Jay Gaulard Blog

More Hiking At Devil’s Hopyard State Park

Monday, July 28th, 2008

Today, we went back to Devil’s Hopyard State Park in East Haddam for what turned out to be a grueling two mile hike. It felt good, but there was a lot of sweat involved. We went uphill and downhill and everywhere in between. You should’ve seen me huffing and puffing like a fat guy at the tops of the hills. All this hiking should get me in better shape though.

We hiked the entire orange trail which brought us up to the vista, which was very nice. Then, the trail brought us down to the river again and past the Devil’s Oven. We walked back up to the bridge and past the falls to the car.

I took some more photos of various areas of the orange trail. I really have to stop taking so many pictures. Laura is starting to call me a tourist. Hey, this is the way I live. I am on my third digital camera because I like to use them so much. Also, somebody has got to like these things besides me.

Here are the pics.

Trail marker showing the orange and blue trails.

Me, again, checking out the river.

As you can see, I like moss.

Arriving at the vista on the orange trail.

$The Devil\'s Hopyard State Park vista.$

The Devil's Hopyard State Park vista.

Looking up through some Hemlock trees.

This frog let me get really close to take a picture.

Looking down the Eight Mile River.

A close up of the river bank.

Walking back up the orange trail along side the Eight Mile River.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 Sample Photos

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

Ok, I just took a few quick sample photos with my new Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 digital camera. The first one I am going to show you was taken on one of the lowest settings. Basically, you can take poster-sized (print quality) photos with this camera. I set it to the 3MB setting, which is one of the smallest print quality settings.

Take a look…

Photo of a hydrangea with a section that will be enlarged in the next photo.

The cut-out section of the hydrangea photo.

Next, I tried out the “Burst shooting mode” on Michael the cat. There are two sequences here. The first one is where he is pretty much laying there and the second one is where he is biting me.

Photo sequence of a cat biting a hand.

I would say that both the quality and the “Burst shooting mode” are very good.

My New Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 13.6-Megapixel Digital Camera

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

A few days ago, I noticed something strange happening to my Sony Cyber-shot 4.1 mega pixel camera. It was kind of the same thing that happens to all my Sony digital cameras after a few years…I had to start smacking the side of it to make the display correct itself. Before I smacked it, I noticed horozontal lines across the display, and strangely enough, in the photographs themsleves.

Now, if you have been following this blog for any amount of time, you certainly know how fond I am of taking pictures. With this in mind, I walked over to the wall and saw the writing on it. A few moments later, I was on CircuitCity.com ordering a new camera.

It really doesn’t take me very long to do these types of things. I basically visited the camera section and narrowed it down to show just Sony cameras. I like Sony cameras because they plug in easily with a USB cord. I looked at the 12+ mega pixel cameras and saw that only point and shoot one on the page. It’s the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 13.6-Megapixel Digital Camera. I read a few reviews and bought it.

I recived the package today and opened it. One of the first things I noticed is that, while it does use a USB cord to connect to the computer, the connection that fits the camera is not a traditional USB connection. This was a little disappointing because I really like to have things that use USB cords. I don’t want to have to worry about forgetting this special cord when I am traveling. Oh well.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 13.6-Megapixel Digital Camera - front view.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 13.6-Megapixel Digital Camera - side view.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 13.6-Megapixel Digital Camera - rear view.

I installed the battery and turned the camera on. Then, I took about three pictures. I tried to take a forth picture, but was notified that there was no more memory on the camera. Good thing there was a deal at Circuit City where they gave away a 2GB Sandisk memory stick with the purchase of this camera. Also, the problem was that the camera was set to the highest quality. You can imagine how large the file sizes of the photos on a 13.6 mega pixel camera can be. If you can’t, they are about 4MB each.

I installed the 2GB memory stick and took a few more photos. I then plugged the camera in to the USB cord and opened the folder on the computer. Oddly, I could only see the photos on the memory stick (mass storage). I deleted them. Then, I took the memory stick out of the camera. I re-plugged the camera in and saw the first photos I took (internal storage). I tried to delete those photos from the folder in the computer and it wouldn’t let me. I learned that if you are using internal storage on a digitial camera, you can only delete the photos by using the camera’s delete function. If you are using mass storage, you can delete them from the computer.

There are many features on this camera, such as:
- 13.6 megapixels
- 3x optical zoom (which people don’t think is all too great for the price)
- 2.7” LCD display
- Dual image stabilizers (which I need because I have a bad habit of taking blurry photos)
- Face detection (detects up to 8 faces and focuses on each one of them)
- 9-point auto focus
- Smile Shutter mode (the reviews say this really works)
- Dual aspect ratios (normal or widescreen)
- HD slide show with music
- Image optimization
- Easy shooting mode
- In-camera image enhancements
- Scene modes (this camera actually has a description on the screen when you change modes - this is good because I really never knew what any of them meant)
- Burst shooting mode (up to 100 shots consecutively at almost two shots per second)
- Shoot movies
- 15MB of internal memory

If all these features work as described, you will start noticing higher quality photos in my blog posts.

Peace out.

Mayflower Inn, Washington, CT

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Laura and I decided to get in the car and visit Washington, CT yesterday. What was the destination? Well, no less than the Mayflower Inn & Spa in Washington, CT.

As I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts, my mother purchased a gift certificate for us a few years ago for the Mayflower Inn. If memory serves me correctly, we used it for a Valentine’s Day dinner, but I may be wrong. It was either that or New Year’s Eve. Anyway, we drove there at night and (even at night) really liked the area. We decided that it needed to be visited during the day.

Now, please let me explain…I am sure we have all heard of New England. Sure, we have heard of it, but have we ever really seen it? What we learned yesterday was that be merely driving through Connecticut and Massachusetts really doesn’t count for visiting New England. There is a little corner of Connecticut that, if visited, you can easily imagine some English dude sitting on a log with one of those white wigs on. That is what Washington, CT is like. You can also throw in Bridgewater too. They are both like that. There are more white houses that are over 100 years old than you know what to do with. Needless to say, they are really cool towns. Pricey towns, I’m sure. What really struck us both yesterday, was the fact that we weren’t able to locate one messy property or piece of junk. The whole entire area was extremely clean, which made us feel very nice inside.

One of the things that really aggravates me is the lack of pictures and videos on the internet. Even on Google Earth, people would rather post videos of their kid’s first birthday party, instead of videos of main st. in the town the video is attached to. When I visit town websites, I expect to see some sort of photo gallery or even a walking tour. You would be amazed at how few websites actually offer these features.

Since we visited the Inn yesterday and I happen to own a regular digital camera and a video camera, we decided to use them. I took all the photos and Laura took half the video. These are all just of the Inn and not the town. We’ll get to that. Enjoy!!!

It may look cold, but it was actually the first time this year that I actually felt a warm breeze. It was about 50 degrees outside. This is a photo of the path up to the bush maze, going towards the spa.