JPG Magazine Is A Thing That Exists

For those of you keeping score, the links to the left are submissions of mine for JPG Magazine. The images are not new, so no comments per se, but I'm curious to see what happens in the last few days of voting because... I'm bored. Blame Danielle, whose own JPG Magazine submissions are here.

Cotton

Some boys give girls flowers. Some give girls cotton. Now knit me a sweater, bitch.

Punkin Chunkin

Punkin Chunkin happens when a bunch of teams of people get together in a field and lob pumpkins into the distance using a variety of means of propulsion. The team whose pumpkin travels farthest (regardless of means) gets the trophy below,



All teams name their machines and some have painted mascots. Team Morgana, below, named themselves after King Arthur's nemesis -- King Arthur being the name of another team. King Arthur is not pictured.



Team Onager has a Roman Legionnaire.



Punkin Chunkin takes place in many states, but the championship takes place in Delaware. There is a sideshow carnival-type-thing with fried goods, Midway-style amusements, local crafts and a cheerful bouncy dinosaur.



Centrifugal machines fire pumpkins as you might imagine. Whereas catapults' and air guns' violent motions, magical clouds of vapor and wham-bam army noises to announce the deployment of the gourds, centrifugal machines sound like a blown-up lawn mowers and the pumpkin leaves relatively unannounced, the sound of the belt unclasping far too soft to hear over the hum of the arm spinning.



Air guns are big and loud and generally fire the pumpkins too fast and far to see. We were not at the show five minutes before we heard our first cracks from one of the torsion teams regarding the needle-dick-ness of the air gun crews. Bad Hair Day, below, is fielded by a team of women. They do not fall under the needle-dick heading, I suppose.



Appropriate safety attire is required for all crew members.



To this day, I have no idea what a hard hat is supposed to accomplish. Should it deflect the thing that's hitting you? Should it shatter and dissipate the force of impact? Is it like border security legislation?



This is Fat Jimmy. He's a super nice guy. He's wearing a costume and name tag reading "Fat Jimmy/Queen Is A Fella." He rode up on this motor bike and was summarily molested by a young lady (not pictured) who grabbed his plush, ample bosom and held it to her tongue. Jimmy was at the event with his daughter, who was not seen after the events described, nor could she be reached for comment.*



In conclusion, Delaware is a land of many contrasts.

*I did not try to contact her.

Up, Up And Away...

Blimps are neat. There was this one instance in Junior High when I we were asked to list attributes of a character as an exercise in description and I chose "good." The teacher thought the word was weak and told me so, and I told her that "good" was perfectly acceptable if you used the word with enough conviction. So blimps are NEAT -- said with a child-like enthusiasm -- in the same way that Dinosaurs are NEAT and elephants and giraffes are NEAT. Big things are NEAT.



When stationary, a blimp always wants to face into the wind. When blimps are moored in a field they are tethered to some sort of mast (in this case, a telescoping mast attached to a truck) with a bearing on top so that the blimp can spin as the wind shifts.



These are the poured-concrete ruins of a WWII-era hangar that was burned to the ground six or so years ago. The company whose blimp we were shooting lost a few ships in the blaze. The hanger itself was similar to the one below, only BIGGER.



In google satellite images you can see the footprint of the old hangar and how it relates to the footprint of the one still standing. We never got to go into the hangar because of some sensitive co-renting agreement between multiple blimp companies and their desire to keep their ships off camera. Similar hangars were used to house the Gotham City set for Batman Begins.



When a blimp takes off, it's literally CARRIED by the ground crew -- around 15 or so people -- to a spot that's free from obstructions. On the ground, the ship appears clumsy and awkward and uses its engines to assist the crew in maneuvering. The captain of the ground crew, with help from another member holding a wind sock, uses hand gestures and verbal commands to help the crew move the ship. Recall that a blimp always wants to face into the wind when not powered -- the crew WANTS the ship to face into the wind so that the pilots can use the lift generated by the airflow over the envelope and the ailerons. When the pilots are ready, they turn their engines to the ground and clear the ground crew for takeoff.



The pilots told us that the blimp can take off in a straight vertical like a helicopter, but more often than not will use more of a fixed-wing-style takeoff with a short taxi down the strip to gain speed before pulling up into the sky.



The nature of the blimp, which the president of the company described as 'benign,' and the fact that it takes a HUGE disaster to bring a modern helium blimp to the ground, means that it can travel safely above ground at about 100 feet. It allows us to see how the rich people at Kitty Hawk live. They live well, annual hurricane threat aside.



The windows of the blimp are removable, so you can stick your head and shoulders out of the gondola and take unobstructed pictures of the ground below. The pilots have two small windows that they tend to rest their elbows on the way Harrison Ford leans on the windows of his hot rod in American Graffiti. Obviously, the cabin is non-pressurized.



Taking pictures of the Elizabeth City Coast Guard facility is probably a breach of national security in someone's mind.



The ship has a motion very much like a ocean-going ship -- a smooth rocking and cresting and diving over airstreams. The propellers are powered by Porsche engines and are belligerently loud when the windows are open.



When it comes time to land, the ground crew lines up in a "V" shape, with the chief of the crew and the windsock at the vector. They visually tell the pilots how to orient the craft so that it's facing into the wind. As the blimp descends, the ground crew breaks for the dangling lines and they WALK the blimp back into the mast. Here, the rope team has already grabbed the lines and the men who will carry the gondola are sprinting for the hand rails on the side of the ship.



As with most of the posts on this blog, there is no real conclusion. I'm not a good essayist. The blimp averages about 50 MPH in the best conditions, which is slower than a car. It requires a ground crew of 12 to 15 people and a secure mast to lash it to when it's at rest. The ship is higher than a 747 at its highest point, and is unable to fit into most hangars. The flight is pleasant and relaxing and non-hurried and when the weather is fair, as it was when we flew, the views are beautiful. The ship we were in is the only model with a restroom and it maxes out with a 12 passenger load. For all the potential and pleasure to be derived from the blimp as a mode of common travel it's not practical.

Charlie was one of our pilots for our trip. He's a full-time professor and a part time blimp pilot.