Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday!!
Originally uploaded by erocka

Pano-Mania!!!

Yeah there's an app for this. AutoStich... does what it says, stitching photos you take on your phone into a single panoramic image. When taking images you need to remember to move the phone... not your body. Also make sure there are enough features / overlap between images.

I tried this out for the first time at the pig roast and got some good results. Some of the blur between images makes for some cool stuff. Also I've cropped most to remove the black border introduced as it stitched the pics together. Most of these were made with about 8 - 10 shots and took a minute or two for the phone to put together.

Be sure to look at all of these in their full size glory within my OPR panorama set... lots of little details to pick up!!

funniest YouTube Video ever, thanks PG.

Web Updates

Wired.com
1) This Day in Tech July 6th 1947
2) An Assault Riffle for Everyman

The first article gives a little background on the creation of the rifle. The second link is a photo montage of the AK-47 in action around the world. Too bad Ice Cube didn't get a shout out.

Autoblog: Cash for Clunkers to officially begin July 23

Ever since Luke's been around I've felt the need to trade in the 10 year old Jeep for a more practical car. Essentially this plan provides federal cash to dealers which acts like a trade-in. You'll get something like $3,500 - $4,500 value for your car depending on the improvement to fuel economy. If it improved 10mpg or more when going from old to new car you get the max amount.

Little Round Top

A lot of people died defending this hill during the civil war. Traci, Luke, and I visited Gettysburg during the week of the fourth. They've paved the major battle lines so you can easily drive around and get a feel for what it was like to fight back then.