Mt. Pilchuck

 

Click on any of these for a larger image version.

I realized last night that I took several image 'series' on Sunday that could be strung together for a wider angle view of Mt. Pilchuck. Even though individually most of the images have motion blur, when combined they make some impressive panoramas.

The image above is a wide angle (with fair distortion) of Mt. Pilchuck with the peek on the left and Bathtub Lakes on the right.

This second image is the back/east side of Pilchuck. Bathtub lakes are directly below the plane, the sadle is in the center and the north side of the mountain is visible on the right of the image


This is a good two image combination of 'Bathtub lakes' with low distortion. The dark smudge through the right half of the image is the pilot side vent window.

Mt. Pilchuck on a Late November Sunday Afternoon

Sunday, when the fog lifted, and I'd preflighted everything I could get to, cleaned the oleo gear struts with WD40, washed off the bird dirt, and added 40 gallons of 100LL av-gas.
I soloed her out to Mt. Pilchuck. These are the now frozen 'Bathtub Lakes'.
Two valleys north of Pilchuck is 'Three Fingers'.
This is the saddle area of Pilchuck to the right and below are Bathtub
Lakes, to the top and left is the peak.

The flight to Philchuck took about 20 miniutes, climbing to 7000 ft. Returning to Everett took only eight miniutes using the descent and smooth air to cruise at 150mph.

A Winter Day on Elliot Bay

We don't even need black and white film (or digital settings) to take monochrome pictures at noon in Seattle. Temperature 38 F, overcast with a snow storm coming in. (Rain in Seattle and snow at higher elevations and north of Everett)

Bicycle On Burke Gilman Trail

Five combined images of a bicycle in a trail tunnel on the Burke Gilman Trail in Bothell.

Photoshop is my friend :)

Waxing Gibbous Moon

Playing around with my first moon shot. This image taken tonight.

Bicycle At NIght

Commuting at night on a Bicycle. Image on 8th Ave yesterday night. I was trying to catch the motion, and the danger of commuting on a bicycle at night. This shot came out better than I expected.

No photoshop corrections, this is the raw image. Hand held pan, 138mm (135 equiv), .5s exposure, f/5.6, ISO 1600.

Stereo Seagull

Today I took this stereo pair of a seagull out on the Seattle waterfront. The above image is a Red-Blue 'color' anaglyph. Wear standard Red-Blue stereo glasses to see the 3D. The next image is the right left image pair. Some people (including me) can temporarily cross their eyes and merge them into a 3D view. The lenses refraction artifacts are real and are not post processing renders. The two images were takes about 1/3 second apart.

The Zune, 0.92 years and a Major Software Update Later ...

Well honestly I was secretly hoping for a major software update for the Zune that matched the features of the new models but I didn't expect them to follow through with it. I'm pleased. The device has a better look & feel with the new software. The old features are still there and a few new ones are available. I've not tried out yet the wireless update and wireless song 'relay' between multiple Zunes but intend to use them.

New features I have tried and really like are the better 'video' indexing and the Podcasts index. WooHoo! Much better and I'm not sifting through all my video content for video Podcasts.

Something not mentioned in any of the press releases on this topic is that consecutive song playback seems to be more continious without the brief blank spot between songs on the same album.

I will note here that this Zune has not caused me a bit of problem this entire year. It has locked up occasionally for a miniute and then re-booted but that has been very infrequent and usually happend only after I dropped the darn thing.

Still kinda like it, not to complicated, my mother could still operate it. :)

PS. The user interface highlight 'click-flash' is very cool. I know it's just UI flash but I like it anyway. Thank you!

Mt. St. Helens, Nov 11th, 2007

Approaching Mt. St Helens from the north west. The mountain in the background is Oregons Mt. Hood. The debrie's field below the Mt. has taken on a dark greenish cast because of new growth and Northwest algae growing on everything. Freezing level was about 7500 ft on this day. The temperature at 9500 ft ws -10C/12F.

Mt. St. Helens, Nov 11th, 2007

Mt. St. Helens, November 11th, 2007. The top of the mountain with the lava dome and glacier clearly visible. Temperature at 9500ft was -10C/-12F. The previously all grey vally floor had a distinct dark 'algae-green/dark gray' color to it. As you can see the mountain is starting to get it's winter snow cap.

St. Helens Glacier

The St. Helens Glacier. This is the glacier that has been growing on St. Helens since the eruption. It is in shadow most of the year. The temperature at 9500 feet this day was -10 C. about 12 F. If you compare this image with the image in Google Earth you can the the glaciers progressive growth. This picture is taken over the west crater rim looking east. The east crater wall is at the top of the image. The Glacier runs diagonally through the image from top right to lower left with the lava dome in the center right.

Interesting this glacier will be turned into a Lahar and sweep away the I5 bridges (likely) over the Toutle/Cowlitz river when the dome collapses. Every year more water is stored in this glacier and the future lahar gains more force.

Saint Helens Lava Dome

St. Helen Lava Dome. Nov. 11th, 2007. Saturday afternnon. This is looking across the top of the dome from the west. The begining of the crater glacier is on the left side of this image 1/3 from the top. The south wall of the crater is to the right/top in this image.

This is the same area as in the next composit photo taken at an angle from 2 miles to the west.

St. Helens Lava Dome Nov 11, 2007

This is a composit of Saint Helens lava dome taken on Saturday November 11th, 2007. The distortion is reasonably low. If you are interested in these for a science study I can make the complete set of images available.

In this image the north crater wall is to the top. (click on image for a larger version)

The Green Ring of Life!

Got the XBox 360 back yesterday (see previous RRoD post, this blog). I'm kinda shocked since It went out UPS a week ago Monday Nov 6th and returned on Thursday November 15th. The shocking part is it has the same serial number on the case. Granted they could have just exchanged cases and sent me a new internal box but at least it gives the warm fuzzy that you got the same machine back.

This one seems better though ... like it has more cooling air flow than the last one, also included was a month of free XBox Live.

Works great! I'm pretty impressed with the service. Way better than I expected.

A little vertigo for you?

Heres a picture north of Rainer in a left turn to give you a bit of vertigo.

Out and About ...

... on a November Saturday afternoon. Went to St. Helens, Mt. Rainer, Snoqualmie Falls, it was fun. I'd not seen St. Helens up close for quite a few years. The dome has climbed up the south crater wall and the glacier is growing rapidily filling the east and north crater floor.

Thats Mt. Rainer in the background of this picture taken from the North East looking South.

Red Ring'O Death!

Uh-oh ... looks like my 360's got the dreaded RRoD. The support people were pretty efficient though. I couldn't understand the first guy ... he mumbled and I told him so then got mysteriously disconnected. The second time I called they went right through the check list and the box failed with flying colors.

MS is sending me a 360 coffin any day now. I'm feeling withdrawal, plus the dang thing was acting as my DVD player ...

The Boat

The boat sits.
It's white fiberglass hull,
bright in the sunlight,
like a whale,
dead and bleached opon the shore.

A single red stripe,
wraps around,
like a faded ribbon,
on a forgotten present.

Inside open to the sky,
Carpet once blue now faded grey,
Upholstry once crisp now faded,
eaten by time and critters.

A new chrome wrench lies there,
the deck ports open.
Parts and nuts, wires and grease.
The battery charged yet the cable connectors corroded.
An impotent key left with intent in the ignition.

But the hull is clean and white,
shining in the sun,
glowing with promise,
of what will be.

The Zune, Six Months Later ...

My desk typically has this sitting on it. The Russian doll is a software design aid, the cactus is named 'Thorn' and the Buddha/cactus combo reminds me of the Zen required in software engineering.

The Zune, Six Months Later

So I've had this Zune gadget for six months as of a few days ago. I use it almost every day, don't keep it in it's or any case, normally I keep it in the breast pocket of my jacket.

The only accessory purchased for it is a set of BOSE noise canceling headphones (the smaller ones). I would swear that the combination of the Zune and the Bose lets me hear new things in music that I've never noticed before.

It's been a pretty durrable machine. I've dropped it a few times, never on concrete or hard enough to chip it but did bang in hard on the thin carpet over the concrete floor in the office at least twice. Had to reboot it once because of the drop. It seems pretty durrable. No chips or scratchs on the case or the clear screen. Though the battery life seems to be getting shorter a bit I can still get a full day (8 hours) of music play before I need to plug it in.

I have shared music with a college at work and my son. It's nice for a few miniutes but in the end fairly pointless because the music often evaporates before I ever get a chance to listen to it. Much better to exchange CD's with mp3's or loan them the original CD.

Getting podcasts from iTunes makes me happy :) I can get videos and podcast financial radio shows and have a steady stream of new material without having to download something by hand, just subscribe to the free mp3s and new material shows up.

The Zune store stopped working for me. I can still log in but it stopped transfering content up to my Zune, even though I was paying the $16 per month. So I cancelled it. Don't need it.

Thats it in a nutshell, third party accessories are non-existant, one of the reasons I don't use a case is becase I can't get a compact one that is useable. I'm a little concerned about long term battery life but we will see how it holds up at one year.

Bottom line the Zune is fine, it's been updated once which fixed a periodic music pause that would happen infrequently I'd buy it again and am not interested in paying for any music online.