Here’s the view of my physical desktop from my right hands perspective:
btw: Happy Halloween from my office window…
Hand View
Month: October 2013
Treats
Steph and I do holiday treats for my bus kids every year. I buy the parts, she creates them and then I give them out. For this Halloween I’ve been holding on to thirty treats she put together a while back, and today I brought them on-board.
The girls got hold of them first so we staged a little video before the boys got on. Thirteen treats are now out the door, and the rest are on their way tomorrow.
SlideShow
Re-Mulched
I’ve been playing around with a video service called Magisto. You throw some photos and videos at it, and you get a tricked out video result in return. Interesting…
Contrail X
I was coming down Main street today at 1230, transporting the young lady who’s first name begins with “C” (that’s how we refer to clients over the radio now :-) out to Bates, when I spotted this double contrail. The clouds had parted perfectly to reveal this anomaly. I pointed it out to “C” and pulled over to take these shots from my window.
My sister spotted a UFO hiding in a cloud over the Grand last week. Maybe this contrail was not intended to have been seen?
SlideShow
Update: What the hell is that? Looks Reptillion to me…
Suite Tools
I picked up a nice suite of tools yesterday from a company called AVS. I’m running them through their paces today and I’ll throw new stuff here on the wall as the day progresses.
Here’s something I just whipped up with the Video Editor and the Audio Recorder:
A dark scene from Squirrel, Idaho:
Watermarking test (BDJ lower left corner).
Leaf Bust
Steph’s been complaining that the leaves are falling off the trees faster than our perfect Fall weather, with no wind, would dictate. So, I set up a hidden security camera on the deck before I headed off to do a photo-shoot of Squirrel, ID today.
Sure enough, I caught my neighbor Pete shaking the leaves off our big mama! I didn’t realize he had a yard superiority thing, poor guy. He even disguised himself as me!
Later on in the evening I was warming my small buns on our Rinnai heater when I noticed some cool lighting coming in from the westward sunset.
Little Dragon
Steph’s boss brought his son into the propane office to show off the costume she made for him. Apparently, he really loves it and want’s to wear it all the time now. She offered to hem up the bottoms but they’re just going to roll them up.
There’s a costume contest happening next week on Halloween eve at Kings. I think this boy, and Steph’s creation, could do very well.
Pond Walk
This is my first Strap the GoPro to my Tilley Hat video, shot at 960p x 60fps. I revisited one of my recent favorite spots today, (Pond Drive), and used my new Hero3+ Head Strap on a short nature walk down the non-existent Pond Drive in Victor.
Eclectic Forest
As each month dies down I gather up the various media folders that have accumulated on my desktop, and archive them. Since my new content creativity is apparently languishing in what seems to be a perpetual bad mood, probably due to oncoming snow, I’ve cruised through the folders and grabbed a few shots before archiving them to the infinite darkness of my hard drive(s).
First is a painting of an accidental shot, the others just weird remnants from the month.
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Dragon Costume
Steph whipped up this Halloween Dragon Costume for her bosses young son this weekend. Very nice job! There’s an abundance of creative talent around this log home in the Rockies, and as far as points with the boss goes, well, (ding, ding, ding! :-)
SlideShow
Box Check
I drove into town today to check on the Art Boxes. I had code on the brain and I wanted to get back home soon, so I kinda rushed through it.
I started with the box down by the Courthouse, then the two boxes by the High School, followed by a drive down 5th to Little Ave for the still un-worked on corner boxes.
Speeding through town to check out the redo on the side of the Blackhawk building, I still found nothing happening. At this point I had a brain freeze and couldn’t remember where the last box was (I had counted nine in my head) and spun a u-turn in front of the bank for nothing.
Next up were the two great boxes by Creekside Meadows, my favorites so far, and then finished up with the box south of Broulims. The one I forgot was the other redo a block over on 1st Ave. Oh well :-)
It was also a bright sunny day around here which added reflections on my window and kept me from taking individual videos of each box. Those will come when they get these boxes painted and done!
Mulched
The old adage states that a picture is worth a thousand words. In this modern day I’d say digital photos are probably worth maybe a hundred thousand words.
But a slow motion video of the picture, priceless…
Sucking Leaves
It’s better to suck, than to blow. Blowing leaves around just puts them into a pile that you ultimately have to scoop up into a bag. This new pre-birthday gift to Steph from my sister seems pretty cool. It’s the electric Toro Rake & Vac.
We have a lot of trees and half of them are leaf bearing. In the Fall our half acre of lawn begins to fill up with leaves that have to go before winter sets in. Now if we can just find that long orange extension cord we used to have…
Rumi
I had a dream last night where I was touching dead bodies wrapped up in white sheets. They were hard and cold, as I suppose they should be. I also chatted with a garbageman, who looked just like the Grim Reaper. It wasn’t a nightmare, just a dream and I thought nothing of it until I received an email from my friend K-Dawg later on in the morning. She was sharing a post to her personal blog about a terrible life and death nightmare she had last night. Here’s a quote from that post:
November 1 is the time of year when the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is the thinnest; when all of our angels can most easily brush their radiant fingers across our cheeks. Sometimes this manifests as a really bad dream that gets you out of bed and into the appreciation of the blessings life constantly sends your way.
She also shared a poem from a 13th-century Persian poet named Rumi:
The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you
Don’t go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth
across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open
Don’t go back to sleep!
– Rumi
Thanks K-Dawg!
Bike Park
The new adapters for my Hero cam arrived this afternoon, including the one that attaches to a tripod. I have a small handheld tripod (as seen here) and a full size one. I was anxious to try out 720p mode so I stretched my legs around the Victor Bike Park and shot a video with the small tripod attached, basically to provide some stability.
You can see here that the camera bounces as I walk around holding it in my hand, to be expected I suppose. As I was walking up the first hill I almost slipped on my ass in the mud! I also got the headband adapter today so I’m looking forward to trying that one out shortly, maybe less bouncing if it’s sitting on my Tilly Hat.
I was going to shoot this at 30 frames-per-second but this amazing little camera shoots 720p at 120 fps if you so desire! So I shot at 120 and the results after uploading to YouTube are below. Not bad at all :-)
Update: I’ve replaced the above video with the original raw version, wind noise and all. I like it! 720p at 120fps works for me on YouTube! More to come…