Perfect Weather for Rugby

Leave a Reply

Nothing like playing a winter sport like rugby on an 85 degree day.  Why not make it sevens just in case you weren’t warm enough.  I strolled across to see some of the rugby later in the afternoon.  Having been a rugby fan for many years, I thought I would see how the play was going.

Sevens is a trickier version of the game since it is a lot faster and it requires handling to be very slick.  I don’t know the pedigree of the players I was watching but I wouldn’t be surprised if the heat was affecting their game.

A Scottish winter and an Illinois summer are very different climates in which to be playing.  The ground was certainly wet underfoot after the recent rain but the temperature was high and the humidity higher so I think something as energetic as sevens was a stretch.  However, they still played hard and followed the rugby tradition of trying to harm your opponent at every opportunity.

Pipes and Drums – Not Enough to Scare this Englishman

Leave a Reply

As you might expect from a Scottish festival, there were pipes and drums aplenty!  I am sure they are designed to intimidate the enemy and, as I’m sure you know, the enemy of every Scotsman is an Englishman.  Therefore, I was walking into the lion’s den on this day even if some of the claims of Scottishness were a little tenuous!

The various bands that were competing were all taking the thing very seriously.  They were well practiced in their routines and the musical ability was high – no strangled cats on this occasion.  Moreover, they really showed their commitment to the cause by dressing up in the full outfits, despite the fact that they are designed for a Scottish climate, not a hot, humid, summer day in the Chicago suburbs!

There were bands all over the place warming up, tuning the pipes, getting some last minute practice in before their time slot came due.  There were a series of judges around the arena scoring them on different aspects of their performance.  As their time was up they streamed out of the arena and another band was already waiting to come in.  No pauses for the spectators here!

Sheep Dog Trials – Insert Verdict Joke Here…

Leave a Reply

As part of the Scottish celebrations, there was a demonstration of sheep dogs at work.  This was something I always thought of a either a northern England or Welsh activity but I guess it is a big deal in Scotland too.  Anyway, a bunch of dogs were taking it in turns to demonstrate their skills with a small flock of sheep brought in especially for the occasion.

The dogs and the shepherds were certainly very effective.  They could move the flock wherever they felt like it (although the attempt to split the flock in two was a little less successful).  The dogs were really fun to watch as they zipped around the flock and then froze on the ground until needed again.

The sheep were amazing as well.  These creatures are obviously very fixated on one thing.  Eating!  The dogs could get them quite jumpy but a second alter they would forget everything and start munching on the grass.  I suspect if left alone, they wouldn’t move far at all as long as the grass lasted!

Highland Games

1 Reply

The suburbs of Chicago had an interesting offering recently.  A festival was held to celebrate Scottish culture (no Rob, don’t go there) and to hold Highland Games.  I haven’t been to this event before and this year it had been moved to a new location which was supposed to be able to handle the amount on show better so we headed along.

It was hot and humid (not very Scottish) so not a day to hurry yourself.  However, to add some authenticity, the recent heavy rains had left the field very boggy in parts.  The vent was huge and I shall tell more about it in the coming days.  One of the first things we went to see was the tossing of the caber!  The games had already had a couple of events and more were due later in the afternoon.  However, we got one fo the more famous events while we were there.

Competitors had come from all over the country.  The men and the women were competing together (obviously with different cabers) and it was quite something to watch.  All of these people looked like they could handle themselves in a fight!  They were big people.  A couple were school teachers so I suspect their pupils know how to behave.

The announcer suggested that the women had chosen too long a caber and no-one managed to get it over while we were watching.  However, the men were having more luck and there were quite a few successes including some that were given perfect scores – do you know how to score this event??  A good start to the afternoon.

Victorville Flyby

Leave a Reply

A while back, I found myself in Southern California with my buddy Pete.  Pete is a pilot with about 15,000 hours on multiple types but he always wants to try out something new.  He was renting a Cessna 172 for the day and getting checked out at a couple of interesting fields – Catalina Island and Big Bear.  I was along for the ride.

He asked if there was anything I wanted to do while we were out and I wanted to take a look at Victorville.  Victorville is the old George AFB and is now a place where a lot of airliners come for storage and often to be broken for spares.  I had seen a few pictures of the place and wanted to see what was there to be seen.  Pete had an added interest as there were some British Airways 747s parked up there – the type he currently flies for his day job!

I had been in the back for the first two legs of our trip a we had an instructor along checking Pete out.  For this leg, I took the right seat to be well positioned for the photos and also to get a bit of time in myself.  I had no idea how enthusiastic Victorville would be about passing light aircraft coming to take a look.  However, when we called up the tower, they were very happy for us to make a pass.  When we told them what we wanted, they even allowed us to break off from a low approach and turn north to pass the collection of stored airliners.

There was quite a selection of aircraft on the ground.  Some of them were obviously temporary residents but a few looked like they were only going to be leaving in bits some day.  Rather sad but it happens to us all eventually.  Anyway, a fun distraction on our route (a great trip as a whole by the way but maybe I will save that for another time) and some interesting things to see.

As an aside, Pete was back here before too long to pick up one of the BA jets to return it to service.

Bye Bye JAL 747s

Leave a Reply

When I was a small kid, I had a book called Pictorial History of Aircraft.  This was the 1970s and so the Boeing 747 was still a relatively new kid on the block.  It certainly wasn’t the times of the 400 series being knocked out at the rate of one a week.  The pictures in this book showed Japan Air Lines (JAL) as an operator of both passenger and freighter versions of the jet.

As time passed by, JAL grew its fleet substantially and was for a long time the largest operator of 747s in the world.  Therefore, it is hard to come to terms with the fact that the poor financial state of JAL combined with the introduction of more efficient big twins has meant the 747 has gone from JAL’s passenger operations.  It is odd to know I won’t see one again (except perhaps at a storage yard).  Every once in a while the airline industry has a big change – the end of Pan Am is one that springs to mind.  For me, this is one of those moments.

Anyway, they are gone but I have a few shots of them to remember them by.  I wonder what will be next to go?!

Browser Wars

Leave a Reply

This isn’t much of a post unless you are a bit of a net nerd. I was recently looking at the stats of the visitors to this blog. One of the stats I can get is the browser people use to visit this site.   The key data is that over two thirds of my visitors are using Firefox.

If you are reading this, the chances are you already know this since you are using Firefox yourself.

Swallows but no Amazons

Leave a Reply

When trying to be smart and come up with an amusing play on words for a title, I realized I could be on dangerous territory with this one.  Instead, I decided to play it safe but dull!  Back to the topic…

I was sitting on the shore of Lake Michigan recently watching the swallows do their thing.  I find them a fascinating bird to watch since they have a level of agility that is hard to comprehend.  I guess when you eat by catching insects in mid air, you have to be pretty sharp.  Catching a swallow on the wing is a trickier proposition altogether.  They are hard to pan with and they are small so a long lens helps keep them visible but makes the panning so much harder!

Getting them standing on a non-moving surface makes for a far easier time.  Of course, that isn’t so exciting.  There is always the option to keep trying to get a bit closer without scaring them off.

Then again, you can always try and get the flying shot.  These will never be published but they were better than I expected!

Flashing at the birds

Leave a Reply

While hanging around up in Door County in Wisconsin, I have been taking a bunch of pictures of the local wildlife. Mainly a lot of birds in the vicinity of our hotel and that is always a fun challenge. To add to the challenge, one of the afternoons that we were back at the hotel, the weather closed in and it began to rain. There was a patch of grass outside our balcony that seemed to be a popular spot for some robins so I started taking some shots.

As you are probably aware, robins are quite bold creatures so, with a little patience, you can end up with them coming reasonably close in. However, with the light having faded fast as the weather deteriorated and the natural shade of the area, it was not looking good to get a good shot. I started out by bumping up the ISO but that was only helping so much and, without a tripod, I was still going to get mixed results.

At this point I decided to try something that everyone who shoots wildlife a lot probably does to some extent but that I had not tried before and that was using some flash to boost the excitement. I had no idea how much to use so experimented with a little extra FEC, then zero and ultimately one stop under on FEC. The latter seemed to have the best results judging by the quick view on the back of the camera – always such a reliable indicator!

I was using the flashgun straight with no boost like a Better Beamer (if that is the right name) so it was a bit of a raw experiment but the results seemed to be be pretty pleasing so this is something I will have to think about further in due course.

Chicago by Blimp (Apologies to Thomas Dolby)

4 Replies

Hardly an earth-shattering post this time.  Often, photographing aviation themes can be a case of frustration as you try and aim to be somewhere when something is happening.  This situation is a little different.  I was happily sitting in my living room when I looked out of the window and saw a blimp briefly pass between two buildings in the distance.  Blimps do occasionally show up in the city, usually providing aerial coverage of some sporting event or other.

I decided to grab the camera and see if it came any closer.  I got my gear and waited for the blimp to come up the shoreline towards us.  Sure enough, it appeared between some more buildings heading in just the right direction.  Then, it turned around and headed back the way it had just come.  Crap!  Where was it going next?  I started watching the gap I had first seen it in.  Nothing for a while.  I got distracted by a shot of an Aston Martin parked in the front of the Trump and looked up to see it just passing out of sight in the gap I was supposed to be watching.

Now, can I be patient and wait for it to come back again?  Sure I can.  I waited – and waited – and waited.  Nothing.  I was beginning to think it had gone when I spotted its reflection in the IBM building.  It was right behind us!  This guy is sneaky!

Now I had to wait again.  Would he continue on that course and come out the other side of us or reverse again?  This time he continued in a predictable fashion and popped out amongst the buildings north and east of us.  I grabbed a few shots as he headed south again and then returned to what I was doing.  Hardly great shots and probably not worth the effort (unless DirecTV decide to give me something for publicizing their own publicity machine) but I guess I am a bit of a victim of anything flying.  Also, I was surprised to see just how quick that blimp could be when he wanted to get moving!