Gelkote

Cherie and I rolled through Taco Bell this evening. For those fast food illiterates the drill goes like this, order at the screen, pay and get hot sauce at the first window and finally pickup the grub at the second. Tonight we received a bag with one wet nap and a mint at the pay window. I can’t help but believe someone was messing with us.

Taco Bell Gift - November 18th, 2008

I was walking into work last week from one of the distant parking lots when the words “I’ve danced with the devil and he’s no Fred Astaire” jumped into my head. I’ve never danced with the devil and couldn’t pick Fred Astaire out of a line up to save my life. Googling the phrase didn’t reveal much so it must be my overactive brain at work.

Speaking of Devils, I’ve been thinking of purchasing a copy of The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren after seeing Lorraine on the earlier episodes of Paranormal State but haven’t bitten yet. I’ve really enjoyed seeing what her and folks like Chip Coffey add to the show. In the end, I can’t help but wonder if seminaries teach this kind of thing to clergy.

Oh well, crazy thoughts for a Sunday evening. Enjoy the remaining hours as the new work week is almost upon us. :-P

I was checking out my hometown paper the Wetzel Chronicle this evening when I came across an article about New Martinsville School art teachers Sonya Holliday and Deborah Tustin. The two were commended for their leadership and use of technology in art education by children’s art museum website ArtSonia. The K-8 school’s Artsonia Exhibit is ranked number one in West Virginia and 55th in the country for art posted. How neat is that?

The topic came up at lunch today, would it be possible to give Christmas gifts made in the US this year?

I’m thinking candy from places like Dietsch Brothers, Coons, Goetze’s and Spangler. Maybe beer or some booze from a US distillery.  How about something homemade from Etsy or your local artisans.  I suppose magazines and books could work too. They are still published and printed domestically these days, right?

Closer to where I grew up you have ThistleDew Farm and Mountain Crafts selling honey and wooden toys. Just down the river is Rossi Pasta and Fenton Glass.

If only there was a website encouraging folks to only buy US for Christmas. Hum, uschristmas.com & uschristmas.net are taken but uschristmas.info isn’t. How would this work with 42 days until Christmas?

I wasn’t aware of California’s Proposition 8 until after the elections when I learned what it was and how its passing does away with same sex marriages in California.

Why anyone would spend time and money tearing down something that has no affect on their lives is dumbfounding. I recommend everyone take a moment to either watch or read Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment and take his words to heart as they will hopefully resonate way beyond Proposition 8.

I had the opportunity yesterday to witness something amazing, silence.

The entire data center at work was powered down for an extremely rare UPS replacement. In rough figures that would be 400+ servers, 6 frames, racks of switches, backup robots and some HP Tandem equipment. It was all dark, naturally silent and oh so surreal.

Lately I’ve been playing around with tweaks or hacks on vanilla digital photography.

First is time lapse photography. I shoot the pictures on a Canon SD800 IS running CHDK firmware and the Ultra Intervalometer script. The .jpgs are then stitched together using Photolapse. The battery lasts over 2 hours shooting a frame every 15 seconds with the screen remaining on the entire time. For longer shoots I picked up a generic ACK-DC30 adapter from BestBatt.com. The price seemed right and they shipped it fast.

Still trying to sort a few items out. The CardTricks software is helpful in preparing the SD card but I’m unable to use anything larger than 1GB. Also sorting out the best interval for taking the pictures in different circumstances, best frames per second (FPS) and the right codec for saving. It will come in time. Below is a partial time lapse of the windows being replaced back on October 17th.

The second thing is called Through the Viewfinder photography or TTV for short. The name explains it all really. The primary camera shoots through the lens of an older camera which results in cropped, slightly dirty and surreal pictures. The type of camera for TTV consist of two lens. One for the film and the other for the viewfinder. Kodak had a line called Duaflex but I picked up an Argoflex Seventy-Five for $15 which will work just fine.

TTV of Georgie showing Seventy-Five - October 5th, 2008

In addition to the cameras, the process requires construction of a “contraption” to marry the two cameras in darkness. I haven’t had a chance to bust out the scissors, cardboard and tape just yet but it is on my list of things to do. Below are two quick examples shot without a contraption. They aren’t particularly exciting but give you a feel for TTV.

TTV of Sam - October 20th, 2008

TTV of Georgie - October 20th, 2008

Finally is an article on how convert old lenses to work on digital SLRs through the use of adapter rings. I haven’t done anything with this yet but it looks interesting.

It’s time to round out my recent junking posts by sharing two amazing pictures I found last Saturday.

There is more to the story than these two poorly scanned photographs of a house and a man. The picture of the house had the caption “Uncle Sturless’ home on LaSalle Ave, Buffalo, N.Y.” pen written in the margins and a 426 house number clearly visible in the photograph on the porch. Piecing it together, it’s simple to determine the exact address of the house from picture! The second picture with the gentleman confirms the address and provides a second angle. But there is more, LaSalle Avenue in Buffalo, NY is currently on Google Streetview! I’m uncertain the exact house since they all look alike but it’s right there! How cool is that?!

View Larger Map

I’m planning on sending the current resident copies of the photos and a short story where I found them. I hope they will enjoy how the pictures were found some 333 miles away from their home and share their story back. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.

Congratulations, well played and thank you sir. We are all so proud.

Patrick Moberg’s November 4, 2008