The Neverending Photo Thread

Yes. M114A1E1 or -A2 depending on when it was built.

Although I've always wanted one because they're so small (it would easily fit in my garage), they really don't have good cross country mobility due to a major design flaw. Since the front of the hull protrudes past the front of the tracks, it's very easy to get the thing stuck in a ditch. It had a pretty short service life because of that.

They were lucky. Many M114s had nearly all of their armor cut away as part of the demilling process.

Part of what makes them so easy to work on is that the drive train used a lot of automotive components. The engine was a Chevrolet 283. An old friend of mine who used to crew them in the early 70s said that nearly every mechanic in his outfit drove Chevy cars with 283 engines because they had such a ready supply of "free" parts.

Here is a quick one I did. It's of the Bank of Montreal building on Center Street and 7th Ave SW.

Pulling the powerpack on my tank. Time exposure of several seconds, but I don't recall just how long.

I don't recall what the mechanical issue was (probably something fairly minor), but it required pulling the whole pack to get at it.



Earlier that same day, several Shithooks were doing very low level passes over us.



M1IP night firing. I actually have a much better image than this (the details aren't as dark and the focus is a little sharper), but I can't find the proof-sized print (there's a framed 11x14 print of it hanging in my office).

Your pics have a little more firepower than mine.

Yes, but there's a nut loose behind my lens.

Dan Leach! Attention Dan Leach!

How do you do what you just mentioned above? Are you on Mac or PC? I can't find the Summary button. Is this in Photoshop only?

Ok, thanks I found out how to do it. For XP users, you right click, go to properties at the bottom of the menu, then you have to click on the Summary tab at the top, beside General and then you'll get to see the details.

I'll update this thread a little.I've uploaded some of my photos to www.sxc.hu, a stock xchange site based in Hungary. They were recently acquired by iStockphoto.com. The great thing is, it's filled with stock photography and it is all free! If you need any stock photography for brochures, websites, etc, they may have what you need.

One of my pictures there has been doing fantastic in terms of downloads, being downloaded almost 800 times! The picture:

http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=1271829



Funny thing about this picture is there were people swimming in the lake, so I erased them, and it still got accepted. I also did some creative cropping to get rid of some shit around the sides and corners.

I also have another one which isn't as popular, but still good enough to be downloaded 100 times. It is here:

http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view&id=1271828



All the others, including the New York City D&B street one, the Wine Glasses one, and that Remembrance Day one all got rejected for various reasons, due to artifacting in the photos or people in it being recognizable and therefore breaking the licensing agreement. Kinda sucks, but I'd seriously like to get better, and I'm trying to take their advice regarding adjusting camera settings, etc. I will also need to start shopping for a mini-tripod.

Ah, i took some pics today, it's Liberation Day here in Holland:

Took these a few weeks ago when the Spring flowers were in full bloom. There are still quite a few of them, but the big color event started about two months ago.

All of these were taken within a few blocks of where I work.

Took a trip to Corpus Christi, Texas over the weekend. Took a tour of the Essex-class USS Lexington while we were there. The last (and only) time I was on the ship was nearly ten years ago and I was working at the time so I didn't have a chance to really check it out. They've made some major improvements in the last few years.


























I was most pleased that they'd added a couple of twin 5"/38 mounts like the ship was fitted with originally in the 40s. They were salvaged from the USS Des Moines when she was scrapped in Brownsville, Texas three years ago.





It'd be awesome if they could get two more, but I doubt that they'd ever do that (it'd take too much construction to rebuild the area where the other two would go). But at least the ship looks a little more like she did during WWII.







For Forbin:





Judging from the figures on deck, this is a 1/35th or 1/32nd scale model of the USS South Dakota that some guy built from scratch and donated to be displayed on the hangar deck. It's impressive (must be 20 feet long) and very detailed, but something about it doesn't look quite "right", like some of the proportions/dimensions are a little off. The bow looks a whole like the Yamato/Musashi, for example.

I guess he couldn't find scout planes in a suitable scale, so he modified some 1/32 scale P-47s.

Yeah. Look at your pictures of USS ALABAMA (BB-60), a South Dakota class ship. The bow is much, much more rounded and the forecastle rises dramatically. "A" Turret (the very forwardmost 16" mount), could not fire directly forward at zero elevation or it'd blow the bow off.

The stern is just completely wrong. I give the guy an A++++++ for effort. I could never do it. But, it's not accurate at all.

Yeah, looking at some photos of the Yamato, the bow of that guy's model looks a whole lot like it (kind of broad at the front--a good place to mount the big chrysanthemum).

The stern doesn't resemble either battleship, though.

Very cool pics of Lexington, my friend! Although, I feel the opposite about the 5 inch mounts on the flight deck. They look out of place on a modernized Essex like that! (ps, the scrapping of the Des Moines was a travesty. So was the scrapping of the USS Trout SS- 566)

I wasn't very happy with a lot of the pictures I took in Maui - not because they all suck or anything, but not many really captured the feel of being there. Here is one, however that came close.

It uses some of them new-fangled editing techniques like brightness/contrast, hue/saturation, cropping, and taking the little bushes and branches out of the bottom of the picture to make it look like I know what I'm doin'.

Random pics: Deer in the yard last night; nikki enjoying her autumn walk today; the leaves turning on the next ridge of the Ramapo mountains, about 2 miles away across the Ramapo River; and a whole lot of paper flowers Mary is making from scratch for a dollhouse.

A few snapshots from my recent trip to the Chicago Star Trek convention this past weekend.

Approaching Chicago:


The hotel we stayed at during the con, and also where the con was held (nice but everything was expensive):


The costume contest (the costumes were fantastic):


Barbara March and Gwyneth Walsh (the Duras Sisters) Q&A:


Casey Biggs, who is a wonderful actor and terrific musician as well:


Casey Biggs, Marc Alaimo, Jeffrey Combs and Vaughn Armstrong doing a Q&A.


Jeffrey, Marc, and Casey performing Shakespeare (they were very good, I particularly loved Marc's performance of "The Gentlemen of Verona".):


The very warm and friendly Max Grodenchik:


The forever sweet and lovely Chase Masterson:


The ever delightful and hilarious JG Hertzler and Bob O'Reilly:


Christopher Lloyd at Q&A:


Sorry about the darker photos, the grand ballroom was poorly lit at the best of times, and the stage too far away for the flash to be truly effective, and I was sitting in the front row.

It was my first convention and I had a lot of fun. I hope to go again next year.

I had to transfer it from my phone, but here's my pic with Vaughn when we were at the bar.

Did you tell Chase that you were a member of Trekbbs?

Yep. She remembered, but very vaguely, which was understandable because she probably meets thousands of fans at any given time. She really is so very sweet.

Was Chase Masterdon ever a part of TrekBBS? I vaguely remember hearing something about that, but the past is such a blur to me at the best of times.

She was. But, she got banned.

Why was she banned?

It was a mistake. But, it's also a running joke over there.

Someone in the Voyager forum was bashing Chase. The guy who runs Chase's "official" website took offense, registered and responded. One of the mods banned him because it looked like he only registered to cause trouble and ... the mods have a way of finding out that the guy was from Chase's official website.

Anyway, then Chase register to defend, both her own honor and that of her webmaster and that mod banned her too cuz he thought she was the webmaster and had created a dual.

Or something like that.

Mary and a neighbor walking the doggies on a colorful autumn day. And the fucking $1.5M eyesore MacMansion that went up on the next street over, that doesn't remotely fit in with the rest of our neighborhood.

You should kill whoever built that and disrupted your neighborhood. Then it will become a haunted mansion. Just in time for Halloween.

It's still unsold! Nobody wants the fucker!