Category: Events of note

Categories
Diversity Events of note People Photography

Pridefest

Pridefest 2005 Today’s outing to the St. Louis PrideFest 2005 parade did not begin auspiciously–we were hit from behind by a lady driving an SUV. Luckily my roommate, who was giving me a lift, drives a larger van and we could drive away after the insurance cards were exchanged.

(I hate the sensations of a car wreck: the screeching tires, the metallic thud, and the fast jerk as your car is pushed forward. I dislike more my roommate’s car being damaged because he was giving me a ride.)

Anyway, he dropped me off at the parade route, and I found a spot in front of a light pole in a little bit of shade, right next to a large group of gay women. Ironically, it was the group the lady who hit us was joining. That poor woman became the butt of several of her friend’s jokes, and one bad pun from me (“Nice running into you again.”)

They were a marvelous group to stand with : every time any car, float, or group went by they would cheer and cheer. Their exuberance added much to the event.

The Parade started right on time, and they kept the pace up, probably because they wanted to finish quickly. It was in the upper 90’s and humid and the air quality was horrid. The conditions were more than compensated, though, by the parade participants. They were a wonderful group, and more than once, I found my eyes stinging a bit from the gentle pride, and absolute joy you could see on their faces.

A Mother's Pride

There were participants from several companies, including several real estate firms. I gather that gay money, at least, is welcome in the housing market. Even in Missouri. Politically, the mayor was there, as was the fire chief and a couple of aldermen, and Ross Carnahan, a Democrat. There was even a small contingent from the Log Cabin Republicans, though they marched at quite a distance from the one somber entry, aptly named “Fear”.

Fear

There were some fun and flamboyant participants, but most of the marchers wore simple cotton shirts in various colors, with the word “Pride” over the chest. Even though they live right in the middle of that part of the country which condemns everything about them, they can still smile at, and throw pretty beads to, a crowd that has consistently voted down many of their rights. I think next year the St. Louis Pridefest organizers should consider adding the words “Courage” and “Determination” to the outfits.

Truth

Reflection in Glass

Everywhere

Categories
Events of note

Trains

For the last few days, I’ve mainly focused on coding and the only reading I’ve done is through my aggregator, and then only enough to keep up. I finally took a moment this evening to check the news and was astonished to hear about a horrible train wreck in Japan. Saddened by the story and the pain of the family members, I was also disheartened to hear of yet another train wreck–this time in a country famous for the efficiency and safety of their rail systems.

At the BBC “Have Your Say” page one person wrote:

I am just lucky. That’s all what I can say, I missed the train by around five minutes and that’s the main reason of my being here. I don’t have words to describe such a disaster where even the trains don’t often get late. There’s a saying that ‘In Japan, if you are late by 20 seconds, then you would have missed the train exactly by 20 Seconds’. In such a country, how can anyone believe this disaster?

How, indeed.

With increased population and people having to make longer commutes and high gas prices, trains, especially commuter trains, are becoming more of a fact of life for all countries — including this car dependent country. Thank you SUV drivers for helping to make this true.

Yesterday, if you had asked me what country had the safest rail system I would have answered Japan. I would still answer the same thing today– even the safest system will fail at some point. It’s just that at 80MPH, failure has a heavy price.

Are we, as noted by some of those writing comments, trading our safety in the interests of the clock? And In the more complex rail systems needed to support ever growing population centers, where a train being five minutes late could disrupt the entire system, do we have any choice?

Sad.

Categories
Events of note

Perspective, Lack of

I was stunned this morning, as we all were, to hear about the devastating earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean and all those people that have been killed. Already estimates of the death toll are at 14,000 and counting. My heart goes out to the people there. I wish there was something more I could do, other than send positive thoughts, sympathies, and what monetary or other help I can provide to organizations giving aid.

I suppose it will be too much to ask those of us from wealthier countries not to blame the victim in this tragedy. This type of event is extremely unusual in the Indian Ocean — and the countries hit are some of the poorest in that region; too poor to build elaborate alarm systems to warn of such a rare event.

The US government was a little late in responding but has said it would send help. I’m not quite sure what ‘appropriate’ help is, but I imagine this is nothing more than official talk, and we’ll send the help we have, and the help that’s needed. And looking at the pictures, and hearing the amount of devastation, there is a lot of help needed. I can’t even imagine what the people in the area are facing right now — it most be a nightmare without waking.

Let’s not lose sight of this, my friends. Or forget that another casualty of major tragedies such as these is that communication can falter and fail at times–in more ways than one.

Categories
Events of note History

The 1989 Hare and Hound Race

The program for the race yesterday featured a story about the 1989 balloon race, the only one where the balloons actually took off and landed in the same place (lack of wind). The story was so funny that I re-printed it here…with a photo. Of course.

A small issue with balloon “races”–of the Hare and Hound variety, such as the Great Forest Park Balloon Race–is that spectators rarely get to see both the beginning and end of the event. The balloons tend to fly away.

That wasn’t the case in the 1989 race. In fact, the balloons never left the park–they just flew from the Balloon Field to the eastern edge of Forest Park, near Kingshighway. Winds were extremely light. Hare pilot, Ted Staley, rightly judged that the balloons would never clear the city, or even make it to the Arch grounds, it was so calm.

The Hare landed across a lake. The hounds gently floated to the target. Some, literally. The ingenious pilots tried it all: Steve Lohr used the Slighshot Approach, with his crew swinging the basket of his flying seven-story balloon across the water to the ‘X’. Gene Grace tried the Cleopatra Crossing. His crew swam the lake, haulted the tethered balloon lines across, then pulled the basket to the target.

The race was contested greatly. Some heated exchanges were recorded. Then all were reminded that the trophy was a broken toaster, and protests weren’t allowed anyway because there is no protest procedure for the Great Forest Park Balloon Race (as noted by Ballooonmeister Henry Fett at the pilot’s meeting every year).

The result: Grace was awarded the win because of the damp effort of his crew. One balloon ripped through the trees, hit near the ‘X’ and was cited for second place and dim judgement.

I think you can see now why I enjoyed this race so much.

Categories
Events of note Photography Places

Dancing with Balloons

I had an incredibly good day today, but I am exhausted tonight. I got to the Balloon race site at 11:00, was there until about 6:30, and only sat down twice. But the weather was perfect, the people were wonderfully friendly, and the balloons were awesome.

I have oh so many photos to post. You’re going to be sick of the photos over the next week. Not only did I fill two cards in my digital camera, but I also managed to take 5 rolls of film. I figured to space them out by inserting a few here and there in my posts.

Forest Park is so pretty, and they had the balloon race in what’s called the Great Basin area – a huge hill overlooking a lovely pool and fountains. This was a good choice because everyone had a good view of the balloons, and plenty of space to sit and stretch out; or like me, stand up to take photos and not have anyone tell me to sit down. In fact, I had a very pleasant conversations with a person who is the VP of the area’s local Optimist Clubs (they provided periphery security as a fund raiser for their organization), a first grade teacher, and another photo buff, in addition to a couple of park police, and a guy who had bad knees (met him sharing a bench when I had to sit or fall over at one point).

The great thing about this race is that they have a photo contest every year, and allow photographers to walk among some of the balloons as they fire up. So here are several of us trying to get the usual pics inside of the balloon, where the sun picks out the color of the balloon; however, there was a breeze and the Jack Daniels balloon kept falling over, so we were having more fun playing keep away from the falling multi-story booze bottle. (More on this balloon at Tin Foil.)

With another balloon, the crew let those of us who had a free hand actually help with holding the basket down. That one was great – to get so close to these big beasties is amazing.

Instead of sitting in the back or front, I picked a side location, and other than it being on a hill and standing for over three hours in one place, it was a perfect spot. I had a great view of the balloons, and when the parachuters who opened the show came in for a landing, they glided directly overhead. Those photos, though, are on film so you’ll have to wait to see them.

The breeze and conditions had to be just right so the ‘bunny’ of this Hounds and Rabbit balloon chase – a huge Energizer pink bunny– was a little late taking off, but was worth the wait. I could not believe how big that thing was. The photo shows it in relation to people and cars on the ground.

Once it was launched, then 70 balloons inflated and took off after it, in a specified order (there wasn’t enough room to start all of them at once). Imagine a sky full of 70 hot air balloons. It was amazing.

I parked quite a distance away, and the walk back to the car was a little challenging, considering that my feet hurt like the devil. But the late afternoon light was lovely and the crowd walking back to their cars was mellow, full of cute kids and sweet dogs.

A very good day.