A few nice Hard Water Problems images I found:

2nd bread.


Image by telepathicparanoia
looks good, but not perfect. Somehow the dough was much too wet, and it was hard to shape into a boule or keep from sticking to everything (even VERY floured surfaces). as a result, it came out kind of flat.

even weirder, there are pockets inside that… don’t seem fully cooked? one part was damp, and another had a little pocket of uncooked flour. so maybe the problem is that I didn’t mix well enough? and I’m not at all sure why it seemed so much wetter this time. I might have added too much water, but not more than like an eighth of a cup… weird.

well, the good news is, this is a very forgiving bread, so that even when you mess stuff up pretty majorly, it still comes out pretty good. but some day I would like to make it perfectly.

ETA: I think I know why it got messed up — I let it sit too long overnight. my recipe said 12-20 hours, but it should really be more like 12-16.

2nd bread


Image by telepathicparanoia
looks good, but not perfect. Somehow the dough was much too wet, and it was hard to shape into a boule or keep from sticking to everything (even VERY floured surfaces). as a result, it came out kind of flat.

even weirder, there are pockets inside that… don’t seem fully cooked? one part was damp, and another had a little pocket of uncooked flour. so maybe the problem is that I didn’t mix well enough? and I’m not at all sure why it seemed so much wetter this time. I might have added too much water, but not more than like an eighth of a cup… weird.

well, the good news is, this is a very forgiving bread, so that even when you mess stuff up pretty majorly, it still comes out pretty good. but some day I would like to make it perfectly.

ETA: I think I know why it got messed up — I let it sit too long overnight. my recipe said 12-20 hours, but it should really be more like 12-16.

Some cool Hard Water Problems images:

FG sets out extensive plan to tackle jobs crisis & rebuild economy


Image by infomatique
Are we just rearranging the deck-chairs on the titanic

This morning I attended my first Fine Gael press conference. For some strange reason Fine Gael have decided to use orange tinted lights so all of the photographs that I took had a yellow hue … I have tried to adjust the white balance to compensate.

We are in the early stages of the campaign and already I am becoming somewhat depressed because it would appear that none of the parties are offering the sort of radical solutions that we need and I don’t understand why they are all latching onto "clouding computing" as a solution. In the context of our overpowering economic crisis I really wonder what problem is solved by cloud computing? [Note: The Streets Of Dublin employs cloud computing]

Maybe Ireland’s current economic problem has no solution and we are just undertaking a pointless exercise similar to rearranging the deck-chairs on the titanic. That is a horrible thought.

Fine Gael National Press Office
Press Statement by:
Richard Bruton & Leo Varadkar

Thursday 3rd February 2011

FG sets out extensive plan to tackle jobs crisis & rebuild economy – Bruton & Varadkar

Fine Gael Leader Enda Kenny has today (Thursday) launched Working for Our Future, the Party’s plans to create tens of thousands of new jobs over five years. The plan was prepared by the Fine Gael Enterprise, Jobs & Economic Planning Spokesman Richard Bruton and Communications, Energy & Natural Resources Spokesman Leo Varadkar.

Speaking at the launch, Deputy Bruton said: ‘Fine Gael’s jobs plan, Working for Our Future, is based on keeping people in work within Ireland, making it easier to start up new businesses, making Ireland a better place to do business, and helping more Irish businesses to look beyond our borders and sell on a global scale’.

Deputy Varadkar said: ‘The only strategy that can, and will work is a hard-headed political strategy. This will involve an investment plan which doesn’t rely on borrowing and taxation. Our revised NewERA plan will invest an additional €7 billion in revenue generating infrastructure like energy, broadband, and water’.

Key points

· Competitiveness: no direct tax hikes on jobs or enterprise; no income tax hikes, including PRSI and USC; employment law will be consolidated; consider a single business tax for micro businesses; simplify tax registration for start-ups; maintain the 12.5% corporation tax rate, cut the Jobs Tax (employers’ PRSI) for the lower paid; cut VAT in labour-intensive sectors of the economy like construction, hospitality, hairdressing, and newspapers.
· Building a modern economy: NewERA will invest €7 billion from NPRF and sale of State assets in water, broadband and energy, lowering business costs and improving competitiveness.
· Youth unemployment: 45,000 placements including National Internship Programme places in private and voluntary sectors; Second Chance Education for former retail & construction workers who did not complete their education; new opportunities for apprentices.
· Reduce business costs: slash €500M worth of red tape, tackle closed sectors like transport, medical, waste & legal services; address out-of-date pay structures in certain sectors; support start-ups by simplifying tax registration.
· Boost exporting companies: tax credits to multinational companies which support exporting Irish companies; service companies that export more than 90% of their output will be VAT exempt; a new Asia Strategy to treble trade between Ireland and Asia by 2025.

Deputy Bruton & Varadkar said: ‘Fine Gael is the only political party to put forward a comprehensive jobs and growth policy of this nature. The Labour party seems to think that extending austerity to 2016 will bring about higher growth. It won’t. The outgoing Fianna Fáil/Green Government has produced nothing but vague plans with woolly targets. Fianna Fáil’s constant attacks on Fine Gael policies are only an attempt to cover up the lack of any credible jobs plan from the Government’.

election2011.streetsofdublin.com/

FG sets out extensive plan to tackle jobs crisis & rebuild economy


Image by infomatique
Are we just rearranging the deck-chairs on the titanic

This morning I attended my first Fine Gael press conference. For some strange reason Fine Gael have decided to use orange tinted lights so all of the photographs that I took had a yellow hue … I have tried to adjust the white balance to compensate.

We are in the early stages of the campaign and already I am becoming somewhat depressed because it would appear that none of the parties are offering the sort of radical solutions that we need and I don’t understand why they are all latching onto "clouding computing" as a solution. In the context of our overpowering economic crisis I really wonder what problem is solved by cloud computing? [Note: The Streets Of Dublin employs cloud computing]

Maybe Ireland’s current economic problem has no solution and we are just undertaking a pointless exercise similar to rearranging the deck-chairs on the titanic. That is a horrible thought.

Fine Gael National Press Office
Press Statement by:
Richard Bruton & Leo Varadkar

Thursday 3rd February 2011

FG sets out extensive plan to tackle jobs crisis & rebuild economy – Bruton & Varadkar

Fine Gael Leader Enda Kenny has today (Thursday) launched Working for Our Future, the Party’s plans to create tens of thousands of new jobs over five years. The plan was prepared by the Fine Gael Enterprise, Jobs & Economic Planning Spokesman Richard Bruton and Communications, Energy & Natural Resources Spokesman Leo Varadkar.

Speaking at the launch, Deputy Bruton said: ‘Fine Gael’s jobs plan, Working for Our Future, is based on keeping people in work within Ireland, making it easier to start up new businesses, making Ireland a better place to do business, and helping more Irish businesses to look beyond our borders and sell on a global scale’.

Deputy Varadkar said: ‘The only strategy that can, and will work is a hard-headed political strategy. This will involve an investment plan which doesn’t rely on borrowing and taxation. Our revised NewERA plan will invest an additional €7 billion in revenue generating infrastructure like energy, broadband, and water’.

Key points

· Competitiveness: no direct tax hikes on jobs or enterprise; no income tax hikes, including PRSI and USC; employment law will be consolidated; consider a single business tax for micro businesses; simplify tax registration for start-ups; maintain the 12.5% corporation tax rate, cut the Jobs Tax (employers’ PRSI) for the lower paid; cut VAT in labour-intensive sectors of the economy like construction, hospitality, hairdressing, and newspapers.
· Building a modern economy: NewERA will invest €7 billion from NPRF and sale of State assets in water, broadband and energy, lowering business costs and improving competitiveness.
· Youth unemployment: 45,000 placements including National Internship Programme places in private and voluntary sectors; Second Chance Education for former retail & construction workers who did not complete their education; new opportunities for apprentices.
· Reduce business costs: slash €500M worth of red tape, tackle closed sectors like transport, medical, waste & legal services; address out-of-date pay structures in certain sectors; support start-ups by simplifying tax registration.
· Boost exporting companies: tax credits to multinational companies which support exporting Irish companies; service companies that export more than 90% of their output will be VAT exempt; a new Asia Strategy to treble trade between Ireland and Asia by 2025.

Deputy Bruton & Varadkar said: ‘Fine Gael is the only political party to put forward a comprehensive jobs and growth policy of this nature. The Labour party seems to think that extending austerity to 2016 will bring about higher growth. It won’t. The outgoing Fianna Fáil/Green Government has produced nothing but vague plans with woolly targets. Fianna Fáil’s constant attacks on Fine Gael policies are only an attempt to cover up the lack of any credible jobs plan from the Government’.

election2011.streetsofdublin.com/

FG sets out extensive plan to tackle jobs crisis & rebuild economy


Image by infomatique
Are we just rearranging the deck-chairs on the titanic

This morning I attended my first Fine Gael press conference. For some strange reason Fine Gael have decided to use orange tinted lights so all of the photographs that I took had a yellow hue … I have tried to adjust the white balance to compensate.

We are in the early stages of the campaign and already I am becoming somewhat depressed because it would appear that none of the parties are offering the sort of radical solutions that we need and I don’t understand why they are all latching onto "clouding computing" as a solution. In the context of our overpowering economic crisis I really wonder what problem is solved by cloud computing? [Note: The Streets Of Dublin employs cloud computing]

Maybe Ireland’s current economic problem has no solution and we are just undertaking a pointless exercise similar to rearranging the deck-chairs on the titanic. That is a horrible thought.

Fine Gael National Press Office
Press Statement by:
Richard Bruton & Leo Varadkar

Thursday 3rd February 2011

FG sets out extensive plan to tackle jobs crisis & rebuild economy – Bruton & Varadkar

Fine Gael Leader Enda Kenny has today (Thursday) launched Working for Our Future, the Party’s plans to create tens of thousands of new jobs over five years. The plan was prepared by the Fine Gael Enterprise, Jobs & Economic Planning Spokesman Richard Bruton and Communications, Energy & Natural Resources Spokesman Leo Varadkar.

Speaking at the launch, Deputy Bruton said: ‘Fine Gael’s jobs plan, Working for Our Future, is based on keeping people in work within Ireland, making it easier to start up new businesses, making Ireland a better place to do business, and helping more Irish businesses to look beyond our borders and sell on a global scale’.

Deputy Varadkar said: ‘The only strategy that can, and will work is a hard-headed political strategy. This will involve an investment plan which doesn’t rely on borrowing and taxation. Our revised NewERA plan will invest an additional €7 billion in revenue generating infrastructure like energy, broadband, and water’.

Key points

· Competitiveness: no direct tax hikes on jobs or enterprise; no income tax hikes, including PRSI and USC; employment law will be consolidated; consider a single business tax for micro businesses; simplify tax registration for start-ups; maintain the 12.5% corporation tax rate, cut the Jobs Tax (employers’ PRSI) for the lower paid; cut VAT in labour-intensive sectors of the economy like construction, hospitality, hairdressing, and newspapers.
· Building a modern economy: NewERA will invest €7 billion from NPRF and sale of State assets in water, broadband and energy, lowering business costs and improving competitiveness.
· Youth unemployment: 45,000 placements including National Internship Programme places in private and voluntary sectors; Second Chance Education for former retail & construction workers who did not complete their education; new opportunities for apprentices.
· Reduce business costs: slash €500M worth of red tape, tackle closed sectors like transport, medical, waste & legal services; address out-of-date pay structures in certain sectors; support start-ups by simplifying tax registration.
· Boost exporting companies: tax credits to multinational companies which support exporting Irish companies; service companies that export more than 90% of their output will be VAT exempt; a new Asia Strategy to treble trade between Ireland and Asia by 2025.

Deputy Bruton & Varadkar said: ‘Fine Gael is the only political party to put forward a comprehensive jobs and growth policy of this nature. The Labour party seems to think that extending austerity to 2016 will bring about higher growth. It won’t. The outgoing Fianna Fáil/Green Government has produced nothing but vague plans with woolly targets. Fianna Fáil’s constant attacks on Fine Gael policies are only an attempt to cover up the lack of any credible jobs plan from the Government’.

election2011.streetsofdublin.com/

Some cool Hard Water Problems images:

22 of 365/2- My mornings…


Image by Pahz
I have fibromyalgia. And like most of you, I thought it was a made-up disease that people just used to label something they didn’t understand, but guess what, it’s real and it bloody well hurts. It took five years, total, to get a diagnosis- two of those years were spent with an awful doctor who didn’t care about anything other than maintenance of my other health stuff (like blood pressure and such). I could turn this into a blog post about how he blamed everything on my weight, except for the fact my weight was fine till the pain set in, but I won’t. This is about fibro and it hurts. It turns out, many of my family members have the same problem. In the late 80s, my mother and her four siblings had a biopsy done to try and identify the "unnamed nerve disorder" they all had. My cousin (older than I am) also had the biopsy. All of them had the same "unnamed nerve disorder". It was described as "the nerves attacking the body…" All the biopsies showed was that they had the same thing. I’ve never had a biopsy, but I have a real doctor’s diagnosis. As did my cousin, who was six months younger than me. (she passed away almost two years ago- not from fibro, because it doesn’t kill you).

On a good day, my pain level is at a 3 or 4 (on that 1 to 10 pain scale). And if the pain alone wasn’t enough- because I can deal with pain, I have been for so long- I’m exhausted. And I’m not saying "tired", I’m exhausted. You know how you feel at the end of a hard day’s work? That is how I feel most of the time. I feel like I’ve just walked five miles or chopped wood for two hours. And all I’ve done is get out of bed and come downstairs.

On bad days, my pain brings tears to my eyes. On those days, my physical exhaustion is so bad I have trouble sitting upright. My skin hurts- you know when you’re coming down with the flu and the water from the shower hurts your skin? That’s how it hurts. If I’m lucky, that’s all I have with my skin because sometimes, my skin will itch. From inside. Scratching does nothing but make it hurt. My bad days are fewer now that I’ve been getting treated for this very real, very painful disorder.

Most of the time, though, my days are between the good and bad. Like today. I’m up, I’m showered and dressed, but my clothes hurt my skin. It took me almost two hours to get showered, blow-dried, and then dressed. I had to rest between each task. I took this photo between the blow-drying and the getting dressed. (I was looking at the TV, which had an episode of "Law & Order CI" I hadn’t seen all the way through).

At the moment (as I type this), I’m resting at my desk (which can be tiring) then I’m going to make something for lunch, take my midday fibro pill and then go run errands. And I’ll be down for the count when I get back because that might just push my middle-day to a bad-day.

But for now- I’m up. I’m dressed. I’ve got my boots on. And I’d rather be under that soft fleece blanket. I gave the disabled guy a bunch of crap about that blanket. He got it for me in October, while he was in NC and then waited till Christmas to give it to me. He gave me two- this one (with a wolf on it) and another with an eagle on it. I told him he could have the eagle one for the living room- because that’s what he wanted all along. I also told him he could have just given them to me when he got back from NC. I love this blanket because its soft and it is just the right weight to lay over me without hurting me. And yes, I’m naked under this blanket because that’s the best way to be with fibro and a soft blanket.

Morning Glory and Virginia Creeper


Image by bill barber
Virginia creeper or five-leaved ivy (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) is a woody vine native to eastern and central North America, in southeastern Canada, the eastern and central United States, eastern Mexico, and Guatemala, west as far as Manitoba, South Dakota, Utah and Texas.

It is a prolific climber, reaching heights of 20 to 30 m in the wild. It climbs smooth surfaces using small forked tendrils tipped with small strongly adhesive pads 5 mm in size. The leaves are palmately compound, composed of five leaflets (rarely three leaflets, particularly on younger vines) joined from a central point on the leafstalk, and range from 3 to 20 cm (rarely 30 cm) across. The leaflets have a toothed margin, which makes it easy to distinguish from poison-ivy, which has three leaflets with smooth edges.

The flowers are small and greenish, produced in clusters in late spring, and mature in late summer or early fall into small hard purplish-black berries 5 to 7 mm diameter. These berries contain oxalic acid, which is poisonous to humans and other mammals, and may be fatal if eaten. However, accidental poisoning is uncommon, likely because of the bad taste of the berries. Despite being poisonous to mammals, they provide an important winter food source for birds. Oxalate crystals are also contained in the sap, and can cause irritation and skin rash [1]

From my set entitled “Morning Glory”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/sets/72157607213945288/
In my collection entitled “The Garden”
www.flickr.com/photos/21861018@N00/collections/7215760718…

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_glory

Morning glory is a common name for over 1,000 species of flowering plants in the family Convolvulaceae, belonging to the following genera:
Calystegia
Convolvulus
Ipomoea
Merremia
Rivea

As the name implies, morning glory flowers, which are funnel-shaped, open in the morning, allowing them to be pollinated by Hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, and other daytime insects and birds as well as Hawkmoth at dusk for longer blooming variants. The flower typically lasts for a single morning and dies in the afternoon. New flowers bloom each day. The flowers usually start to fade a couple of hours before the petals start showing visible curling. They prefer full sun throughout the day and mesic soils. In cultivation, most are treated as perennial plants in tropical areas and as annual plants in colder climates, but some species tolerate winter cold. Some moonflowers, which flower at night, are also in the morning glory family.

Morning glory is also called asagao (in Japanese, a compound of 朝 asa "morning" and 顔 kao "face"). A rare brownish-coloured variant known as Danjuro is very popular. It was first known in China for its medicinal uses, due to the laxative properties of its seeds. It was introduced to the Japanese in the 9th century, and they were first to cultivate it as an ornament. During the Edo Period, it became a very popular ornamental flower. Aztec priests in Mexico were also known to use the plant’s hallucinogenic properties. (see Rivea corymbosa).

Ancient Mesoamerican civilizations used the morning glory species Ipomoea alba to convert the latex from the Castilla elastica tree and also the guayule plant to produce bouncing rubber balls. The sulfur in the morning glory’s juice served to vulcanize the rubber, a process pre-dating Charles Goodyear’s discovery by at least 3,000 years.[1]
Because of their fast growth, twining habit, attractive flowers, and tolerance for poor, dry soils, some morning glories are excellent vines for creating summer shade on building walls when trellised, thus keeping the building cooler and reducing heating and cooling costs.

Popular varieties in contemporary western cultivation include the Morning Glory "Sunspots" "Heavenly Blue", the moonflower, the cypress vine, and the cardinal climber. The cypress vine is a hybrid, with the cardinal climber as one parent.
In some places such as Australian bushland morning glories develop thick roots and tend to grow in dense thickets. They can quickly spread by way of long creeping stems. By crowding out, blanketing and smothering other plants, morning glory has turned into a serious invasive weed problem.

Ipomoea aquatica, known as water spinach, water morning-glory, water convolvulus, Ong-Choy, Kang-kung, or swamp cabbage, is popularly used as a green vegetable especially in East and Southeast Asian cuisines. It is a Federal Noxious Weed, however, and technically it is illegal to grow, import, possess, or sell. See: USDA weed factsheet. As of 2005, the state of Texas has acknowledged that water spinach is a highly prized vegetable in many cultures and has allowed water spinach to be grown for personal consumption. This is in part because water spinach is known to have been grown in Texas for more than fifteen years and has not yet escaped cultivation.[2] The fact that it goes by so many names means that it easily slips through import inspections, and it is often available in Asian or specialty produce markets.

The seeds of many species of morning glory contain ergot alkaloids such as the hallucinogenic ergonovine and ergine (LSA). Seeds of I. tricolor and I. corymbosa (syn. R. corymbosa) are used as hallucinogens. The seeds can produce similar effect to LSD when taken in the hundreds. Though the chemical LSA is illegal to possess in pure form, the seeds are found in many gardening stores, however, the seeds from gardening stores may be coated in some form of mild poison in order to prevent ingestion or methylmercury to retard spoilage.[3] They should not be taken by people with a history of liver disorders or hepatitis. They should not be taken by pregnant women as they can cause uterine contraction which can lead to miscarriage. Individuals with a history of cardiovascular disease (Heart attack, blood clot, and stroke) or a family history of such problems, and the elderly should avoid consuming these seeds due to their vasoconstrictive effects.[4][5][6]

Note that the plant known as Korean morning glory, Datura stramonium, is of a different species, is poisonous, and also produces hallucinogenic effects.

Squash Garden House


Image by superfluity
Seven hundred years ago, several families of farmers lived in a collection of adobe and sandstone homes in a south-facing alcove in Upper Salt Creek, a 35-mile long canyon in what is now Canyonlands National Park. A spring once flowed from the cliff near their alcove, and water was abundant in the canyon. The wide floor of the canyon bottom allowed them to plant crops.

These families lived a life that was in some ways hard. The high desert is subject to drought and they endured exceptional heat in the summer and bitter cold in the winter. The ecology is fragile, and their use of wood for fire and building denuded the landscape and increased problems of erosion and flooding. As the environment deteriorated, many families in other parts of the canyon and throughout the region began to fear for their security and built their homes in alcoves high on the cliffs, accessible only with ladders that they could retract into the alcove at night.

But their lives were also rich in many ways, and much better than the lives of many contemporaneous people living in other parts of the world. They had a sophisticated agrarian economy, cultivating squash and corn, among other things, and storing their crop in sealed adobe granaries. They hunted bighorn and deer and small game. They created beautiful homes, decorated with traditional and religious designs. They painted the world around them, from their cookware to the walls of the canyons in which they lived. They painted the cycles of the moon and the rotation of their crops.

The family that lived in this small alcove in Upper Salt Creek grew squash in the garden they tended in front of their home. They ground the squash and corn on metates to make flour that could be stored throughout the winter.

When they left Salt Creek as part of a general migration away from the Colorado Plateau (perhaps due to drought, warfare, or a deteriorating environment), they left the garden behind, and they left remnant seeds in their granaries and middens.

Fed by the underground water source beneath their alcove, their squash garden has renewed itself for seven hundred consecutive years. Every year the big, leafy plants grow from seed; every year they produce squash, which are broken open and sometimes carried away by small animals.

Today, in the fall, you can visit what remains of the home these families left behind and see the squash growing in their garden. You can see the faint remains of the pictures they painted on the walls of the alcove and imagine the fields of corn they tended on the flat sandy bottom of the canyon, now covered with sage and blackbrush. And you can see the squash fruit that will renew the garden for one more year.

Check out these Hard Water Problems images:

Regional partnership with CIMMYT facilitates drought tolerant maize development in Thailand


Image by CIMMYT
A maize hybrid being tested on drought screening plots at the Thai Department of Agriculture’s Nakhon Sawan Field Crops Research Center, where screening is carried out in the dry season to allow fine control of water availability. CIMMYT has a long relationship with Thailand, supplying materials to for inclusion in the national breeding program, and between March 2005 and October 2008 Thailand participated in the Asian Maize Network (AMNET), which was funded by the Asian Development Bank and led by CIMMYT, and brought together scientists from five Southeast Asian countries to develop and deliver drought tolerant maize varieties for poor farmers in drought-prone regions.

As part of AMNET, the Thai breeders crossed lines from the national program with new drought tolerant materials provided each year by CIMMYT. “We screen for drought tolerance in the dry season and downy mildew resistance in the rainy season, and take the best materials forward each year,” explained Pichet Grudloyma, senior maize breeder, in 2008. “We now have many promising hybrids coming through.” Funding from the project also had a big impact on the team’s capacity to screen those hybrids. “We had a small one to two hectare facility before; now we have four hectares with a perfect controlled-irrigation system. Because we’ve been in AMNET, we have good varieties and good fieldwork and screening capacity.” Thailand also took on a role in seed distribution, receiving and sharing seed from the AMNET member countries, and testing the varieties on the drought screening plots at the Research Center.

For Grudloyma, this collaborative approach was a big change. “We’ve learned a lot and gained a lot from our friends in different countries. We each have different experiences, and when we share problems we can adapt knowledge from others to our own situations.” The Thai researchers can come up with many examples of things they have learned from their AMNET partners. “We learned how to evaluate farmer preferences better from the Philippines team,” said Amara Traisiri, an entomologist working on responding to these preferences. “We now use their method in all our field trials with farmers and we’re getting a more accurate picture of what farmers want.” This information caused the group to include ease of hand harvest as another trait to consider in their breeding program, after realizing how important it is to farmers.

The project built capacity and relationships that will endure, according to Grudloyma. “Our station is now very good at working with drought,” he said, “and we’ll continue cooperation and providing germplasm. We already have plans for collaboration with China and Vietnam.” CIMMYT’s role in providing germplasm and access to new knowledge and technologies was vital, as was its leadership. “It’s very hard to get hold of germplasm from anywhere except CIMMYT,” said Grudloyma. “It’s also difficult to come together: we needed an international organization to coordinate and facilitate regional interaction. With CIMMYT everything is easier.”

Photo credit: Eloise Phipps/CIMMYT.

For more about Thailand and AMNET, see CIMMYT’s March 2008 e-news story "New maize and new friendships to beat Thai drought," available online at: www.cimmyt.org/newsletter/37-2008/159-new-maize-and-new-f….

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center: British Hawker Hurricane, with P-38 Lightning and B-29 Enola Gay behind it


Image by Chris Devers
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Hawker Hurricane Mk. IIC:

Hawker Chief Designer Sydney Camm’s Hurricane ranks with the most important aircraft designs in military aviation history. Designed in the late 1930s, when monoplanes were considered unstable and too radical to be successful, the Hurricane was the first British monoplane fighter and the first British fighter to exceed 483 kilometers (300 miles) per hour in level flight. Hurricane pilots fought the Luftwaffe and helped win the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940.

This Mark IIC was built at the Langley factory, near what is now Heathrow Airport, early in 1944. It served as a training aircraft during the World War II in the Royal Air Force’s 41 OTU.

Donated by the Royal Air Force Museum

Manufacturer:
Hawker Aircraft Ltd.

Date:
1944

Country of Origin:
United Kingdom

Dimensions:
Wingspan: 12.2 m (40 ft)
Length: 9.8 m (32 ft 3 in)
Height: 4 m (13 ft)
Weight, empty: 2,624 kg (5,785 lb)
Weight, gross: 3,951 kg (8,710 lb)
Top speed:538 km/h (334 mph)
Engine:Rolls-Royce Merlin XX, liquid-cooled in-line V, 1,300 hp
Armament:four 20 mm Hispano cannons
Ordnance:two 250-lb or two 500-lb bombs or eight 3-in rockets

Materials:
Fuselage: Steel tube with aircraft spruce forms and fabric, aluminum cowling
Wings: Stressed Skin Aluminum
Horizontal Stablizer: Stress Skin aluminum
Rudder: fabric covered aluminum
Control Surfaces: fabric covered aluminum

Physical Description:
Hawker Hurricane Mk. IIC single seat, low wing monoplane ground attack fighter; enclosed cockpit; steel tube fuselage with aircraft spruce forms and fabric, aluminum cowling, stressed skin aluminum wings and horizontal stablizer, fabric covered aluminum rudder and control surfaces; grey green camoflage top surface paint scheme with dove grey underside; red and blue national roundel on upper wing surface and red, white, and blue roundel lower wing surface; red, white, blue, and yellow roundel fuselage sides; red, white and blue tail flash; Rolls-Royce Merlin XX, liquid cooled V-12, 1,280 horsepower engine; Armament, 4: 20mm Hispano cannons.

• • • • •

Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay":

Boeing’s B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments. Although designed to fight in the European theater, the B-29 found its niche on the other side of the globe. In the Pacific, B-29s delivered a variety of aerial weapons: conventional bombs, incendiary bombs, mines, and two nuclear weapons.

On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, Bockscar (on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio) dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Enola Gay flew as the advance weather reconnaissance aircraft that day. A third B-29, The Great Artiste, flew as an observation aircraft on both missions.

Transferred from the United States Air Force.

Manufacturer:
Boeing Aircraft Co.
Martin Co., Omaha, Nebr.

Date:
1945

Country of Origin:
United States of America

Dimensions:
Overall: 900 x 3020cm, 32580kg, 4300cm (29ft 6 5/16in. x 99ft 1in., 71825.9lb., 141ft 15/16in.)

Materials:
Polished overall aluminum finish

Physical Description:
Four-engine heavy bomber with semi-monoqoque fuselage and high-aspect ratio wings. Polished aluminum finish overall, standard late-World War II Army Air Forces insignia on wings and aft fuselage and serial number on vertical fin; 509th Composite Group markings painted in black; "Enola Gay" in black, block letters on lower left nose.

• • • • •

Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Lockheed P-38J-10-LO Lightning:

In the P-38 Lockheed engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and his team of designers created one of the most successful twin-engine fighters ever flown by any nation. From 1942 to 1945, U. S. Army Air Forces pilots flew P-38s over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific, and from the frozen Aleutian Islands to the sun-baked deserts of North Africa. Lightning pilots in the Pacific theater downed more Japanese aircraft than pilots flying any other Allied warplane.

Maj. Richard I. Bong, America’s leading fighter ace, flew this P-38J-10-LO on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field, Ohio, to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. However, his right engine exploded in flight before he could conduct the experiment.

Transferred from the United States Air Force.

Manufacturer:
Lockheed Aircraft Company

Date:
1943

Country of Origin:
United States of America

Dimensions:
Overall: 390 x 1170cm, 6345kg, 1580cm (12ft 9 9/16in. x 38ft 4 5/8in., 13988.2lb., 51ft 10 1/16in.)

Materials:
All-metal

Physical Description:
Twin-tail boom and twin-engine fighter; tricycle landing gear.

IMG_1063


Image by RichardBronosky
I would have tried to scrub this stain off of the concrete. If I were unsuccessful, I would have used mud and water to distort it and feather out the edges. The problem is that it looks like a hard lined, geometric, man made mistake. It would be fine if it were an organic shape without high contrast edges.