Cerebral Gibberish

A guy I meet at a Flickr meetup told me about the WRAL Azalea Gardens so I make a quick trip to check it out since the Azaleas where in bloom. The garden is small when compared to Duke Gardens but none the less a worth while place to visit when the azaleas are in bloom. While walking down the garden’s maze like paths, you are surround by a wide array or colors from all the different azalea plants. It’s very impressive. Next to the azalea garden is a somewhat large grassy area which is nicely landscaped and bordered by other colorful flora. I don’t know if you’re allowed to but it would make a nice place to have a small picnic with someone special I think.

More Photos Here (PicLens )

Today was such a nice day I decided to get out of the house and visit Duke Gardens for the first time. I guess this could also count as yet another local park I’ve explored as well. Any ways, after taking a wrong turn due to me not writing the direction down correctly, I arrived just to realize that a) A lot of people are spending their Easter afternoon here or b) A lot of people are just spending their afternoon here. There were two parking lots and both were full of course but after making a circuit or two around the lots, I was able to get a parking spot. Parking was listed as costing $2.00/hour with a max of $8.00 but they only charged me $2.00 for two hours which was just the amount of cash I had on me and they don’t take credit cards for parking. There is no charge for visiting the gardens which was nice.

The gardens are divided into four sections: The Doris Duke Center, The Culberson Asiatic Arboretum, The Terraces and The Blomquest Garden of Native Plants. The Doris Duke Center acts as the welcome center and gift shop as well as a library and classroom space. The Culberson Asiatic Arboretum garden features ~550 species of flora from eastern Asia. The Terraces’ main attraction is, well, the terraces which were full of color from the wide range of flowers and the New Jersey limestone. Last but not least The Blomqueist Garden of Native Plants which features, can you guess, ~900 species and varieties of regional native plants.

You could see the signs of the drought pretty much everywhere in the gardens especially the south lawn in the Terraces garden which was fenced off and looked really dry but I guess that might just be how that type of grass looks in early spring. A lot of plants and trees were still leafless but I figure in a few more weeks the gardens will really be hopping. Two hours was not enough time for me to explore all 5 miles of paths and trails so I will definitely have to go back. Hopefully next time there will be fewer people wondering around and I’ll have a zoom / macro lens to get up close to the flowers.

More Photos Here (PicLens )

As part of the recent changes at work, we gained Good Friday as a work holiday. So after I was done shopping at Crabtree Valley Mall, I headed to Shelley Lake to continue my exploration of local parks.

I’ve actually been to Shelley Lake before but that must have been at least 8 years ago and from what I remember from way back when, a lot of things have changed. I don’t remember the path all the way around the lake being paved or at least not as wide as it was. I don’t remember there being a boat house and docks. I’m pretty sure the playground has been updated as well.

Unlike Lake Johnson, I did not have any problem finding a parking space. Granted that might be due to it being Friday and not everyone having Good Friday off or maybe there was just more parking available. The trail around the lake has markings every quarter mile for a total of 2 miles and took me about an hour to go once around including stops for taking pictures. There are some large wide open fields where people were enjoying different activities like frisbee and soccer or just enjoying the sun. I enjoyed my visit and I’m sure to go back.

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Yesterday I had an opportunity to get a close up look of a 2008 Smart Coupe which is a 2 seat, 3 cylinder vehicle that measures 8.8 feet long and 5.1 feet wide. It gets a gas mileage of 33 City / 41 Highway so with its 8.7 gallon gas tank you can travel ~287 – 356 miles on a tank of gas.

The Smart vehicles went on sale in the US on January 2008 and is part of the Mercedes Car Group. There are three versions of the Smart being sold in the US. Two are coupes and one is a cabriolet convertible. Price wise you’re looking at a starting price of $11,590 for the entry level “pure coupe” to $16,590 for the convertible plus any optional packages. I personally think it is a little pricey for such a small car but it’s still ~$5000 cheaper then the starting price of a Toyota Prius Hybrid.

I did try to get behind the steering wheel but my knees did not quite want to get under the wheel so I guess I won’t be driving one of these home anytime soon but I think it would be fun if I could. Oh Well.

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It has been awhile since I’ve gone exploring a local park so after my haircut on Saturday I told my GPS to show the a list of parks in the area and Lake Johnson Park was the winner.

My first impression of the park was not that great due to the limited amount of parking. I circled the lot a couple of times, along with several other cars, hopping that I would get lucky and get a spot. After my third time around the lot I decided to drive to the other side of the lake and see if there was any parking over there, since there was a boardwalk that also went across the lake, and there was. The other parking lot was also small but at least people had the ability to park on the side of the road but luckily I was able to get a parking spot in the lot.

I decided to head across the boardwalk since there seemed to be more activity on that side of the lake. The boardwalk was well maintained and populated with walkers, joggers and fishers. It also provided a nice view of the lake as you strolled across. On the other side there was a park center which provided a concession stand, restrooms, a nice covered deck with rocking chairs that over looked the lake and boat rentals.

Wild life wise consisted mainly of ducks, geese and seagulls. I’m sure there are more critters out there and luckily I did not have a run in with anything that could have put me in the hospital like last time, even when I went off the trail to get some pictures.

Other then the limited parking, Lake Johnson Park turned out to be another nice park to explore. Granted I only explored a small bit of the park since the park consist of over 300+ acres of land. The map of the park show a fully paved trail that goes all the way around the east side of the lake and an unpaved trail around the west side. Next time I’ll have to get there earlier and take a stroll around the lake.

More Photos Here (PicLens )

Recently I came across a new web browser plug-in called PicLens which provides a full-screen, 3D image viewing experience on the Internet. It is supported by a number of Photo, Social Networking and Image Search sites such as Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, Smugmug, FaceBook, MySpace and Google Images just to name a few. Of course I did not want to be left out so after digging around and modifying some code I came across on a Gallery2 forum, I was able to add PicLens support to my Photo Gallery.

To enjoy the full 3D PicLens experience you’ll need to install the browser plug-in which currently supports Firefox, IE and Safari (Note: The Safari plug-in currently does not support the 3D Wall feature). For those of you that don’t run a supported browser or refuse to install the plug-in, you can still enjoy most of the PicLens features via a flash based viewer called PicLens Lite.

All you need to do is click on this icon while viewing the different photo albums in my gallery or a link in a blog post, like the picture of the float plane on the left, to launch the PicLens plug-in or the PicLens Lite viewer. If you have the plug-in installed you can also use the play button icon that appears when you hover over the thumbnail images in the gallery. You’ll also need to allow javascript else the icons or the links won’t activate PicLens. As a note, you can only view images in a single album and if the album does not contain any photos, you will not see any images even though the icon is still displayed. If an album contains sub-albums, you’ll only see the photos in the album you selected and not the sub-albums. I’m still reading on on the Gallery2 API so hopefully I’ll be able to figure out a way to only show the icon if the album contains photos.

The above video shows you what the PicLens plug-in does for your image viewing experience. Go to the PicLens web site to download and install the plug-in. Do it NOW!

I took a trip over to the fairgrounds today to check out the Motorsports Expo at Dorton Arena. This event raises money to send Wake county youths to summer camp. There was a lot going on especially for the kids. They had several blow-up play area and other activities like a NASCAR simulator. Of course then there were the cars and drag bikes for everyone to look at up close. I was hopping there were going to be more cars but I guess I need to go to an actually car show for that. As a bonus they were handing out free samples of Slim Jims most likely fresh from the Garner plant which I’m sure will make Justin happy. hehe. Any ways, I had a good time and it was for a good cause plus I was able to wonder around the flea market afterwards.

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I spent this afternoon wiring up my big tree in the front yard with lights for the holidays. Last year I only had a few lights up but after Christmas I bought up a lot of L.E.D. lights at 50+% off so I could use them next year. I would love to do a light display like the video below but I’ll have to work up to that I think. Taking pictures of the lights reminded me that I also need to get a tri-pod which would provide a stable platform for long exposures.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucjmd032Z-M]
If you don’t know already, light displays like this video are created by using a computer that runs software which talk to power controllers that turn the lights on and off synchronized to music. The music is broadcasted from a radio transmitter in or around the house so people can tune their car radios to that channel to hear the music.

I found out there was a Korean Cultural Night being held at Korean Baptist Church up the road from my place so I decided to check it out since I survived my trip to Pullen Park earlier in the day. When I was walking up the walkway to the main building I saw a lady dressed in a traditional Korean outfit and from a distance I almost thought it was my mom (freaky). I was a little late so I not sure what I missed but when I got into the main building there was a lady up on the stage singing what sounded like opera in Korean. There were several examples of traditional Korean dances which were enjoyable to watch but the lighting was really bad so it was very difficult for me to take any pictures without any blurring. I don’t even think a fast lens would have helped me here. Next up was a Tae Kwon-Do demonstration which included board breaking and synchronized executions of different patterns / forms to music. I did find it funny that they used “It’s Raining Men” during one of these synchronized demonstrations. The part I enjoyed the most was the Korean Drumming or Poongmul using the Samul Nori style (meaning: four instruments) which consisted of two types of drums and two type of gongs. At the end of the event there was a lot of mingling and snacks in the form of several type of Tteok (Korean rice cake). I had a good time and was nice to learn more about my Korean half.

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