Rain and Stuff

Why is this pic significant?

Coz it illustrates the fact we FINALLY got some rain... and I mean real rain, not some fleeting, it's-over-in-three-minutes, make-my-car-ugly, hint of moisture that evaporates as soon as it hits the ground.  The downside is our rain arrived via a serious thunder-boomer that began just after midnight and lasted a couple o' hours.  It's hard to sleep in a thunderstorm... what with all the lightning and such but it's doubly hard to do so in an RV, where the sound of rain on the roof ain't nearly as romantic as John Sebastian thinks it is.  We're talking world-class racket, Gentle Reader.  

But Hey!  We can deal, and we finally got to sleep sometime after 0200 hrs.  Yep, the rain lasted THAT long... and it didn't make The Green Hornet look ugly, either:

Ya, any excuse to post pics o' my baby.

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Why, yes... yes those pics were taken with the new toy.  My initial impressions are favorable... thank The Deity At Hand!  How bad would it be if I said "I HATE this fucking thing!"? There's a lot to like, first and foremost bein' the largish, articulated viewing screen with "live view" that makes composing and shooting a lot easier than using the viewfinder.  The camera seems to fit my hands a lil bit better than the old XTi and also seems lighter, strangely enough.  

There are a couple o' downsides, too.  First... my image management software doesn't recognize this version of Canon RAW files, which seems odd.  The RAW file name extension is still .CR2 (just as it was with the XTi) but ACDSee doesn't recognize the file format.  Second... the file sizes are gigantic; we're talking around 25MB for each RAW file, eight to ten MBs for jpegs.  It's a good thing I bought a 16GB SD card.  Third... it's a good thing I bought an SD card at ALL.  Canon stopped providing memory cards with its cameras, period.  The product description at Amazon doesn't tell ya this, either... and I looked all over for this information.

I don't have a lot of time with the T3i yet, so stay tuned.

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Capt. Paul Sula, along with the others from the 16th Special Operations Squadron, honor outgoing commander of Cannon Air Force Base Col. Stephen Clark with a final salute Friday during a change of command ceremony.  Photo credit: Freedom New Mexico, Liliana Castillo

And then there's this:   "Cannon command changes in emotional ceremony."  That's the headline from the Portales News-Tribune and I get where they're coming from, which is to say all change o' command ceremonies are emotional events, especially for the outgoing commander.  But I find the word "emotional" when applied (in print) to a military ceremony rather jarring.  Does the good captain pictured above look emotional?  I think not.  And there ya have your GOML moment for the day.

From the PNT:

Col. Stephen Clark paused during his outgoing speech to quell a rush of emotion Friday as he bid farewell to the airmen of Cannon Air Force Base during a change of command ceremony.

Clark turned command of the base over to incoming commander Col. Albert Elton II, ending his two years in charge of Cannon’s 27th Special Operations Wing.

[...]

During Clark’s two years at the helm, the wing has doubled the number of personnel to 5,000, added 50 aircraft and seven squadrons and executed millions of dollars in military construction as part of the base’s change in mission from a fighter wing in 2007.

I'd really like to know where they're hiding those 50 aircraft.  I see no more than six or seven C-130s, an Osprey or two, and the odd C-27 sitting on the ramp whenever I go out to the base.  Mebbe they're counting the Reapers and Predators that are bedded down elsewhere?  Yeah, that's gotta be it.

One more thang... two years?  AFSOC's been at Cannon for two years now?  Time really DOES fly.