Saturday, August 17, 2013

$16.9 Million Per Drone

What A Bargain, Huh?


Dragonfly, or Drone?


Talk about wasteful budget items. Each of these 16.9 million dollar RC airplanes drop one $16,000 laser guided bomb on 3 or 4 ‘suspected terrorists’, and we are expected to accept that as money well spent? How crazy are the people in charge?


Friday’s moon in a tree


Congress approved the $11 Billion purchase of a bunch of these drones, but wants to cancel ‘wasteful’ food stamp programs, ( $78,442.99 total SNAP expenditures for 2012 ), that feed poor American families and children. You won’t hear these budget items being compared on TV, or radio, so I thought I would let you know how congress thinks tax dollars should be spent.

20 years of food stamp programs for the cost of one drone.


Knowledge is a good thing.



More Tripod Fun


Look... Mount Lassen


After the great results achieved taking night time moon images using the heavy duty tripod I got from my neighbor, Dean, I thought I would try a few telephoto/zoom daylight shots.


Sharp Pic of Lassen


Another thing that came about as a consequence of using this very sturdy tripod, was to discover just how accurate the manual focus can be.


I had tried to use the manual focus when handholding the camera, but never got good results. Now, of course I can see why; I was moving, wiggling, jiggling the camera so the focus was not the same when I finally shot the picture I had originally set the focus for.


Another tight focus


I haven't got the ‘following a fast moving object’ tripod skills, yet.


I gave it a shot, though.


Moon and jetplane


While I was taking tripod pictures of Mount Lassen, I heard the sound of a high flying jet overhead. I looked up and saw that the planes course would bring it into the frame of a 18x optical zoom image of the moon.


I tracked the plane with the camera on the tripod and took a few pictures, (the best of which is displayed above). With more practice, I will feel more confident.


It wasn’t as hard as I thought.


The newest, old looking, Harrison violin


John is always developing new techniques to achieve even more superb results with finishes for his award winning virtuoso acclaimed violins. He is constantly making adjustments with ingredients, mixture ratios, layers, color tones, and other alchemist magic to balance finishes with the sound and playability of his first chair instruments.


I feel fortunate to be welcome in his shop to see him create these master maker works of art. Life is good to me.


Today’s Video Treat;


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Cool Clear Water

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