The Things That Make Me Remember

I have recently spent more time with a camera, and in the same manner in which a cyclist never forgets how to ride, they simply forgot what it felt like, I have remembered what it was to see the world through the lens of a camera. I tend to compose images of the things that stand out to me, mostly ignored by others, and try to convey a message or emotion to the viewer. That is photojournalism to me.

A Strong Metaphor in the Art, something bad represented by something physiscally identifiable

Emotional Expression Through Art

Sometimes, people like me have a difficult time explaining their emotions to others.
We have feelings too, they are just deep down inside, and smothered.

I think that it is possible, through art, to express one's self and more importantly to cause others to "Feel what we are feeling"

And, my next project is intended to both; allow me to get some feelings out that are stuck in there, and smack the audience pretty hard too.

I am working on a project for Breast Cancer Education. Not Awareness. It's going to be graffic. It's going to be like a hit in the belly from a sledge hammer.

Luke, Our third child

Just a quick photo of Luke.

Custom fountain Prototype for Project

This page is public and the construction of this fountain head is a Proof of concept that may only make sense to the people viewing this page who know what the heck it's supposed to do.

This is only a prototype and a modified version of this may be used for the main project and any changes required can be either applied to this working model or to an all together new fountain head.

The ID of the Ring is about 9.25 inches. It is made of 3/8" ID nominal copper tubing. so, 1/2" OD tubing. 

It is shown here with a minimal flow just to check out how it works.

There are 7 nozzles spaced evenly around the circle and canted about 5 degrees out.

























The nozzles were taken from a lawn sprinkler and soldered into the custom ring.

This Sprinkler had 17 brass nozzles, so after making this proto-type ring, there is enough to make another left over.

The "Little Giant" pump can be seen in the back ground.
It is a 110 volt centrifugal pump that can be run in an inline fashion, meaning that even though it it submersible, it can be plumbed up to an inlet pipe and an outlet pipe, it is a very durable pump for this class.

Shown here with a ruler for perspective.

The pump is just hooked up to some bushings and hose barbs and vinyl tubing with hose clamps for the demonstration, in the main work of art, it will need to have some elbows and throttle valves to adjust the flow. In the following images the inlet hose of the pump was simply restricted using a tight hose clamp in order to determine that the height of the fountain could be adjusted.

Since starving the pump is not the best way to control flow, I think that we will want to pipe up a bypass loop with a throttle valve where the pump discharge will flow back into the pump inlet and the amount of bypass can be controlled in order to deliver the desired fountain height. Unrestricted, and with full pump flow to the fountain, it will spray 8 to 10 feet into the air. the project will only require a foot of spray or less.

The other critical aspect that this demonstrated, was that a large bore fountain header with tiny nozzles would give pretty much even flow to all nozzles regardless of their position or distance from the pump, i.e. The furthest nozzle gets as much flow as the nearest nozzle because the header acts as a trunk line.

Shown here just spraying about 4 to 5 feet high

Not wide open.

The nozzles are pressed into predrilled holes just like the factory sprinkler at close to the appropriate angle, they are fluxed and soldered and the angle of the nozzles can be adjusted by resoldering as needed.

While this prototype has only one stem feeding the ring, the exact position of the feed line can be tweaked to fit the existing project and its preplanned provisions, also since it looked like there were 4 paths for tubing to come up the side of the tuyere, "dummy" stems can be added for symmetry.












This entire mock up took less than 2 hours to build from scratch, so an on sight mock up or entire custom rebuild is definitely within reason.

The finish of the copper can be either cleaned and painted, or patina to a dark black or green, the dimensions can be made to either be raised above the simulated fire or hug the outer round fire ring, I think it was described as 8.75" OD.

Bud with Akubra Federation IV Fedora and Dusty

Trip to Smokey Mountains

Winter trip to Smokey Mountains. Myself, Jennifer (Pregnant), Izabelle, and Sam.

Sam is a Jedi

At some point in the past year or so, I picked up a couple light sabres and this is Sam. He has the sun tan on the feet typical of a Jedi who wears sandals all summer long.

He is on the dark side of the force, Izabelle is on the other side. Pajama light sabre fight on a Saturday morning.

Bushnell Trophy cam

Today, I purchased a Bushnell Trophy cam.
It is a model 8.0 IR Trophy cam XLT Bone Collector.

I set it up to catch the evening birds at the feeder. It was not a good direction as this is staring into the sunset. But the feeder is in a good location to view from the house, so I need to place the camera on a pole with the sun behind it.

These images are cropped very close show grain and had to be lightened. But I think with the proper camera  position, They should be less grainy and sharper and brighter.

Birding

Birding......

This is basically amateur study of birds. It involves the use of books, field guides, curiosity, and birds. I have always been somewhat of an optics person. So, binoculars, telescopes, and spotting scopes were already in my arsenal. What got me interested in birding.
That's ironic. It all started when some birds were pecking on my house. I had a several year battle with these birds, and was never successful at ridding my house of them. I mistakenly thought that they were woodpeckers. However, my investigation into the true identity of the birds lead me to truth that these were White breasted nuthatches. Not true woodpeckers.
Nuthatches and chickadees are known to excavate in a similar fashion to woodpeckers, but only in much softer wood, or in my case, in the cheap Masonite siding on the house. True woodpeckers, Picidae, have the ability to excavate into much harder live wood.

Back to the pecking on the house. Sick of patching holes and fixing trim, I hung some rubber snakes up. that has worked for a couple years, but the nuthatches are back. ??????????????

A juvenile Red Headed Woodpecker, melanerpes erythrocephalus, he still has some speckles on his back and his head is slightly brown.

7 Pointer Missed shot 11-9-2012

I spent a long weekend in early November hunting on a private tree farm in central GA. I am a licensed hunter in GA. On the first day, I missed a shot on this nice 7 pointer. He has 4 points on one side so he is legal in GA. I am an excellent marksman, but that doesn't make a good hunter. It was only after my shot that I realized how amped I was. My heart rate was well over 150, and I shot way low, I'd rather miss entirely than have a bad placement.

These images were captured on a game camera the following weeks after the hunt. The identity and location of the private farm will remain undisclosed. He is a good friend of mine, and this kind of stuff is a well kept secret.