Riverine Utility Craft, ERDC, Vicksburg, MS

 Of all the curious contraptions that I noticed at Vicksburg, this one was by far my favorite. The riverine utility craft was an amphibious vehicle designed for mucking about in swamps, with those two giant screws acting like propellors in the water and tracks on land.  It's ridiculous and I don't think it turned out to work very well, but dude, it's a screw tank!  It needs only a little more modification to be right at home in a battle against the mole people...

Tow tracks, ERDC, Vicksburg, MS

A lot of the old hardware on the Army Corps of Engineers site, however, is much less recognizable, being prototypes and experiments, like this pair of tracked vehicles hooked together in some sort of tow configuration.

Old tank, ERDC, Vicksburg, MS

 An old tank on the Army Corps of Engineers campus in Vicksburg. I think this might be World War II era? Certainly its rounded form marks it as neither one of the oldest sorts, where manufacturing was more primitive, nor one of the newest, where blast deflection has brought back sharply angled surfaces.

Dead helicopter, ERDC, Vicksburg, MS

At the Army Corps of Engineers research campus in Vicksburg, Mississippi, military equipment from old experiments are scattered around the grounds, like this dead helicopter.

Balconies, New York City

Patterned balconies up along this building's corner.
 

Rising layers of architecture, New York City

A layer cake of different heights of buildings, rising higher over the decades. 

Empire State Building, New York City

I didn't realize that the Empire State Building changed its lighting all the time, but apparently that's what happens now. Here, it was lit patriotically for Veteran's Day in 2019.

Suspended sculpture, NYU Langone

A huge and beautiful sweeping sculpture hanging suspended from the ceiling of a lobby in the NYU Langone Medical Center.

Skyscraper windows, New York City

 Louvered windows and wall structures on the side of a smallish skyscraper in Manhattan.

Ivy 30, New York City

 I don't know what caused this building to be Ivy 30, but I love their living sign.

Sunset at CID

 Sunset at the Cedar Rapids airport, on my way home.

Airborne sunset, Iowa

 Descending into Iowa, the sunset clouds begin to rise higher above us once again.

Airborne sunset, Illinois

 Sunset from the air in Illinois, approaching the Mississippi River.

Christian Science building, Boston, MA

 This temple is the heart of Christian Science, right in the center of Boston's Back Bay. Growing up in New England, I always had a good impression of them, knowing the religion primarily as the producer of genuinely high quality news content. The actual details of the religion, on the other hand, apparently takes one in an entirely different and highly non-scientific direction.

Skyscraper, Boston, MA

 Tall, thin skyscraper in Back Bay Boston, with a nice curving surface.

High-tech building, Cambridge, MA

Interesting subtle bend and strong vertical lines on this technology zone building.

 

Simmons Dorm, MIT

The Simmons dormitory at MIT is also known to some of its inhabitants as "Waffle House", for obvious reasons.

Abandoned parking lot, Cambridge, MA

 Top of an old parking lot, apparently effectively abandoned to judge from its faded out parking lines.

Enscripted building, Cambridge, MA

 The side of this building is covered beautiful script characters, perhaps Arabic?

Ridiculous logo, MIT

 So, my alma mater has a beaver as its mascot. That's actually great, really, what with the whole "beavers are nature's engineers" thing. But a beaver is definitely not some sort of cool, dark aggressive sports-animal, and any attempt to make it look badass just looks ridiculous.

Late autumn drying corn, Iowa

Feed corn is left to dry on the stalk. I light the zones of standing corn and bare field, likely portions that had been rotated to soy.

Hay pills, Iowa

 Hay bales drying in place in a field, looking like little pills from up on high.

Muddy puddles in the desert, US Southwest

 I don't know if these are water, or just the ghosts where it has dried away, but from the air they sure look like great big shallow muddy puddles.

Desert raceway, US Southwest

 A racing complex out in the desert, ready for gladiatorial contests on our metal steeds.

Green in the desert, US Southwest

Irrigation green in the desert, by a wavy river whose deep green-blue color makes me suspicious of its agricultural pollution levels.

Desert triangles, US Southwest

 A long chain of triangular structures beside a narrow road in the desert wilderness. I was not able to figure out what their nature or purpose might be.

Erosion lines, US Southwest

 Finely eroded fractal hill in the high Southwestern desert.

Southwestern stairs, Santa Barbara, CA

 Incredibly loud and over-the-top Southwestern-style stairs lead up from check-in to departures in the Santa Barbara airport.

Mission style airport, Santa Barbara, CA

 The Santa Barbara airport is a small affair, done up in a sort of adobe Mission style.

Warming lights, Santa Barbara, CA

Warming lights glowing a deep purple in the night, as they swing in the cold onshore breeze from the Pacific, doing their best to heat patrons on a rooftop restaurant.

Complex wall tiles, Santa Barbara, CA

Three-dimensional wall tiles with a complex pattern on their surface, very Southwestern in their styling.

Bell tower, UCSB, Santa Barbara, CA

 Rectangular bell tower, standing out above the UC Santa Barbara campus.

I love CR, Santa Barbara, CA

A little message of love, spelled out on the sidewalk in the broken off leaf-barrels of landscaping succulents.

Dawntrail, Santa Barbara, CA

Contrail lit red by the dawn, in the skies over Santa Barbara.

Curving succulent, Santa Barbara, CA

 A very different sort of plant at dawn, some hardy dessert succulent or other.

Morning palms, Santa Barbara, CA

 Palm trees in the early morning.  I always love the sight of palms against the dawn, for some reason.

Netting at dawn, Santa Barbara, CA

 A more distant short of the mossy nets on another morning, with the sky still pink behind their gossamer webbing.

Moss-grown net, Santa Barbara, CA

 The net at the back of a sports field at UC Santa Barbara, hung all over with little clumps of moss.

Morning tree, Santa Barbara, CA

 A tree in the early morning light, silhouetted against the dawn.

Portable water tower, Santa Barbara, CA

 Walking near the Santa Barbara airport in the early morning, I came across this portable water tower, a tanker trailer raised off the ground, apparently to serve some sort of needs at a construction site.

Dunes of cloud

 Below me, soft fluffy dunes of cloud were burnished dark bronze in the rays of the rising sun.

Morning flight out of Cedar Rapids

Sunrise outlining the winglets on my flight out of Cedar Rapids back in late January, on my way to Santa Barbara, California. At the meeting that I was attending, there was an undercurrent of concern about this new SARS-CoV-2 epidemic and its potential spread. By the time that I returned, the genetic sequence had been published and we had a preprint posted locating key sections of the virus, one of which would later be confirmed as the spike protein critical to its infectiousness. All that was in the future, however, and at this time I simply enjoyed the slowly evolving colors on the sea of the sky all around me.

Rampant smurfs, Brussels Airport, Belgium

And now we bid goodbye to Belgium in a cluster of airport Smurfs, celebrating one of the notable cultural contributions of the nation. I can't tell whether Papa Smurf's little flag is more of "golf putting green" or "I claim this mushroom in the name of Spain", but it's funny to me either way.

Early morning in Ghent Station, Belgium

Early morning in the Ghent train station, departing with double-decker commuter trains rolling through every few minutes.

City sunset, Ghent, Belgium

 Good night to Ghent, the sun sinking across the city roofs.

Basso bells, Ghent Belltower, Belgium

 Massive iron hammers for ringing some of the very large bells. When tripped, the hammers move only that single centimeter, but very fast and forcefully.

Inside the clock face, Ghent Belltower, Belgium

 Our last stop here in the tower, looking out from within one of the four gigantic clock faces.

Ancient but operational, Ghent Belltower, Belgium

One of the largest bells, nearly four hundred years old and ringing strong.

Bellringer's apartment, Ghent Belltower, Belgium

Up above the bells is a tiny wooden apartment, still provided as a perk of office for the city's official bellringer.

Bell actuators, Ghent Belltower, Belgium

And here are some of the tops of those steel actuator lines, the wires on the right triggering the hammer actuators on the left.