Bea rolls over for treats.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Saturday, August 13, 2016
Jonathan Ladd | Austin TX | Cliff Palace
These pictures come from a visit to Mesa Verde National Park.
Per Wikipedia: "Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The structure built by the Ancestral Puebloans is located in Mesa Verde National Park in their former homeland region. The cliff dwelling and park are in the southwestern corner of Colorado, in the Southwestern United States. Tree ring dating indicates that construction and refurbishing of Cliff Palace was continuous from c. 1190 CE through c. 1260 CE, although the major portion of the building was done within a twenty-year time span. The Ancestral Pueblo that constructed this cliff dwelling and the others like it at Mesa Verde were driven to these defensible positions by "increasing competition amidst changing climatic conditions."Cliff Palace was abandoned by 1300, and while debate remains as to the causes of this, some believe a series of megadroughts interrupting food production systems is the main cause. Cliff Palace was first discovered in 1888 by Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason while out looking for stray cattle."
Per Wikipedia: "Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The structure built by the Ancestral Puebloans is located in Mesa Verde National Park in their former homeland region. The cliff dwelling and park are in the southwestern corner of Colorado, in the Southwestern United States. Tree ring dating indicates that construction and refurbishing of Cliff Palace was continuous from c. 1190 CE through c. 1260 CE, although the major portion of the building was done within a twenty-year time span. The Ancestral Pueblo that constructed this cliff dwelling and the others like it at Mesa Verde were driven to these defensible positions by "increasing competition amidst changing climatic conditions."Cliff Palace was abandoned by 1300, and while debate remains as to the causes of this, some believe a series of megadroughts interrupting food production systems is the main cause. Cliff Palace was first discovered in 1888 by Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason while out looking for stray cattle."
F18 Carrier Launch | Jonathan Ladd Austin, Texas
So this might be the coolest thing I have ever witnessed as of yet. If not, it's definitely one of them. Unfortunately, the video doesn't do it justice, but it's what I have to work with.
I'm a civilian with an office job, hardly an expert on seafaring military hardware, but what little I learned on my short voyage was fascinating and made me even better appreciate our military, its capabilities, and its people, for which I already had a substantial appreciation to begin with. So watch it then read this...or read this and then watch it. Either way, there's some interesting things to note:
First off, the sheer scale/size of a modern day American super carrier is, in of itself, a sight to behold. The USS Ronald Reagan is 1,096 ft long and has a displacement of 101,400 tons...which is just a fancy way of saying "it's really damn big." But just saying that it's "really damn big" is a slap in the face to the engineering marvel that is CVN 76...or really, any American super carrier. It's a floating city. Literally. Complete with its own police force and firefighting crew. Thousands of people have to eat, sleep, work, shower, pee, and poop on this mobile fortress for 6-9 months at a time. Sometimes longer. I'm no expert on any of this stuff, so I couldn't even try to relay the details of everything I saw and learned that day if I wanted to (which I don't). Suffice it to say, it's a big operation which requires lots of people who know what the hell they're doing to make it all work as wonderfully as it somehow does. Ok? Ok. Moving on.
What you need to know is that even at over 1,000 ft long, neither the Reagan or any other carrier is long enough to facilitate a take-off or recovery (what we civilians call a "landing") without the aid of a catapult (for take-off) and..er...arrest cables (for landing). I'm not sure if the technical term is actually "arrest cables," but that's what I'm going to call them for the purposes of this discussion.
Now unfortunately, I didn't get any video of a recovery as my camera memory was low, but video of it is easy to find elsewhere and the concept isn't too hard to grasp anyway: when the plane lands, it has a hook on its tail (called a "tail hook," duh) that hopefully grasps a group of cables which line the deck perpendicular to the jet's direction of movement, thus forcing it to stop against the tension of said cables. Notice I said the tail hook "hopefully" grasps them. That's because catching the cables may not necessarily happen. In fact, sometimes it doesn't (which I had previously never thought of as a possibility for some reason; I guess that's why I don't design aircraft carriers).
If a pilot were to maintain his/her approach speed (which is relatively low) and then miss the cables, he/she would then roll off the front of the ship because at that speed, it's not fast enough to launch back into the air.
So what do they do to guard against this possibility? When the pilot hits the deck on a landing, he/she then throws the engines full throttle just in case the hook doesn't catch the cables, allowing for enough forward movement to immediately get airborn, fly back up, come back around, and try again. FYI, when they practice this maneuver (which they do a lot), it's called a "touch and go."
This means that during a successful landing, the cables are holding the plane in place against the full thrust+forward velocity of an already moving jet being propelled through the air by its two powerful jet engines. Now obviously, once the pilot figures out that he/she did indeed catch the cables, they pull the throttle down. But the fact that the cables withstand that much resistance, if even for a second or two, in order to accomplish a successful landing frankly blew my mind.
So that's landing. Taking off, the plane needs the assistance of a steam-powered catapult that moves it from 0 to like 170 mph in 3 seconds. And that's with the use of the engines. Think about that for a second. Even if you have a fast car, your best acceleration is what, 0 to 60 in 3-4 seconds or something like that? Again, I'm not an expert on cars or jets, but the appreciable difference in acceleration is obvious even to a boring desk jockey wordsmith like myself. Needless to say, the pilot is pulling some major G's on takeoff.
Another thing I learned is that when launching, the carrier crew will (if possible) orient the forward movement of the ship against the current direction of the wind and speed up. Why? Well, it helps to move the air under the planes' wings at a faster rate and with less effort, making it easier to launch. Think of it as giving the jet a "running head start."
All of that said, there's a lot more that happens just to launch and recover aircraft, and that doesn't even cover everything else that's going on within the ship at a given time. But again I'm no expert, and I'm not trying to write a book here. I'll just say it was a privilege to have the opportunity to take a ride on the ship and I'm glad I got to shoot the video of the launch.
I'm a civilian with an office job, hardly an expert on seafaring military hardware, but what little I learned on my short voyage was fascinating and made me even better appreciate our military, its capabilities, and its people, for which I already had a substantial appreciation to begin with. So watch it then read this...or read this and then watch it. Either way, there's some interesting things to note:
First off, the sheer scale/size of a modern day American super carrier is, in of itself, a sight to behold. The USS Ronald Reagan is 1,096 ft long and has a displacement of 101,400 tons...which is just a fancy way of saying "it's really damn big." But just saying that it's "really damn big" is a slap in the face to the engineering marvel that is CVN 76...or really, any American super carrier. It's a floating city. Literally. Complete with its own police force and firefighting crew. Thousands of people have to eat, sleep, work, shower, pee, and poop on this mobile fortress for 6-9 months at a time. Sometimes longer. I'm no expert on any of this stuff, so I couldn't even try to relay the details of everything I saw and learned that day if I wanted to (which I don't). Suffice it to say, it's a big operation which requires lots of people who know what the hell they're doing to make it all work as wonderfully as it somehow does. Ok? Ok. Moving on.
What you need to know is that even at over 1,000 ft long, neither the Reagan or any other carrier is long enough to facilitate a take-off or recovery (what we civilians call a "landing") without the aid of a catapult (for take-off) and..er...arrest cables (for landing). I'm not sure if the technical term is actually "arrest cables," but that's what I'm going to call them for the purposes of this discussion.
Now unfortunately, I didn't get any video of a recovery as my camera memory was low, but video of it is easy to find elsewhere and the concept isn't too hard to grasp anyway: when the plane lands, it has a hook on its tail (called a "tail hook," duh) that hopefully grasps a group of cables which line the deck perpendicular to the jet's direction of movement, thus forcing it to stop against the tension of said cables. Notice I said the tail hook "hopefully" grasps them. That's because catching the cables may not necessarily happen. In fact, sometimes it doesn't (which I had previously never thought of as a possibility for some reason; I guess that's why I don't design aircraft carriers).
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| This guy missed it. Also, those aren't bombs, they're fuel tanks. |
If a pilot were to maintain his/her approach speed (which is relatively low) and then miss the cables, he/she would then roll off the front of the ship because at that speed, it's not fast enough to launch back into the air.
So what do they do to guard against this possibility? When the pilot hits the deck on a landing, he/she then throws the engines full throttle just in case the hook doesn't catch the cables, allowing for enough forward movement to immediately get airborn, fly back up, come back around, and try again. FYI, when they practice this maneuver (which they do a lot), it's called a "touch and go."
This means that during a successful landing, the cables are holding the plane in place against the full thrust+forward velocity of an already moving jet being propelled through the air by its two powerful jet engines. Now obviously, once the pilot figures out that he/she did indeed catch the cables, they pull the throttle down. But the fact that the cables withstand that much resistance, if even for a second or two, in order to accomplish a successful landing frankly blew my mind.
So that's landing. Taking off, the plane needs the assistance of a steam-powered catapult that moves it from 0 to like 170 mph in 3 seconds. And that's with the use of the engines. Think about that for a second. Even if you have a fast car, your best acceleration is what, 0 to 60 in 3-4 seconds or something like that? Again, I'm not an expert on cars or jets, but the appreciable difference in acceleration is obvious even to a boring desk jockey wordsmith like myself. Needless to say, the pilot is pulling some major G's on takeoff.
Another thing I learned is that when launching, the carrier crew will (if possible) orient the forward movement of the ship against the current direction of the wind and speed up. Why? Well, it helps to move the air under the planes' wings at a faster rate and with less effort, making it easier to launch. Think of it as giving the jet a "running head start."
All of that said, there's a lot more that happens just to launch and recover aircraft, and that doesn't even cover everything else that's going on within the ship at a given time. But again I'm no expert, and I'm not trying to write a book here. I'll just say it was a privilege to have the opportunity to take a ride on the ship and I'm glad I got to shoot the video of the launch.
Friday, August 12, 2016
Jonathan Ladd Austin TX | Life of a Criminal in the 1800's | SW Colorado
Per Wikipedia: "Silverton is a former silver mining camp, most or all of which is now included in a federally designated National Historic Landmark District, the Silverton Historic District. The town population was 531 at U.S. Census 2000. Silverton is linked to Durango by the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, a National Historic Landmark. Silverton no longer has active mining, but subsists by tourism, maintenance of US 550 (which links Montrose with Durango via Silverton), mine pollution remediation, and retirees. In 2002 an extreme ski mountain, Silverton Mountain, opened near the town."
For the record, this is what happens when you don't buy a chair from them:
Just kidding...but they do allow you to take pictures of the jail (though they ask for a small donation to do so)..you can also put people in the jail and take pictures of them like we did here, but there is a warning sign that says "do not close the door fully." Methinks there's probably a good reason for that.
Even back then there were tomfoolery artists and pranksters, purveyors of shenanigans and hijinks...or maybe they were just normal teenagers.
From what we learned, there were a lot of males (since that's who did the mining, and there was lots of mining), and women were in short supply. So, this is what happens when you have nothing better to do I guess? Also note the amount they're willing to pay. I assume that was a lot back then. Hell, it's a decent amount today...it could feed me for a week.
This is the Silverton Court House present day 2016. Nothing too special about it really, which is why this is the only picture I have of it and I never bothered to go inside.
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| Locals planning their extracurricular sewing activities. Meh. |
Ok, back to the fun stuff. So eventually, the little mining town full of pipe-freezing pranksters eventually did what small mining towns did back then: it grew into a larger mining town and the low-level pranksters were replaced (or maybe even murdered) by more serious criminals (or possibly murdered by vigilantes/townspeople). In any case, the mayor and the sheriff or whoever decided that the crime had become too much and it was high time to get a proper jail, hence this picture:
Keep in mind, what you see here was as hi-tech as it got back then. There were multiple cells within the larger cell block, and each one could be opened independently of the others from the outside utilizing some levers & gears. It was actually a hell of an engineering marvel in my opinion; sheer mechanical wizardry. These guys didn't have AutoCAD or CNC machines, they just had their brains and rudimentary tools to draw blueprints and build the stuff by hand. This toilet is in the main room and it is surrounded by individual cells to the left and right. So if a prisoner needed to relieve himself, the guard would work some levers on the outside in order to open that single prisoner's cell door to allow access to the toilet, which as you can see had running water and was still in a secure space inside the block. There was also a bath in its own area which was accessed similarly. Each cell could hold around 4 people, and there were hammocks instead of bunks or cots for sleeping/reading/giving yourself tattoos/writing revolutionary political manifestos.
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| "That's bull****. We NEVER got a hammock in the Mexico City jail." |
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