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Sunday Driving

October 3, 2005

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Up until a few minutes ago I had great plans to make some sort of shiny template for my photo-centric posts. Well, likely due to the carbohydrates currently making me feel sluggish, I’m just not up for that. So I’ll offer a quick summary of my day yesterday, and this (photo gallery retired) link to a bunch of photos taken then.

I had initially left my house hoping to visit Bloomer Park in Rochester Hills and wander along the Clinton River to the former crossing of the Huron Clinton Canal, but with the $6 entrance fee, I decided to skip it. I drove Bloomer road west, eventually ending up in downtown Rochester, at which point I decided to head north. I wasn’t sure of where I was going, but I figured I’d end up someplace interesting.

And… I did. While driving north on Rochester Road, after passing through some quite drastic construction I came across a fireman standing in the middle of the road, stopping traffic. As I passed I realized that it was because the Oakland Township fire department was having their yearly open house. I turned around, parked, and went to take a look at what all was being offered. Well, there was quite a bit to see, including a demonstration of various hydraulic tools being used to cut, pry, or otherwise disassemble vehicles in which people have been trapped.

After that I headed over to downtown Lake Orion (don’t ask me how I got there) and found that there is a dam beneath M-24. Then I headed north on M-24, and somehow a while later I found myself at Big Fish Lake in the Ortonville State Recreation Area. I wandered around there taking pictures, then I headed over to Round Lake where I did some more wandering alone in the woods.

Oh, I forgot to mention this, but it seems that yesterday was the start of bow hunting season for deer. Whoops… Probably not the best time to be wandering along in the woods. Ah well, I’m still alive.

After visiting Round Lake, I headed west and came across the Ortonville Bridle / Snowmobile Trails, where I did a bit of wandering on what were clearly marked as horse trails before getting back in the car. Then I headed a bit further west (I think) and stumbled across Eaton Cemetery where I poked around for a bit and took photos of almost every headstone there.

After Eaton Cemetery I headed a bit south, eventually happening upon Bloomer #3, where I did a bit more wandering before I suddenly had pangs of nearly-passing-out-ness from low blood sugar. At that point I turned my car and headed towards home.

Ending up in downtown Ortonville (I think) I stopped off at a place called Frosty Boy and picked up (after a lengthy wait) a medium vanilla ice cream cone in order to tide me over. Needless to say, it was quickly eaten. Feeling a bit re energized, noticing signs for Indian Springs Metropark, and having a Metroparks pass on my car, I decided to pay this new (to me) metropark a visit.

It turns out that this park is located almost right next to NOAA DTX (Detroit / Pontiac) location. This was pretty made pretty obvious by the looming white radar dome in the distance. Oh, and this park seems really promising as well. There is a new Environmental Discovery Center being built there which will even have what appears to be an acrylic dome stretching off the back of the building into a pond of sorts. This could be really cool.

Beyond the Environmental Discovery Center, there is also some rather interesting playground and waterpark equipment, including what, from a distance, looks to be a prison camp. Yes, it is a large maze constructed of cyclone fence, complete with observation platform. It’s a bit foreboding, a bit frightening, and also extremely cool. I can’t wait to see it once it’s done.

After poking around Indian Springs, the waning sunlight told me it was time to head home, so off I went to the Rochester Hills Meijer in order to get some Lazychili ingredients. It’s good, but I think I made it a wee bit too spicy… Ah well, I may just have to make up a pot of rice and eat the chili over rice. < shrug > At least it’s good.

Beyond coming home, making the chili, emailing a (likely overly lenghty) reply to , uploading photos, watching an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and enjoying both a Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale and a Speakeasy Prohibition Ale, that’s all I did with my night. Quite a busy, relaxing, fun, fulfilling day. :)

(Hrm, those looked like much longer, better paragraphs with all the markup in there. Ah well.)

Cider…

October 3, 2005

Well, the telltale ring of foam has appeared on the surface of the fermenting cider, indicating the yeast is just about to break the growing vs. eating threshold. I’d expect that when I get home there should be a goodly layer of foam (still not sure if it is called krausen on cider) on the surface. Yay!

Oh, the ring is — I believe — caused by the initial dosing of yeast settling in the lowest point of the carboy, a ring about 2″ in from the outside wall, all along the bottom. Then as it takes just gets going, the most wee bubbles come from this area, producing a ring of foam on the surface of the cider. After that, it’ll become a wholly roiling mass of yeast and CO₂ and juice and other things, as described previously.

Unfortunately with the start of the fermentation comes the inevitable sulfur smell. That makes it smell a bit ass-y in the basement. Literally.

At least it’s expected.

beer moved from livejournal

Oakland Township FD Open House

October 3, 2005

Okay, so I was going to hold off until tomorrow (well, later today, I guess) to post any of these, but there is something I really like about this photo. I’m not so sure if I’m happy with the cropping, but I do think that it may be the most wholesome, wholly American (whatever that means) photo that I’ve taken in some time. And for some reason I feel a bit proud of this shot. It’s actually a candid that came out well and such. I wish I could somehow get this photo to the kid’s parents. Maybe I’ll just somehow get a print or digital of it to the fire station.

Oh, this was taken when I stopped by the Oakland Township Fire Department’s open house. I was heading north on Rochester Road and came across this and figured that I’d stop and see what was going on there. In the picture above the fireman is showing the kid how to use a wee fire hose in order to push a ball across a field and between some traffic cones.

There will be other pictures — including those of a Geo Prizm (yes, quite similar to the one I had way back when) being cut up — a bit later. Probably tomorrow, although I’m also wanting to write basic HTML template for all multi-image posts to LJ, which will take some more time.

With regards to the new template, I’m thinking maybe one large image with text below it (similar to what I currently do) but with smaller thumbnail images down a column on the right? It’ll give it more flash… It’d be similar to this ad for the iSight Tripod Adapters but… better.

Anyway, now that it’s a good ways past my bed time, I think I should get to sleep. Goodnight.

moved from livejournal outdoors

Hard Cider, Batch Two

October 1, 2005

At 1:55pm today I pitched one vial of White Labs English Cider Yeast (WLP775) into about five and one half gallons of juice to be fermented into hard cider. This juice mixture contains the following:

Five Gallons Yates’ Apple Cider (fresh juice, for non-US people)
Three Fourths of One Pound of Lactose
One Cup of (mostly) Dark Amber Grade B Maple Syrup
Two Cups of Unfiltered Honey from Honeyflow Farm in Dryden, MI
Five Teaspoons of Yeast Nutrient
Two and One Half Teaspoons of Yeast Energizer

Yes, this is pretty much the same as before, except I’m not going to add spices to this batch. I figure that since cider is only available fresh this time of the year, making 10 gallons would be smart, as it should keep for a while. This way I’ll also get some variety in flavor. Hopefully it doesn’t suck. :)

For the record, the OG of this batch was right about 1.070. I think that’s because there were less solid bits of sugar in the honey this time.

Mmm. Now to enjoy this Boss Coffee (regular double roast one) and hope that hiking this afternoon pans out.

Hmm, it seems that I can get raw honey for $1.50/lb from Honeyflow Farms. I think I should make some mead…

beer moved from livejournal

AT&T Alascom

September 30, 2005

Systems like this (warning, PDF) are why I find systems like AT&T Alascom impressive. Hell, I remember some of the events on this timeline, especially the 1996 install of the 4ESS, which I noticed when phone calls to Alaska stopped having the CHIRP-CHIRP sound before and after connecting. This is the same sound heard during Pink’s phone call home in Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Also, before then it was possible to leave one of the phones off the hook for hours and the phone on the other end would be completely unavailable and remain connected. I remember this being a problem when I’d fall asleep while on the phone and leave my end open for a few hours… Whoops…

Man, and with the US$400 – US$500 phone bills I was racking up in 1996, that’s more than my current house payment when adjusted for increased wages and inflation.

Anyway, yeah, I find AT&T Alascom damn impressive. I mean, hell, look at all those interconnected points across the state.

Oh, in this photo one can just barely see an AT&T Alascom microwave repeater on top of the mountain. This is very likely the Tern Lake repeater, or possibly the Cooper Landing one.

found things moved from livejournal

μziq

September 28, 2005

Did you ever find yourself in the keyboard section of K-Mart as a little kid, banging three keys listening to how the sound changed as you moved your head around? Not listening for the melody, but for the swirling sounds as the overdriven speaker in the Casio bounced sound off of the shelf, the ceiling, and whatever else was around?

Maybe it’s just me. I still love noisescapes, though.

I need to build another synth.

electronics moved from livejournal music

iPod Camera Connector

September 26, 2005

Well, the iPod camera connector is a lot smarter than I originally thought. After a bunch of poking around with a multimeter, it appears to do the following:

– Pass the USB GND, DATA+, and DATA- signals straight through to the dock connector.
– Bump up the +3.3VDC that the iPod provides on dock pin 18 to +5VDC in order to power the camera / memory card reader that is attached. (This, along with the disk access, explains the horrible battery life experienced when using the reader.)
– Somehow flip pin 21 to a value (10k? — perhaps in the presence of power?) which indicates that a photo adapter is connected. I was unable to establish this value.

Also, the connector is glued shut, so I’m unable to open it without trashing it. I guess I’ll take it back as soon as I get confirmation that the external hard drive memory card reader device that I’m looking at is shipping to me.

< sigh >

Yet another disappointment… It’s too bad I just spent $24 on ten iPod dock connectors. I hope they come in handy for other things…

Any friends want custom car adapters? Like, iPod dock to tape deck or car charger or something?

computers electronics moved from livejournal

Jesus Juice

September 23, 2005

[Cross posted to and …]

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Well, as of a week ago I had been making hard cider. Now I think I’ve realized that I’ve made a whole different beast… For I tried a sip of it when I was racking it, just to see how it was coming along, and despite being extremely tasty, it made me a bit light headed.

So with racking the cider into the secondary fermenter I added spices. To the five gallons of cider which were put to ferment with two cups of honey and one cup of grade ‘b’ maple syrup I added the following:

· 11g cinnamon sticks, broken
· 3g nutmeg (one whole, crushed)
· 4g whole cloves
· 3g whole allspice
· 11g dried orange peel

Hopefully those spices will polish off the cider and make it oh-so-wonderful. We’ll just have to see… Oh, I’ve also got two photos of the spices floating up into the neck of the carboy here and here. I’m not sure which I liked more, so I just uploaded them both.

If you’d like to see the rest of the photos, they can all be seen here or you can look at the (recently updated) recipe here.

beer moved from livejournal

USB 2.0 High Speed CF Reader

September 23, 2005

Does anyone here have a USB 2.0 Compact Flash reader which I could borrow / buy / have? I’m specifically looking for one that is extremely low profile, somewhat similar to this. I’ve found them on eBay from the UK, but I need one here. :\

Oh, I got one of the iPod photo adapters, and based on a test of 185MB of photos copying in just around seven minutes, I should be able to do a full gig in around 45. Well, that’s straight off the camera… I’d like to use just the reader and the iPod in order to save the batteries in the camera.

Thanks!

acquired things computers moved from livejournal

iSight Tripod Adapters For Sale

September 19, 2005

iSight Tripod Adapters For Sale
US$30 Shipped ^†

As I’ve posted about here in the past, I’ve been manufacturing some adapters which allow one to mount an Apple iSight on a normal camera tripod. Well, they are finally finished and available for sale.

A few months ago I was desperately looking for a way to mount my iSight on a camera tripod so that I could take stop motion video out my window. Well, there seemed to be no commercial options available beyond a simple, and quite expensive, plastic clip which required one to provide their own Firewire cable. In order to resolve this need, I went into my workshop and built something better. Becuase of the interest in the adapters after I showed them off around here, I decided to make some for sale.

As these were hand made by me in my workshop, they are limited to a quantity of 39 pieces for sale. At this point I have no plans to make additional pieces beyond this first run.

Anyway, I’ve personally hand-made these adapters to meet my needs, and they include the following features:

· 15′ Firewire Cable
· 1/4-20 Threaded Base (Standard Tripod Mount)
· Solid construction from impact-resistant plastic

All of these adapters have been tested and are assured to work. So buy one, fire up your favorite iSight-compatible software (iChat AV, QuickTime Pro, EvoCam, etc), point the camera at whatever you’d like to record, and (thanks to the 15′ cable) leave your Mac a safe distance away.

Be it watching the world out the window, keeping an eye on the pets, seeing who is coming in the door, or anything more personal, these iSight Tripod Adapters finally allow you to point your iSight wherever you want!

Along the right side are photos of the adapter in a few positions. Click those images for larger copies, or click on here (photo gallery retired) for a bunch of pictures of these adapters. Please note that the tripod and tripod bracket are pictured for illustrative purposes only. This sale is for one adapter with integrated cable. The additional hardware is pictured because I want to show how the adapter can be used with a standard tripod.

So, if you’d like one, go ahead and click the button down below to send payment (US$30) and I’ll get your new iSight Tripod Adapter shipped out to you right away.

If the button is missing, I have sold out of the adapters. Sorry!

^† US addresses, PO Boxes, and Military Addresses Only. Please contact me for international shipping rates before sending payment.

electronics making things moved from livejournal