Family & Friends
Time lapse video
I just got back a little while ago from a visit to Brian, Dani & Jeffrey’s in Rochester. Great times. Great friends.
We went out to Arigato’s for some yummy hibachi, then went home for cake and gaming. Well, one game that lasted a good long time. Loaded Questions – which got off to a bit of a slow start but ended up being laugh-so-hard-you-cry funny. The game deteriorated into “The Turd Ferguson Game” where every answer became a variation of “Turd Ferguson.” Priceless. And we only had a couple glasses of wine. Really.
Here are some videos I made of the trip out and back. The exported video ended up being terribly low res, so these are here for the time being until I can re-export at a higher quality.
Time lapse details
I used an Xbox Live webcam ($40) taped to my rearview mirror. iStopMotion software, which is super simple to use especially while driving. The 1st video was set at 24 fps and the first 44 seconds are recorded at one frame every second. The rest is one frame every 8 seconds, thus the much faster, jerkier quality.
The second video is a compromise at one frame every 2 seconds. This gave a much smoother motion, but obviously longer video length. I should have switched to one frame every second once I got off the thruway for higher quality on the final leg of the drive.
The soundtracks are a remix of Just Let Go by Fischerspooner and a cover of A Forest by Nouvelle Vague (you should be able to figure out which is which).
Visit from Dad
My Dad and Pansy (his significant other) visited this past weekend. We had a very good time–mostly eating out in Saratoga and walking around town. One trip down to Troy for some pub grub at Holmes & Watson. That sandwich… I’m telling you… “The Missing Three Quarters” (the name of the sandwich). MMmm, mmm. My mouth is watering just typing this. Score it in the top three favorite sandwiches.
My SD card is jacking around on me. I lost all my photos from this past weekend. Second time it just up and lost its mind. I gave it the benefit of the doubt after the first time. But twice? No way. Memory is too cheap to be shackled with a questionable card. It’s off to Best Buy for a new one. Bigger, too. 512MB wasn’t quite big enough for a few minutes of video and a hundred or two pix from a day-long bike ride.
Why so may pix? Couple hundred? Well, because I snap 3 or 4 every time I take the camera out of my pocket. Usually I’m on the bike, moving at around 18mph. Chances are low I’ll get a properly framed and focused picture. The increased quantity therefore increases my chances of getting a good shot. For example, on a recent century ride I took around 80 or 100 pictures and maybe only posted/saved about a dozen.
One of the shots I lost to the memory card ether was a closeup of a bee on a flower. Sharp as a tack it was. Or at least it seemed in the LCD display (3″ display, so I get a pretty good idea of the photo quality). Another funky closeup of white fern-type plants with a hint of a purple flower in one section. I liked that shot… That one I can maybe reproduce… Maybe tomorrow I’ll make a quick trip to Congress Park and wrangle that shot back into my camera like a cow stubbornly avoiding going back into the barn.
Here’s a shot of the path along the Feeder Dam in Glens Falls.
Thursday nite out
Karaoke?
Not for me. At least not yet. I even scare myself when I sing in the car. I stick to emulating a plaintiff and whiny Robert Smith of The Cure. The Cure is fun to wail in the car. Way back when, seems like eons ago, Tim, my college roommate and I considered lip-syncing in a contest to The Cure’s “Hot, Hot, Hot.” The closest we got to that silly idea was wearing eye liner, lipstick and some Goth garb for Halloween.
Anyway… met Kyle and Brian at JT Maxies for a cycling geek outing orchestrated by Heather and several reminder evites. (Sorry the photo is a little fuzzy, I didn’t want to get all paparazzi on you, Heather, with the flash!) It was good to catch up with K & B. I haven’t seen them since last year. I also met Jenn and a couple, Earl and Theresa who live pretty close to me, somewhere around Porters Corners.
So I had a good time, didn’t stay out too late–don’t want to tax the slightly rundown body too much. Which, by the way, is better, less scratchy throat, more nasally mucous. I should be good by tonight.
