Oregon Coast

Oregon: Day 1 - 3

Mt. Hood from the airplane window:










The Steel Bridge in Porland:












Astoria from atop the Astoria Column:













Astoria-Megler Bridge from our hotel window:







View from our hotel window in Astoria.





The famous house from the movie "The Goonies" filmed in Astoria 25 years ago.

Green Ridge Campground

A peaceful view of the mountains after sunrise:

Nearby pine-beetle devastation:





















Most of the trees in the Green Ridge Campground have been lost to the pine-beetle damage as well.

Guernsey Lake, Wyoming

Guernsey Lake was a convenient and beautiful stop-over on our way to the Black Hills.
The view of the lake from our camp site at Guernsey State Park. (See it in 3D with red-cyan anaglyph glasses)

The campground area. (See this image in 3D)

Also nearby is the Oregon Trail Ruts National Monument and the Register Cliff.

Click here to see this image in 3D.

Chugwater, Wyoming (in 3D)

You'll need to find those 3D (red-cyan) glasses to view these images taken in Wyoming recently.

We stopped for lunch in Chugwater, WY on our way to Guernsey Lake.


This is the historic Chugwater Soda Fountain, which claims the oldest operating soda fountain in all of Wyoming. (How many could there be?)


We enjoyed the famous "Chugwater Chili" for lunch. Surprisingly it didn't give us an urge to "chug water".


The historic soda fountain and Hamilton Beach Drinkmasters still in service.


After lunch the weather turned dramatic with low swirling clouds rolling into town.


We chose to wait out the storm and we got to see this tornado while we watched the weather progress. View the video clip below in 2D (no glasses needed):

Denver Civic Plaza

Here are a few snapshots from our visit to Denver:

This first one was taken telephoto from a distance of 480 Meters:

View a 3D version of this photo

The next one was a wide-shot taken from Lincoln Street:

View the 3D version of this photo

The Plaza looking North:

View my 3D version of this photo

The Denver City-County Building opposite the Capital:

View a 3D version of this photo

This is a 3D photo (use red-cyan 3D glasses to view) of the door-knockers on the front of the Denver City-County Building:

San Diego snapshots

I snapped a few pictures on the way to my meetings in San Diego last week. I took my stereo camera so I also have these available as 3D. See the links below each picture to view them in 3D with the Red-Cyan 3D glasses.

San Diego Skyline


Star of India in the Shipyard Museum (see 3D version)


Giant Kaleidoscope at San Diego harbor (see 3D version)


The Silver Man of San Diego (see 3D version)


La Jolla Beach (see 3D Version)


Dangerous Cliffs near Torry Pines (see 3D version)

Air Force Academy

I stopped at the Air Force Academy for a few snap-shots on the way back from Colorado Springs. The first shot shows the Cadet Chapel from the trail that leads to the visitor center.


The next shot is from the parking lot. This photo is straight from the camera. The bright sunlight reflecting on the polished surfaces expanded the color of the deep blue sky.


The modern architecture of this chapel reminds me of a row of wings and from this angle they look like wings to heaven.


To learn more about the Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel see this link.

There are also more photos including 3D pictures of this chapel on my Flickr page. Simply click any picture to go to the Flickr page.

3D Stereo Images

I've been tinkering with 3D stereo photography or stereoscopy. To take the pictures I use one of two methods (a)the cha-cha method and (b) using a twinned-camera arrangement. Both systems result in separate photo images for the left-eye and right-eye viewpoints. Finally there are several ways to process these to make them viewable as 3D images. Here are a few examples.

This first example below is a stereo image that requires the red-cyan "anaglyph" glasses to view correctly. You can find these glasses on Amazon or on Ebay or you may have a pair from an old movie that came with these. They are usually made from paper.

Even with the proper glasses you might notice that the colors are weak and somewhat distorted on the image. Images with very high contrast or bright reds don't do well with anaglyph processing.

The next example is also an anaglyph, but done using the Yellow-Blue colors. This is the type used for the recent Superbowl TV ads and the NBC show "Chuck".

Again colors are weak and somewhat distorted.

The next example is shown in in the "crossview" mode. No glasses are needed to view this image, but the technique requires you to cross you eyes slightly until you start to see double then focus on the image that appears in the center.

If you click the image, you can view the larger size for an even better view. The obvious advantage is no glasses needed, the colors can be excellent, but the technique can take a while to master.

Finally, there is a parallel view image:

In this case, you need to focus both eyes parallel straight ahead as if you are looking through a window. You may have to get closer and use reading glasses if necessary. I find this format more difficult to view and the disadvantage is you must use an image with spacing of no more than 2.5 inches, which means this is all the larger you can go. This format works better with portrait oriented images rather than the landscape shown above.

To learn more about the freeview techniques for cross-eye and parallel view see this link:
http://www.vision3d.com/3views.html

Las Vegas Lights

Gondolas in front of The Venetian Hotel


The Mirage Hotel


Inside the Venetian Hotel


The New York, New York Hotel

Back to Eldora

We missed out on our traditional Christmas Eve skiing this year. We were turned away after the lifts closed due to high winds that day. We returned a few days after Christmas and had a great day skiing.

Here are 4/5ths of us at 10,800 feet ready to do another run.


Becky, Colin and Austin on the Challenge lift, while Kenny and I overtook them from the Cannonball lift that runs parallel.


I always liked the signs at Edora; no apologies for extreme terrain. All resorts have Black-diamonds, many have double-black diamonds, but few have skull & crossbones.

98 degrees warmer!

Monday morning Denver set a new record for cold temperatures, -19F! The former record for Dec 15 was -6F. Brrr it was bitter cold and I had to drive to the airport for an early morning flight. The flight was delayed two hours because of frozen fuel lines on the catering trucks. By the time I arrived in Orlando later on Monday it was 98 degrees warmer than it was when I started. How do you dress for that?

Anyway, I took a lunch break from my meetings and took a walk along the beach.


But don't dare walk on this beach barefoot, unless you keep a look out where you step. I saw dozens of these little blue jellyfish, just washed up on the shore.

It turns out this is a Portuguese Man o' War and according to the entry in Wikipedia, they are very venomous.