Capt Mondo's Photo Blog

My last day in Tokyo. Went to the Imperial Gardens in the heart of downtown. The relatively warm weather for the season meant that the colours were still on the trees, making for some nice pics:

Today I joined my work colleagues for a trip to the iconic Mt Fuji. These pics were all taken using my 200mm lens and assembled from several shots spliced together in PhotoShop. The original images are big.

A pic showing a broad perspective of the vantage point I shot all of the subsequent pictures from:

This one zooms in just a bit, focusing on the landscape:

And this one looks at the top of Mt Fuji. You can see the zigzagging trails leading to top:

Definitely a “bucket-list item” experience for me!

Well worth the trip to see the world’s largest Fish Market. I ended up taking a lot of pictures of the fish that were on offer here, but when processing the pics I found that many of the shots involving the fish sellers and the delivery people were the ones that caught my attention.

Had a chance to head to the old city center of Stuttgart before setting up the Ixiasoft booth at the TCWorld Conference 2015 in the evening. It was a gloomy, overcast day, but I still managed to get some decent pictures.

Flew into Stuttgart to attend and present at the TC World 2015 technical writing conference.

Have been taking a lot of photos of the Moon this year it seems. Though there isn’t a lot of colour here, the photo does show that there is some colour to be seen. This photo taken with the trusty 500mm lens.

Traveled downtown with Annie and together we watched a bunch of busker acts, including a magician, puppeteer and a fire juggler.

Headed down to Hamilton to see the Hamilton Airshow hosted by the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. Last time I visited was back in 2010, and they’ve made a number of changes to the event. Tickets were now $99, but for that you and 1,200 others were taken to a venue closer to the runways, a couple of drink tickets for beer/wine, and free food. There were lots of seats available, the view of the planes was unobstructed and the weather cooperated for the day.

Here are some pics:

Apparently the museum’s DC-3 Dakota experienced some engine problems while in the air and it made a quick landing, with the local firefighting crew streaming in the airfield as a precaution.

Traveled to Oshawa in order to take in the RCAC Regimental Museum’ Tank Roll Past Day, where they show off their working tanks, armoured vehicles and other military gear. The following is a selection from the many pics I took while there.

First though, a cool movie shot by one of my WoT clan-mates (EndersTank) of the actual Roll Past:

Okay, here are my pics:

Apparently, this Stuart is the Museum’s earliest working tank. Found somewhere in South America this tank was restored in the U.K., and then bought by the RCAC.

Apparently it took them a while to get used to how this peppy little tank would drive, and they ended up doing the equivalent of tank “wheelies” in it at first until they got the hang of it.

The name “Leo” is apparently from one of the regiment’s former commanders.

Not sure what the following vehicle is:

Again, not sure what the following Armoured Command and Control Armoured Vehicle is:

They did up one of their five Shermans in the manner of the tank from the upcoming movie “Fury“.

Their second running Sherman, named “Bart”:

A third Sherman was parked in the middle of the regimental field:

A fourth Sherman was parked by one of their hangers:

Then there was a final, fifth Sherman being cannibalized for parts:

Apparently this Polish-made Soviet T-54 is a very recent acquisition, less than 3-weeks as part of the Museum’s collection:

The RCAC also has a couple of Sheridans, one of which is in working order and took part in the Roll Out:

Again, not sure what the following is:

They also had a number of vehicles either parked or on static display:

If I got this one right, this was a ceremonial Jeep used back in 1984 to ferry Queen Elizabeth II around to inspect the troops.

Not sure what this one is either:

At the end of the show they put some of the older vehicles back in the garage:

The following are all regimental badges I shot while there for future reference. Since I like designing icons for World of Tanks clans, I figure these may may for a good reference:

The following was on the door of an old Jeep-like truck out in the back, either a future restoration project or like the “Parts” Sherman it was beside, used for spares.