Easily the most impressive photo of Hurricane Irene and it was taken by NASA’s NOAA GOES-13 satellite.

This is what I woke to this morning. Beautiful but unwelcome.

Not the greatest photos, that’s for sure (the second was was taken through our living room window in our apartment with an iPhone), but I find rainbows just great. Recently we’ve had an awful lot of rain, and particularly when it rains in the evenings the sun is shining through the rain and mist, making rainbows!

I’ll try someday to catch much better photographs of rainbows. But I figured I’d share them anyway.

Random 60: Nice weather | Favorite on Viddler.

Today was a beautiful day in northeastern Pennsylvania. It hit 70 degrees! Although I didn’t have the chance to go for a jog, we did get to spend some time on the porch enjoying the cool breeze.

What do you like to do on the first day of really nice weather?

[Testing: Download in Quicktime.]

Sameer, Chris, Eliza and I were the only people to show up for the Photo walk. This didn’t surprise me considering the fact that it wasn’t until Friday that Sameer and I actively went out to Flickr groups, Facebook, Craig’s List, and a few other places on the Web to promote the Photo walk. That isn’t to say that anyone would have showed up if we had publicized this thing for months – we’re talking about Scranton here. I have hope that one day, perhaps more than a few years into the future, Scranton will really take off on these types of social gatherings. Perhaps we’ll try again in fairer weather (since it did end up raining a little) and see how that goes.

The Photo walk itself was pretty ok. It wasn’t too cold, but it did start to rain. We took that opportunity to grab a beer at Judge & Jury. I think a really warm summer evening might be better for photos of Scranton since lights on buildings, signs, and cars passing by really add some romance to photos. You can see this from our Carbondale Photo walk at night. Or perhaps by adding a specific topic to the Photo walk (as someone suggested) like trains, automobiles, lights, signs, buildings, windows, etc.

All-in-all I had a good time, though shorter than I’d have liked, walking around Scranton shooting photos and I’m looking forward to doing it again. Perhaps in Scranton, or another neighboring city, borough, village, or area – but perhaps when the weather is a bit more suitable and predictable.

Photos of Scranton, PA

Although I took around 200 photos, deleted well over 120 before importing them, I’ve only selected 16 or so to share. Here they are. Click on the thumbnails to get a larger view of the full photograph.

I’m happy with the outcome of the walk. Looking forward to the next one.

When I left for work the morning of this photo, it had been raining as if in a hurricane. I drove to New Jersey, somehow getting ahead of the storm. Thirty minutes after arriving it began to rain a torrent. Once the storm had past I drove back to Pennsylvania and, just prior to getting home, I was greeted with this scene.

The iPhone does not do this sun-scape justice. But it doesn’t have to, I’ll remember it all the same.

Last night, while we were watching a movie, there was a constant flashing outside of our window.  The flashing kept getting more and more consistent and, seemingly, closer.  One of the strikes was close enough for the power to hiccup and so, after turning off and unplugging just about everything in the house, we managed to shoot a few photos of the lightning barrage.

These photos were taken with Eliza’s Canon Digital Rebel XTi in manual mode with an ISO of 100, F/3.5, and a 30-second exposure.  I think.

It took quite a bit of changing the settings, and snapping long exposures, to get the shots that I did.  Next time I’ll know what settings seem to work best and I’ll setup on a window without a screen.

The photo doesn’t do the view justice, as usual.

Saturn. Early March, 2008.

Extraterrestrial storms are not uncommon.  And it isn’t uncommon for these storms to last a long time.  According to the post, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, featured as the picture of the day on July 18, 1999 (which was a picture from Voyager 1 taken circa 1979), has been studied for at least 150 years and has been observed from Earth for over 300!

Another point of interest, about the electrical storm on Saturn, is that the “… storm has roughly the width of planet Earth.”.  I’m interested to see how long this storm lasts.  Aren’t you?

“That’s no moon.” – Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope.   But wait, yes it is.  If you look closely at the image of Saturn’s electrical storm, which has been color shifted to better allow us humans to see some of the spectrum that we couldn’t otherwise, you will see Saturn’s rings.  Just below the rings you will see a faint “dot”, which to the untrained (read: mine) eye, appears to bit a fleck of dust on the lens.  This is Saturn’s small moon Janus.

Side note: We had an excellent view of Saturn when we attended Public Night at the Astronomical Observatory. But it wasn’t anywhere near as good as this shot and we certainly didn’t see the electrical storm.

Source: NASA: Astronomy Picture of the Day: A Persistent Electrical Storm on Saturn.

But wait, there’s a lot more…

After writing this morning, I’ve since read another article on NASA.gov about Cassini tracking the “raging storm” on Saturn.  There are quite a few tidbits of interest.

1. “The new storm is located in Saturn’s southern hemisphere–in a region nicknamed “Storm Alley” by mission scientists–where the previous lightning storms were observed by Cassini.”
2. “Amateur astronomers have kept track of the storm over its five-month lifetime. “Since Cassini’s camera cannot track the storm every day, the amateur data are invaluable,” said Fischer. “I am in continuous contact with astronomers from around the world.”"
3. “Cassini’s radio plasma wave instrument detects the storm every time it rotates into view, which happens every 10 hours and 40 minutes, the approximate length of a Saturn day. Every few seconds the storm gives off a radio pulse lasting for about a tenth of a second, which is typical of lightning bolts and other electrical discharges. These radio waves are detected even when the storm is over the horizon as viewed from Cassini, a result of the bending of radio waves by the planet’s atmosphere. ”

The radio waves they are referring to are actually recorded by Cassini.  You can listen to, and look at the statistical data for, that audio here.  The audio is only 28 seconds long but represents two hours of audio on Saturn.

It has my permission to go away now.

I thought I’d quote the entire thing here, because I think we can all learn something from this by parallel it to something in our lives be it at work, at home, or just about anything.

Predicting snowfall amounts is every bit as difficult as predicting rainfall amounts and in both cases the amounts can vary greatly over even short distances. However most of the time when rain is the call we are not compelled to say how much since for most of us varying amounts of rain for the most part do not matter all that much. Whether we get 3 tenths, 5 tenths or 8 tenths it doesn’t really matter. But here’s something you can take to the bank: If meteorologists had to predict how much rain would fall EVERY time rain is expected, most of the time the forecast amounts would be off by a few tenths of an inch or even more and viewers should realize this. If I said 3 tenths would fall overnight and we got 8 tenths. So what. Big deal. No complaints. Hey it rained overnight. The forecast was accurate. Yet the inaccuracy of a rainfall AMOUNT prediction pretty much goes unnoticed. In fact a lot of time we don’t even bother to predict amounts of rain yet I can guarantee to you this: that IN MOST INSTANCES the predicted amounts and the actual amounts would not match up. BUT and this is a big BUT, EVERY TIME snow is expected it becomes mandatory to predict how many inches. One inch of rain equals about ten inches of snow. That is, one inch of snow is merely a tenth of an inch of water. So if I predict 2 inches of snow and instead 7 inches falls that’s comparable to missing a rainfall forecast by 5 tenths of an inch. No big deal when it’s all rain. It’s only a little water. No one would notice. But oh my, when it’s all snow…by golly you blew it! Predict 2 inches and get 7. A total miss. Hang the weatherman. The event becomes a ‘surprise snowfall”. When newscasters and viewers sound off it can seem like we didn’t even predict a single flake. It’s so frustrating, in fact maddening. We are merely talking about a few tenths of an inch of water from the sky and unfortunately the limited accuracy of the computer guidance allows these kinds of inaccuracies to happen more often than we would like. A way around this is to categorize snowfall amounts as either nuisance, plowable or crippling. But that won’t fly. We want inches! And inches you will get but unfortunately in this day and age in between the accurate forecast of inches will come the inaccurate forecasts and with that the ridicule from those who don’t and never will appreciate and understand how difficult it is to precisly predict how much rain will fall every time it rains and how many inches will fall every time it snows.

The text is a bit rough but I wanted to leave it as is. I found it rather eye-opening (at least for me) that predicting the snow can be as hard as picking how much rain would fall down to the tenths of an inch. I knew that 1-inch of rain equalled 10-inches of snow – but never thought anything beyond that.

For me, I parallel this in many ways. One of the first is Viddler’s sign up and confirmation process. On occasion we get reports that people aren’t getting their confirmation email. Sometimes they come in, over the course of the week, in the dozens. This means that there is a larger problem underlying and we need to fix that.

I am not even sure if the two go well together but that doesn’t matter, the point is I think we can learn from the experiences of the weather man.

What does this make you think of?

While in California for six days I actually ate pretty well. And by well I mean a decent amount of food. When I went to Texas on business it seemed that I was skipping meals because I was far too busy. However, having the entire Viddler team in California made my job much, much easier so I was able to relax a little and eat normally.

Since I’ve been back I’ve been pretty active. I’ve been playing frisbee and basketball quite a bit over the last few days and it feels great to finally be outside again. Winter here in northeastern Pennsylvania is simply far too long.

This week I weighed in at 188.4 pounds, for a loss of exactly 1 pound from two weeks ago. I’m looking forward to getting back to the gym starting tonight, since I’ve missed the last week or so being away. I’m not sure my muscles are looking forward to it, but they’ll just have to live with it.

Something I definitely need to work on is being consistent with workouts even while away. Finding a few minutes for a jog or time in the weight room of a hotel shouldn’t be too difficult and the only thing holding me back from that is laziness. I’m always excited to get back into my routine though, and now that the weather is actually enjoyable – I don’t think I’ll have much trouble sticking to an active routine for the next few months.

[tags]diet, weigh-in, the-diet, california, texas, exercise, basketball, frisbee, ultimate, weather, gym, pennsylvania, viddler[/tags]

Fast forward to the weekend and we went to the Philly meetups and ate and drank foods and drinks that would not be considered diet foods by any stretch of the imagination.

Last week I weighted in at 199.0 and this week I’m 198.0. My goal is two pounds per week and so losing one pound is “ok” considering the week I had. Though tonight will be my return to the gym schedule that I once held along with a new cardio program that I’m starting.

My new goal weight is 180 pounds. The last time I achieved 185 I was not working out at the gym – I was merely doing cardio (in the form of endless amounts of basketball). This time however I’m hoping to build some muscle which should help to bring down the fat percentage a bit. So that is my goal – a wiry, stronger, and healthy 180. Then I will want to attempt to stay there from one Tuesday to the next forever.

At 2 pounds per week that means my goal is to hit 180 by the weigh in on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007. I look forward to trying to beat that goal.

Why not set a goal for yourself, like Daniel Nicolas has, since he has registered for the Carlsbad 5000 and has 5.5 weeks to prepare for it. I find it ironic that the most recent post on his “food blog” is a recipe for Homemade French Fries! I’d love to see or hear more about everyone’s goals. I know Mike is currently at the gym and has been almost every morning since he switched to the Body for Life program, the same one James is using, and it seems to be working for both of them. Mike’s day 30-update showed real signs of progress and I look forward to seeing what his next 30-day update shows.

There is definitely activity. Definite progress being made. Not only am I hoping that over the next few months I’m able to contribute to this again – but I hope that others find the time to do so too.

Side note update: I accidentally sent trackbacks to the above links with the wrong URI, so if you could edit those trackbacks to reflect /diet/ instead of /notes/ that’d be killer.

[tags]weigh-in, diet, the-diet, mike stickel, james mathias, daniel nicolas, carlsbad 5000, goals, gym, cardio, workout, snow, weather, body for life[/tags]

Well I was digging through some video and I found the video that Eliza had taken while I took these photos of the lightning. Although the majority of the video is a simple black screen with Eliza and I having a very uninteresting conversation – I find it a nice video to see how we ended up getting those lightning photos.

If you are reading this in some type of feed-reader, be sure to come to the site to read this post so you too can watch the video.

What I thought was really interesting, after having uploaded this video to Viddler and tagging it with lightning each time a bolt shot across the screen, was that we technically gave ourselves a “graph” of sorts to show the frequency of lightning over the 10-minute period of the video. If you look at the timeline of the video each black dot on the timeline represents a bolt of lightning. Pretty cool if you are a geek like me. This was an unexpected result but a welcomed one.

Hope you enjoy this video and the photos. Thanks for recording it Eliza.

[tags]lightning, video, viddler, weather, storm, thunder, bolt, colin devroe, eliza devroe, photos[/tags]
[slug]lightning-video[/slug]

Update: Atlanta also had some fun dealing with a Tornado that did quite a bit of damage.

What does all this weird weather mean? This question was asked of a few people playing frisbee at a park yesterday in our area and one man said “Hey, it saves me on my heating bill.” and I thought the same thing. However, it may do us more harm than good.

Matt W. of Metroblogging Philadelphia jotted down a recent conversation he had while pumping gas:

One of the employees comes out and strikes up a conversation with me. “This is pneumonia weather,” he says. “A lot of people don’t know that cold kills bacteria. Warm weather allows bacteria to grow.”

Very interesting if you ask me. Something I’d not really thought of was the “downsides” to all of this strange weather. Sure, we might save a few dollars on our heating bills – but will our health, local natural life, or other things suffer? I think so.

Why am I blogging so much lately? Not sure. Perhaps a new trend.

[tags]weather, weird, atlanta, georgia, pennsylvania, metroblogging philadelphia[/tags]
[slug]strange-weather-bad[/slug]

[tags]idaho, photos, tattered fly, fishing, outdoor, rainbow, sleet, weather[/tags]
[slug]boise-south-fork[/slug]

Lightning illuminates everything, click above for more photos

Wow. We were just treated to an extraordinary display of nature. Thunderstorms, while not uncommon in our neck of the woods, typically pass very quickly. Tonight we had a thunderstorm that went on for a few hours, and is still fading slowly as I write this.

Eliza managed to video tape at least 8 really great bolts that ripped through the night sky. I’ll see if I can get her to post them up online and jot down a description for you all.

While Eliza was doing that, I was trying to take some photos of the bolts, but that is much easier said than done. Out of a little more than one-hundred tries, I was able to get these 24. Out of these 24 only a few are really good. But they were worth the effort and the wait.

Conclusion: Lightning rocks.

[tags]weather, photos, lightning, lightning bolt, sky, night, thunderstorm[/tags]