Rambling on a Winter PhotoWalk...

Howdy Folks,

Since I am off this week, I am seriously playing with my Canon DSLR big time and taking photowalks daily. Photowalks are simply where photographers take a walk and just shoot pics of anything that looks interesting through a lens. It is great practice and you never know what you will capture with the right point of view. I usually take them in the evening...

So I took a walk around the tree farm today . I love how things look with the snow highlights! Hope you enjoy!

Finally here is a Cherry Tree (my favorite pic of the day), this is one of several I took of the same tree. Maybe after a little photoshop work I will enter it into a contest or something... who knows. I just thought the way it looked with the snow surrounding it and the sunset, it was saying, "Old man winter, I am just waiting for you to get done with all this cold weather so I can produce green leave, pretty flowers and juicy cherries!" Hoping for spring!!!

Thanks for looking!

Later,

ZA

Ramblings on Murphy and the Snow Storm...

Howdy Folks,

Thanks for all you new followers as well as you 'old timers', I really do appreciate it!

Back on Friday (12-18-09) we had a pretty major winter storm come through our area. The area I work in (foothills of NC) received around 10-12 inches of frozen stuff (mixture of snow, sleet and freezing rain) and back home we had 6 inches of the same.

The DOT had pre-salted the roads on Thursday, but the first wave of snow came and melted washing the salt away. The roads were wet and slushy but nothing major. After lunch the ice began again with a vengeance and by 4 pm the roads were completely covered. The bosses told us we could head to the house as soon after 3 pm as we could get back to the office. As I drove the work truck back to the office there is a pretty steep hill that is over 1000' long and traffic had stopped. Many folks started up the hill, started spinning, freaked out, and SLOWLY backed down the hill. After 30 minutes of waiting I gave up and headed up the back way, which I had decided to avoid because I figured it would more difficult to go up. 10 minutes later I got to my parking place.

This picture was taken as a screen shot from a video on the iPhone as I didn't have any pics of wreck but lots of videos. iPhone rocks!!!

After seeing much mayhem, stupid drivers, and dicey roads, I was happy to head home. I jumped in ole Blue (my 4x4 truck) and pointed it toward home.

As I headed out of town I snapped this picture of this gas station chain which has huge American flags flying. The wind was blowing around 10-15 mph at the time of this pic.

After I got out of town I pretty much had the roads to myself. The roads were pure ice but I was able to keep it going and going straight.

About 4 miles away from home Mr. Murphy reared his ugly head. My battery had died a few weeks back and I recharged it. The battery held the charge well and I figured it was good to go. WRONG! After running the lights, heater blower, and ham radio I figure it was just too much for the old battery and it just quit on me.

Crap, now I was stuck on a hill with a dead battery!!! NOT GOOD!!! AAA would be swamped. No way the wife was going to come out into this mess. No one was in a helping mood until about 45 minutes after my little ordeal began. As I waited, several folks with front wheel drive cars got stuck down at the bottom of the hill (more on that later). I offered to help them as soon as I could get a jump. With the hood up and holding jumper cables no one offered to help... Karma is a bitch so I hear...

Since my battery was dead, my four way flashers would not work. Luckily being a prepper, I had multiple sets of road flares on hand. I decided to use them one at a time as I didn't know how long I was gonna be on iceberg hill. Luckily before the first one burned down, I was getting my truck jump started :) Luckily it held up. I turned off all non-essential drain on the battery and let it idle.

The battery on my iPhone was OK, but I always carry my little battery pack that I keep charged so in case I needed 2.5 full charges I had that capability independent of my truck's (failed) electrical system.

So now Russell (aka Mr. Good Samaritan) has given me a jump and I am good to go. So off we go to help the stuck motorists. This is another one of those long hills and with the snow/ice sleet still pouring down it was going from bad to worse. Both drivers had front wheel drive cars and they could easily go up the hill, if they would simply learn how to accelerate WITHOUT spinning. One lady had major problems until I told her to put her manual transmission in 2nd gear and start up the hill. With front wheel drives and winter weather driving don't stop or spin on a hill and you are good to go! If that wouldn't have worked we would have lowered the air in the tires, but they went good as is.

Russell and I originally planned to tow the stranded motorists up the hill, but these little cars with all their plastic parts and NO WHERE to attach a tow strap or chain is almost impossible to do! So that is when we decided to drive them up the hill. The only tow points were too small for my clevis hooks to attach to. Works on big vehicles, little ones... not so much!

So by now we got the whole hill cleared and no one is left stranded. Luckily I made it the remaining 4 miles home without any more failures of my Battery. On Sunday the roads were cleared up enough to allow me to get a replacement battery.

So when things are at their worst you can expect Mr. Murphy to come calling.

Things that worked:

Gore-Tex: As I was working outside in the weather all day, I already had my gear on. Usually I take it off for the drive home, but not this time. After laying on the ground looking for a place to attach a chain I was glad I was dry and warm!

Reflective Vest: I was wearing my reflective vest from work and had forgotten to take it off. Glad I had it on!

Flashlights: LED and Surefires worked really well. I was the only one who actually had a flashlight(s)! WTF is up with that??? Light good, dark bad!

Road Flares: Work Great! Lets others know that there is a problem ahead, and also keeps people away from where you do not want them to drive as no one wants to drive over a incendiary device! LOL

Truck (other than the battery): Never had a problem driving on the snow or going up or down hills. Old Blue got-r-done... AutoCraft battery??? epic fail!!!

Things I had that could have helped:

The SAW: No, not the Squad Automatic Weapon, but rather the Husqvarna chainsaw I carry with fuel and oil. With the way the wind was blowing, 20 mph when I got home, I was SHOCKED my power didn't go off or the road was blocked by a tree. This is the first time I have driven home in a winter storm that there was not ANY trees in the road! After the wind picked up there may have been some, but I didn't care.

Things I should have had:

I wished I had a jump starter pack for 2 reasons. One is I could have used it to power the electronics to allow me to roll start my truck and maybe got it going... Also I could have jumped off my truck!!!

My 1100W 12/24V DC Generator: I used to carry this in my truck during bad winter weather but have not needed it, so it sat in the garage. Too bad, this puppy will give you 90 amps of CONTINUOUS 12V DC cranking power. Next winter storm this will be riding along as well!!!

Things I let others borrow: A buddy at work had a failure of his windshield wiper blades, so I let him have my USED spare pair. When I change out my old ones I keep them as spares so I have SOMETHING in case my new ones fail.

We got a total of 6 inches here and lucky for me, I am off for awhile, so I don't hafta go any where if I don't wanna.

Thanks for reading and 73!

Later,

ZA

Ramblings on... Sometimes it is the simple things we forget!

Howdy Folks,

Sometime it is the simple things we overlook. Today I had to work up in the mountains. Where I got into my work truck it was a cool 25F this morning. When I got up to the hills the thermometer read 13F. When I got to my first job the wind was whipping to up around 20 MPH. I don't know the math but it was brutal, or at least if felt that way since this was the coldest temps of the season for my area.

I had some good cold weather gear and I wrapped my fleece around my head to keep warm. I needed something to keep my face warm, and I used the fleece over my face. The problem was, the fleece came untucked and the blast of cold air chilled my face...

If only I had something as simple as a SAFETY PIN! I do have these in my BOB's but not in my work bag!

So if you got a good idea for some gear that you may need, be sure to include it in all your bags!

My short sightedness in this matter will be corrected ASAP. This was not a life threatening situation, but rather a bit of discomfort.

Later,

ZA

Ramblings on getting Night Vision Gear (2nd or 3rd gen)...

Howdy Folks,

For those of us who had the honor to serve in the military and got the chance to use the latest and greatest Night Vision Gear (NVG) it is very hard to forget how awesome they were.

When I completed my tour of duty, I missed three things... my M-16, my 155mm howitzer and my NVG goggles. An AR-15 makes a nice replacement for the M-16, and .50 caliber black powder rifle will make almost as much noise/smoke/smell as a 155mm howitzer, but nothing other than a set of the current set of NVG goggles will replace what you had in the military!

My first attempt at purchasing Night Vision was a set of Russian 3x magnification night vision binoculars. These pair run me over $600 and I thought I was satisfied until I went to visit my friend White Wolf over in TN. WW had a sweet set of 3rd generation PVS-7B goggles (one tube, but 2 eyepieces). It was then I realized that my russkie set was no match for those ITT PVS-7B.

There is only one problem with buying 3rd generation Night Vision equipment and that is finding the money to purchase them. A good pair of NVG's will run you over $3000... ouch! Are they worth it? Yes, I believe so... but ONLY after you have stored up enough food for a year, medical supplies, a piece of land of your own, dependable transportation, debts paid off, a roof above your head, and so on... Yes they are worth it, but not if you do not have all your other bases covered!!!

A good second choice is 2nd generation or 2nd generation + gear (higher end 2nd gen stuff more like 2.5 gen), which run around the $2000 mark.

All night vision works similar. They take available light and amplify it to produce an image that gives us a way to see in the dark.

All night vision requires light to work. That is why your $200 walmart specials usually will work exceptionally well when you use the IR (infra-red light invisible to the human eye, but not night vision gear) illuminator, but NEVER EVER NEVER use this to judge night vision gear! It is what night vision does with the AVAILABLE light that makes them expensive and worth the $$$.

Let me cover the DANGER of using the IR illuminator in a TACTICAL situation. First of all think of this analogy. A submarine has two types of sonar, active and passive. The submarines best defense is how quiet it is. When it is quiet, no one can locate where it is and the sub remains hidden and undetected. To locate enemy and friendly ships it uses PASSIVE sonar which allows the sub to catalog. identify, and track the tangos. Sometimes it is necessary to use active sonar which it sends out a sound wave (PING) to give it information on a target. They do not use active sonar much because while it will 'paint' the best picture, it also lets everyone else know (including the target they are pinging) where they are at!

So your night vision uses PASSIVE light (moonlight,starlight, streetlight) to help you see what is around . When there is a full moon even the cheap 1st gen NVG will work decent, but on a cloudy night deep in the woods you find out that cheap gear starts to show its true nature. When there is not enough PASSIVE light then the NVG needs an external ACTIVE light source such as an IR(infra-red) illuminator to allow you to see.

Here is where it gets interesting... with an IR illuminator (these are usually IR LED's) ACTIVE, folks with other Night Vision Gear can see you! Even the cheap models will allow you to see someone using an IR. So the reason you want 2+ or 3 gen NVG is so you will not need to use that IR often. There are some cheap units that have the IR's on all the time to allow you night vision. These work the same as low light CCTV systems with a lens surrounded by a ring of IR LED's.

These IR LED's are invisible to the naked eye, but I have found that looking at them head on I can see a faint red glow. Not usually a problem...

ACTIVE IR lighting is not a bad thing unless you are wishing to remain stealth. For viewing wildlife and walking through the woods without a flashlight they are great. However when going up against bad guys who may have night vision, you don't want to be running around with an IR on... trust me!!!

OK enough of the technical mumbo jumbo...

Now granted these pics are not perfect as they were taken with a camera phone (the lower resolution ones) and a point and shoot held up to one side of the PVS-7D.

The Woodshed.

Stars through the clouds.

Shep on the trail.

Garden area, notice the sky and the light from a town 30 miles away.

Horse shed, night light and porch lights

Another view of garden area.

Moon rise and house lights on.

Same as last pic but lights off.

I hope that you enjoyed the pics and the posts. You can be perfectly happy with 1st generation night vision. I just want folks to understand the limitations though. If you use your IR, you might as well have a flashlight in your hand if others have night vision as well.

Thanks for reading!

Later,

ZA

Ramblings on Gore-Tex...

Howdy Folks,

Been awhile but work has been brutal here lately. Not only the long hours, but lots of rain. I know just a bunch of excuses... My free time has been spent with the family as well as playing with my camera (photography is becoming one of my favorite hobbies). The pics above are some I took the other night.

Along with the internet I am surprised that Mr. Gore didn't claim he created Gore-Tex. I mean that one at least has his name on it, much more believable IMHO!!!

Well anyway in my line of work, the Mail Man has nothing on me... except that motto because I am out working in all types of weather when the mail man is at home in his/her bungalow nice and cozy.

I wear Gore-Tex boots (USA made Danners) year round and they keep me dry. Whether I am walking through high dewey grass or I stick my foot in a puddle, I know my feet are going to stay dry! For those of you who are looking to retrofit your footwear, look into those Gore-Tex socks which will keep your feet dry!

I can be soaked from the top of my head to the top of my boots, but as long as my feet are dry, I am a happy camper!!!

I also wear a Gore-Tex outer wear parka shell. In the warmer months I wear the shell only when it rains. As it gets cooler I may wear a hoodie, fleece or a warm jacket under the parka shell to layer in the warmth.

If you wear a Gore-Tex jacket or parka and it rains, that jacket will keep you dry... but where your jacket ends, your wetness begins! IOW you need some Gore-Tex pants! I usually add the pants when it is going to rain all day, rain very hard, or when the wind blows hard.

Yes Gore-Tex works great to cut the wind as well!

My original Gore_Tex setup was a set from Cabela's in forest green. These blend in without looking tactical. They are also lightweight and are very durable. I went up to the next size so I could layer very bulky if needed.

My work provided me with a Gore-Tex parka through my clothing allowance but NO PANTS! I just added my Cabela pants to the setup!

My REALLY GOOD set of Gore-Tex is a set of ECWS GenII Millitary Gore-Tex tops and bottoms in woodland camo. US Cavalry had these on clearance for $100 a few years back since the Army was going to the new digital camo. I love this set, but being TRIPLE layered they are kind of stiff and noisy. There is a set issued to the Navy SEALS that are quieter but they are very expensive! If I need quiet I will use the Cabela's Set, but in a hurricane give me the ECWS Parka! Not gonna get wet in those!!!

I treat my Gore-Tex once a year with a cleaner as well as treat the outer shell to give it water repellency so the nylon shell will not HOLD the water. Once your jacket starts to absorb water instead of repelling it, it is time to treat it!!!

The best way to stay dry during a rain storm is to stay inside, but for those of us who can't always do that, be sure to have the proper gear to operate comfortably in it. IMHO Gore-Tex (or other similar fabrics) are worth the money if you wanna stay dry!

Thanks for reading and 73!

Later,

ZA