Off to Hayesville

After two relaxing nights at Katie and Brian's house, we're heading off to Hayesville this morning to celebrate my Mom's 80th birthday. Yesterday we went to the Georgia Acquarium, which was a wonderful experience. We were able to make our reservations early in the morning, so the otherwise packed attraction was relatively empty. It made for a fun time.

Last night we had dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse and my niece Laura was able to join us. Afterwards Laura headed off to pick up Catherine and the rest of us headed back to the house to have fun and get ready for our trip this morning.

Just before dinner, my brother Charles called me on my cell phone. He said that he, along with three of his son's, was about three hours outside of Atlanta. I tried to rub it into him that we were having fun and already here and that we will have gone to dinner and had dessert and come back home and he'd still be stuck in the car near the end of an eight hour drive. Charles responded by asking "Is your wife with you?" I looked to Dea, "Yeah." He said with a chuckle, "Mine's not. So who has it better?"

We shared a big laugh. My wife didn't think it was that funny.

Atlanta

Last night we spent some time with Dea's sister, Dawn, and their family. We had a great time and a wonderful dinner. After dinner we hopped over to my niece Katie's house to stay.


This morning we spent the day at the beautiful Georgia Acquarium. A great place. I'll have more pics from the trip later.

Valdosta

9:39 a.m., Thursday, July 27th.

I'm typing this from the hotel room in Valdosta. After work my wife and I decided to get the hec out of Dodge and start our journey north toward North Carolina. We made it as far as Valdosta, where we crashed at the Country Inn and Suites.

We had a good nights sleep and are about to hit the road again. Our goal is to meet up with Dea's sister first, then spend the night at KT's house later this evening. Tomorrow we're heading to the Georgia Aquarium and spend more time with family.

Well, we're packing up and are ready to go.

Until later...

More 3-D

Okay, my eyes are getting a little buggy looking through red and blue glasses for the last few days as I play around with this 3-D stuff. Below are some more pics... I'll bring up some glasses to mom's 80th birthday weekend so people can see them as they were intended.

You can click on pics below for bigger pics. There's an art to getting a good 3-D pic and I'm slowly figuring it out.

Goin' Out To Cally – Part 57, Succumbing To Fate

“What if he got out?” I asked.

“Yeah, what if someone dropped him off and now he’s on foot out there?” she replied.

“That’s frickin’ great!” I exclaimed.

Now our panic ramped up a couple of notches. Sure, being stranded in the middle of nowhere with a maniac after us, well, that was one thing, but at least the only thing we had to focus on was the headlights approaching us. With the darkness that blankets a desert during a new moon, the glow of headlights was about the only thing we could see. But now, under Sunday’s theory that our potential attacker was on foot, we now had to focus on everything… in a desert… in the dark!

Our eyes darted back and forth. We looked through the side windows and the back windows and the rear view mirrors and out in front of us.

“I can’t see anything!” I said.

“Me either,” Sunday agreed.

The length of the day was starting to get to me. Frustrated and angered from the events in San Francisco, I did not sleep well in the car. My shift behind the wheel started in a state of exhaustion over seven hours ago. Now the toxic combination of fear and fatigue had me near an uncontrollable collapse.

Just then Sunday screamed “There he is!”

My head swung to the right and I looked past Sunday, spotting a cow standing next to her window.

“Sunday… it’s a cow,” I sighed.

“Sorry…” she said with understandable embarrassment.

The sight of the cow and the momentary release from the pressure cooker of fear in our car that resulted from it put me into a state of exhaustion from which I could no longer recover.

“I… I can’t keep my eyes open anymore,” I said as I released my grip from the keys in the ignition and leaned the driver’s side seat back.

“If I die tonight at least I’ll die in my sleep,” I continued as I closed my eyes.

“Me too,” Sunday followed.

I looked over to her and our eyes met, both red from weariness.

“Good night, Sunday,” I said with a smile.

“You too, Pete,” she responded with a half-smile, then turned and closed her eyes.

It did not take long for me to fall asleep in the deep dark that night. I was so tired I didn’t even dream.

I awoke the next morning to find a sight I never expected. Somewhere between the maniac at the hotel, our drive into the rest area, our near death experience at the hands of a cow and finally going to sleep… somewhere in the night our rest area became one of the most populated spots in Eurkea.

As I pried my eyes open in the morning sun I looked to my left and, out of the driver’s side window, spotted a large recreational vehicle parked next to us, through which I could see the driver cleaning himself up from a morning shave.

“When did he get here?” I said to myself? I propped up the car seat to an upright position and looked around the rest area which now looked like a parking lot at a used car dealership. There were numerous cars and trucks and motorcycles and semis.

“Were they here all night?” I said with disbelief. “I don’t remember seeing any of them when I pulled into here.”

“See who?” Tim asked as we awoke from his fulfilling night’s sleep.

“Nothing,” I said.

About one hundred yards away, passed the cars and trucks and motorcycles was the now lit sign of the gas station… it was open.

I started the car and pulled into the gas station. Wanting to quickly change positions with Tim and Beth so I could get some quality shut eye, I offered to pump the gas if Tim paid the attendant.

The morning air was extremely cold. I shivered in my shorts and t-shirt as the cold wind whipped through my oily hair, the metal gas hose clanking repeatedly against the gas tank in the Acura. As the gas flowed into the arid, empty tank I looked over toward the hotel where our adventures in Eureka began.

The pickup truck was gone.

It made me wonder if the truck that stopped and stared us down only a few hours earlier was indeed our angered drunk. I would never know. All I cared about now was sleeping and waking to find that this once-hopeful trip would be finally nearing its end.

********

Part 57, (Text, Audio) - Part 56, (Text, Audio) - Part 55, (Text, Audio)
Part 54, (Text, Audio) - Part 53, (Text, Audio) - Part 52, (Text, Audio)
Part 51, (Text, Audio) - Part 50, (Text, Audio) - Part 49, (Text, Audio)
Part 48, (Text, Audio) - Part 47, (Text, Audio) - Part 46, (Text, Audio)
Part 45, (Text, Audio) - Part 44, (Text, Audio) - Part 43, (Text, Audio)
Part 42, (Text, Audio) - Part 41, (Text, Audio) Part 40, (Text, Audio)
Part 39, (Text, Audio) - Part 38, (Text, Audio) - Part 37, (Text, Audio)
Part 36, (Text, Audio) - Part 35, (Text, Audio) - Part 34, (Text, Audio)
Part 33, (Text, Audio) - Part 32, (Text, Audio) - Part 31, (Text, Audio)
Part 30, (Text, Audio) - Part 29, (Text, Audio) - Part 28, (Text, Audio)
Part 27, (Text, Audio) - Part 26, (Text, Audio) - Part 25, (Text, Audio)
Part 24, (Text, Audio) - Part 23, (Text, Audio) - Part 22, (Text, Audio)
Part 21, (Text, Audio) - Part 20, (Text, Audio) - Part 19, (Text, Audio)
Part 18, (Text, Audio) - Part 17, (Text, Audio) - Part 16, (Text, Audio)
Part 15, (Text, Audio) - Part 14, (Text, Audio) - Part 13, (Text, Audio)
Part 12 (Text, Audio) - Part 11 (Text, Audio) - Part 10 (Text, Audio)
Part 09, (Text, Audio) - Part 08, (Text, Audio) - Part 07 (Text, Audio)
Part 06 (Text, Audio) - Part 05 (Text, Audio) - Part 04 (Text, Audio)
Part 03 (Text, Audio) - Part 02 (Text, Audio) - Part 01 (Text, Audio)

Playing with 3-D

I've always been a big fan of 3-D movies. Yes, they're usually hokie in content and cause eye strain over a long period of time, but the next great barrier the film can overcome is the third dimension. I read a very interesting article where James Cameron, Titanic director, states that his research has shown that eye strain from watching 3-D comes from the fact that films are projected at 24 frames a second and that, with digital projects, that frame rate can be increased to just about any number per second, where the eye strain would disappear.

Imagine watching a sporting event at a stadium seating theater in 3-D? Pretty cool idea. Unfortunately there are no easily implementable 3-D home video options right now, so I decided to look at an old fashioned 3-D technology.

I've been looking for a simple way to take 3-D still pics, using the old fashioned Red-Blue glasses concept, called Anaglyphs. I had a pair of the Red-Blue glasses from when Spy Kids 3 came out and I found a free program that will convert pics into these 3-D pics. The end result is really cool.

What you have to do is take two pictures about 2-3 inches apart (eye distance) and then merge them using this program to create the 3-D image. It's basic, but the 3-D images are pretty amazing, to be honest. You have to play around with how close some of the items may be and how many levels of depth you are trying to capture at one time... it's a hit or miss proposition, but if you can make it work, it's really cool.

Below are some pics from my experiments... if you don't have a pair of Red-Blue glasses (Red on the left side), then these pics won't work for you. If you do, click on pics below to make them larger and enjoy.

Goin' Out To Cally – Part 56, Enveloped In Fear

With a near empty tank of gas stuck in the small bump of a town called Eureka in the middle of Nevada located on a stretch of Highway 50 with a large, drunk verbally threatening to kill us… well, things could have been better.

Our only hope was to wait until morning when the gas station would reopen. I pulled the car into the apparently vacant rest area on the other side of this small town, turning it around so we would be facing the direction of our potential attacker who would be coming from the hotel a few blocks down the street.

If the maniac was going to try and kill us, we wanted to keep an eye out for approaching cars. I sat with my left hand on the wheel, my right hand on the key in the ignition, one foot hovering over the clutch, the other gently placed on the gas pedal… if the maniac got anywhere near us I was ready to start the car and bolt out of there for as long as the gas would last.

Exhaustion eventually forced Tim and Beth back to sleep. Sunday and I were too afraid to relax. Our senses were heightened, our eyes piercing the dark night focused on the road, waiting for a set of headlights to approach.

“That guy was scary!” Sunday exclaimed.

“I know! It freaked me out!” I replied.

As I waited, keys at the ready, I kept trying to work through my options. There weren’t a lot. If the maniac drives up, shotgun in hand, what could I do? Drive away… to where? We don’t have enough gas to get us anywhere. Then we’d just get hunted down in the middle of a desert instead of at a rest area in a small town.

The only other option was to drive away and honk the horn, hoping someone would wake up and help us out.

Neither solution was a good one. So, Sunday and I sat and waited, our breath shallow with fear, our eyes focused, yet red with exhaustion.

“Oh my God!” Sunday yelped as a pair of headlights approached.

“Is that him?” she asked. I looked intently at the approaching headlights, trying to discern the possible motive of the driver. Was it a car or a truck? Was it a small truck or a semi? Was the vehicle slowing down or maintaining speed? Was it turning into the rest area or continuing down the highway?

“I think it’s a car, not a truck,” I said as the headlights continued passed us. Sunday and I took a collective sigh and enjoyed the momentary respite before our flight or fright instincts encircled our psyche again.

We continued searching the dark for a hint of growing illumination from anything resembling oncoming traffic. A few minutes later the white dotted lines in the middle of the road began to glow slightly as another vehicle approached.

Sunday and I again gasped and our muscles involuntarily tightened as our heads turned with the moving headlights as they grew brighter. We found ourselves literally holding our breath while watching the car draw near, then continue on down the road.

Our bodies again relaxed as the intense fear within us temporarily dissipated.

“How much longer until the sun comes up?” Sunday asked.

I checked my watch, it read 2:53 a.m. “Four or five hours, at least,” I replied.

Visibly shaken and with her voice trembling a bit, Sunday looked at me with wide eyes and said “I don’t know if I can make it that long.”

“We’ll make it,” I said, trying to reassure her, but inside I was just as frightened as she was. I had never felt so trapped before in all of my life. This great expanse of the Nevada landscape had suddenly collapsed into the small space inside of the car. There was no escape, there was no way out, there was just waiting to see if the maniac was going to live up to his angered threats.

I found myself empathizing with the kids in the movie Sunday told me about who were stuck in the mall. My mind was racing with fear and panic and overwhelming helplessness.

Just then, another car approached. This time the headlights belonged to a pickup, a pickup truck that matched the size of the maniac’s.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” Sunday uttered in quick succession. “Is that him?”

“I don’t know,” I said, fearing the worst.

Our hearts stopped when the lights from the truck slowed as it neared the entrance to the rest stop.

“He’s slowing down!” Sunday yelped in a panic.

The faint outline of the pickup truck illuminated by the dim light from the new moon was visible as the truck slowed to a stop. It just sat there, the engine idling, the truck motionless.

My fingers tightened around the key, my hand reset the gear shift into first, my feet readied above the gas pedal and clutch. I was ready to take off in any direction on a moments notice.

The pickup truck continued to sit there as if it were staring right at us, right through us. We felt so exposed, as if the driver was purposefully taunting us.

Sunday’s and my eyes were glued to the truck only thirty yards away, waiting, each second passing with pain and enveloped in fear. Just when the burden from the weight of our increasing fright was about to overtake both of us, the pickup began to slowly pull away and then disappeared into the distance.

The emotional toll of the evening was about to break me. I could barely stand the pressure any longer. I leaned my head back against the head rest, trying to recollect myself when Sunday, in moment of clarity and paranoia, looking passed me to where the pickup was sitting idle only moments earlier, then leaned close to my ear and whispered...

“What if he got out?”

********

Part 56, (Text, Audio) - Part 55, (Text, Audio)
Part 54, (Text, Audio) - Part 53, (Text, Audio) - Part 52, (Text, Audio)
Part 51, (Text, Audio) - Part 50, (Text, Audio) - Part 49, (Text, Audio)
Part 48, (Text, Audio) - Part 47, (Text, Audio) - Part 46, (Text, Audio)
Part 45, (Text, Audio) - Part 44, (Text, Audio) - Part 43, (Text, Audio)
Part 42, (Text, Audio) - Part 41, (Text, Audio) Part 40, (Text, Audio)
Part 39, (Text, Audio) - Part 38, (Text, Audio) - Part 37, (Text, Audio)
Part 36, (Text, Audio) - Part 35, (Text, Audio) - Part 34, (Text, Audio)
Part 33, (Text, Audio) - Part 32, (Text, Audio) - Part 31, (Text, Audio)
Part 30, (Text, Audio) - Part 29, (Text, Audio) - Part 28, (Text, Audio)
Part 27, (Text, Audio) - Part 26, (Text, Audio) - Part 25, (Text, Audio)
Part 24, (Text, Audio) - Part 23, (Text, Audio) - Part 22, (Text, Audio)
Part 21, (Text, Audio) - Part 20, (Text, Audio) - Part 19, (Text, Audio)
Part 18, (Text, Audio) - Part 17, (Text, Audio) - Part 16, (Text, Audio)
Part 15, (Text, Audio) - Part 14, (Text, Audio) - Part 13, (Text, Audio)
Part 12 (Text, Audio) - Part 11 (Text, Audio) - Part 10 (Text, Audio)
Part 09, (Text, Audio) - Part 08, (Text, Audio) - Part 07 (Text, Audio)
Part 06 (Text, Audio) - Part 05 (Text, Audio) - Part 04 (Text, Audio)
Part 03 (Text, Audio) - Part 02 (Text, Audio) - Part 01 (Text, Audio)