Brad 的个人资料Booming Prairie Chicken照片日志列表更多  |  工具 帮助 |
|
9月29日 The Darkness on the Edge of TownThe Darkness on the Edge of Town
Darkness Radio Rocks!
Laurie and I listen to a lot of talk radio. If you were to drop in on us at home you would probably find a radio tuned into one of the eight talk stations in the Twin Cities. We definitely have favorite shows; 'Garage Logic' on AM 1500, Glenn Beck on FM 103 KTLK, 'Coast to Coast' anywhere we can find it. Sometimes I tune into other stations just to get a taste of what they are broadcasting. Now we are hooked on a local show that is just incredible - Darkness Radio on KTLK every Saturday and Sunday night from 9:00pm to midnight.
These guys rock! I've listened to a lot of radio shows on the paranormal but this one puts out some quality stuff. They cover all aspects of the paranormal and sometimes they dive in deep. They get some excellent guests and allow a level on interaction with their listeners that I can only repect. Definitely see if they are broadcast in your area and if they are not try the podcasts.
Today I'm checking out our camera equipment. These are some of the most delicate but important pieces of equipment you can use for research. Over the years I've settled on Nikon as my still image equipment of choice. We use both a Nikon C2100 and a Nikon D100. All of you photographers out there will probably think this is an odd set of cameras to be using. The fact is they have proven reliable and still do what we need to have done. I also don't see a lot of reason yet to fork out the money for a D300. The Nikons also seem to be about as durable as you can get.
For video we are currently using a Panasonic model. I am really still figuring out the best video camera for what we do. I'll probably have to do an update about that. Video is really the direction of a lot of research; nothing impresses like a video.
I intend on using a lot more video on this next trip. If nothing else it will make the blog more interesting. 9月28日 Paratracker UltimateParatracker Ultimate
Before any and every major trip Laurie and I take I go through a process of preparing our computer equipment. This is usually a heavy duty bit on maintenance on the laptops we will be taking and backing up all the most current data files to two storage devices. I am using Western Digital 320 Gb pocket drives for this right now. After doing this I move the two drives to two different secure locations. At this point in time I am preserving about 130 Gb of photos, research documents, video and my precious saved game from 'Doom III'.
During all of this I am updating and upgrading any programs that I see a potential of using. The goal is to have all possible technical problems worked out long before we hit the road. I also like to strip off trial programs that I no longer think I will be using and then do a full defragmentation of every drive to improve performance and drive capacity. This is especially true on the older laptops. Even the oldest laptops can be potentially useful for a variety of services but only if they are properly maintained.
During all of this I will visit the support websites on any software we are opting to use. One of the programs that we use, and use a lot, is 'Paratracker Professional'. This was one of the very best database programs I have ever seen. This version of Paratracker did have limitations but was usable. You learn right away that there is no such thing as a perfect piece of software. Kevin Timberlake at Marvel Illusions has come along way towards the elusive state of perfection in the release of the latest version 'Paratracker Ultimate'.
One of the problems I encountered with 'Paratracker Professional' was the obvious orientation to ghost hunting. This sometimes limited the utility of the program in situations when the phenomena being researched went outside the parameters of a haunting. This would force the user into a situation of creating documents that could not be cataloged properly into the database.
Now Kevin has put out a database program that covers it all! 'Paratracker Ultimate' has something in it for just about every situation. It has stuff specific to UFO hunters and cryptozoology. It has generic materials that can be easily tweaked to unusual situations. It even has a interface on it for pulling in data from 'N3KL.ORG' for solar and geomagnetic conditions. It also allows you to migrate your files off of 'Paratracker Professional' relatively easily. You just have to love this sort of thing.
I'll tell you right now that you have to pay for 'Paratracker Ultimate'. It costs sixty bucks a pop. I am of the philosophy that you get what you pay for. I've seen other free programs off the web that leave a lot to be desired. I don't see any of these limitations in 'Paratracker Ultimate'. Even so you can download a copy and try it for thirty days free. If you don't like it, uninstall it. If you do like it you can even use Paypal to make the payment. You seldom find this much geeky goodness in any software.
The Marvel Illusion website.
By the way, they also have a great support website. It even has 'how-to' videos on various aspects of their software. Kevin Timberlake is also very responsive to questions and concerns. You won't often find this sort of customer support with large software companies.
9月27日 I love gadgetsI love gadgets
In a little less than four weeks Laurie and I will take off on our next trip to the Black Hills. This isn't all that much time to get some things together. I keep a regular checklist of everything we need to take and anything we need to prepare. Four weeks just doesn't seem like enough time. The funny thing is if we could leave tomorrow we would manage to be ready. Just funny how that works.
Today I am working on 're-engineering' the "pod". I was involved in a discussion online that was discussing the findings from an interesting little camera unit that a Texas rancher had placed near his cattle. This last week Laurie and I got one of these cameras and I am in the process of making modifications that might improve the ability of the camera to record various things.
Behold! The 'Stealth Cam'!
This is the Stealth Cam Prowler DVS (model STC-DVSIR5) from the fine people at Stealth Cam.
This nifty gadget was originally designed to provide a person with a way to record wildlife without the operator actually being there. This rugged little contraption actually includes both a digital color camera and a digital infrared range camera. It can also capture video clips in either range. The trigger mechanisms are based on motion detection. With a 2 Gb SD card installed this little wonder will record about an hour and a half of video. Now this is a triggered video camera so it only records if the trigger is activated. I have a feeling that the trigger response might be modified.
My goal is to have this gadget ready by the time we head to the Black Hills. It could come in very handy.
Now for some big news for some of you. There are some people who have been telling me for years that I should join MUFON. I will admit that some of my research does touch on things that MUFON is actively exploring. I just never wanted to be labelled as a "UFO investigator". The mysteries I pursue sometimes touch on 'Ufology' but are generally independent of them. This last week some advocates for MUFON convinced me to make the decision to join.
Now all of you who have been bugging me to join have got your wish.
9月21日 We live during interesting times...We live during interesting times...
We live during interesting times. It is only five weeks now until our next trip to Deadwood and Laurie and I have a lot to do before we leave. The last couple of weeks we have been watching the first season of the History Channel's series 'UFO Hunters'. There have been a number of people who have bugged me to watch the series since some of the show covers some things I've been researching. We don't have cable at our home; being good Qwest employees you won't find us subscribing to the evil Comcast. 'UFO Hunters' did come out on DVD so we are watching it now.
When we watched the episode entitled 'Reverse Engineering' I thought it was interesting when they flashed a picture of the Horton 229 on the screen. They didn't give much mention to the advanced German aircraft designs near the end of the war. I imagine that in a 45 minute show there isn't much time to cover every mysterious thing.
Horton 229
Then came the episode on 'UFO Vortexes' and I really had to take notice! They started talking about some of the things I have been digging up information on lately. For those of you who watch the series compare the classification criteria they used during this episode to the Black Hills area. I can reassure you that the Black Hills more than qualifies by their criteria. The only thing that they didn't really consider during the episode was that they might not have been testing for the correct energy fields. It might serve them well to follow the experiments that will eventually be run at the LHC. If the CERN does find evidence of 'dark matter' the paranormal community might have to factor in the possibility of energy sources not yet formally identified.
If you have been following the news from the LHC then you already know that the collider had a system failure shortly after the initial testing. Right now it looks like they won't be able to start experimentation for another two months. This is sort of disappointing since I was one of the people looking forward to seeing what they could learn about the Higgs boson. On the other hand if you are one of the people who is worried that the experiments will result in a 'Black Hole' you should be happy to know you have two extra months to live.
Of course we might all be facing another sort of 'Black Hole'. Just check out the 700 billion dollar bailout our government has decided to undertake. If some of the financial forecasts I've seen hold true the American taxpayer will be footing the bill for this one for a very, very long time to come. I might have to start rethinking some of our retirement planning.
I found this little 'Youtube' video which says some of what I am currently feeling. When I consider how Qwest stock has been doing I wonder if we won't be the next company up for a bailout?
9月14日 We have survived the RNC and the Super Collider...We have survived the RNC and the Super Collider...
At least we survived the first test run of the Large Hadron Collider. The real fun comes when they start the actual experiments sometime in October. This is when they fire off protons going both directions and impact them. That would be when we would see some interesting things happen. To tell you the truth, I am not worried about it. The probability of a black hole opening up in Switzerland is pretty low. As I understand it the chance of a world-wide outbreak of a contagion or nuclear terrorism is a lot greater than some Apocalyptic accident at the LHC.
The funny thing is that I am part of a generation that grew up under the threat of annilihation. My family quietly did its patriotic part in what was known as the 'Cold War'. I even remember the company my dad was employed for had a special bunker built near the plant he worked in. The bunker was for the storage of prototype machines that would be saved in the event of a nuclear attack. It didn't take me long to figure out that the workers and their families had already been written off as 'collateral' damage in the event of such a nuclear strike.
It was still possible to have a morbid humor about the whole thing.
I now find that it influences a lot of my research. When you look at history from the perspective of the 'Cold War' some of the potentially questionable actions of various nations seem morally plausible. Survival can justify reprehensible things. I think that at the end of the Second World War leaders within the victorious Allied powers all understood what the stakes for the future would be. The advent of thermonuclear weapons only added urgency to the matter.
Do I believe that the governments of various nations made the proverbial 'Deals with the Devil'? I am increasingly finding evidence to support this. Some of these operations to gather German science and secret weapons are well known; Operation 'Paperclip' and 'Lusty' being the most famous. There is some evidence that we might have engaged in even more secret intelligence gathering efforts after the fall of Germany.
Operation Paperclip
What I am finding is evidence that not all of the German scientists were taken in by the United States, England or the Russians. Some might have found their way to other 'private parties'. I also wonder if the United States might have staged operations to bring in less politically desirable German engineers?
This all brings up even spookier topics but I don't think I will go into them now...
9月6日 The RNC is behind us, Deadwood is ahead of us...The RNC is behind us,
Deadwood is ahead of us...
I actually got sort of bored with the whole Republican National Convention after Wednesday. The vast masses of protestors did not show up as predicted. The numbers I am hearing now are about 8000. Not the 50,000 that some people said would engulf us. I was very impressed by Sarah Palin but not especially happy with some of Senator McCain's speech on Thursday. It seems like a sad set of choices voters will have this year. It would be a lot more interesting if the Republican ticket was reversed and Palin was running for President.
The next exciting thing, or maybe not so exciting, is that the Large Hadron Collider is going to be activated this coming Wednesday. You don't have to look far to find people who sincerely believe this will cause the end of the world. I am personally not to worried about it. The LHC might provide us with the first definitive information about some areas of physics that, until now, were exclusively the realm of speculation.
'Coast to Coast's' George Noory and Dr. Walter Wagner discuss the collider
Then we have this nifty little video from the BBC...
Now if you suddenly feel a strange pulling sensation sometime next Wednesday you might want to turn on the news to see if something went wrong in Switzerland. Right now this is about the only thing that would keep Laurie and me from making it out to Deadwood in October. I am currently in the midst of some of the logistical planning for the trip. I am also trying to figure out if I can weasel a little more time off from my boss. He might give me the time off if I convince him the end of the world is coming. I can just tell him to see the bright side of it all; we wouldn't have to worry about completing all those projects!
I would like to add this closing note about work and when things are just not going right. I found some words of wisdom from the entrepreneurial philosopher Al Swearengen:
9月2日 Day Two of the Republican National Convention 2008Day Two of the Republican National Convention 2008
Today Laurie and I had to drive to work and pass over one of the bridges the 'RNC Welcoming Committee' said they could target. The trip into our office was entirely uneventful. Our route passes right over one of the areas where less than 12 hours earlier the police and anarchists were confronting each other. It was like any other morning and our biggest problem was some of the other drivers.
Now the trip home was a bit more interesting. As we got closer to downtown Saint Paul more and more of the I-94 exits had barricades. Very near most of these there would be Minnesota Highway Patrol officers or local police standing guard. We had not heard about any protests today but did know another march was scheduled for 4:00pm. We decided to be clear of the downtown area before this next chapter unfolded.
I haven't found any video yet for today. It looks like nothing has happened to warrant such attention. I did find a lot more video about the altercations and protests yesterday.
CNN takes a look at the peaceful part of the protest.
Good Ole' KSTP gets some of the best video...
I honestly don't know who Amy Goodman...
Some amateur video of the protest and a fine looking rack of ribs.
I have had some very conflicting feelings during this protest. I am all for freedom of assembly and free speach. I am constantly worried by how various civil rights are being worn away by one political force or another. My issue is what good some of these protests will do? The delegates to the convention are probably only going to take a bad impression from most of it. I also have not been impressed by the rhetoric or logic of most of the demonstrators. Some seem to be protesting simply to protest.
9月1日 The Aroma of Tear Gas....The Aroma of Tear Gas...
Republican National Convention 2008
I knew something would eventually show up on 'You Tube'! I have got to hand it to the people at 'The Uptake', they have been following this.
Those 'explosions' are tear gas canisters.
It is kind of tough to shoot video with Pepper Spray in your eyes.
Lots of video out there now. Tomorrow Laurie and I have to go to work through one of these areas.
Day One - Kind of a letdown for some...Day One
Kind of a letdown for some...
Republican National Convention 2008
The convention has started out as a sort of letdown for some of the protesters. So far the number of marchers is far less than anticipated. The Star Tribune puts the number at about 2000. The police put the number at about 8000. Either way it is far smaller than the 50,000 some people originally claimed would showing up. The main march went off without incident but the anarchists are attempting to raise as much hell as they can. The funny thing is that they are apparently far outnumbered by the police. I'll try to post some video as it shows up. Right now I am taking most of my reports from off the internet and the 'Action Force Team' with AM 1500 radio.
Up by the state capital building.
I am kind of wondering where the 'alternative media' is right now? I haven't seen one report yet about the lower than expected number of marchers. I also haven't seen anything about the useless violence of the anarchists? I thought they were not going to be doing anything like this. So far I have heard about several police cars having their windows knocked out and some store fronts being vandalised. I am really looking forward to seeing some reporting about this.
|
|
|
