Month: November 2012

Monday (05-November-2012) — New Jersey

Hurricane Sandy Aftermath: Day Seven — Halloween and a Home Cooked Meal.

Last week the Gubernator canceled Halloween due to Hurricane Sandy. By Gubernator order Halloween was rescheduled for today in Montgomery Township. No one came by, even though I had my Habanero pepper surprises ready to give out. For several years the local trick-or-treat folks stopped by for my hot peppers.

Day 8: ANPAT 12 Day 1 - Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta (David J Mathre)
Day 8: ANPAT 12 Day 1 – Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta (David J Mathre)

I normally don’t do food reviews, but was intrigued by something that I saw at the local grocery store today. The fish department was pretty sparse with fresh fish post Hurricane Sandy, but I did see a Cedar Planked Atlantic Salmon in their frozen display. I took one home (orange & ginger flavored) to try it out. I’ve done salmon on cedar before and liked the taste that cedar smoke can add. I defrosted the salmon on the cedar plank and removed it from its shrink wrapped plastic packaging (image below). I cooked it in my oven per the directions (preheated oven at 425 °F for ~15 minutes). The house filled with the smell of the cedar burning — some smoke, but not enough to set the smoke detectors off. When I took the plank out of the oven, the cedar plank was noticeably burnt/black — but the salmon looked good (image below). The salmon did have a good smoked taste, but was a bit too sweet. When I went back to check the list of ingredients, sugar was #2 after Atlantic Salmon.

Cedar Bay Salmon (before cooking). Image taken with a Leica V-Lux 30 camera. (David J Mathre)
Cedar Bay Salmon (before cooking). Image taken with a Leica V-Lux 30 camera. (David J Mathre)
Cedar Bay Salmon (after cooking). Image taken with a Leica V-Lux 30 camera. (David J Mathre)
Cedar Bay Salmon (after cooking). Image taken with a Leica V-Lux 30 camera. (David J Mathre)

Six-Years Ago (05-November-2006) — New Jeresy

Backyard Autumn Night Sky in New Jersey.

Moonlit night sky with the clouds rolling in.


Four images taken with a Nikon D2xs and 17-55 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 17 mm, f/2.8, 6 sec)

Sunday (04-November-2012) — New Jersey

Hurricane Sandy Aftermath: Day 6 — Power Restored.

I am happy! Power to the house was restored yesterday. When I woke up this morning, power was still on and the house was warm. With the time change, the sun was just coming up through my bedroom window rather than getting up in the dark. I’m thinking of having a Sunday roast chicken dinner with lots of garlic.

With the power restored, I restarted the backup of my server and image collection. I was finally able to start reviewing and process images from the New Mexico trip. One teaser image is of Noah’s Ark from the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.

The Drobo disk array where I store my images started beeping. The error message told me the storage space was nearly full and that I needed to add some bigger hard drives. We will see how long this takes, and hope that the power stays on for the upgrade to process. I followed the instructions and did a hot swap of the 2 TB drive with a yellow light with a 3 TB drive. After many, many minutes I finally got a message that the new hard drive was recognized — but that the Drobo disk array will require ~38 hours for the data protection process to complete. In the mean time I am making other backups. I am looking forward to the Seagate 4 TB hard drives becoming available at a reasonable cost. With these I could double the size of my image collection.

Noah's Ark. Albuquerque 2012 Balloon Fiesta Final Day. Nikonians ANPAT 12. Image taken with a Nikon D4 and 70-200 mm f/2.8 VRII lens (ISO 100, 155 mm, f/7.1, 1/200 sec). (David J Mathre)
Noah’s Ark. Albuquerque 2012 Balloon Fiesta Final Day. Image taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 70-200 mm f/2.8 VRII lens (ISO 100, 155 mm, f/7.1, 1/200 sec). (David J Mathre)

Five-Years Ago (04-November-2007) — Colorado

Autumn Road Trip in Colorado: Rocky Mountain National Park.

  1. Panorama at Storm Pass Trail head in Rocky Mountain National Park (along the road to Bear Lake). Composite of 8 images taken with a Nikon D2xs and  28-70 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 45 mm, f/11, 1/20 sec). Image processed using DxO, AutoPano Giga, and Photoshop CS5.
  2. Steller’s Jay in Rocky Mountain National Park. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs and 70-200 mm f/2.8 VR lens (ISO 100, 200 mm, f/2.8, 1/25 sec). Hand held, VR works! This was a new type of blue jay for me.
Panorama at Storm Pass Trailhead, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado (David J Mathre)
Panorama at Storm Pass Trailhead, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado (David J Mathre)
Panorama at Storm Pass Trailhead, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado (David J Mathre)
Panorama at Storm Pass Trailhead, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado (David J Mathre)

[pw_map address=”19.3203, -105.6192″ width=”600px” height=”400px” enablecontrols=”true” key=”AIzaSyDzSJfuf50JPAE5AllQz8iLyENq3jp1rR”]

Five-Years Ago (03-November-2007) — Colorado

Autumn Road Trip in Colorado: Great Sand Dune National Park.

I drove from Boulder to southwestern Colorado to visit Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge. It was late in the season and very dry, so not many birds remained. I then traveled to Great Sand Dunes National Park. The sky was clear and blue. I took some panorama images of the sand dunes and the dry Medano creek bed. Most of the other folks visiting the park that day were there to climb and slide down the large sand dunes. I need to revisit both locations in the spring to see the migrating birds at the wildlife refuge, and  to see Medano creek with water flowing.

  1. Great Sand Dunes Panorama taken from the Visitor Center. Composite of 7 images taken with a Nikon D2xs camera and 17-35 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 35 mm, f/11, 1/80 sec). Processed using DxO, AutoPano Giga, Photoshop CS5. 2.
  2. Walking to the dunes with sleds. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs camera and 200-400 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 100, 200 mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec).
  3. Walking to the dunes with sleds. Image taken with a Nikon D2xs camera and 200-400 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 100, 400 mm, f/5.6, 1/800 sec).
  4. Panorama of the dry Medano creek bed, sand dunes, and Crestone peaks. Composite of 3 images taken with a Nikon D2xs camera and 17-35 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 17 mm, f/11, 1/40 sec). Processed using DxO, AutoPano Giga, Photoshop CS5.
Colorado Fall Nature; Grand Sand Dunes NP; Alamosa NWP (David J Mathre)
Colorado Fall Nature; Grand Sand Dunes National Park (David J Mathre)
Colorado Fall Nature; Grand Sand Dunes NP; Alamosa NWP (David J Mathre)
Colorado Fall Nature; Grand Sand Dunes NP; Alamosa NWP (David J Mathre)
Colorado Fall Nature; Grand Sand Dunes NP; Alamosa NWP (David J Mathre)
Colorado Fall Nature; Grand Sand Dunes NP; Alamosa NWP (David J Mathre)
Medano Creek Panorama, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado. (David J Mathre)
Medano Creek Panorama, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado. (David J Mathre)