Memorial Day

Thank God for the men who fought to preserve our freedom, we pray that we should be worthy of their sacrifice.

Da Planes

Under the bellty of the B-17

The P-51 Mustang

B-17

Wright Cyclone 9 port engine

Busy Stuff

There's a Board Meeting tonight and it's raining.  I haven't heard the 'planes go by, maybe they're grounded.

I got back from the grocery store and was unpacking things (bread, lunchmeat, lettuce) when I called Mom about her family genealogy book.  I had posted a question to a Help Forum and gotten an only semi-satisfactory answer after spending the morning digging through FAQs and trying to get a handle on publishing costs.  Between Lulu, FastPencil, CreateSpace and UniBook the word "Free" gets bandied about and somewhat tarnished.  Anybody got experience with this crap let me know.

We talked about the chapters needing to hook up in one big Word file, then I can import it into Publisher (because I don't have anti-gun QuarkXpress currently un-verifiable comment from years-old information) and add the graphics - family pictures and lineage charts.  All she wants is about 50 copies for relatives - nobody else would be interested, it's not a revenue stream of any kind.
There are maps and some charts in Photoshop and Illustrator I have graphicked-up.  There are pictures to scan.

The doorbell rang and my UPS guy was there with my order from Midway.  Three Kimber KimPro seven round TacMags for the 1911A1 - they were on sale.

Then the door rang again and it was the Postman with the giant Tiki bookends - off eBay, from New Jersey.  So I wiped dust off the top of the fridge where the recipe books were, and now I have to cut up melons for juicy-drinks - we're doing anti-oxident fruit smoothies for beakfast energy.

Energy I did NOT have today.  Where's my coffee?

Cook boiled eggs for lunches.
Get Beer.
It's a lousy day to go for a bike ride.
Then the Board meeting...

Tomorrow I'll go over and assemble the big Word file with Mom.  Dad will try to sneak me some bogus Liberal double-think junk in newsclippings.

They're back..!

The Collings Foundation airplanes have returned to Moffett Field on The Wings of Freedom tour. 
Saw the P-51 Mustang speed across the sky Saturday morning, and then the B-17 'Fort flew right over us a couple times.  Haven't seen the B-24 Liberator yet.  Conditions over the weekend were bright and sunny but have deteriorated to low-hanging overcast this morning.

Draw Mohammed Day - Motohammed!

So it's "Draw Mohammed Day" and here's my contribution - Moto-Mohammed!
I haven't been drawing very much lately - at all - so this was a wheelie fun exercise!



As with most dirtriders he's having too much fun. Throwin' roost on infidels and shameless women who are whores and adulterers and should be killed **BRAAPP! BRAP! BRRR-AAP-AAP! ring!-dingg!-dingg!**

Brought to you by ARAMCO...

H/T Zombie:








Here's some more (H/T Alan):
MikeW's , Alan's
Christina's, Calvin'sMom's , LookingForLissa's, Gudis's, BlueSun's, and especially Breda's (special award for use of color!) and... JRebel's , and Miguel's , MidwestChick's contribution, and Neanderpundit Og's -- more...?

Lost in Space

I went downtown on my bike to get some cash from the Tin Man, and I had to wait during a period off "Temporary Unavailability." While waiting I was treated to a floor-show from Lost in Space!
Lights went on and off, much clicking was heard, and I saw the re-boot taking place. OS/2 on a Pentium III? How common is that? I'm sure the layers of security are elsewhere and the box is just an inexpensive counting-dispensing bot, but seriously?
Meanwhile it twitched and hummed, the drop-door clanked open and shut and the money door too, lights flickered and I thought it beeped. Danger Will Robinson!
I looked around for Dr. Smith but he wasn't there. Eventually I went inside to complete my transaction.
Produced in 1965, Lost in Space was set in the space-age future of 1997, when people wore a lot of mylar. I guess that's what Disco was about Lost on 'Ludes, if a few years off. We're well past that now and still no talking robots or flying cars - but they were ahead of their time.
In Season 1, episode 28, "The Lost Civilization," John, Don and Will discover an underground world of soldiers frozen in suspended animation waiting for their princess (oh c'mon Tinselgrad) to be awakened by a kiss (can't they ever avoid a cliche?) so they can take over the universe.  But in actual 1994 some peasants digging a well accidentally discovered a huge army of terracotta soldiers in the tomb of a Chinese emperor who died 2,400 years ago...

Anyhow, whatever.

Lobster Claw Heliconia

The amount of pink is underrepresented, and the surreality of some of these is wild.

Real Leeteg in Wailuku

UPDATE: From my new book, Leeteg of Tahiti - Masterpieces on Black Velvet, it appears that this (first) one is well known (and exists in multiple versions) and is titled, "Chere Ami".

$6,000 for an original 16"x20" (or thereabouts) beats a couple hundred for a genuine-copy 8x10...

UPDATE: This one (originally) is known as, "Farani Tahiti".

Didn't get much shoppin' done otherwise.

Not real impressed with the low-light sensitivity of the Pentax Optio W80. The extra mega-pixels (13 vs. 11) don't offset the shortcomings - but the close-up work is still very good (in bright light).



Aloha.

Lana'i on a clear day with Kapalua fishies

Christmas wrasses and Humuhumus:

Tropical Vespa for RobertaX

At the Lahaina Cannery Mall - made with bamboo...

North of Pai'ia

Scenery and light so painfully iridescently pure you could fill multiple SD cards of many gigabyte-pixels - as the grains of white sand on this beach.

A chopper flew in and started filming some kite-borders who took advantage opf the prop-wash to do tricks.

Lunch was yummy as usual with the best Mai-Tai's on the island (IHMO). In the middle of everything came a cloudburst and it rained a torrent, and then stopped.

Not an Inevitablity...

This used to be a golf course...before that it was pineapples, now it's a maze of flowers and butterflies. We hiked the upper reaches of the old course to a large pond that was a course water-hazard - it held huge koi fish and ducks a plenty. They get along without much help now.
Across the channel Molokai is shrouded along the top ridge.

Maui Land & Pineapple Company has gone tits-up. The "pine" are no longer in production and people are out of work.

DT Fleming Beach was named after David Fleming who planted the first pineapples up by Kapalua in 1912, and the beach was pretty empty as usual.

Drinks at the Ritz' outdoor cafe are very spendy (as usual) but the scenery is unparalleled. We were not guests, just party-crashers.

Back from Vacation

We went to lunch at a place out by the flight-path to SFO, a golf-course.



Got myself a new lid - got to keep the sun off the scantly clad cranial dome. I got a tad sunburn on Maui. This one comes with very fetching chunky highlights. I look like a surfer-dude from LA. Or an asshloe.


SFO has two runways so planes often come in close to each other, but it's done all orderly by the flight controllers - mostly.

But these two guys looked set to share the same airspace.

They were a lot closer than they look here - at one point, like, "Wave "Hi!" to the cute stewardess!" I caught them after they separated and leveled-off, the white plane had to veer off right (north) and climb and go around again while the United jet went ahead and landed.