Random reflection of Amsterdam on a window. Taken with my HTC Desire using the Camera360 Android app.

In the last 5 weeks I had to work a lot more than usual, and I have no time at all anymore to take pictures, a very sad situation, and it makes me miss my lovely Hometown, even though I bike to and from work through it every day, but it's just a fleeting image rushing by while I hurry to the office to make other people rich with my hard work, not really my idea of a good time, but it is what it is, and for now I can't change the situation. I can't take any time off either, which makes me feel boxed in by a high workload, tons and tons of stress and other undesireable elements of the human existence that I don't care for very much. I want my life back, I want to freely roam the streets of the best city in the world again, keep the money, it's no good, because it can't buy me happiness, all it does is sit in my bank account, laughing at me for not being able to spend it, because my little spare time is devoted to sleeping and whining about my harsh life, a vicious cycle if I have ever seen one, and it's all mine, lol :D

Have an awesome weekend!

At least while biking to work I've managed to shoot a movie of the people around me enjoying the sunshine in the Westerpark, check it out on my YouTube channel, thank you :)

Movie

Amsterdam photos

Wicked reflections

www.amstersam.com

'Like' me on Facebook :)

Remembrance Day

I wake, as I do most mornings, with a sinking sense of dread.

I try to slip back into sleep, but its too late. The dreams that are lurking there will give me no purchase. And if my brain has managed to process anything useful while I slept... let it keep its own counsel.

I am no longer surprised to find my eyes wet, my head pounding or my heart palpitating. I touch the corner of my eye to feel the wetness. Just for confirmation. Just to be sure. That’s just normal now. My heart heaves and sinks. It leaves the emptiness of my chest cavity and slips wetly and effortlessly through my ribcage. It bursts painlessly through the flesh on my back, flutters through the linen sheets and the goose-down topper on the bed. It navigates the springs inside the mattress, finds a gap in the floorboards and falls swiftly, a dead weight, through the empty room below. It cracks its way noisily through the foundations. Down and down, burrowing its way through layers of ancient bedrock til it is embedded in the earth’s core. It can fall no deeper. Perhaps it will be safe there, where I can’t reach it, it can’t break any further. Perhaps the heat will warm some life into it, so it can be useful once again.

I used to be good at sleeping. Now I am good at waking. I can tell that it is just before 6, even before I prise open an eye for confirmation from the little blue numbers on the bedside clock. A small black wooden cube, the size of a child’s building block. I bought it from one of those “fallen-off-the-back-of-a-truck” stalls that pop up like magic in the centre of the shopping mall. He, the man I bought from, and I, both know that I paid too much. But a guy has to make a buck, right? He was Chinese, he was middle-aged, he barely spoke English.

Its 5.40 am. I can tell its going to be a cold day, I can feel cool air brushing my feet where I’ve pushed them out from under the covers. The room smells gently of vanilla and bergamot and I can hear in the distance, the squish of rubber tyres on wet road. I don’t like rainy days. There is not the usual sound of birdsong, but I can hear gulls calling one another, perhaps that is what woke me, this time. There must be storms out to sea for them to be this far inland, though its not far, we are only 7kms from the beach.

It is still an hour and a half till the alarm sounds. I try to go back to sleep. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t. I turn on my side and fold my arms across my heart, as if to hold dear that which has already gone. I curl up as small as I can and lay as quietly as I can. Thigh to thigh, knee to knee, calf to calf, heel to heel, ankle to ankle, toe to toe. And try to empty my mind. I recite a mantra. Sleep, don't think. Sleep, don't think. Sleep, don't think. I try to find the stillness and that intangible space between becoming asleep and falling awake.

Its no use, my mind becomes burdened by too many memories.

I think of the day ahead. I no longer look for the joy, but I search at least for something good. For a minute I think it is Sunday... Its Monday. No matter. They are all just days now. And Monday means I have a busy workload. I will be tired, but I will be distracted. It will be as good a day as I can wish for.

It is Remembrance Day. I remember. Lest we forget. Lest I remember. Lest I forget.

He hears me stir and pulls me into him and perhaps I will sleep some more.

To sleep perchance to dream.

To awake perchance to remember.

To remember perchance to forget.

To live perchance there will be joy.

Jada Pinkett Smith plastic surgery rumors re still unproven because she has maintained her figure and her physical appearance despite her age and her workload

plasticsurgerynosejob.com/jada-pinkett-smith-plastic-surg...

Lalonde Ready Mix - Ontario Canada - circa 1960s. Photo: Murray Markanen.

'Lalonde Ready Mix' , Ontario Canada, vers les années soixantes. Photo: Murray Markanen.

[11:12pm]

I don't really know why but today I just felt really out of it. I just don't really feel like doing anything at all... Sarah's getting on my nerves calling me an Anal Pirate over and over again for 2 hours straight and since I don't really talk to anybody else except Noah, who's really only good for short conversations, I'm about to go crazy sitting at home all the time. But at the same time I really don't want to go out and do anything. Ugh. Damn My Life.

Anyway no offence to Noah about what I said, we just don't have that much to talk about except movies and Sarah, and music gets old and when we talk about Sarah it gets really really awkward.

But anyway, I thought today was gonna be a good day today, and to a certain extent it was, I managed to get a 100 on a math test which was pretty good, and Cullipher wasn't there, which was a bit of a blessing because we were supposed to have a really big test on the first two acts of Macbeth. So at least I'll have another day to study, or actually not, I never study for anything so technically it'll just be another day for me to worry about what I'll make on it and to think about studying.

I honestly don't know how I make the grades that I do, I mean last year in AP US History I made a 91 class average, thats like a 5.9 GPA because AP adds 2 points to the final grade. And I did all of that while only cracking the book twice. Ok that had alot to do with the fact that Mr. Gergle my teacher is insanly good at what he does but still a 91 for doing nothing, espically in AP, is awsome.

I'm taking AP Government this year and its actually alot easier, and I have a much better average in there because there's not as much work. The only problem is that the subject matter is deffiantly not as intresting as it was last year. Which sucks but again, at least the workload isnt as big.

Anyway ( I say that wayyyy too much), After all of my classes I had to submit myself to Sarah's tourture. I mean come on who really wants to sit in a room they can't leave, listening to a girl call you 1000 different variations of homosexual. It's not fun, although I think I have to commend her on her creativity. Anal Pirate was one of the tame ones.

I stole Sarah's calculator about halfway through 6th period, she never saw me so she was really confused for about 20 minutes. It really made my day. Even though that's an odd thing to be happy about.

After school everybody left and I was left to my own devices for a while. I forgot to bring the powercable for mom's laptop today so I couldnt play on the internet or do any HDR stuff because I didnt feel like waiting until I got home to process it all. I was just really out of it.

I'm really kind of done with school for a while, I mean I'm really having a better year that I did last year but I still get to a point where I can't stand this place anymore, Its just a little slower in coming now that I almost enjoy my time here. That is when Sarah's not lashing out at the world because her friend moved to Oklahoma.

Who knows though, I'm really getting off topic here. Mom picked me up at around 5, we got McDonalds (nasty) and we went home where I watched The Matador, which is a really good movie by the way with Pierce Brosnan and another guy who's name I can't remember at the moment. But it's basically Pierce Brosnan as a burnt out Hitman.

I also downloaded a bunch of music off of the movie. Mostly stuff by the Killers, who I hadn't heard of before tonight. I really like them.

I was trying to think up a picture that would go along with the title "In the Wee Small Hours of the Night" one of the songs that I downloaded last night by Sinatra but after finishing this i figured that the title was a little bit corny. I don't really like this one either but I guess it's better than the first.

But that's my day. And if you actually read all of this you really care wayyy too much about my life. Espically if you go to school with me, thats just a little wierd. Although I really don't mind. I put all of this stuff on the internet with the intention of people reading it so I can't complain when people from school read about it.

Ok thats it. I'm tired of typing.

One more thing though...

I'm finally on the home stretch, 64 pictures to go until I make it to a year. I'm gonna keep going though and after the first of the year I'm gonna start a new one, It will be the same pictures I'm just gonna try to write more so at the end of the year I can try and put everything in a book and have it printed.

Should be fun... but jesus I'm in a writing mood today. I've gotta stop.

See this locomotive in the video here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3oxDV2lg1s

Having just worked the "Cumbrian Mountaineer" over Shap, preserved London, Midland & Scottish Railway Princess Royal 6201 'Princess Elizabeth' readies itself for departure with empty stock bound for the adjacent sidings on what was her last railtour before overhaul.

The Princess Royal class were a set of 13 4-6-2 Pacific locomotives designed by William Stanier and built at Crewe Works between 1933 and 1935 to be the prime motive power on the West Coast Mainline between London Euston, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, including the famous Royal Scot premier express service. At first, two prototypical locomotives were built in 1933, followed by 11 production locomotives in 1935. These were later complimented by a fleet of 38 Coronation Pacific locomotives built between 1937 and 1948, which later went on to be arguably the most power steam locomotives ever built for the British Railway network.

One of the original prototypes however was retained for use as a testbed for a new Turbine Locomotive project to help improve the efficiency of the engines, later being unofficially dubbed 'Turbomotive'. The engine was fitted with turbines instead of cylinders, with the forward turbine containing 18 rows of blading, resulting in an output of 2,400hp, corresponding to running at 62 mph (100 km/h). The turbine was designed to operate into a maximum back-pressure of 2 psi, allowing a conventional double blast-pipe to provide the boiler draught, and eliminating draught fans, which always seemed to give a disproportionate amount of trouble.

The reverse turbine had 4 rows of blades. It was engaged by a dog clutch, activated when the reverser lever being set to "0". This was originally steam-operated by a small piston and cylinder. This locomotive was later rebuilt as a conventional classmate in 1952, using new mainframes and a spare set of cylinders from one of the Coronation Pacifics, and was numbered 46202, later to be named 'Princess Anne'.

6201, LMS lot number 99, was built at Crewe for the sum of £11,675 (£685,000 today) and named Princess Elizabeth, after the then Duke of York’s eldest daughter, currently our Queen Elizabeth II, leaving the works on 3rd November 1933.

Throughout the years the Princess Royal's continued to ply their trade on the West Coast services, but the years of World War II took their toll on the fleet. The beautiful Crimson Lake was replaced by Wartime Black, and the prestige manner that these locomotives had been accustomed to was stripped away as the railways were rationalised as part of the war effort. Work hours increased, and maintenance turns reduced, meaning these engines were being forced to the very limit of their design to keep Britain moving.

With the end of the war in 1945 the workload began to decrease, but the railways had paid the price. The beauty and lavish luxury of the pre-war companies had been stripped and would never return, with all of Britain's main railway companies now almost bankrupt and working a fleet of very tired engines on a poorly maintained railway network. In 1948 the Labour Government nationalised these companies to create British Railways, hoping to modernise the network and rebuild the overworked system.

The Princess Royals and their more powerful sisters the Coronation Pacifics continued to work hard as the implementation of diesels gathered pace. Early diesels however were underpowered and suffered heavily from reliability issues, meaning on many occasions the steam locomotives that they intended to replace actually came to their rescue!

It was not all plain sailing though for the Princess Royals in the 1950's, as this decade was littered with many fatal accidents. On 21 September 1951, locomotive No.46207 Princess Arthur of Connaught was hauling an express passenger train that was derailed at Weedon, Northamptonshire due to a defective front bogie on the locomotive, resulting in the deaths of 15 people and the injury of 35.

This was followed a year later by what would turn out to be the worst rail accident in the whole of British history. On 8 October 1952, an express passenger train hauled by Coronation Class, 46242 'City of Glasgow' overran signals on a train from Perth to London Euston, striking the rear of a stopped Tring to Euston commuter train at Harrow and Wealdstone station in North London. The ensuing wreckage was then struck by a northbound Liverpool express, hauled by Jubilee Class 45637 'Windward Islands', and recently rebuilt ex-Turbomotive Princess Royal 46202 'Princess Anne', which had only entered service two months earlier. In the chaos that followed, a total of 112 people were killed and 340 were injured, with 46202 obliterated in the accident, the first and only member of the class to be lost in an accident.

The late 50's however began to see the end of these engines as good, reliable diesels began to be introduced to replace them, followed closely by electric traction on the West Coast Mainline out of Euston. In 1961 the first members of the class were withdrawn from service, including 6201, which was placed in store in March 1961, but returned to service in May of that year due to poor diesel reliability.

As more diesels were delivered, in October of the same year 6201 was again placed into storage at Carlisle Kingmoor. However, again in January 1962 6201 was returned to traffic to cover for diesel failures and continued to work until September 1962 where it was once again placed into storage. It was subsequently withdrawn by BR in October 1962 and purchased by Roger Bell. The last of the locomotives to be withdrawn was class premier and original prototype number 62000 'The Princess Royal', which was withdrawn in November 1962 and subsequently scrapped. In all, only two locomotives were preserved, number 6203 'Princess Margaret Rose' and 6201 'Princess Elizabeth'.

46201 was bought by the then Princess Elizabeth Locomotive Society straight from BR service when withdrawn in 1962. Initially kept at the Dowty Railway Preservation Society's premises at Ashchurch in Gloucestershire, and then subsequently at the Bulmers Railway Centre in Hereford. When the Bulmers Centre closed in the 1990s, the loco moved to the East Lancashire Railway. Since April 2009 it has been based at the Crewe Heritage Centre. On 3 June 2012, Princess Elizabeth's whistle signalled the start of the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant while the locomotive was standing on Battersea Railway Bridge. The Queen was made aware of the locomotive and waved to the crew on the footplate. On 11 July 2012 Princess Elizabeth hauled the Royal Train from Newport to Hereford and again from Worcester to Oxford as part of the Diamond Jubilee Tour. 6201 was withdrawn from service in July 2012 for a piston and valve examination at the Tyseley Locomotive Works and after repairs, she returned to service on 17 November hauling the "Cumbrian Mountaineer" from Carnforth to Carlisle. She was withdrawn for overhaul at the end of December 2012 having completed her longest period of operation in preservation.

AKA: NoVVember 2013 panic build. AKA: Blacktron Scavenger.

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High-Res

BrickShelf

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The Eastern Sector of the Blacktron power has fallen on harsh times. As a result, the Scavenger project was born, these craft are constructed completely from scavenged functional scrap and the remains of raided vessels. They're not very reliably but sometimes when you strap a cruiser-engine to an escape pod you get really fast little fighters... that can only go in a straight line. But still! It's something!

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So... yeah. It's been a while...

Besides from suffering of sometimes extreme workloads, when I moved I kind of panicked and didn't really pack any useful bricks... I didn't even pack a single straight clip of any cheese! I brought some travis bricks but what good are those if you have nothing to attach 'em to?!

Anyway, after missing my annual Halloween build (which I've kept up with since 2009 I think? Or maybe 2010?) and feeling absolutely miserable about it, I decided that I need to build something, ANYTHING for NoVVember. I could NOT let this one slip by me as well. Even if it meant I had to steal a figgie's gun.

So in short: I have no bricks, no lighting, and no time. But damn I can still pull off shit like this if I really need to. HAH!

24.02.2010

I finished the cover today, the type is in Myriad Semibold, well, thats what it's supposed to be :P. took quite a while but I think it looks well, I (meticulously) lined the inside of the letters with black ink so it would look cleaner which has worked well. Still rough but vaguely accurate :) Now just to put some photos and stories in it :)

Im behind on my observational work though because of it so I will (should) be spending less time on this to try and catch up. But Im by no means stopping the project, I just need a faster workflow.

My driving theory test is also soon, urgh.

Things are starting to ramp up now in school, I guess thats to be expected, talk about biology and ICT deadlines as well as Art already. Im putting the main steam into art though as Im not going to let it suffer because of the other subjects' workload.

It took the fifty to take this :) At <£100 it trumped both the 70-200 f/4L and the 28-135 when I tried working in the low available light (ceiling lamp). A bit too shallow on the DOF but it shows what it needs to :)

BIG cover

40 hours later, The Forge is finally finished! So, what is The Forge? The Forge is a mobile asteroid mining and processing facility. It uses six tugs to collect asteroids and bring them to one of the six mining platforms near the front of the ship. The asteroids are then put through grinding drums that break them into smaller pieces. Next, any desired ore, minerals, etc. are removed from the fragments and the waste is jettisoned from the ship. The ore, minerals, etc. are sorted into seperate containers. Eight huge reinforced plates protect the shipping containers from rogue asteroids and open to allow a transport to collect them.

The two bridges share the workload of the ship. The rear bridge is in charge of piloting, navigation and shipping. The forward bridge handles the mining and processing operations.

Alright, time for some tech specs!

The forge measures in at a whopping 156 studs in length (The biggest SHIP I've ever built). She's 62 studs at the widest (26 at the thinnest) and 38 studs tall. I did have two big landing gears built into it but it got WAY too heavy for them, thus the stand. It also has motor-driven grinding drums in the mining platforms and the big grey button in the middle of the ship opens and closes the armored plates. The plates where also supposed to be motor-driven but I could get them working for the life of me. Oh well!

I hope you all enjoyed watching this beast going together as I had building it (even if I did shout some horrific profanities from time to time)! Thanks for watching and for all the support!

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background

After Mil Helicopters' Mi-28 combat helicopter did not find takers, the design bureau decided in the 2000s to take a huge development step forward and question the basic helicopter layout. The result was the Mil Mi-62 (NATO reporting name: Hepcat), a single-seat attack gyrodyne/compound helicopter: a VTOL aircraft with a helicopter-like rotor system that is driven by its engine for take-off and landing but basically relies on conventional means of propulsion to provide forward thrust during cruising flight. Lift during forward flight is provided by a combination of the rotor, like an autogyro, as well as conventional wings, even though these alone would not keep the aircraft in the air.

The first Mi-62K is tentatively slated to enter squadron service by late 2014 or early 2015, coinciding with the delivery of the first carrier of the new Mistral class amphibious assault ships, ordered by the Russian Defense Ministry. These small carriers will contain rotary-wing assets, formed into aviation groups, and each of these groups is planned to include eight attack and eight assault/transport helicopters.

General characteristics

Crew: One

Length (fuselage only): 13,46 m (44 ft 1 in)

Rotor diameter: 15,40 m (50 ft 5 1/2 in)

Height: 4.60 m (15 ft 1 in)

Disc area: 186.3 m² (1.998 ft²)

Empty weight: 7,700 kg (17,000 lb)

Loaded weight: 9,800 kg / 10,400 kg (21,600 lb / 22,930 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 10,800 kg (23,810 lb)

Powerplant

2× Progress AI-222-25 turbofans, 24.52 KN (5.512 lbf) each plus

4× rotor tip jet burning compressed air/fuel, 4.4 kN (1,000 lbf) thrust each

Performance

Never exceed speed: 550 km/h (297 knots, 342 mph) in dive

Maximum speed: 515 km/h (278 knots, 320 mph) in level flight

Cruise speed: 370 km/h (200 knots, 230 mph)

Range: 545 km (339 ml)

Combat radius: 800 km (500 ml)

Ferry range: 1400 km (870 ml) with 4 drop tanks

Service ceiling: 5,500 m (18,000 ft)

Rate of climb: 10.7 m/s (2,105 ft/min)

Armament

1× turret-mounted, wtin-barreled 30 mm Shipunov Sh2A42 cannon (460 rounds total, dual feeding AP or HE-Frag) under the fuselage

6×wing hardpoints with a capacity of 2,000 kg and provisions to carry combinations of launch pods for 80 mm S-8 rockets or 122 mm S-13 rockets, APU-6 Missile racks or up to 20× 9K121 Vikhr anti-tank missiles, 6× Vympel R-73 (NATO: AA-11 Archer) air-to-air missiles, Kh-25 semi-active laser guided tactical air-to-ground missiles, 4× 250 kg (550 lb) bombs or 2x 500 kg (1,100 lb) bombs, plus 23 mm UPK-23-250 gun pods (240 rounds each) or 500 l (130 US gal) external fuel tanks.

Two compartments in the lower fuselage with flare and chaff countermeasure dispensers, typically 4× UV-26 dispensers each (total 512 chaff/flare cartridges in each pod)

The kit and its assembly:

Another entry for the “Za Rodinu - The Anthony P Memorial Build” at whatifmodelers.com, and this time it’s a modern and rather exotic whif. Helicopters are rare among whiffers, so I thought I’d give that subject a chance, and I actually had the basis kit in store for some time, as I intended to build it for another GB but never got that kick to start it.

The fictional Mi-62 is a conversion of a snap-fit kit from Kotobukiya from a series of generic, roughly 1:72 scale mecha vehicles that do not belong to a specific series or movie, but they seem to be intended to go well with Gundam or Dougram. These are rather toy-like, sturdy things, but they have potential for more – especially the gyroplanes (two different types exist).

These seem to be unmanned drones/UAVs, though, and that immediately leads to the conversions I made. Most important change is a manned cockpit with a clear canopy (from a KP Su-25) and the respective, scratched interior.

Another big change was the deletion of the original, gigantic gatling gun under the fuselage, replaced by a much smaller twin cannon turret. That left a lot of ground clearance – as a late modification I decided to chop the landing gear and the respective fin/wing endplates by more than 1cm, so that the gyroplane would sit closer to the ground.

Further small cosmetics include an asymmetrical radome and a protruding pitot boom, some antenna bulges, new engine exhausts, chaff dispensers in the fuselage flanks, and free-standing main wheels.

The ordnance comes from a Dragon Soviet-Air-To-Ground-Ordnance kit, hung onto six new wing hardpoints (from a 1:144 F-4E and an ESCI Ka-34 in 1:72, IIRC).

Painting and markings:

Choosing a proper scheme was tricky. The helicopter was to look realistic, but still exotic, at least for Russian standards. I considered various options:

● An all-mid-grey livery, inspired by current Mi-35 attack helicopters. Too dull & simple!

● A trefoil-style scheme in khaki and olive drab, with blue undersides. Flashy, but IMHO rather old-school.

I finally found an original scheme on a Ka-62 prototype (shown at MAKS-2009): a wraparound scheme in olive drab, medium grey and chocolate brown. The colors are enamels, I used Olive Drab ANA 613 (ModelMaster #2050), German Uniform “Feldgrau” (ModelMaster #2014) Grey and German Armor Red Brown (Humbrol 160), later highlighted through dry-brushing with lighter shades of the basic tones and a black ink wash, standard process.

The interior was to be Russian-style, too, but instead of the eye-boggling turquoise I went for PRU Blue (Humbrol 230) inside of the cockpit. Still looks odd, but it’s not so bright.

As a twist I decided to use Russian Navy markings – and the real world introduction of Mistral Class ships was a good excuse for a naval version of this attack helicopter. The Naval Aviation used to and does employ many land-based aircraft and helicopters, incl. e. g. the Mi-24, in similar liveries to the Air Force or Army cousins.

The markings were puzzled together from various aftermarket decal sheets from Begemot , Authentic Decals and TL Modellbau, as well as from the scrap box. After some additional dry-brushing with medium grey overall, the kit was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish.

1961 World Series Game 2 (Jay Ties It Up) - Link to video - 1961 World Series Game 2: Reds @ Yankees - www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6RUGywKaTs

Joseph Richard (Joey) Jay (b. August 15, 1935) is a former starting pitcher in Major League Baseball. From 1953 through 1966, Jay played for the Milwaukee Braves (1953–55, 1957–60), Cincinnati Reds (1961–66) and Atlanta Braves (1966). He was a switch-hitter and threw right-handed.

In addition to being the first Little League player to advance to the major leagues, Jay was one of the first "bonus baby" players in the major leagues. On September 20, 1953, at the age of 17, making his first career start (having pitched only one game in relief previous), he pitched a seven-inning complete game shutout (the game was shortened due to rain).

The Braves traded Jay to the Cincinnati Reds after the 1960 season for infielder Roy McMillan. Jay took full advantage of the trade, as he became a key figure in the Reds' stunning revival in 1961. Jay won 21 games (the first Red to win 20 since Ewell Blackwell in 1947), tied for the league lead in wins and shutouts. Jay also won 21 games in 1962 as the Reds won 98 games to finish in third-place behind the Giants and Dodgers. Jay's heavy workload in 1961 and '62 took a toll the following year as he struggled to a 7–18 record.

In a 13-season career, Jay posted a 99–91 record with 999 strikeouts and a 3.77 ERA in 1546.1 innings.

In July 2008 he was inducted into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame.

Link to all of his issued baseball cards - www.openchecklist.net/cards/search?q=Joey+Jay

I've got a thing...

I've got a thing about my rear windscreen wiper...

You see, it only has two settings...

On...

Or off...

This really bothers me...

In my old car it used to be intermittent...

Swish...

Wait...

Swish...

That's how I want it...

But in my new car it does too much...

Swish, swash, swish, swash, swish, swash, swish, swash, swish, swash...

It is very distracting. So much so I can't concentrate on the traffic in front. All I can do is look at it swish-swashing in the rear view mirror.

You see, I'm worried about wearing it out. I'm not going to get my full entitlement of swishes, let alone swashes.

Mostly we consider ourselves to be logical, rational creatures and yet we are surrounded by the evidence of our neuroses, contrariness and irrationality.

Why will I quibble about something cheap being twenty pence too expensive? When I will happily waste one hundred times that amount on something I don't need.

We all know it's better to take the long way round a traffic jam, even if it takes longer, as at least you feel like you are achieving something when you are moving forward in some way towards your destination.

I'm quite happy to switch on my front windscreen wipers whenever it looks even slightly cloudy on the horizon, sometimes putting them on super-fast just for the hell of it. But their less able and incapable rear window cousins couldn't deal with such abuse and I worry how they'll not cope with their current workload.

So just what am I banging on about?

I guess it's something to do with the direction I want to take my life in. I hope to shed off the assumed, the incorrect, the downright delusional. I want to replace the false and blinkered and harmful with something more succinct, more truthful and more accurate.

Don't we all...

The question is "how to separate one from the other?"

I suspect I need to answer that question before all others.

Perhaps that's where art comes in?

Note to self...

If you want to search for answers, through art and through living a life. Then perhaps it would be a good idea to do some and make more of your life whilst you're living it.

Note to self...

Stop making excuses that you're working too much, or uninspired or plainly can't be bothered. It won't happen unless you invest the time and stop worrying about whether there's a point.

After all there isn't a point until you make one and even then one may not materialise. But what is certainly true:-

You can guarantee there will be no answers if you give up asking questions altogether...

Swish-swash, swish-swash, swish-swash...

I made this sculpture almost exactly a year ago. A few days past I went along to the tree I gathered the leaves from and it is producing the same colours as back then. But I'm having trouble reconnecting with nature just because I haven't put in the effort to create as much this year (see excuses above). The disconnected feeling breeds discontent and the solace I seek from that connection being missing makes me feel a little adrift.

There are other trees from which I gathered leaves last autumn that have not put on the same show this year. Some crab apples nearby, were ablaze with hundreds of hues and yet this year only managed green, yellow and brown. But it's not enough to notice this whilst passing, it's time to become more wholeheartedly involved.

It seems I'm the one who hasn't been listening. Many times I've said land art is all about the process, the doing, the feeling, the seeing. And it's high time I tried to remember that as autumn will be over all too soon.

A life lesson about fleeting existence, the transience and flux of all there is. If you don't take the time to stop and listen then that moment is not grasped but gone forever.

Note to self...

Some spare time today provided the opportunity to repay a favour to fellow Flickrite "Renown" and get a job done that had been in the pending pile for too long!

Having had the misfortune to freeze-up not once but twice whilst in the care of specialist bus repairer Reliance Bus Works, this Dennis Dart Wright Crusader had been parked up for some time. RBWs exisitng workload and a staff shortage had been contributary factors to the bus remaining idle for such a long period. Its owner, a Kent based operator,was becoming anxious to see the vehicle completed so a plan B was formulated. The engine change job was sub- contracted to Ladyline Coaches of Buglawton near Congleton. The errant Dennis had just been backed into their yard when this image was recorded.

I am regularly on the road at this time of the year with work and as a result don't get to respond to my Flickr friends postings as much as I would like.

Part of my extremely busy workload from late July through to late October involves the Adelaide Royal Show. My role involves reporting, advertising, publishing, stewarding etc primarily in the sheep showing shed - one of the best pavilions in the world. It involves long days and then long nights processing, so little sleep (2 to 4 hours per night for the 12 days). However it is not all bad as you can see from this shot. After one of the 2 days of Merino and Poll Merino judging they hold a fashion parade, showing off fashions made from wool and designed by the fashion design students at the Adelaide Regency TAFE. If you have followed my previous year's posts, last year I posted one of the models (the one third left in this shot) in a long red dress - that went on to win several major awards, so these students have serious talent. This is this year's student designs with the models (who are stunning) and co-operative enough to have this shot taken afterwards with the champion March shorn Merino or Poll Merino ram held by its owner.

1.4.11

My Christmas tree is still up, well it's actually on record time of being up for 3 years ha ha. Woke up early today and felt like playing with some makeup before I got started on today's workload.

f. 4

s.s. 1/90

ISO 400

34 mm

Pentax K10D

copyright © Mim Eisenberg/mimbrava studio. All rights reserved.

Mountain laurel is the state flower of Connecticut, where I grew up, so I'm happy to have purchased a bush for my garden. In 10 years, it has bloomed sparsely twice, but this year it is putting on a grand show. This image is just part of the profusion of blossoms.

Thank you for visiting. I'll do my best to return the favor today, but my ridiculous workload is still calling me away from Flickr. This will be the case for at least two months. I think that's good.

See my shots on flickriver:

www.flickrriver.com/photos/mimbrava/

Please join us on Super Eco and enter our May photo contest, “Macro May”. The contest ends May 31st.

An increased workload moving repossessed and untaxed vehicles has prompted Quicksilver Recovery Services to purchase a third MAN L2000 crane lorry, again finished in anonymous white and red. All are slightly different, the main visual difference on this one being the lack of an air deflector. One hopes the Austin Cambridge on the back is not destined to meet its end on a banger track!

www.freemoviescinema.com/science-fiction/video/latest/con... Full Feature

See more photos in set.

Starring Walter Brooke, Eric Fleming, Mickey Shaughnessy, Phil Foster, William Redfield, William Hopper, Benson Fong, Ross Martin, Vito Scotti. Directed by Byron Haskin. Producer George Pal gave us the sci-fi landmark Destination Moon in 1950. He then gave us the timeless classic War of the Worlds in '53. This, his third epic, was a grand effort, but fell shy of his earlier triumphs. On paper, it should have been another mega-classic. The team members from the earlier hits were reassembled. Pal as producer, Haskin directing, Lydon on screenplay, O'Hanlon writing. Conquest was also based on a popular book. Yet, despite all this pedigree, something fell short. Conquest would not go on to be remembered as one of the 50s mega-classics. Some of this obscurity may be due to Conquest being in the "serious" science fiction sub-genre, like Destination Moon and Riders to the Stars which tried to depict a plausible space-traveling future. Audiences were becoming much more entranced with saucers and weird aliens.

In some ways,Conquest is a remake of the basic story line from Destination Moon -- a crew are the first to land on a celestial body. They struggle to survive and yet courageously return. This time, instead of the moon, it's Mars. As a remake goes, however, it's worthy. The Technicolor is rich and the sets well done. This is an A-level production which at its release was the 2001: A Space Odyssey of its day. All the melodrama, however, starts to get in the way of the techno-gee-whiz.

Synopsis

Based aboard a rotating wheel space station, workmen prepare a big flying wing of a rocket ship. A group of potential crewmen train for what they think will be a moon landing mission. As the work nears completion, they find out that the real mission will be a landing on Mars instead. While aboard "The Wheel", we're introduced to the phenomenon of "space sickness" -- a mental breakdown due to workload and confinement for long periods. One of the crew candidates is scrubbed because of one such breakdown. Nonetheless, the multinational crew are chosen and embark for the long journey to Mars. After departure, it's found that General Merritt's old friend, Sergeant Mahoney, stowed away. On the way to Mars, a communications antenna is damaged and must be fixed via spacewalking crewmen. Just as the repairs are completed, the customary meteor arrives, threatening to hit the ship. General Merritt manages to fly the ship out of the way, but one of the crewmen on EVA is hit with micrometeoroids (like bullets) and killed. The General is also starting to show odd behavior, doubting whether their mission is proper or is an affront to God. Their evasive action puts them behind schedule, but they arrive at Mars. While attempting to land on Mars, the General has another bout of delusion and tries to abort the landing. His son, Captain Merritt, manages to take control and brings in the flying-wing lander to a rough but successful landing. The others go out to explore, but the General, now fully delusional, is venting rocket fuel in an attempt to blow up the ship. His son discovers this and the two struggle. The General's pistol discharges, killing him. Mahoney comes on the scene just then and accuses Captain Merritt of murdering the General. The rest explore a bit more, but pronounce Mars a dead planet. Despite this, Imoto discovers that his earth flower seed sprouted in martian soil. Earthquakes cause the escape rocket to shift off of perpendicular. They get it righted and blast off. On the way home, Mahoney and Captain Merritt make up and declare that the dead General was a hero, the man who conquered space. The End.

The color, the sets, models and background paintings are very visually rich. The whole image is a great snapshot of the future as people in the mid-50s imagined it would be. More tidbits in the Notes section below.

There is actually a subtle anti-war tone to the movie. No overt talk of nuclear dangers or menacing enemies. It is notable, however, that among the conspicuously international crew candidates, there is no Russian. Americans would "conquer" space with a few other nationals along for the ride, but NO Russians. There is also a poorly explained urgency to the mission. What's the hurry? Back in the Cold War, it was pretty common that WE had to get something before THEY did.

In 1949, Willy Ley wrote the book "The Conquest of Space," which speculated about how mankind might travel to other planets. This book was illustrated by space artist Chesley Bonestell. This book would become the inspiration for the movie.

From 1952 to 1954, Collier's magazine ran a series of stories about mankind conquering space. These were repeats by Ley and Bonestell of their 1949 book, but this time Collier's added material from "rocket scientist" Werner von Braun. Bonestell's new illustrations were clearly the prototype for the look of Conquest. People felt that mankind was on the verge of taking to the stars. The Collier's series expressed that giddy optimism.

The screenplay for Conquest added weak human interest sub-plots which almost negate the gee-whiz optimism that the visuals convey. The screenwriters were all experienced in their craft, so it's puzzling why such amateurish characterizations are so prominent. The comic relief moments are almost cartoonish. The whole leader-gone-mad sub-plot seems out of place.

A possible "message" to Conquest is that man is a fragile creature who may not be ready for the rigors of space travel. Certainly, people wondered about this, and other movies touched on the theme too, such as Riders to the Stars ('54). Our not being mentally ready yet was cited by the aliens in It Came From Outer Space ('53). General Merritt's dementia was foreshadowed in the breakdown of Roy early in the movie.

One thing that strikes the viewer is how much life aboard the space station is presumed to duplicate life aboard a navy ship. It's not overtly stated that the military should (or will) be the agency which "conquers" space, but from the ranks and uniforms and the navy-life scenes, that message comes through. Space ships will be like earthly ships.

On the surface, it seems like Conquest is blasting Christians as dangerous religious fanatics. This notion, that anyone who believes in God simply MUST be wacko, would be much more popular in later decades, but it was uncommon in the 50s. For that reason, the General's dementia deserves a closer look.

Actually, General Merritt was not the stereotypic religious fanatic. His son comments that he had never seen him carrying around and reading the Bible before. Instead of headaches or paralysis, the General's "space sickness" took a paranoid turn. He had rational misgivings about the Mars mission from the start, pre-dementia. His repressed misgivings are expressed in Bible verses dealing with sinners being punished by God. He once quotes from Psalm 38, then later from Psalm 62.

Throughout all this, God is not mocked. Indeed, only the "religious" man had the courage to go outside and give the dead Fodor a proper burial. The other non-relgious crewmen were at a loss for what to do.

The notion of impudent mankind trying to meddle in God's domain, is treated as a credible issue. In this, the pattern of the Tower of Babel is drawn. Prideful mankind thinks they can build their way into God's realm. God foils that plan. General Merritt's dementia seems motivated by a fear that this divine retribution could be coming again.

The writers of Conquest imagine a multinationalism in space. Most notable are two former enemy nations: Imoto is from Japan and Fodor is a German-accented Austrian, (as a stand-in for Germany). Imoto gets to make a little speech about why Japan went to war (lack of resources). Fodor gets to be seen as the cherished son of a classic "mama". By 1955, it was starting to become okay to look beyond World War 2.

At one point, the crew of The Wheel are watching a movie with many scantily clad dancing girls (much like sailors aboard a ship). The movie is a lavish musical number with many gold bikini clad pseudo-harem girls dancing while Rosemary Clooney sings about love "...in the desert sand." This clip is total non-sequetor to the high-tech space environment. What's interesting, is that it's NOT stock footage recycled. Clooney had not done any such movie. This dance number must have been staged and shot just for this scene in Conquest. Random act of musical. Gotta love 'em.

Bottom line? Conquest is an almost-epic. It's definitely an A-grade sci-fi movie, so it's well worth watching. The human story part gets in the way sometimes, but the visuals more than make up for it.

Last shoot upload of 2023, getting it in before the end of 2024! My oh my how much backlog I have! This is not like me at all, but since the passing of my mother in July I have taken a backwards step when it comes to my workload - taking more time out for myself to stop and unwind from the stresses of life that come when you live with autism and disabilities. As always, I hope you enjoy the images. If you do, feel free to leave me a testimony on my profile, thanks.

Belgian postcard by Pmagazine in the series 'De 50 mooiste vrouwen van de eeuw!' (the 50 most beautiful women of the century!), no. 3. Photo: Terry Doyle / Outline.

Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones (1969) was typecast as the token pretty girl in British films and therefore relocated to Los Angeles. She established herself in Hollywood with sexy action roles in The Mask of Zorro (1998), Entrapment (1999) and the black comedy Intolerable Cruelty (2003).

Catherine Zeta-Jones was born in Swansea in 1969. Her parents were David Jones, the owner of a candy factory, and his wife Patricia (née Fair), a seamstress. In the 1980s, her parents won £100.000 at the game of Bingo and moved to St. Andrews Drive in Mayals, uptown Swansea. Because Zeta-Jones was a hyperactive child, her mother sent her to the Hazel Johnson School of Dance when she was four years old. Zeta-Jones participated in school stage shows from a young age and gained local media attention when her rendition of a Shirley Bassey song won a Junior Star Trail talent competition. As a child, she played roles in the West End productions of the musicals Annie and Bugsy Malone. When she was 15, Zeta-Jones dropped out of school and decided to live in London to pursue a full-time acting career. She studied musical theatre at the Arts Educational Schools, London. When she was 17 years old, she made her stage breakthrough with a leading role in a 1987 production of 42nd Street. Her next stage appearance was with the English National Opera at the London Coliseum in 1989 where she played Mae Jones in Kurt Weill's Street Scene. Her screen debut came in the unsuccessful French-Italian film 1001 Nights (Philippe de Broca, 1990), as Sheherezade opposite Thierry Lhermitte. She had greater success as a regular in the British television series The Darling Buds of May (1991–1993). Following a brief appearance as Beatriz Enríquez de Arana in the unsuccessful adventure film Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (John Glen, 1992), Zeta-Jones featured as a belly dancer in disguise in an episode of George Lucas' television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992). She next took on the part of an aspiring duchess in the farcical period drama Splitting Heirs (Robert Young, 1993), about two children (Eric Idle and Rick Moranis) who are separated at birth. She then starred as the pragmatic girlfriend of Sean Pertwee's character in the surf film Blue Juice (Carl Prechezer, 1995). Dismayed at being typecast as the token pretty girl in British films, Zeta-Jones relocated to Los Angeles.

Catherine Zeta-Jones initially established herself in Hollywood with roles that highlighted her sex appeal such as in the action film The Mask of Zorro (Martin Campbell, 1998) opposite Antonio Banderas, and the heist film Entrapment (Jon Amiel, 1999), in which she starred opposite Sean Connery as a seductive insurance agent on the lookout for an art thief. Critics praised her portrayal of a vengeful pregnant woman in Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, 2000) and a murderous singer in the musical Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002). For the first, she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. The latter won her Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Supporting Actress, among other accolades. In 2003, Zeta-Jones played alongside George Clooney in the Coen Brothers' black comedy Intolerable Cruelty. It was a commercial success. She starred in high-profile films for much of the decade, including the heist film Ocean's Twelve (Steven Soderbergh, 2004), the comedy The Terminal (Steven Spielberg, 2004), and the romantic comedy No Reservations (Scott Hicks, 2007). Parts in smaller-scale features were followed by a decrease in workload, during which she returned to the stage and portrayed an ageing actress in A Little Night Music (2009), winning a Tony Award. Zeta-Jones continued to work intermittently in the 2010s, starring in the psychological thriller Side Effects (Steven Soderbergh, 2013) and the action film Red 2 (Dean Parisot, 2013). Zeta-Jones is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award and a Tony Award, and in 2010 she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her film and humanitarian endeavours. She supports various charities and causes, and is a prominent celebrity endorser of brands. Her struggle with depression and bipolar II disorder has been well documented by the media. She was married to American actor Michael Douglas with whom she has two children. Catherine Zeta-Jones was last seen in the cinemas with Toby Jones and Michael Gambon in the British comedy Dad's Army (Oliver Parker, 2016), based on the legendary TV series.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

Stumbled upon this bunch of 'projects' in Livinhac-le-Haut. Some pictures from years ago can be found of some of these cars in a better shape. It seems the workload has grown over the owner's head.

Massive changes to the workload and allocated work and coaches on Friday meant for me a change of job and Long day but a enjoyable one.Due to Buzzlines going bust on Tuesday and the fact they do work all over the UK meant for us picking up some of the work at Last minute. Including a three peaks challenge job . BV19LLU over the course of three days with started at 06.30 hrs Friday and finishes at 01.00hrs on Monday Morning will have had three different drivers for this job. I did the first bit from Wolverhampton pickup it The Lake District via Snowdon . BV19LLU is seen at Pen-y-pass on The Llanberis pass Off loading the walkers fro the first Challenge. Photo taken 05/07/19

The first of four French AWACS aircraft is being upgraded by Boeing subcontractor Air France Industries at its Le Bourget facility near Paris. The $354 million program will provide the fleet a fuller picture of the battle space and more actionable information while reducing aircrew workload. Boeing is providing on-site engineering and quality assurance support, software and hardware.

Boeing provides this photo for the public to share. Media interested in high-resolution images for publication should email boeingmedia@boeing.com or visit boeing.mediaroom.com. Users may not manipulate or use this photo in commercial materials, advertisements, emails, products, or promotions without licensed permission from Boeing. If you are interested in using Boeing imagery for commercial purposes, email imagelicensing@boeing.com or visit www.boeingimages.com.

Processed with VSCOcam with x6 preset

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Single Raw File. Flash fired.

Pretty much as shot, not much processing required.

We traveled to those non-tourist places to get a closer feel of the lifestyle the locals are having. And we was greeted with smiles from these kids. Maybe they knew we're gonna give them sweets & candies. =)

I'm sorry as i wouldn't be able to reply to your photostreams as i wish i could. My recent workload had me working for over 2mths without a day off!!! I'll try to visit your streams whenever i have internet access onsite, my friends!

Oh i even work on NYE, missing the fireworks....... Sigh.......

Happy holidays! Take Care!

Telluride Vacation Homes It’s easy to forget that feeling as a working adult when heavy workloads and stress threaten to eat into our precious vacation days. Everyone dreams of taking a vacation. The idea of travel can get anyone excited when thinking of the sights you can see–the smells, the food, the freedom. A vacation doesn’t need to be costly or long to have benefits. An affordable weekend getaway is far better than none at all. The key is to fully unplug from work and the regular mundane activities of your life. This gives you an opportunity to recharge your body and mind which delivers exponential benefits, both short- and long-term. Vacation Telluride offers the best telluride vacation homes that is suitable for your great vacation. Being a happy recharged individual has many benefits, seen and unseen, to your personal and professional life. Take your vacation now! Call us today at 866-754-8772 for the most suitable Telluride Vacation Homes for your vacation! You can visit us online to view the full services we offer. ift.tt/2hUc2cs Vacation Rentals Telluride Telluride Vacation Rentals Telluride Vacation Condos Vacation Homes Telluride Vacation Homes in Telluride

Goliath shipbuilding gantry crane, Harland & Wolff shipyard.

The cranes are situated in the shipyard of Harland & Wolff and were constructed by the German engineering firm Krupp, with Goliath being completed in 1969 and Samson, slightly further inland, in 1974. Goliath stands 96 metres (315 ft) tall, while Samson is taller at 106 metres (348 ft). At the time Harland & Wolff was one of the largest shipbuilders in the world.

Samson and Goliath are the twin shipbuilding gantry cranes situated at Queen's Island. The cranes, which were named after the Biblical figures Samson and Goliath, dominate the Belfast skyline and are landmark structures of the city.

Each crane has a span of 140 metres (459 ft) and can lift loads of up to 840 tonnes to a height of 70 metres (230 ft), making a combined lifting capacity of over 1,600 tonnes, one of the largest in the world. Prior to commissioning, the cranes were tested up to 1,000 tonnes, which bent the gantry downwards by over 30 centimetres (12 in). The dry dock at the base of the cranes is the largest in the world measuring 556m x 93m.

At its height Harland & Wolff boasted 35,000 employees and a healthy order book, but in the years following the cranes' construction the workforce and business declined. The last ship to be launched at the yard to date was a roll-on/roll-off ferry in March 2003. Since then the yard has restructured itself to focus less on shipbuilding and more on design and structural engineering, as well as ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for other projects to do with metal engineering and construction. Initially there was concern that the now largely redundant cranes would be demolished. However later in the year they were scheduled as historic monuments under Article 3 of the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995.

Northern Ireland Office Minister of the time Angela Smith stated: "These cranes are an essential part of our city, our roots and our culture."

The cranes are to be retained as part of the existing dry dock facility within the restructured shipyard, situated adjacent to the Titanic Quarter, a business, light industrial, leisure and residential development on land now surplus to the heavy industrial requirements of the shipyard on Queen's Island. They will continue to be used on ship repair projects as well as potential shipbuilding activities in the future.

On 4 April 2007, Goliath crashed into the long jib of smaller rail-mounted "Henson" tower crane, sending the smaller crane tumbling to the ground. The smaller crane weighed 95 tonnes and stood at a height of 25 m, compared to Samson's 70 m. Three industrial painters working on another rail-mounted crane were close to the jib as it fell, eventually crashing onto the ground. Information about the incident was not released until mobile-phone footage of the event was published on YouTube. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=05_ahAulMSE)

In October 2007, Goliath re-entered service after five years, an occurrence described by a company spokesperson as underlining the yard's growing workload.

Bien que ce camion est doté d'une cabine Mack modèle MR, c'est un camion de la marque ''TOR'' (TOR Truck Corporation). Il est équippé avec un unité de pompage de béton de la cie Pompage Mega. Pierrefonds Québec, juillet 2014. Photo et info. de Murray Markanen.

Despite the fact that this truck is equipped with a Mack MR cab, this truck was manufactured by ''TOR'' (TOR Truck Corporation). It appears here with a concrete pump workload body. This unit is operated by ''Pompage Mega''. Pierrefonds Quebec, July 2014. Photo and info. Murray Markanen.

Porsche 917-001

Chassis 001, assembled in early March 1969, was the first of the twenty-five 917s completed for homologation. This chassis was used for a multitude of events, though never raced. Its workload consisted of testing at the Nürburgring and display duty in places such as the Geneva Motor Show in 1969 or Frankfurt International Auto Show in 1970.

By October 1970, 917-001 was part of the Press Department of Porsche and painted in the now famous Salzburg paint scheme of the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans winner.

Festival Automobile International 2017, Paris

THE HAZZARD RANGE HERALD

In their monthly meeting the Hazzard Range county commission heard public comments from many members of the community on a few topics on and off the commission agenda .

Clerk Julia Azzarello reported that the Clerk's Office is getting ready for the 2022 election and early voting started on Oct 11th and goes through Sat Nov 5th .

County Public Works Dept Superintendent Sherry Diff reported that crews are busy with normal duties and flooding has just added to workload. That has led to many miles of remote roads being washed out and for now impassable.

Hazzard Range Community Health center CEO Dan Reast gave an update on the Center.

After reports

The commission unanimously voted to approve 12 contracts. Unanimously voted, approved to appoint people to 4 advisory boards . Unanimously voted to revise 6 county codes.

Sheriff Try Forbes.Community Health center CEO Dan Reast County Manager Monica Ski District 1 Commissioner Jeb Cox , District 2 Commissioner /Vice chair Jake Harpe, District 3 Commissioner Fred Taller ,District 4 Commission/ Chair George Dallas ( G. D ) and District 5 Commission Frank Padilla , Clerk Julia Azzarello

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background (including material from fellow modeler Devilfish at whatifmodelers.com):

The SEPECAT Cheetah was a more sophisticated variable geometry wing derivative of the Anglo-French Jaguar attack aircraft, similar to the Su-7 and later Su-17/2022 evolution.

The RAF Cheetahs served together with the Jaguar Force until 2007, when both types were retired. Following their retirement from flying service, some Cheetahs continue to serve as ground instructional airframes, most notably at RAF Cosford, used in the training of RAF fitters.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 16.83 m (55 ft 2½ in)

Wingspan: 13.97 m (45 ft 10 in) spread 16°, XXX swept 72°

Height: 4.89 m (16 ft 0½ in)

Wing area: 37.35 m² spread, 34.16 m² swept (402.05 ft² / 367.71 ft²)

Empty weight: 7,848 kg (17,286 lb)

Loaded weight: 12,200 kg (26,872 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 15,700 kg (34,612 lb)

Powerplant:

2 × Rolls-Royce/Turbomeca Adour Mk 105 turbofans

with 24.50 kN (5,508 lbf) dry thrust each and 35.5 kN (7,979 lbf) with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: Mach 1.8 (1,870 km/h, 1,161 mph) at 11,000 m (36,000 ft)

Mach 1.1 (1,350 km/h, 839 mph) at sea level

Combat radius: 908 km (490 nmi, 564 mi) (lo-lo-lo, external fuel)

Ferry range: 3,524 km (1,902 nmi, 2,190 mi)

Service ceiling: 14,000 m (45,900 ft)

Rate of climb: 200 m/s (39,400 ft/min)

Climb to 9,145 m (30,000 ft): 1 min 30 sec

Armament:

2× 30 mm (1.18 in) DEFA cannons in the lower front fuselage, 150 RPG

7 hardpoints; 1× center-line pylon stations Fore & Aft plus a pair of pylons in front of the main landing gear wells; twin inner pylon (Fore & Aft) plus launch rails for AAMs, and single Outer Pylon pair under the wings, non-moveable. Total capacity of 10,000 lb (4,500 kg) for a wide range of guided and unguided ordnance, including:

- Matra rocket pods with 18× SNEB 68 mm rockets each (up to seven at once)

- AS.37 Martel anti-radar missiles

- AS-30L laser guided air-to-ground missiles

- Various unguided or laser-guided bombs of up to 2.000 lb (907 kg) caliber

- 2× WE177A nuclear bombs

- 1× AN-52 nuclear bomb

- ECM protection pods

- Reconnaissance pods

- ATLIS laser/electro-optical targeting pod

- External drop tanks for extended range/loitering time

The kit and its assembly:

The final contribution to the “Cold War” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and another realization of a plan from the long agenda – and triggered by a similar build at the board from fellow modeler Devilfish who built a naval VG Jaguar with Tornado wings in 1:48. I took the opportunity and inspiration to build my interpretation of that theme, lending the Cheetah designation from Devilfish’s build, though, and some of the naval version’s background.

Anyway, my conversion plan had been different. I wanted to create an RAF aircraft, true to the Jaguar’s strike/recce role, and the VG mechanism and wings would come from a MiG-23 – inspired by a similar transplant with a Mirage F.1C I saw many moons ago (and a beautiful result, I want to try that stunt, too!).

I also had the donation kits stashed away: a Heller SEPECAT Jaguar A (actually, I had already piled up four kits for this task…) and an Academy MiG-23S.

Wing transplantation went straightforward and with surprisingly little difficulties. The MiG’s wings were cut out together with the spinal section and the lower wing gloves, so that the VG geometry remained unchanged. On the other side, this package went into a shallow gap that I carved out from the Jag’s ventral section. Some putty and body sculpting merged the parts, easier than expected.

The rest saw only minor modifications. A radome was implanted (from an Italeri F-18 Hornet), which needed some body sculpting around the nose and the MiG-23’s stabilizers were used, too, in order to form a clean wing shape. I tailored their trailing edges a bit, so that the shape would not remind too much of the MiG heritage.

An RAF style radar warning receiver, scratched from 1.5mm styrene, was installed into the French version’ fin. Under the wing roots a pair of pylons from a Matchbox F-14 were added, together with Sidewinder launch rails from a Tornado ADV (Italeri). The jet exhausts were drilled open for more depth, and some sensors/pitots added to the nose, made from wire. Cockpit and landing gear were taken OOB, even though I used a different ejection seat and faired the original dashboard over with a piece of styrene.

The BL 755 bombs and their twin racks come OOB from the Heller kit, the Sidewinders from an ESCI kit, IIRC.

Painting and markings:

The RAF was settled as an operator, but for a whiffy twist I applied the all-green scheme that the RAF’s Harrier GR.5 carried in the late Eighties – exclusively, AFAIK. While the all NATO Green upper side appears a bit dull, the Lichen Green underside and the very low waterline look rather psychedelic and unique. Anyway, it works well on the Cheetah, and I can imagine that other RAF aircraft would also look cool in this simple scheme?

The basic colors I used are Humbrol 105 (Army Green) and 120 (Light Green, FS 34227), both are pretty approximates. The basic paintwork was later panel-shaded with lighter mixes of these two tones – actually brightened up with RAF Cockpit Green (Humbrol 78). In fact, the Heller Jaguar is almost totally devoid of any surface detail... A light black ink wash was also used to emphasize edges and deepen the contrast. The wings’ leading edges were painted in a very dark green (Humbrol 91) and the cockpit interior was painted in dark grey (FS 36076 from Model Master). The landing gear struts were painted light grey, while the wells and covers became Zinc Chromate Yellow.

The decals are a mix of the OOB Heller sheet and aftermarket sheets for RAF Jaguars, an Italeri Tornado and a Harrier GR.5. A coat of matt acrylic varnish finally sealed everything and the ordnance was mounted.

An interesting conversion, and the result looks very plausible! I am certain that this thing would make people seriously wonder and think when displayed on a convention. The VG Jag looks very natural – but not much sexier than the original? Anyway, the transplantation does not look out of place, because the Jaguar’s layout is very similar to the Panavia Tornado, so that the VG wing does not appear like the total fake it actually is. ^^

The EJ200 is a twin shaft reheated turbofan, with three low pressure (LP) and five high pressure (HP) compressor stages, powered by two single-stage turbines (LP and HP). The combustor is annular with airspray injectors. The engine reheat system features a 3-stage manifold system and a convergent/divergent nozzle. Engine control is by an integrated application of blisks, wide-chord aerofoils, single crystal blades, an airspray combustion system, and an integral Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) providing low pilot workload and comprehensive fleet management capability.

Specification EJ200

20,000 lbf Thrust reheated

13,500 dry reheated

Bypass ratio 0.4

Pressure ratio 26

Length in (m) 157 (4)

Diameter in (m) 29 (0.74)

Basic weight lb (Kg) 2,180 (989)

Compressor 3LP, 5HP

Turbine 1HP, 1LP

Applications Eurofighter Typhoon

This semesters work load. I dont think it will be that hard. Signing and Social Intelligence were brought on by myself. The rest is for school

Note to the readers: This is a continuation of “Darkness Rising”. In order to understand what is going on, I recommend reading that chapter before reading this one.

After a great deal of struggle (for neither Andared, nor the Lenfel Ranger were men of the sea), they finally set sail. Within a few hours, they had begun weaving their way through the great Aines River, making their way eastward. During that time, hardly a word had been spoken between Andared and his mysterious rescuer. With only two men to run a ship meant to be crewed by no fewer than five, there was little time for talk. However, now that they were in the more docile river water, instead of the coastal sea, their workload had greatly diminished. Now Andared wanted answers.

”Alright,” he began, walking to the stern of the boat. ”Before we go any further, I want to know what’s going on. Who were those men at the docks?”

“Those were the first scouts of an Outlaw army, hailing from the Magic Isle,” the ranger replied with a sigh. ”It’s seems that everything I feared is coming to pass. I wonder if anyone in Garheim or Loreos even knows…”

“Knows what? What happened at the coronation?”

”The coronation and banquet were a trap, set up by our ‘beloved’ queen,” the malice in the ranger's tone steadily grew. ”I watched from the top of a nearby tree as the fools blindly walked into that banquet hall, completely unarmed. But even that wasn’t enough for the cowardly outlaws. They waited until the whole lot of them were drunk as fiends and stuffed to their stomachs. Then the outlaws descended. They slaughtered the few guards that were posted outside (most of whom had put away a drink or two themselves) and bashed through the banquet doors, led by a powerful wizard.”

The ranger shook his head and smashed his fist against the wheel, making no attempt to hide his frustration.

”I could only watch, while the whole crowd of ‘Roawia’s finest’ were led away like common criminals. The next morning, the outlaws sent out scout ships. Their destinations ranged from the northern peaks of Garheim to the southern plains of Loreos. I managed to slip aboard this ship before its departure, then spent two days hidden in the cargo hold. I had intended to wait for the outlaws to leave the ship, then do my best to obtain a horse. However, thanks to your timely distraction, we were able to kill them all and acquire their ship in the process.”

Andared groaned and looked across the sea, envisioning the leaders of Roawia sitting in shackles. But in spite of the despair which loomed over them, his resolve grew ever stronger.

”If what you say is true, then we must make haste. During Triphian’s absence, he will have a steward reigning in his place. We must speak to him in Stonewald, so that he can muster Lenfald’s armies. After we crush their army, we can assault the King’s Island and rescue our leaders.”

To this, the ranger shook his head. ”That is exactly what we cannot do,” he replied. ”This is no mere army that the outlaws are sending. It is an invasion, meant to occupy all of Roawia’s greatest strongholds and cities. The force they are sending will easily rival anything that we can muster in so short a time. To make matters worse, almost all of our greatest commanders and warriors were captured at the feast, leaving us leaderless.”

“I suppose you would have us surrender instead? Andared countered. "I think you underestimate Lenfel courage!”

”I do not doubt the hearts of Lenfald,” the ranger shot back. “But it cannot be denied that we are weary. The war against Loreos, despite our victory, was taxing. Outposts are in need of repair, men have fallen and can never be replaced, and our supplies are low. These facts alone would be normally be a death knell. But that is not the end of our troubles. That witch of a woman we call Galainir has declared that any resistance by our countries will result in the torture and execution of her captives. How many Lenfels do you think will fight when they know that their actions will be the death of their loved ones?”

Andared frowned, but said no more. The man was right. Even if a few Lenfels were willing to resist, despite Galainir’s threat, the number would be so few that they would be surely defeated. But that didn’t make surrendering his country to outlaws any easier.

”One more thing,” Andared finally broke the silence. ”Who are you?”

”My name is of no concern to you, right now. But I am an agent of an order meant to protect and defend Lenfald and her interests. We call ourselves the Dragon Clan…”

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background (including material from fellow modeler Devilfish at whatifmodelers.com):

The SEPECAT Cheetah was a more sophisticated variable geometry wing derivative of the Anglo-French Jaguar attack aircraft, similar to the Su-7 and later Su-17/2022 evolution.

The RAF Cheetahs served together with the Jaguar Force until 2007, when both types were retired. Following their retirement from flying service, some Cheetahs continue to serve as ground instructional airframes, most notably at RAF Cosford, used in the training of RAF fitters.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 16.83 m (55 ft 2½ in)

Wingspan: 13.97 m (45 ft 10 in) spread 16°, XXX swept 72°

Height: 4.89 m (16 ft 0½ in)

Wing area: 37.35 m² spread, 34.16 m² swept (402.05 ft² / 367.71 ft²)

Empty weight: 7,848 kg (17,286 lb)

Loaded weight: 12,200 kg (26,872 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 15,700 kg (34,612 lb)

Powerplant:

2 × Rolls-Royce/Turbomeca Adour Mk 105 turbofans

with 24.50 kN (5,508 lbf) dry thrust each and 35.5 kN (7,979 lbf) with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: Mach 1.8 (1,870 km/h, 1,161 mph) at 11,000 m (36,000 ft)

Mach 1.1 (1,350 km/h, 839 mph) at sea level

Combat radius: 908 km (490 nmi, 564 mi) (lo-lo-lo, external fuel)

Ferry range: 3,524 km (1,902 nmi, 2,190 mi)

Service ceiling: 14,000 m (45,900 ft)

Rate of climb: 200 m/s (39,400 ft/min)

Climb to 9,145 m (30,000 ft): 1 min 30 sec

Armament:

2× 30 mm (1.18 in) DEFA cannons in the lower front fuselage, 150 RPG

7 hardpoints; 1× center-line pylon stations Fore & Aft plus a pair of pylons in front of the main landing gear wells; twin inner pylon (Fore & Aft) plus launch rails for AAMs, and single Outer Pylon pair under the wings, non-moveable. Total capacity of 10,000 lb (4,500 kg) for a wide range of guided and unguided ordnance, including:

- Matra rocket pods with 18× SNEB 68 mm rockets each (up to seven at once)

- AS.37 Martel anti-radar missiles

- AS-30L laser guided air-to-ground missiles

- Various unguided or laser-guided bombs of up to 2.000 lb (907 kg) caliber

- 2× WE177A nuclear bombs

- 1× AN-52 nuclear bomb

- ECM protection pods

- Reconnaissance pods

- ATLIS laser/electro-optical targeting pod

- External drop tanks for extended range/loitering time

The kit and its assembly:

The final contribution to the “Cold War” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and another realization of a plan from the long agenda – and triggered by a similar build at the board from fellow modeler Devilfish who built a naval VG Jaguar with Tornado wings in 1:48. I took the opportunity and inspiration to build my interpretation of that theme, lending the Cheetah designation from Devilfish’s build, though, and some of the naval version’s background.

Anyway, my conversion plan had been different. I wanted to create an RAF aircraft, true to the Jaguar’s strike/recce role, and the VG mechanism and wings would come from a MiG-23 – inspired by a similar transplant with a Mirage F.1C I saw many moons ago (and a beautiful result, I want to try that stunt, too!).

I also had the donation kits stashed away: a Heller SEPECAT Jaguar A (actually, I had already piled up four kits for this task…) and an Academy MiG-23S.

Wing transplantation went straightforward and with surprisingly little difficulties. The MiG’s wings were cut out together with the spinal section and the lower wing gloves, so that the VG geometry remained unchanged. On the other side, this package went into a shallow gap that I carved out from the Jag’s ventral section. Some putty and body sculpting merged the parts, easier than expected.

The rest saw only minor modifications. A radome was implanted (from an Italeri F-18 Hornet), which needed some body sculpting around the nose and the MiG-23’s stabilizers were used, too, in order to form a clean wing shape. I tailored their trailing edges a bit, so that the shape would not remind too much of the MiG heritage.

An RAF style radar warning receiver, scratched from 1.5mm styrene, was installed into the French version’ fin. Under the wing roots a pair of pylons from a Matchbox F-14 were added, together with Sidewinder launch rails from a Tornado ADV (Italeri). The jet exhausts were drilled open for more depth, and some sensors/pitots added to the nose, made from wire. Cockpit and landing gear were taken OOB, even though I used a different ejection seat and faired the original dashboard over with a piece of styrene.

The BL 755 bombs and their twin racks come OOB from the Heller kit, the Sidewinders from an ESCI kit, IIRC.

Painting and markings:

The RAF was settled as an operator, but for a whiffy twist I applied the all-green scheme that the RAF’s Harrier GR.5 carried in the late Eighties – exclusively, AFAIK. While the all NATO Green upper side appears a bit dull, the Lichen Green underside and the very low waterline look rather psychedelic and unique. Anyway, it works well on the Cheetah, and I can imagine that other RAF aircraft would also look cool in this simple scheme?

The basic colors I used are Humbrol 105 (Army Green) and 120 (Light Green, FS 34227), both are pretty approximates. The basic paintwork was later panel-shaded with lighter mixes of these two tones – actually brightened up with RAF Cockpit Green (Humbrol 78). In fact, the Heller Jaguar is almost totally devoid of any surface detail... A light black ink wash was also used to emphasize edges and deepen the contrast. The wings’ leading edges were painted in a very dark green (Humbrol 91) and the cockpit interior was painted in dark grey (FS 36076 from Model Master). The landing gear struts were painted light grey, while the wells and covers became Zinc Chromate Yellow.

The decals are a mix of the OOB Heller sheet and aftermarket sheets for RAF Jaguars, an Italeri Tornado and a Harrier GR.5. A coat of matt acrylic varnish finally sealed everything and the ordnance was mounted.

An interesting conversion, and the result looks very plausible! I am certain that this thing would make people seriously wonder and think when displayed on a convention. The VG Jag looks very natural – but not much sexier than the original? Anyway, the transplantation does not look out of place, because the Jaguar’s layout is very similar to the Panavia Tornado, so that the VG wing does not appear like the total fake it actually is. ^^

Canadian postcard by Canadian Postcard, no. A 438.

Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones (1969) was typecast as the token pretty girl in British films, and therefore relocated to Los Angeles. She established herself in Hollywood with sexy action roles in The Mask of Zorro (1998), Entrapment (1999) and the black comedy Intolerable Cruelty (2003).

Catherine Zeta-Jones was born in Swansea in 1969. Herr parents were David Jones, the owner of a candy factory, and his wife Patricia (née Fair), a seamstress. In the 1980s, her parents won £100.000 at the game of Bingo and moved to St. Andrews Drive in Mayals, uptown Swansea. Because Zeta-Jones was a hyperactive child, her mother sent her to the Hazel Johnson School of Dance when she was four years old. Zeta-Jones participated in school stage shows from a young age and gained local media attention when her rendition of a Shirley Bassey song won a Junior Star Trail talent competition. As a child, she played roles in the West End productions of the musicals Annie and Bugsy Malone. When she was 15, Zeta-Jones dropped out of school and decided to live in London to pursue a full-time acting career. She studied musical theatre at the Arts Educational Schools, London. When she was 17 years old, she made her stage breakthrough with a leading role in a 1987 production of 42nd Street. Her next stage appearance was with the English National Opera at the London Coliseum in 1989 where she played Mae Jones in Kurt Weill's Street Scene. Her screen debut came in the unsuccessful French-Italian film 1001 Nights (Philippe de Broca, 1990), as Sheherezade opposite Thierry Lhermitte. She had greater success as a regular in the British television series The Darling Buds of May (1991–1993). Following a brief appearance as Beatriz Enríquez de Arana in the unsuccessful adventure film Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (John Glen, 1992), Zeta-Jones featured as a belly dancer in disguise in an episode of George Lucas' television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992). She next took on the part of an aspiring duchess in the farcical period drama Splitting Heirs (Robert Young, 1993), about two children (Eric Idle and Rick Moranis) who are separated at birth. She then starred as the pragmatic girlfriend of Sean Pertwee's character in the surf film Blue Juice (Carl Prechezer, 1995). Dismayed at being typecast as the token pretty girl in British films, Zeta-Jones relocated to Los Angeles.

Catherine Zeta-Jones initially established herself in Hollywood with roles that highlighted her sex appeal such as in the action film The Mask of Zorro (Martin Campbell, 1998) opposite Antonio Banderas, and the heist film Entrapment (Jon Amiel, 1999), in which she starred opposite Sean Connery as a seductive insurance agent on the lookout for an art thief. Critics praised her portrayal of a vengeful pregnant woman in Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, 2000) and a murderous singer in the musical Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002). For the first she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. The latter won her Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Supporting Actress, among other accolades. In 2003, Zeta-Jones played alongside George Clooney in the Coen Brothers' black comedy Intolerable Cruelty. It was a commercial success. She starred in high-profile films for much of the decade, including the heist film Ocean's Twelve (Steven Soderbergh, 2004), the comedy The Terminal (Steven Spielberg, 2004), and the romantic comedy No Reservations (Scott Hicks, 2007). Parts in smaller-scale features were followed by a decrease in workload, during which she returned to stage and portrayed an ageing actress in A Little Night Music (2009), winning a Tony Award. Zeta-Jones continued to work intermittently in the 2010s, starring in the psychological thriller Side Effects (Steven Soderbergh, 2013) and the action film Red 2 (Dean Parisot, 2013). Zeta-Jones is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award and a Tony Award, and in 2010 she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for her film and humanitarian endeavours. She supports various charities and causes, and is a prominent celebrity endorser of brands. Her struggle with depression and bipolar II disorder has been well documented by the media. She was married to American actor Michael Douglas with whom she has two children. Catherine Zeta-Jones was last seen in the cinemas with Toby Jones and Michael Gambon in the British comedy Dad's Army (Oliver Parker, 2016), based on the legendary TV series.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background (including material from fellow modeler Devilfish at whatifmodelers.com):

The SEPECAT Cheetah was a more sophisticated variable geometry wing derivative of the Anglo-French Jaguar attack aircraft, similar to the Su-7 and later Su-17/2022 evolution.

The RAF Cheetahs served together with the Jaguar Force until 2007, when both types were retired. Following their retirement from flying service, some Cheetahs continue to serve as ground instructional airframes, most notably at RAF Cosford, used in the training of RAF fitters.

General characteristics:

Crew: One

Length: 16.83 m (55 ft 2½ in)

Wingspan: 13.97 m (45 ft 10 in) spread 16°, XXX swept 72°

Height: 4.89 m (16 ft 0½ in)

Wing area: 37.35 m² spread, 34.16 m² swept (402.05 ft² / 367.71 ft²)

Empty weight: 7,848 kg (17,286 lb)

Loaded weight: 12,200 kg (26,872 lb)

Max. takeoff weight: 15,700 kg (34,612 lb)

Powerplant:

2 × Rolls-Royce/Turbomeca Adour Mk 105 turbofans

with 24.50 kN (5,508 lbf) dry thrust each and 35.5 kN (7,979 lbf) with afterburner

Performance:

Maximum speed: Mach 1.8 (1,870 km/h, 1,161 mph) at 11,000 m (36,000 ft)

Mach 1.1 (1,350 km/h, 839 mph) at sea level

Combat radius: 908 km (490 nmi, 564 mi) (lo-lo-lo, external fuel)

Ferry range: 3,524 km (1,902 nmi, 2,190 mi)

Service ceiling: 14,000 m (45,900 ft)

Rate of climb: 200 m/s (39,400 ft/min)

Climb to 9,145 m (30,000 ft): 1 min 30 sec

Armament:

2× 30 mm (1.18 in) DEFA cannons in the lower front fuselage, 150 RPG

7 hardpoints; 1× center-line pylon stations Fore & Aft plus a pair of pylons in front of the main landing gear wells; twin inner pylon (Fore & Aft) plus launch rails for AAMs, and single Outer Pylon pair under the wings, non-moveable. Total capacity of 10,000 lb (4,500 kg) for a wide range of guided and unguided ordnance, including:

- Matra rocket pods with 18× SNEB 68 mm rockets each (up to seven at once)

- AS.37 Martel anti-radar missiles

- AS-30L laser guided air-to-ground missiles

- Various unguided or laser-guided bombs of up to 2.000 lb (907 kg) caliber

- 2× WE177A nuclear bombs

- 1× AN-52 nuclear bomb

- ECM protection pods

- Reconnaissance pods

- ATLIS laser/electro-optical targeting pod

- External drop tanks for extended range/loitering time

The kit and its assembly:

The final contribution to the “Cold War” Group Build at whatifmodelers.com, and another realization of a plan from the long agenda – and triggered by a similar build at the board from fellow modeler Devilfish who built a naval VG Jaguar with Tornado wings in 1:48. I took the opportunity and inspiration to build my interpretation of that theme, lending the Cheetah designation from Devilfish’s build, though, and some of the naval version’s background.

Anyway, my conversion plan had been different. I wanted to create an RAF aircraft, true to the Jaguar’s strike/recce role, and the VG mechanism and wings would come from a MiG-23 – inspired by a similar transplant with a Mirage F.1C I saw many moons ago (and a beautiful result, I want to try that stunt, too!).

I also had the donation kits stashed away: a Heller SEPECAT Jaguar A (actually, I had already piled up four kits for this task…) and an Academy MiG-23S.

Wing transplantation went straightforward and with surprisingly little difficulties. The MiG’s wings were cut out together with the spinal section and the lower wing gloves, so that the VG geometry remained unchanged. On the other side, this package went into a shallow gap that I carved out from the Jag’s ventral section. Some putty and body sculpting merged the parts, easier than expected.

The rest saw only minor modifications. A radome was implanted (from an Italeri F-18 Hornet), which needed some body sculpting around the nose and the MiG-23’s stabilizers were used, too, in order to form a clean wing shape. I tailored their trailing edges a bit, so that the shape would not remind too much of the MiG heritage.

An RAF style radar warning receiver, scratched from 1.5mm styrene, was installed into the French version’ fin. Under the wing roots a pair of pylons from a Matchbox F-14 were added, together with Sidewinder launch rails from a Tornado ADV (Italeri). The jet exhausts were drilled open for more depth, and some sensors/pitots added to the nose, made from wire. Cockpit and landing gear were taken OOB, even though I used a different ejection seat and faired the original dashboard over with a piece of styrene.

The BL 755 bombs and their twin racks come OOB from the Heller kit, the Sidewinders from an ESCI kit, IIRC.

Painting and markings:

The RAF was settled as an operator, but for a whiffy twist I applied the all-green scheme that the RAF’s Harrier GR.5 carried in the late Eighties – exclusively, AFAIK. While the all NATO Green upper side appears a bit dull, the Lichen Green underside and the very low waterline look rather psychedelic and unique. Anyway, it works well on the Cheetah, and I can imagine that other RAF aircraft would also look cool in this simple scheme?

The basic colors I used are Humbrol 105 (Army Green) and 120 (Light Green, FS 34227), both are pretty approximates. The basic paintwork was later panel-shaded with lighter mixes of these two tones – actually brightened up with RAF Cockpit Green (Humbrol 78). In fact, the Heller Jaguar is almost totally devoid of any surface detail... A light black ink wash was also used to emphasize edges and deepen the contrast. The wings’ leading edges were painted in a very dark green (Humbrol 91) and the cockpit interior was painted in dark grey (FS 36076 from Model Master). The landing gear struts were painted light grey, while the wells and covers became Zinc Chromate Yellow.

The decals are a mix of the OOB Heller sheet and aftermarket sheets for RAF Jaguars, an Italeri Tornado and a Harrier GR.5. A coat of matt acrylic varnish finally sealed everything and the ordnance was mounted.

An interesting conversion, and the result looks very plausible! I am certain that this thing would make people seriously wonder and think when displayed on a convention. The VG Jag looks very natural – but not much sexier than the original? Anyway, the transplantation does not look out of place, because the Jaguar’s layout is very similar to the Panavia Tornado, so that the VG wing does not appear like the total fake it actually is. ^^

My friends rinku and binish making some unusual photos……!!!

Stood on display at Swanwick Junction is preserved LMS Princess Royal Class 4-6-2 46203 "Princess Margaret Rose", one of only two of these locomotives to be preserved, and both of which were sat in the same shed.

The Princess Royal class were a set of 13 4-6-2 Pacific locomotives designed by William Stanier and built at Crewe Works between 1933 and 1935 to be the prime motive power on the West Coast Mainline between London Euston, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, including the famous Royal Scot premier express service. At first, two prototypical locomotives were built in 1933, followed by 11 production locomotives in 1935. These were later complimented by a fleet of 38 Coronation Pacific locomotives built between 1937 and 1948, which later went on to be arguably the most power steam locomotives ever built for the British Railway network.

One of the original prototypes however was retained for use as a testbed for a new Turbine Locomotive project to help improve the efficiency of the engines, later being unofficially dubbed 'Turbomotive'. The engine was fitted with turbines instead of cylinders, with the forward turbine containing 18 rows of blading, resulting in an output of 2,400hp, corresponding to running at 62 mph (100 km/h). The turbine was designed to operate into a maximum back-pressure of 2 psi, allowing a conventional double blast-pipe to provide the boiler draught, and eliminating draught fans, which always seemed to give a disproportionate amount of trouble.

The reverse turbine had 4 rows of blades. It was engaged by a dog clutch, activated when the reverser lever being set to "0". This was originally steam-operated by a small piston and cylinder. This locomotive was later rebuilt as a conventional classmate in 1952, using new mainframes and a spare set of cylinders from one of the Coronation Pacifics, and was numbered 46202, later to be named 'Princess Anne'.

6201, LMS lot number 99, was built at Crewe for the sum of £11,675 (£685,000 today) and named Princess Elizabeth, after the then Duke of York’s eldest daughter, currently our Queen Elizabeth II, leaving the works on 3rd November 1933.

Throughout the years the Princess Royal's continued to ply their trade on the West Coast services, but the years of World War II took their toll on the fleet. The beautiful Crimson Lake was replaced by Wartime Black, and the prestige manner that these locomotives had been accustomed to was stripped away as the railways were rationalised as part of the war effort. Work hours increased, and maintenance turns reduced, meaning these engines were being forced to the very limit of their design to keep Britain moving.

With the end of the war in 1945 the workload began to decrease, but the railways had paid the price. The beauty and lavish luxury of the pre-war companies had been stripped and would never return, with all of Britain's main railway companies now almost bankrupt and working a fleet of very tired engines on a poorly maintained railway network. In 1948 the Labour Government nationalised these companies to create British Railways, hoping to modernise the network and rebuild the overworked system.

The Princess Royals and their more powerful sisters the Coronation Pacifics continued to work hard as the implementation of diesels gathered pace. Early diesels however were underpowered and suffered heavily from reliability issues, meaning on many occasions the steam locomotives that they intended to replace actually came to their rescue!

It was not all plain sailing though for the Princess Royals in the 1950's, as this decade was littered with many fatal accidents. On 21 September 1951, locomotive No.46207 Princess Arthur of Connaught was hauling an express passenger train that was derailed at Weedon, Northamptonshire due to a defective front bogie on the locomotive, resulting in the deaths of 15 people and the injury of 35.

This was followed a year later by what would turn out to be the worst rail accident in the whole of British history. On 8 October 1952, an express passenger train hauled by Coronation Class, 46242 'City of Glasgow' overran signals on a train from Perth to London Euston, striking the rear of a stopped Tring to Euston commuter train at Harrow and Wealdstone station in North London. The ensuing wreckage was then struck by a northbound Liverpool express, hauled by Jubilee Class 45637 'Windward Islands', and recently rebuilt ex-Turbomotive Princess Royal 46202 'Princess Anne', which had only entered service two months earlier. In the chaos that followed, a total of 112 people were killed and 340 were injured, with 46202 obliterated in the accident, the first and only member of the class to be lost in an accident.

The late 50's however began to see the end of these engines as good, reliable diesels began to be introduced to replace them, followed closely by electric traction on the West Coast Mainline out of Euston. In 1961 the first members of the class were withdrawn from service, including 6201, which was placed in store in March 1961, but returned to service in May of that year due to poor diesel reliability.

As more diesels were delivered, in October of the same year 6201 was again placed into storage at Carlisle Kingmoor. However, again in January 1962 6201 was returned to traffic to cover for diesel failures and continued to work until September 1962 where it was once again placed into storage. It was subsequently withdrawn by BR in October 1962 and purchased by Roger Bell. The last of the locomotives to be withdrawn was class premier and original prototype number 62000 'The Princess Royal', which was withdrawn in November 1962 and subsequently scrapped. In all, only two locomotives were preserved, number 6203 'Princess Margaret Rose' and 6201 'Princess Elizabeth'.

Dr Alia Crum arrived in the soft brightness that comes after a storm. The air outside Stanford’s Psychology Building was cool and clear, the kind of light that makes everything feel freshly washed. She settled into a comfortable chair in her office with an easy calm, as if the morning’s weather had cleared a little space around her too.

Crum is a psychologist who studies something deceptively simple. She examines how beliefs shape physiology. Not in the loose mystical way that phrase sometimes gets tossed around. Her work cuts closer to the bone. The body is not a passive machine. It responds to expectation. It listens to mindset. She has built a career showing that what we think about stress, food, exercise, illness and treatment can tilt the body’s response in measurable ways.

Her early work came out of a moment most of us would ignore. While studying stress at Yale she realized that stress itself was not always the enemy. The fear of stress could be worse. The belief that stress is damaging primes the body to show more harmful patterns. The belief that stress can sharpen performance nudges the system toward resilience. Not wishful thinking. Observable biology. Shifts in cortisol. Changes in blood vessel constriction. A different hormonal conversation between mind and body.

One of her most famous studies grew from that instinct to question the obvious. The milkshake experiment has been told and retold because of how blunt and beautiful it is. Crum and her team gave participants a milkshake. Same ingredients. Same calories. Same everything. But the label was switched. For one group it was described as a rich decadent indulgence. For the other it appeared as a restrained sensible shake. People drank it while their hunger hormones were measured. Ghrelin the hormone that pushes hunger up or down behaved as if the labels were real. The decadent shake triggered a steep drop in ghrelin as though the body believed satisfaction had arrived. The restrained shake left ghrelin high as though the body had been shortchanged. The stomach listened not just to what was swallowed but to the story around it.

Crum leans into these contradictions. The world is overflowing with advice about how to treat your body. She keeps asking how the body treats belief. Her research at the Mind and Body Lab explores placebos, treatment expectations, the power of framing and how subtle shifts in context can rewrite physiology. People heal faster when they think a treatment is potent even if the medication is identical. Housekeepers who were told their daily work counted as exercise showed improvements in weight and blood pressure without any change in actual workload. Mindset became part of the treatment itself.

Talking with her you sense someone who has not grown cynical despite years of studying human perception. She seems fascinated by how easily the mind can box itself in and how quickly it can step out again with the right nudge. During the shoot she often rested her hand on a notebook the way some people hold a compass. These experiments begin as questions scribbled on a page before they grow into protocols, measurements and data sets that surprise the field again and again.

There is a warmth to the way she listens. She gives every idea a moment to breathe before responding. It makes sense. Her whole scientific life is built on the idea that thoughts matter. Beliefs matter. Not in a magical way. In a biological way. You walk out of her lab with the unsettling and oddly hopeful sense that the stories we tell ourselves are not just background noise. They seep inward. They shape the body. They set the terms for how we cope with stress, how we move through illness and how we meet our own expectations.

Photographing her on that quiet afternoon at Stanford felt like brushing up against the edge of a much larger truth. The mind is not sealed off from the body. Crum has spent her career proving it. And she is only getting started.

www.freemoviescinema.com/science-fiction/video/latest/con... Full Feature

See more photos in set.

Starring Walter Brooke, Eric Fleming, Mickey Shaughnessy, Phil Foster, William Redfield, William Hopper, Benson Fong, Ross Martin, Vito Scotti. Directed by Byron Haskin. Producer George Pal gave us the sci-fi landmark Destination Moon in 1950. He then gave us the timeless classic War of the Worlds in '53. This, his third epic, was a grand effort, but fell shy of his earlier triumphs. On paper, it should have been another mega-classic. The team members from the earlier hits were reassembled. Pal as producer, Haskin directing, Lydon on screenplay, O'Hanlon writing. Conquest was also based on a popular book. Yet, despite all this pedigree, something fell short. Conquest would not go on to be remembered as one of the 50s mega-classics. Some of this obscurity may be due to Conquest being in the "serious" science fiction sub-genre, like Destination Moon and Riders to the Stars which tried to depict a plausible space-traveling future. Audiences were becoming much more entranced with saucers and weird aliens.

In some ways,Conquest is a remake of the basic story line from Destination Moon -- a crew are the first to land on a celestial body. They struggle to survive and yet courageously return. This time, instead of the moon, it's Mars. As a remake goes, however, it's worthy. The Technicolor is rich and the sets well done. This is an A-level production which at its release was the 2001: A Space Odyssey of its day. All the melodrama, however, starts to get in the way of the techno-gee-whiz.

Synopsis

Based aboard a rotating wheel space station, workmen prepare a big flying wing of a rocket ship. A group of potential crewmen train for what they think will be a moon landing mission. As the work nears completion, they find out that the real mission will be a landing on Mars instead. While aboard "The Wheel", we're introduced to the phenomenon of "space sickness" -- a mental breakdown due to workload and confinement for long periods. One of the crew candidates is scrubbed because of one such breakdown. Nonetheless, the multinational crew are chosen and embark for the long journey to Mars. After departure, it's found that General Merritt's old friend, Sergeant Mahoney, stowed away. On the way to Mars, a communications antenna is damaged and must be fixed via spacewalking crewmen. Just as the repairs are completed, the customary meteor arrives, threatening to hit the ship. General Merritt manages to fly the ship out of the way, but one of the crewmen on EVA is hit with micrometeoroids (like bullets) and killed. The General is also starting to show odd behavior, doubting whether their mission is proper or is an affront to God. Their evasive action puts them behind schedule, but they arrive at Mars. While attempting to land on Mars, the General has another bout of delusion and tries to abort the landing. His son, Captain Merritt, manages to take control and brings in the flying-wing lander to a rough but successful landing. The others go out to explore, but the General, now fully delusional, is venting rocket fuel in an attempt to blow up the ship. His son discovers this and the two struggle. The General's pistol discharges, killing him. Mahoney comes on the scene just then and accuses Captain Merritt of murdering the General. The rest explore a bit more, but pronounce Mars a dead planet. Despite this, Imoto discovers that his earth flower seed sprouted in martian soil. Earthquakes cause the escape rocket to shift off of perpendicular. They get it righted and blast off. On the way home, Mahoney and Captain Merritt make up and declare that the dead General was a hero, the man who conquered space. The End.

The color, the sets, models and background paintings are very visually rich. The whole image is a great snapshot of the future as people in the mid-50s imagined it would be. More tidbits in the Notes section below.

There is actually a subtle anti-war tone to the movie. No overt talk of nuclear dangers or menacing enemies. It is notable, however, that among the conspicuously international crew candidates, there is no Russian. Americans would "conquer" space with a few other nationals along for the ride, but NO Russians. There is also a poorly explained urgency to the mission. What's the hurry? Back in the Cold War, it was pretty common that WE had to get something before THEY did.

In 1949, Willy Ley wrote the book "The Conquest of Space," which speculated about how mankind might travel to other planets. This book was illustrated by space artist Chesley Bonestell. This book would become the inspiration for the movie.

From 1952 to 1954, Collier's magazine ran a series of stories about mankind conquering space. These were repeats by Ley and Bonestell of their 1949 book, but this time Collier's added material from "rocket scientist" Werner von Braun. Bonestell's new illustrations were clearly the prototype for the look of Conquest. People felt that mankind was on the verge of taking to the stars. The Collier's series expressed that giddy optimism.

The screenplay for Conquest added weak human interest sub-plots which almost negate the gee-whiz optimism that the visuals convey. The screenwriters were all experienced in their craft, so it's puzzling why such amateurish characterizations are so prominent. The comic relief moments are almost cartoonish. The whole leader-gone-mad sub-plot seems out of place.

A possible "message" to Conquest is that man is a fragile creature who may not be ready for the rigors of space travel. Certainly, people wondered about this, and other movies touched on the theme too, such as Riders to the Stars ('54). Our not being mentally ready yet was cited by the aliens in It Came From Outer Space ('53). General Merritt's dementia was foreshadowed in the breakdown of Roy early in the movie.

One thing that strikes the viewer is how much life aboard the space station is presumed to duplicate life aboard a navy ship. It's not overtly stated that the military should (or will) be the agency which "conquers" space, but from the ranks and uniforms and the navy-life scenes, that message comes through. Space ships will be like earthly ships.

On the surface, it seems like Conquest is blasting Christians as dangerous religious fanatics. This notion, that anyone who believes in God simply MUST be wacko, would be much more popular in later decades, but it was uncommon in the 50s. For that reason, the General's dementia deserves a closer look.

Actually, General Merritt was not the stereotypic religious fanatic. His son comments that he had never seen him carrying around and reading the Bible before. Instead of headaches or paralysis, the General's "space sickness" took a paranoid turn. He had rational misgivings about the Mars mission from the start, pre-dementia. His repressed misgivings are expressed in Bible verses dealing with sinners being punished by God. He once quotes from Psalm 38, then later from Psalm 62.

Throughout all this, God is not mocked. Indeed, only the "religious" man had the courage to go outside and give the dead Fodor a proper burial. The other non-relgious crewmen were at a loss for what to do.

The notion of impudent mankind trying to meddle in God's domain, is treated as a credible issue. In this, the pattern of the Tower of Babel is drawn. Prideful mankind thinks they can build their way into God's realm. God foils that plan. General Merritt's dementia seems motivated by a fear that this divine retribution could be coming again.

The writers of Conquest imagine a multinationalism in space. Most notable are two former enemy nations: Imoto is from Japan and Fodor is a German-accented Austrian, (as a stand-in for Germany). Imoto gets to make a little speech about why Japan went to war (lack of resources). Fodor gets to be seen as the cherished son of a classic "mama". By 1955, it was starting to become okay to look beyond World War 2.

At one point, the crew of The Wheel are watching a movie with many scantily clad dancing girls (much like sailors aboard a ship). The movie is a lavish musical number with many gold bikini clad pseudo-harem girls dancing while Rosemary Clooney sings about love "...in the desert sand." This clip is total non-sequetor to the high-tech space environment. What's interesting, is that it's NOT stock footage recycled. Clooney had not done any such movie. This dance number must have been staged and shot just for this scene in Conquest. Random act of musical. Gotta love 'em.

Bottom line? Conquest is an almost-epic. It's definitely an A-grade sci-fi movie, so it's well worth watching. The human story part gets in the way sometimes, but the visuals more than make up for it.

Explore: #154. November 08, 2007

This photo was created for two very special reasons.

1. To make Lucy smile. She's a bit stressed out with her workload at the minute and is a tad frazzled. Hopefully this photo of 'your dag' dancing very badly will make you laugh and smile, even if just for a minute.

Update: According to a text message. I succeeded in making her smile. Mission accomplished.

2. It's also a Happy Birthday dance for Rosie! Happy Birthday!

Second Valley Forest Reserve

South Australia

Rains occurred heavily across the state yesterday, so the destination today after heavy workload was Ingalalla Falls off Hay Flays Road near Yankalilla. The streams were flowing, the day overcast and quite a few groups enjoying a winter's picnic there. The falls were flowing very nicely and along the way, some streams like this formed with small whirlpools of foam.

Single image taken with 2 stop soft GND.

Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Exposure 30

Aperture f/16.0

Focal Length 16 mm

ISO Speed 50

View On Black

Dreamy requested a "pretty" selfie to compensate for the creepy nature of yesterday's. And since I'm in such a good mood today, I figured why not? :) So here you go, Dreamy!

I went with my boss today to meet some of his biggest clients so that he could introduce me since I'm going to be handling a lot of work for them. We prepped the president of one of the companies for his deposition that I'm handling this Thursday. I've got another dep on Friday too. Busy week for me, at least in terms of how my summer's been. I actually really love how light my work is during the summer. Especially since I made more than enough working up that trial this spring to cover the lighter workload. I could get used to this. And of course, now that it's nearing the end of summer, my workload is starting to amp back up. Perfect timing.

As soon as I post this, I'm heading out the door to meet up with my friend Steve and his buddy Tyson to do some gambling in Detroit. Steve was my partner in crime during law school. Absolutely one of my best friends in the world. We spent most of our time at the Greektown blackjack tables when we should have been in class. It was fabulous. Can't wait to hang tonight and make some cash money! Hope you guys are all having a good evening!

totw: elegance

Private secretary to Lord Stanhope who dedicated her life to Chevening, the house that he gave to the nation

NORAH SHOTTER, who has died aged 93, was for almost 40 years private secretary to the 7th and last Earl Stanhope, a Conservative Minister in the 1930s and the owner - and later donor to the nation - of Chevening House, the Stanhope family seat in Kent.

A impressive 17th- and 18th-century house, with an extensive park, a 3,000-acre estate and a fine collection of Old Master paintings, Chevening had been acquired by the Stanhopes in 1717. It was originally built, possibly to a plan of Inigo Jones, by the 13th Lord Dacre, who died in 1630.

Norah Shotter arrived there in 1928, having been engaged as Lady Stanhope's private secretary. Her skill in helping to run the large household, and the determined way in which she set about cataloguing Chevening's huge library, quickly made an excellent impression.

Consequently, by the early 1930s Norah Shotter was acting as Lord Stanhope's private secretary, at Chevening and at the family's London house in Eaton Square. As the decade progressed, and with it Lord Stanhope's political career, his private secretary's efficiency became more valued than ever.

During the early part of the war, Lord Stanhope was Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Lords. His heavy workload, combined with wartime staff shortages, meant that Norah Shotter's qualities were severely tested during this period, and she came through with flying colours.

By the time Stanhope left full-time politics, and became a widower, in 1940, Norah Shotter was indispensable. She found herself shouldering much of the responsibility for the running of the Chevening estate, for the upkeep of the gardens and the house - and also for her employer's welfare.

She recalled that after his wife's death Lord Stanhope was "inundated with proposals from all sorts of unsuitable women". She confessed:"I got a reputation for being a dragon. I certainly had to be quite fierce.

"I didn't have any designs on him myself, but we often sat up into the early hours doing the Telegraph's quick crossword."

Having no heir, Lord Stanhope resolved that on his death Chevening and its contents should pass to the nation (under an Act of Parliament) for use by "a descendant of King George VI or a Cabinet Minister". Norah Shotter continued to work tirelessly to ensure that the house and estate would be handed over in good order - as they were, with an endowment fund of £250,000, when Lord Stanhope died in 1967.

Olive Norah Shotter was born on August 13 1907 and grew up at Kew. She obtained her position with Lady Stanhope not long after leaving Godolphin and Latymer school in London.

Eighteen months after Lord Stanhope's death in 1967, Norah Shotter left Chevening House and retired to live at nearby Bessels Green. She continued, though, to lead an extremely active life, and over the next 20 years gave hundreds of talks and slide lectures on Chevening and its history.

Having, during her time at Chevening, helped to receive the Queen and Prince Charles on visits there, she welcomed the proposal in the 1970s that Chevening might become the country residence of the Prince of Wales. But when it was decided instead to make the house an official residence of the Foreign Secretary, she was delighted that it would retain its place in the nation's life.

Away from work, Norah Shotter was for many years a stalwart of the Women's Institute. She was a founder member, and later president, of Chipstead WI, and she belonged to the Chevening and Brasted branches of the organisation. She was also a keen life member of the Association of Country Women of the World, an organisation affiliated to the WI.

A woman of immense energy and strength of character, Norah Shotter brought enthusiasm and commitment to everything she undertook. The standards she set for herself and others were exacting, but she had the gift of making everything she embarked upon seem worthwhile to all.

While she never married, she greatly enjoyed the company of children, setting up and for a long time running the Children's Church at Chevening. She was also a knowledgable gardener, raising funds for charity by the sale of plants she grew from cuttings.

Nor did Norah Shotter ever lose sight of the lighter side of life. After Lord Stanhope had had a wooden leg fitted in 1957, she remembered, "I used to take him shooting in a Bath chair. He once nearly took my head off, swinging round to catch a low pheasant."

This old iMac was bought in 2006. The performace of Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz has been ok so far. It came with 160GB harddisk and 512MB RAM which are definitely insufficient for nowadays' workload but I like this white iMac so much that I never intend to give up on it. Upgrade is the answer.

Quite a complicated task to disassemble the iMac but I finally managed to replace it with a new 500GB harddisk. 2GB RAM were also installed. These form a foundation to upgrade the Mac OS from Tiger to Snow Leopard, which is the maximum OS version this lovely iMac can run.

Occasionally my old keyboard malfunctioned at the same time. Couldn't believe the first broken hardware of this iMac was the keyboard... Well a new wired Apple keyboard was bought too.

I always like to activate old stuffs (including my iPhone EDGE) as long as they are still usable. After all my 2006 iMac is now reborn! I hope it can last for another 6 years. Too greedy huh!?

Khewra Salt Mines is a salt mine located in Khewra, Jhelum District, Punjab in Pakistan, about 160 kilometres from Islamabad and 260 kilometres from Lahore. It attracts up to 40,000 visitors per year and is the second largest salt mine in the world. Situated in the foothills of the Salt Range, the Khewra Salt Mines are the oldest in the sub-continent.

Salt has been mined at Khewra since 320 BC, in an underground area of about 110 sq. km. Khewra salt mine has estimated total of 220 million tones of rock salt deposits. The current production from the mine is 325,000 tons salt per annum.

The mine-head buildings have 17 stories, with 11 below ground. The salt-mine is 945 feet above sea level and extends around 2,400 feet inside the earth from the mine-mouth. There are 17 working levels and the cumulative length of all tunnels is more than 40 km.

Salt occurs in the form of an irregular dome like structure. There are seven thick salt seams with a cumulative thickness of about 150 meters. At places the rock salt is 99% pure. Salt is transparent, white, pink, reddish to beef-color red. There are beautiful alternate bands of red and white color salt.

Discovery of the mine

It is said that when Alexander the Great visited sub-continent, coming across the Jhelum and Mianwali region, Khewra Salt Mines were discovered. The discovery of the mines was however was not made by Alexander nor his "allies", but by his horse. It is stated that when Alexander's army stopped here for rest, the horses started licking the stones. One of his soldiers took notice of it and when he tasted the rock stone, it was salty thus leading to the discovery of the mines.

Afterwards this mine was wholly purchased by a local Raja and from that era to Independence of Pakistan this mine remained property of locally living Janjua Raja's who were sons of Raja Mal.

They are linked to the nearest place called Malot Fort constructed by Raja Mal Janjua.

Miners Resistence to the British

In March 1849, the British captured the salt mines and a resistence movement began against the poor conditions and prices imposed upon the miners.

From 1849 - 62 there were strikes which were heavily suppressed and in 1872, new methods of measurement and pricing were introduced which increased workload. Mines were locked so miners couldn't leave without fulfilling their quotas. Men, women and children all worked in the mines and some children were even born in the mines due to the conditions imposed.

Further strikes were carried out by the workers from 1872 - 76. This time, the Chief mine engineer Dr. Warth got Delhi Head Office Collecter H.Wright to bring in British soldiers. 12 of the workers representatives were shot at the front of the mines. Their names were:

Their graves are outside the middle gates of the mines.

Day 19 of the run up to Christmas and Today we are joined by Jedi Master Anakin Skywalker

"You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the Sith, not join them! Bring balance to the Force, not leave it in darkness!"

―Obi-Wan Kenobi, to the fallen Anakin Skywalker

Anakin Skywalker was a Human from the planet Tatooine. As a young boy, Skywalker was thoughtful and intelligent. He was friendly and easily got along with others despite his status as a slave. He also had a special place in his heart for his mother, whom he constantly built inventions to sell or to use to lighten her workload. At the coming of the Jedi, he was both helpful and generous; doing all that he could to help them off-planet, risking his life at the podrace as well as giving them the sizable reward money which he and his mother would have had use for. Though lovable, he also was one to carry grudges and was vengeful, but he commonly held these two traits in check. He also hated being treated unjustly or being wrongly accused. He was fiercely loyal, doing anything to keep those he was close to from harm, at any cost. His only price for this dedication was loyalty in return.

His separation from his mother was the hardest thing he'd ever done, and it still hurt him for years. Because of his fear of losing even more friends in such a manner, he kept to himself, fiddling around with his only friends, the Temple droids. During this, however, he grew especially close to Kenobi, considering him a father and a role model. Due to his sudden escalation from slave to being known as the "Chosen One" and the rising star of the Jedi Order, pride and arrogance set in. He grew cocky, self-appreciating, and he grew to hate being reprimanded or lectured.

He was naturally honest and despised lying and deception, and especially hated politics, correctly considering most politicians to be greedy and self-conceited. Kenobi's continual self-consciousness when it came to Skywalker hurt the boy, who at times wasn't sure whether Kenobi liked him, something his heart craved. Therefore, he turned to a more complimenting, comforting source: Palpatine.

His yearning to be loved, as well as appreciated, came out in his devotion and secret marriage to Amidala, one of the only three people he ever thought appreciated or cared for him. As his fame grew, he became more and more arrogant, and he knew that he was one of the best Jedi of the Order, believing that he could easily best any Jedi blindfolded with his lightsaber tied behind his back. This coupled with his frustration at his perceived injustice at being kept at the rank of Jedi Knight made him more and more bitter and distrustful of the Jedi Council. His belief in them was shattered more and more as Skywalker's closest friend, Palpatine, swayed him from trusting them. Slowly, his bond with everyone except the Chancellor was completely shaken and broken, even that of his wife when he assumed her betrayal of him. Born out of this conflict was the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader.

After becoming Vader, Skywalker's personality changed completely. He was now a rattled man, shaken by the perceived betrayal of his dearest friend, his former comrades-in-arms, and his wife. Upon donning the armor that kept him alive, Vader initially remained uncertain, but regained his self-confidence following his killing of Roan Shryne on Kashyyyk. Vader had an extremely low tolerance of failure, and did not get on well at all with many of the higher-ups in the Imperial military, nearly choking Admiral Conan Antonio Motti to death when he challenged the power of the Force, though Admiral Motti survived due to the intervention of Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin. Both Admiral Kendal Ozzel and Captain Lorth Needa were not so fortunate, as Vader telekinetically strangled both men to death following blunders they had committed. For their part, many higher-ranking Imperial officials despised the Dark Lord and his "sorcerer's ways." He also retained his former identity's distaste for dishonesty and deception, having once gone into a massive rage that resulted in the destruction of a large part of the Jedi Council chamber upon learning that the Jedi Council, including Obi-Wan Kenobi, had hid the location of the Ghost Prison from him as well as Palpatine. However, he did develop some capability of crafting some falsehoods, or at the very least half-truths. This was especially evident when he told Lieutenant Tohm that he actually killed Anakin Skywalker, when he was in fact Anakin Skywalker (though he may have been speaking ironically).

Despite his rather rocky relationship with higher-ranking officers in the military, Vader got along quite well with the clone troopers, once remarking, "I was rather fond of Commander Appo," following the latter's death at the hands of Roan Shryne. One reason Vader was popular with the troops that served under him was his willingness to fight in the front line, and not expect of anyone anything he was not willing to do himself. One officer who looked up to Vader because of this was Erv Lekauf, who often spoke highly of Vader to his grandson Jori Lekauf. Another military officer to be taken under Vader's wing was Firmus Piett, who succeeded Ozzel as Admiral of Death Squadron, and notably survived being under the Sith Lord's command having erred not once, but twice during his tenure under Vader. However, both of these failures were caused by unforeseeable factors, not errors in judgment.

Despite his actions, Vader apparently believed he was doing what was good for the galaxy. He also appeared to have had a high sense of self-loathing as a result of his actions, so much so that he nearly committed suicide during his mission to Atoa. He expressed the belief that the Empire was the only way the galaxy could attain peace, justifying his actions and those of the Empire as necessary to accomplish this. In addition, he also makes it clear to Dengar at one point that, while he does kill when it is what needs to be done, he does not take amusement at it.

In the end of his life, however, Skywalker broke away from the dark side, becoming whole once again. Redeemed by his son's love, father and son made peace before Skywalker became one with the Force and was reunited with his loved ones.

Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea

It's been really, really long time didn't do post processing of usual my chores back then, I am fully guilty about it. Life besides tied up with heavy workload, it becomes training real hard on saddle every weekends. I am not forgotten that tons of photos awaits me to process, just gradually become not so priority task to work on.

When I flipped through the album(s) we have taken during the our trip, those memories become crystal clear to me again. Decided to choose a photo that meaningful enough to represent your big day of the year. Hence this is one of the unique shot that I believe it has the meaning hidden in it.

Just about when the Lightroom application launched, I almost stuck and not sure where to start. Skills has definitely rusty at the beginning, eventually all my knowledge came back fresh in mind when I brought the editing skill into the next level at the Photoshop. Indeed, personally I felt that would great if I could spend some extra hours just to brush up and working on more potential shots just like old times.

It's been a great journey since we met, we fell in love till we get married. On this special day, I'd like to wish you happy birhtday and fruitful everyday, most importantly stay health and pretty as always.

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You must see this on large View On White and View On Black