How a Man Ages -- UPDATED- how the space shuttle ages

Space Shuttles | First flights | (real or hypothetical retirement dates) | Years Service
Atlantis - 1985 (2010) 25 yrs.
Columbia - 1981 [ note: Exploded on re-entry - 2003]
Challenger - 1983 [note: Exploded after launch - 1986]
Discovery - 1984 (2009) 25 yrs.
Endeavor - 1992 (2012) 20 yrs.
Enterprise - [note: Test model only. Never launched]
New Shuttle -> Intrepid - (March 2010 to March 2020) 10 yrs.
----------------------------------------
2012 to 2020 - 2 Space Shuttles until in 2012, 1 until 2020


2008 - Atlantis, Discovery, Endeavor
2009- Atlantis, Endeavor,
2010- Endeavor, Intrepid
2011- Endeavor, Intrepid
2012- Endeavor, Intrepid
2013 to 2020 - Intrepid



I have become
All things unattractive
where once a jaw

Now a roll
Where once a crouch
Now a pouch

Where once a leap
Now a creep
Lonely as a lighthouse keeper

-- Third generation keeper that is --

Perturbed at day and night
fretting against lifestyle I inherit
Witness many shipwrecks
On stones of stand and rocks

Hidden midst panes of light
and ‘midst uncertain sea life
Where once sea froze

Was it safe to walk under
Relying might we
with what we chose

to use boots as boats
Frozen toe and guts
Alone as a wind gust
Nature christened "Bad Temperament"

safe to christen also
Other souls letting go
Bodies mashed 'tween wall
Of water and toe of tower
warnings turn in bearings

to signal friendlies journeys

Friendlier and friendliest peers
Neighbors look into vapors
stare at sea wave bombs

-- Some frightened; some remain calm --

And ask ‘What can we do?’

We built a pier
To tie me froze boat

We sank down below water line
And towed it,
pulling lines in tow

Till we froze and float
Yet yonder, at tide line
Dry patches pavement

Scant puddles left
Like toed nails appointment
Against climates
addled temperament

On piers lay soldiers’ wives
at shore children’s wails
Crying, bereft against torrents
of ignoble swales

Uncertain rigors prevents
Eternal pathos to prevail
though abundant trouble

To die, turn up one’s toes

A chap should be what he can do!

And not as he's told.

• PD / 24 Jan 06

________________________________*


That is why Mankind is so Special in God the Father's Creation

1. Why do you think God gave mankind the gift of choice?

I think it is because omniscience makes for no need, or rather, no requirement for choices to be made. If you want to continue creating as God the Creator does, then there must be some thing, or factor of choice.

That alone is enough to keep watch whether the kettle boils, as I see it. pd/mpw 07.2008

Purple Glaze: A Brief Discussion of Painting on Canvas

If you are a good draftsman, then always work toward your strengths. Lay it out, and work with perspective and proportion. Here is a Lighthouse scene. I usually put reference page and photo credit on any 8 x 10 studies. "Eagle Bluff Light, Ephraim, Wisconsin: marks the entrance into East Channel into Green Bay. It was built on Lake Michigan in 1868, standing 75 feet above the lake, with originally a third-order Fresnel lens. It is a brick tower still aiding in navigation today" (Crompton, S W. UB of L, 2005).
It doesn't hurt to under paint a scene with complementary color scheme. Using acrylics for this; remember if you are oil painting, you have to put water based colors under the final oil base paints; lean under fat as the saying goes, or fat over lean. This roof for instance is going to be Terra cotta, so I under painted with blue slate color.
The bush is in shadow, so I started with dark coloring moving toward lighter later. This is the best way to to produce details in shadows.
And the foreground wall will be yellow limestone, so I under painted with blue shades, Payne's gray, with more dark blue in the clouds. Again it all moves from dark to light, background to foreground. The subject lighthouse

will hopefully end up detailed and sculptural, framed in rich, subdued colors.
Add color. In this case I am doing a study of the various aspects of lighthouses, and not too concerned with palette. However, as I become familiar with lighthouses as a subject then I would choose a group of harmonic colors right now, and stick with them. Here I am using primary colors, mixing pastels from those, as I add features. It turns out the painting starts to fall apart, as complementary colors are set in juxtaposition. Soon the adding of shadow starts to mess up the perspective, and details begin
to get lost, straight lines become
bowed lines... either optical illusions, or just lazy brushing.
Here is an inverted color negative showing true color complements. This could help in coloring the problem areas of the piece.

How to keep the painting together is to make decisions as the rendering continues. Decisions are based on observable data. For instance, lighthouses are generally not a romantic get-away. Rather, they are situated on crags and wind-swept reefs that were once noted as demons
on nautical maps. So, I am experimenting with colors to try to capture forebodings; a bleak place where existence is difficult; structures that must stand up to sheer brutal punishment by natural weathering winds. Thus, buttressing walls, stone and brick construction, copper storm shutters and scuppers, and heavy roofing.

The most difficult part of doing a study is in trying to balance the mess. Some of the intermediate stages have features that look really good. But as another area of the canvas is worked it somehow cancels the parts that I just finished. Highlights fade, and shadows take over, or become ambiguous...
I see as I go that the underpainted version looks real good. I like the bold red lighthouse tower, and the blue mortar in the house. But alas the total structure is made from local yellow sandstone. So for believable finish everything stone becomes yellow's cousin.

I think before I call this quits and spray it with varnish, I might try to do some "glazes" in red-blue, purple, hues to make some shadow on the house and tone down the yellow. Most of the structure is trimmed in copper, so tarnished copper and green are good for other color trials. If this were a 144 inches by 96 inches, first trial, I would at this point be pulling my eyebrows out. No lie!

Fortunately, it is only 8 x 10 inches and manageable for trial and error. Also, I want to point out after all the groundwork has been laid out as it has been now, I as artist can anticipate some fun with the project in final stages. More on that aspect later...

A study like this is without parallel for learning a subject. If I decide to do another, and larger painting of this, it will take less time, and less mess to accomplish. Most of the time I skip this study stage, leaping rather right in with large brushes, and lots of oil. I end up making brown of my colors, and grey skies... so you decide how to go about your own dabbling in rendering.