"Tie a Ribbon around the old Oak Tree"

 Just heard the song again on the radio, and it brings back a lot of memories to this old camera-operator.

Really! 

I remember back to the last century when I went one of my two separate USA tours of my traveling camera, while I lived permanently in Spain. 

I was on a Greyhound bus for my travels, as I couldn't afford other means of transportation, plus Greyhound gave a nice discount for veterans.

On one bus ride from there to here, and every point in-between, there was a very young excited guy on the bus, probably in his late 20s. He was kinda close to the front of the bus, but everyone on the bus could hear him. He told a story of how he'd met a gal online, and they've been writing and talking since, and now they were going to meet for the very first time.

He was really excited, and it seemed that everyone on the bus was excited for him too, but......

Soon enough, it was just a few miles before his stop. He was even more excited than ever, and no wonder why.... The bus got really quiet.

He'd finally meet this woman he'd been writing and talking to......  

Would it work out or not? Soon enough, we'd find out because the next stop was his....  

Would the lady be there? How would it be? Inquiring minds and seeing eyes wanted to know!

At the bus stop, there was a car with a young attractive woman leaning against the car. Our bus mate ran off the bus and hugged the young woman for a very long few minutes. There was a very young boy, I'd guess about three or four years of age. He stood off to the side watching the hugging scene, not doing much but probably feeling a bit forgotten.

After the hugging, the man went around to get his bags, and then looked at the little boy, who stood alone still....  forgotten. He went up to the little boy, and talked for a bit. The boy didn't do a thing. Our bus mate dropped on bent knee to talk to the little Man....  

You couldn't hear a sound on the bus....  it was deadly silent. The bus driver sat in his seat, but strangely, didn't close the door nor pull away....

It seemed everyone wanted to see how this meeting would end....  
or start....

Finally, the boy took the hand of the man, and they both walked toward the car where the young woman still was, crying a bit now. The bus was still quiet, and I could hear some crying from someone within the bus...

I'm even crying as I write this. I've been in that almost same situation in some episodes of my Life, BUT actually, haven't we all been in a similar situation at some point of our Lives?

So nowadays, each and every time I hear this song, my mind and Heart flashes back to this memory. It's a treasured memory that will never fade from my Soul....

Everyone deserves a chance.

Everyone should have someone in their Life.

We all deserve a second chance.

Many of us just need a very first chance....... 

It was a dark and very rattling windy night

I have never slept well, and after two decades sleeping - or trying to sleep on assorted aircraft carriers, minesweepers and the such, I still can't get a good night's sleep. The slightest sounds wakes me and I am up and roaming to investigate....  am I the only one who can't sleep well?
So I am usually up a few times nightly, as I still don't sleep too well these days.  It was no different last night during a wind storm that ripped through western new York. 
The lights were off a few times during the wee hours, and even the extreme darkness with no lights, that woke me. This is really unusual for us as we rarely get anything like that of high windy conditions for our area. It does however affect other western NY areas. That was followed soon after by a power outage lasting almost two hours, not to mention the high whistling howling winds, sounding more like an off-key old opera singer, or a deadbeat train.... and tomorrow's forecast is expected to be more of the same.

 

A warning to my friends in Europe, to prepare now by tidying up your yards and around the house, or your neighbors will looking at your things blown into their yards! 
Above all, stay safe everyone! 
This all blew - and still howling through as I type - through during the night. The good thing is that now almost all the snow is gone due to days of all-day rains again....
Now to the chore of resetting the electric clocks. I've just forgotten how to set the analog clocks....

On the drone note, I now have three functional drones: my mini 4 pro, an Air 2 from my brother, and a Mavic 3 pro. I also have a mini 5 pro, though it's on crutches. With Winter cold all around and constant high winds starting up, so far in this early Winter I've only had one chance to test fly them, but all's good but quiet on the drone front. Now till Spring, or a rare above 50-degree day with low winds, would be very nice indeed.

 

The seeStar was out months ago, getting some more snaps, till the cold front returned. We tried getting even one of three comets in our night sky! Unfortunately, not too successful thanks to the clouds rolling in....  as usual. 

 The sunsets on the upper Niagara river are still marvelous!

 

It's a droner's Life now

Thanks to others, I've been bit by that nasty drone bug! The first one was a low-cost drone that was simple to fly, but didn't tolerate winds over 10mph. But yes, that was enough to hook me into the drone life, plus it did have a good camera. The second and third drones were a bit more expensive BUT during testing, after a successful flight around the park, it suddenly flew off on its own, and so lucky it didn't land in a busy street just 15.7 feet away! Both of these drones did that! They were quickly returned!

So I finally went the other route, and picked up a DJI mini 2 se. 

My mini 2 se

The newer drone was very nice. Stable. It flies in higher winds better and still get relatively good images, and quite sharp at that! I went through a few of those due to one event or another; it wasn't the drone but just me getting used to just flying a drone. It's not just getting the necessary experience flying a drone, it also takes a lot of concentration looking out for wires, cables and those long branches of any and all Trees!  

mini 2 se memory of  local parks

 

With much more experience with the controller and drone, I haven't had a lot of the many heart-pounding experiences of those earlier mishaps with the other drones, now knowing to position myself in a manner where I can eye the environment my drone is flying into: close to overhead cables or wires, Trees and its many parts that just love drones, plus signs and other things found above and on public streets and areas.  

I've only been involved with drones not even a full month, and now have an even newer drone, now my active and most-used drone - considering I still have the mini 2 se which is collecting dust. This mini 4 pro has sensors that detects obstacles near and around it, and it's very cool to see that in operation, and what things are detected and avoids! That in itself helps, but it's still and will always be the steady eye and clear observations needed to keep it safe from objects and hazards high and low.                               

My mini 4 pro at top left, old controller 
at right and new RC2 controller at bottom

I still haven't used all the options of this drone, but will eventually check out most of the options. I've played with the tracking mode, with several tests tracking me and us walking, but while the trials have been successful, later when I really want it to work, it didn't function as planned. I'll just continue practicing with it more, to ensure the tracking mode options are correct, so it should track when it's used for real again.   

The abandoned Hotel Niagara

The old Mount Saint Mary's Hospital, now abandoned for decades

The long-abandoned Tonawanda NY NG armory

Otherwise it's just me trying to use the drone everyday when and if possible, and getting accustomed to flying the dawg [my choice name for the drone, and the best thing of walking this "dawg", is never needing to pick up poop!] to build up my flight hours, which gets me the needed experience to have better uneventful flights. I've just scheduled an interior shoot soon, and along with a real camera, will be taking the drone also. It'll be interesting to see the angles and shots I can get, IF the drone is used at all!

Here's another image, tonight's cloudy upper Niagara River drone sunset.....  enjoy! 

Potter's House Christian Church, Niagara falls NY

Winter Scenes 2024-2025

Well, at least we didn't get a blizzard this time around! Still a good amount of snow to stomp around in, and of course, WE were out in the cold and snow/ice. We have electric gloves and socks, but the socks get too hot being inside a shoe, and the gloves are warm, but the glove fingers are too thick, plus the finger areas are NOT warmed, and that's where it needs to have the wires. 

During the two arctic blasts, of course we ventured out for that too! Swans were plentiful this year, as they are each year, but often need to drive to see them - we don't fly - BUT this time we lucked out, and they were quite close - so close WE could walk to see, which is always a pleasure!                                          

It's cloudy out there

Snowy Niagara Falls State Park

A Winter sunset

The Beauty of the Aurora in Western New York!

I would have rather loved to seeing the northern lights in Spain but we haven't been there since 2018! I probably have a huge hill of old mail and dust awaiting my return to my apartment! 

I'm currently waiting for a 24-240mm Sony lens and it would have been very well-used last night. Instead I took my only wide full-frame 20-70 lens and that was luckily adequate for the whole show. I would have been happier with a lens just a hair wider, and thought of taking the very sharp and lightweight Sony fisheye adapter though that would not fit onto the lens I took!

Looking across Lake Ontario to Toronto at left

         

All the people amazed with the celestial event!

                          

The structures of Old Fort Niagara under the aurora

I even turned my camera to the south, snapping this image of the aurora over the bright Moon!

On the way home, we stopped at the Youngstown NY yacht club waterfront. 

Below and above images created while at the Youngstown NY yacht club waterfront

Again it was still easy to see the aurora, again with streetlights glaring and eyes again totally unadjusted to the darkness....  or rather, the brightness of the aurora! 

After the fact and looking at the Space Weather webpage hours later, again, I think it was so awesome that unknowingly, we had arrived at our selected viewing area of Fort Niagara during its peak levels; it apparently was almost a KP9, which is the highest it can get!! When we arrived at the fort, even with UNadjusted eyes to the darkness, I could see the lights faintly, through my three times operated-on eyes!!

Over the years the wife and I have discussed going somewhere where we could be guaranteed easy viewing of the aurora borealis... Iceland which is fairly "close" to us, and northern Norway, where even my brother has been now to view the dazzling colorful displays! 

Have you seen the northern lights yet?