A Cold Day

This photo of Jay Peak was taken at an elevation of 530 feet (161.5 meters). The wind chill at the time I took the photo: -31°F (-35°C); actual temperature -4°F (-20°C). Jay Peak is at 3858 feet (1176 meters). I can imagine what the wind chill was like up there. The cloud that you see there isn't. It is blowing snow. If you click on the photo you can see it full size in a new window.

Technorati tags: Technorati Tags: Jay Peak, Vermont 

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Jay Peak

Jay Peak Tram

We've been so busy on this holiday week that I am way behind in my postings. Monday, July 2, we went to Jay Peak to scope out the ski trails. Once there, Wingnut took the tram to the summit. I gave Wingnut my camera and he took the two photos that follow. A tourist took the two photos of Wingnut at the summit.

The view on the way up. You can see the descending tram going down on the left.

Summit terrain (3,968 ft or 1,209 m)

Wingnut in front of the trail sign.

Sign showing the way to Montreal, Lake Memphremagog, Owl's Head (a Canadian ski area just north of Troy and Newport), Mt. Mansfield-Stowe, and Lake Champlain.

Since I don't enjoy heights, I gladly stayed below and read my book outside at a picnic table.

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Fledgling Robin at Jay Peak

We were walking around the ski lodge at Jay Peak when Wingnut spied this baby robin in the grass. We had almost stepped on it. I'm glad Wingnut's eyes are sharp.

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Photo Hunters: Hobby

My new hobby: photography. I enjoy playing with effects with different software. While preparing this post I found a new way to make a banner for my blog: using Image Tricks crop and gamma adjustment. In the future, I will finish this banner and use GIMP to make the final size adjustments. For these photos, I used three days of photos of Jay Peak in Vermont taken on April 10, 11 and 12, 2007 in different light and clouds. All photos were taken from the same spot on the road.

Under each photo I have sparse notes of the software and perhaps the effect that I used. At the end of this post is a linked list of the software. Each link and each photo link will open a new window. You can also go to my Flickr set that I created to collect this work.

This was great fun for the afternoon that I was snowed in (Thursday afternoon, April 12; we are still having winter here).

April 12, 2007

April 11, 2007

April 10, 2007

picnik with vignette and other effects

bloom effect on Image Tricks

circular splash on Image Tricks

flickr toys and ImageWell

ImageWell with black canvas and crop

ImageWell with black canvas and Apple's Grab

flickr toys

flickr toys

flickr toys

Image Tricks Kaleidoscope

Software used:

ImageWell
Image Tricks
iPhoto
Grab
GIMP
picnik.com
flickr toys
dumpr.net
krazydad.com

I can't wait to learn about the hobbies that other people have. Have a great week! I will, I'm going to be on spring break, with or without spring!

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Signs of Spring, Signs of Winter, and MSIE Blues

Jay Peak on April 10, 2007 as seen from Rt. 105, North Troy, VT

I had my own personal sign of spring today: Buddy's first kill. He went out in the dark at 5AM this morning, as usual. It was snowing (of course) and cold. Two hours later when I drove the car out of the garage, a cloud of beautiful downy feathers flew around outside the car. I stopped and looked: bird parts were all over the roof of the car. So despite the weather, Buddy was able to kill. No wonder he was exceptionally happy coming in this morning.

Sights on my drive this morning: a flock of turkeys that flew away as I came near. Flew! And rather high, too, and for quite a distance. I've seen them awkwardly flutter short distances before, but never fly like this. There was no chance for me to photograph them. Then there were three deer following a trail in the woods (again, no photo), and a small group of Canadian geese paddling in a Missisquoi-flooded field. (Update: they may not be geese afterall).

Microsoft Internet Explorer, any version, does not display my blog properly. The right hand column shows up on the bottom of the left hand column. If anybody knows how (or if) I can remedy this, please let me know. Why can't Microsoft be like Safari and Firefox?

Most disappointing: we are on another winter storm watch for Thursday. There were rumors all day in school about it with people disputing it and expressing dismay. It is possible that we will get another six inches of snow. This is depressing me. Spring vacation is next week and it's looking more like December and February vacations with over one foot of snow on the ground everywhere.

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