Scattered Thoughts . . .

I recently registered as a UAS (otherwise erroneously known as 'drones' but I can't bring myself to use that term incorrectly) pilot with the FAA. I've been spending the past few weeks educating myself in unmanned aircraft systems and flight control after decades of being certified in manned aircraft systems and air traffic control. Yesterday, I finally had an opportunity to practice and test out some of what I've recently learned. My interests in UAS flight is related to family video. Simply put, I want to add some interest to my family videos by adding a new perspective. I purposely chose an exceptionally small UAV (the Yuneec Breeze). I don't want to attract attention with a big UAV nor do I want to attract attention with a noisy UAV. This particular one is quite small and relatively quiet while still providing "fair" video quality (not great but not bad either). This UAV comes in a small case the size of a small personal first aid kit. So far,

This past Friday night, we had the grandchildren because Liza had a meeting... or so we were told...  When she returned to the house after her "meeting", she informed us that she had a surprise for the kids so Sheila and I pulled the kids into the bedroom until Liza brought the surprise into the house... within a minute or two, she called to us saying we could come out of the bedroom...  and Adam was standing in the living room! It was a very nice surprise!  And, it was a loud, screaming, tearful surprise for Sheila! Adam arranged to have some time off so he could come to the lake house with us again. This is a good sign that we made the right choice in choosing the lake house as our summer vacation each year since Adam was starting high school. Of course, Sheila and I enjoy it as well.  Needless to say, it has been a rather busy weekend while catching up with Adam and trying to get ready for our move to the lake house.  Yesterday, I shot some photos when we decided

I've been residing here and on the couch for the past five months. Another week has passed and it has been similar to weeks over the past five months... lousy, miserable and a complete waste of time. I've been sick with a lousy cold which has aggravated my mast cells. The cold has been bad enough to keep me in bed and on the couch but, worse yet, these sorts of things always aggravate my mast cell illness too resulting in many more problems than just a flu-like cold.  I've done nothing this past week other than sleep, blow my nose, watch movies until I fall asleep, blow my nose, take medications, blow my nose some more, and take more medications. My bone pain has been far worse lately. Everything hurts. Then today... we lost water in the house early this morning. Fun times.  I overheard one of our neighbors saying that they were working on a water main down the block. We didn't have water until almost 6:30pm...  and, even then, it was just brown, muddy wate

We had a mild dusting today of yellow... pollen!   Actually, we've never seen pollen this thick and heavy here before...

I was down and, for the most part, relegated to the couch for about a month recently due to some significant foot problems. I visited the doctor... we did some x-rays... and came to some conclusions about tendonitis, arthritis and subsequent swelling. The swelling was significant enough that I could not walk on it nor could I fit into any of my shoes. After about a month of hobbling around with a cane and a lot of pain, my foot slowly felt more like "normal" again.  Then, after about a week of "relatively normal" activity on my foot, I suddenly began having problems again! The recurring tendonitis (Achilles tendon) was making it difficult and painful to walk again and I was feeling some swelling in my heel (as opposed to my entire foot last time around). Although there is no doubt that after decades of extreme sports and a physically demanding career that my feet are a weak point and prone to injury, I've been feeling as though something other than activit

I admit that I am 'hard' on my computers. That is a plain and simple fact.  The work I do on my desktop computer constantly keeps my processors crunching numbers, spinning my hard drives and heating up. Additionally, as my cameras (both stills and video) improve each year, I find that my computer has great difficulty keeping up while getting bogged down very quickly. Because of all this graphics processing, my computers rarely last more than three years before biting the dust. Now that 4K video is becoming more mainstream and 6K cameras are available (and 8K is right around the corner), the average computers from three years ago are not at all equipped to handle streaming video of this resolution. Even trying to edit multiple 'Full HD' video clips is enough to bog down an average three year old computer. As technology moves forward, all your tools must move forward and the computer is an important tool. My current desktop computer is now more than three years old

I wrote a quick blog entry the other day about Liza's graduation ceremony so I could share a few photos rather quickly. This morning, I'll share a few more photos, a small photo album and a very short video.  As I wrote previously, we are all very proud of what Liza has managed to accomplish. Attaining her BA in Psychology was no small feat. Attaining this degree with a high GPA is even more impressive. We are proud of her and she should be proud of herself. If one would like to skip this blog entry and run directly to the photo album, here is the link: Liza's Graduation - 13 May 2017 Edit:   After a week or so, I swapped out the color portraits for black and white versions.  I never liked those color versions because there were far too many wildly varying bright colors fighting against wildly differing patterns. (This is a problem I always encounter when shooting photos of the grandchildren too.)  I converted these portraits to black and white so I could at least eli

Today, we (Sheila, Nan, Pop, her fiancee John, and I) had the honor to be guests of Liza at Johnson State College. Liza graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology this morning! We all had a really great time. Liza was visibly excited and quite proud of herself... as she should be! I have to say that Sheila and I are also quite proud of what Liza has been able to accomplish. Today was sort of a special day for Johnson... this was the last graduating class from "Johnson State College" before they begin the next school year consolidated with another local state college under a different name. It was definitely a special graduation ceremony for us but, in some ways, it was a special graduation for all those associated with Johnson State College as well. Congratulations to Liza! I have a few video clips (I had no plan to shoot video but once the bagpipes started during the processional, I had to capture a few video clips) and many more photos to share but, for

I previously wrote about designing and building my own grand piano using a Yamaha keyboard as the base for the keyboard and sound. In that blog entry, I wrote about designing my own piano around a Yamaha digital piano but I didn't provide any samples to back up my claims. Below, are two short videos which I find to be excellent examples of today's Yamaha digital pianos.  The first is a video of classical pianist, Dominic Piers Smith, performing and providing some of his thoughts about Yamaha's current digital pianos. The second video features a beautiful and moving performance by pop singer Susan Albers. Both videos are impressive and certainly showcase today's Yamaha digital piano.

As if my current 'to-do' list isn't long enough, as I've been recovering from a foot injury over the past month, I've been sketching some designs and plans for a new digital grand piano to add to my 'to-do' list! I've been thinking about designing my own piano for many years. Long ago, I accepted the fact that I would never be able to afford to buy a new commercially manufactured grand piano so I've been creatively designing my own piano. The truth is, this plan has been simmering in the back of my mind for quite some time but, lately, I've been more persistent and detail-oriented in figuring out dimensions, sketching ideas, and working out design issues. Some of the many sketches of a bored maniac... For the most part, I've been laid up with my foot elevated for at least a month now. While I installed that new flooring and new ADA toilet in our master bathroom a bit more than a month ago, I somehow injured my achilles tendon and my