Welcome Back Nukies...

It's kind of hard to believe the Cold War has been over for about 20 years now. But, during the height of the Cold War and America's big nuclear buildup Abilene was a big part of it with the Atlas missile project. And the guys who attached the warhead to them were the men of the 42nd Munitions Maintenance Squadron, who back then were known as the "Nukies," at Dyess Air Force Base. It's really crazy when you think about it that 18-20 year old boys were in charge of the one key element in the destruction of the planet. And one of the first devices to deliver those warheads were the Atlas missiles, which had their silos almost in a circle around the city of Abilene.

So, last week, the men of the 42nd MMS had a 50th anniversary reunion. To get together and reminisce about old times. It was really cool listening to some of these guys talk about what they did. Thinking back on it, it was kind of a big deal, but most of them had the same response about it back them "it was just a job and we did it." In the morning, the group got to go take a tour of their old work area at Dyess and meet with the guys doing the similar job to theirs now. The one major difference being that the guys now only work with conventional bombs as opposed to the nukes. Then, later in the afternoon the guys were going out to Oplin to tour one of the old silos that they worked on the missiles, that has been converted to someone's home now. That was really cool, being able to go into the silo, see how it had been transformed into a really cool home, while at the same time being able to go into the silo and see just how massive the place was, not to mention how the guy had fixed it up and put in a new hydraulic lift to open up the missile doors. Between that and getting to hear the old stories of what things were like back then made for a really cool history lesson you just can't read about.

These are Tough Roller Girls...

Earlier this year Abilene started it's own roller derby team. I actually covered their first bout, but having to cover a (really bad) indoor football game I wasn't able to spend much time covering the game. And, the last bout that they had sadly happened on a weekend that I was in Austin for Hell Week. So, finally I was going to get to cover the Derby Dames. Well, not quite as long as I'd have liked to. Comedian Jeff Dunham and his muppets were in town for a show. Luckily, he wasn't going on until 9p.m. So, at least I had a little time to shoot the roller derby for a while.

Since I was pressed for time I didn't have a whole lot of time to shoot from many different place and work the room like I normally would. So, I shot right on one of the turns with a nice dark background. There were a few nice collisions and pile ups. The Abilene team was winning it pretty good so I didn't feel too bad about leaving, but hopefully next time I'll be able to go and shoot the whole thing and get some nicer stuff.

Fire Season is Getting Old...

It's almost getting to the point where 10,000+ acres burning is not news any more. In this case the White Hat fire in Maryneal, a tiny blip on the map in Nolan county about 50 miles west of Abilene, burned 36,000 acres. Sadly, 12 structures burned down, however, of the 12 I think only a few of them were currently occupied. Still, it was a pretty big deal so again I got sent up in a helicopter to fly over the fire to get some photos. Now, while hearing about fires constantly starts to get old, the chance to fly never does, I guess it goes back to me wanting to be a pilot when I was a kid. And I have to say, shooting fires from a helicopter is a helluva lot easier than shooting it from a plane, thank god we have a helicopter service in town that accessible and for the most part available. Plus, I think it helps with dealing with the forest service in them giving us access since a helicopter can maneuver around a lot easier, and with a bunch of planes flying around and all the windmills in the way as well, it helps and keeps us low enough to shoot some decent photos rather than the 4,000+ feet.

I was happy with the photos I got from shooting the fire, however, compared to the last big fire I shot they didn't quite stand up. I think a lot of it had to do with being a day late. When we got there we saw a lot of scorched earth and not a whole lot of fire. The tankers were dropping a lot of retardant and the bulldozers had fire lines dug out. It was a huge change from when you could see the smoke plume from 40 miles away. That was good and a testament to how good the forestry service and local fire departments are at containing these fires. I just wish I could have gotten there a day earlier. It may sound pretty crass with all the destruction going on, I never hope for any of this to happen. But talking to a firefighter one time pretty much summed up the way I feel, He said, "You never hope for this to happen, but dammit, when it does, I sure as hell hope it happens on my shift."

High School Rodeo...

I spent s few days hanging out at the rodeo shooting my photo column. It's always kind of nice to go somewhere without any real expectations. This year's finds didn't turn out quite as nice as the ones I got from last year, mostly because I didn't have as much time to walk around but I still ended up getting a few shots I liked. Then I went and shot the saddle bronc event on Saturday night and got a few nice shots of riders getting thrown off their horses. I guess since Saturday was the finals they saved the meanest horses for last because it seemed like nearly every one of the riders was getting tossed from their horses. That may not have been what the riders wanted but it sure made for some pretty fun images.

State Baseball....

It's been a while since I've been to Round Rock to cover the state baseball tournament. Last year when Stamford made it to state the game was covered by one of our sister papers who was also covering the games. And after hearing about the five hour rain delay and blowout following, I didn't feel so bad about missing the game. This year when I went down there I figured Stamford having been there would help, since they hopefully wouldn't have the jitters after many of these kids on the team were there last year. And, seeing the team they were playing was a first timer in the tourney maybe it wouldn't be a quick turnaround like last year.

The problem was, they were playing Johnson City, who was coming out of probably the toughest region in the state in baseball. When they walked out on the field the eye test didn't tell me they were going to be world beaters and watching them take infield they didn't look terribly spectacular either. However, once the game started, they showed why they were in the state tournament. Good pitching, really good fundamentals and some nice hitting gave them a quick lead.

The weather for the game could be best described as hotter than hell. And although it wasn't over 100 like in Abilene, it was only in the 90's, that was easily made up with a nice heave dose of humidity. I spent the first five innings baking in the sun in the photo wells along the first and third base lines, and an inning in the stands shooting behind home plate. However, I had been eyeing the left field home run porch most of the game. So in the sixth inning, I put the 2x teleconverter on the 400mm lens and I went up there to shoot for an inning. When I got up there I pretty much wanted to kick myself in the head for not shooting the whole game up there! It was cool in the shade and had a nice breeze blowing in. Basically the best seat in the house. Plus when I went up there, Stamford's bats woke up.

Stamford got down early and wasn't looking great. It was sad and starting to look like last year's mercy rule loss was going to repeat. Luckily, the defense started to pick up and finally in the sixth inning the bats were starting to wake up. Scoring five runs in the inning and closing it to one run. It was looking like they were setting themselves up for a nice comeback win. Well, then in the top of the seventh inning Johnson City blew things open with a 5-run inning and Stamford's bats couldn't finish it. Well, the good thing for them is most of the team was made up of sophomores and juniors so there's always the chance they could be back next year. Although, given that I've never seen one of the local teams win one of their semifinal games in the state baseball tournament, they may not want me covering the game.

Spending the Day with the FCA...

The assignment I had following the Garage Band Woodstock was the annual FCA football game. However, before that, was the FCA basketball game. I've never been a huge fan of these types of games, mostly because, while I think it's really cool the kids get to be honored for all their hard work during their high school careers, the action is never all that great. Yet, every couple of years, they seem to prove me wrong. This just happened to be one of those years.

Now, just because of my perception of the game no having great potential, that doesn't mean I'm going to slack off in how I shoot it. Doing that just ensures bad photos.

The girls basketball game wasn't a great game, the South team won, like it has every year the game has been played. And it wasn't all that close. Luckily, there were plenty of area players on both teams. The players off the North team at least did have a few moments that they shined, when they were able to break the South's press, which made for some decent enough photos.

In the football game I got there a couple minutes after it started by the time I got into the stadium and fought the crowd. The halftime usually lasts forever, so it's always my goal in this game to get something nice before the half, after that if I get something nice I can either trade it out or have it for the slideshow. In the first drive of the game I got the shot of the receiver reaching for the ball. After that it was just making sure I got enough for the slideshow and making sure I didn't miss anything by falling asleep. The shot of the kid losing his helmet I got in the second half and made a nice photo for the jump page. Well, this year was the exception to the rule, hopefully the start of a streak.

Getting Down With the Garage Bands...

This was one of those assignments I was just hoping to get lucky with a decent shot quick. I had to shoot the second annual Garage Band Woodstock. My plan was to (hopefully) get two quick shots before heading across the street to shoot my next assignment. I knew one shot would be east enough, getting something of the bands. The other one I had in mind was people dancing. When I got there things had just started, and there weren't many folks on the dance floor, so I made sure to get my band shots out of the way. After that I just walked around observing the crowd, looking for something else. I wasn't seeing a whole lot from the crowd, then I checked back on the dance floor and saw the little kid getting down. Perfect. I kind of sat back shooting from afar not wanting to him to see me and possibly clam up. Then again, as much as he was into his dancing I don't think he would've noticed anything. I got my shots, got names and was out in time to get to my next assignment in time.