The Phantom of the Midway

The Phantom of the Midway, originally uploaded by big_pixel_pusher.

I decided to take my neice Alexandra and her boyfriend Josh to San Diego for the weekend. We had a great time on the USS Midway aircraft carrier museum in San Diego harbor. I have been to the Midway a few times before, but this time we explored parts of the ship I had never seen including Pri-Fly and the Bridge.

I was sorry to hear the fireworks display in the bay went so badly this year. Nobody hurt but I understand all of the fireworks went off at once and the show was over in 12 seconds. Apparently about a thousand people had paid for viewing spots on the Midway's flight deck.

Pictured behind us in this fisheye / facebook style shot is an F4 Phantom II fighter / bomber which like all of the aircraft on the Midway has been wonderfully restored. A great day and a lot of fun.

Gotham City Blues

Gotham City Blues, originally uploaded by big_pixel_pusher.

This is the First Church of Christ - Scientist in Boston again. This shot was taken during the blue hour just before darkness fell. Rain was falling intermittently, the security guards were keeping a close eye on me. They were just out of the shot on the left during this sequence. Two different guards asked me what I was doing there. I told them I was enjoying the fine Boston weather and waiting for the bat signal to appear in the forboding clouds above.

Our flag's unfurled to every breeze from dawn to setting sun

Our flag's unfurled to every breeze from dawn to setting sun, originally uploaded by big_pixel_pusher.

Marine Corps Memorial - Washington DC

Reign On Me

Reign On Me, originally uploaded by big_pixel_pusher.

I had just bailed out of a session at the "HOW Design Live" conference because the instructor began spouting his liberal political views. Not just the odd comment either. He started preaching his particular view of how things should be and seemingly forgot the topic of the class. This actually happened to me twice during HOW.

Anyway, upon entering the hallway at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, I immediately noticed that the lighting outside looked baleful. As I approached the floor to ceiling windows in front of me, I could see more and more of a huge storm cloud that was advancing on the building I was in. I could clearly see it was dumping rain in the area of Fenway Park about 3/4 of a mile away. I saw several bolts of lightning flash from somewhere within this towering and churning mass. I began shooting hand held HDR sequences when a brilliant flash momentarily blinded me followed just a second later with the loudest thunderclap I had ever heard. A split-second later It seemed that every car alarm in the area was wailing in unison. The streets were suddenly flooded with water and convention center security began moving everyone away from the windows. Less than 10 minutes later, the worst of this storm had moved on leaving the buildings, trees, and streets completely drenched and full of reflections. It was time for dinner and I was ready to walk around and make a few more images.