THE earthworks left behind by the long vanished civilizations of the Midwest are harder to spot than the pueblos and kivas of Arizona and New Mexico. For a long time many of them were hidden in plain sight or dismissed as little more than heaps of soil. But the more today’s archaeologists learn about the Midwestern mounds, the more intriguing is the picture that emerges from 1,000 or more years ago: a city with thousands of people just a few miles from present-day St. Louis, a 1,348-foot earthen serpent that points to the summer solstice, artifacts made of materials that could only have arrived over lengthy trade routes.

Looks like a fascinating drive.

Siesta Key VR Sunrise Scene

Posted on August 11, 2008 by Jim Zellmer

Siesta Key Sunrise VR Scene. Panoramic Photography

Full Screen VR Scene.

Map 27.247581 -82.536145. Clusty Search: Siesta Key. A beautiful beach.

Air Travel: 2008 – A Time When Standing Still Dominates

Posted on August 6, 2008 by Jim Zellmer

Air Travel: 2008 A time when standing still dominates.

This is one of those moments when a camera in hand meets a scene waiting to be photographed: a beleaguered traveller resorting to solitaire on his PC while waiting for the promised next flight. The blue sky ignores the chaos below. Air travel is certainly, as a fellow passenger lamented, “not what it once was”.

Pittsburgh @ Night

Posted on August 5, 2008 by Jim Zellmer

Pittsburgh, PA Evening Image

An Update on Eclipse Aviation

Posted on August 5, 2008 by Jim Zellmer

James Wallace:

‘As a self-described “aviation nut,” Vern Raburn ? the former software executive and one of the early employees of Microsoft who remains a close friend of Bill Gates ? was well aware of a famous saying in the aviation industry: The way to make a small fortune is to start with a big fortune.
The charismatic, high-tech whiz raised at least a billion dollars from investors, including Gates, who were willing to hitch a ride on his dream that Eclipse Aviation, the company Raburn founded in 1998, could produce light and inexpensive six-seat jets (a pilot and five passengers) that would become an air-taxi service for the masses.
But last week, while Raburn was at the famed Oshkosh air show, where his friend and actor John Travolta was promoting prompting Eclipse Aviation, Raburn was ousted by his board, leaving questions about not only the future of the company but about the legacy of a computer industry pioneer who believed he could draw on software development background to transform general aviation.