Alliance Air Show 2009

Since I’m supposed to be packing and getting ready to move next week, I thought it would be a good idea to go waist a day at the Alliance Air Show instead of doing what needed to be done. Glad I went, it was a pretty cool sight to see.
First off, the parking was a pain. Sat on the frontage road for a while before being able to make the turn onto the airport property, then because of the limited parking everyone was directed into the fields that were a little damp from all the rain we had last week. Didn’t see anybody getting stuck but there were quite a few cars covered in mud. And the more cars you have driving in that area, the worse it was going to get. Glad I got their early. Also, parking is $20 per car. Cool if you have a bunch of people going, sucked for me since I was by myself.
So I got parked and used my trusty iPhone and a free parking application that I downloaded in the parking lot to tag using the GPS, exactly where I parked. After the show and walking back to the spot where I thought the car was, I started up the app and it showed me that I still had about 4 more rows to go and was a little further over. Worked like a champ. Is there anything the iPhone can’t do?!? (yes, it wont play flash)
Getting to the gate, notice I said gate and not gates, there was a HUGE line to get in to the air show grounds. It winded back and forth and it was going to take at least 45 min’s to get in so a bunch of us decided to make a break from the line and just storm the gate. Actually we all just waltzed up whistling like nothing was going on and cut in line right at the gate and nobody stopped us. Feel sorry for all those suckers that were standing in line but when the gate is wide enough to fit two cars through at once, why not try to slide on in?
Once in I was greeted by some huge planes.

There were also some older WW2 planes out on the tarmac. I thought they were just for show but some of these actually ended up in the air putting on a pretty good show.

This was the biggest aircraft they had out there. It was huge.

And a few other planes that were there.

And there was even a Thunder Bird there.

I stood in the regular general admission section for a while, but there were just to many people there, and the smart folks brought chairs to sit in. Well I wasn’t one of them so I had to pay $10 to sit in the “Flight Deck”. It was ok though. I was away from the generators of the food vendors and could hear the announcer pretty well since there was a speaker right in front of us. They also gave us a wrist band so that we could come and go as we pleased.
I sat in a chair for a couple of demonstrations then moved up to the grass section of the “Flight Deck” and propped myself up against the fence for some picture taking. Well worth the $10.

Next up were the Blue Angels. Their announcer was pretty good. He gave a description of each trick they were about to do and told us which direction they would be coming from, all while looking into the crowd and never watching the planes, very disciplined.

Blue Angel Pilots

And if you would like to see a few more pics from the show, please visit my Flickr site.

30th Anniversary Plano Balloon Festival

Ever been to a hot air balloon festival? Me either, till this pass Sunday afternoon. You don’t normally see to many hot air balloons around here. Heck, I don’t even remember the last time I saw one floating by quietly, and have never seen more than one at a time. The Plano Balloon Festival was this weekend so when Rebekah and the kids got home from church and changed, they headed over and we drove on out to the north end of Dallas. Parking was pretty easy and we got a good parking spot next to the ticket gate. We walked around first and looked at what the vendors had for sale, nothing really that I needed, but the kids liked looking at the dogs the SPCA had out there. The kids wanted to do one of the blow up jump house obstical things so they waited in line for that and had enough fun with it that they wanted to do it again.

It stared getting close to 5pm so we headed over to the launch field where the parachute jumpers were going to be landing soon. We got lucky and found a spot right in front of where they ended up landing. We had no idea they were going to land right there. And the spot wasn’t really that big so it was pretty impressive that they were all able to land pretty much in the same spot one right behind the other. Never seen anybody do that either!

Madison got to touch the parachute of one of the jumpers but Jackson was to scared to go over to her and check it out.

So after all the jumpers landed, the hot air balloon people started unloading their equipment and blowing up their balloons. It was pretty neat to be able to watch them get everything rigged up to go.
By now a pretty good crowd was starting to show up around us and the spectator field was filling up.

And the first hot air balloon off the ground was the G-Daddy balloon.

Then the Re/Max balloon took off.

And there was a Pink Floyd balloon too. It would have been better if it was in the shape of a pig…

For a few more balloon pics, please visit my Flickr site.

Dallas Zoo

After about a week of rain we were supposed to get a couple of dry days so I thought I would take Madison and Jackson (along with their mom) to the Dallas Zoo. It was pretty cloudy that morning and when we took the Zoo exit off of 35, the sky opened up and just about flooded the place for 45 min’s. We sat in the zoo parking lot for a while till it let up some and then went to the ticket gate. Luckily the zoo has a great big cover over the ticket booths so we hung around there for a little bit till it slowed down to sprinkle. As soon as we got in the park we had to take a restroom break and heard this guy saying “Hello” over and over again. He wasn’t in a cage or anything, just sitting in a tree outside the offices.

Madison and Jackson had some “nature” things that they had collected and so we first went to the Nature Exchange so they could drop their stuff off and build up their points so they can eventually pick a treat off the shelf. The kids have to sit and listen to what the Nature Expert has to say about what they brought in but me and Jackson got a little bored and wondered outside to see what else was in the Childrens Zoo.
We found a fish tank but Jackson was more interested in the poop that some animal left than the giant fish that were swimming right next to him.

Then we found a bridge that over looked a duck pond.

And a couple of donkeys from the movie Shreck…

And finally Jackson just had to burn some energy and just started running around and jumping off of things.

Once Madison was finished with her nature expert she ran out to join in on the fun.

Then we found a few interesting birds.

So once we finished with the kids zoo we moved on down to what’s known as the Zoo North. And we came across the animals.

Then we made it to the Bird and Reptile building. (there’s to many birds at this zoo)
This guy was hanging out just outside the door going into the building.

Once inside the Bird and Reptile building they had a new display going on called Ghost of the Bayou and they had a couple of white crocodiles.

Then we saw some of these…

Next on the list were the penguins. Gotta love these little guys.

And this guy liked hanging out with Madison.

Next up was the gorilla habitat. It’s always a little unnerving going over there ever since once of the gorillas, Jabari, got lose and hurt four people a couple of years ago. They have raised some of the walls and added some rocks so they can’t get a running start to make the leap. There are still a few area where it looks like if they really wanted to, they could get out if they tried hard enough. Kinda makes for a more interesting visit. Besides, I could take a silverback lowland gorilla…..

Came across a few more crocodiles and a few tortoise.

Moving along we headed over to the Chimpanzee Forrest.

Then Jackson made out with one of the statues…

We found a few Meekats just hanging out.

By now we’re about halfway through the zoo and hop on the monorail to go see some more African wild animals.
Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of the monorail but we were lucky enough that since the park was so empty, we were the only ones on the monorail and got to sit in the conductors car and got a one-on-one tour where we could talk and ask questions about the animals we came across. The kids seemed to like it and Jackson was full of all kinds of questions and random sayings.

Since it had been raining all week and that morning, there really weren’t to many animals out being as active as they normally are so we headed on home and I conked out at my parents for a while.

And for a few more pics from the trip to the zoo, please visit my flickr site.

Joe Pool Lake

Got a call from Mom and Dad wanting to make a run out to the lake and have dinner on the water.
Sounded like a good idea to me. Haven’t been out there for years.
The sun was just setting when we got there and when we left it was dark so there wasn’t much time for photo’s, but I got a few. (Just wish I had a better low light camera, the D40 only goes to 1600 ISO. What I need is a D3…)

When the sun’s out, it get’s hot.

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to get out and ride with a group of people but I finally had the chance on Sunday. Woke up just after 6 am ready to ride I guess. Normally I try to sleep till 8 or 9 on the weekend. Took a shower, made breakfast, and surfed the web for a while till it was time to head to my sisters church (Lake House Church), about a 30 min ride from my place. The service was a good one and after church we were going to head out to Fort Worth to get something to eat. There were 9 people going, seven bikes and 1 car. Mark who was in a bike accident a couple of months ago still hadn’t been released from the dr (and his wife) to ride so he was in the car, and thank God he was cause it he saved the day later.
We first headed to Kincaid’s Hamburgers over in the Ft Worth arts district but apparently they are closed on Sundays so we went down the street to Uncle Julios to eat some Mexican food. We spent about an hour there and then headed off towards Weatherford. Here’s the only picture I took of the day. For some reason I always forget my iPhone has a camera in it…

So we head off down I-30 which later turned into I-20 towards Weatherford and take the Tin Top Road exit. It was a decent road, one lane each direction, but wasn’t really windy or hilly enough. We were heading towards a place called Mary’s Brazos Cafe that is supposed to be a biker friendly place but when we finally got to it, there were only a few cars in the parking lot and we didn’t even bother going in, just looked at the maps to see where to go next. From there we took the wrong road right out off the parking lot and went down Old Tin Top Road where we should have gone straight on New Tin Top Road. The old road ended up turning into a gravel road which is always fun to ride on… But then it ended up dropping us out onto New Tin Top and we were once again on our way.
I’m not sure were we went from there but some how we ended up at Lake Granbury but we didn’t stop at all except to stretch our legs and get some gas. At some point we ended up on the Paluxy Hwy and were going to go to the Dinosaur State Park area (see my past post on that place here) but decided it was getting hot and late and should start heading back towards the DFW area. So on to 67 East we road. Brandon an old neighbor I grew up with who I recently got back in touch with on Facebook was riding with us and he split off at 35W and headed north towards his home in Rhome, the rest of us continued on till 287 in Midlothian. That’s when the guys on the bigger bikes took off down the road and headed home. Me on my little 600cc bike got left in the dust but luckily Randy slowed down and waited for me to catch up.
Right about then is where things started going down hill. We’re heading straight towards the sun. It’s between 5 and 6 pm which is the hottest part of the day and the heat index was near 100. I’ve had heat exhaustion before and have passed out from getting to hot and that’s when I started getting that somewhat familiar feeling again. My mouth dried out first, then it was getting hard to concentrate and stay focused on riding. I started looking ahead for a gas station or something where I could pull over and get something to drink and rest and that’s when I started getting tunnel vision and everything turned to black and white, was no longer seeing anything in color. Not only did my vision start going but my hearing was on it’s way out too, getting muffled like I was wearing ear plugs, I could no long hear the engine of the bike. I knew then that I needed to get off the road and off the bike, quickly. I was on a small bridge at the time that covered a fairly deep ravine and knew that I needed to stay away from the edge so that I wouldn’t tumble down into the ditch if I was to lose control of the bike so I started slowing down in the middle of the highway. I have no idea if there was anybody behind me, I was afraid to take my eyes off the spot I had focused on for where I wanted to be. Just past the bridge was a side road that I was able to pull off onto. I don’t remember coming to a stop or even getting off the bike but somehow I got it stopped with the kickstand down and engine off. I do remember thinking I need to get out off the sun so I made it to the front of the bike and sat down by the front wheel in what was the only shade I could find, which there wasn’t really any. I also somehow got my helmet, goggles and gloves off, I guess to try and cool off. While this is all happening, my world is still in black and white and I can’t hear a thing. I guess about this time Randy notices I’m not behind him any more and turns around to see me in the distance and that I’ve pulled over and am beside the parked bike. He thinks there’s something wrong with the bike and I’m working on it and turns around to head back my direction. He said it took him a few min’s to get to me and that when he finally got there I was staring lifelessly into space, eyes open but passed out. He couldn’t get any reaction from me but could see that I was still breathing. He said I had lost all the color out of my face and that my blue eyes had faded to a real light blue and my pupils were the only thing with any color. He grabbed his phone and called 911 and about that time I started to gain consciousness. I was having trouble breathing my vision still in black and white but my hearing was starting to return. I heard Randy asking how I was, what had happened and if I was ok, and that he was also talking to a 911 dispatcher. About this time Mark, who was in the car, pulls up. Because of traffic he had got stuck at a few traffic lights and was just now getting to us. I don’t really remember a whole lot of what was going on, but I remember a guy on a motorcycle pulling over and asking if everything is ok. Mark or Randy tell him that I got over heated and ask if he happens to have any water or anything to drink on him. He just happens to have a large styrofoam cup of ice with a little bit of Dr. Pepper in it. How he had it on his bike I don’t know, but as soon as he handed it to Mark, the guy took off. Wish I could have gotten his name and said thanks cause that ice really helped cool me down, poured some of it down the front and back of my shirt and crunched on the rest of it to stay cool.
Randy was off the phone now and the ambulance was on its way. By now I had gained a little bit of my strength and was able to walk to the car to sit in the AC. Man, having Mark there with the car was the greatest thing. I had never enjoyed cool air so much in my life. We sat in the car for maybe 10 min’s before somebody from the Mansfield Fire Department showed up. Wasn’t a firetruck but a guy in a Suburban. He checked me out some, just asking how I was, what had happened, what kind of medication I was on, what the date was, simple questions to make sure I was at least coherent. Not long after he showed up a couple of ambulances showed up. One from the city of Mansfield and one from Grand Prairie. Since this happened pretty much on the city limits line I guess it was a first come first serve to see who could get to me first. The great city of Mansfield got to me first so I went to their ambulance to get checked out. By then I had recovered enough to walk unassisted and crawled into the back of the ambulance. Inside they hooked one arm up to the blood pressure machine and the other to an oxygen monitor. Both of them were spot on perfect. They said it was textbook perfect, couldn’t even tell that anything had happened to me. They kept me hooked up to the machines while I answered some questions about what had happened, what I had to eat and drink today, where I lived, what kind of medication I was on… the basic stuff they need to ask. One of my blood pressure meds says to stay out of the sun when taking the medication. Well I had done the exact opposite of that and had been in the sun pretty much all day! At this point I was feeling perfectly normal if not better than normal. I was breathing fine, had plenty of energy and was ready to get out of that ambulance. I had to sign some “paper” saying that I was refusing further treatment and that I understood I was being released under my own care and was now free to go.
I hopped out and thanked the EMT guys for stopping and got back into Marks car to keep cool. About that time my parents pull up. Randy knew that if he didn’t call them that my mom would have killed him the next time she saw him. She had calmed down some from when she first heard about me laying on the side of the road. From what everybody was saying, she was really freaking out, which I can understand, bless her heart. I kinda looked like I was dead when Randy had first pulled up next to me. Oh and the first thing she said to me was “Your selling that bike!”
Randy was calling around to find somebody to come drive my bike back and got in touch with the wife of a guy that had been in our group earlier. She kinda misunderstood what was being said and thought we were asking her to come pick her husband up (who hadn’t made it home yet). So she’s shows up and we’re all wondering where her husband is…. Randy explains what happened and she apologizes. It’s cool, it was loud standing next to the highway and she probably couldn’t hear all that he was saying, plus with her husband not having made it home yet, thought that we were needing her to come pick him up. Makes sense I guess…
I’m still feeling 110% with this new wave of energy I have and tell everybody that I can drive the bike on back to Randy’s house, which was only about 15 min’s away. So I put my gear back on and fire the bike up. It’s after 7 now and it’s starting to get a little cooler, like the low 90’s so the ride wasn’t to bad. I never had any more problems and felt pretty good the reset of the night. We get back to the house and talk about what happened, what all I remembered and don’t remember and that’s when I realize that when I had passed out, I remember dreaming. But for the life of me I can’t remember what it was I was dreaming about. I can’t remember if it was about somebody, or something or what. I just remember it being real peaceful, calm and very bright, almost like I was flying. Wish I could remember what it was…
On that note, I would just like to say thanks to everybody that helped. The Mansfield Fire and EMT departments, Randy for calling 911 and staying there with me and all the other phone calls for help, Mark for the car to stay cool in (that AC was a God Send), my parents for coming out to check on me and giving me a ride home, and the Mystery Biker who had the ice. I might not be here if it hadn’t been for you guys! God Bless you!

Follow Friday

Instead of twittering a bunch of Follow Fridays I decided to just do one post with link to the good people I enjoy following.

1st off Marilyn from Chesshirecat. She’s got the life. Lives in the beautiful state of Tennessee and gets to do a lot of traveling on her Sportster and take pictrues along the way. She’s got some great pictures of the old abandoned houses and barns and keeps her eye out for the covered bridges. She’s also got a great blog were she documents her travelings. http://chessiestales.blogspot.com/

Michael from michaels_feed. This guy will keep you laughing with his one liners. I usually retweet his stuff a couple of times a week. Michael also has a great blog, Harley Thoughts. He’s a smart man and a great story teller. Always enjoy seeing his post pop up in my Google Reader. Plus he’s a Mac guy.

Kelly from Fierypinkgirl. Who doesn’t love a girl with pink hair and rides a kick ass looking motorcycle? I’m kind of a new follower of hers and learning some about her as she tweets and she seems to be a great person with a good heart always promoting great causes.

Fred from SmoothBiker. Great guy. Building himself a bobber. Can’t wait to see it turns out. He’s also a poet.

Magnus from Viridari. He rides a Triumph (which he has a love hate relationship with). I’ve always loved those bikes, and would love to have one someday whether its an old one or new one they just have that classic look to them. He’s also a damn good photographer.

Hayes Carll. He’s one of the greatest singer / songwriters out there. If you love country (not that Nashvegas crap) and a good story, check out his music. Been following him for year and been to many a shows.

HarleyMac1. A good guy, teaches a motorcycle safety class and has a podcast, Motorcycle Nation Podcast.

IronWorks Magzine. Great Magazine and an even better blog. Really great articles and I always look forward to the You be the Judge post where readers send in pics and everybody says what they like or dislike about the bikes.

Joe Rogan. Joe has to be my favorite comedian right now. He’s actually got two great jobs, comedian and commentator for the UFC fights. What a life. He’s also got a blog.

RippinKitten. Biker chick with a great blog. And a talent in graphics design.

Scott Sigler. Crazy ass awesome writer. Like your stories scary and suspenseful? This Future Dark Overlord knows how to write them. And best off all they are free, released as podcast.

Wayne Addamz. He’s my best friend, what can I say? We have the exact same sense of humor and can finish each others jokes when we see something happen. Now if I can just get him on a bike…

Tannie. Coworker who looks good in apple bottom jeans and goes out of her way to set me up for “That’s what she said” jokes.

I think that’s a good start. I’ll try to add more every week and repost so that nobody is missed.

Thanks for the entertainment guys!

Fossil Rim

Had a PTO day at work I needed to use so I thought I would take a trip down to Fossil Rim. It’s a 1700 acre wildlife center that you drive thru and can feed the animals from you car.
They’ve got all kinds of deer, rams, ostrich, zebra, giraffes and many other animals roaming around freely. It took us 4 or 5 hours to go thru the entire thing including about an hour break about half way thru were we ate at the cantina and walked thru the petting zoo. It was a fun day and I would like to do it again sometime. Got some pretty good pictures out of the trip and looked like my niece and nephew and sister had a great time feeding the animals.
When we finished up at the wildlife center we called an audible and stopped at the Glen Rose State Park and walked around the dried up muddy banks that hold the dinosaur foot prints. It’s pretty interesting to see foot prints that are millions of years old that you are actually allowed to touch. Usually this type of stuff is locked up behind glass, but here you can actually stick your foot in the dinosaur prints and see how your own feet compare to a big T-Rex.

And of course if you would like to see more pictures from this set, please check out my Flickr page.

4th of July

So I have a DSLR. From what I understand, that means your supposed to take pictures of fireworks. The only problem with that is that you only get a couple of times a year to do it so my first couple of times are going to suck.
Some of these look ok, but I was also hoping for a “crisper” look when the shutter closed. Guess I need to read up on it some more.
For those wanting to know tech specs. I used a Nikon D40 tripod mounted and shutter activated via remote to cut down on vibration. F11, ISO 200. The shutter time was set to bulb so it was open for as long as I wanted, usually 3 to 5 seconds.
If you have any tips or tricks to get better shots, please let me know in the comments.

And there was a stupid tree in the way most of the time.

Fort Worth Cats

On Saturday the 13th of June, Wayne and myself took a little ride over to Fort Worth to watch a Cats game. It sure was a long one too. The game, not the ride… It started at it’s normal time of 7 and went only nine innings, but because of a pitcher injury and quite a few questionable calls from the umps, it was after 11 when the last out was called.
The Cats are doing pretty well this year, again. Right now they are 23-6.
Though the original LaGrave Field is long gone, the new stadium is fairly nice. Very basic in it’s construction, fans are drawn to see the actual players and love of the game, not some fancy over designed ball park. The first LaGrave field was built in 1926 and was used by the Cats until 1964. In 2002 the new stadium opened along with the comeback of the Fort Worth Cats. Home plate is even in the exact same place that it was back in 1926.
One of the cool things about the ball park is the view of down town Fort Worth in the background. (wish I had gotten a shot of it, what a dope I was not to take one… oh well, it’s not like I wont be back any time soon…)
I might end up out there again for the July 4th game so I’ll have some more pictures before to long. Until then, you’ll just have to enjoy these.

Warming up

Batter Up!

Out at first

So you want to go get a pizza after the game?

Why do they even bother to steal second?

Out!!!

#1 in the division.

And of course they have the hot young girls to entertain you between innings.
Gotta love those Rally Cats.

And of course their beloved mascot Dodger.

Wayne Terwilliger. I think he’s been playing ball for so long, he might have been on the very first baseball team ever.

And sports fan Wayne always has a ball for somebody to sign.

And of course if you would like to see more pictures, please check out my Flickr page.

And to find out more about the Fort Worth Cats, please click here.

Hello Win Column

Took a road trip with Wayne to see the Texas Rangers rip the Houston Astros a new one. And that they did. The game started at 3 and since we live in the DFW area, we had to leave a little early. I left the apartment around 7am, swung by Waynes place and we hit the road. It was a pretty uneventful ride, which is good. We beat the Memorial Day traffic (I guess) cause we didn’t really hit any traffic till we got down to the Woodlands – Houston area. But it wasn’t really bad at all. So we got there before the gates opened which gave us some time to walk around Minute Maid Park. It looks bigger on the outside than it does on the inside.

We got to see the Rangers do some batting practice.

Then a few of the guys came over to sign some autographs.

Josh Hamilton was walking over to do some signing and a group of kids kept screaming his name. He finally looked over at them and told them to calm down that he would make it over there to sign their stuff.

And here’s Wayne getting his ball signed by Josh.

Let’s play some ball!

Between innings there’s a chick that wonders around and does the giveaways and contest. She made it over to our area and did a contest with a mother and daughter couple. I don’t remember what their question was but they got it wrong and lost a chance at a vacation.

Then we noticed Nolan Ryan. He had been sitting behind home plate. He was there with Tom Hicks since he’s working for the Rangers organization. And of course he used to play with the Astros in his younger days. I’m not sure, but I think that’s Jim Sundberg in the red shirt.

And as usual, if you would like to see a few more shots from the game, please check out my Flickr page.