Supermoon Eclipse 09/28/15

No civilizations were destroyed in the making of this eclipse.  Attempts with a 200mm zoom and a telescope with a T adapter.

Project Atmosphere

I had the pleasure to attend the American Meteorological Society's (AMS) Project Atmosphere for two weeks at the National Weather Services National Training Center in Kansas City.  This teaching workshop was an intense education on meteorology and gave us the chance to meet the top people at the National Weather Service and AMS.  As part of this training, I will be providing two workshops for teachers in the near future on how to use the AMS resources.  If you are interested, contact me.

NOAA's Training Center in KC

Dr. Louis Uccellini,Assistant Administrator for Weather Services,National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Director, National Weather Service

Jim Brey is Director of the American Meteorological Society's Education Program 

Rick Knabb, Director of the National Hurricane Center

National Weather Service office in Topeka

A nice pop-up summer storm at the weather office

Weather Balloon Launch

Our summer pop-up storm maturing and finally falling apart.

Bill Bunting, Operations Brand Chief at the Storm Prediction Center

Dr, Thomas Berger, Director, Space Weather Prediction Center

Project Atmosphere was a great experience, not only meeting the top people at the National Weather Service, NOAA, and AMS, but getting to meet and work with teachers from all over the United States and Canada.

Apollo 11 Moon Landing

Pop-up Chase 07/18/2015

With moisture streaming into Kansas from TS Deloris and a small front triggering some pop-up storms, I decided to go chase north of Wichita. Not anything too exciting except for some strong lighting strikes.  We were about 10 miles south of Canton, Kansas.  There was a little excitement as a weak couplet tried to spin up but quickly fell apart and the storm followed soon after.

Ah, Pluto . . .

Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

Kechi Day Fireworks

Happy 127th Birthday Kechi, Kansas.  This was another awesome show put on by Krehbiel Fireworks who operate the tent at 61st and Woodlawn.

Riverfest Fireworks 5/29/15

Ah parade and Fireworks, although this seemed to be one of the quickest firework shows in memory.

Wayne White who used to be an artist on Pee-Wee's Playhouse was the artist in residence with Wichita State University and the Ulrich Museum. He designed John Brown and Carrie Nation's puppets along with a crew of Rosie the Riveter's holding a B-29 and a cowboy rounding up his herd.

A couple hours later the fireworks started and ended almost as quickly.

A combo of several shots placed in a stacker program

Another result of stacking

Zoo trip

Rain, lots of rain. 1st dry day and a trip to the zoo.  My little minions are wanting to learn photography.  I've taken them on a couple low risk chases and had them shoot some cloudscapes.  I also decided to give them cameras and let them figure out what they wanted to shoot.  They picked out the chimpanzee and orangutan exhibit at the zoo.  So I let them go and wander while I took some time with the animals.

They're painting.

Baby chimps photogenic

 Tammy is baby chimp's mother and has been in residence at the zoo for a while.  Over the winter the zookeepers noticed she was not using her arm.  They found the elbow to be severely dislocated.  They tried to cast it, but it would not set properly.  They decided to amputate the arm after several infections.  She recently came back on exhibit.