Survival kits

  The other day while looking for something I came across my old survival kits, I've mentioned them before I seem to remember.  Looking through the contents made me wonder if with the world going to hell maybe carrying one would be a good idea again?

 Back in the day a survival tin was a fairly normal part of the soldiers kit.  Mostly a tobacco tin housed a set of contents.  These were usually from a so-called official list, this of course varied, depending on what unit you were from and who was teaching the course.

 Most courses were run as part of Eand E (escape and evasion) and were standard for military personal who were classed as "prone to capture"  That meant troops in, near or in front of the front line. Aircrew, forward artillery observers, commandos, special forces etc etc.  Although any military personal could take the courses.

 The tobacco tin was a bit like that game where you put as many objects as you can in a match box, the idea being in this case though to have vital items to help you stay alive in an emergency.

 Common items were matches, a compass a candle (more for lighting fires than light) a flint and steel (again for fires) water purification tablets, a blade or small knife, and fishing kit (short bit of line and a few hooks and lead shot for weights) and some cord, a wire saw and a condom for carrying water.  These items were pretty much standard, but many went much further.

 The SAS actually had a special belt pouch for the survival kit, it went on your webbing designed to carry the kit and a few other things could be crammed in.  Purse nets were a popular addition, these are small nets handy for catching rabbits and fish, snares (often on the "official" list were also handy.  Many would carry a space blanket for a poor mans shelter, and para cord was the string of choice, strong and you can take out the inner strands for thinner cord if needed.

 Also a silk escape map would be hidden on the person and many carried a wire saw threaded into the waistband of the trousers, button compass would be hidden too, there was even a button that turned into a compass, but I never had one of those... sadly...

 So is it worth carrying a kit now?  Well with who knows what war may bring maybe time to think about it.  I still have a sealed fully kitted out tin and pouch, although I'd skip the purse nets and carry a special forces bivi bag and jungle sleeping bag instead, these both fold up small and light and will keep you dry and while not as cosy as a warm bed at least you'll be a bloody sight warmer than lying under a headge with a space blanket flapping around in the wind.

 In fact I might knock up a modern version of the kit (I have all the stuff) and post pics here if anybody is interested???

A few recent pics.

 Went for a wander this morning and got these shots.

Funny old week

 

 It's been a bit of a funny old week.  We've had family from away visiting with news of a family wedding, lovely to catch up with them too.

 My local family seem to be wearing me out, I'm shattered all the time these days, trouble is I wont give in and still do my five mile a day exercise walk.... maybe I'll do seven today, nobody said life was supposed to be easy!

 A few more things have gone missing then turned up in weird places, I'm convinced it's none of us, and I don't think I'm doing it and forgetting either!  What the hell is causing it is baffling.  It's not classic poltergeist type activity, but it's similar-ish to some of the stuff they do.  Well hell! No way I would have a normal poltergeist!

 Really need to get out with the camera again, hardly been anywhere for ages, need some new pics.

Few more pictures including black and white.

 

 Some more recent shots.

 

Expedition bigfoot series 3 episode 3

 

 Well I've just watched the third episode of Expedition Bigfoot or the "Did you hear that?" show as most people are now calling it.  Thats because they say did you hear that every two minutes.  

 It's actually become a drinking game with one bigfoot forum, every time they use the words did you hear that you have to take a shot.  That means your pissed by the first advert break... franky being pissed makes the program just about watchable.

 So what have we learned this week.  Well the morons still try and sleep at night when most of the activity seems to happen.  We've learned they haven't figured out to carry spare batteries for their night vision gear leaving them blind at night.  We've learned that despite them looking for bigfoot they run away from it every time it gets close.

 So what are the chances of them finding bigfoot?   Well... about the same as you finding a polar bear in your washing machine.  Actually it's probably less than your chance, you would actually look in there, these clowns seem to be working from a script written by Danny the one line script writer... Did you hear that?   Yeah very original!

 I really dont understand why no tv company will do a looking for bigfoot program properly, these shit fake shows are the laughing stock of the internet.  They really are, just look up the opinions online, the shows have the piss rippped out of them.

Wood and black white pics.

Heres a few recent shots. 

 

Looks like a family wedding this year. Need a break.

 Had a visit this week from close family and it looks like we've got a family wedding to go to later this year. So something to look forward too.

 I really need a break or holiday this year.  Its been years since I had a proper break away, I was going in march but family drama stepped in and I couldn't go.  I might try booking for may and see what happens but my guess is life wont let me and somethng will happen to bugger it up.

Green graduated filter

 

 The other day I mentioned a green graduated filter, here's an example.  Now why I bought one is anybodies guess, I obviously thought it was a brilliant idea at the time... so brilliant I bought two different strength ones... Yes, that was me....  Wow doesn't it look.... Errrr...  well, crap if I'm honest!

 

Plane crash San Felipe Airport Colombia

 An Aero modifications AMI DC3 65 TP crashed on the 8th April at San Felipe airport with 6 people onboard. There was no loss of life after the aircrafts landing gear collapsed.

 Nothing too unusal you say, and thats true.... except this aircraft running a regular passenger service isn't a new aircraft, in fact it's 78 years old.  No thats not a missprint, it first flew in 1944!

 Thats bloody old. You dont see many cars from 1944 even at shows dedicated to classic cars, this plane is carrying paying passengers FFS!  There really needs to be some sort of age limit for things flying over our heads and houses, even in places like Colombia.

More weird stuff happening!

 On Friday (I'm writing this tuesday 12th april) I went out with a camera and some filters to get photos to illustrate a course I was putting together on filters.  I shot a few different photos, with a few different filters, the main ones being a graduated tobacco, a sort of pinky brown colour that fades out along the clear filter and is used to darken and colour a sky.  A soft focus, and a sort of prism effect.

 Long story short, I got home took the filters out of my camera bag and left them on my living room floor ready for sunday when I needed them again, no point stashing them away, my living room isn't that busy.

 Come sunday and I get a bag of outher filters and stuff ready, come down and the filters I'd left on the floor by my phone charger have all buggered off!   I search the living room, check the camera bag in case I'd put them back in without thinking, still nothing!  Next I check my bedroom and the bag of other filters I was sorting out ready to go.  No, theres shed loads of filters in there, but not the missing ones (I checked three times).

Now this isn't the end of the world, first off I haven't used any of these filters in probably years, secondly I only needed them to show someone, I'd already got the photos I needed on friday. But I'm still bloody baffled.

 Fast forward to monday (yesterday) and I go to put the filters I'd taken out on sunday away.  The filters I'd taken out sunday are in a carrier bag, the filters I didn't take sunday are in another carrier bag in my bedroom, thats the one I searched three times.  I put the filters all together in the one bag, and went to put that back in a big holdall where they live normally.

 Thats when things get odd.  In the holdall are several other bags of filters, camera straps, lens hoods and other assorted crap, also in the holdall though are the bloody missing filters!!  WTF?  

 I know I didn't put them in there, I'd made a point of leaving them out for sunday.  I know my son wouldn't have done it, first off he wouldn't have known about the holdall in the spare room, and secondly he doesn't go around tidying up after me... or himself for that matter, you should see the kitchen some mornings.  

 So how the hell did they get there?  Di I do it and not remember, thats a worrying thought, but that makes no sense anyway, I'd have put them back in the other bag in my bedroom ready for sunday, not the holdall in the spare room.  I only found them there when I was putting all the filters back away for the duration until I need them again.... never probably.

 Regular readers will know odd weird stuff like this happens in my house, I think it's poltergeist type stuff, but I'ts not really classic for them either.  Your guess is as good as mine.

Camera filters

 I was digging out some old camera filters the other week for a course. My God I 've got a lot of them!  Worse is theres so many crap ones!

 Ok I've got the usual colour correction, and red, yellow etc for black and white, but the rest? why the hell did I buy them all?

 I've got green graduated... GREEN! what was I thinking.  Oh I know.  One day I'll really fancy a green sky... No wait. Maybe I planned to use it for black and white but only affect the sky.  Well that sort of makes sense, except I'm not much of a fan of a green filter for black and white.  I tend to go with red or orange (I have those too in graduated).

 Then theres the really weird ones.  A mirrored surface to create a mirror image of half the scene.. I did try that one once, wasn't impressed.  Then theres the one that makes 6 of everything.  Yeah, thats what I though.  Theres the half magnifing glass to get a real close of of the forground and the background sharp (dont think I even tried that one).

 Theres a keyhole shape, probably popular with peeping toms.  One of those ones for putting the bride and groom in a wine glass, that was all the rage at one time. Loads of different soft focus, couriously a bit of stocking stretched over the lens worked well if you didn't have the filter.... and it explained the pair of stocking in the back of the car to your wife.  Those were the days!

 Hell I've even got a vairable green (why the hell green?) polarizing filter, this you rotate the outer part of the filter to vary the colour.... Guess what, that got bugger all use.  Mind I think I have the red as well that did get used a bit, but again not much considering how much this stuff cost.

 Worse part... well it's all worth sod all now, most of it you can either do in camera or photoshop, without the exposure hassle, a red filter knocked about 4 stops off your exposure.  That was a bitch with 100 iso film.

Expedition bigfoot is back

 

 Yes the loan awaited fantastic series of Expedition Bigfoot is back!  Yeahhhh... Ohhhh crap it's back and worse than ever.  Remember I watch these so you dont have to.

Well in this series logic is packed away and thrown out with the trash!

Episode one. One of the presenters and his cameraman dressed in ghillie suits (very good camouflage that make you look like a walking bush) creep up a steep hillside to get to the high ground,  this is where they plan to spend the next few days just watching. What the army calls an OP (observation post) This is actually a good idea.

They spend the first night watching over the valley below.  The second day they build a proper OP by digging in and covering it with a camouflage sheet.  To be fair they do a decent job.   Thats where it goes tits up as we used to say.

While having a daytime watch they see a shadow, and I mean a shadow, it's just something faint in the trees, probably really a shadow..  So they decide to go all the way down to the valley a few miles to see if it's left any tracks.

They leave their cleverly built hide and in normal clothes walk all the way down, search for ages and then climb back up using a torch for the last part as it's now getting dark.  Now none of this makes sense for a few reasons.  

Earlier we're told by the same presenter bigfoot is noturnal, yet they "see" the shadow in daylight, we're also told by the same presenter he doesn't want to give away the location of his hide, yet he's just gone in and out and used a bloody torch.  Why bother using the ghillie suits to hide going in at the start, what was the point?

To make matters worse two other presenters were just a mile and a half away from the sighting at ground level, thats a half hour walk in to them. The presenter in the hide was in radio contact he could have "talked" them onto the target area without leaving the hide and it would have been quicker and easier and avoided giving away his location.

After getting back to their hide using torches and knowing full well they are looking for a nocturnal creature what do they do?  They curl up and go to sleep.  Both of them.  You couldn't make it up could you! Why both, one could have kept lookout.  

But thats the whole point, oh they left a camera watching them sleep so you could see them wake with a start when something arrives right outside their hide, panic, waving cameras, cant see fuck all.... Cliffhanger ending of episode.  

Will they find bigfoot?  Will we see it on camera?  Will they die?  No it's all fucking fake.  This lot couldn't find bigfoot!, they couldn't find their own arses with a mirror on a stick FFS!

Food photos 3

 This is the last of the recent food photos.

Food photos 2

 Some more shots from the other day.