Just a sparse one

To get back on schedule as it were.

##########

I guess Sis had her preliminary hearing this morning. As I understand it, unless she talks someone into bailing her out she'll remain in durance vile at least until her arraignment on formal charges January 29. Considering that she urinated upon the Queen's Highway I don't think the court is in any hurry to adjust their schedules for her.

Once she's arraigned they'll likely revisit the bail question. I think she can plead guilty at the arraignment, waiving a trial and throwing herself on the mercy of the judge. I suspect I'd do that if I were in her shoes and reasonably sane. If it goes to trial she'll lose unless the Queen's Constabulary firetrucked up the paperwork. She could only "win" on a technicality, which would almost certainly be a big loss for her and for society.

Looking over the penalties in Nebraska statute I'm glad I'm not in her shoes.

##########

On the off chance that anyone who didn't catch my comment to this post over at Sarge's place and happens to read this post (a rather unlikely thing, but so is america), I shall post the following video. This Eric Johnston has some pretty good stuff on the u2be.



##########

And now for the fun stuff. Don't worry, it's not one of my videos! If you haven't seen this Sarge, you're in for a treat.



For a Canadarian this Rob guy at British Muzzleloaders has some of the best stuff on the interwebz over at his u2be channel.

##########

If anyone reading this is looking for great and fascinating historical bang stik stuff and has never heard of Bloke, Chap, Mae, Othias, Mark, or Ian (Gun Jesus), let me know and I'll pass on some links. Or shit, just search those names. You'll find the right places.

Be well and enjoy the blessings of liberty.

Couldn't pull it off

Not with this equipment.



I had a post written and queued up for 0300 publishing. I thought. Nay, I was convinced that such was the case. It was not.

When I realized I hadn't actually sent it to scheduling and looked over what I had prepared, I recognized the hand of the Big Aircrew Chief. That post wasn't fit for human consumption.

So here we are.

##########

I didn't quite get the workout in I wanted to yesterday morning. Mom and I had a mission lined up to hit the big city of Scottsbluff to resupply with chicken food, bird food, and people food.

Here's an interesting factoid, and one we all know. While chicken food is for the chickens, and bird food is for filling the bird feeders where the silent but energetic songbirds like to hang out, both birds and chickens are, well, birds.

The chickens could thrive on bird food and the birds on chicken food, but that's not how it's done.

People love to tinker with things. Those who are into feeding songbirds tinker by paying outlandish prices for plant seeds which have so little nutritive value that down through the last 15,000 years of ape-lizard existence they were the gruel that peasants and slaves subsisted on. The seeds do have a great deal of nutritive value to songbirds, but because most songbird-feeding ape-lizards have no idea of the actual monetary value of milo and millet and sunflower seeds, they are willing to pay a premium. They fall prey to marketing, convenient and colorful packaging, unsubstantiated and fantastic claims, and hearts filled with the desire to nurture songbirds.

There's nothing wrong with any of that, not up front anyway. On the backside there's a bit of a problem though. Most people in the first world have quite a shaky understanding of reality, and living out the songbird feeding fantasy skews their world view just a tiny bit more. In that sense it's just a little bit not good. But again, it's not wrong or bad. It's just ape-lizard.

The same thing happens with feeding recreational chickens. The upside of feeding both songbirds and recreational chickens is that you do get a lot of stuff in return. There's a great deal of pleasure to be had in watching and listening to both kinds of birds, and in the case of chickens, there are eggs. And Sunday chicken and dumplings. Except that most recreational bird feeders will never pull the trigger on that last one. Unless they get hungry enough. And on balance that would be a bad thing.

People are endlessly interesting, and their intrestingness is not infrequently vexing to other lizard-apes.

Anyway, we were scheduled to walk at 1045 for the 1100 go.



We actually got going by 1115, so that was good.

We went to Murdoch's for bird food and chicken food, and that went well.

We also went to Safeway for a few hard-to-get-in-Kimball items and that went well too.

And we went to The green Plate for lunch. I took and went and wrote about the place previously. Yesterday the specials were pan-fried chicken (meal) and Reuben (sandwich).

Mom had the Reuben. She said it was quite nice.

I had the chicken.

It was inedible.

##########

So today I understand Sis was supposed to go before the judge. Haven't heard anything yet. The lineup of charges looked impressive to me. I'm hoping they'll find a way to keep her in the jug until she has her trial, but I suspect they will not. Bail is only a grand.

Anyway, lots of talking stuff through for Mom so I've been occupied with lending an ear.

It's another pretty day out albeit quite a bit more breezy than I like.

Be well and enjoy the blessings of liberty.

Unless you've jackassed yourself into jail. In that case, suck it up, drive on, and try to firetrucking learn something fercrissakes.

Big plate of poop sammiches

But there's ice cream too!

##########

Lots of videos today, some shot with the phone and some with the canon. And I haven't yet rabbited the canon. Don't feel compelled to watch. I'm making this stuff up as I go along.

##########

Nona has moderate hip dysplasia. Good and bad in that. Today she has lots of pain and isn't in any way up to getting out and about. She needs rest and NSAID's, so I gave her 110 mg naprosyn and 160 mg aspirin in a bowl of cottage cheese and sour cream. As for the rest portion I wanted her to stay home today, perchance to lay in the sun. She wanted to come with me this morning though. I got the sense that she wanted to stay close to me. So that was okay. I did my chores and then took her back home.



The good part is that moderate dysplasia means she can probably have a pretty good and mostly pain-free life when the hips aren't flaring up, and also that the NSAID's work pretty well for her. The bad part is that she'll be 9 (63-ish statistically) in July and her hips aren't going to get better. At some point she'll be suffering too much and I'll have to put her down. And when I say I'll have to put her down, I mean I'll have to put her down. Me. In my world that's the way it works, and I will not sell my responsibility in that regard.

It's just part of the deal, the responsibility a person assumes when they take a dog into their family. Administering peace and and end of suffering is simply the fair exchange for years of unconditional love.

Now my personal approach is just that. My personal approach. I arrived there under the direct supervision of the Big Aircrew Chief. Don't imagine that I believe my path should be the path of any other person, ever.

Between now and that moment -- if it ever comes -- Nona and I will do our best to enjoy our time together.

She did feel better as the day went on but was still pretty sore as of the time I sent this off to scheduling.

##########

To continue on an upbeat note, my 49 year old little sister checked herself out of treatment yesterday and after a brief stop at the likker store checked herself into gaol. DUI nth offence (as the Brits spell it, and where n = a presently unknown number greater than 1), resisting arrest, reckless driving (thankfully wreckless driving as well), driving on a suspended license, and urinating on the Queen's Highway. That last charged offence is of course not true and reflects my attempt at making a funny.

So what does a person in my shoes do in this situation? It pretty much comes down to suck it up and drive on. There's nothing I can do for her. There are any number of things I can do with her, if she ever finds a way to begin to try to unfuck herself. I have to be ready to help under the proper circumstances, and also be firm in withholding assistance which would only enable her continued fuckedupedness. Easy. So I'm leaning heavily on the Big Aircrew Chief. It's liable to end badly I fear, but many humans choose to take the express to bad endings and there's nothing any other human can do to change the destination. They get on the train, they can get off. But they don't always do so.

##########

On to the ice cream.

My intent regarding a workout was to hike a couple of miles with a couple of hills, something I did yesterday, wherein I didn't push it much although I didn't completely wimp the hills.



I also intended to explore a bit more "glacier" climbing, which I 'sperimented with yesterday on the spur of the moment.



Because Mom was taking a walk while I was doing my physical thing Red accompanied her rather than me, which is the way it should be. Yesterday Red went with me and tried to capture a vole. She's a nose hunter though, so she missed. I'm not sure if the vole was lucky or good. Probably both.



But that was yesterday. This was today. Which is now yesterday. Fricking time machines.

Anyway, stretching and pushups!



Then I must hide my keys where only people on the interwebz can find them.



After a mile or so of hiking, a warm-up slope.



Then after summiting Vader Hill once, a brainstorm!



Let's do it five time hard(ish)!



Then a beauty break with more sobbing and a diabolical but unworkable idea.



More sobbing with some artistical video of snow-ice in the middle. There's clearly a bit of psychosis going on. Okay, more than a bit.



Then 7.5 minutes of "across the valley and back" baloney, heavily edited down to a buck thirty-five. Still too long. This one is definitely worth skipping.



And finally a "look at me" recap. Probably a good one to skip also.



At the end of the seventy-minute workout I'd done five miles pretty hard. I did a lot of hills. My fancy watch credited me with 10. The number doesn't matter really, the point was to work hard and get good exercise, and that's what I did.

So the poop sammiches weren't exactly tasty. Unfortunately, life comes with a lot of poop sammiches, and that's a fact. There's always ice cream on the menu too. Not always a lot of it, but it's always there.

Nona's feeling a lot better as I write this. We'll see what the morning brings.

Be well and enjoy the blessings of liberty.

Slightly irritated

No big deal, just taking forever to move videos over from my phone. Which is one of the reasons I got the new camera, iirc. The phone also decides to turn a good number of videos sideways and upside down. The u2be editor used to let you fix that.

I should really just bite the bullet and learn how to edit. Or hire a geek kid. No, geek. I don't even talk that Greek shit.

##########

Very nice day for January here. Air temps hit 44 and the wind moderated a bit. It was clear and sunny.

My hike only went three miles today but a great deal of it was up steep slopes. I also did some fun glacier scrambling. It was a fairly light workout but it felt good.

##########

I super-glued synthetic rabbit fur over the mic holes on the new camera and on the phone case. Did I already 'splain that?

It seems to help with the wind noise. Doesn't eliminate it but tones down the worst of the screeching.

##########

Mom made bacon and eggs for lunch today and it was a very tasty meal of course. Should have made a picture but I spaced it off.

##########

And since my videos are still downloading and are therefore not usable for the post I intended to write, I'm afraid this is it for the day.

On the bright side, tomorrow's will have a couple of interesting videos. If I don't get abducted by aliens again.

Be well and enjoy the blessings of liberty.

Corpsman Chronicles XXX: The Big Touchstone

What's the difference between a fairy tale and a sea-story? A fairy tale begins, "Once upon a time..." A sea story begins, "This is no shit!"

I try to be careful to change names, but to the best of my recollection the events and locations are substantially correct. Of course I can only describe events from my perspective, so there's that. Readers who were present will doubtless have different recollections of any particular event. This is what it was like to serve in my tiny slice of the U.S. Navy between the late 1970's and early 1990's. It really was an adventure.

Remember,

This is no shit!

##########

Oh what a night!



Late December back in, um, '86. Actually early December, and there were no wimmins involved whatsoever.

My boat would be departing on deployment in late December. She would be making an around the world cruise, and at the end of that she'd be parking in Washington State rather than at NOB Norfolk, the home port she'd always returned to previously.

There were rumors that my Airwing, which was not changing home port, would bid her old carrier adieu and henceforth deploy on the Navy's newest aircraft carrier. The rumors were somewhat strengthened when a number of airwingers were asked if they'd like to make a little 10-day pre-shakedown float on the new carrier to "familiarize" themselves with the ship. They didn't have to ask me twice.

Underway for a bit of larking about in the VACAPES operating area, I was of course TAD to medical (TAD from TAD. It's a thing. So is TAD from TAD from TAD, but that's for another post). I was assigned to sick call and asked to share my experience as much as possible with some of the less salty ship's company corpsmen working in the treatment room. Which was great. They were a fine bunch.

There would be zero fixed wing flying. That would come later. There were several airwing helos and crews on board, though. They had a number of missions lined up including photography, a bit of radar calibration, press and dignitary rides, drills, and of course availability for real emergencies like man overboard and medevac. I was able to fly a couple of times and also work with the new carrier's flight deck corpsmen.

All in all it was a great time and I made some good friends.

On day eight I was in the duty section. After everyone had rotated through chow, at about 1830, the duty section LPO (Leading Petty Officer) was giving his watch briefing in the treatment room for the overnight. A fellow clad in sneakers, shorts and a sleeveless tee-shirt walked in. I'd never seen him before but I somehow knew he was a Chief. He was sweat-soaked and looked like he'd just come from the weight room. Kinda. I didn't like the "kinda" at all.

"Hey guys," he said, "I really hate to bother you but I really feel like shit."

His color was awful, pale and ashen. He was trembling and breathing hard. Firetruck!

I was the only paramedic on board, and while each of the physicians on board were ACLS (Advance Cardiac Life Support) certified, I was the only one presently in the treatment room with that certification.

I started to move toward the Chief.

"I feel like I'm gonna," he said. I'd taken maybe two steps toward him.

He went down like his strings had been cut.

I quickly went down on my knees and rolled him onto his back. Time did its slowing down thing. I felt for a carotid pulse with my left hand, put my left ear close to the Chief's nose and mouth to listen and feel for breathing, and looked closely at his chest to see if his lungs were expanding and contracting.

Pulseless. Breathless.

This was a heart attack. Cardio-pulmonary arrest. The sudden cessation of heartbeat and breathing was probably secondary to myocardial ischemia -- the fancy term for part of the heart muscle being starved of oxygen. Myocardial ischemia doesn't always lead immediately to cardio-pulmonary arrest, but often it does.

For the Chief, two things had to happen within four minutes or his brain would begin to die. His lungs needed to start moving air, and his heart needed to start circulating blood through the lungs to pick up oxygen and carry it to the brain where it was needed most. In the best case the Chief's own heart and lungs could be teased back into doing the job immediately. In the next best case we could do the job for him temporarily with CPR, but if his heart and lungs couldn't take over soon, he would perish.

The chief's sudden collapse and his pulselessness and breathlessness meant that his heart was either dysrhythmic -- beating out of rhythm in such a way that it couldn't move blood throughout the vascular system -- or asystolic -- at a complete standstill. I was praying for a dysrhythmia rather than asystole. In my limited experience asystole just wasn't survivable. 

The ACLS drill for observed sudden cardiopulmonary arrest at that time called for a precordial thump, then CPR if needed, then defibrillation.

The precordial thump is a rude punch to the sternum. The theory is that the impact will cause the heart's inherent electrical system -- the system which causes the heart to beat and keeps it in rhythm -- to depolarize and restart a normal(ish) heart rhythm.

With seconds ticking away I knew what needed to be done, and I knew that my fellow corpsmen needed direction. They would and could do everything that needed to be done, but they didn't know what to do. Several of them were regular treatment room corpsmen, so that made things easier.

"Baker, Cagle," I said, "CPR board (a varnished plywood board to provide a firm surface for CPR) on the table, prepare to start CPR. Yates, large bore IV, D-5 and half, hang it. Jefferson, crash cart there (pointing to where I wanted it). Break the seals and open it. HM1, call away medical emergency in main medical, do it now."

Time for the thump. I was on my knees on the Chief's right side. Which was kinda the wrong side. I needed to apply a strong (but not too strong!) thump with the bottom of my fist directly to the middle of the sternum. I wanted to use my right or dominant hand, but I also needed to guard the xiphoid process with my off hand. The xiphoid process is a little pointy tag of bone at the bottom of the sternum. If you break it off you can cause all kinds of problems.

A snippet of advice from ACLS training popped into my mind. In some cases it can be better to guard the xiphoid with your dominant hand and then thump with the non-dominant hand, so long as you can be accurate with placement. You'll better guard the xiphoid and probably not be able to hit too hard. In theory.

With my right hand I palpated the xyphoid and lower sternum, then covered them with my hand. I raised my left hand in a fist, bottom side down, and called "precordial thump!"

Smack!

The Chief gasped and started to breathe. I felt a strong, rapid carotid pulse. The Chief's eyes fluttered open and darted around. Thank God.

"Easy Chief," I said, "you're gonna be okay. We're gonna pick you up and put you on the table, just relax."

Strong hands helped me lift and as we lay the Chief down on the treatment room table the medical emergency was called away over the 1MC, or ships announcing system. That was a little trick I'd learned -- and now shared -- for getting the ship's physicians back to medical as fast as possible.

While Yates prepared to start the IV I turned on the LifePak 5, which was sitting atop the crash cart. The LifePak was a combination cardiac monitor (like a mini-EKG) and defibrillator.

The monitor part would show us the heart rhythm on a tiny screen and also on a strip printout, and that information would come via three small leads which were affixed to the patient's chest. The defibrillator could also, and would if needs be, apply a jolt of electricity to the heart. The jolt of electricity was more refined and controllable than the precordial thump, but the end goal was the same in either case. To get the heart beating more or less normally again.

As I untangled the lead wires and affixed them to the Chief's chest I gave him a running commentary of what had happened and what we were doing. Leads in place, I started the strip printout rolling and peered at the heart tracing. It looked very much like sinus tachycardia, which meant a normal rhythm except for the heart rate, which was something like 150. Anything over 100 is called tachycardia, while less than 60 is called bradycardia.

I didn't really like the looks of the tracing. It wasn't quite right, but it was impossible to tell what was wrong with just 3 leads and such a small tracing. We needed to get a proper 12 lead, but that would have to wait.

I watched Yates prepare to start the IV and noticed that his hands were shaking badly. Adrenaline can be a problem. You learn to work through it, but you have to work through it to learn. We were on thin ice so far as the state of the Chief's heart went, but we were okay for the moment. The youngster part of me wanted to jump in and start the IV. The grownup part of me knew that this was an important moment for Yates. The grownup prevailed, but the youngster chimed in with a dirty IV starting Limerick. The Chief grinned. Well, he was a Chief, right? Yates chuckled, steadied his hands, and started the IV.

At that moment every medical department and dental department khaki flooded into the treatment room. The ship's doctor and nurse anesthetist jumped right in, took my report, and got busy while the ship's Senior Medical Officer supervised and began chasing excess khaki from the room.

"A precordial thump, no shit?" This was the nurse anesthetist, a Lieutenant Commander. "That's cool, I've never seen that work!"

"Me neither," I said.

I backed off and sat down. My own hands began to shake. I secretly hated -- I mean, really, really hated -- cardiac arrests. People having heart attacks are extremely sick, literally at death's door, and the margins for successfully resuscitating a patient in cardio-pulmonary arrest are razor thin. In those days it just didn't work out very often, and every failure I was involved in was utterly crushing. Not that I ever let on. "Don't mean nothin'" was my mantra. But of course it did, and that's one of the reasons I was sitting there with shaking hands and in danger of blubbering. Adrenaline can be a problem.

I hard-assed myself back into compliance with my standard of behavioral norm. Unless the Chief went south in a hurry he'd be medevacked to the beach very soon, and that meant the day wasn't over for me just yet.

"Medevac?", I asked. Emphatic nods from physician and anesthetist.

"I'll get the ball rolling," said the SMO as he quickly headed for his office and the phone.

"I'll need a helper," I said, "you up for a helo ride Yates?"

A look of relief flashed between physician and anesthetist, while Yates' visage was immediately suffused with a look of absolute joy.

I dragged Yates out of the treatment room and over to the SMO's office where I barged right in. He was hanging up the phone anyway. "I need a helper Captain and I think Yates is the right guy, but he's got no training, it's December, and it's night."

The SMO paused for perhaps 10 seconds.

"Okay," he said to Yates. "It's dangerous. You don't have to go. You do have to volunteer. Nobody, me or anyone else, will think badly of you if you have second thoughts."

"Yessir," said Yates, eyes shining. "I mean yessir. I want to go. I volunteer."

In the back of my mind I thought about the fact that NAVY stands for Never Again Volunteer Yourself. Made me smile.

"Arright," I said, "let's head up to the paraloft. Thanks Captain."

##########

Up in the paraloft while we were getting him into wetsuit and flight gear I gave Yates a thorough brief on what we'd be doing medically, what I expected from him, what to expect for his first helo flight, and what to do if shit went sideways. I gave him the usual ditching brief, then added a bit of guidance.

"If we go in the water, You get yourself out of the aircraft. I'll take care of the Chief. You get out fast so you're not in the way."

He looked at me, paused for a moment, then nodded.

##########

The medevac was pure vanilla. We turned a worried but appreciative Chief over to the tender mercies of Portsmouth Naval Hospital, then saddled up and headed back to the boat. It was very dark and cold that night but the skies were clear and the air was smooth. Yates had the time of his life and chattered endlessly on the ICS. It was okay, the rest of us knew how it felt. And unlike the rest of us, Yates' first helo ride was a full-up mission. When we got back I showed him the requirements and instructions for applying to aircrew school as a corpsman.

##########

Less than 48 hours later I walked off the boat. A couple of weeks later I walked back aboard a different boat and set sail once again.

As a crew we received Sikorsky Awards for that medevac, somewhere in the middle of the deployment. Yates received his aboard his own carrier. Which was cool.

The Chief had a bad case of coronary artery disease and underwent multiple vessel bypass. Those surgeries weren't new by any means, but they were still a very big deal. He did well and had a fairly quick recovery. Partly because he was quite fit and partly because of his youth. He was only 39. That still seemed kinda old to me at the time, but not as old as it had once seemed!

##########

Sarge has a very cool post over at his place today (yesterday as you read this), marking four years since little Belle was baptized in San Diego aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt.

The images in those posts are simply awe inspiring. The story of Sarge and his family is a love song to the world about America. Of course there are many thousands of such songs, and such have been sung by many thousands more going back to '76. But in this slice of the blogosphere, and in my heart, those images Sarge shared are incredibly powerful and indescribably beautiful.

I've walked those decks, I've heard that bell sing, I've been in that chapel, I've stood on the very spot where future cousins would gather in contemplation. Once upon a time I was part of the helo crew which made the very first landing of a naval aircraft aboard that ship.

Until I met Sarge and his family on the interwebz TR was a rather small slice of my naval experience. Just another nuke carrier I'd gone down to the sea in.

In 2016, when Sarge posted about the baptism, TR became a touchstone for me. I don't know exactly why, but I think I understand some of it. The fact of the thing is far more important than knowing the how and why.

Be well and enjoy the blessings of liberty.

Suitcased

Kinda.

Back in the olden days suitcased meant you had your stuff in one container. Back in the olden days of naval aviation I should say. It probably meant other stuff in other milieux (that's the french for the plural of milieu I believe) but of course I'm channeling my long lost youth, so yeah. Having one's stuff in one container, usually referring to a limited set of stuff regarding specific and limited tasking. So you can have a medevac mission suitcased or cleaning the head suitcased or even have -- in rare instances -- your duty section suitcased. Of course you can never have a relationship suitcased or a deployment suitcased or your life suitcased. Doesn't work that way.

##########

Today was up and down. It started with four hours of phone tag and "your call is important to us, please stay on the line and the next available operator will be with you shortly."

I was trying to get a status update on a neurosurgery consultation approval. After four hours I found that it's in the works and inching its way forward. Once it clears the Senate and is signed into law by the President it'll be off to the races.

All the phone tag and holding was a huge pain in the ass. It made me late. I'm the supervisor so I had to chew my ass about my tardiness but I also bought my excuse so I went easy on myself. Well, pretty easy for me.

Also it was just stupid beautiful outside. Cloudy and 25 degrees but not a breath of wind. I wanted to get out there and charge some firetrucking hills! The waiting (especially the holding) was torture.

Compounding the torture was the forecast. A weather front was in the process of moving through and expected to bring high winds beginning at 1300. By the time I finished with the waiting/holding it was already 1130. Firetruck!

But I got out there and hit it hard.

Such a lovely, beautiful day! By the time I got my stretching done and got stuck in to serious workout hiking the air temp had climbed all the way to 35 degrees. There was a bit of a westerly breeze, but not too bad.



Kinda-sorta halfway point. Fixing physical and mental degeneration. That's what I said in the video anyway. Have to pull myself aside later and see exactly what I was on about.



The weather began to close in. Wind came up and it started to spit snow. Not all that bad. Just a bit (whole lot) more nerve pain than I liked at this point but I couldn't quit -- my ride was two miles away!



Found more glaciers to hike. The snow was pretty. Then it turned to snow/rain mix! Then to rain! Air temp was up around 37 and the west wind was gusting in the 30's, so there's some wind noise in this one.



Now this one is amusing as hell. Thought I turned the camera off but I must have double clutched and turned it right back on. So you can see how attractive my sweatshirt is and hear how much sobbing I do when I don't know anyone is watching.



Finally back at the pickup. Good workout.



I went very, very hard for the first 2.5 miles. I was flirting with 11 minute miles over that distance. But I started to run short on juice so my pace slackened. By the time I finished I'd done a bit more than 5 miles in 82 minutes so my overall pace ended up at 15.7 minutes per mile. Which is terrible. But also good. Very good in fact. Despite a six month layoff and carrying lots of slop fat the cardio is still there and the muscles are too.

A little while later I went to fill Mom's car with gas. While I was blathering on about the beauty of the day I realized that I still had a couple of eggs in my sweatshirt pocket from my second pass through the hen house (first pass yielded eight), before I headed out for my hike. So those eggs had a good workout too. Hope they aren't pre-scrambled.



And the final video of the day -- winter molting hens having a dust bath. Interesting stuff everywhere when you look for it I guess. Also, simple things amuse simple minds.



All of today's videos were done with the phone. I left the new camera at home with the case taken apart in an attempt to install the optional second case back. The optional case has slits in the back and I'm assuming those are at least in part to allow sound to enter the case. Only there doesn't seem to be a way to actually swap the waterproof case back with the optional one.

In the meantime I wondered if anyone is stupid enough to make (and sell on amazon) a head rig for smartphones. As it turns out...

Yeah, one look at the 1980's naval aviation/porn star 'stache on the dummy and I had to have it. I also supersized my order with a bluetooth camera control and a chest rig for the phone. Less than $50. So maybe I'll be up and running hands free soon. You never know.

All in all an exceptionally fine January day out here in western Nebraska.

Be well and enjoy the blessings of liberty.

Getting my mind right

That bad eh?

Yeah, yesterday's post sucked. Yesterday was not a good writing or posting day. The spark really wasn't there. I probably should have punted, but I did not.

Certainly not the first time I've expostulated when I should have sat quietly with my cake 'ole shut and my hands in my lap.

Why I once remonstrated myself directly from a tiny ass chewing to Captain's Mast! I got skills, baby!

Perhaps the lesson didn't stick.

##########

I did sleep awesome-goodly last night. Wednesday night I guess. Always a plus.

##########

This morning I did some side-by-side comparisons with the new camera and the trusty old but micro-pitted canon. I also did three (I think) comparisons which included the phone.

They weren't rigorous trials mind you. I held the canon next to the new one to compare ride-along video quality. The new one is firmly fixed in a mount, and hand-holding the canon meant sliding and wobble and even a canted angle. Also the canon isn't locked in a soundproof box so I can get sound on it but not on the new one. I'll keep fiddling. I decided not to bore you with highway driving or hill climbing comparisons. They're on my dumpster fire u2b channel if you're into that kind of torture.

County road into south unit, akaso:



County road into south unit, canon:



Isandlwana ridge and glacier. Kind of a January look today.

Little Bluestem. Go figure.

The only reason this balloon fragment remains is its tether is wrapped around barbwire.

Those stills were shot with the canon.

Chicken fail with phone; amusing but possibly only to me:



Chicken phone:



Chicken canon:



Chicken akaso:



Now the good stuff!

Before we start with the videos of my incredible feats of manly prowess, please pay no attention to anything I say in the videos having anything to do with numbers, counting, or (horrors!) addition and subtraction. Couldn't pull the math off today. Not with this equipment.

Akaso hand held:



Canon hand held:



Phone hand held:



Post gully one:



Two:



For the record (as best I can do with this equipment) I did one gully-and-back with the akaso, one with the canon, one with the phone, and four with no recording whatsoever. That makes seven gully over-and-backs. My watch credited me with 14 floors, and in settings on the watch I made the vertical value of a "floor" 22 feet. What the actual up and down value for each gully crossing is I don't know. I'll measure it on a nicer day. I'd guess 30 down and 30 feet up on each side is about right.

Red was right. "Too much blah-blah."

So what have we learned today (besides the fact that I can't count, add, subtract, measure, speak clearly, or tell time)?

It looks and sounds to me like all three platforms make video and are bothered by wind noise. I was slightly surprised to have less wind noise problem today than I expected across all three. Without a doubt the new camera image and sound quality is not as good as the canon and the phone. Makes sense really, as the camera cost $800 and the phone cost $800 while the new camera cost $60. So maybe I'll have to buy a gopro. I'll play with the ahchoo a bit more but I'm pretty disappointed. With myself, not the camera. I was expecting Porche for VW price. Spring hopes eternal in the mind of the moron.

I did enjoy the hell out of those gully dashes. Better exercise (if less convenient) than running underpass stairs.

Be well and enjoy the blessings of liberty.