Saturday, January 7, 2012

In Soverign Air Space



T'was an uneventful morning along the Ala Wai except for a helicopter hovering over the adjacent Ala Wai municipal golf course within a few hundred feet range from my apartment lanai (balcony). I felt like a birder taking a pic of the helicopter (photo above). It's a 4x telephoto. Then dang it at the very moment I was down loading the photos from the SD card to my computer. And why wouldn't it happen that way .... the helicopter did a flyby at eye level to my lanai bearing down the canal. Dang it. That woulda been a Kodak moment, emphasis on 'woulda'. A few minutes later the helicopter returned upstream and started hovering over the golf course again just like it did before. Perhaps they're gathering film footage for a future Hawaii Five-O episode. As you can see, there's a huge camera mounted in front of the helicopter cockpit. I don't think they're taking pics of the talapia. So I rested my camera on the lanai railing and motioned, too far for an audible, to the helicopter to do the flyby at eye level to my apartment a second time. I don't care .... just do it anyways. If you really must know .... I want to post a pic of you on my blog. Is this too much to ask er request er from one filmographer to another (over and out). So, on my cue, Mr. Helicopter Pilot, camera, lights, action. Like I said, I was feeling like a birder. Well, it did happen again. The helicopter started to descend and then fly low above the Ala Wai canal with a trajectory that would take it's flight path pass my lanai again. However, my trusty 4 megpixel camera which I always keep handy has a 1½-inch LCD viewfinder. When the helicopter flew by within arm length pass my lanai I wasn't able to find the darn bird in my tiny viewfinder. Remember it was a moving helicopter to boot. I was this close to heaving ho the camera into the Ala Wai canal many feet below. The fleeting kodak moment, below.

9 comments:

blournalist said...

They say about the difference between a pro and an amateur photographer is the number of shots they throw away.

Thanks for the 411 on the train. Our train-to-nowhere almost got built, but then or Governor decided to run for President, which also did not work out.

RONW said...

blournalist- there were a few rare earlier occassions that a low flying helicopter wisked by my apt at eye level, and I only wished I had my camera in hand. Especially with the special sound the helicopter makes. So, this instance, with the camera in position .... and all for nought to not end up with a decent shot. Pisses me off. At the camera, that is. Naturally not at myself. I woulda won the pulitzer in photography.

The former mayor who championed the rail project decided to run for governor 2-years into his second 4-year term, unsuccessfully. The new mayor is for rail. However, I don't think he's anywhere as much into promoting the fatwā. The only people who would ride rail is the people who don't own cars. Perhaps, if gasoline goes up a few more dollars per gallon rail will attain sufficient ridership to make a dent in traffic.

Hattie said...

The one that got away. I had so many photo ops yesterday, so that was the day I chose to leave the camera at home.
One event I decided not to take photos was of a helicopter rescue of two opihi pickers who were drowning right off the shore in front of our house. One lived; the other didn't. It was just too sad. Guess I don't have the killer instinct to get the money shot.
BTW: I'm amazed at the numbers of people who use public transport in Seattle. And they didn't used to.

RONW said...

Hattie- the pics you only take with your eyeballs don't count. Opihi picking has always been dangerous. Unfortunately the bigger waves conditions draws them up within more easy reach. Obviously, not however without it's attendant hazards to the pickers. Seattle must have a lot of broke ass people which is getting to be the norm nation wide. It's either walking around in Walmarts or riding the transit.

Kay said...

I tried to take a non-moving photo of some flowers in the sunshine. When I got home, I found they were blurry. What the heck!

Sorry about that helicopter. Maybe it will come again? :-)

RONW said...

Kay- at least you didn't have the lens cap on so blurriness is probably not operator error. The 'helicopter' (at eye level) outside my apartment .... I've been well waiting for a retake every since Clinton's presidential helicopter hovered pass my apartment above the canal.... he wasn't on it but secret service was surveying or videographing the apartment buildings on the route that he would later take the next night and that chopper was huge and the way it all happened too .... I just happened to step out on the lanai to see about the propeller noise.

Hattie said...

My affluent daughters ride the bus all the time. And so do we, when we are there.
I know there is a school of thought that believes that only the poors take public transport, but that certainly is not true in Seattle.

Hattie said...

Ooops. By "there" I mean Seattle.

RONW said...

Hattie- over here (honolulu, lol), they've removed so many bus stops throughout the years. Theorethically, it's to speed up the service, but then the bus stops get spaced further and further apart from each other. Now, efficiency may be true during the rush hours, but in between, the bus drivers are virtually guaranteed a long break at the end of the line, where they turn the bus around and head in the reverse direction becuz of the streamlining. Stoopid. Instead, they should have shuttered lesser used bus stops during and only during the rush hour, similar behind the idea to temporary 'no left turns' during the rush hours. Plus, the bus drivers here think they're the equivalent to the NY Metro .... they were getting 100 percent medical and 100 percent retirement paid by the transit company. Nobody I know in the state gets those benefits. And how much education and tuition did the drivers put in and invest on their part to deserve to earn a $50,000 a year job? Most seem as if they were garbage truck drivers on their previous job .... the hauna .... from their beligerent attitudes. We had a big issue with them during the last bus strike. The city council sold the bus riders down the river then. A lot of distaste remains.