Not So Festivus

Just a short Holiday post for the end of the year 2019.

2019 has been a pretty lousy year overall for me, career wise and personally as well in a number of ways. All in all, I'm very glad its about over.

And I'm really hoping 2020 turns out to be a MUCH MUCH better year. For everyone!

Another of my series of playing around with Christmas lights on the tree. Kinda like the spiky look of this one.

I'm always trying to come up with something different with these light photos. This time I shot from pretty close up, but way out of focus. Got some interesting colored blobs.

Another of these. I think I like this one the best.

Pack It Up

Finally getting a post uploaded. Been busy with a big move and all kinds of fun.

After about 25 years, relocating to try a new location. Due to changing job situations, and helping out with some family needs back home. So headed from the mountain west to the prairie.

There were several ways I could have moved. Several different vehicles I could have used. But ended up going with the big Orange Uhaul. The BIG one.

And a tow dolly for my little car. Plus I recruited my little brother to come down, drive my little pickup back as well. And help with packing and unpacking, of course.

Trip went fine. It was a LONG day. Weather had been pretty warm, being mid August no big surprise. But moving day was cooler with a lot of clouds, and some showers all day. For the ~600 mile trip. 

Saw a lot of this. The trip took all day but we made it fine. Started unloading the next day. Used a little over $200 worth of gas for the trip and the big V10. Next begins 'life in a northern town'.

Lots of things to do. And I don't even know if I'll be staying here. I'm here for now, but depending on what comes up next for me, I may be staying here. I may not. We'll have to wait and see, I'll update more on that when it happens! With more photos along the way...

Invisible Iron

Is it possible to make a 78 year old, 1,200,000 pound steam locomotive disappear?

To an amazing degree, YES! Allow me to elaborate...

Yesterday was a BIG day. A Big Boy day...

After 5 years, the Union Pacific rolled out the Big Boy 4014 locomotive. Restored and back to operating condition. The biggest steam locomotive ever made.

I've posted on it a couple time in the past, in 2014 and 2018. You can find the links at right. The good news is they got it back together and working! At least well enough to go to the big 150th Transcontinental Railroad Anniversary event in Utah, as they had planned.

Saturday morning, they sent the trains off after a brief christening ceremony. Big Boy 4014 leading the way, then the 844 Living Legend locomotive behind it (doing most of the work I think. 4014 is really still being broken in and tested), followed by a Diesel and a number of cargo and passenger cars for this special trip. Here's a link to a short video (not mine, ~2 minutes) of the trains pulling up to the UP Depot in town:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cofv2msLz-0

This train has been the subject of huge interest. For years. Especially in the railfan community.
Here's a good UP video (~3 min) summarizing the train and the beginning of the journey:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrqzaSDiM-A

People from all over the US and foreign countries as well were here to see this monster take to the rails again, for the first time since the early 1960s. There were cars and people EVERYWHERE for MILES. The tracks run parallel to a main road for a long way heading west from the Depot, and it's pretty unobscured once you get near the edge of town. Other than more train tracks. Therein lies the problem. Today in particular, a BIG PROBLEM. Which I still cannot believe they didn't plan for.

As I drove down the road, there was a very looooooong, loaded UP freight train. On the rail closest to the road. Parked. Blocking the view of the rails the steam train would take. There were tons of people there, waiting, hoping the train would move I guess so they could see. They were unfortunately mistaken. The freight train just sat there. Never moved.

I went farther west, past the parked freight. Out into open country, near the tracks with clear viewing, with LOTS of additional people. All waiting for that train. And finally, we could hear it coming. Just as it cleared the parked train, guess what happened? Another UP freight train came rolling in, eastbound. And TOTALLY blocked our view of the steam trains, as they chugged by behind it. Stealth technology on the cheap!

So THOUSANDS of people in Cheyenne waited to see the train leave town on its maiden voyage. Instead, they got to look at freight trains with something behind it puffing smoke. After years of stories and news, waiting for the big day. And a parked train and a UNBELIEVABLY poorly timed second train blocked the view of almost EVERYONE! Great job of planning and thinking ahead UP.

Many people WERE in a better spot and DID get to see it. But WAY WAY too many got the invisible train I saw. I'll include a few links for people who had a much better day seeing the train than I did.

This may qualify for the Outstanding Performance of an Epic Fail in the Competition for Epic Fails. CBG has something to say about this at the end of this post...

Not only were the trains steamed, now so was I! My option was to give up, or chase it. I chased a bit. Where it was going was kind of vague. Unless you really researched it. There is quite a spaghetti mess of tracks west of town, and exactly which one it was on very few people seemed to grasp. I knew one stop it was making, and as I travelled west and checked my map, realized I had to change where I was going. Everywhere I was driving, I saw lots of people parked along different tracks. They were all at the wrong tracks and would not see the train. Sorry folks! Again, if the UP wanted more people to see this, they should have been a lot more specific of which route it was taking. Because very few people seemed to know from what I saw.

After about a 30 mile drive, I turned off and did another 10 or so miles of dirt road. A small collection of vehicles were all caravanning to this same spot. Which was on private land. No problem, the landowners were there, letting cars in. For $10 /person. Paid it, cause I'd already come this far.

OK, FINALLY going to see the train. Shooting pictures and video, trying to run two cameras at once. Which is really one too many for one person. I got some photos and video, but both would have been a lot better if I had been able to do just one.

Here's a panorama of the landscape, before the train arrived-

I was waiting maybe a half hour, before the puffs of steam and smoke were visible. And as if out of nowhere, the trains suddenly appeared!

(All the wind noise in the mic - No Extra Charge! You're welcome!)

Pretty awesome sight. Video could have been better. And less wind noisy! But like I said, its hard to pan a video camera while shooting a SLR camera at the same time. I needed a helper! Wouldn't have hurt to get a little closer to the tracks also, in hindsight.

All that work, chasing, etc. And in 30 seconds its gone...

Here's what turned out to be my best photo from the day-

So then, I took a long trip home. My train chasing done. I've since seen some video from other stops the train has made on its trip. Search YouTube for Big Boy 4014 videos, there's lots of them, and some are really, really good. Here's a couple (none are mine)-

This guy chased the train all day. And got some really good locations (~21 min):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REgH3pT4IH0

Good short up close video of the train leaving after a remote stop along the way (~2 min):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqgdZMTkV9Y

Awesome video of the Big Boy pumping out some steam, putting down some power (~3 min):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdgK3ZBajFY

It's such a rare, historical old locomotive, and they did such an amazing job getting it operational again. And it looks great. Which makes the way it was obscured most of the way out of town, disappointing thousands of people there to see it go, so very hard to fathom for me.

Why the UP couldn't have kept the rails clear for a few miles west of town for 30 minutes Saturday morning, I'll never understand. What the.....sigh...

It was a incredible event overall. With a few rough edges...

Wrap up time, with a guest summary of my overall personal experience for the day!
Take it away CBG!

Ten Years Later

The Spiritbox Studio blog. At 10 years!

Happy Anniversary!

I started this blog with my first post on May 3, 2009.

You can find it in the links at right, or you can find it right here:
http://spiritboxstudio.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-blog-new-shooz.html

Mostly, it was just talking about some new cycling shoes I got.

Well, ten years later, I still got em!

They're definitely a little more worn and dirty, but still in good shape. The laces are getting ratty, need to replace those soon. But as 4 of my 5 bikes have SPD pedals, they get used pretty regularly.

Speaking of bikes, I posted recently on the Orange Chopper project bike I built. And mentioned in the Christmas post about the 5th bike I had finally gotten - a real road bike. Since this seems to be mostly a bike stuff post, how about just a little more with a current photo of my road bike - The Fred Sled.

It's a very good bike - a Specialized S-Works bike. Which is their top end bike even today. This particular example dates to 2004. So about 15 years old. Its a very nicely finished aluminum frame with carbon fiber fork, seat post and handlebar. Current higher end bikes are usually entirely carbon fiber. Over the years, the prior owner changed a bunch of the components from what it came with. It was kind of grungy, some time with automotive polishing compound cleaned up a whole lot of seemingly permanent grime. Did some tuning and adjusting, touched up a number of paint scratches and chips. It's got new tires and tubes, pedals, bottle cages, seat bag and a cyclocomputer. Otherwise it's just as I bought it. For its age and a lot of use, it looks really, really good. 

In the future, I'm thinking of stripping it down of all the miscellaneous components, and put on matching current generation Shimano 105 parts. And a new set of matching wheels. Plus a few other minor changes like a different saddle and handlebar. Which is just about everything!

But its all functional as is. Certainly feels different from my other bikes as its about half the weight of any thing else I have. Fastest I was able to pedal up to, on flat ground with a bit of tailwind, was 33.7 mph. Briefly. Can't maintain that speed at all. 

Time to wrap up this anniversary celebration. Open the champagne!

Sneak Peek - Coming soon - Something else with wheels. Considerably larger...

Spring, Finally!

After a lengthy stretch of cold,

wind,

snow,

more wind,

Spring has finally arrived! Warm weather, robins, green grass and sunshine!

Uhhh, yeah, well, 

Spring is ALMOST here. With winter continuing to hang on. 

I AM optimistic - it's May tomorrow. Which means this Wintrex is almost over!!!! And Spring will probably quickly turn into Summer.

One Sun Sets...

One sun rises. Soon!

Just took a quick sunset shot. A nice evening sky...

Shot it as a bookend of sorts. Today was my last day as a studio photographer after many years at the same job. All thanks to corporate restructuring. Such is the world of today...

No worries, it just gives me the opportunity to move on to an even better sunrise! :)

Ow!!!!

Well, that was unpleasant.

Last Saturday, after some cool and rainy weather, we got a couple hour break of warm and sun in the afternoon. Decided to take the MTB out for a quick ride.

Should have stayed home.

I headed for the greenway. The concrete bike path through town. Usually always a good ride. But not today...

From the earlier rain, some things were still a bit damp. I ride a short distance on a unpaved road from where I live to the Greenway. The first thing I hit on the Greenway is a short downhill into a sweeping right turn. Traveling under 15 mph (cause that's the max shown on my computer). Banked around the turn as I've done hundreds of times. But this time something different happened.

The rear wheel suddenly slid out under me like I hit a sheet of ice. And I was sliding on the concrete on my right side. It was over in seconds. No broken bones or anything like that. But my right hand took a hit, with several bleeding scrapes. My right leg got it worse. One small scrape, one slightly larger that was bleeding a fair amount, a bigger raw area near knee, but it wasn't bleeding. And a sizable scrape halfway down leg probably an inch or two wide and 5-6 inches long.

Ow!!!

Post-crash analysis tells me that even though the greenway itself was dry, my drive on the damp dirt road got the tires to hold some dirt/sand. Once at the greenway, all was ok. But the edges of the tires were still gritty. Once I banked in to the curve, the gritty sidewall was the contact area. And physics took over and down I went.

Bike took a little abuse too. Similar to me. Scraped off the edge of the handlebar grip, and the rear derailleur. Almost shredded the shift cable. With a little filing and some paint, had it back to good shape. Later discovered I needed to straighten the derailleur hanger, think it got bent a bit as well.

So, bike is healed up. And me, I'm working on it. Getting there, but it takes a bit longer. Got lots of midly touchy scabs on leg though! I have pictures, but I think I'll leave them off this particular post.

Today took my first ride - on the same bike. Did the ride I was going to do a week ago. All went fine. No crashes. Going a bit easier as the leg can feel a bit sore at times. But back on the horse!

Trade In, Trade Up

My old Pentax K10D DSLR camera, that I haven't used much lately, was something I've been thinking of selling. Just the body. It's about 10 years old, and since cameras are now little computers with lenses on them, not vessels to keep film from getting exposed, they need upgrading every so often. Technology changes make them obsolete, just like an old PC. Then they just sit around unused, collecting dust. More clutter. I'm trying to declutter. And so decided to get rid of it.

Was going to sell it on eBay. But Amazon offers a trade in service. And the value of it was maybe a little better than what I've seen cameras like mine sell for on eBay. Since I still had all the manuals, cables, original box etc. I gave it a try.

They ended up giving my about $30 less than I expected. Which wasn't great, they said it was 'heavily scratched' which it was not. The box was a little rough looking, but not the camera. I also traded in an even older Canon G6 point and shoot I hadn't used in years. Didn't get much for it. Not sure I like the Amazon trade-in service, feels like I should have gotten a little more. But it's done, time to move on.

The money from both of them will go towards a new DSLR probably. Just haven't decided which one to get. It'll be a Pentax, since that's what all my lenses are. Using the old technology to pay for the newer technology seems to be about as good a way to go as any, I guess. Who knows.

When I get a new camera I'll post about it here. Till then, I'll keep shooting with my trusty little Pentax MX-1. My only usable digital camera now. Yikes!

End Of The Road

For my old Jeep.

I've had a Jeep J10 pickup truck for ~17 years. I really like the look and style of the old Jeeps. Even if they aren't the most reliable thing on four wheels.

I had big plans to restore and fix it up, customize it, possible even doing a custom extended cab body conversion. Which they never made, so it would be really unique. It was easy to mock up the idea on the computer!

I even though of doing a whole body swap. Taking the body, with the extended cab, swapping it onto the frame and systems from a Toyota. Then it would still look like the Jeep, but be drivable and reliable as a Toyota. Certainly doable, many people do swaps like that.

I just didn't want to invest the time, large amounts of money and more. Plus my lack of detailed knowledge of how to do that sorta stuff finally made the decision for me. After mostly just maintaining it and keeping the rust semi at bay, I decided to sell it.

Put it on eBay, and it sold. To a guy near Toronto Ontario in Canada! Seems like a real nice guy, was happy to get it. Shipping it there wasn't cheap, I know that. Hope they fix it up and enjoy it up there, eh?

So here's it's send off - DHCBWOCHO style...

In the Summertime...

you should keep your snowboots, shovels and winter coats handy!

Here it is, mid May. Grass is green. Trees have mostly leafed out.

And here comes the snow. Not just a little either. Over a day and a half of nearly steady snow, we ended up with 11 inches of very wet heavy snow.

It was amazing really. It looked like middle of January, not May. Temps hovered around 30, just a little too cold for rain. And it just kept snowing.

Snow hanging very heavy in the trees. By Friday afternoon it was warming up a couple degrees, snow started coming down. The heavy snow damaged a LOT of trees, broke limbs, etc. This heavy snow really did not come at a very good time. A week or so earlier probably would have been a lot better. But hey - summer officially begins in about a month!

Jingle Jangle

Took another trip north for Christmas. Didn't take many pictures worth posting here, but got a few that were interesting on the trip and playing with Christmas tree lights.

Shot this on the way north. Almost no snow anywhere the whole way. Got a HDR sky shot of some interesting clouds out in the empty countryside.

A motion shot of the Christmas tree lights. Always creates some bizarre patterns, totally dependent on what you do with the camera during the time exposure.

Similar to the above shot. But it was just a straight line of motion. So I copied it several times. moved it around in Photoshop and made it into kind of a kaleidoscope look.

Headed back home, another HDR sky shot. This one had a lot more clouds, but they were all small and bumpy. Shot right at the sun, created a unique finished look. I made it a little m ore blue than it came out of the camera.

And hey - Happy New Year!

Kablam!

Looked outside on a pretty nice January night and WOW what a sunset.

Hurried up and grabbed the camera to snap some photos before it faded away.

Got a couple photos. Had to crop out some foreground but its still a awesome sunset!

Holiday Spirit

Went downtown to watch the nighttime Christmas Parade tonight.

It's held just after dark, and all the entries whether they are cars, floats, people on foot or on horseback, bicycles, you name it are decorated with christmas lights. That's what its all about.

It's pretty hard to get good photos with everything being so dark. Most turn out a little blurry from long exposure times and movement. But here's a couple that aren't too bad.

Fortunately it wasn't too cold or windy, as it sometimes is. Was around 32 degrees with a very light breeze, so for once it wasn't completely numbing. Even though I was pretty cold by time it was over - it's a pretty long parade!

 A vintage fire truck pretty well covered with lights.

A old Yellowstone Park tour bus covered with Christmas lights.

Burnin' Down the Road

We've had a very dry spring. And what does that bring? Not a lot of spring flowers. But spring fires, oh yes!

Huge fire started just to the south of us in Colorado foothills, near Fort Collins.

Burned for quite a while and caused a fair amount of damage. Not to mention a whole lot of smoke for many days.

This was a panographic photo made from about 5 different shots. It's a little distorted, but had to be to see all the smoke!

Vietnam Wall

The travelling Vietnam Wall came through town. It's quite an impressive and large wall. There are a LOT of names on that wall, all the Americans who gave their lives fighting that war. The reasons for that war are for another discussion, but its a sobering sight.

Along with the Vietnam Wall, were additional rememberances for additional conflicts like the Korean war, Desert Storm and more. Displays of other memorabilia, military photos, flags, and much more.

A shot of just a portion of the wall I got, without anyone standing in it.

Freedom isn't free.

Out of the Darkness

Not so much for posting lately. Been busy with ebaying and xboxing and other such fun things.

Plus, the weather has been quite uncooperative for cycling. Raining, snowing, windy, too cold. Yeah, I know. Boo Hoo.

Got some photos that are interesting somewhere. If I can get a little more organized maybe I'll post a few!

At least the weather is starting to break out of winter. Though some severe storms and tornadoes today say don't get too used to anything too nice. Since it's getting close to June, I expect it'll suddenly turn to summer and be hot.

Someone sent me this - it's supposed to be the small tornado south of town today, don't know if this was actually it or not. Could be!

That's all for the moment...more to come...sometime soon...

Common Sense Comedy

Took a trip down to Denver yesterday (in a strong rainstorm) to see the Glenn Beck Common Sense Comedy Tour with some friends. Glenn has a popular radio talk show, a TV show, and several other things. He's one of the best common sense commentator/entertainers out there, I think. And pretty funny too.

The show was downtown in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. A very nice restored building. We were way up in the top balcony. And I was using my little pocket camera. Which doesn't do dark very well. But it does zoom pretty far. These images are good examples from the show.

From the first half of the show. Talking about where we are all heading.

The start of the second half. A little 'retro' look, back to the 'old days' of the USA.

Wrapping up the 2 hour show. It was very good. Lots of good info, and laughs too. Plus, we ate at a great Indian restaurant before the show. Lots of delicious spicy food. My Chicken Vindaloo was hot but it was gooooood!