Category Archives: Nature, Photography, Videos

Local wild bottlenose dolphins feeding in the river

I took this video using my pocket camera this afternoon. This was in Titusville, Florida at the river. I see these dolphins in this same area almost every day on my drive across the river while going to work. Today they were chasing fish along the seawall and doing a pretty good job of catching them. It’s kinda like shooting fish in a barrel! This video shows 2 dolphins, but there were at least 5 hanging around. Here’s the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxHExrZ9k4Q

. Dolphins feeding .Dolphins feeding . Dolphins feeding .Dolphins feeding

STS-120 landing passing overhead

After a spectacular mission, Discovery and the STS-120 crew came in for a safe landing at KSC a few days ago. I work out at KSC, and I went outside my building to watch Discovery glide in. When the Space Shuttle lands from South to North, it glides pretty much right over the KSC Industrial Area, where about half of the KSC employees work. I happened to have my digital pocket camera on me, so I shot this footage. It’s not the greatest quality video, but it’s about all I can expect out of my pocket digital camera.

.STS-120 landing passes overhead

Click here to watch the video on YouTube. You can hear the sonic booms in the footage and you can also hear it “whooshing” through the air as it passes close overhead. Remember the Space Shuttle Orbiter lands in an unpowered glide, so the “whooshing” is purely the sound of a large lifting body cutting through the air as it glides down to an unpowered landing.

STS-120 Lifts Off

I was at the NASA Press Site yesterday for the launch of STS-120. What an amazing launch that was to witness. I’ve seen a lot of launches, and this one was the loudest I can remember. I imagine the extreme loudness can be attributed to either the heavy humid air, or the wind direction, or the low cloud deck, or probably a combination of these atmospheric conditions. I took these photos of the launch while at the same time helping to make sure people didn’t “loiter” in front of the big countdown clock. When people stand directly in front of the clock, it has a tendency to annoy most of the TV stations who are using the footage from the countdown clock in their live launch feeds. Click on a photo for a larger version in my photo gallery.

.STS-120 launch .STS-120 launch

BLOG CONTEST: I will give one dollar via PayPal to the first person who can identify the white haired man in the white shirt in the second photo. Anyone that I know and have already told is obviously not eligible! Also, anyone who was actually at the NASA Press Site yesterday is not eligible. To enter, you must email me (Kurt only) via the web based email form on my website and tell me your name and your email address so that I can PayPal you the money. If you enter using this method, your email address will only be seen by me and nobody else. If you don’t mind sharing your email address with the whole world, you can enter by adding a comment to this blog posting. I promise I will not use your email address for anything other than sending you the one dollar.

Get your Leucht.com merchandise right here, folks!

I found this really cool website called CafePress.com. It’s a site that lets you set up your own store with your own merchandise. You upload your own designs to be professionally printed on said merchandise and let people buy the stuff! Very cool. I threw together a quick Leucht.com T-Shirt design in about 5 minutes and it is now on sale for under 10 bucks. I designed some other stuff too.

.leucht.com magnet .Lemon Blossom Clock .leucht.com shirt

You can let people purchase the stuff at cost, or you can actually mark up the merchandise and make a little bit of cash in the process. This is a very cool idea. Check out the official Leucht.com online store now!

Pikes Peak & Hot Air Balloon

I took the below photo in Colorado Springs a few days ago. I was there for business and went outside to exercise the first morning I was there and this is what I saw. I had my Canon PowerShot digital camera in my pocket because I had promised my boys that I would take a photo of the mountains and send it to them that day. There were actually three separate hot air balloons that took off from this location that morning. I sure would have liked to go for a ride and see the mountains from the vantage point of a hot air balloon!

.Pikes Peak and hot air balloon

Click here to go to my photo gallery which
contains higher resolution versions of this image.