Oregon Days 2 and 3...plus trip wrapup

Yeah, I know I haven't posted in a couple of days, so sue me, lmao.


On Friday I went exploring the area a bit, hit a couple parks and found some walking trails, as well as spending an hour or so at Borders, and did a bit of reading. It was pretty much a rest day for me, since I needed to catch up on my lack of sleep from the two days prior. But here are some of the photo highlights:

Yesterday, we headed out to the coast to let the dogs go batshit crazy in the ocean. We had amazing timing, since it was drizzling all the way up, and the sun came out right when we got there (see rainbow in marina pic). So we grabbed lunch at Rogue Brewery then hit the sand. Literally. The dogs got soaked, and the humans weren't exactly dry as some of those waves came rolling in damned fast. One moment the surf line is 100 yards away, the next your legs are soaked to mid calf, all in the time it took to run off a photo or two. After drying off the dogs and getting home so the humans could change, we went out for dinner, then Nellie and I and a friend of hers went to the theater to catch "The Book of Eli". It was pretty good but not at all what was expecting from the previews. However, that being said, it was MUCH better than the previews made it look.

Photo recaps of Sat:

And today, Sunday, Day 4, is mainly going to be watching the Superbowl. I don't care for or about either the Saints or the Colts, but think the Colts will take it. We'll see.

Tomorrow, I'll leave here around 8am to head out for Portland to catch my flight, connect through Houston, and should be back in Tampa around midnight or so.

First FULL day in Oregon

Oregon, Full Day 1.
I “woke up” this morning around 6am. I put woke up in quotes because I never really fell asleep for very long. The hotel itself was fine, but, what you can’t tell ahead of time, is that it is right next door to a 24-hr Subway restaurant with a drive thru, the speaker for which was only 50 feet from my room’s window. Groovy.

So, I woke up kinda blah, and it was still raining. It would continue to be in the 50s and rainy all day. Not great weather to be wandering around outside in, but great indoor photography weather. I hauled my non-conformist non-creed-specific carcass out of bed and shuffled my way through a shower and the normal morning routine, then sat around editing photos and reading till about 7:45, when I headed out for Starbucks. (Happy, Mike? ;) )

With caffeine in hand, I proceeded to drive the three miles over to the Evergreen Air and Space Museum, the home of the legendary Hughes H-4 Hercules flying boat.

I parked the little Aveo at the Evergreen museum by 8:15, and, coffee and camera in hand, proceeded to photograph all the birds on display OUTSIDE the museum. That took me the 45 minutes until the museum opened for business at nine, and, while I was behind the museum shooting the P-80, MiG-15UTI and others in the back lot, I noticed some muzzles on the hill above me. I squelched my way up the muddy hill and found some old armor atop the hill, which, of course, I shot. Maybe some of you can tell me what is what from the photos over at Picasa, and the muddy one below. ;)

So, once the museum opened, I got my admission and told the young lady at the desk that Kasey in PR had set me up for a tour of the massive Flying Boat. Somewhat surprised that she knew who I was, she set me up to tour the Hercules at 11, which gave me two hours to roam around the museum.

It wasn’t enough time for me to shoot half the aircraft in the main building, but part of that was because I would stop and talk to the extremely friendly and knowledgeable docents who came up to me every once in a while.

It seemed, almost immediately, to become 11. I had worked my way around the exhibits under the Hercules’ right wing, and, at one point from beside the replica of the Wright Flyer, I texted myself this message in shorthand. (I text to my email when I want to remember notes on something).

I am, right now, standing in the shadow of history. When you know the numbers, she sounds big. 218ft in length, 319ft, 11inch wingspan. Numbers don’t tell you the story. Nothing you’ve seen compares. She is said to have been able to accommodate 700 troops. I can tell you without having to measure that the Statue of Liberty, WITH torch, could lay down inside her comfortably. (She’s 151 feet tall. Weight will be withheld to protect Liberty’s modesty, but it is barely within capability of lift for this girl here). She’s THAT massive. Of course, as you’ve seen from the photo above, I’m talking about the Hughes H-4 Hercules flying boat. She only flew once, for about a mile. Let’s put that into perspective. Her wingspan is 320 feet. Over 100 yards. That’s 1/16th of a mile. So she flew just over 16 times her wingspan. Back in 1903, the Wright Flyer had a wingspan of 40 ft 4 in, and its longest flight on Dec 17th, 1903 was 852ft, or, about 21 times its own wingspan. So, in perspective, the only flight of the Hughes Hercules seems insignificant. Until you meet her face to, well, really low part of the forward hull, in my 6’3” case. This is not an airplane. This is a building with wings. It makes the C-5 Galaxy and Boeing 747 look svelte. (There’s a 747 here outside. And a 1903 Flyer replica. I’ll get there in a minute, as all I have to do is turn around. But the grand lady has my attention at the moment.)

Do you remember when I told you yesterday to keep scale in mind? Yeah, here's why:

So, 11 o’clock. I entered the Hercules and met up with Gene, who was to be my personal tour guide through the massive bird. I’ve read quite a lot about Hughes and the H-4, so he and I were able to keep quite the conversation going as he pointed out points of the aircraft I had only ever read about.

After touring the hull, we ascended the spiral staircase to the massive flight deck. I even have a picture of me sitting in the Pilot’s seat, and, yes, Jim, I took plenty of cockpit photos for you. My tour inside the H-4 probably took a good 45 minutes.

Then, for the rest of the day up until about 4, I photographed the rest of the Aviation side of the museum, AND the Space side.

Then it was time to head down and meet up with Nellie, AND get the Aveo’s tire replaced. I went in to the Enterprise at Cor where Nellie lives, but they didn’t have a vehicle to trade me, so sent me over to Firestone to get the wheel replaced, on their dime, of course, which I did.

After that, I drove over to Nellie’s and we had dinner and caught up for a while until calling it a night. However, tired as I am, since I may have only gotten 3 hrs of sleep last night, I wanted to be sure and hit a post before bed. Tomorrow I plan to work on getting some of the photos up on Picasa, and a few to illustrate this blog as well.

photos on Picasa are UP!!

Thus endeth day 1. Tomorrow is probably going to be a rest day, but we’ll see ;)
Love to all!

Oregon Trip day 1/2 bloggy goodness

Oregon Trip, Day 1/2: Travel day!!

That's right, I got my white ass out of bed at 0330 to head across Tampa to the airport to catch my 0600 flight. I left the house by 0400 and, with waiting for the shuttle and whatnot, was in the TIA terminal by 0500. Like usual, I didn't really get a second glance at the TSA check-in, and settled down with the iPod, Starbucks, and a book to wait for them to board my flight. I was way in the back on a window seat. Kinda knew I'd be eating my knees on the flight to Houston, but no biggie, only a 2 1/2 hr flight.
Of course, we had a ramp delay and got to sit on our asses on the taxiway for a good 35min, so that didn't help.
We landed in Houston AFTER my flight to Portland was supposed to have started boarding, and, of course, my flight from Tampa deplaned at gate E9, and my connecting flight was way the fuck over on C32. So, of course, I ran.
Get to the Portland gate, huffin' and puffin', and I am towering over the people boarding the plane by t least six inches. The woman at the desk took one look at me and stated that the flight wasn't even half full and would I like an exit row seat. Well, hell yes, I would! So I sit down in the second exit row with an off-duty FA catching a flight home. The captain says we have a 5hr expected flight time, and you know what I did? I stretched out my legs in front of me and just grinned. Then I finished 'The Falcon and the Snowman" and started "Deadly Decisions." For some reason I cannot fathom, I haven't been able to sleep on a plane in years. So I read and listened to the iPod and the FA snoring beside me. At about 1135 Pacific time we landed in Portland. Yep, Left Tampa at 6am, into Portland 5 1/2 hours later. carry the one, multiply by 42, subtract thursday....hmmm....So, basically, at this point, I'd been up for 11 hours but my watch was trying to tell me it was only 8. Tricksy watches.
So, I grabbed my bags and headed to the rental car counter.
Sorry guys, nothing cool this trip. Oh, I had the option to get a 2010 Challenger, but it was $100 more than I was paying, so I have a Chevrolet Aveo.
Man, I shoulda got the Challenger.

Ok, this is gonna surprise all of you, I know it. I get the Aveo off the airport, have the GPS all plugged in and the iPod "Iron Eagle"-ed up, and....it's raining. In Oregon. In February. But not RAIN rain, like the monsoons that Tampa gets, but nice little showers. Now, as most of you know, I'm a huge Aviation geek, and, since Nellie is NOT, I set it up so I could hit the Tillamook Air Museum and the Evergreen Air and Space Museum on my way down from Portland to see her, thereby not annoying the hell out of her by dragging her to them. Man, I LOVE these NW Oregon roads. I mean, just look at that ^^. So, rainy, mountainous, twisty turny.
Yep, you guessed it. The Aveo blew a tire about 20mi from Tillamook, as I was accelerating out of a 30mph switchback and up to the 55mph straight speed limit. In the rain. In 50deg weather. Was fun changing that, I tell you. Luckily it blew right AFTER a corner where there was a shoulder I could change it on. Also luckily, this happened in OREGON, where people understand following distance and know how to drive in the rain in the first place. In Florida, if that had happened and I was fishtailing like I did, I would have been hit four times before being able to get the car straight and to the shoulder. But, here, the few cars following were following the mountains+rain 10sec rule and were able to miss me easily. One old lady even pulled over and asked if i needed help. I managed not to laugh but it was a funny mental image of this woman in her seventies tying to change that tire in the rain and cool. But not many people offer to help anywhere these days, so I thanked her and got to it with the jack. Many many curse words and a change of shirt later, I was on my way again. I followed "Mandy" giving me directions (My GPS thanks to SnL), and made it to Tillamook, which, surprisingly, is not easy to find for a former coastal defense blimp hangar.

See.....This freaking place is massive. And, dry. Though not heated. I, however, have thick skin. And my Stuttgart letter jacket, because, let's face it, I'd been drenched an hour before.

Remember the scale of this photo. That's my 6'3" lanky ass in front of the WWII P-38L Lightning. You think I look small compared to IT, wait till tomorrow's post ;) 9Yes I brought my mini tripod)

Ah, the TBM Avenger.

Again, wanted to give you guys a sense of scale. That's a Mini-Guppy, bigger than a B-29 Superfortress, in front of the blimp hangar that houses the Museum's collection. And you can tell it's raining.

So, I pull into McMinnville around 4 and am on the lookout for my Hotel for the evening I had reserved. The GPS tells me I am at it, but it's not there. While driving in circles looking for it, the sun comes out, and I got to shoot this rainbow over McMinn. Then I got fed up and called the hotel. I was in front of it, but, since they had been bought out by Motel 6 the week before, I couldn't find it, since I was still looking for "The Paragon". But they had my reservation and rate already saved for me, so everything turned out hunky-dory. And I'm only 3 miles from the Evergreen Air and Space Museum, which I will be spending most of tomorrow at before heading south to meet up with Nellie for the next 4 days. Now that I've posted, I'm going to go tear into the OTHER half of the family-sized lasagna I bought from the Pizza Hut down the street. WHAT? I'm hungry, damnit. Haven't eaten anything since 4am EASTERN. That's 17hrs ago!!!

So, 'till tomorrow and a surprise rare opportunity the Evergreen Museum has granted me.

Off to do my Garfield impression.

nom nom nom.

Two Russian Bad Boys

As many of you know, I used to love to build models back in high school and early college, and when i moved to Florida, I still had quite a few unbuilt still in their boxes that went into my storage unit. After boredom kicked in from unemployment, I went to the storage unit and pulled out three 1/72 scale birds to work on, A Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut fifth generation demonstrator, a Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-29UB Fulcrum, and a Lockheed F-22A Raptor. Two of those are now complete, and I had mentioned I would post photos of the process. On the Berkut I decided to paint it as the prototype, and to spray paint it. For the MiG-29UB I decided to brush-paint and make it into an East German trainer from Preschen airbase in 1988, partly as a visual aid for the "Fulcrum Project" story.

First off, soak and clean all the parts in warm water to remove any particulates, ESPECIALLY on these birds since they have been in a storage unit for almost eight years.

Then I masked off the Berkut to give her an even coat of flat black.

One of the fun parts of the Su-47 is that her instructions are in Russian. Luckily, I'm still nearly fluent in reading it.

Here the body of the MiG-29UB comes together. Note the scotch tape to hold the parts together as the glue dries.

First color in the NVA camo is on, and she's surrounded by reference aids. While THAT dries off........

The Berkut gets prepped for her second spray coat.

Half of the East German camo scheme is down on the MiG-29UB now....

Decaling the Su-47, note the reference materials.

Camo done on the trainer version of the Fulcrum, awaiting decals.

Both birds fully painted and decal-ed up, ready for their dullcoat spray.

A couple views of the completed MiG-29UB Fulcrum trainer in East German colors. I painted her to represent one of the four UB's the East Germans accepted from the USSR, the only one that was painted in a non-grey camo scheme. I think she looks pretty good, myself, for the bare bones Revell kit I had to work with.

I like this view, even though the damn Bort #s slipped when i applied the dullcoat.

And here is the Su-47 Berkut demonstrator. Obviously, I decided to make her in a takeoff configuration, as the main gear are rotating inward and upward. This kit was from Russia, by Zvezda models, and went together with fairly minimal fuss, though the tails had to be anchored more solidly with putty.

So, hope you enjoyed this brief illustrated modelling tutorial.

As for the F-22A, I am still working on her, but, being the most detailed of the three, she's also giving me the most issues.

Another Hollywood Ending

Sigh.
Sometimes the worst thing about having a lot of knowledge on varied subjects is watching how Hollywood can completely fuck things up and yet still gain praise.

For example, most everyone who knows me will agree that my aviation knowledge base, particularly on the military aviation history side, is immense. That's not me being immodest. When you study something for 30 years, you tend to know a bit about it, lmao. I routinely amaze museum staff when on vacation by the amount I will know about their collections. That makes for a huge upshot, I can start a conversation with people at any time that work at an aviation museum, and most of the staff at Fantasy of Flight know me on sight. The downside? It tends to ruin movies for me. I'm the guy you DON'T want in the theatre for Top Gun, because I know how fucked up the flight scenes are.
Perfect example? The Scorsese film, "The Aviator".
I could go on for hours on the inaccuracies in the movie. For instance, 90% of the XF-11 crash scene is pure Hollywood bunk. He never spoke to anyone over the radio while flying the XF-11, which was part of the reason he crashed. Odie was not on the ground talking to him, he was in the air in a modified A-20 as a chase plane, but on a different frequency from Hughes, so the two never talked. He was not supposed to have retracted the gear at all on the flight, but did so because he thought he knew better than the military that had set up the flight test schedule. After the crash, he never muttered a word to the Marine that came to his rescue, according to all reports, and only shook his head no when asked if anyone else was in the aircraft, then passed out. Odie chased the ambulance to the hospital, which was the first time anyone knew who they were treating.
As for the Hughes HK-1/H-4 Hercules flying boat (Commonly called the Spruce Goose as a derisive term by the press), Hughes himself did not draw up the plans for it. Odie, with other engineers at the NACA facility in Langley, worked on the initial designs. The name "Hercules" came about as a contest at Hughes Aircraft among the employees to name the aircraft. Howard Hughes never named it this and never referred to it as anything other than his flying boat.
Let's not even get into the mental illness side of things, which was portrayed WELL out of timeline.
Those are small examples, but you get the idea.
Still, even with its, Top Gun's, Into the Sun's, and many other aviation films' utter BS, I still enjoy the movies themselves, though grit my teeth through them. With two exceptions. Though there are some inaccuracies in both Amelia from last year and 1983's The Right Stuff, they are among the best, and most accurate, aviation films I've ever watched.
What kinds of films bother you in that way??

Sound the trumpets: Call to war.

Which is better?

Van Halen with DLR or with Hagar? (Sorry Cherone, your best work is with Tribe of Judah)
For my 2 cents, it's Hagar. The band sounds like real musicians with him, and, to all the DLR fans out there, guess what? Van Halen only ever had 4 #1 albums. They were 5150, OU812, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge and Balance, all with...that's right, Hagar on lead vocals.

Muscle Cars vs Tuners:
So I'm old. American Muscle all the way. I don't feel I need to justify it. ;)

New v Old? Specifically, Knight Rider, Dukes of Hazzard, V and The A-Team?
Everything old is new again, or so it would seem. Or is it just that TV and movie execs have run well out of originality? The new iterations of Knight and Dukes have sucked goat, V I am ok with the new and old, and the A-Team movie looks like crapola, but until I see it the vote is out. I would love to see some new ideas pop up.

But Bri, what about Avatar? That was new and original!!
Hardly. It was typical Cameron and half of every scifi show or movie ever made. Man finds planet. Something we want there. We go take it. They fight back. Human falls for alien. Indigenous species wins, evil humans driven off for a bit.

Camaro v Mustang v Challenger.
I LOVE this one. I'll take one of each please, an example of all from 67-70 and 2010. Thanks. But I like the new Camaro just a smidge more than the other two...but the barest smidge. Someone gave me any of the trio, I'd be a happy men.

What other Vs do you have for me?

2010

As 2010 starts, I've begun my planning. Here are the things i WANT to manage this year....we'll see how many I get at the end of the year....most of them in Florida are pretty much a lock.....yeah, I know it's an ambitious list, but why shoot low?

Collings Foundation's Wings of Freedom Tour, B-24, B-17, P-51, and possibly B-25 and Me-262, January 29, noon-5pm
Hooters and Hot Rods, Casselberry, FL 11-2, January 31
Nellie and the Evergreen Aviation and Space and Tillamook museums in OR, Feb 3-8 CONFIRMED
TICO Air/Car show March 12-14
MacDill Airfest March 20-21 Blue Angels
GP St Pete? March 28
Sun N Fun April 13-18 Thunderbirds 17-18
Doolittle Reunion-NMUSAF April 16-18 ?
Mustang Meet April 17
SAHS all years reunion w/ Jill Laura and others DC (also Smithsonian) June 24-27
Omaha-Denver road trip ? (late June early July)
Shuttle launch and Landing KSC (Feb 7, March 18, May 14, July 29, or Sept 16)
Star Wars Celebration V w/ Geoff and Nicole August 12-15
Lake Mirror Classic Oct 15-16
Raleigh NC/SC/TN
Chad's wedding Oct 23
Mopars with Big Daddy (oct or nov)
NYC again? (winter, Intrepid, Brooklyn Bridge)