skylab's Blog

Blog is short for web log. Basically an online diary. Many people have personal blogs for sharing with family and friends, while news sites use them along with, or in place of, editorial pages and some companies use them for direct contact with customers and the public. Some have also got to the point that the line between them and more traditional news sites have become quite blurred.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

Hi skylab,

 

I like the above description of blogs. I plan to use mine to post information that really doesn't fit with Outer Marker or any of the other forums. You and I had been doing an extended interview in the temporarily suspended fsOpenComponents forum. Had blogs been available a year ago I would have done the interview in my new blog.

 

Also, blogs can be a kind of vanity thing as this one is for me. I'm assuming that as long as the content is wholesome and non-offensive, blogs can contain anything. So I plan to post all kinds of strange stuff to my blog simply because I enjoy writing.

Hi Mike,

 

Well, I guess you can answer these things just like in the Forum, right??

 

Not sure I'll spend too much time here, but who knows. Every once in awhile I do get a little long-winded. If my credibility gets attacked here by a certain two-some, I'll probably spend less time here as well as I don't need that sh*t!

Yes, the personal blogs behave like personal forums. Presumably the restriction in Outer Marker and certain other forums that things must always be aviation or FS related does not apply to blogs, we shall see what we shall see.

 

Anyway, I too got tired of the sniping which is why I've been away. If people pursue us to the blogs and continue to harrass us I will simply turn the tables and formally report them to site management, something that I've never done before even though it has been done to me several times.

 

Anyway, why don't we discuss more pleasant things. Like how you are after the <month-long?> leave of absence you took about the time I pulled out.

 

Now ... I'm curious about something. When you were an airline pilot did you spend a lot of time admiring the scenery and the clouds? I certainly do -- even as a passenger I spend most of my time looking outside. (But I don't in FS, where my interest is strictly 2D panels.)

Edited July 28, 2008 by xxmikexx

I figured you were "in hiding" somewhat. My "leave" as you put it, was a little driving safari of 8000-plus miles in the old buggy covering the States of, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin; and some more than once. Traveling for the rest of the Summer will probably be mostly by boat. Gotta support the oil companies!

 

As to:

"Now ... I'm curious about something. When you were an airline pilot did you spend a lot of time admiring the scenery and the clouds? I certainly do -- even as a passenger I spend most of my time looking outside..."

 

You bet I did. I admired clouds long before becomming a pilot. Some say my head is still in the clouds! I probably have a thousand pictures of clouds; many I took while aboard a containership traveling across the Pacific and back. And, countless sunset pix as well.

 

Admiring scenery from above prompted a few land trips to places to get a closer look. Nothing like seeing things up close. The Grand Canyon is an example. You just can't grasp the size of that ditch from the air. Only thing I can think of that wasn't that impressive from the ground were the Pink Sand Dunes. They didn't seem as 'pink' on the surface, but still enjoyable.

 

Still have many trips to make.....some day.

I too like driving around. I've driven in all of the lower 48 as well as parts of Canada, and I'm well accustomed to distance driving. From Denver I can make the west coast in a single day without breaking any speed limits. I've done this three times, twice in the dead of winter over the continental divide through Aspen. I can make NYC in 44 hours (done it about ten times), and I can drive coast to coast in 3.5 days (done it three times.)

 

In fact, I just got off the phone with a company that does auto and truck deliveries. Business is slow for them at present because of gasoline prices deterring their customers, but I just may end up doing things like truck deliveries to Albuquacky, Durango, places like that.

 

I wouldn't want to do this full time but at the moment we're under some financial pressure and a weird part time job like that would suit me just fine given that I still have my software development and joint venture responsibilities.

 

Who knows -- I might even get a book out of the experience, if they ever call me. :) Trouble is, I'm up against four retired airline employees all of whom have travel privileges.

 

But that's fine, I can always take the bus back. What I said to them was, "Let's at least qualify me as a driver with you because you never can tell, and I'm the guy who will say "yes" when everybody else has said "no".

 

I strongly suspect that if they use me once they will not stop using me. You and I are both of the generation that understands that always showing up is important and is in fact most of any nitty gritty job.

 

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Like you I always wanted to see the country from the ground. The broad driving coverage has given me a complete picture of the whole nation, including many of the secondary roads and routes. It has made me appreciate what a marvelous country we live in, and how big it is. At some point we'll be piping water in to the desert areas. At that point we could support a population the size of the entire world's population today, without crowding, I do believe.

 

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P.S. Nels informs us that the site now has a photo album capability. Perhaps you could create an album of some of your favorite cloud and sunset shots. Certainly I for one would be very interested in seeing them.

Edited July 28, 2008 by xxmikexx

I too have covered most of the Lower 48 by car. I only listed the States on our last venture. In fact, just checking an atlas, there isn't a State I haven't driven in except Alaska! I've been there a number of times but never driven there. But I have driven in Hawaii, but only on Oahu.

 

 

Not so sure I'd want to get involved in auto/truck delivery. I wouldn't like the deadhead back unless it were by train or boat. While I could always use some extra cash, I think I'll just stay retired.

 

 

Yes...'tis indeed a big place we live in; the Lower 48. Unless one has covered it by ground, they have no idea. As to your piping water to the desert; FORGET IT! They're already eying the Great Lakes and they'd better just forget about it. We don't need any more people here; got too many now!

 

 

I haven't seen the photo album info, but I'd be hard pressed to pick out 'favorites' as there's just too many. But maybe I could come up with a few. That is if I can figure out how to do it!

I'll research the photo album stuff by creating one of my own, after which I'll report back to you here. Give me a couple of days.

 

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We did our first driving vacation in 76 in honor of the Bicentennial. Before planning that trip I didn't even know exactly where certain states were. I certainly had no idea what most of them looked like. Ground truth is a wonderful thing.

 

One of the things that surprised me was the fact that there are glacial moraines along the banks of the big rivers in places like Indiana and other regions relatively close to the Great Lakes. Then it dawned on me that the rivers must follow the edges of the ancient ice sheets as they began to melt back.

 

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Anyway, my two favorite states are WY and MT exactly because of the low population densities combined with the majestic scenery. (Until that first trip I had no idea what the term "big sky" meant, because we were east coast people at the time.) But we're rooted to CO now because of the kids and grandkids. My point was simply that we could make the deserts bloom while hiding a huge population in those areas.

 

Re pumping water, I meant desalinating seawater and then pumping it inland. Given sufficient nuclear power this will be cheap and easy to do when the time comes.

 

And the time is coming. Here in Colorado we're already seeing state restrictions on agricultural draining of the Ogallala Aquifer. Probably a third of the farmers on the eastern plains of CO have been forced out of business in the past two years because they have no way of replenishing what they take out, which is what the state now requires. I don't feel that as a nation we're wasting the aquifer resources, but we're soon going to have to do something different. We'll run out of Great Plains water completely in less than 50 years, maybe a lot sooner.

 

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I should mention that for three summers in a row -- 76, 77, 78 -- we not only toured the country, we did it out of a station wagon, camping out in KOA campgrounds. A wonderful experience for our then-young kids as well as for us.

 

We kept coming back to Wyoming and, after the 78 trip, I estimated that we had been over 90% of the paved roads in the state at that time, as well as over many of the unpaved ones east of the Rockies. Wyoming is full of wonderful places like Thermopolis, places that nobody has heard of, thank goodness, because they're unspoiled, or were back then.

 

At that time Wyoming's state motto was "Wyoming is what America was", and it was absolutely true. It probably still is if you stay away from places like Casper and Douglas, the oil and coal boomtowns. If our kids ever move their families away from us we will move north for sure, but only to some place like Kemmerer which, as I recall, is where NikeHerk67 grew up.

Edited July 28, 2008 by xxmikexx

>>>I'll research the photo album stuff by creating one of my own, after which I'll report back to you here. Give me a couple of days.<<<

 

OK.....I'll wait for your report. If it's any kind of hassle, I probably won't do it 'cause I'm so lazy. We'll see.

 

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>>>One of the things that surprised me was the fact that there are glacial moraines along the banks of the big rivers in places like Indiana and other regions relatively close to the Great Lakes. Then it dawned on me that the rivers must follow the edges of the ancient ice sheets as they began to melt back.<<<

 

Well, if it wasn't for those glaciers, there'd be no Great Lakes. But thanks to Al Gore's 'Global Warming', the glaciers receeded and gave us a nice supply of fresh water.

 

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>>>Anyway, my two favorite states are WY and MT exactly because of the low population densities combined with the majestic scenery. (Until that first trip I had no idea what the term "big sky" meant, because we were east coast people at the time.) But we're rooted to CO now because of the kids and grandkids. My point was simply that we could make the deserts bloom while hiding a huge population in those areas.<<<

 

It'd be hard for me to pick a 'favorite' State. Guess I'll stick with the Wolverine. I like being surrounded by water. After all, that's where we started, right?!

 

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>>>Re pumping water, I meant desalinating seawater and then pumping it inland. Given sufficient nuclear power this will be cheap and easy to do when the time comes.<<<

 

NOW you've got the right idea. But I doubt the idiots will ever go the simple route.

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>>>And the time is coming. Here in Colorado we're already seeing state restrictions on agricultural draining of the Ogallala Aquifer. Probably a third of the farmers on the eastern plains of CO have been forced out of business in the past two years because they have no way of replenishing what they take out, which is what the state now requires. I don't feel that as a nation we're wasting the aquifer resources, but we're soon going to have to do something different. We'll run out of Great Plains water completely in less than 50 years, maybe a lot sooner.<<<

 

You want to see low water, go to Boulder Dam (Lake Mead). It's already down about 40 feet and will dry up supposedly in another not too many years. And Florida is a good example of a State fast running out of fresh water. That's where they really need to get going on desalinazation.

Okay ... I made a simple album. It's really easy, you just open an album, give it a title, create some descriptive text and then start uploading pictures, a maximum of 600x600 pixels. (Anything larger will be squeezed down with unpredictable results.)

 

The uploading process is very simple. You hit a browse button, navigate to a photo and then click Save. You can do three photos at a time this way.

 

As the old commercial went, Try it, you'll like it. To see the album I created, click on the xxmikexx link immediately below and then scroll down on the right side of the resulting page till you see the album title "Pocket Digicam Photography".

Edited July 31, 2008 by xxmikexx

Well, I'm too dumb I guess. I couldn't see anywhere to "browse" to get my pix and I didn't see anywhere that stated anything about size. Thumbnails just don't cut it; can't see anything. Now, if you could click on them and have them enlarge like many sites do, then that'd be okay. I'll have to see what the pix I have selected look like at 600 max.

I may not have the button names correct but it's roughly "Create Album" followed by "Upload Photos", at which point you'll see the browse logic.

 

If this doesn't work, let me know and I'll create a second album, this time making careful notes about every step in the process.

 

Re the adequacy of 600x600, if your photos don't look good on this site would you be willing to upload them to the fsOpenComponents ftp site? I don't have any file size restrictions in place there and could download your photos and look at them on my machine directly.

Only thing I can find is "Add Album"...that's it. they don't look all that bad at 600x450 so if I get this figured out, it should be okay.

I think there may be something amiss with your site/browser settings. Anyway, I'm going to repeat all of the steps even though you know some of them because other people are reading this too ...

 

User CP

Albums

Add Album

<Give the album a title and description.>

Submit

Upload Pictures

 

You should then see three text entry boxes, each with a Browse option. Browse to the photos separately, up to three of them, and then click Upload Photos, I think it is.

 

Repeat as necessary till you've uploaded everything you care to. The captions don't appear beneath the photos but do appear when you do mouse hovers.

Well.....I dunno. I uploaded 30 pix, but not sure where they are!!

OK.....I found 'em. You just click on your avitar and then screen name and then look at the album. I might figure this out yet.

 

I got a dozen aviation related shots I might put up.

They're gorgeous! "Green Flash" sticks in my mind though there were other equally good shots. (Like "South Pacific", as I recall.)

 

Can't wait to see the aviation photos.

I don't know about "gorgeous", but I must admit there are some pretty good ones if I must say so myself. The beauty of digital cameras is you can just "shoot" away and not worry about it. I think that containership trip I was on I took over 4000 fotos. I had a laptop with me and I would download from the camera and weed out the ones I didn't like. I still had many megs of fotos when I got home. I won't be uploading all those!

 

There were a number of sunsets where I tried to capture the "green flash" and I'm still not sure if I ever got one. Lots of good oportunities out on the Pacific though. You said "South Pacific", but there were more than one listed that way. Guess I should've used the Lat/Lon. (smile)

 

That was my first experience with using a digital camera (2001). Wish I'd had one all the years I was flying. I enjoy trying to capture/save what the eye sees.

 

Glad you enjoyed them. The av ones are up.

By their oil cooler airscoops shall ye know them ... "Two R-2900s" (or whatever it was called) is Connie, yes?

 

I'm having a senior moment and can't retrieve the name of the aircraft you're standing next to as a tyke. Please help. (Is it an Aeronca Whatever?)

An aircraft spotter you're not. (smile) You were within 100 RPM (they're 28(eight)Hundreds, and they're on a DC-6, NOT a Connie. While some very early Connies had 2800s, almost all had R-3350s.

 

I didn't know one airplane from another back then; they scared me to death. Still do!! But, I think it was an Air Knocker. That's all they made way back then, wasn't it?!?!

Correction: I said RPM; I meant CID.

I think have got your answer about "BLOG". Well, It's very lovely writing a blog for yourself actually.

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