Happy 14th Birthday to my Son Dakota

Happy 14th Birthday Dakota!

I want to wish my son Dakota a very happy 14th birthday. He will be on his way to Detroit Michigan today with his mom to watch the Red Wings play at Joe Lois Arena in Detroit Michigan.  I hope he has fun and enjoy's the game.

Detroit Red Wings

 

Making it all worth while.

Eariler in the summer I decided that I would build a platform for my cats to sit on behind my couch so they could look out the Window when they wanted. I have three indoor cats and they had never had a place to look out. My son Dakota and I one Sunday afternoon decided it was time to build it. It was one of those father son type things that we could do together. From time to time when I come home from work I see one to three cats sitting on it at any given time. Today I am home on Vacation and Fuzzy (AKA Momma Kitty) was laying all streched out in front of the window. Needless to say the things we do for our kids and for our pets.

Close enough to "Feel the breeze"

As some may know I am a Railfan. I go out and enjoy some sun when the weather permits and take pictures and video of trains. I have loved trains since I was a kid. Yesterday I didn't know if I was going out today or not. I just didn't feel like going. I set my alarm just in case. This morning I decided it had been a month since I had left the house to do something fun so it was time to get out of the house before I go sturr crazy. Enough just going to work and coming home.

I headed up to Butler Indiana and much to my amazement Norfolk Southern put on a show like I have never seen. None stop trains from 6:30am to around 11am. More were coming as I had to leave. At 10am I stopped just off highway 6 at County Road 79 East of Butler. Train 24M was heading East. I setup the camcorder on the tripod and started rolling.

I took some pictures as you can here in the video. I have told friends and family that I have been close enough to the tracks to feel the breeze when the train rolls by. In recent months I have taken the stance that I will leave the camcorder roll and move to a safer location. Retrieve the camcorder when the train has passed. What happend in this video is the breeze from Norfolk Southern train 24M which was screeming by my location at around 50 miles an hour blows the tripod over. For one heart sickening moment I though my new camcorder was toaste. I bought my sisters camcorder to replace my old one. Much to my delight it was ok and still rolling. It did get a few minor scuffs, but all in all I was very lucky. Have a look at the video you can see the vibrations of the breeze on the camcorder before it falls.