Flowers

Trying my hand at flower arranging. Pretty good, eh?

The CN Tower, Ontario Canada

I hope you're not afraid of heights>>

Nice trip with my son and daughter in law. Beautiful weather and great food up the CN Tower.

Awesome Cars - seen in Throughway Service Area I90 - New York State

Greetings.... Awesome cars we bumped into (no, not literally) on the throughway last week.

Sailing and Sail Boats

Greetings,

Just some of the sailboats seen on Conesus Lake.


A recent arrival, a schooner! The gentleman lives in Honeyoye Falls and just acquired this interesting boat.

Cheers

Take your internet with a Pinch of Salt

Greetings,

The free online dictionary defines the phrase "take something with a pinch of salt (British & Australian, American & Australian)
if you take what someone says with a pinch of salt, you do not completely believe it. You have to take everything she says with a pinch of salt. She has a tendency to exaggerate. It's interesting to read the reports in the newspapers, but I tend to take them with a grain of salt. "

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/take+with+a+pinch+of+salt

I remember seeing an interview of young Muslim girls at a madrassah who stated as fact some obvious fallacy about western culture. The reporter asked her how she know this "fact" to which she replied that she had read it on the internet.

If it's on the internet it must be true? How can anyone believe that? How can anyone believe anything anymore? Well, to a discerning reader, one who has keen insight, reading falshoods online is part of the amusement and interest of the internet. To quote the song, "We all laughed at Christopher Columbus..." there once was a time when everybody believed that the world was flat and was at the center of the universe. How silly you looked, and risked so much, if you said you believed the world was round, or worse still, that the earth went around the sun.

Well does a photograph prove those thousand unbelieveable words? Yes and no.... I mean anyone can open up photoshop and doctor a photograph. Indeed the world's media are not above that sort of lie. I remember one photograph of Tony Blair which, it was later proved, had been modified to show a larger gap between him and someone else, implying some sort of rift between the two people. Subtle visual evidence used to "prove" the journalist's point of view.

Nor do these less-than-honest journalists have to physically modify photographs. If you take enough photographs of some poor politician you are bound to catch them with their mouths open, or yawning, or even picking their noses. So when the left leaning media want to denigrate these public figures.... you guessed it, another photograph of George W. picking his nose or whatever. You can't imagine the photo editor at the New York Times publishing a photo of George W smiling when they're criticising him.

So what if the world is flat? What if two and two make five? It must be true, I read it on the internet.....

Have a pinch of salt from me... after all I read the other day some guy has won the world lying championship five times running, or so he says.

Cheers.

Greetings,

Pretty little landing site on the shores of Seneca Lake, near Ovid, NY.

A gentleman fell off the dump truck. Well, actually the wire between the telephone poles knocked him off.

We took him to hospital where he's doing well.

Cheers.

Barking at Seagulls - It's a Dog's Life

Greetings,
How humdrum life would be if there were no seagulls to bark at - Rudi and Sterling's favourite boating activity.


And then home because it's dark. (Note how beautifully visible the swim float is in the dark!)


Cheers

Conesus Lake

Greetings,

Oh how pretty, how hot and humid today, how can I possibly afford it? I can't.... but it's a good sacrifice.

Benazir Bhutto - Former PM of Pakistan - in talks with Pervez Musharraf

Listening to BBC World Service on my new XM satellite radio tonight (in my first new car since 1978) I was somewhat delighted to hear that Bhutto is hoping to return to Pakistan.

Why am I delighted? Well, for one thing Pakistan has to be encouraged and maintained as an ally in the fight against terrorism. Her strategic importance to the region, both geographically and politically, make her about as important a nation as any. A wish for a return to democracy has to be foremost in the mind of all clear thinking commentators.

I look forward to reading some editorials and watching some news later tonight to see if the talks have totally stalled or whether, as the BBC suggested, there are few obstacles in the path towards the end of Benazir Bhutto's exile.

Watch this space.

Read the news item...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6974083.stm

Quadruple On Scene Motor Vehicle Accident

A major head-on accident occurred today. Four helicopters were used to transport patients to two major hospitals, Eire County Medical Center in Buffalo, and Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester.
Notice the way in which the engines on both cars are low down, as designed in today's modern cars, having absorbed the impact forces.
Here are firefighters and EMS workers from several districts extracting the last patient. We took that patient to Strong in Rochester, as ECMC was dealing with three flown before ours. If I heard correctly, two further patients were taken by road.

Ironic, isn't it? Strykersville fire department know the field they used as the landing zone! They'll be there this weekend for their fund raiser.

Just after they extracted the driver I had a look to see how they had removed the dashboard from the driver's lap. Both hydraulic power and good old fashioned cable pull. The firefighter was just releasing the tension on that orange chain which had been used to lift the steering wheel.

All round, this was a job well done with co-ordinated efforts from various first responder organisations, including North Java, Strykersville, Mercy Flight Western, State Police, Wyoming County EMS Co-ordinator, and last but not least, us - Mercy Flight Central.

Just some views from yesterday and today

This is Watkins Glen raceway with Seneca Lake behind. Photo taken Tuesday 14th August.

Towed the EC 135 (on the right) out so that we could get the Bolkow BO105 out for washing.

Yesterday on scene. Howard, NY, near Hornell.




Cheers, John (aka Captkirkj and Misterspock on PuzzlePirates.com)

Bobby died.

Bobby died.

A good friend to all, Bobby died and was buried yesterday. She was so loved by all who knew her the church was filled to capacity. The words used to describe her repeated one word over and over… love.

Bobby had more love for everyone she met than ten other people. She loved God’s creatures and adopted many animals, including the infamous blind donkey. As a volunteer at Buffalo Zoo, and in spite of her own trials and tribulations through arthritis, she devoted so much time to animal welfare that we wondered how she did it. As such an example to us all we gained in strength ourselves just by watching her.

She is at rest now, free of all pain, full of the joy that she had on earth.

God Rest her Soul

A full moon

Sometimes views we get are simply breathtaking. It's a shame a photograph never fully captures the moment, but this is pretty good..

On scene, Wolcott, NY - Baseball field

Landed on the ball park to pick up this patient.

Slid into home..... actually parked halfway between the pitcher's mound and home plate.

(For the UK readers, sort of like in between the wickets! :-) )

Sunrise

Good morning world.
As I arose this morning I was greeted by a glorious sunrise over Conesus Lake.

A google search for "Sunrise Poetry" led me to this website:

http://www.netpoets.com/poems/christian/0017003.htm

My thanks to Rachel Branch for that lovely poem.

Middlesex Valley, NY - On Scene

Greetings.

Another victim of a fall - seven in 24 hours, I believe.

Love the Piper Cubs who all waited patiently at Middlesex Valley airport, (http://www.airnav.com/airport/4n2)

Cheers

Mr. Blackie knew what to do. (Written 2001, but relates to 1953)

We knew each other, Mr. Blackie and I. He told me when I was stroking him too hard or for too long.

Sometimes, I could look after him, he had his cardboard box with his cushion. When he wanted to sleep, and that was lots of the time, he would curl up in his box, look at me, and put his head down, eyes still open watching to see what I would do. If I gave him a tickle under his chin, then quieted him behind the ear with softer and softer strokes, always with the fur not against it, he would purr.

When his purring stopped, sometimes with a deep sigh, I knew to stop and take my hand away so slowly that he wouldn’t feel me going. I would sit by his box just watching. I caught him peeking one time, with just the corner of one eye, when there was a noise. I pretended to be looking out of the window and he smiled and went back to sleep. I watched over him when he slept and he always did the same for me.

When it was my turn to sleep and Mom had tucked me in, he would be pestering her for food or going out to chase other cats away, I would be alone, in the dark, scared of the pattern I could just see on the wallpaper. By day, it was a pattern made up of grapes and vine leaves. In the dim light of night, three grapes became the eyes and nose of a wolf. I would cry, and who would be there first? Mr. Blackie. He’d come in through the little hole in the fly screen that I had secretly made for him to come and go. With that little bit of a meow as he landed on the floor with a thump, I knew he was coming.

He’d rub his cheek against mine, just like I had rubbed his cheek during the day when it was his turn. He’d lick the salty tears from my eyes, tickling me and making me laugh. Then he’d sit, not curl up, on my chest or beside me and wait. I am sure he would wait, too, until I sighed and slept. I never caught him with the corner of my eye, not like he’d caught me. Every time I would try not to sleep just to see if he was still there, he was.

When my baby brother was crying one time, I suddenly realised that Mr. Blackie would know what to do. I ran around the house looking for him. There he was, in his box where I’d left it. I picked up the box, cat and all, and carried him rather wobbly – he was almost too heavy for me. He was a little scared, but held on, not knowing why I had grabbed the box. I ran back to the cot and put the box down. Picking him up, I pushed him between the bars and sat down. Sure enough, Mr. Blackie realised that I wanted him to help Jeremy stop crying, to help him sleep.
After what seemed like forever, Jeremy slept. Mr. Blackie very carefully got up from beside him, looked at me, and as God is my witness, he winked at me, jumped into his box and looked back at me again with a grin on his face. What a great friend! I carried him around from then on, all day – every day, no matter what we children were doing.

When he needed his time on his own, he would disappear, but I knew he’d be back when I needed him. One day he just didn’t come back. The grown ups pretended that he was OK, but I knew exactly what had happened and when – I felt his pain and shock as a passing car hit him on the road outside. I couldn’t even bear to go look for his body. Mom soon got me another black kitten, and yet Blackie Junior never quite had that same feel for me as his namesake. No, Mr. Blackie was my first ever friend, and because I was only three, he will always be my best ever friend. I miss him.

Double On Scene - Fairport NY

Greetings,


It's not often we're called to a scene of a motor vehicle accident where they need more than one helicopter. This was just such a scene, with five ambulances and two helicopters.

Cheers

Ring of Fire, Conesus Lake, NY, 3 July 2007

The Ring of Fire is an annual event taking place on 3 July. At 10 pm. all the lakefront homes light at least two road flares on their beach - all provided by the Conesus Lake Association. Most of us buy extras, and as you can see, the whole coastline is lit with red flares.

Of course, many folks buy their own fireworks - it's quite a display.

Enjoy, we did!

Hard Rock and Sikorsky Helicopters

Greetings,

Last April I went to Orlando Florida to see the Heli-Expo 2007. Had a great party courtesey of Sikorsky at the Hard Rock Cafe.

How long is a mile? What kind of mile? Distance - arbitrary or absolute!

Greetings,

I was just thinking about distances - aviation, maritime, land. Here are some thoughts and definitions.

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia Defines a mile as follows:
Any of various units of distance, including the statute mile of 5,280 ft (1.61 km). It originated from the Roman mille passus, or "thousand paces," which measured 5,000 Roman ft (4,840 English ft [1.475 km]). A nautical mile is the length on the Earth's surface of one minute of arc or, by international definition, 1,852 m (6,076.12 ft [1.1508 statute mi]); it remains in universal use in both marine and air transportation. A knot is one nautical mile per hour.
I wish to correct the above.

Nautical Mile: The distance on the surface of the earth subtended by one minute of arc for the center of curvature for that point on the earth.

This means the length of a nautical mile (Nm) is variable. A close approximation is 6080 - 30.1 * COS(latitude). This assumes that the earth is a regular spheroid. Early satellite orbital data proved that there’s actually more mass in the southern hemisphere, therefore south of the equator a nautical mile is slightly longer than for the same latitude north of the equator.

So what? Well, the NM is probably the only unit of distance measurement that makes any mathematical sense. Let’s face it, the standard or land mile is arbitrary – selected from historical estimates of how long it takes a horse to go a distance.

See what happens, for example, when you measure a distance on a map (any projection) and when you calculate it using your handy GPS! Such differences may appear trivial, but now that we rely on GPS more and more, the accuracy suffers if we pay no attention to these details.

Standard Nautical Mile: From above this has been arbitrarily defined as 6076.12 ft. Actually, here’s a little British history – I believe the so called Standard Nautical Mile was taken from the length af a NM in the English Channel using the formula historically in vogue at the time this was defined. Somewhat like the way the British gave the world the Greenwich Meridian!

Even more crazy is the Kilometer. Who ever said that 1/10000th of the distance between the poles is a good idea. Later, through French influence, the length of a meter was redefined as so many wavelengths of a particular laser light. Why?

Metric Units

Marketing Dictionary

Well, according to Baron’s, the metric system is a system of measuring size, weight, and volume, based upon decimal units. The basic metric system units are grams, meters, and liters. One gram = 0.035 ounce. One meter = 39.37 inches. One liter = 61.025 cubic inches (cubic capacity), 0.908 quart (dry measure), or 1.057 quarts (liquid measure).

All nations of the world with the exception of the United States and two very small countries use the metric system. (my emphasis!) The U.S. Reluctance to conform to these worldwide standards makes it difficult to market packaged goods globally. For example, a consumer abroad accustomed to buying in liter or gram quantities will not understand a package label that uses quarts or ounces. Also, food package recipes cannot be easily translated from teaspoons and cups to grams and liters as required for non-U.S. Cooking utensils. However, for international marketing, the expense of printing metric versions of labels and packages is a costly necessity.

Is there a lesson to be learned? Possibly, but for myself, I still love those old statue miles, feet and inches I learned as a child. Of course, all this was brought home to me when my son asked how long a foot was! He wasn’t even taught those units at school in Great Britain fifteen years ago.

Plus ça change.

The full phrase in French is "Plus c'est la meme chose, plus ça change" which translates as "The more things change, the more things stay the same"

Captain Kirk

When is a blimp not a blimp?

Answer, when it's punctured, then it's limp.

Or, "a dirigible that is non rigid." from the web dictionary at google.

Or, "A lighter-than-air, engine-propelled aircraft capable of being steered in any desired direction."

Ho hum.

The Hood blimp was here for the lady's golf in Rochester. Amazing pitch attitudes are used on climbs and descents. Nice to see it, both from on the ground at Strong Memorial Hospital and in the air.

http://www.redsoxblimp.com/

Cheers.