Dykeman Snow - Guest Post

Guest Poster today is Grizz. Grizz is an old friend and an infrequent commenter. He does check in most days.

I saw the picture on your site from Dykmans and I had to send this one to you.

The Spirit of Goodyear and Snoopy 2 Together - Guest Post

Today's Guest Poster is Cincy Bill. Bill was the first to leap off the bridge and into the Outskirts of Suburbia to think up something to post here. See you all when I get back. Until then enjoy what everyone else has to say. Haney. Colorado update: My schedule for today is a long horseback ride into camp. Acclimating to the altitude and maybe a little scouting.

These pictures were taken on Monday evening September 29, 2008 at Lunken Airport in Cincinnati, OH on my way home from work.

The Spirit of Goodyear took its place in the Goodyear fleet of airships on March 15, 2000 when it was christened by America’s first woman in space, NASA astronaut Dr. Sally Ride. Based at Goodyear's Wingfoot Lake Airship facility in Suffield, Ohio the Spirit of Goodyear often flies the skies over the home of The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, which has its headquarters in nearby Akron. I have no idea why it was in Cincinnati, this weekend.

The MetLife Snoopy Two is A60+ model, decaled with the corporate logo “MetLife” on one side. The opposite side is decaled with MetLife’s new ad campaign tagline, “for the if in life.” Snoopy, dressed as a World War I Flying Ace, is depicted on both sides of the blimp. Snoopy Two was launched from Hillsboro, Oregon in October, 1993. Snoopy 2 was in town for the "Battle of Ohio" Browns vs. Bengals game the day before and was scheduled to follow the Bengals to Dallas the next weekend.

A little about Cincy Bill...

Born and raised in the West End of Shippensburg. Started chasing fire trucks around Shippensburg and hanging in the alley at West End Fire & Rescue at an early age. Left Shippensburg to go to school in Indiana PA and after graduating and was commissioned in U.S. Army I was stationed in Korea, Texas, Alabama, Germany, Southwest Asia (Desert Storm), and Georgia.

After getting out of the Army I moved from Atlanta to Cincinnati in 1993 and have been there ever since. I have a son who is a Junior at Northern Kentucky University and a daughter who is a Senior in High School. When my kids got older and could be by themselves I got back into chasing fire trucks. I am a member two fire buff groups both groups have fire scene access and riding privileges with the Cincinnati Fire Department. I provide photographic support to the fire department, the Local, and CFD Pipes & Drums. I ride with CFD Truck 19 (Unit 3). I am also active with the Cincinnati Fire Museum, Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of Antique Motor Fire Apparatus in America and our local chapter of SPAAMFAA.

Mail Pouch & the Times News Building - Painted Guest Post

Today's Guest Poster is Mama Clep from the blogsite Midlife and Menopause. She forwarded these Painted Gentlemen from in and around Uniontown, PA and Cumberland, Maryland. Colorado update: Travel day, today, if all goes as planned we crossed into Kansas by midnight and into Denver by breakfast. Later we'll drive on out I-70 into Eagle, Colorado for the the night.

I found you a bunch of painted buildings on our trip to Ohiopyle, PA. This one was in Uniontown, PA. This one is on Baltimore Street in Cumberland, MD

Go West Young Man

Later this morning I am heading out on my semi-annual western trek, adventure and elk hunt. 32 hours of driving, each way, 3 hours on a horse and 6 days high in the Rocky Mountains of north central Colorado. The weather isn't looking god for hunting. Low 60's down in town and no precipitation in sight. Hopefully there will be plenty of photographic opportunities to share when I return.

My Internet at home is out of commission since Sunday, hopefully it gets back up soon.

While I'm gone please enjoy what some of my friends, both real life and virtual, have to say.

The Agony of Defeat

I know what you're thinking, "Football three days in a row". Last night was my final game of the year, the Hounds still have another but I'll be out of town. Another loss and this probably means they're out of the post season but playing football is like a lot of other things, you can play to win but you should enjoy playing to play. For most of the season most gave it their all, their 110%. Unfortunately most times it wasn't all at the same time. (I'll end my critique here). They lost to the Patriots 7-9. That's 3 field goals to 1 touchdown. On a returned blocked field goal attempt.

First picture is the punt team protecting the punter, second is the cheerleaders waiting for something to happen. Third is the offence waiting for a chance to return to the field.

As a side note to other bloggers... why did these picture load in reverse order? This is twice now. this time I'm not bothering to switch them back around.

Last Week's Game, Again

We won last week, so I'm posting more from that game. This week, don't ask. I'll post some pictures from it tomorrow. I got them downloaded but not processed. The shoulder pads were sitting on the bench beside me, while the TV crew filmed it's clips, it looked like a good image. Then the wind would blow towards me and, "Oh my!"

One Dimensional

Looking over my recent supply of pictures, I seem to be one dimensional lately. There is football, cheerleaders, soccer, bonfires and football. So, today you get... Football and cheerleaders. I haven't tried that combination yet. Soccer is over now, football only has two more weeks and I don't foresee any more bonfires in my immediate future. What I do see is big mountains. Soon. Maybe some autumn pictures this weekend if the rain doesn't knock them all down.

This is the banner crash before last Friday's LBJ game here in Shippensburg. I like this effect, the football guys almost become transparent.

Horlachers (PGLXXX)

This old beer ad sits along the railroad tracks at the Route 30 crossing near York, Pa. Technically it would be on the outskirts of Thomasville, Pa. Thomasville is where the airport is and where Pfaltzgraf pottery used to be. It is unknown whether or not this building was the Sheffer Distribution Company or if it was actually downtown York. If you know let me know.

Googling tells me little about Horlachers Beer. Just that it was brewed in Allentown, Pa. from 1873 until 1978 and that it was "bought by various breweries", whatever that means.

Pretty Maids All in a Row

An old steam radiator. I liked the detail. The old wood paneling kind of takes away from it but it's better than pressed aluminum baseboard.

The West Breakwater Wall

These are the rocks I traversed on my way to the West Breakwater Light off of Headlands Beach in Fairport Harbor, Ohio. If you look at the first picture the light foundation can be seen in the upper right hand corner and the structures extending to the left is where the fisherman was trying to wrestle his fish from a hungry muskrat. And the second picture show one of the many examples of chiseled graffiti in these very large rocks. Apparently Morrie must have really enjoyed his trip out along the rocks so much, back on August 8th, 1945, that he left this tiny memorial to his accomplishment.

A Man's Shopping Trip

Up early this morning and on the road, making my fall trek to a real store. Cabela's. Located just off of Interstate 78 and Route 61 in Hamburg, Pa, it was an hour and a half drive from home. This time of year this place is like the mall at Christmas, packed and noisy. Full of hunters, fisherman, outdoorsman and Jerseyites. Three of these four moving along politely and quietly. It was a fun trip, I always enjoy going here. Finding something to buy isn't always easy, stuff for the trip was what spawned the trip, though. We ate at the in house restaurant picked out our stuff paid and were on our way home in just under three hours.

Too much hustle and bustle for a picture of this statue outside the entrance so I'm posting one I took in August of 2006.

And Now for Something Completely Different

Different for the end of October, at least. I hate to say it but I have not taken any fall pictures yet. That's just not like me. So, today I'm posting a mid-summer lily pad picture. This was a part of the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, taken right before the rains came. Road tripping tomorrow, so maybe something new from that.

Shutout at the LBJ Corral

We've still got the Little Brown Jug. It was a shutout, 37 to nothing. It seems that finally the Greyhounds could do nothing wrong and the Bulldogs continued to do nothing right. Even two interceptions didn't phase the home crowd. So the Jug stays at our High School for another year.

First picture is game play, sometime in the third quarter. The second is the tradition of the seniors drinking chocolate milk out of the jug (they use a small plastic baggie). And the third is Josh Reed of ABC27 who is the in the field host of Friday Night Football. He's seen here crashing a banner that the cheerleaders made for him. Well, it was more like tearing through it and walking to the camera. Don't want to mess up the hair.

2008 LBJ Bonfire

Sorry about the late post, I'm just back from the Bonfire for the High School's football game against the rival Bulldogs. This is the 52nd annual Little Brown Jug (LBJ) game. Yes, there is actually a brown jug, only it's not so little. And, technically, there is now two. You see every year the score is painted on the jug and the winning team gets to keep the jug in their trophy case until next year's game. In my day the jug was firmly planted in our trophy case and with a win tomorrow night the seniors can confidently say the same thing. Tomorrow night's post will be late, really late, Friday Night Football on Channel 27 is live from the Greyhound's stadium so hopefully I'll be posting a victory. Go Greyhounds!

Shirts (PG LXXIX)

The B.W.P.G. & Son shirt factory is best seen along Route 322 northbound between Harrisburg and Lewistown, Pa. It can be found as the Stitch in Time Antique and Gift Mall at the intersection of Market and Spring Streets in Millerstown, Pa.

The Outcasts of Suburbia

Today we continue from the annual Pig Roast. This time it is people pictures. These were all taken with the camera on a tripod, aperture priority, ISO 400 and f5.6. The first exposure was 0.5 seconds, the next was 1/6th second and the last used a 1/4th second exposure. I was amazed how in focus the subjects remained with such a long exposure. In the first picture the larger fire was to my right, same with the last picture. In the second, obviously, the fire was to my left. I'm not naming names, as usual, you all know who you are. I also have a decent larger group picture that turned out pretty good. I won't be posting it here, though.

A Study on Fire

This study follows yesterday's post from the annual Pig Roast. Here today are pictures of the fire itself. I tried different things and got different results. I will be including the camera settings, but please don't make the mistake and think that I actually understand or will even remember how I got what it is that I got. And there was no post processing done to any of these, except for sizing them to load quickly. In the first picture I was holding the camera parallel to the ground, no artsy tilt here. Camera setting on all of these was ISO 400 and I used a tripod. Picture one was f5.6 at 1/1600th of a second. Picture two, again, f5.6 at 1/50th of a second. Picture three, f36 at 1.3 seconds. And picture four f5.0 at 5 seconds. Picture four was pointed above the flames, maybe 18-20 feet above the ground, and was intended to show the embers from the fire. the orange glow, of course, was the glow of the fire.

The Roasting of the Pig

Yesterday evening and into the night was our annual Pig Roast. The thing I find funny about this annual event is the food, nobody walks away hungry and nobody eats any roasted pig. That will be today at a fire house fundraiser. It is more the celebration of the roasting than the handpulled pork sandwiches we will devour a few hours from now. This is perhaps the 16th or 17th Roast since 1990. I, of course, took my camera along to get some picture of the fire and the people using the flames as my light source. I was successful on both accounts. I would set up the tripod and gather folks around and warn them to sit still because the exposure would be up to 2 seconds long. Inevitably someone would move. In some cases that helped the picture. So over the next two days, and probably scattered into the future, I will be posting my little study on fire.

Askew of Perpendicular

This old building seems to be collapsing under its own weight. Unbelievably it is still being used. As someone who is amazed and intrigued by lines this building offers both. It's almost like a contradiction in parallel how the dormer line run askew of perpendicular to the lower brick lines with the arc of the roof overhang dividing the two. With the exception of the plywood boarding up the upper window there doesn't seem to be any right angles. Or maybe that's just me.

Out of Service

Maradonia 360

I do repeat, I don't like taking people pictures. But, this past Sunday I had a thought, and needing to take some sport pictures anyway, I arranged to give this a try. This is 5 different concurrent pictures blended together. I took 3 or 4 series like this one and chose this set for the position on the ball in the center shot. I started the process of assembling them and as I partially self taught and partially tried to understand the book and I was almost done it occurred to me I was working with pictures number 1, 3, 4 and 5. Delete. Start over. I am happy with how it turned out. We also took a kicking sequence I may put together on a free day, along with some other action shots you may see here another time. This move, by the way, is called a Maradonia or a 360.

Mail Pouch in Philipsburg (PG LXXVIII)

This Mil Pouch barn is on the southern outskirts of Philipsburg, Pa, along the west side of Route 350, the Tyrone Pike. Just across the street from a little drive-in restaurant who's name escapes me at this time (Goody's, I think). They make a pretty good cheesesteak, I do remember that.

The Hatch House

This is the Hatch House at Indian Head Spring. aka Dykeman's Spring. aka The Duck Pond. This building was built in 1870 by George Dykeman to serve as a fish hatchery for trout. This didn't work out so well and it was converted into a creamery which shut down in 1951. And then it sat. And sat. And sat. And this sitting took it's toll. In 1999 the Hatch House, duck pond and the Dykeman Mansion were placed on the National Register of Historic Places. An organization called the Friends of the Hatch House began raising money and finding grants to restore this building and to date the masonry has been restored, the roof fixed, the cupola put in place and most recently the windows have gone up on the second floor. I bet the final piece of the puzzle will be the trout wind vane on the cupola. It doesn't seem like it will be long now.

I took this picture last evening. With how the building sets it is late afternoon until the sun hits the face. And tonight it was looking good. You've seen this Pond here before (This Way Guys) and here (Web Blog) and here (No Fishing)

The Brick Door

I'm not sure if this old building was a mill at one time or not, there is a dam across the road along the spring. At some point there was some remodeling done. There is currently more work going on at this old building. What are the chances that the work will destroy the character of the place? I guess if i owned it I would look at it differently.

Every Stick Could be a Snake

I got restless this morning and decided to go for a walk. While crossing a bridge to a small run I looked downstream then turned and looked upstream towards Indian Head Springs. A small snake caught my eye as he swam across the stream and slithered onto a stick. He was only about 9 or 10 inches long. I snapped a few pictures before he disappeared into the brush. I continued on the trail, but after more than 21 years of working in the field I know one thing, once I see a snake I do nothing but look for another. So much for taking pictures of birds, I was staring at the ground. Like Linus Van Pelt, every stick, every long blade of grass was a Queen Snake. This thought brought a chuckle to me until the stick I was ready to step on darted across the trail. (See first picture) I was lucky to get a picture or two of him since I was shaking from having the ba-jeepers scared out of me. This one was maybe a foot and a half long. The round eye, I guess, tells me he was non-poisonous. Of the two varieties I am aware of he was of the Alive kind.

The Bridge Rebuilt

This is not the picture I intended to post today, but photoshop is locked up right now and could use a IT professional's advice. "Let's shut it down and turn it back on." It's no wonder they make the big bucks. Let's give it a try.

About the bridge; spanning Spring Road across the Big Spring on the outskirts of Newville, PA, it was maybe ten years ago a big truck tried to make the turn onto this bridge and literally blow out this whole side. After a lot of battle to not replace it with a modern slab of concrete the bridge was finally restored to is current look. I like it. I've taken some senior pictures on the structure and probably will in the future.

The Castle Wall

This is a view from the back of Old Main (I think) on the campus of Shippensburg University. SU is one of 14 state universities. Founded as a Normal School in 1871 Old Main is one of the oldest buildings on campus. I can envision John Cleese with his fake mustache and French accent shouting down from atop the tower that my father smelled of elderberries, and then flinging a cow at me. Now that's higher education.

PS (10-5-08) If you have read the comments section you will see I was wrong. This is Horton Hall built in 1894 as a woman's dormitory it currently holds offices and some classrooms. Thanks Sparky, I knew you would correct me if I got it wrong. I know I was back behind the old buildings and didn't remember or couldn't tell which one I was behind.