Here's a native frog I found swimming in the spa this morning. He's now living in the garden. :)

Attachment 34838

Hey, he was enjoying that spa!

Yeah, but I didn't think he'd survive long term in the chlorine. He's still in the pot plant I put him in out the side atm, so maybe he likes it there. I tried to pick something he'd blend in with. Check this out.

Attachment 34846

Focus is shit, but can you spot the froggy?

If he's still there tomorrow, I'm going to try and get some better shots when the dogs and the two year old aren't bothering me. lol

thanks man, it's just getting to know all the bells and whistles. it's user friendly but not user friendly if you know what i mean. i know it takes time. i'll get it. eventually.

very pretty!

This is what happens when you mess with your cellphone while driving about 80+mph and don't wear your seatbelt. One fatality and one seriously injured. You can see the driver's legs at coming out the window. In the center of the photo, the group of firefighters/officers are doing chest compressions. This is just outside my city limits. We were helping with traffic control to get EMS in and out.

Might be nice to show this to your kids before they go out tonight.

Texting drivers are the equivalent of 4x more impaired than a legally drunk driver.

Especially that guy.

I'm impressed that kids of my grand-children's age immediately buckle up
with seat belts, even though sometimes my grown kids forget.

So, I guess I'm too much Old School.
How can anyone think it's OK to "text" while driving.

I have a hard time with Oregon's strict no-cell-phone law,
because I somehow feel talking on a phone is within the bounds.
I drink coffee, I listen to the radio, I yell at the kids when needed.
But I do try very hard to not answer the phone if it rings, and I don't initiate calls.

For me, using a GPS would be too much, let alone surfing the internet while driving.

But "texting" ??? Will somebody please cut off their thumbs.
.

update on wreck

TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) - Authorities say one person has died as a result of one of two separate accidents Friday afternoon on Highway 45. Lee County Coroner Carolyn Green notified WTVA.com about the fatality late Friday afternoon. The person is identified as 18-year-old Cetori Morris. Tupelo police say one of the accidents happened around 3:15 p-m when a northbound Chevy Suburban flipped several times and landed on the southbound side of the highway. According to officers, the driver was inside the sport utility vehicle when they arrived, but Morris had been thrown from the vehicle.

Meanwhile, police say a two-car crash happened on the northbound side of Highway 45 near Green Street as the result of the traffic backup from the SUV rollover. One driver was taken to the hospital when his car smashed into another car in front of him.

WOW.
Big car for an 18yo to handle.

Sorry it was a fatality, but who the fuck drives without a seatbelt on these days?

Cars feel so safe.

Maybe we should make them feel more scary again. We could ban front windscreens so you don't forget just how fast you are really going.

We could mandate Corvairs!

Those were cool!

Central Park
(RFLastWeek)
http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6019/6...ee80e68d_b.jpg

Taken w/ iphone 4s

What's with the floating barrel ? balloons ?

My son spotted this guy in the rosemary bush by our front door, and took this picture with my camera. This guy was really aggressive. It was right by the driveway, and you had to walk past him to get to the car. He would pivot to follow me, and paw at the air in a menacing way when I walked by.

Caption

"Camouflage ur doin it rong"

My wife :mad2:

holy hell!!! i just saw that pic sarge! dammmmmiiiiiit!

i always wear my seat belt. even flying as a passenger on an airliner, albeit i wear it loosely as to keep me from bouncing my head off the ceiling in case of turbulence. shit i even wear it in a damn go kart if i'm not surfing the thing back in line or putting it up for the night.

Really? Have her call me. I'll explain it all to her

Then again, insurance paid up? :bolt:

:lol: NAUGHTY CLASSIC!

Mate of mine just got a ticket for driving without a seatbelt. He also got a few slaps up the back of the head, including one from me.

Watch out for that mantis, believe it or not they punch like Chuck Norris. Stick your face near it and you might lose an eye.

My dad won't wear one. Never has, no matter how many different ways I tried to convince him. Always rebuts that the front and side airbags are plenty. But he's also one of those guys who drives a car designed like a tank at less than the speed limit, always assumes every guy at every intersection is about to run their red light in order to try to hit him, and drives very little to begin with. He's never been in any kind of wreck or fender-bender, to my knowledge. Not condoning it, but I've given up trying.

"Paw in the air in a menacing way..."

Maybe he was just saying Hey Bro.

More like "Hey Bro, I'mma fuck you up."

To be fair, that's how they were sold to us. "People are never going to wear seatbelts, so this is now the answer."

Then when they were present in all vehicles, "OMG injuries are potentially worse if you get airbagged without using a seatbelt."

I found the long lost sister of the purple one!

Attachment 35480

What a great pic!

Anyone BUT OBAMA in 2012!

Went to San Francisco with my Dad earlier this month on a short vacation.

Point Reyes National Seashore, the lighthouse on the point at Point Reyes, and the Golden Gate Bridge from Battery Spencer.

Wowza! Cool pics!


That ocean --- it's so...so pacific!

My Thanksgiving dinner at the old sewage lagoon. Watching the sun start to drop

beautiful day here today

Some of my latest astrophotography done over the Thanksgiving weekend.



http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...1-25-11_02.jpg

Very nice. You had some clear skies.

What's your setup? Apologies if you've told us before.

No problem Glatt. I use my Canon PowerShot SX20IS in manual mode and take about 10 light frames at 15 seconds each, ISO of 800 and aperture of 2.8. I also take 10 dark frames (same settings as light frames with lens covered) and 10 bias frames (lens covered and fastest exposure you can with the camera). After downloading, I import them into Deep Sky Stacker (http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html) to stack them to bring out the details. That's it. No photoshop...don't even own it.

Here are the other two from that night...


http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...1-25-11_01.jpg


http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...1-25-11_03.jpg

So when you stack them, that will subtract a lot of the noise from the consumer grade sensor? I've got a similar camera, and may try that. The night sky doesn't get very dark here though.

Yes, exactly Glatt. The DSS will average the dark frames and bias frames and create a master dark and master bias. DSS will then use those and the light images to create the image.

Having a lot of ambient light will definitely not help. The best thing to do is find a dark area away from the city on a night where there is a new moon. Moonlight will kill you. Once your eyes adjust, look for interesting areas of the night sky that appear to have smudges of the Milky Way and concentrate on those. Ten photos of each area should be fine. Then, take your 10 dark frames and 10 bias frames and you're done. Then, just download them and use DSS.

I thought the rain on the red leaves were pretty, so I took a pix.

As ever, wow to all posters since I last said wow.
Glatt - that shot of teh krazy kids needs to be framed.
Sarge - such a beautiful photo. Such a prosaic caption. I hope you were joking. Thanksgiving is nothing to me but I hurt on your behalf if you were alone with a Sub for company. But that was last year and maybe I've alrady said that?!

V - I like that the warning is at the top of the stairs. So no-one can bitch and moan if they make it down but can't make it back up again. You Were Warned.

DMG - beyond my understanding. But beautiful.

Lola, I have put my camera back in my bag.
The other day walking to school it was early enough and cold enough that the sunlight hadn't touched the raindrops from the night before. Every twig was decorated. I saw close to 10 photo opportunities. Sigh. Glad you caught that one, it's so pretty.

I offer Bullitt's thanks.

Went for a drive w/Momdigr the other afternoon, caught this at 60 mph...

Attachment 37059

So, at teh BurgerKing drive-thru the other night the infant at the cash register said to me "I'll have to give you a gold dollar. Is that ok?" And, since the only thing better than money is gold money, I said "Sure.", expecting Sacagewea to be rattling 'round in mah pants.

Instead, I got John Adams.:yelsick:

Attachment 37878

From my late January trip to the UK. We spent 2 weeks in Wales and a week in London when it snowed. I head back in a month for a 4 week trip. :)

1. I had a window seat in first class as we approached Ireland at Sunrise.
2. We stayed in Saundersfoot where I took long walks on the beach. 3. Pentra Ifan, the ancient burial chamber.
4. It snowed in the Brecon Beacons.

London in winter....

1. The Tube
2-3. The palace in the snow
4. Skiing though Green Park

Those are all very nice!

The air is so much clearer in front of the engines.

Beautiful pictures!

Nice to see you back, Chris.
Beautiful pics, as always.

Well, the drought here in the Houston area is officially over for now and my lawn is growing like crazy. Wish I could have one of these for lawn maintenance and also to keep the Jehovah's Witness folks from knocking on my door!

Taken on my last trip to South Africa, a nice big male Black Rhino grazing on some grass.

I just took this from the conference room down the hall. That's Discovery on the way to the Smithsonian.
Attachment 38336

:sniff:

I still can't believe The National Museum of the US Air Force didn't get a shuttle.

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/index.asp

I did see one of these in the sky today. Have to remember to be outside at lunchtime tomorrow to see them fly over Date-unnnn.

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/new...p?id=123295982

Nice. I saw it twice, but both times it was too quick to take a picture, and neither was as good an angle.

Nice shot glatt!

Visited my daughter in Seattle last week and as she had to go to work early I vacated her apartment just before sunrise and went down to Pike's Place market to kill some time.

You're in Virginia, right? where?

It flew right over my son's elementary school in Arlington. Some Astronaut had attended the elementary school, so they made sure to fly over on their way to Dulles. The whole school was outside waiting, and saw it. (My wife teaches there and she texted me that they saw it too.)

I saw it on my commute, on my way from DC to Dulles. Apparently, it made an excellent appearance right by my building, but I missed it.

Seattle eh? I've been there. That sign looks cool in the evening gloaming too. This is from last week.

Attachment 38338

glatt, tha's an epic picture! What a catch.

it would be cool enough to see the shuttle fly by... but to catch it carrying a 747 like that! wow. just wow.



and you can't even see the wire that supports the jet fighter...