Beauty from the air

I found a number of photos by Gabe Souza a Staff Photographer for the Portland Press Herald.  The photos look at Maine from a different angle.

Trails left by worm diggers at low tide. - click to enlarge
Photo: Gabe Souza, PPH

In Maine one way to make a living is by digging and selling worms that are used as bait.  These are large worms, blood worms is, I think, one of the types.  Interest trails left by very hard work.

Pieces of ice float on the Kennebec River - click to enlarge
Photo: Gabe Souza, PPH

Ice, broken into pieces by tides or the U S Coast Guard, line the banks of the Kennebec near Bath.  Not a place to be.

A steel yard in South Bath. - click to enlarge
Photo: Gabe Souza, PPH

Steel held for sale or use in South Bath.  I'm thinking a lot of this will end up in U S Navy ships built by Bath Iron Works.  Looks like a lot of heavy lifting.

Smelting on the Androscoggin River - click to enlarge
Photo: Gabe Souza, PPH

Smelts are small fish that have species found in both salt and fresh waters.  In the late winter smelt from the ocean enter rivers for breeding.  Smelts are caught by "dipping" with nets, and other means.
Eaten fried and whole, some people love 'em.  Our oldest grandson Nick loved them when he was a little boy and he also loved ice fishing - he now lives in Florida and is the daddy of our first great-grandchild, Ellie.

Places to go, things to see

Hummingbird on clover - click to enlarge
Photo: Wichita Eagle reader photo

  Yesterday while taking a peek at the Wichita Eagle (www.kansas.com) I found 131 reader submitted photos for a contest.  I look through some of them, very interesting.  They're worth a second peek, here are but a few.
  To see for yourself use this link:

Wichita Eagle's Great Outdoors Photo Contest

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/2013/01/30/2656556/great-outdoors-photo-contest-2013.html#storylink=cpy

There are a lot of interesting things out there on the World Wide Web, newspapers are a great source of information to keep the brain engaged.  I have another month or so before starting to walk again my doctor tells me, so I'll just keep reading "newspapers".  Try it.

A Least heron or maybe a Bittern in an unusual perch. - click to enlarge
Wichita Eagle reader photo

Painted Bunting - click
Wichita Eagle reader photo

Food for thought, a Kansas wheat field - click
Wichita Eagle reader photo

Schnablerrennen

Starting the jump - click to enlarge
Photo: Getty Images

  Look at that name, I can't pronounce it either; maybe Wilbur can.  The unpronounceable name refers to a sled jump in the Bavarian area of Germany.
  The "jump" is a time honored tradition.  The sleds are either originals or copies of a design from long ago.  The object of the "jump" is distance, the winning distance is about 85 feet.  It appears from the photos to be a rough ride.

Starting to change their mind - click to enlarge
Photo: Getty Images

Fallout? - click to enlarge
Photo: AP

The area (Bad Tolz) in summer - click to enlarge
Photo: Bildagentur Huber
 

Out of curiosity (just like the label)

A worker in a Panda suit on a Chinese ice sculpture - click to enlarge
Photo: Reuters

  I saw one of those "Photos of the day" things and just had to look.  Here are some of what I found.  There's a lot of stuff out there, it's unbelievable.
  A friend gave my wife an iPad2, if anyone knows about using those, please share.
  North Dakota and North Dakota State were both winners yesterday, both Maine teams lost, the is basketball here. No, I don't know about hockey.

A worker on the roof of a museum in Marseilles, France
Photo: Reuters

Three diggers at low tide, Lamoine, Maine
Photo: Bill Trotter, Bangor Daily News

The Burren

A section of the Burren - click to enlarge
Photo:  www.wikipedia.org

  The Burren is a karst formation in County Clare, Ireland; a part of it is one of six National Parks in Ireland.
  I was reading a magazine about people who traveled to China, the part was all of those steep sided mountains that look like fangs are.  So I read a little bit online about them and learned that they are "Karst Formations".  That means that the bedrock is soluble, limestone for example, the rock dissolves over time and leave the hard rock.  Think Grand Canyon, it's that type of erosion.
  In Ireland the karst is not shaped like those in China or other places; it's flat rolling hills and barren.  It's amazing just in the photos.
  You'll notice the cracks in the surface the longer vertical cracks are called Grikes and the short horizontal cracks are Glints, so the surface may look like paving stones.
  For more information go to www.wikipedia.org or www.google.com and search for The Burren or Karst Formations.

Grikes and clints, and wildflowers - click to enlarge
Photo: www.wikipedia.org

A fence on The Burren, made from stone of course - click to enlarge
Photo: www.wikipedia.org

Other things on the water

The Wagner House, one of the houseboats in Seattle,
it's on the National Register of Historic Places. - click to enlarge
Photo: www.wikipedia.org

  When I lived in Seattle I worked at the computer center for Seattle First National Bank.  My workplace was right on Lake Union and I would always look out and see the houseboats.  I always wanted to live on one.  But now there is trouble in Paradise.  The City of Seattle has found that a number of the newer home exceed eighteen feet in height.  That is against the rules.

This is a naughty house - too tall. 
Photo: City of Seattle via www.seattlepi.com

  The newer homes even look out of place to me.  I understand that some folks need more room, but they could always move on land to a regular house I guess.
  Here are a few more views:

Back in the day, all homes were sort of like this.
Photo: www.wikipedia.org

The City of Seattle used this photo to show what
height houseboats should be.
Photo: City of Seattle, via www.seattlepi.com

Reading the on-line papers

  See that?  How often would you see that bit in your local paper; maybe, if they were looking for filler.  Quite often I "read/scan" papers in San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia or Detroit, and some others.  I must need more meaningful things to do, like work on a painting.  But, I like to read and books are hard to see, and this screen is large by computer standards, so I read on line stuff.

  I do not miss "kettle time".  Although the Red Kettle is the most important fund raiser the Salvation Army has, and it's a good organization, I don't miss the kettles.  I worked five years for The Salvation Army and beginning of October there were interviews and training sessions for the "bell-ringers", who were paid minimum wage.  During the kettle season there were daily deposits, two extra reports every day, sometimes more.  There was an extra weekly payroll to do, and more reports called for as the season progressed - all extra work for me because I was the one who did those things.  It was good though to see the money in the bank - but it had to last a year.

click to enlarge

  I though these people were being crushed on a huge escalator, that's what it looks like to me!

What a waste......

  ......of a human brain!  I have worked for over two days, changed more files, file types and done some other tricks too.  There is no way I am able to keep putting photos on this blog; in other words - I'm done trying to do it.
  I will attempt to keep the blog going with "just words", put pictures are worth a thousand words, so I'll have to use a lot of words, or write a whole bunch.
  This whole thing started when new updates were downloaded by Microsoft.  I have "automatic updates".  It may have been some new security feature that was downloaded.  It may be something completely different, but I strongly suspect that's the source.  We now also have to log on, each use, to email, to do this blog, for Facebook and a couple of other things - stuff we used to have that 'remembed' us.  The Photos also were locked "not to be shared" at the same time.
  I'm pretty sure that's the cause.  I'm pretty sure I can't find a work-around either.  I have a bit of experience with some things, programming isn't one of them.  I have changes the Photos to Public, signed up for Google+ (just in case it would help){Blogger is a Google product}, changed the pictures I wanted to used from .jpeg to .gif to see it they would load that way and other things that I've already forgotten.  I give up.  You'll have to just read from now on I guess.  I will continue to appreciate your input and ideas.  Help!

Contraptions, etc.

Self operating napkin    www.wikipedia.org

  When I was a child a long time ago (or, once upon a time), I heard people talk about Rube Goldberg.  Mr. Goldberg was educated as an engineer, but he was a cartoonist, inventor and political cartoonist.
He is best remembered for his cartoon drawings of ways to do simple task in the most complicated way.  In the drawing above A. The man eats a spoonful of soup, B. his arm movement lifts the spoon (C), which throws the cracker (D) to the parrot (E).  The parrot gains weight to tip the scale (F) which releases sand into the little bucket (H) which lowers and pulls string (I), in turn it opens the recipe box (J) which fires a rocket (K) to which a sickle (L) which cuts string (M) and causes the pendulum to swing and wipes the mans mouth with the napkin.
  He is most well known for things such as that cartoon, however it was his political cartoons which led people to dislike him during World War Two (I have no samples), he wanted the US to enter the was sooner than it did to save Jewish lives (in summary).
  The annual award for "best cartoonist" is named the "Reuben" in honor of Mr. Goldberg, and family members still run a museum to honor him as well.
  During WWII, he instructed his two sons to change their last names, they chose the name George as a surname and the family that remains still use that name.
  Here are a couple more cartoons:

Pencil Sharpener - click to enlarge

A back scratcher

All for a loaf of bread

Dry bulk hauler.  www.mitchelenterprises.com

  Over thirty years ago I used to have a beer with a guy named John.  John worked for J J Nissan Company, commercial bakers at that time in Portland, Maine.  Nissan makes bread and rolls for sale in super markets and grocery stores.  His job was to get the flour, shipped by rail, to the bakery by truck.
  For some strange reason yesterday I started to think about how flour is handled as freight, you know my mind works in strange ways to think of stuff like that.  Anyway, when I got home I looked up the methods used to ship flour.  For the sake of this blog we'll say it was shipped from Minnesota to Maine.  I don't know if Nissan, now in Biddeford Maine still receives shipments via rail, or if trucks are used now.  Trucks are kind of taking over the transport at this time.   Dry bulk shipments would be in trucks like the one at the top.  They load on top of the trailer and unload at the bottom.  Dry bulk could be flour, seeds, or grain for critters or who knows what.

Flour from a rail car being transferred to a truck. www.wikipedia.org

  Flour shipped by rail is handled like the photo above.  The flour is filtered at all ends of the pipeline, that keeps impurities to a minimum.

Flour loaded on to rail cars at the mill - click to enlarge.

  Next time you go to the store for a loaf of bread you'll know how the heck that flour got all the way from some mill way out west to a factory baker in Maine, or anywhere else.  Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to make a sandwich.