Scattered Thoughts . . .

Lunch at the top of the Tower of the Americas.  This is a situation where the fisheye distortion actually works... not only was I able to get all of us in the frame but I got the rest of Earth in there too! There are all sorts of different lenses available today. There are long telephoto lenses, medium telephoto lenses, standard telephoto, wide telephoto, prime, macro, tilt-shift, wide angle, fisheye, portrait, and all sorts of additional specialty lenses. The list goes on and on... Lately I've been doing a lot of writing about long telephoto lenses for shooting photos of wildlife but I've been wanting to write about a completely different type of lens since arriving back from our long journey to San Antonio. This is a lens which provides a bit of a strange view and one which I had just used for the first time on this trip. For certain applications, this lens really was a great choice... the fisheye lens. I've wanted a fisheye lens for years. It really is an od

O dark thirty... in the Family Reception Center. I finally managed to sort through the video clips from our trip to San Antonio and put together a bunch of video clips of Adam's graduation ceremony from Air Force Basic Training  (a big sigh of relief from me).  The video can be found at the bottom of this blog post. Admittedly, this video can be a bit boring so I don't blame people for losing interest quickly or wanting to hit that fast forward button but there are points of interest in the video which I feel I should mention here. If you find yourself getting bored, before you close the page, please fast forward to the end credits. These end credits are worth seeing. The main speaker at this graduation ceremony is the  commander of this huge training facility.  Please find the time to listen to what he has to say. He is a vibrant speaker and listening to him is very easy.  At lunch in a Mexican restaurant in Market Square after the graduation. I had asked Sheil

In the couple of weeks that we've been back home, I have had some time while recovering to put together a few online photo albums.  I think I shot well over 1000 photos during this trip but chose just a couple of hundred to show online. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip! My only regret is that, although we spent more time in San Antonio than most families do for graduation, I am left feeling as though we rushed through this trip and didn't take enough time to just sit and enjoy. Spending an evening in a couple of pubs on the Riverwalk would have been really nice. Spending more time walking through San Antonio would have been nice. Spending more time learning and experiencing the rich history of this city would have been really nice. It appears as though Adam is about to get jumped on by his Instructor! In the end, we came home with a lot of really nice photos and some really nice memories. The memories we created also sparked memories of my own history in this city. I wa

Riding Coach on The Lakeshore LImited to Chicago Traveling is difficult with my health problems. Airline travel is something I avoid like the plague since procuring this illness for many reasons and the train has many benefits for me when it comes to managing my health. I could write a novel on why airline travel is horrendous for my health and yet train travel is much more friendly for my situation but this blog entry isn't about explaining any of this so I need to try to avoid getting sidetracked! I just wanted to write a few words about our cross country train journey... First, let me say that if you want to just view some photos and a short video of our journey with Amtrak rather than reading through all of this, skip to the links at the bottom of this blog entry.   For the most part, our experiences with Amtrak were good and I would definitely do it again. Some parts were outstanding, some parts were okay, some parts were fair, some parts were simply dumb luck, and, as

We've been out of town for an extended cross-country vacation by rail and just arrived back home a bit exhausted, a little heavier (great food!), and happy about all our scheduled stops as well as our unscheduled stops. We had a great time in all the cities we visited and we especially enjoyed our five days in San Antonio. Adam graduated from Air Force Basic Military Training and we were fortunate enough to have been a part of this traditional military ceremony. We spent some time on the base and I had an opportunity to re-familiarize myself with this base as well as see many new facilities since my stay more than 30 years ago.  This is one of those bases I vowed to never return to again but I have to say it was an interesting visit. I should point out that all Air Force trainees make this same vow and we all look forward to seeing Lackland in the rear-view mirror. That being said, seeing Adam graduate was worth returning to Lackland and San Antonio.  Adam is happy... he ac

Waiting outside the recruiter's office... Back a few weeks ago, Sheila and I accompanied Adam to his first visit to an active duty Air Force recruiter. Since that first visit, Adam has been going alone but we felt it would be best to introduce ourselves to the recruiter right at the beginning so the recruiter would know that the family is familiar with the Air Force family and way of life. Things moved very quickly in that first week or so but then we moved into a syrupy, frustratingly slow "wait mode". That first week involved completing a ridiculously long application (I think it was 120 pages long) and lining up references. After submitting his application, he was scheduled for his first visit to the Military Entrance Processing Station otherwise known as MEPS. While at MEPS he passed his physical, psychological profile, drug testing and written exam (others in his group were not as fortunate), and then he actually signed a contract putting him into the Delayed