Tapioca! YUCK! Wednesday thoughts and shots

Well its WeDnEsDaY.... The start of it sucked heavily. Personally I think that I take things too personally.. but I really just want to do my job...what ever that happens to be a the moment... get it done right.. get it done well and get it done! I do so hate to wait and be delayed. Sigh. My waiting is still going on. Hopefully tomorrow I can get a list of things I need to submit and submit it.. and be done with it. I have lots of other things that need to be doing.

Since I was delayed I was able to get off work on time and come home.. I dont mind working late as long as I am getting things done. So I got home.. hitched up the trailer and went and got propane in my balloon for Saturdays flying with the AAAA. All I have to do now is check radios, sensors, and get some snacks and drinks for the crew.

I decided that I would post some shots from across a span... Here is what I did... I pulled the video I took at the last AAAA rally at the Fiesta Park... I went through it and snapshot segments and saved to BMP files. Took the BMP files and saved those to JPGs... took the JPGs and processed them through a tone mapper then with two a put them in Gimp and spun them... LOL.... Just to see what would happen...

The snapshots are so very crisp out of the video files... its pretty amazing. Because the sun was right on the horizon the reds and yellows and oranges are heavy... but I think it still looks cool.. Here they are...

Great parking job... I told myself.. hah...

Just standing here.. not touching nothing!

Whats next? Um..... chase... Yeah!  Chase!

Bu Buy now.. bu buy....

I saw a balloon around here.. but... its gone! Nice white gloves too.

Okay so.. there.. now... tweaking...

So Big Little World...

And... woah!  That's just very strange....

Love how there is a flock of duplicated balloons in the edge.... LOL.. that is funny... I didn't heal the cut at the bottom because the horizon isn't level... it was just all for fun.

Hope you enjoyed the ride.

Links.

talking about correcting things and balloons...

http://lifehacker.com/instagram-4-1-straightens-photos-brings-video-to-andro-1057363418

Go off the grid..... 

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2013/08/07/off-pocket-temporarily-puts-your-phone-off-the-grid/

So.. so very sneaky....

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/photographer-shows-how-magical-landscape-photos-are-really-created

Cheating .. rip offs.... and I can believe it!

http://gizmodo.com/a-speeding-ticket-camera-company-is-doctoring-evidence-1056921914

Sleep on that.

Tuesday = Oreo Cookies and more editing of pictures

Just couldnt stay any longer at work trying to figure out the un-figurable. I love getting instructions that are so vague that they are nonsensical. So tomorrow I will be back at trying to find out exactly what they want but cant come out and say..you know.. like this... 1. do this 2. do this. 3. do this and your done... They have to go on about whatever and not clearly state anything. Going to bounce this to the boss tomorrow. See what he has to say. Yeesh. I spent most of the day either studying or trying to chase this stuff down with no assist from anyone but one very nice person. Tomorrow is Wednesday.. The Tapioca of the week. It going to be sticky...gooey and probably messy too... So not interested in dealing with it.

So Tuesday became Oreo day cause I really needed a break...

Last night I messed around with a bunch more picture files using the setting for the small world little freakin planet whatever things stuff kinda settings... Plus fiddled around to see what would be cool.. what wouldn't.. and how many times can I modify one picture... hah... many!

Check this stuff out..

Here is a balloon one with the edges filled in. I dunno if I like this look or the basic round view...

So love the BOOM BALLOONS! pictures.. 

They just are so surreal....

Here is one.. not a balloon one nor a small world one.. just a mod...

Interesing how that turned out...  what else can I do... lets see....

What is it? Radiator grille and side of an old tractor....

More.. sure.... Volcano 's and Clouds...

Singular Road....

Another Tractor...

And this is nicely weird..

Lots more to get to and lots more post... 

But enough for tonight...

Links...

Woah. just had all my links wiped out....

Lets see what else I can do...

Camera stuff.. cool!

http://lifehacker.com/challenge-winner-trigger-your-camera-with-sound-and-li-1044371374

Amazon Prime.. if I bought a bunch more stuff all the time maybe it would be worth it.. but hay.. 79 bucks??

http://lifehacker.com/is-amazon-prime-worth-it-1038496234

no Charge.. hilarious!

http://kotaku.com/why-you-shouldnt-get-chinese-script-tattoos-if-you-ca-1037896584

Zombies!!!! cant wait for the Zombie slippers... Zombie toothbrush with auto squeezy green paste... yay!

http://www.neatorama.com/2013/08/06/Zombie-Messenger-Bags/

Yeah.. lets hope these dont go away....

Monday the meatloaf of the week.

Sorry.. I had orange chicken and white rice for dinner. It went nice with all the pain pills I had to take. Major headaches all day long. Physical. Plus training courses that are so slow and mind numbingly stilted and vanilla that you can hear the people that are talking in the training are as bored as you are... only 10 hours to go. Woo Hoo.... ugh!

After a long day it was run home, stopping at the store on the way. Went in dry and a huge storm hit while we were inside that there was water up to the curbs in places. Yikes. Had to walk through serious water to get to the truck.

Now home and trying to settle down.... and.... meatloaf... I think the things on television now show that there is nothing a meatloaf cant understand on it... I think ,.... no brain just fried again... yep. Hmm... meatload fried and served up with a nice cheese sauce!  Yeah!

I think I will go look for some fun pictures to do the Little Planet / Small World pictures with...

Here are a few shots from when I took my cam up and could take pictures as well....

Nice and close....

They were all chasing me.. It was a follow the weirder day.

And looking at you kid...

Sifting through the files for good shots...

Here are some Spam Links.. 

LOL

Thought I as going to say Meatloaf again didn't you.

You never know what you will find in your parents house.... woooo...

http://io9.com/german-boys-finds-a-mummy-in-his-grandmothers-attic-1027233905

This is awesomely mesmerizing!! wow..

http://gizmodo.com/fall-into-this-mesmerizing-timelapse-of-famous-european-1022670636

Do I have friends who worked on this stuff....

http://gizmodo.com/how-nasa-predicts-the-weather-901002392

So ready to do this.. But not sure Netflix is the best venue yet...

http://gigaom.com/2013/08/05/is-cablevision-really-ready-to-give-up-television/

have some ketchup with....

Circular thinking

Yeah.... there ya go... Yesterday I stayed quiet and rested and didn't do a darn thing even though I knew there was a lot to do.

I over did it today.. ended up on hands and knees trying to catch my breath and not pass out. Luckily my wife was there to get me cold water to pour over my head which calmed the head rush. This all started because I was cutting, pulling and generally ripping out mint that had taken over the ponds waterfall ( thanks person I bought the house from for putting mint in a non contained area ). Since I had to stand on the bottom rock I had to bend over for all of it and kept my head lower than my waist. That plus the viral way the root systems had gotten in and around the rocks meant I had to stay bent cutting and hacking. I was working on a lower then my feet section when I felt the rush..knew I had to get off the rock or I was going in the pond.. made it to the porch...

Learning experience... yes... Even with simple yard work its always good to have someone close by. Never stay in that type of position in the heat. And.. Duh!

I am now just feeling a little better though I do feel beaten and my heads throbbing. I monitored my heartbeat while I was down and it was fast but not irregular and my Dr. visit last week was okay. I have to watch the amount of work and time and load. I have now cleared three fourths of the waterfall..

My son and his friend pulled the pump out and replaced the filter for me so the waterfall is running well. When I stated you could not see any of the rocks at all.. it looked like the left side. Yeesh!

The left side has still to be cut away and pulled like the right side... the Choya needs trimming back and the pile off to the right thrown in the trash. Guess that is going to wait till I feel better.... not anytime soon... my son will probably get it for me next week sometime.

Onto the real subject... third try and Circular Thinking... or some more Little Planet shots.. as well as some experiments...

This one turned out fantastic... a AAAA meet in in Rio Rancho....

This one just got out of hand..LOL.... Pretty cool anyways...

Here is a mix.. by modifying some of the setting you can get some very strange effects... TAB KOF PITS.

This was a test to see what would happen to an internal shot of Patturns In The Sky.....and an adjustment.

This is my favorite for the day.... Balloonar Explosion......BOOM~! LOONS~!!!

Yeah.. I really like that one...I think I may have to hunt some more shots with the same parameters of this one and get the settings ( 4 ) adjusted right so it comes out the same way.. this I would put on my wall... Though I would edit it so as not to cut one balloon in half. I'm going to post that one and another one or two directly to facebook as I think they are cool enough.

Cant believe I was able to get this done tonight but I have been posting every day regardless of sick or not for 198 days straight.. not stopping now.

Links.... not much out there today...

This was retro enough to post... pretty cool info too..

http://gizmodo.com/a-1944-infographic-on-electromagnetic-radiation-makes-l-1019197061

A nice app for your phone...

http://lifehacker.com/receiptmate-scans-your-receipts-and-saves-them-to-evern-992260044

Like windows Metro? You can do your Chrome browser up a treat!

http://lifehacker.com/new-metrotab-adds-live-tiles-to-chromes-new-tab-page-927562142

and I never knew.... I will have to pass this along to an Author friend of mine as an addition to his books.. its one of those little details he is famous for... Tim.

http://www.neatorama.com/2013/08/03/Urine-Deflectors/

Unless he already knows of it.. which he probably does as he is pretty thorough.

Funny though.

Im going to sit back now...

Busy day... Editing... Small Worlds

I spent this day recuperating. I've pushed it and had to just sit today. It was not easy but what I had to do. I did sit and edit and process but I was to stay quiet and calm and I think I did that. It was tough to not go and do things I know need doing but.... tomorrow hopefully...

So here I was playing around with the small world thing and I think I was forgetting some steps here or there... LOL.. but was having fun goofing around with it anyways...


Here is a picture without the end healing...

and with healing...

Then there is this one... Of Kiss A Hoy...

And many many balloons.....

Fun....Weird but fun...

Lots of mileage to go to get this right... its interesting though. I am going to have to take pictures with the aspect farther away and straight horizons..then figure out why I am having bleed over on edges.

here are some interesting links....

Never found a mirror which would work....

http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/12531

Yeah... stunt man.. stand in.... NEXT!

http://io9.com/the-legendary-hollywood-stunt-doubles-who-make-movies-m-1012803545

Yeah..... I did not know....

http://www.infographicsshowcase.com/diy-carpet-stain-removal-guide/

Ya wanna feel small and insignificant.... try this...

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/earth-s-location-in-the-observable-universe-gets-pictured-might-shock-you

Small Worlds....

So... a friend today said... you see these small world pictures... you should do that...

So I tried it.... on my tablet... LOL... as if my eyes are not bad enough already.

It was fun... and I still have to do a lot of adjustments but I did these quickly to see how it went....

Pardon the weirdness of it...

Isotopes Lab... I think I need more grass and less sky....

I like this one....but again.. the bottom...or center needs to be fixed so its not THAT small of a world....


No world in this one.. only sky...

Here is one that has a worldlet.... LOL.. this was my first try....

Twisty!

And this is a tunnel....

I didnt heal the stitch so there is a cut. but still fun.... I have to play around with the process more and also this works on some shots but not any shot....  Also I did these real fast.... geeeee..

Some Links....

Keep pushing it buddy!!

http://io9.com/placebo-buttons-do-absolutely-nothing-and-they-are-eve-1003177950

Im not so sure your getting the right info here... or at least I dont think its accurate on the Starbucks part...

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/this-is-how-much-caffeine-is-in-your-favorite-chain-brand-coffee

Mmmm... copper wire... mmmm... speed.... get it going!!

http://gizmodo.com/new-tech-could-allow-super-speed-internet-on-old-phone-1004361130

And I am sure a friend of mine already knows of this or has it.. or well.... already already

http://gizmodo.com/the-most-important-book-on-color-theory-is-now-an-ipad-1005804972

Heading out soon so have a good evening and a great weekend!

More points to view from?! Sure.. why not

Positions!!! Positions people....

You know how hard it is to get a camera guy to hang from the edge of your  balloon envelope throat? Well ya cant! Not for scale anyways.... always with the stuntmen.... Sheesh!

Some say I am giving away all my secrets but I dont have any.... my mouth refuses to let me..LOL

Here are some more shots from my videos showing what each place to put a camera looks like and how.

This was one of my first tries with filming my flights. This is a contour 720 cam strapped directly to the upright cover. Unfortunately the view in the basket is totally missing and the camera is angled. Also note the out of focus left side... that is the contour... its lens sucked. This is the last place to put a cam as the passenger will invariably grab the upright and jiggle the camera all over.... Was a great day and the video can be seen here.

http://invisibleblack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/h17f14bc9#h17f14bc9

Attaching the camera.. again the Contour 720/1080 to a down line right at the throat gives a great look. Its somewhat freaky and you have no choice once the balloons inflated if the camera feels like moving around on the line. Since I moved to the GoPro I have yet to find a cable clamp to mount it here.

Pretty interesting point of view... perhaps I should have flipped the shot... 

I think it would be worth trying again....

This is a forward shot using the fixed arm. I had two cameras on.. one pointing forward and one backwards. This is just the forward view. Works good when the clamp doesn't slip... 

Here is a set of three shots from a video I spliced together. Very hard to do. You will see the first shot looks fine... the second is starting to slip and the third its slipped a lot.

The splice isn't perfect because I wanted some down angle on the view..

Here you see some slippage.. the horizon is going all V.

And then just before landing in the entry way to Costco..

Still pretty cool but would have been much more awesome if it had stayed put! Still working on the problem with suggestions coming in from friends.

So there you go... I do have some other places to place the camera and I have a few others  I want to try....

But many things to do and little time to get out flying. And Fiesta is on its way.

Here are some interesting links..

For my skateboarding friend....

http://www.neatorama.com/2013/08/01/Bob-Burnquists-Dreamland/

Good read... Pick up the book "Escape from Colditz" for a very good collection of stories

http://gizmodo.com/the-astonishing-tale-of-nazi-prisoners-a-smuggled-came-988296822

And you thought you had high prices... yeesh!

http://gizmodo.com/10-astronomically-expensive-apartments-in-the-worlds-p-978324429

I found this also interesting.... now for the time...

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-fix-11-of-the-most-common-household-appliance-pr-987351470