Jay Gaulard Blog

Tons of Roses in the Front

Friday, June 13th, 2008

You have to believe me when I tell you that I am really sorry about all the posts with photos of flowers in them. Really, it’s for the ladies. Sometimes, I feel like such a gentleman. Yesterday, when I was up front doing some trimming, I clipped a rose for Laura. Isn’t that sweet? You don’t have to tell me.

The whole hillside is almost fully in bloom. I had no idea there was such a variety of flowers. It is so exciting to watch what blooms next. Every morning, I wake up and do my thing. Then, I go outside with the camera. Today, I was just standing there on the hillside looking at everything. There was a cricket chirping and a bee going from flower to flower. It was pretty cool. Sometimes it’s nice to just watch things. There are even baby bunnies living under one of the bushes. I almost stepped on one the other day when I was trimming around the Blue Spruce that I planted. It ran and scared the heck out of me.

This is another prize winner from the same garden as my last prize winner.

This is what I am talking about. There are Roses upon Roses. They are all different colors too. There are pink, red and white so far.

Pretty neat, right?

Wordpress 2.5 - HTTP Error When Uploading Images - Firefox

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

Well, I hate to say it, but we may have a picture”less” blog here. I have been having trouble uploading photos into this version of Wordpress (2.5 and 2.5.1).

Before we moved, everything was fine. After we moved, I remember starting up the computer and Firefox wanted me to install the recently downloaded upgrade, so I did. Since then, I haven’t been able to upload any photos into Wordpress. When I try, either it continues to say, “crunching” or I get an error that says, “HTTP error.”

Just to see what would happen, I tried to upload photos by using Internet Explorer (IE) on my laptop. Everything worked fine. This leads me to believe it’s an issue between Firefox and Wordpress 2.5.

Any suggestions are welcome.

By the way, I just upgraded to the latest version of Wordpress and the problem persists.

We Bought the House

Monday, April 21st, 2008

Wow, what a long day. Driving over to the new house takes about 2 hours and 15 minutes. It seems longer than it is.

Today was the big day…not only for us, but also for the sellers. It must feel great to sell a house. I mean, your mind is most likely on your new one and all you want to do is to get the process over with. Congrats.

We are thrilled. I think it is a very good move. From what we gather, people tend to move around in the same town a lot, meaning, they like the town. That’s a good thing.

We met the realtor over at the house at 2PM for the final walk through. The house was nice and clean and everything was just as we expected. We dabbled for a bit and talked for a while and then we went to the closing at 3:30PM. Everything went very smoothly and yes, the sellers are just like us. You can almost tell by the way they kept the place…clean, tight and when something broke, they fixed it. As a buyer, I definitely appreciate that. They were actually very personable people.

Ok, enough of that, now for the pictures. I mean, who cares about the writing anyway? It’s not like anyone reads it anyway.

Here is the front of the house. I think it has a nice “Connecticuty” look.

This is the rather large kitchen. There is room for a table in there and it also has a nice island. The door that is open goes out to the garage. Also, there are doors that go out to the back deck.

This is the fireplace. I am very happy there is a fireplace. I plan on getting a pellet stove insert for this and using it as a main heating source. Since the house heat and hot water are run off the oil burner, I am going to get an electric hot water heater and solar panels. I just have to figure out a way to make the look good and fit into the neighborhood.

These are pictures of the main entryway. Do you know how hard it is to get good photos of two floors up close? Not easy.

This is the blue room, AKA, the dining room. We have no plans for this room right now beyond walking through it. We don’t have much furniture.

This is one of the upstairs bathrooms. It’s pretty big and has one of those tubs that bubbles.

If you want to come over to visit, you can stay in the guest bedroom. It has a large walk-in closet and a full bathroom.

Here’s that bathroom I was talking about. So that’s two full baths on the top floor and one half bath on the main floor.

This is going to be Laura’s office. She gets the purple room. It’s pretty soothing. The girl that this room belonged to has a nice little setup. Perfect for a young girl.

I also got a picture of the room that’s going to be my office, but it came out blurry. It’s pretty much like this room, but different colors.

Here are some photos of the master bedroom. It’s a large room with a dormer facing West. There are two closets and a cable hookup. I am starting to sound like a realtor myself.

This is the one of the finished downstairs rooms. It is really comfortable and cool. It’s going to make a perfect…something.

This is the other downstairs room. This used to have an exercise machine in it. Laura wants to use it as a Pilates room. I have to buy her one of those exercise balls.

Can you say, “garage?” It’s about time. Yes, I am going to like the garage very much. I know that almost all homes now come with them, but I have yet to have one. I am quite excited about the electric garage door openers too.

Ok, last one. This is the little patio in the back that comes out of Laura’s exercise room.

You want to hear a funny story? You know how much I have grown to hate barking dogs, right? I never used to hate dogs, it’s just been lately, since so many people don’t seem to take care of them. Actually, I love dogs, especially my old dog, Mickles. I really really love Golden Retrievers.

I had a hunch that the only close neighbor had a dog. I wasn’t sure, but I did notice a fence around the back yard. They have an in-ground pool, so it may have been for that. I didn’t think so. I kept on telling Laura that there was a dog next door. I was really hoping it wasn’t a yappy little white dog.

Today, after the closing, we went back to the house to drop off a few boxes we brought with us. We were trying to loosen the load for moving day on Thursday. I parked the car and started walking in the back yard. I noticed something moving inside the neighbor’s fence. I quickly turned around and told Laura, “THEY HAVE A DOG!!!” I turned back around to see what kind it was. My stomach almost dropped through the floor. Upon closer examination, I noticed that it was a reddish dog. I then realized is was a Golden Retriever. I am not sure how it happened, but I found myself over there petting the dog. The neighbor called me over all excited, “Are you my new neighbors?” I say yes and both Laura and I walked over to talk to her. Then, out of nowhere, three more Goldens came trotting over…all offering tennis balls. I was in heaven. I was on my knees, petting them and shaking their fur all over the place. I was really excited. They are fairly quiet with the ever so often bark while looking at the ball. In Golden talk, that means, “Hey stupid, throw the ball.” I threw the ball a few times and what a riot it was watching the four of them jump all over themselves trying to get to it.

I am really happy that both Laura and I met the neighbor so soon and got to know the dogs. Now, we can go over and play with them without actually having to own another one. That’s fine with me.

So, now we have two houses. Anyone want to buy an 1,150 square foot cape on 1.25 acres? Just remodeled…You let me know.

The Olde Stone Mill - Tuckahoe, NY

Friday, April 18th, 2008

Laura and I were down in Tuckahoe, NY last night and decided to visit “The Olde Stone Mill” restaurant. The reason I had interest in this restaurant is because we saw it during the last season of Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey. This is one of our favorite reality shows because it shows different types of leadership and gives me many ideas for great recipes. Gordon isn’t much of a vegetarian lover, but perhaps someone will guide him to see the light one of these days. I suppose many good chefs have meat on their menus. Oh well. Nonetheless, he is quite entertaining.

We basically drove by and stopped so Laura could grab a photo. This restaurant is in a really great part of town and looks very nice. I am not sure it was open when we drove by, but I’m glad the lights were on. It was kind of late at night.

Earlier in the evening, on our way down to Westchester, we hit a lot of traffic on the Hutch so we had to trust my new and awesome best friend…my GPS to guide us through the neighborhoods of Bronxville, Scarsdale and Tuckahoe. I have to say, I fell in love. What a damn nice area. The culture of hardworking people with money is soooo different than those…well, let’s just say their hard work is paying off. I really enjoyed driving through those roads and looking at the pride people take in their properties. A lot of labor and elbow grease can give great results. There were beautiful houses with great landscaping. I should’ve taken more photos for ideas. Maybe we will go back.

One area I really loved was Weaver Street in Scarsdale. It’s pretty “in there” and I would definitely need my GPS again to find it, but what an area. We also went to Eastchester, so we saw a lot.

Tire Store Fire in Middletown, NY

Friday, April 11th, 2008

I feel like I am reporting breaking news or something here.

I was on my way down to Lowe’s this afternoon when I happened to notice a very large area of black smoke in the sky in Middletown, NY. I kept looking at it, but it was over the horizon, so I couldn’t see what was causing it. I did my shopping in Lowe’s and pulled out of the parking lot. On the way out, I got these photos:

I thought this couldn’t be a good thing. Anyway, I wanted to see what the heck was causing all that smoke, so I checked it out online at this website. Apparently, Lee’s Quality Tire in New Hampton was on fire. A worker dropped a gasoline soaked rag on a light fixture and the place went up.

Resize Your Pictures Online

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

I know, for a fact, there is one tool out there that TONS of people need. The reason why so many people need this tool is because so many people are getting into online photo sharing, blogs, websites…

We have a lot of support requests that deal with photo resizing. People can’t upload their photos into our system because they are too large. That is a tough thing to deal with, because many people just don’t understand the many differences and variations of digital images.

Well folks, have I got a tool for you. This tool allows you to resize your photos online. Well, that is “shrink” them online. As I always say, you can’t make a photo bigger (while retaining the same quality), but you sure can shrink it.

So, next time you are trying to put a huge picture into your blog post and are wondering what the heck to do with it, visit this handy tool and shrink it to just the right size.

House Offer Was Accepted

Saturday, March 15th, 2008

I thought I would give you a little update on the house. The homeowners accepted our offer. The real estate agent is drawing up the contract and we are going to visit it once more on Monday. We are going to walk up and down the road for a second once-over. I guess it would be called a twice-over. If everything is cool, we are going to head to the real estate office and sign the contract. I will be sure to take photos of the neighborhood and post them.

I already called the mortgage company and gave them the revised numbers and I have an appointment on Tuesday morning to get everything done. He says that we could have the closing before the end of the month. I would say that’s pretty fast. He told me that he had a closing in four days, a few weeks back. That is just nuts.

Needless to say, I am a little nervous. We are going to be swimming in the house, but at least Laura will get her own office and so will I. There will also be another bedroom with a bathroom, so if we ever have guests, they will be hooked up. We can then have another whole family living in the finished basement. Also, the two car garage is something I have always wanted. No more scraping ice off the windshields. Ye haw.

Some Video Please…

Saturday, November 17th, 2007

I have been going back and forth for some time on this issue…whether or not to go video. I know I take a lot of photos for this blog and that seems to be working out well. I just think that people would enjoy video a whole lot more.

The benefit is that people can see much more through video. They can hear me talk and hear the birds chirp. They can get a real feel for things. Image watching TV as a slide show. Not so much fun. I think video is where it’s at.

I was thinking that I can get a little Sony hard drive video camera and upload the videos to YouTube.com. Depending on the software I get with the camera, I can add my URL in the bottom corner of each video to promote whatever website the video is going to be posted on. Then, I can simply pull the code for the video in from YouTube to my website. Sound good?

Ok, since I really know nothing about video cameras, I am going to have to do a little research. I saw one at Circuit City for decent price. Maybe one of these days I will go grab it. I am sure my family would like to watch these videos, or maybe I am just being a little narcissistic. Nah, I think they will like it.

Sam’s Point in the Hamlet of Cragsmoor

Monday, August 6th, 2007

Yesterday was pretty fun. We did something that I have been waiting a while to do…to go hiking at Sam’s Point in the Hamlet of Cragsmoor. If you remember, we went up there on Christmas. That was pretty cool, but I didn’t get all that many great photos.

I have been suggesting that we head up to Sam’s Point again and I guess my suggestions paid off. Laura was gingerly excited about the hike. With the hike, came nice pictures, so here you are…

Here we are, down in the parking lot, looking up at the cliff. I thought I really wanted to do the whole walk around Loop Road, but at that point, I was thinking about just getting to the top of the cliff and coming back down. Laura made me do the whole loop. She is a woman of power and not to be underestimated.

At the top of the mountian, past South Gully Trail and High Point Carriageway and about half way through the almost three mile walk, I took a few photos of Lake Maratanza. Using my awesome Photoshop skills, I pasted them together.

A bit past the lake, there was a trail down to the ice caves and Verkeerder Kill Falls. We didn’t walk down that way, but it was a good opportunity to get a shot of some mountains, probably the Berkshires, because we were facing East.

After we made almost all the way around, I begged Laura to take a picture of me. Here it is.

These are some pictures I took of the Sam’s Point lookout. There were a bunch of shots, but I had to narrow them down to these. They all kind of look like each other.

This was a cool big rock we passed on the way back down to the lodge (if that’s what it’s called). Again, I pasted a few shots together to get this one.

This is the bottom of the trail, back at the lodge. Prett cool, huh?

Flight School - Lesson #3 - 8:00AM

Friday, September 8th, 2006

There are two distinct sides to me…one that is aggressive and uptight (my teenage years) and one that is laid back and relaxed…just along for the ride. This is how I have trained myself to be over the years. I couldn’t continue to be uptight my whole life.

Well, with learning to fly, you can’t be laid back. Yigal acts more laid back than me, perhaps because he has over 4000 hours under his belt. This guy is good. He has the ability to look around and enjoy the scenery. One thing I really like about him is the way he periodically pulls my nose away from the instruments to look at the horizon or the colors of the trees (there are a few of them changing right now). He likes to remind me why I am doing this…for the fun and beauty.

Today we took up a Piper Cherokee. This is the same plane as last time. Smaller but pretty powerful because the engine has had some work done to it. It has had some exhaust work done and hemi-spherical (Hemi) pistons put in. The “Hemi” creates more compression, thus a more powerful piston stroke. I couldn’t grab any photos today, because there were people there already and we were ready to get going.

I am getting pretty used to doing the preflight inspection, taxiing to the runway and taking off. This time we had to fill the plane with fuel first. We did this and headed for the runway. I got off the ground at 65MPH and climbed at 85MPH. In order to gain speed during the climb, I pitched the nose down (like rolling down a hill in a car) and in order to slow down, I pitched the nose up with the elevator. Of course, we take off at full power. We climbed to 3000ft and banked 30 degrees to the left to fly crosswind of the airport and then banked again to fly downwind. We were practicing patterns and turns during ascending flight. This is really tricky, as I found out. First of all, I had to focus on my climb speed, then I had to focus on my bank degree, then I had to focus on my heading, all the while making sure that there was no traffic in the air. Focusing on 3-4 things simultaneously is tricky to say the least. Some of the things are opposite of what I am used to in a car, but it does get easier every time. Here is a photo of the airport from where we practice. Basically, if you are driving on Interstate 84 in New York, we practice in between the Mongomery exit and the Newburgh exit.

We practiced more maneuvering during slow flight, practice area operations, cockpit management, constant airspeed climbs, constant airspeed descents, airspeed transitions, turns to headings (of which I need work. I really need to get the heading indicator down) and flight at low cruise airspeeds. The real push of this lesson was Emergency Operations and landings. Yigal showed me what to do if you lose power in the plane. The first time you go over this, you feel very rushed, because you think there really is no time, but trust me, there really is time, especially if you are above 3000FT, like you most likely will be.

The first thing you do if you lose engine power is to control the airplane. You change your pitch for optimum glide speed of 75MPH. Then, you look for a field to land in and start heading in that direction…seriously. Once you have these two things squared away, and you are gliding and heading towards your destination, you begin checking the flight controls from right to left. You start with turning on the carburetor heat. You may have ice buildup if it is warm and humid. Then, you check your fuel mixture to make sure it is rich or lean. If you are coming down from a high altitude, your mixture is lean and you need to compensate on your descent and make it richer. Without doing this, you are starving the airplane for fuel. Then you need to pump your throttle to see if the plane isn’t getting fuel for some reason. After that, you check your key to make sure it is in and on and last you change your fuel tank. Maybe one tank ran out of fuel and you need to switch to another. This took me some time to cover, but Yigal assures me that it will be instinct by the time I am ready to fly solo.

We assumed that nothing worked and the engine could not be brought back. So with this in mind, we needed to land the plane. We headed towards the airport, using my new skills of descending the plane while turning to a specific heading. I did have a number of questions while doing this and Yigal had no problem being patient and answering the questions for me. Usually I feel stupid asking people questions because most people have an uncanny knack for belittling others. A sign of a good flight instructor is one who continues to encourage with patience and skill.

We followed the airport pattern for our approach to landing. This was my show, with Yigal’s hands at the ready. He walked me through step by step for a relatively smooth landing. Immediately after landing, we gave the plane full power for another take off, called a touch-and-go. I climbed to altitude and followed the pattern to simulate another engine failure from 3000FT. I flew the crosswind leg, then the downwind leg, then the base leg and then the final approach. This time I came in semi-smoothly and landed the plane myself.

We made a turn and taxied back to the runway for another takeoff. I did the same pattern and this time made my best landing so far. It’s a great experience being able to make a good takeoff and a good landing!