Monthly Archives: April 2017

04.25.17
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That Was Close!

I for whatever reason checked my e-mail junk folder this morning and saw a message from WP. My card had expired and I am up for renewal. I updated the card successfully and paid my subscription, it will auto renew so you will all have to put up with me until 2021.

I guess I should do some sort of evil genius laugh right about now, Mwa ha ha ha ha!

I think I will make sure messages from WP get through from now on. I had recently dropped the hammer on spam because I was getting so much of it. If anyone tried to contact me I swear I wasn’t ignoring you!

Umm, little trick I found while investigating my spam problem, if you use Outlook it makes a huge difference if you go to settings and take yourself off of the accepted senders list. The spammers figured out that little loophole and are sending you messages from yourself. But the entire thing is disguised from some sort of strange address. No matter how many times I sent a spammer to the junk file they kept getting through. Not anymore. Sneaky bastards. My spam problem is a very slow trickle now compared to a dump truck load daily. That is todays other FYI   🙂

 

 

04.17.17
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So I Heard On The Radio…

The DJ said something about how “they” had discovered some miles long thing crawling along the ocean floor. He even went so far as to say “go look it up on the internet.” So I did. All I found was a very neat hi def sonar image of a round thing on the ocean floor, with a curving trail left behind it. Cool, except for the fact that the very first thing mentioned was how “UFO-ologists” think blah de blah de blah blah. They lost me at UFO-ologist.

Every single link I found on the subject came from what I can only describe a dubious news website. Frankly I do not understand how people can read this crap and immediately think it makes sense.

The pic in question I copied from one of the sites of dubious nature, complete with alien icons in the corners! :

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Yep, it appears at first glance this might indicate movement, of an object supposedly miles in length/diameter. First what comes to my mind is the most obvious thing that would be consistently moving in the ocean would be water. And moving water a.k.a. current could easily carve out an unusual trail behind a large object. Unless this object has been repeatedly observed, and shown to have, you know, actually moved, everything else is wild speculation.

Another thing, if you will note the parallel lines moving diagonally across the pic, these lines upon closer examination appear to resemble (but not really) tank tracks. Except they do not look anything like tank tracks, but as you probably know this is the most rational explanation that pops into the head of a UFO-ologist. My understanding is this could indicate a fault line, but let’s not let rationality cloud up a case of people seeing things they want to see.

Lesson of the day, if you see it on the internet, or hear it on the radio, do not automatically assume what you see or hear is real. It might just be something conjured up in the abnormal mind of a UFO-ologist.

When I see this kind of crap I feel like I need to get drunk and say the hell with the human race. A drink anyone?  😉

 

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/774215/spotted-massive-object-moving-under-Pacific-Ocean

http://www.disclose.tv/news/mysterious_massive_miles_long_object_is_moving_across_the_ocean_floor/138032

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4276248/UFOlogists-claim-crawling-circle-seafloor.html

 

 

 

 

04.09.17
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I Haz Squirrels

Not 10 feet from my deck in the back, there is a large white oak tree. One of my boys looked up in the tree and saw some little squirrels poking their heads out. So…I had to break out my gear, get setup, and take some pics. They are cute little rascals.

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This I believe might be the momma. I could see her teats were obvious and swollen. The pic didn’t come out too great for glare and shooting through the glass door.

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Just another day in Tennessee. Always something interesting to look at if you are paying attention.  🙂

I yelled up at the little squirrels “if you plan on staying long I expect some rent!” I’m pretty sure I heard them laughing at me.

 

 

04.09.17
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Epic Fail

Less than 24 hours after Trumps attack on a Syrian airbase, combat flights resumed.

So we have a pathological liar, a pussy grabber, a sleaze ball wanna be politician, a very little petty man wearing petty pants that are way to big for him, probably a damned traitorous colluder with a foreign govenrment, and a total fucking loser for a president.

Go USA! Rah..rah… oh fuck it, I’d like very much to be living somewhere else at the moment. Has it been four years yet?

http://www.businessinsider.com/syria-air-base-sharyat-continue-us-strike-2017-4

04.08.17
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Picture Day!

I had mentioned I had some pics and would do my best to get to posting them. Here we go.

Gee this is a long skid, I wonder what happened?

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Ohhhh! I actually talked to the guy that owns the truck, he said he was dodging two deer, when the third one jumped in front of him. The bent frame on the truck did not happen with the deer collision. He said it jumped out of park on a long hill and hit a tree at the bottom, which satisfied my curiosity. I was really wondering if a deer collision could cause a bent frame like that. I honestly don’t know how or why the guy was driving this vehicle with a frame bent this badly, but we do what we gotta do sometimes. The guy claimed he was doing 55 mph when I asked how fast he was going. Yeah sure he was… He is still driving this truck!

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I was driving home after a long day in Nashville, (yearly follow up with the wifes neurologist) the day turned somewhat overcast and I knew it was a good opportunity to maybe catch a sun dog. I kept looking to the sky and was finally rewarded 🙂 I apologize I had to shoot it over the top of a Pentecostal church, but it was my first and best break in the tree line.

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This next one is a sun pillar, a very weak one. I only saw a couple of these through the winter and this one is the only one you can see in a pic. And it isn’t exactly easy to spot, but it is there. Try moving your head from side to side (an old astronomy trick for seeing very faint objects in a telescope, moving your eye/s a bit helps engage rods and cones) it pops a little when you do that.

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We had a very windy night the night before. I had to go into the school the next morning and get a paper for tax purposes. Apparently you have to prove to the IRS you really have kids… I saw this on the way out and thought it was a great metaphor for certain times in my life.

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Spot the Owl! I was shooting through the windshield of my truck with an iPhone, so the clarity is lacking. I kept easing up, and getting closer, trying to see when he would spook and fly away. Never did. I know had I gotten out of the truck I’d never have got a shot. Well, with an owl in it.

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Closer.

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These next three were from a foggy morning. I was on the way home after dropping the wife off where she works. First the sunrise through the trees. This is the road I live on.IMG_0505

Spiders! This looked somewhat scenic so I shot it.

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This one is the sun through the fog. I could have dodged the powerlines and stop sign but was too lazy to manuever around. Shame on me 😉

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A while back there was a lunar eclipse. I have literally seen a dozen of these, but I decided to set up my ED 80 refractor and see if I could get a few shots. Then the clouds promptly moved in. I was late getting to the eclipse as it was already well under way. I shot through the clouds anyway being a hard headed fool at times. Here are a few, I couldn’t help but think with the cloud cover this resembled a solar eclipse rather than a lunar eclipse. There is a solar eclipse in August I will not miss!

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That’s all folks! The weather is getting better which means I’ll be out looking for stuff to shoot!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

04.07.17
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Investigation? What Investigation?

As the world knows by now the U.S. blew up an airport in Syria last night. With Assads willingness to use chemical weapons on civilians I can’t say I don’t believe they had it coming. But in no way does that help with my view of Trump. He is still the lying, deceiving sack of shit he was two days ago.

This attack achieved several things. First it scratched Trumps itchy trigger finger. Second it sent a message to Syria and perhaps a few other countries. (That we have an insane moron at the helm and are now about as predictible as N. Korea) And third it sure took the conversation away from the investigation into the Russian Connection. Remember that?

The Russians had a one hour warning the attack was coming, so they had plenty of time to get the hell out. I’m sure they told their Syrian buddies too. So we blew up an airport. Predictably, Putin condems the attack as an agressive act, and a threat to our relations. He has to play the game. They all play the game. You may recall a little place called Ukraine? Hypocricy knows no bounds in politics. Or religion now that I think about it.

I just had to vent for a minute. I feel a little better now.

 

04.02.17
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Night Lights And Negative Impacts

First off I ain’t dead yet despite some of the assumptions 🙂 Life just has a way of keeping you too damn busy at times. Now back to the scheduled programming.

Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed a computational tool that enhances, and I quote: “our understanding about the relationship between human activities and socio-economic factors at a global scale”

Interestingly it shows a direct negative correlation, where the existence of heavy night lighting influences some things we may never have thought of. Not to mention some reasons I highlighted from this post a while back :

https://evidencebasedreality.com/2016/06/11/light-pollution/

The researchers noted that locations with heavy night light activity suffered from, and again I will quote, though note my interjections in parenthesis: “Higher electricity consumption and CO2 emissions (obviously). Correlations with population, N2O (nitrous oxide), and CH4 (methane) emissions were still slightly less pronounced (compared to previous research) and, as expected, there was an inverse correlation between the brightness of lights and of poverty.” That little factoid there about increased poverty levels lining up with increased night lighting surprised me. Though I suppose it does make sense when you think about it.

I should also note that the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in these brightly lit areas is also higher which I suppose is a good thing, but the question in my mind remains, is it worth all of the negatives to achieve the positive? And is it really necessary to keep these areas brightly lit at night? There are a lot of good reasons not to do that. Just no one seems to care… As I was outside just last night observing Jupiter and a few other astronomical objects, I’m one of those who do care, and I guess this is my soapbox.

Source material here:

https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2017/03/night-lights-big-data

On a side note I may have enough pics to get another Picture Day day up, but I have to get the time and energy to do it all. I will work on it. Finally, I hope this post finds you all well and getting along just dandy 🙂