Cool Trains

I've been having some problems posting pictures today. This photo goes with the two in the post right below this one. Here Bill Heffelfinger has popped up through a cool access hatch to fix one of the trains. You can click on the picture to see it bigger.

Train Room

We visited with Bill Heffelfinger and Bob Madeira in the model train room at the Willow Valley Manor North. This detailed layout is constantly evolving and contains many humerous scenes, if one looks closely.


Here is a close up shot of the crash site. You can click on these pictures to make them bigger.

Hi from PA

We are in the States for a few weeks, to see our son graduate from college, and to connect with friends, family, and some of the local churches that sponsor our work with Trans World Radio.

As of yesterday, Bonaire was suffering through a week of wind reversal / no wind. It is bad timing, because many of the best windsurfers in the world are on Bonaire right now for the first pro freestyle competition of the season.

It was hot and muggy when we left Bonaire yesterday. It was drizzling in San Juan when we passed through, and it is beautiful here in Lancaster, PA. Hooray.

I opened our suitcases last night and all this muggy stuffy air came out. It smelled just like Bonaire! I'm going to spread my stuff our all over our room today and see if it will air out and crisp up.

Strange Ship Sited

I was riding my bike north along the coast road after work the other day and saw a really strange ship hanging around out in the bay. It looked like something out of Star Wars, or Waterworld.

There were little boats swarming around behind the mother ship, which was catamaran-ish. So I figured it was either a military operation, or a new fangled fishing operation where the little boats drag the giant net between the hulls of the ship, which sucks it up.

It was amusing, as I rode along ogling the strange ship, to imagine some young sailors on the bridge ogling that "strange bike" with their giant "battleship binoculars".

To learn more about the strange ship, you can visit the US Navy's web site.

I wasn't the only one to see this strange site, here is the discussion on the Bonaire Talk site, as well as a few pictures that really capture the ship as it now looks. That navy photo showed it a little too new and shiny.

There are also some cool photos and video at the ship builder's web site.

There is LOTS more info at Incat's web site. They developed the ship as a high speed ferry, and they are in use all over the world. They also currently hold the Trans Atlantic crossing speed record for ships at over 40 knots. whew!

Astronomy Again

We've had some rain and lower winds the last week or two, which cleared up the sky, so we could see the stars again. Hooray.

And I've got a new toy to play with for a while. The scope on the right is mine and is what I used to take the solar eclipse photos. You can click on the picture to see it bigger.

The scope on the left has been donated to what will hopefully someday become a Bonaire community astronomy club / NGO. It's a 8" Meade LX50, and needed some cleaning and collimation, but is now producing great images. I had to tilt the tripod to polar align the mount, but I hope to come up with a better solution than that.

The computerized object locator gizmo almost puts the objects within the field of view of the eyepiece. "Almost" isn't good enough for dim objects though, so I'll fiddle some more with that too. Fortunately I remember where all sorts of celestial goodies are from back when I used to observe with my classic, non-computerized, orange Celestron scope.

Last week, the little scope was consistently putting Messier objects within the field of view of a 26 mm eyepiece. That was really cool, but once you do locate something in the big scope, the view is waaaay better, so I'll be using it a lot while I can.

Here is what Jupiter looked like Thursday evening in the big scope.
I couldn't find a way to post an uncompressed version of this image, even though the .bmp file was quite small. For some reason, the jpeg compression really hammers the visual quality of this small image.

Sorry, clicking on this image won't make it any bigger. :)

Rincon Bike Parade

Sunday afternoon in Rincon was the scene of the second annual bicycle parade on the day following Rincon Day.

There were tons of kids, young people, and adults riding.
Here is part of the adult contingent of riders.


This group brought their own shade and a well stocked cooler.


Thank you Bob Lassiter for these two pictures.

Rincon Bike Parade II

Here is a prize winning Chopper style bike built by Boi Anthony and his son. They built in on Saturday, painted it Sunday morning, and rode it that afternoon. Boi says they already have a design in mind for next year.


There was one two year old rider and a couple three year olds. We covered a little over three miles in about 45 minutes.


Boi Anthony's son on the chopper bike. This photo and the one above are from Bob Lassiter.


Another shot of the adult part of the group. The kids section has already turned the corner in the distance.

You can click on the pictures to see them bigger. There were door prizes, prizes for bike decoration and design, as well as for the oldest and youngest riders.


Me on my new bike, in a shot by Jon Savage. I've put over 1500 miles on it so far. This bike is not designed for going slowly, but I got a lot of good practice that afternoon.

Name this Picture II

Here's another shot of one of the members of our home security team that needs a caption. Any ideas?


You can click on the picture to see it bigger, and use the comments section to post a caption.