That’s right, we rode the tandem to work today. Even though Tropical Storm Hannah has weakened and there was only a 30% chance of rain we still got slightly damp on the ride home.
Hannah also played havoc with the MMC’s scheduled trip to the Food Lion Auto Fair in Charlotte, NC. The Club (and I use that term loosely) had planned on going to the Spring version earlier this year, but it was going to be a rainy day, so we canceled and rescheduled to go to the fall version. Well, somebody is trying to tell us something, like don’t go, because there is a 60% chance of rain there tomorrow too.
If it was only, say an hour away, we might have taken a chance, but to get there it is at least 2-1/2 hours which is just too long a trip to end up in the rain.
We rode the tandem to work today and the Emperor spent the day in the air conditioned luxury of the garage at home. The ride in was great, because it is our early week we started riding at a few minutes before 5:30 AM, there was zero traffic and the temperature was 70° with a little bit of fog. The ride home wasn’t too bad, even though it was sunny and 90°.
Donna and I took our usual walks around the perimeter of the parking lot all three times today and each and every time we came to the far corner I would see that empty parking spot and for an instant wonder what happened to the car.
We rode the tandem to work today because it was the first day this week that the afternoon rain chance was less than 50%. I mounted the camera on the Photojojo BikeCam and off we went.
It was still dark when we started, so the first couple of shots were nothing more than a lot of dark with a vague yellow headlight “shadow” in the middle of the frame. The ones at the finish were lit well enough, but uninteresting. The best of the bunch, at least I think so, was the photo above from the middle of the journey where was just enough light to tell it is morning, but not enough to set a fast shutter speed.
Kind of an impressionist view of our commute.
This used to be my Windows wallpaper, until the 6th inning of tonight’s game when the Angels scored 5 runs. The FRS dropped 2 of 3 to the MFY over the weekend and it looks like they are going to be swept by LA in this 3 game series. Both Tampa and NY won earlier today, so in just a few more minutes the Red Sox will be three games out of first and only one game ahead of the Yanks. Oh, well, at least I’m not a Braves fan (sorry Mark.)
Even though it was Thursday, it was the last day of our work week, so we rode the tandem in. Because it was our nine hour day we needed to be into work an hour earlier, so the alarm went off at 4:45AM. FYI, even though the days are still quite long because of the season it is very dark at half past five in the morning, but we have a red strobing tail light and a nice bright battery powered headlight so we can see and be seen.
After work I mounted the camera in the Photojojo BikeCam Mount and documented our 6-1/2 mile ride home. I took 42 pictures and uploaded them to Flickr. You can watch a slideshow by clicking HERE. Once it opens up, click on the i in the circle so you can read along. If you are not from around here most of the comments won’t mean anything, but hey, reading them might distract you from the fact that they might be tilted or blurry. (Did I mention that they are totally unedited in any way?) Tomorrow I’ll work on placing them on a google map so you can see the route. (Can’t hardly wait, can you?)
Tried out Version 1.1 my Photojojo BikeCam tonight. The lock washer helped because the clamp around the handlebar didn’t come loose at all during our nearly 12 mile neighborhood jaunt. But, you just knew a but was coming didn’t ya, the camera still had a tendency to rotate from facing straight forward. My guess is because this doesn’t work like a real tripod, i.e. the screw doesn’t bottom out in the camera’s tripod socket, no matter how much you tighten it, it is still going to rotate.
Because the camera is off center on the handlebars, the tripod mount is off center, the camera is sticking up at the end of a 2″ long screw, the tires have 90p.s.i. in them and the roads are not real smooth, 90% of the images I’ve taken so far have been blurry. Even the un-blurry ones aren’t what you’d call photographs (snapshots maybe), so what is going to let the world know you are taking these pictures on a moving bicycle and are not just snapped by someone from another planet who has never even heard of photography?
You include the bicycle. If you look at the very bottom of the first picture you can see a shadow of my helmeted head. Not real obvious. When life hands you lemons, you should make some Mike’s Hard Lemonade. When the camera kept rotating bit by bit, an idea popped into my head, why not rotate it nearly 90° and include some of my hand/arm. I think ideally I should figure out how mount the camera in a vertical manner and using the widest angle available include just a bit of the front tire. Maybe I can work that out with my Gorilla Pod.