Scavenger Hunt Sunday – Sophomore Edition

Well I didn’t get kicked out from Scavenger Hunt Sunday last week. So I’m trying it again this week.

1) Cracked

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I’ve posted this photo before. I know that’s cheating but I think it looks like a cracked sky.

2) Fallen

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You know, I’m from Oklahoma, we say fallen for falling all the time. This is Snoqualmie Falls in Washington.

3) Ordinary Color

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Ordinary Color, I don’t know of any but I love a Marine Corp Color Guard. Will that work.

4) Bokeh

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I don’t have any bokeh photos. I have this homemade tilt shift experiment. Will it work?

5) Fence

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I’m a sucker for a wooden fence. This one is along one of my downtown running routes here in Tulsa.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

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Kinetic Kites

I was reading my good old Scientific American the other day and they had an article on “Kinetic Kites.” These are wind turbines on a kite. They fly one thousand feet high where the wind is faster and more consistent. They are being developed by a company called Makani Power. Click through to their web site, lots of good information there.

(All Photographs by Makani Power) 

The electricity is transmitted to the ground via a tether line. To get into the air electricity is back fed up the teather to the wind turbines which are propellers during ascent.

It’s all computer controlled. During the power generation phase the kite flies in a circular pattern as shown below perpendicular to the wind direction.

The prototype generates 30 kw of power. About as much as an average automobile. The vision is that these devices would be stationed offshore. It is kind of hard for me to imagine.

Below is a one minute long YouTube Video on the technology. It is just so cool.

I work in the natural gas industry and I am strong  proponent of natural gas but I’m also an “All of the Above” kind of guy as far as energy is concerned including crude oil. This technology seems promising but I don’t think I would be a fan of a bunch of wind turbines offshore within sight of my favorite beaches. In the right area this seems like it could be promising. Wind Farms here in Oklahoma have destroyed some great views in some of the areas of our state.

What do you think? Are you into wind power?

Signs – Lighting it Up

#running #morning #industry #river #tulsa

I run with two Ipods now. An antiquated Nano for music and a newer Touch for taking pictures (cuz I’m a picture taker not a photographer). I happened by this plant a week or so ago on a morning run just as the sun had come up.

I’ve always admired the old school giant neon signs of PSO’s Tulsa Power Station right on the Arkansas River, especially the script “Electricity in big red letters just so we know what is going on there. Its from a different era where utilities promoted themselves a little more aggressively.

Signs, Signs

ABC Wednesday “J”

This week is “J” I think. Last time I played I used the wrong letter. Everybody was very nice and not a single person corrected me. Photoblogville is truly a very nice corner of the internet especially during this election season. You want to get scorched go to Facebook and say what you really feel. Photoblogs and their memes are exactly what old Al Gore had in mind when he invented the internet back when.

Anyways, J has to be July 4th right? I have over 23,000 photographs on Flickr that I have personally taken. The J’s are mainly July 4th. I mean my niece Jillian has a bunch but, oh what the heck here is one of my niece Jillian.

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That’s Jillian and her husband Brian. They got married last year. Jillian is a sweetheart, her husband is a real nice guy. I’m her uncle so I know stuff like that.

Oh, back to July 4th, July 4th means fireworks.

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Here I am showing how to get properly set up for watching Fireworks. You gotta have a patriotic shirt, you just have to. Please don’t show up on the fourth of July wearing the Union Jack. Not in Oklahoma anyway.

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So here we go!

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You know, even though I’m a guy, I read the manual on my camera before we went. It says that on the fireworks mode you hold the button down and let the camera decide when the shot is over. It made all the difference in the world. Now, guys, don’t take this a license to start reading manuals if confused and asking directions when lost. Guys just don’t do that kind of stuff generally, especially here in Oklahoma. Maybe in some place like Vermont it is okay, or British Columbia. Not here, no sir.

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Hold on, just one more.

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And that’s our show for tonight folks.

ABC Wednesday

Our World – Mount Rainier

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Mount Rainier is hard for me to get my head around. It is an incredible (to this flatlander) 14,410 feet tall.

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The weather at the top is much different than the weather at the bottom. In fact I think it makes its own weather.

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Much of the time you can’t even see the top.

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Then it clears off. It is very majestic.

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It has glaciers year round.

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That feed incredible waterfalls.

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And Rivers, this one didn’t look like much but you should have heard its roar from way above the canyon.

 Aside from the fact that it is not an extinct volcano, the mountain seems alive. It is dangerous also. About three people a year die in mountaineering accidents on the mountain.

 Aren’t you glad we have our National Parks? I am.

Our World Tuesday

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

This Week I’m trying out Scavenger Hunt Sunday hosted by Ashley Sisk. It seems like lots of fun. She gives a list of five prompts for the coming week and then participants go out and take pictures during the week portraying the prompts and then post them. I did a total cop out though. None of my pics were taken during the week. So sorry about that!!!

With that, here we go!!

1) Kiss

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During our recent trip to Seattle we went to the Ballard Locks. A wedding had just finished and the photographer was taking followup pics. Bombing wedding photos, especially of strangers, is a hobby of mine. I wish this attractive couple well.

2) Askew

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My wife and I love the glass art of Dale Chihuliy. We visited the Missouri Botanical Gardens in Saint Louis a few years ago during Fall Break. I loved this installation.

3) Fragrant

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While in Seattle we visited the Pike Place Market several times. All you hear about are the fish, but we loved the fresh flower arrangements.

4) Simple

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Nothing much simpler than a single rower on a lake. (Lake Union in Seattle)

5) Plant

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We also visited Mount Rainier National Park. Acres and acres (thousands of acres really) of wildflowers. I forget what these are, but they are beautiful.

Well, that is it for this week. I hope Ashley doesn’t kick me out for bending the rules a little bit.

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

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