Post a pic of yourself ... or a pic you took ...

[skyking]

We went for a little drive not too far from home and ended up  wandering down some new roads for us. We found this castle.


There were many great views of the mountain.

[skyking]

A few years ago I was operating a D8T dozer on a job, mostly pushing out fill from a half dozen haul trucks. They have abysmal forward visibility, and I took a few pictures for a safety presentation on why you don't cross in front of the larger dozers.
My diesel beetle in front:


My normal field of view as seated


Now leaning hard each way





In that last picture, you see the barest sliver of the back hatch. That's it. A person in front of the dozer is a dead person.

[Unsapien]

A few years ago I was operating a D8T dozer on a job, mostly pushing out fill from a half dozen haul trucks. They have abysmal forward visibility, and I took a few pictures for a safety presentation on why you don't cross in front of the larger dozers.
My diesel beetle in front:


My normal field of view as seated


Now leaning hard each way





In that last picture, you see the barest sliver of the back hatch. That's it. A person in front of the dozer is a dead person.

Just a few  days ago a dump truck clipped a mini Cooper on the expressway in Toronto and it got stuck on the front of the truck sideways, it drove for 700 metres before it finally stopped,  but only because another person in another car flagged him down, otherwise he probably would have kept going. 

Everyone at work was saying "How could he not know that he hit a car?"

Well those pictures are the answer.



https://driving.ca/mini/auto-news/news/w...wn-highway

[airportkid]

... A person in front of the dozer is a dead person ...

"Mr. Dent," he said.
"Hello?  Yes?" said Arthur.
"Some factual information for you.  Have you any idea how much damage that bulldozer would suffer if I just let it roll straight over you?"
"How much?" said Arthur.
"None at all," said Mr. Prosser ...

(from Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy")

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"We have to build bypasses, don't we."

[SYZ]

Lovely images mate, especially this one...



You were lucky enough to capture some lenticular (lens-shaped) clouds,
which have often been reported as "flying saucers", particularly around
sunrise or sunset.

And re your second post...

A mechanic performing maintenance on a Komatsu (Haulpak) truck ran over his own
Toyota ute at Rio Tinto's Brockman 4 iron ore mine near Tom Price in WA's Pilbara.



The truck had been retrofitted with technology allowing it to operate autonomously
within a geofenced zone. However, at the time of the incident, in the early hours of
November 2019, it was in manual mode and outside the autonomous zone.

And the heavily modified ute...



The sand flags certainly served their purpose.....  or not.     

[Thumpalumpacus]

Oh, that's "heavily modified", all right!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Imagine parking your car near Salisbury Plain when the track toads come out to play.

[Fireball]

Lovely images mate, especially this one...



You were lucky enough to capture some lenticular (lens-shaped) clouds,
which have often been reported as "flying saucers", particularly around
sunrise or sunset.

And re your second post...

A mechanic performing maintenance on a Komatsu (Haulpak) truck ran over his own
Toyota ute at Rio Tinto's Brockman 4 iron ore mine near Tom Price in WA's Pilbara.



The truck had been retrofitted with technology allowing it to operate autonomously
within a geofenced zone. However, at the time of the incident, in the early hours of
November 2019, it was in manual mode and outside the autonomous zone.

And the heavily modified ute...



The sand flags certainly served their purpose.....  or not.     

That'll buff out. 

[skyking]

A few years ago I was operating a D8T dozer on a job, mostly pushing out fill from a half dozen haul trucks. They have abysmal forward visibility, and I took a few pictures for a safety presentation on why you don't cross in front of the larger dozers.
My diesel beetle in front:


My normal field of view as seated


Now leaning hard each way





In that last picture, you see the barest sliver of the back hatch. That's it. A person in front of the dozer is a dead person.

Just a few  days ago a dump truck clipped a mini Cooper on the expressway in Toronto and it got stuck on the front of the truck sideways, it drove for 700 metres before it finally stopped,  but only because another person in another car flagged him down, otherwise he probably would have kept going. 

Everyone at work was saying "How could he not know that he hit a car?"

Well those pictures are the answer.



https://driving.ca/mini/auto-news/news/w...wn-highway

That whole article is infuriating to me. "Raging " from the title onward.
You do know how that all started? My money was the cooper cut insanely close to the truck to begin with, as the truck driver was checking his mirror and then the cooper had to tap brakes. That's how he got where he got undiscovered by the driver. People do this to me all the time, cut tight in front of me because they are in such a goddamn hurry they can't just wait 0.9 seconds to take that exit behind me like a sane person.
The truck driver got all the tickets and I just don't buy it. In this state, there are at least laws for cutting out my safety space. I need a damn dash cam!
/rant off

[Fireball]

A few years ago I was operating a D8T dozer on a job, mostly pushing out fill from a half dozen haul trucks. They have abysmal forward visibility, and I took a few pictures for a safety presentation on why you don't cross in front of the larger dozers.
My diesel beetle in front:


My normal field of view as seated


Now leaning hard each way





In that last picture, you see the barest sliver of the back hatch. That's it. A person in front of the dozer is a dead person.

Just a few  days ago a dump truck clipped a mini Cooper on the expressway in Toronto and it got stuck on the front of the truck sideways, it drove for 700 metres before it finally stopped,  but only because another person in another car flagged him down, otherwise he probably would have kept going. 

Everyone at work was saying "How could he not know that he hit a car?"

Well those pictures are the answer.



https://driving.ca/mini/auto-news/news/w...wn-highway

That whole article is infuriating to me. "Raging " from the title onward.
You do know how that all started? My money was the cooper cut insanely close to the truck to begin with, as the truck driver was checking his mirror and then the cooper had to tap brakes. That's how he got where he got undiscovered by the driver.  People do this to me all the time, cut tight in front of me because they are in such a goddamn hurry they can't just wait 0.9 seconds to take that exit behind me like a sane person.
The truck driver got all the tickets and I just don't buy it. In this state, there are at least laws for cutting out my safety space. I need a damn dash cam!
/rant off

I'd likely call it "failure to yield right of way" on the mini driver. Though I will admit that the truck driver should have could(?) have felt more sluggish acceleration? Those things have tons of torque, though.

[RobbyPants]

Spring haircut!

[skyking]

@SYZ

You were lucky enough to capture some lenticular (lens-shaped) clouds,
which have often been reported as "flying saucers", particularly around
sunrise or sunset.

LOL, that's not luck, we call that picture "Tuesday" or "Sunday" around here
What looks like a stationary cloud is really more interesting. They only form when winds aloft are greater than 50 knots above the mountain and humidity is right. As the air is lifted over the mountain, it is both cooled and at a lower pressure. This reduces the dewpoint and what was not visible becomes visible. It is forming and disappearing the whole time.
When the winds are strong enough a mountain wave forms downwind for many miles, and the lenticulars will adorn those waves too.




Here is a big one at ~30,000 MSL



What do those clouds mean to me as a pilot?
Stay the fuck out of downwind of the mountain!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The first "official" UFO sighting was near Mt. Rainier, where the pilot reported the objects were moving like "saucers skipped on the water." This was NOT a description of the objects, but newsmen do get lazy.

[Unsapien]

My wife started kicking me out of the house on the weekends now that it's getting warmer, to go for walks. Which is a good thing so I went of a 2 hour walk around Dow's lake (an artificial lake connected to the Rideau canal system) it'll be really pretty in a few weeks.

This is me finding my favourite tree to smoke some weed as a reward after my walk.



This is my view. It's Dow's Lake looking back towards my home, one of the apartment buildings in the distance on the left most part of the picture. Lake doesn't look like much right now but they'll soon be filling it again after draining it for the winter. I'll take another one in about a month it'll look great.



It's nice to see the trees starting to come back to life again

[Vera]

This is me finding my favourite tree to smoke some weed as a reward after my walk.

Wait, you're NOT all fuzzy and cottony and knitted?!   (BTW, what *is* in your avatar. Reminds me of a Soviet cartoon character, called Cheburashka, that was friends with a crocodile)






Here are some flower photos I took recently (sorry for the instagram link, too lazy to go to postimages; I really need a phone with a better camera though   ).

I'm SO glad things are finally starting to bloom - I love biking and scanning the sides of the roads for wildflowers to photograph   The one in the picture is a tiny, tiny thing, the size of my fingernails (and I don't have manicure ;-))

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Unsapien's avatar looks to be an NVA soldier. Of course I'm seeing a lot of things that aren't there right now.

[skyking]

Good to see you @Unsapien
Good to see you stoned
We took a long weekend camping on the Olympic peninsula.
First night was Fort Worden.
Standing on Battery Kinzie looking west out the strait of Juan de Fuca.


Inside that semicircle was a disappearing gun mount with a 12" gun.
@Deesse23


Next two nights camping at Dosewallips State Park

Eagle's nest on the river.


Took a drive to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park





This one is for @Thumpalumpacus
Massive Oshkosh snow blower

[Thumpalumpacus]

First night was Fort Warden.
Standing on the Kinzie battery looking west out the strait of Juan de Fuca.


Inside that semicircle was a disappearing gun mount with a 12" gun.

About six years ago, I flew back to SoCal for my son's graduation, and during my stay met up with a friend at the Korean Peace Park in Long Beach. It's built atop an Army Coast Defense battery site, much like what you've pictured. The guns were removed, but one could tour the casemate and some supporting tunnels and outlier nests.

Disappearing guns, for those who don't know, were coastal artillery which used the recoil of the gun to lower the emplacement down below the concrete emplacement for reloading. They lowered after each shot to reload in the relative safety behind concrete fortification, to pop up again. The 12" guns could shoot about 25,000 yards, and were supported at the site we toured by machine-gun and smaller (75mm) cannon free-standing emplacements.

[skyking]

First night was Fort Warden.
Standing on the Kinzie battery looking west out the strait of Juan de Fuca.


Inside that semicircle was a disappearing gun mount with a 12" gun.

About six years ago, I flew back to SoCal for my son's graduation, and during my stay met up with a friend at the Korean Peace Park in Long Beach. It's built atop an Army Coast Defense battery site, much like what you've pictured. The guns were removed, but one could tour the casemate and some supporting tunnels and outlier nests.

Disappearing guns, for those who don't know, were coastal artillery which used the recoil of the gun to lower the emplacement down below the concrete emplacement for reloading. They lowered after each shot to reload in the relative safety behind concrete fortification, to pop up again. The 12" guns could shoot about 25,000 yards, and were supported at the site we toured by machine-gun and smaller (75mm) cannon free-standing emplacements.

Battery Kinzie was supported by Battery Thomas Vicars with twin balanced 5" guns. It was active from 1902 to 1918, when the guns were shipped to Europe.


Each of the 12" Kinzie guns had a crew of 51!




The guns are gone, and it is calm and peaceful now.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Each of the 12" Kinzie guns had a crew of 51!

In this pic of yours, one can see the hydraulic recoil mechanism, at the rear of the gun, that retracted it automatically after each shot.

[Cavebear]

Always keep a towel nearby!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

For those of you interested: James Eades built the first disappearing gun carriages for the Union ironclads operating on the Ohio and Mississippi. When the gun was fired the recoil took it below decks. The gun crew could then load it safely and use the stored energy of the recoil to bring it back into battery (firing position).

[Unsapien]

Wait, you're NOT all fuzzy and cottony and knitted?!   (BTW, what *is* in your avatar. Reminds me of a Soviet cartoon character, called Cheburashka, that was friends with a crocodile)

I'm sure we had a thread way back where we talked about our avatars, but maybe it was in the old place.

The monkey is called very ingeniously "Monkey". It's probably as old as I am. I've had it since I was younger then 3. The pipe it's holding is the same one I'm smoking in the photo, I got that pipe and another when I left to go to college to smoke when I got homesick (only Tobacco back then). The dagger is one I bought for a specific purpose, the Monkey is guarding it for me. Monkey is a mother (I'm not making that up) she originally came with a little baby monkey that was lost when my mom cleaned my room one day. So Monkey is a mother without a child & I'm a child without a mother, the perfect pair.

[Unsapien]

During one of my recent walks through the parklands south of Dow's lake, I saw the above.

What you see above is the ultimate PhD level of fucking assholery, whoever got that tire into that pond is the king of the assholes.

What you see there took real effort, the full concerted effort of a complete and total douche bag.

This pond is one of a few that are filled when the canal is filled, I and many others have come to this pond with our children to run remote control boats and stuff. This pond is between the canal and the Arboretum run by the federally owned and run experimental farm. It's at least a kilometre away from any road that is publicly accessible. There are service roads through the area for government staff to patrol the park, but they are all gated. This isn't some place where some lazy asshole could just drive past and chuck an old tire in like idiots that throw junk off bridges or onto the side of the road into a ditch.

It took effort to get that tire into that pond and that makes me very angry.  

I don't know how long it's been there, this is the first time I've seen it, but it could have been there for years.

Anyway fuck whoever did this, what makes someone want to fuck up nice things?