And so, as the sun moves slowly from the east, it's time to open the first thread of a new year. Thanks for all the contributions in 2019 and now... Happy New Year!

Start the year as you mean to go on. Or go with. Or kling on to.

I went right across to the other side of Wiltshire today to get this sign, and about 100 other photos around the area.

Another pre-1964 relic in Corsham

Found this old railroad lantern in my garage when I moved in to my house. Thought I'd do something with it, so it's a sun catcher now.

We were walking near the Piney Woods park, Durham, NC, when I saw these brilliant red leaves.

I used to live in Ft. Bragg, NC back in the early 90s. We used to make the drive up to the Raleigh/Durham area all the time. Very nice place to visit and live.

Chapel Hill was cool too. Good place to see live bands. The Cat's Cradle is where we used to go. Now I'm having flashbacks to my glory days. I'll have to post a few pictures from when I was stationed there.

That's a great picture by the way.

Until I can find my other ones from that time here's one more that I took from about 4000 feet in the air.



Can't really see the base from up there, but it's down there somewhere I promise. I landed safely after a few minutes. This is called a static line jump for anybody who cares. Meaning the parachute is attached to a cable in whatever aircraft you are jumping out of and it opens within four or five seconds of your free fall. I think this was out of a C-130, maybe a tail jump. That's when they lower the ramp at the back of the plane and you just have to walk off the edge. Pretty simple.

"Simple" is in the eyes of the beholder. (And mine would have been shut tight...)

Mine were during my very first jump at Airborne school in Ft. Benning, Ga.

After that first one it wasn't very scary for me anymore and I ended up making around 25-30 jumps out of various aircraft including jet cargo planes like C-141s and the newer C-17s when they were introduced all the way down to a Twin Otter. My favorite one was out of a UH-1 Huey helicopter.

You just sit on the side of the chopper with your legs hanging over the edge. Then when you reach whatever altitude, you have to push off to gain clearance from the skids at the bottom of the helicopter. The sensation of falling doesn't last very long. But it's long enough if you're afraid.

What four inches of rain in 12 hours looks like

Katie, looking intently at something (or nothing)

Looks like she's looking at my "pond" out back.

... maybe there are some fish in it?

Standing water was 3 inches deep in some spots there. Measured it with my boot.

Lighthouse next to Mississippi river. Grafton, Il.

One more of my backyard.

Berries and moss

Keep it simple.

Nice!

A closed pub near Chinnor, Oxfordshire.

Posh dumpster.

My neighbor used to have two macaws that he would just let fly all over town. They would even follow his car around when he was driving.

They used to land on our roof and in the trees out back. Too bad somebody in town thought it would be funny to shoot them down with a bow and arrow. Wish I was kidding about that.

Katie found herself a cave to snuggle down in.

Dire, that's very sad. Did the shooter get caught?

Which one? I left out that the guy had five macaws to start and they all got picked off until he was down to these two.

The man passed away and his family had a hard time getting the birds to allow themselves to be caught since he was the one who trained and raised them. At the end I think they were only able to save one of these two and the bird wasn't allowed to fly around town anymore.

Makes me sick this world that we live in sometimes.


Your photo is really cute!

Don't mind me, I'm just a deer in the woods doing deer stuff.



We have so many white tailed deer here in Illinois that if you wanted some deer meat, all you have to do is drive around in the country during the twilight hours and wait for one to slam into your car.