Portland Head Lighthouse

Portland Head Light in Portland, Maine harbor. I just caught the last vestiges of sunset and it was COLD (16 degrees F) and WINDY (25 mph) during this shot! I was glad to run back to the warm car!

Weird Old Building - Maine

Shortly after I entered Maine on Highway 2, I noticed an oddly shaped building off to my right. It appeared to be an old barn-like structure in the center of an apple orchard. Pulling off, I took a couple shots, which almost remind me of an oil painting. Upon closer inspection, it rather seemed to be an old residence and maybe workshop.

Birch Trees - New Hampshire

New Hampshire has groves of birch trees in the White Mountain area - equivalent to and in the same family as our aspens in Colorado. I saw this small grove off to the side of Highway 15 north of the White Mountains.

Covered Bridge, New Hampshire

I recently traveled to New England on business and having a free day, decided to make a circle trip from southern New Hampshire up to the White Mountains, across to Maine, SE towards Portland and back down to Boston. There are many covered bridges in this area and I stopped at a couple of them just south of the White Mountains.

Picture of the Day - 9/2/08 (LAST)

One last shot the sums up the trip for me. This was taken by good friend Robert Morrow as Sheila and I were walking back to the car after completing yet another covered bridge photograph in Indiana. We recently celebrated our 31st anniversary during this trip and that this extraordinary woman has chosen to stick with me through all these years has been a real blessing from God. Even though she's experienced chronic headaches for the last several years (much better now that we've found a couple great doctors), she volunteered to do much of the driving so I could concentrate on my photography. She shares with me a natural curiosity to "see what's around the next bend" in the road. She's the perfect travel partner and I love her with all my heart!

Sheila, this picture is for you!

Picture of the Day - 9/1/08

These grain elevators were located off I-70 between Limon and Burlington. What caught my eye was the wispy clouds and deep blue sky. After traveling through several mid-western states with gray skies and brownish crops, the green grass was a relief.

This will be the last dispatch of the "Picture of the Day", as we have arrived back home to blue Colorado skies. Sheila and I hope you've enjoyed viewing these images as much as we've enjoyed selecting them from among the hundreds shot each day - a task that was actually pretty challenging. How does one select the best and most representative picture from the myriad taken each day? Well, wrapping things up, we lived successfully in our 24-foot trailer for six weeks and traveled over 10,000 miles - a new record! We appreciated the many positive comments from several of you and perhaps there will be another Picture of the Day sequence in the future.

Picture of the Day - 8/31/08

After six weeks on the road, covering two photo assignments, finalizing an engineering article for Test & Measurement World, outlining and completing an article for Backpacker Magazine, creating a front cover design for our engineering society magazine, visiting friends & family and most importantly, HAVING A LOT OF FUN in between, it's time to head on home to Colorado.

After attending church with Mike & Wanda, we headed for Hutchinson, Kansas, home of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center - an amazing collection of early German, U.S. and Soviet space program artifacts. On display are early V1 and V2 rockets designed by Werner Von Braun, who (with his design team) later surrendered to U.S. forces near the end of WW2, to become one  of the major rocket designers for the U.S. space program. The museum steps through rocket design history in Germany through the early satellite experiments by the U.S./Soviet teams, and all the way to the manned space programs and eventual moon landings. They managed to collect a real lunar module, lunar rovers (both U.S. and Soviet), actual V1 and V2 rockets, the Apollo 13 capsule and much more. Pictured is an actual space suit used during one of the moon landings. Highly recommended!

Picture of the Day - 8/30/08

Our last day with cousin Mike and Wanda found us in Tulsa at the Tulsa Gardening Association's greenhouse and garden. It includes a nicely landscaped garden area with nearby greenhouse with central fountain and four wings. One wing included cacti and other succulents. While I photographed many of the flowering plants, my favorite shot was of this barrel cactus. I liked the fact the larger two framed the central cluster. Using my Tamron 28-300mm lens, I focused on the central subject allowing the framing elements to go slightly out of focus. What really caught my eye were the orange/green color banding. Image data: 1/200th second at f8 (at 135mm).

The remaining day was spent shopping at an antique mall. Tomorrow, he head to Hutchinson, Kansas to visit the aerospace museum there - then it's back to Colorado to finish off the trip!

PIcture of the Day - 8/29/08

We spent the morning at the Tulsa Air & Space Museum. Although small compared to some of the larger air museums, I was impressed with the many operational simulators they had collected. These included an F-14 video-based flight simulator, a wind tunnel flight simulator and a simulator for the remote arm on the space shuttle. I got to play with all these and, although my flight skills were very rusty, I never crashed! The remote arm had me picking up a round cylinder and placing it in a round hole. Similarly with a square shaped block. The controls were a couple of joysticks and the only feedback I had was a couple of small video monitors. The control panel was a duplicate of that on the shuttle. The two docents were quite impressed with my skills - space shuttle, here I come! At least they didn't have me try placing the square peg in the round hole!  : )

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and chatting with cousin Mike and wife Wanda. They are such a fascinating couple! Mike buys items at local auctions and resells them on the EBay auction site. I love to take portraits of people using natural lighting, but I liked this silhouette the best as he's working at the computer. I also converted the remaining color portions to B&W. Not enough people smoke pipes these days!

Picture of the Day - 8/28/08

We left Bob & Mary's house and headed to Claremore, Oklahoma to visit my cousin Mike and wife Wanda. On the way, there wasn't too much to inspire, however, once we arrived at Claremore and became a little lost trying to find our RV park, I noticed this amazing sunset display. Had we not been turned around, ending up on a narrow country road, I'd have not had a clean foreground for this image! I'm amazed how often God places me at the right spot and all I have to do is press the shutter. I believe Ansel Adams was quoted similarly. I'm sure this phenomenon has a name, but I'm at a loss...

Claremore is located just NE of Tulsa and is the location where Will Rogers grew up and worked his ranch. There is now a fantastic museum with countless artifacts and mementos from his life. What a fascinating man!

Picture of the Day - 8/27/08

This may be a long posting. Sheila and I visited the Creation Museum near Cincinnati, OH today with friend Bob. The museum is the brainchild of Ken Ham, originally a Christian missionary to the U.S. (imagine that!). Ham is originally from Australia and has been speaking to churches and engaging in public debate on evolution, and related topics, for several years. The museum contains a collection of scientific evidence that supports a "young" earth (~6000 years old), a worldwide flood (Noah and the ark) and that the earth was, indeed, formed in a literal six days as described in the Book of Genesis by the God of the Bible.

This picture from one museum display is a fossil of the "last meal of a perch" (Mioplosus) collected from the well-known Green River Formation in SW Wyoming. It is on loan from William and Agnes Minnich, Wayne, NJ. There are many other examples of vertebrates (such as this perch, birds and dinosaurs) and invertebrates (such as jellyfish) and insects that were basically "frozen" within seconds by some cataclysmic event. I've also seen pictures of fossilized fish in the middle of giving birth! The theory of evolution says these creatures were buried over millions of years and fossilized. But the question in my mind is "wouldn't flesh and bone rot or get eaten long before they were covered and fossilized over millions of years?" I suspect "millions of years" is an incorrect interpretation of the physical evidence. If interested, there are more interesting questions below. We had a great time at the museum and if you're in the Cincinati area, be sure to check it out!

______________________

Following is a reply I made to a recent posting in my good friend, Jere Joiner's blog (http://pikespeakpolitics.blogspot.com/):

Jere states, in part: "Setting aside the seven days, today's scientific explanation of how the universe was formed (Big Bang, etc.) follows precisely the way it’s described in the book of Genesis. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Science and religion used to be on the same page. They will be again some day."

My reply (basically in agreement with Jere's posting):

I believe science and religion ARE on the same page, and always have been. It's just man's interpretation of the evidence through the years and liberal society's suppression of a Supreme Being and Creator that's dismissed this evidence.

There's a huge amount of recent scientific evidence - primarily geological and astronomical - that only makes sense if you are open to considering a "young earth" (~6,000 years), a worldwide flood and creation occurring over six days. Unfortunately, this evidence (of course) remains unpublished in the popular media. Many stalwart scientists are starting to admit there must have been a Supreme Creator of the universe.

Check out the following link for more info. Their store sells several scholarly books on this subject. 

http://www.answersingenesis.com

By the way, the Big Bang Theory has largely been dismissed by most scientists; both creationists and evolutionists. However, this has also not been published in the media.

To whet your curiosity (and those of your readers) here are a few items that can't be easily explained by "millions of years" or evolution.

1. Fossilized fish in the middle of a bite (fish in fish's mouth) - something occurred rapidly to kill them (flood?)

2. Fossilized fish in the midst of giving birth - ditto above.

3. Fossilized tree trunks clearly cutting across distinct geologic strata - like that could happen through millions of years!

4. Fossilized cone shells in the Grand Canyon strata all pointing the same way - a fast occurring flood? Normally, they point in random directions.

5. Human footprints along with dinosaur prints in the sandstone formation of an ancient creek bottom in Texas.

6. Fossilized jellyfish? Wouldn't they have decomposed long before pressure through "millions of years" would have fossilized them? Ditto with the fish examples above.

There are many other biological examples that are difficult to explain via evolution that I won't go into right now. However, the Second Law of Thermodynamics (systems degrade over time) is a biggie.

Picture of the Day - 8/26/08

Many states in the midwest, northeast, and northwest have collections of covered bridges built between the mid-1800s through about the 1920s. Parke County (with the city of Rockville as the central hub) in Western Indiana claims to be the "Covered Bridge Capital of the World" with 40 local bridges. Many of these are still in use. Usually, they are named after the builder - in this case, McAllister's Bridge, which was built in 1914 and crosses the Little Raccoon Creek. It spans 126 feet and continues to be used today. This image was created from a composite of five separate images spaced apart by 1 stop of light each (one "stop" being equivalent to half or double the amount of light). This allows reproduction of detail in both the highlights and shadow areas - something a single frame is unable to capture due to limited dynamic range of the imager chip. This more closely simulates what the human eye is able to capture.

We photographed 12 bridges today!

Picture of the Day - 8/25/08

"The American Farmer" - We're driving from the Detroit area in Michigan through Ohio to visit with our good friends Bob & Mary in Indiana. This is a pretty typical farm in this part of the country. The crop pictured is soybeans, which are used in a variety of ways (oil, part of margarine, tofu and protein supplements). Feed corn is usually alternated with the crop of soybeans to keep the soil from "wearing out". I decided to emphasize the sky because the clouds were interesting and to give the farm a sense of place.

Picture of the Day - 8/24/08

We spent most of the day at the highly acclaimed Henry Ford Museum in Greenfield (near Dearborn), Michigan. Ford loved to collect the latest technology of his day and days past - and steam locomotives formed a major part of the exhibit. The engine pictured here is a 1941 Allegheny - among the largest and most powerful of their day. They were designed to haul freight; mainly coal and iron, in trains up to 1.25 miles long. The engine and tender weighed over 600 tons! A six-foot person would be about even with the C&O logo on the front. Top speed was 60 mph. Diesel-electric engines soon took over and all 60 locomotives in this class were retired after only 15 years of service.

I was born in 1951, just as steam engines were nearing the end of their era. I remember moving from the San Francisco to central Orange County, California in 1953 and taking the steamer to get there. I still have the small wooden suitcase my parents gave me to hold a few toys and books during the trip. As I was just two years old at the time, the engine must have made quite an impression to have remembered the trip so vividly.

Tomorrow, we turn homeward-bound...

Picture of the Day - 8/23/08

We decided to relax, reorganize the trailer and catch up on email and blog postings today. While I was busy photographing fellow geeks all week, Sheila took a few exploratory trips around the Detroit area. One of these trips included the Detroit Zoo, which features an underwater observation tube in the harbor seal tank. I loved the bright color and the ambient lighting. The people watching give the composition some perspective within an almost surreal abstract surrounding. Taken with a Canon PowerShot S3-IS.

Picture of the Day - 8/22/08

While Detroit's city center is impressive, times have been hard on the region's manufacturing industry. In our wanderings, we found several areas of crumbling tenements, gutted buildings fenced off and general squaller. The entire city is strewn with trash and it's obvious there's no pride among the citizenry who live there. There is much opportunity for urban redevelopment.

On a more upbeat note (get it?), Detroit remains a center for musical talent and there were several street concerts the week we were there. The "Motown" sound lives on here!

Picture of the Day - 8/21/08

OK, just one picture from the conference I was photographing - only my good friend and fellow photographer, Brent DeWitt from HP - obliged and took the photo for me. I'm posing with Hao An (technical editor) and Xie Hong (Chief Editor) with Safety & EMC Journal, China's largest product regulatory magazine at 500,000 circulation. I had recently written an article for their May 2008 English edition and it was a real pleasure to see them again.

Picture of the Day - 8/20/08

Here's one more architectural shot from yesterday, as the conference photos today wouldn't be of much interest. This is the General Motors world headquarters complex, which includes the Marriott (conference hotel). See what I gave up to live for the week in our trailer?  :)

It's located right on the riverfront across from Windsor, Ontario, and just down the street from Cobo Center. Since this angle was catching the sun's reflections, I decided to reduce my aperture down to a minimum (f28) and create these eye-catching sun-stars. I corrected the vertical tombstoning distortion using Photoshop's Edit > Transform > Perspective control. I wonder if they'd use this for the cover of their next annual report?  :)

Picture of the Day - 8/19/08

Well, you'll be getting another dose of architecture, because downtown Detroit has plenty worth capturing. This is the old Mariners' Church, next to GM's world headquarters. According to the nearby plaque, in 1842, according to the will of Julia Ann Anderson, Mariners' Church was organized to serve the spiritual needs of the Great Lakes seamen. The Gothic Revival church was built in 1849 on the northwest corner of Woodward Avenue and Woodbridge Street. In 1955 the church was moved to make room for the Civic Center plaza. Hauled 880 feet along steel rails to the present site, the 3000-ton limestone structure blocked Woodward Avenue traffic for 21 days. The church was immortalized in the 1975 ballad "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" as the "cathedral" where "the church bell chimed 'til it rang 29 times."

Picture of the Day - 8/18/08

The engineering conference venue is in Detroit's Cobo Center - a very large conference building located downtown near the riverfront. Looking out across the Detroit River lies Windsor, Ontario. Detroit is Joe Louis' hometown and he's immortalized here in the main lobby of the Cobo Center.