Scaredy Cat Films - Archive 2009

Photos from the whole trip are available on my are available in my Flickr photo gallery.

I've been working a little this holiday weekend to document my trip with my dad to florida to view the NASA STS-129 Atlantis space launch. I have the Day 1 photos and description of our trip to the Kennedy Visitor Center and Up-Close tour.

Photos from the whole trip are available on my are available in my Flickr photo gallery.

I had a little time this afternoon to play with some of the photos we have taken recently. I have some pictures to share from Tracy's trip to Millinocket Maine to visit her grandparents, and from my trip to Letchworth State park to try and see some fall foliage (or foilage as Marge Simpson calls it). I was a bit late to see the best fall colors, but it was 65 degrees and sunny at the end of October, so I wasn't complaining. Tracy took some really great panoramic photos from up in Maine. They are viewable in the panoramic photo gallery.

Upper Falls at letchworth State Park in Infrared (Read more about Infrared Cameras)

Letchworth Park Mosaic - I pieced this together with multiple shots with multiple opacity, kinda fun

Now here is one of the neat panoramic photos Tracy took in Maine. Every winter Ambajejus Lake near Millinocket Maine has its water drained. If you look carefully at this photo, you can see Mount Khatadin in the background, bottles used as floats to protect boaters from submerged rocks, a green pickup truck on the beach, and the green "sea wall" that denotes the beach area. Also note the fantastic fall colors.

I took these photos of Monkey in the sunshine a few weeks ago, and they came out pretty good.

I'm still having fun with our new camera, and I saw this grasshopper on the way out the door the other morning. So what better way to test out the extreme zoom than to try this...

Vacation mode? Hah! I've been working myself to death producing an online game website. The website offers our first game - 'Running Back Rampage'. Here's the details:

Running Back Rampage is a free fantasy football sports game where each week you pick a running back that you think will rush for 100 yards or more. If you get it right, then you are on a streak and will need to pick a different player the next week to rush for 100 yards or more. How many weeks can you keep your streak alive? The longer your streak, the more points you will receive.

Honestly, I have no idea how this is going to work out. Will I exceed my bandwidth, will nobody play, will I crash servers, will only 1 person be able to play at a time? We'll see. We'll see. I hope it works out though. I used all my skills that I learned from producing web sites at work for hundreds of users, so a fantasy football website shouldn't be too hard, should it?

Well August is traditionally a vacation month, and so far this month I've been to Saratoga twice and spent a week in the Adirondack Mountains near Tupper Lake. Too many photos to handle. For now I will direct those interested in seeing Horse Photos from Saratoga to view them in my Flickr Gallery.

I have added a few photos to the Infrared Photo Gallery as well, including this image of a snake sunning itself on a dock in the Adirondacks.

I am optimistic towards the future when I listen to the lyrics of "These Days" by REM:

The walkway to the house came out so good that we decided to have the cracked patio removed this year too. Here are some photos of the work. The concrete that was removed had no layer of rocks to prevent frost heave damage. It is surprising that it actually lasted as long as it did. You can see with the new patio that an area several feet deep was excavated to support the new stone patio.

One thing I wanted to do with this web site, is offer up some software tips if I ever feel I have anything to offer the community. So here we go, I needed to write a function in cold fusion that would return the number of weekdays that passed between two date. Cold Fusion seemed to have this function built into a previous version, but it was removed recently. So here's what I came up with:

<CFFUNCTION name="getWeekdaysDiff" output="false" description="Returns number of weekdays in a time period" access="remote" returntype="numeric">
  <CFARGUMENT name="startDate" required="yes" type="date">
  <CFARGUMENT name="endDate" required="yes" type="date">

  <CFSET week1 = WEEK(startDate)>
  <CFSET week2 = WEEK(endDate)>

  
  <CFIF week2 LTE week1>
    <CSET yearDiff = DatePart("YYYY",endDate) - DatePart("YYYY",startDate)>
    <CFSET week2 = week2 + (#yearDiff# * 52)>
  </CFIF>

  <CFSET dateRange = (dateDiff("d",#startDate#,#endDate#) - ((week2-week1)*2)) + 1>
  <CFIF dayOfweek(startDate) EQ 1>
    <CFSET dateRange = #dateRange# - 1>
  </CFIF>

  <CFIF dayOfWeek(endDate) EQ 7>
    <CFSET dateRange = #dateRange# - 1>
  </CFIF>

  
  <CFIF #dateRange# LT 0>
    <CFSET dateRange = 0>
  </CFIF>

  <CFRETURN dateRange>
</CFFUNCTION>

Cold Fusion does some really funky stuff regarding when it considers a week to have changed, that's why we need to subtract days for saturdays and sundays. Hope this helps someone. I plan to place this code in a new menu item for code snippets at some point.

A Wonderful day at Winterthur
May 23RD, 2009

We went to Winterthur Gardens and Mansion this Spring as part of the Celebration of Life for Jay Powell. It was a beautiful day, and the gardens were spectacular. The Azaleas were in full bloom, and the grounds around the estate were beautiful. It was a wonderful day, a fitting way to remember Jay, and a day I hope not to forget. View all the images in the photo gallery page.


Pink Azaleas in Bloom at Winterthur Photographed: 05-16-2009 Camera: Canon SD7000IS	Azaleas and the Mansion at Winterthur Photographed: 05-16-2009 Camera: Canon SD7000IS	The Mansion at Winterthur Photographed: 05-16-2009 Camera: Canon SD7000IS

Tent Ho!
May 23RD, 2009

Last fall while backpacking in the Adirondacks we came across an abandoned tent. I decided that if I was going to be hiking around with a 50 pound pack on my back that I wanted more of a reward for my efforts, and not owning my own tent, decided to pack this one out with me. I didn't know if it had all the pieces, and this May I finally got it set up to check it out. Its pretty nice, a three man tent, although I doubt you would really want to cram three adults in there. But hey, free tent!

Doing Our Part
May 22ND, 2009

Well Tracy and I keep doing our part to jumpstart the economy, so here's some photos of the new floor we had installed this week. Mouse over each image for before and afters...

New Walkway
May 3RD, 2009

This April we finally got around to having a new front walkway installed at our house. It came out really nice looking. Here are the before and after photos.

Old Walkway with Paving Stones

New Brick Walkway

Walkway Design

For those Army Enthusiasts
March 31ST, 2009

For those of you that enjoyed my earlier IR photographs of tanks, here are a few more I scared up from 2008.


Sherman Tank from a Military museum in State College PA.	Same Sherman Tank in Infrared (with unfortunate lens flare). You can see that there is no specific application of infrared paint.


Static display from East Millinocket Maine.	Same tank in the Infrared Spectrum. Three camouflage colors are clearly visible. I thought the birch tree in the background showed up quite nicely as well.


This is a Russian T-72 tank brought home to the US from Baghdad. It is a static display at a nearby Reserve Facility.	T-72 in the infrared spectrum. Not sure if IR paint was not needed for the desert environment?


Pennsylvania Military Museum in Infrared. The multi-colored campaign ribbons that adorn the facade represent a great demonstration of how what appears as colors, changes in the IR spectrum.	Similar photo from the IR perspective. Notice the colors are effectively lost for the campaign ribbons.

Well, I hope you enjoyed these photos of how some military vehicles appear in the IR spectrum.

Interesting Infrared Effects
March 16TH, 2009

I am always on the look out for interesting things to photograph in infrared. Here are a couple interesting effects that I noticed after taking a few photos this weekend. One was expected, the other was a bit of a surprise. The color photos were taken with a Canon Powershot SD850 IS, and the Infrared photos were taken with a Kodak EasyShare V550 with the infrared blocking filter removed and a new filter put in place to block visible light.


This is a photograph of my new 2009 Toyota Camry. Notice that the windows are not tinted. This photograph was taken in the Finger Lakes region on a sunny day around 2pm.	Notice in the near-visible infrared spectrum, the windows appear tinted. I believe that the windows have a slight Infrared-Resistant coating, or component to the glass. Perhaps to reduce glare.


This is a photograph of a camouflage tank outside the VFW north of Naples, NY. Notice the camouflaged paint visible to the naked eye.	Notice in the near-visible infrared spectrum, the tank still appears camouflaged. The paint was made with special properties to retain its concealment even in the infrared spectrum. Because color as we see it exists in the visible spectrum, if this tank were painted with standard brown and green paints it would appear as one solid color in the infrared spectrum.


The visible spectrum tank converted to Black and White. Interesting how the camouflage is now less noticeable.	Black and White tank inverted.

I knew the tank would appear as neat as it does from my knowledge of military history and a paper I wrote long ago on camouflage techniques, but the infrared glass on the car was a bit of a surprise. I didn't expect it to appear as "visible" as it did.

Welcome to the 'New Kid'
February 26TH, 2009

We've had a new addition to our family of cameras here, my new Canon Rebel 40D. It just came in the mail this week, and I am looking forward to putting in some significant effort into learning how to use it. I am really excited. It just dwarfs the other cameras we own.

New Kid Canon 40D
Yeah, its the Biiig One

This won't be the end of the other cameras, no sir. I'll still have my handheld Canon Powershot with me almost all the time. But man, the 3" LCD on the SLR is almost as big as the whole pocket sized powershot. Jeesh, this is gonna be fun!

Took this photo of a titmouse outside the house today. Two of them were hopping over to the feeder and back to the tree grabbing one seed at a time. No it wasn't taken with the new camera, it was taken with my trusty Canon G6. Its a canon family...

Tufted Titmouse

Hey, its not the best photo in the world, but its a nice bird, that's for sure.

What have I been Up To?
February 14TH, 2009

Well, no updates for 2 months. What have I been up to? Well I will tell you. I have been working to create two websites to store the content from the Adena Springs Racing Venture 2 and 3 that we belong to. I decided to create two separate dedicated sites for the information. That way I can keep this site more dedicated to our own goings on and happenings, and the new sites exclusive to horse racing. The new sites are up and running and available via links in the menu bar at right, as well as using the banners below.

What else have we been up to? Well Tracy and I decided to do our part for the economy by buying a new car. My first car, that I owned for almost 12 years, finally wasn't worth the expense to keep it running. A 1995 2 Door Camry with 183,600 miles on it. It was my first car and I will always love it. But we have now moved on, and purchased a new camry. Picture to come soon.

Toyota Camry
I'll always have many fond memories of my first car...

Wise Words...
December 6TH, 2008

I've accumulated a rather large collection of odd fortunes from chinese fortune cookies, so I thought I would share them with you. These are real fortunes that I received in restaurants.

Every truly great accomplishment is at first impossible	Financial hardship in your life is coming to an end. Enjoy!
Keep on charging the enemy so long as there is life.	Digital circuits are made from analog parts.
Someone from your past has returned to steal your heart.	Be cautious while walking in darkness alone.
Fortune said a palm can say a lot, especially when it smacks you.	Your success will astonish everyone.
Someone will invite you to a Karaoke party.	The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that extra.
A depression is when you lose yours.	Depend on the predictability and steadiness of life to support you!
Here we go. Low fat, whole wheat green tea.	You'll accomplish more later if you have a little fun this weekend.
It takes all sorts to make up the world.	Keep your plans secret for now.
There is a good chance of a romantic encounter soon.	There is a prospect of a thrilling time ahead for you.
If your cookie is in 3 pieces, the answer is no. (The cookie WAS broken)	You will inherit a large sum of money.
You love Chinese food.	Next time, order the shrimp.
You love sports, horses and gambling but not to excess.	May you grow rich.
If you love something, set it free.. if it returns, keep it and love it forever.	Made in the USA
You're transforming yourself into someone who is certain to succeed.	Conquer your fears. Otherwise, your fears will conquer you.
Good luck is often with the man who doesn't include it in his plans.	Life enrich from seeking, not from sitting.
A danger forseen is half avoided.	Relationships is like fingers of you hand. "One" cannot do much.
Loser's visualize the penalties of failure. Winners visualize the rewards of success.	It's good that life is not as serious as it seems to the waiter.
When more becomes too much. It's same as being not enough.	A real friend asks to spend time with you, not money.
You will be singled out for promotion.	Accept the next proposition you hear.
A new wardrobe brings great joy and change to your life.

And there you have it, wise advice from the cookie sages...

Big Disappointment at the Big A - Aqueduct Racetrack for the Cigar Mile
November 29TH, 2008

I'd been looking forward to going to Aqueduct for the Cigar Mile for a few months. I was really surprised to see Harlem Rocker as the morning line 15-1 long shot. But I felt good because I knew there was money to be made. I met some friends in NY for the day and saw a couple other HR fans there too. The race was amazing, and we were ecstatic to see Harlem Rocker win. Then the racing stewards took it away and place Harlem Rocker second. What a fine animal Harlem Rocker is. View more images and read about my trip to Aqueduct in the photo gallery page.


Harlem Rocker in the Paddock Photographed: 11-29-2008 Camera: Canon SD850IS	Eibar Coa on Harlem Rocker Photographed: 11-29-2008 Camera: Canon SD850IS	Harlem Rocker Winning the Cigar Mile Photographed: 11-29-2008 Camera: Canon SD850IS

Where Did The Rest Go?

Where are the rest of the stories? Well, they are in the archives page. See the bottom section of the Menu at right. Periodically, the older stories on ScaredyCatFilms will be moved to the archive section. Moves like this will occur periodically as the content on the home page beocmes too great..