Some of the Bravest from Fairfax County

One weekend morning back in December of 2007, I turned on the news just in time for a "Breaking News" alert. They were reporting that the Fairfax County (Virginia) Fire Department was responding to a structure fire in an industrial area that happened to be fairly near my home. Our home sits up pretty high so I went to the front and looked out the window and sure enough, I could see smoke rising over the treeline several miles away. I grabbed my camera stuff and took off.

As it turns out, the builidng that was on fire was in the rear of the industrial area. Read this as: Very little to see, lots of obstructed views and no clear access to the fire scene for a guy that doesn't have press credentials. I did notice someone flash credentials at a police officer and was allowed through "the ropes." This person arrived on the scene much later than I did and I never did see a single image posted anywhere.

Oh well, I roamed around a little bit and found, literally, brick walls (and trees, fences, large trucks, etc.) blocking most of the views. Luckily, I did bring my 300mm f/2.8 lens. Although, I had to hand hold it. I managed to find support here and there (fence, truck, tree limb). I did manage to capture several images that best represented the news event based on my "no access" status.

I believe the fire began in a company that sold cardboard boxes and other paper items. I watched the news later in the day and scanned the newspapers (online) for a followup and never heard the outcome/cause of the fire. I guess that most of these events don't rise to the level of additional coverage and followup, short of casualties. Anyway you look at it, firefighters, rescue personnel and police officers put their lives on the line, daily.

RC Racing

One Sunday about a six weeks ago I had some time to kill and found myself driving through Woodbridge, Virginia. Actually, the particular area I was in is referred to as Lake Ridge. Anyway, I noticed that there was a Wild Bird Center in the Dillingham Square Shopping Center so I pulled in. I have been looking for a low profile bird bath (no, not for me; for the birds attracted to the feeders in my yard) for some time now and thought that maybe they would have what I was looking for. Well, they were closed (they open a little later on Sundays).

But, across the parking lot I noticed a gathering of people that were "running" RC race cars. So, I stopped to take a look. They had a race track set up. It was pretty darn sophisticated compared to what we would set up for our $15 cars when I was a kid. They had some kind of a computerized starting gate that tracked the cars each time they passed under a pipe that was stretched across a piece of the track. This served as the start/finish line. Each car was equipped with a unique "chip" and apparently there was a sensor in the pipe that fed the car's lap time to the computer. How slick is that? And the "drivers" were into it. Some worked on their cars out of the back of their car or truck while others had a work bench setup under a sun tarp. Exactly what kind of adjustments they were making on their cars is not clear to me. Some had step ladders to stand on while they were racing to get a better view of their car while it was on the far side of the track. The event was sponsored by Hobbytown USA. They have a store in the shopping center. Apparently, this activity has quite a following and goes beyond the local area.

Having my camera gear with me, I thought, "hmmmm....a mini-NASCAR or Watkins Glen. Let me see if I can make something out of this." Panning came to mind. That would best be accomplished on a straight away. However, access to the only straight away was blocked by the real cars and trucks of the RC "drivers." It was a parking lot, afterall. So I decided to situate myself at the end of the straight away that lead into a good turn. I only had about an hour and they were experiencing some technical problems with the computer start mechanism But, luckily, many of the drivers used that time to make practice runs so I was able to make some images.

These cars are fast. I found that you have very little time to actually capture them as they pass by. I believe that these cars are more difficult to photograph than a full size race car. There is much less surface area to focus on, making tracking it and panning very difficult. I started using a spot on the track to pre-focus and wait for a car to hopefully pass over that area. It didn't work particularly well. But I did get a few decent images, I think. I got a lot of blurry, way beyond the unusable, images. On some, as you can see, I got half of a car. Got a lot of those, too. I'm gonna have to get out there again some time.

Aruba Animal Shelter

Well, the title says it all. Aruba does have an animal shelter. In fact, it has become a very active shelter over the past 20 years or so of its existence. Their goal is simply put, "To improve the life of Aruba's pets." How can anyone argue with that? Of course, this is always easier said than done for any shelter anywhere.

The day we visited the shelter we were greeted by two very friendly dogs as seen just below. They were extremely playful and social. We met two volunteers at the shelter who happened to be tending to two new "residents" that they had literally just "rescued" from the vet clinic. They are the two small puppies in several photos that accompany this entry. These two were to be euthanized that morning. How lucky were they? And, how lucky we were to be there and actually spend some time with them as they got checked out for mites and other things, vaccinated, shampooed and logged in. We stayed for about half an hour, left a donation and thanked the volunteers for allowing us to hang out for awhile.

When you go to Aruba, you should try and get by for a visit. To learn much more about the shelter, make sure to click here. How to get there? Well, heading from Oranjestad to the airport, make a left at the light at the airport - then, make a right just before the Texaco (there is a small Animal Shelter sign posted but you are not likely to see it before you see the Texaco), then your first right and head straight until you get there. Towards the end of this road it becomes unpaved, but by this time you should just about see the animal shelter. As you can see from the images here, it's a bright green. For those not familiar with Aruba, directions such as this are the rule. It adds to the adventure! Also, note the hours of the shelter in the last photo below.

Very Special Black-Footed Ferrets

In previous posts I have written about the efforts being made towards recovery of the Black-Footed Ferret. If you are new here, please find and read those previous entries. The recovery effort is extremely worthwhile and it is indeed an exciting time. For those familiar with Peanut, the featured kit on the webcam, it turns out that he is particularly special and appers to be headed to the much larger breeding/recovery facility in Colorado.

There are two articles that have been brought to my attention. The first one is about Peanut.

The second article is about another kit born at the CRC, just like Peanut. This kit is special in the same way that Peanut is.

Great news!

Aruba Layover

On our trip to Aruba we got to spend some time in one of our favorite airports. Lots of things to look at and it's just a plain ol' modern, clean and friendly place. It you have to change flights, this is one of the best places to do so, in my opinion.

Using a camera in an airport these days can be a bit sketchy. So, I didn't make too many images. I was taking grab shots with my Lensbaby 2.0. Here are four images from the time spent at the airport. They more or less tell a story.