the thread as Thoth or Hermes, would be responsible for the seven petal flower depicted at the center.

 

in5d.com/all-about-as-above-so-below-illustrated/

I like the stride this guy has got on. I imagine he is listening to music that is to walking what good driving music is to driving. Get your groove on son!

 

Better on black.

 

'The purpose of live is to live it,

to taste experience to the utmost,

to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience'

 

- Eleanor Roosevelt

For documentary purposes, and for anyone that may care, I just wanted to talk about the sheet of paper because it took me a while to make it...

 

A week or so ago I got a letter in the mail... it was from my son. He drew me a picture of a blueberry and signed his name. I took his picture to work with me the next day and hung it up. Everytime I walked into my office I would notice something different amongst his scribbles... but one time in particular I happened to notice the paper he drew it on, and how "neat" the paper itself was. The texture and colors were pretty cool. So when I was setting up this still life, it was going nowhere quickly. I wanted to try to make something happen because my original idea fell apart. That's when I remembered the paper. So I grabbed a sheet of it and started rolling it. I rolled it and un-rolled it, over and over and over again (probably for a good 10 minutes), to make it look like it was "used". Then I randomly ripped the edges. Then I rolled it up and semi-aggressively tapped any edge that was perfectly straight, to try and take the "crispness" out of it. Then I went over to the coffee pot and dug wet coffee grounds out and rubbed them randomly over the surface of the paper. Then I folded the spots that I ripped and a little more agressively rubbed the coffee grounds on those ripped edges so that they darkened more than all other areas. With the paper now a little moist, I rolled it a few more times and then left it rolled until it dried. I think it turned out pretty well, but then again I made it.