While on The Mountain this weekend, I schlepped my Garmin GPSmap 60CSx with me wherever I drove. My intent was to take a bunch of images at Prentice Cooper, and figure out how to get them tagged from the tracks on the GPS. I played with it some while I was on The Mountain, saved my tracks, and then came home.

However, there was an important fact I wasn’t aware of. When you save a track on the Garmin, the timestamps disappear, making the data virtually useless for geotagging!! Fortunately, my MacBook Pro had one of the tracks I used while on The Mountain, so not all was lost. However, I got trapped by another anomaly.

I tried to set my camera to the same time as the GPS. Of course, the GPS time was perfect, but the camera time needed some adjustment, so I set it against a known good time source. What I neglected to do was check the timezones for the two devices. My camera was still on Central Time, but my GPS was on Mountain Time (probably from the Big Drive last year). And my geotagging software wanted to use the system time (Central Time) to line everything up. Combine all that, and you have photos that didn’t tag in the right place, and some images that had no data whatsoever.

Now that I have the times lined up, and using the track from my MBP, I now have some images geotagged correctly. Pretty cool stuff. I didn’t know it, but if you look at an image in Preview on the Mac, you can get additional data about it, some of which is the GPS data. From there, you get a “Where’s Waldo” look at the globe to see where the photo is from, and a button to send you to Google Maps to see the detailed location. That’s pretty cool.

I can tell there’s some goodness in the data from the geotagging effort that I haven’t yet begun to tap. I kinda feel like I’m getting to the party late on this technology, but I think I’m becoming a quick study.

So which software am I using? Right now, GPSPhotoLinker seems to be getting me the most mileage, but I suspect HoudahGeo will buy me more usefulness for images for which I have no data. The batch processing from GPSPhotoLinker is slick, and really hums right along. HoudahGeo is integrated with GoogleEarth, and I suspect that’ll make it pretty easy to tag the old trips.

Watch for more fun and games as I figure out how to exploit this new technology! (Well, new to me, anyway.)

When I got back to the Deauxmayne today, I got some lunch going, and took a peek at the TV. Ever since the digital transition dates have been announced (and extended), I’ve been looking for long haul analog signals that I just won’t be as likely to see after the cutover date.

Today, I was rewarded with a few moments of viewing from KTVK, Channel 3 in Phoenix. That’s quite a long haul from here, and is a station I’ve only seen once before. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get set up with the camera before they slid into the mists of the background noise, but there was no doubt about what I was seeing… perhaps the last analog Es propagation for a long while.

However, there’s some good news in all the hullabaloo about transition here in the States. The Canadian and Mexican transition dates are still some ways out, and with the lower VHF channels all cleared out, that should make for some easier pickings down the road. That should make for some interesting viewing!

Man, I love coming home and visiting the local Krystal. I love their little burgers, but their chili cheese pups are my absolute favorite!!!

I found this video from a link somewhere on Twitter. I need to find me some dark skies to play with this technique.

It’s just beautiful — enjoy!

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

There are some mornings when things just click for me.

This morning, the air temperature was 49. The roof was down, and the doors were off the Jeep, leaving nothing but a windshield and seat belt between me and the glorious, slightly damp feel in the morning air. And as I plowed along beneath the slightly lightening sky, Sirius treated me to a great collection of music to fit my mood: Anticipation, If Not For You (Dylan, not John), Solisbury Hill…

Just a perfect, perfect start to the day. Now, if only my stop were the fields and meadows for some photography, or perhaps the hills for a little hiking. Maybe even the Trail for some cycling.

Yep, that’d just take the perfectomometer to eleven.

Have you tried the new Mountain Dew or Pepsi Throwback products? I was never really a Pepsi drinker when I was growing up, but I had my share of Mountain Dew. This new “throwback” version replaces HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) with real sugar. Real sugar!

Siobhan tried it, and told me it didn’t taste like Mountain Dew. I told her that it did, it really, really did!

Now, if only the Coke folks will take notice, and do the same thing. I’m pretty sure they’d take over the world if “old” Coke hit the shelves once again.

The passing of another milestone — Siobhan got all gussied up today, and was carried off to her prom.

I gotta admit that I’m less than objective, but I thought she looked beautiful in her ball gown. It’s just amazing to see her growing up, and starting to become a young lady!

Since I took the hardtop off a few weeks ago, I’d been trying to figure out what to do with the hardtop now that the Jeep wasn’t storing it. I’d contemplated hoisting it into the rafters, but finally decided on a dolly.

I found the plans here. This was an extremely easy build! I just used scrap lumber, and was able to put the thing together for just the price of the casters. (I didn’t have any on hand.)

I didn’t do build photos — I should’ve — but you can take a look at the final stand-up, and see what you think.