Saturday, January 16, 2016

Frosty Trees

Today was a cold, frosty day with wonderful clear, blue skies. Early this morning, the temperature was around -19°F. A good enough reason to not go for a ride. After Bridget and I went to the College Coffeehouse, she encouraged me to go for a short ride if for no other reason than to capture some non-dark video. The trees were covered with frost and I headed down the road to the dog mushers hall to start the PBC video. There was a race going on and I thought that I had the GoPro running but when I got home, the file was unreadable. I reformatted the card and re-installed the firmware. Hopefully all of this flaky behaviour stops. The picture is just an frame of the video.

Later in the afternoon, we went to Ursa Major Distillery off of the Parks Hwy near Ester. A friend was doing a soft opening of his new pizza business, The Hungry Robot. Pretty nice looking portable oven! There were some problems getting the fire going inside of the oven so we left after a couple of hours as Bridget had plans for this evening. I had heard that there was a distillery in Fairbanks but I had no idea where it was.

This photo by Steve Sabens was posted about 7:00pm showing that they got the oven nice and hot and was producing pizza. It gets up to about 1000°F and will cook a pizza in a little over a minute. This was a test on how things will go (practice run?) with real customers. We'll try again this coming Tuesday when they will be set up at HooDoo Brewing Co., a small local microbrewery.

Here is PBC #34 that I recorded today with the sunlit frosty trees.


17 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed the "non-dark" video, Richard, mainly for the non-naked trees: They're simply gorgeous covered in frost like that.

    "It seemed more reliable before the last update." Yeah, tell me about it! I've got an iPad like that! Ugh, technology--I love it and hate it.

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    1. As the month progresses, there should be more "non-dark" videos. I just reloaded the firmware and formatted the SD card. It worked reliably today...

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  2. Isn't it great to catch a glimpse of daylight in your neck of the woods? Beautiful scenery.

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    1. It seems as if the sun is adding marginally to the temperature. The high temperatures are starting to occur in the middle of the day again!

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  3. The sun's up but just barely, look at the length of that shadow!

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    1. But at least it's above the horizon. Barrow still has 6 more days before that happens.

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  4. Thanks for turning the camera so we could enjoy the scenery. I enjoyed that video.

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    1. No problem. I'm liking this camera angle better.

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  5. Blue sky and sunshine always looks so pretty. Sure we don't have to shovel our rain, but it isn't pretty by any means.

    That is quite the oven too. Glad they got it going.

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    1. I like snow more than rain. It doesn't feel as cold...

      The oven is really something. I think I heard that it was made in Italy.

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  6. Man, it was so cold they couldn't get a fire going in an oven?! ;P

    That one frame shows a location with good potential for a still shot with the sun in the right position.....

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    1. I think that maybe it was the mass of the oven that kept putting out the fire. You need to get it hot enough inside so that the air will rise up the stack to draw fresh combustion air into the oven.

      Lot of potential but less will...

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  7. Those frost covered trees are fun to look at here from here in my cozy den! Nice vid.

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    1. Do you get those nice frosty trees in your neck of the woods?

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    2. Not so much where I'm at, but if I go up in the hills a couple thousand feet they get that way.

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  8. Richard, GoPros are possibly mankind's most extreme camera. That you have pushed one to the breaking point speaks volumes for the adventure that is your daily life. GoPro just needs to come out with a Hero5 Polar Edition and ask you to beta test it.

    And the frost on those trees is gorgeous.

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    1. They certainly have a reputation for extreme videos. My power problems seem to be resolved after reformatting the SD card and reloading the firmware. Even the battery eliminator seems to be working reliably. Time for a longer ride and use time lapse. The acid test...

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