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Archive for the ‘Out and about’

The ocean says hi

March 25, 2013 @ 21:03 By: gordon Category: Out and about, Photography, Travelling

It’s the darndest thing — I was walking along the beach at Riviera Beach in Florida and I’m sure it said “tell the people I say ‘Hi'”, so I pulled out my iPhone and recorded it:

 

A wee bit o’ rain

September 08, 2012 @ 10:55 By: gordon Category: Dragonboats, Out and about, Photography, Weather

Yuck!

September 08, 2012 @ 10:36 By: gordon Category: Dragonboats, Out and about, Weather

So, I’m at the Carleton Place Dragon Boat Festival today and the weather here is rather exciting. It’s been raining almost constantly since we arrived and there have been delays because of lightning. I’ve been watching the Franktown radar and it’s not encouraging.

The aviation forecast for Ottawa is equally bleak:
TAF CYOW 081141Z 0812/0912 14010KT P6SM SCT025 OVC100
TEMPO 0812/0817 4SM -SHRA BR OVC020 PROB40 0813/0815 VRB20G30KT 1SM TSRA BR BKN008 OVC020CB
FM081700 18012G22KT P6SM -SHRA OVC030
TEMPO 0817/0821 5SM -SHRA BR OVC015 PROB40 0817/0821 VRB30G50KT 1SM +TSRA BKN015 OVC030CB
FM082100 25012G22KT P6SM -SHRA OVC025
TEMPO 0821/0901 5SM -SHRA BR OVC020
FM090100 26015G25KT P6SM OVC020
FM090400 28010G20KT P6SM OVC025
FM090900 28010KT P6SM BKN030
RMK NXT FCST BY 081500Z

The 30 gusting to 50 knots winds with heavy thunderstorms forecast for this afternoon will be truly delightful.

Venus transiting the Sun

June 05, 2012 @ 22:15 By: gordon Category: Astronomy, Out and about, Photography

imageI decided to ride my bike to the pub trivia session this evening so that I could hopefully see Venus transiting the Sun, something it won’t do again until 2117.

My setup was very simple: my Canon SD850IS point-and-shoot and a piece of #14 welder’s glass.

Basically, I held the #14 glass in front of the lens and hoped for the best. The challenge was getting the camera to focus properly. I was happily surprised to see that the first picture I took was the best one. Other than cropping the image, I haven’t done any processing or enhancement.

If you look closely, you can see the little disc of Venus just clockwise of of the 12 o’clock position. The photo was taken at 18:18 Eastern, which was about 9 minutes after the start of the transit.

V from V for Vendetta apparently ran a minus 10k race

May 28, 2012 @ 12:38 By: gordon Category: Out and about, Photography

I went through my photos of the 10k race on Saturday last night, looking for some people I knew. I found my friends, but I also came across V from V for Vendetta in the crowd:

And a bit closer:

You have to admire his dedication because he was running backwards:

It must have been a bit disconcerting for the people following him to have him facing them. Gotta love the people who add a bit of colour to the races, eh?

Ottawa Race Weekend 2012 10k race: 2 km to go

May 27, 2012 @ 13:53 By: gordon Category: Out and about, Photography

Here’s the timelapse video I put together of the runners in the 10k race passing Pretoria Bridge about 2 km from the finish.

Check out my time lapse video of the runners passing the 2km point on their way out.

Ottawa Race Weekend 10k race: Outbound in about 45 seconds

May 27, 2012 @ 13:21 By: gordon Category: Out and about, Photography

I headed out to Pretoria Bridge yesterday to watch the 10k race. In addition to taking a lot of shots of the runners that I still have to process, I had my point-and-shoot set up on a tripod taking pictures every 15 seconds.

Here are the runners as they pass by heading away from the start, compressed into about 45 seconds:

I’ve put together a similar video of their return on the way to the finish, which Youtube is currently processing. I’ll post a link to it here when it’s ready. has finished processing. Check it out here.