Things have been pretty busy here lately. I went to the St. Patrick's Day festival in Rolla Missouri (this years theme was St. Pocalypse). I photographed the parade and the band Janus. I was going to photograph Chevelle and Middle Class Rut, but the weather wouldn't cooperate.
Just after the parade it started pouring rain. I got a really good spot right up by the stage to photograph Janus. Then just before Chevelle came on stage it started pouring rain again and I had to go for shelter to save my camera. A lot of people didn't have cameras and stayed at the stage so there was no way I could get back to where I was. So I just wondered around the crowd for the rest of the show taking pictures.
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Monday, March 26, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
522
It’s such a beautiful day outside, it’s March and it already feels like summer. Every day this week we are supposed the temperature is supposed to be around 80 Fahrenheit. It’s hard to believe tomorrow Silver Dollar City opens, this year is flying by!
The episode of The Walking Dead this week was amazing! I think it was the best episode yet. About time they killed Shane! It was a long time coming and they kind of had to, but still it is a bit of a shocker. I would consider him the 2nd main character of the show. Then they killed Dale off last week, they are going to run out of main characters at this rate! I am glad they killed off the new kid instead of making him a regular on the show, I didn’t really care for him. As long as they don’t kill off Maggie I’m fine, I’ve got a big crush on her.
This Sunday the new episode of The Walking Dead should be really good too. I’m thinking it is going to be a “just for fun” episode. It’s the end of the season, they just killed off two main characters. So I think they are just going to do a lot of zombie killing! But it’s The Walking Dead so I’m sure they will do something big to leave you hanging on the edge of your chair until the next season.
But speaking of zombies, I’m ready for the zombie apocalypse. Last week I bought a Sig Sauer 522. The 522 is just like its big brother the 552, except it shoots .22 ammo. I can’t afford to shoot the big stuff with the price of ammo these days. If you’ve played the Rainbow Six Vegas games on Xbox and remember the 552 Commando, it’s like that.
I took it to the range for the first time on Monday. I really wanted to shoot it and thought I would try out the new Sound of Freedom indoor range in Ozark. The factory sights were a little off and shot high and to the right. I didn’t bring a tool to adjust them with so I just mentally compensated and was able to hit the bull’s eye every time at the max range distance. I liked the range so much I ended up getting a year’s membership there so I can go shoot any time I want. I got a pretty nice discount on the membership because of my job.
Heard on the news this morning The Discovery Channel has fired Bear Grylls over some issues with contracts. What a shame, that’s one of my favorite shows. What a hit for his career too, it doesn’t really get any bigger than The Discovery Channel so no matter what he does now it will probably be a step down. As long as the show has been on though, it’s probably run it’s course. How many climates can you survive in and techniques can you show before you really start stretching it.
I saw The Mythbusters have a new show coming out called Unchained Reaction. It looks like it’s going to be really good. I wonder if after accidently shooting a cannonball through a residential neighborhood and someone’s house if they didn’t have to end Mythbusters and start something new.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Lions, Tigers and Caves oh my!
Saturday I got up early and headed to The National Tiger Sanctuary. Compared to Turpentine Creek in Eureka Springs Arkansas I would rate them about the same. Neither one you can get really good photographs at due to fencing.
I didn't even know the tiger sanctuary was there until a week ago. They moved to their current location less than a year ago and were still in the process of building some new enclousers.
At The National Tiger Sanctuary you get to see the big cats up close and have opportunities to feed them which is really cool. I got there and there was a big group of boy scouts so they gave me a private tour after the regular tour so I could get some more pictures. The big cats were really beautiful they had tigers, white tigers, lions, black panthers and cougars. I can't say I had a favorite, but while I've been around a lot of tigers, this was my first time seeing a white tiger in person and they are really beautiful.
After that I went to Smallin Civil War Cave, which I had never been to before. The entrance to the cave is really beautiful and it is the 2nd largest in Missouri. The path through the cave is wheel chair accessible and very easy to walk if you have kids or are handicap.
The two biggest highlights of the cave to me is the entrance and a creek flowing through the cave. They said in the summer the creek can go dry, which would really take away a lot of the appeal of the cave in my opinion. So I would highly recommend going in a season when the creek would be active.
As far as formations go, don't expect much because there isn't! The ceiling, floor and walls are pretty bare and flat. There are a few soda straws, a natural stone dam, some small fossils in the cave roof and a couple small waterfalls. On our tour we saw a little bit of cave wildlife. We saw a crayfish, bat and a couple cave salamanders.
I only took the basic tour and didn't take the crawling tour because I wasn't dressed for it and wasn't going to take my Nikon D7000 in those conditions. Normally I shoot with adventures with my Nikon D5100, but my D7000 is much better in low light. I didn't even edit my photos, just converted the RAW images to .jpeg and uploaded them. If I was going to do the crawling tour I'd probably use my Kodak Playsport, but I need to download a bunch of stuff from it. I still have video from the Wilson's Creek Civil War reenactment on it!
After Smallin Civil War Cave I went to Riverbluff Cave. It's closed to the public, but they have a museum there open to the public. Unfortunately I should have payed a little more attention to the website because on Saturdays it's only open by appointment. I wasn't really impressed by the building, it looked more like a maintenance shed than a museum. Which is how I discovered it was by appointment only on Saturdays, because when I got there I wasn't sure I was in the right place and went to their website on my phone to make sure I was.
I have been hitting the discount deals again and tried two new places. St. George's Doughnuts in Springfield which I would rate as excellent! When I got there the place was packed! With a line going out the door. When I got my doughnuts I know why, they were some of the best I've ever had! Friendly service, lots and lots of choices and they even had some Man Vs. Food size doughnuts I just couldn't pass one of those up!
I didn't even know the tiger sanctuary was there until a week ago. They moved to their current location less than a year ago and were still in the process of building some new enclousers.
At The National Tiger Sanctuary you get to see the big cats up close and have opportunities to feed them which is really cool. I got there and there was a big group of boy scouts so they gave me a private tour after the regular tour so I could get some more pictures. The big cats were really beautiful they had tigers, white tigers, lions, black panthers and cougars. I can't say I had a favorite, but while I've been around a lot of tigers, this was my first time seeing a white tiger in person and they are really beautiful.
After that I went to Smallin Civil War Cave, which I had never been to before. The entrance to the cave is really beautiful and it is the 2nd largest in Missouri. The path through the cave is wheel chair accessible and very easy to walk if you have kids or are handicap.
The two biggest highlights of the cave to me is the entrance and a creek flowing through the cave. They said in the summer the creek can go dry, which would really take away a lot of the appeal of the cave in my opinion. So I would highly recommend going in a season when the creek would be active.
As far as formations go, don't expect much because there isn't! The ceiling, floor and walls are pretty bare and flat. There are a few soda straws, a natural stone dam, some small fossils in the cave roof and a couple small waterfalls. On our tour we saw a little bit of cave wildlife. We saw a crayfish, bat and a couple cave salamanders.
I only took the basic tour and didn't take the crawling tour because I wasn't dressed for it and wasn't going to take my Nikon D7000 in those conditions. Normally I shoot with adventures with my Nikon D5100, but my D7000 is much better in low light. I didn't even edit my photos, just converted the RAW images to .jpeg and uploaded them. If I was going to do the crawling tour I'd probably use my Kodak Playsport, but I need to download a bunch of stuff from it. I still have video from the Wilson's Creek Civil War reenactment on it!
After Smallin Civil War Cave I went to Riverbluff Cave. It's closed to the public, but they have a museum there open to the public. Unfortunately I should have payed a little more attention to the website because on Saturdays it's only open by appointment. I wasn't really impressed by the building, it looked more like a maintenance shed than a museum. Which is how I discovered it was by appointment only on Saturdays, because when I got there I wasn't sure I was in the right place and went to their website on my phone to make sure I was.
I have been hitting the discount deals again and tried two new places. St. George's Doughnuts in Springfield which I would rate as excellent! When I got there the place was packed! With a line going out the door. When I got my doughnuts I know why, they were some of the best I've ever had! Friendly service, lots and lots of choices and they even had some Man Vs. Food size doughnuts I just couldn't pass one of those up!
Friday, March 2, 2012
Standing In The Storm
On February 29, 2012 Lebanon got hit with a tornado. After all those years of storm chasing one chased after me. The leap year tornado followed almost the exact same path as the one the tornado which hit Lebanon in 1995.
It was a really windy night and I was laying in bed when the tornado sirens went off. The sirens would come on for a little bit, go off for a little bit and then come back on. I got up a couple times and looked outside and not much was happening. One time it got really calm and then the wind picked up and I headed back to bed again. I got back to my bedroom and I heard what sounded like thunder. Not very loud, just a low rumble up in the clouds, but it didn't stop. I went back out on the porch and I heard it hailing lightely. I didn't see any ice on the ground, but it was dark, I could only hear it. And the low rumbling like thunder continued.
I saw a flash in the sky, it was a beautiful purple and blue, like colored lightning. At first I thought it was the airport search light, but I saw it make a pass in the sky and it was no where even close to being as bright. I saw the tops of the trees going crazy in the distance and I knew a tornado was coming. It was dark so I couldn't see a funnel cloud or anything.
I turned around and ran back inside and yelled for everyone to get in the bathroom. Turned around and the front door got sucked closed. I grabbed my camera from beside the door and watched the storm.
So if you want to know what being inside a tornado is like? It's really windy, didn't get any pictures as there wasn't really anything to get pictures of. Just dark and windy and power flashes all around for lines and transformers going.
Luckily our house was pretty much untouched. Collapsed the front of a house nearby, took off about half the shingles on our neighbors house and snapped two huge pine trees in our neighbors yard which took out the power lines in our backyard. We didn't get power on at our house until about 3:00-4:00pm the next day.
It was a really windy night and I was laying in bed when the tornado sirens went off. The sirens would come on for a little bit, go off for a little bit and then come back on. I got up a couple times and looked outside and not much was happening. One time it got really calm and then the wind picked up and I headed back to bed again. I got back to my bedroom and I heard what sounded like thunder. Not very loud, just a low rumble up in the clouds, but it didn't stop. I went back out on the porch and I heard it hailing lightely. I didn't see any ice on the ground, but it was dark, I could only hear it. And the low rumbling like thunder continued.
I saw a flash in the sky, it was a beautiful purple and blue, like colored lightning. At first I thought it was the airport search light, but I saw it make a pass in the sky and it was no where even close to being as bright. I saw the tops of the trees going crazy in the distance and I knew a tornado was coming. It was dark so I couldn't see a funnel cloud or anything.
I turned around and ran back inside and yelled for everyone to get in the bathroom. Turned around and the front door got sucked closed. I grabbed my camera from beside the door and watched the storm.
So if you want to know what being inside a tornado is like? It's really windy, didn't get any pictures as there wasn't really anything to get pictures of. Just dark and windy and power flashes all around for lines and transformers going.
Luckily our house was pretty much untouched. Collapsed the front of a house nearby, took off about half the shingles on our neighbors house and snapped two huge pine trees in our neighbors yard which took out the power lines in our backyard. We didn't get power on at our house until about 3:00-4:00pm the next day.
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