I've done it a few times but didn't/never like the results. I'll be trying this again in the coming weeks and from different locations, too. One of the locations will be a lot closer too.... ssssssh, don't tell anyone!! :) filmed with a mavic 4 pro in manual focus. I guess the color/camera settings are good!!
drone film fireworks show - the link opens in a new window
https://youtu.be/3C6ogOtdNIk
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.......
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.
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.
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 |
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 |
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?
There's a lot of gorgeous Trees in western New York.... heck, I've seen a lot of gorgeous Trees in my travels but still, Trees are a sight to see!
Do you love Trees too? I just can't hug a Tree.... my many allergies causing me to be sneezing year-round, plus I despise insects and ants!
All of these fabulous Trees can be enjoyed on the grounds of the fabulous Niagara Falls State Park! Really! In some of the pictures, you can see parts of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada in the background!
It's done and over with, and we really enjoyed this years edition of a favorite area airshow: Wings over Batavia.
What we really enjoy though were the fireworks. Granted, an airshow is usually very interesting but this one has just so many acrobatic planes doing their whirls and spins, and once you've seen one planes roll and spin, you've seen them all.
What we DO enjoy immensely are the fireworks show that end the day's aerial event. A plane flies in the dark spewing its load of fireworks, and eventually it continues to fly as fireworks launched from the ground explode with color and sound!
I've included a few memories of the fireworks.... can you pick out the plane?
Enjoy these few memories!!!
Just a few memories while at the Falls to enjoy the fireworks. For the past two weeks we have been returning to the Falls and recording the fireworks from different spots. Of course we have our favorite spots... less people. Quieter. No problem with parking. Good security. BUT to get to other spots ain't a bad thing either!
Recently during a not misty smoky day, our eBikes took us to the Erie Canal near Pendleton, New York for a short ride. We have always wanted to ride alongside the Erie Canal but to do so takes determination. It's a looong ride. Even on a short ride as we did, there isn't much to see of the canal but Trees bushes and clouds! Really!
The best views of the canal are while in canal cities and towns, or by the small bridges that cross the canal.
If riding the canal for a short distance as we did, there's not much of the canal to see. But the Erie Canal remains an important landmark of New York State history, and a part of western New York's history also, as it begins just north of Buffalo in the Tonawandas!
Here's a memory of our folding 16" eBikes parked next to a very tiny portion of the Erie Canal.
 | |||||||||||||||
|
We were out again to escape the constant updates to our new home, and decided to go to a very popular and busy nature preserve in Buffalo where a Roseate Spoonbill had been sighted. We departed early and spent the better part of the day there.... over five hours there in the light rain, clouds and finally the sun broke through. Saw a bunch of birds which were the normal, but no spoonbill. Many others seemed to be out with long lenses and binoculars, so guessing we weren't the only ones interested in seeing the spoonbill. We have already seen spoonbills in the wild in SW Spain and in Florida, but spoonbills are a rare occurrence in western New York. Last year there was a wayward Limpkin in the area, and the year before it was a Virginia Rail.
I kept joking that once we decide to leave, the spoonbill will make its appearance, and we will have missed it. That's exactly how it went: we were actually departing and out of the corner of my eye, saw something of a pinkish color fly in fast and low, then landed not even 42 feet away!
The one thing that always bothers me is that it seems human is such a controlling species. The humans really are the true invasive species of the planet, who have, for centuries and more, just gone any and everywhere, seemingly to explore new lands, but in reality we are now discovering that the true intent was to conquer and enslave other people, steal their treasures, their lands, and if that wasn't enough, humans just wanted to remove others from the planet.
In addition to that goal, which they've done quite well through the centuries, is their desire to trash and pollute this planet everyone calls home. I haven't been everywhere, but I've been to a few countries, and the one thing I have discovered is the vast amount of trash left by humans everywhere! What is most disturbing is the amount of trash left everywhere, and seemingly, even in the most scenic, beautiful, natural and popular areas will be trashed and polluted the most! Even with plenty of trash bins and signs, humans do as they wish, and their main objective is always the same: to trash the area no matter how beautiful the area is. That doesn't mean that for some area not considered to be the best, should be trashed. THiS is our home: the Earth. There is only one Earth and it's already gone through centuries of pollution on a grand scale. While it's less now, it's still a lot more considering the trashing and pollution of our HOME affects eventually everyone, and all species.
I have even seen people throw trash on the ground though there's a trash receptacle just a few feet away. It's not the responsibility of others to advise you of your trashing the area; WE should be able to remember that the ground we transit each day is not a garbage pit we think it is no matter where we are. We need to, and should have the common sense and personal responsibility to hold the trash till it can be disposed of properly.
Enjoy your day, week and season, and please remember to not trash our home nor our planet. It reflects on us as a species, and shows everyone what little regard we have for our own home, let alone for other people and species.
So the other day while working on moving my trillion and five image files from older external Hard Drives [eHDs] to smaller faster eHDs that fit within my folded hand, I've also been looking through some of the files for lost and great memories! Last night while Sheila was looking through her social media feed, she saw someone's post that displayed a rainbow, and that one rainbow post lead to another, so I searched online for how many types of rainbows exist and was shocked by the result! Soon enough my eyes stumbled upon the rare occurrence of a fogbow, which is a colorless bow usually seen during a foggy day. This got me thinking because I have seen a fogbow, and many times while in my foggy San Francisco, and waaay back in 2016 [below]while visiting friends in Norway!
Have YOU seen a fogBow?
So, we are still alive, just barely in this blistering humidity of New York state. A few weeks ago I saw a bulldozer moving an almost intact wooden shipping crate over to the side of the road to be taken off as trash. I mentioned this to Sheila, and we went over to check it out. Seems it was trash that had been sitting around for some time, with a lot of dirt and webs on it.
Nobody wanted it but we took it to our new home and thought we might use it as a shell and a helping start for a shed, though small. That was weeks ago. We finished the move but the unpacking and organization is taking time, especially on my end. I hate boxes, but they hate ME more and I have the cuts and scars of many years on my shins to prove it!
So we've been working on this shed even before we even finished moving our stuff from the old to new. We had called a small local company to move the piano, a small upright that Sheila's had for decades. Our biggest items were still in the house also: bed frame and mattress, three big and awkward heavy dressers, portable air conditioning unit, a refrigerator we were going to swap between one left at the old and new home, and a few big heavy bulky boxes of miscellaneous items. The local Buffalo moving company did so well, the piano didn't even have to be tuned, but that in itself isn't a problem, since Sheila knows how to tune her piano also!
Is there ANYthang my Sheila does NOT know how to do? Nooooo, I've learned over our many years that Sheila has a vast knowledge, plus the power tools to build every and anything!
So we are up to our last few major steps in this shed. No blueprints. No downloaded online plans. Not even a scribbled plan on a torn sheet of paper. We are working completely out of our minds [really!] and without a script or plan of any sort, with our limits being the sides of the crate we salvaged! Really!
I estimate about a week has been lost in finishing this shed due to the high humidity. We will go out after the sun is much lower in the sky, to avoid the heat. Then the other problem was the rain, which has been extreme in the last weeks! We might work for two days, with three days off due to rains all day!
We had the roof of our little shed lower than the current wooden hand-built shed we inherited with our new home. It's a bigger shed but obviously handmade as ours is, but just more worn.... a lot more worn. We had already nailed down the roof, BUT slowly but surely, raised it to the same height of the older shed. In addition, we left a gap between the old and new sheds of about two feet wide. Within this narrow space will go our trash and recycle bins, plus yard tools with long handles.
Today we put the finishing touches to our doors for the shed, and placed the two uprights on either side to hold the doors. Sheila nor I have never mounted a door hinge before, so that will be a first. Even the hinges we are using will be second-hand, as these were saved from an older door that was removed! Sheila calculated today that we have spent less than $25 on this 4x4-foot shed as we are constantly using old wood she's had or purchased for other projects, and had wood left over!
I am just hoping that the coming days will NOT be as immensely humid as it's been for several days along with hours of rain recently, so we can actually spend a whole day to finish it!
I might even post a picture of it when it's completed!
I still haven't had the time to get my portable folding solar panels mounted on the roof yet! Actually, we have NO idea where it will be mounted, but hopefully within the next week, it will be mounted, and start anew in charging our three 300w solar batteries!
Otherwise, I have also updated my online portfolio gallery, revamped the site menu, added more pictures, along with a few new galleries:
~ On the Road:: Travel imagery
~ Panoramas
~ Faces People and Sports
~ Architecture Churches and Bridges
~ Western New York - Upper Niagara Areas
Of course YOU are invited to visit/reVisit my portfolio, which was most likely created while I was still living permanently in Spain before I booted meself out due to the high cost of living due to the monetary change from pesetas to the gawd-awful euro.... a lot of people I know have departed the premises.
If you do visit to see my galleries, por favor drop me a line please to advise me you did visit, and if you didn't like the changes!
I thank YOU in advance, and hoping you and yours stay safe and well!
We are tired and wanted to escape from moving and getting reorganized again. Whoever thinks moving is fun and reorganzing your Life possessions again is easy, is very welcome to join us! We escaped to Old Fort Niagara on the southern shores of Lake Ontario yesterday, and it turned out to be a good idea as we no sooner than arrive when we saw a rainbow. After that were the fabulous clouds - when aren't clouds fabulous? We look UP often - do you look too?
