Taking my new IPhone on a Mountain Bike Ride

Saturday afternoon I went for a bike ride with my new IPhone. The sun was shining when I left home.
The Swinging Jenny is one of my favorite and most popular bronze sculptures. Seeing it when I take off for a ride reminds me to smile and catch a little air.
















We have been having a lot of rain and are expecting a lot more over the next week. I has been great for the poison ivy as you can see the vicious vine swarming over the rock at right at the northern Peaked Hill lookout. In the far distance are the Gay Head Cliffs and Dogfish Bar. At 311 feet above sea level this is the highest point on the island of Martha's Vineyard. It is really nice that the Martha's Vineyard Land Bank (which means all of us) owns this place so that all of us can enjoy it. It would be nice if they could do something about the poison ivy since the rock is very inviting to climb on and I'm sure a lot of people have no idea that that nice lush vine is poisonous.

The other peak in the Peaked Hill land bank property is just a few feet lower, not counting the latest addition to it's height. The new tower is 100 feet high and topped with a 13-foot antennae.
You might think that this is a cell phone tower, but you would be wrong. the tower is part of Rescue 21, a nationwide maritime 911 system for coastal waters intended to replace outdated technology. So then you might think that since the tower is there and we have lousy cell phone coverage around here that in addition to the safety stuff the tower would be used for cell phones too. But Chilmark is way to pure for that...

Speaking of pure, the waters sure look that way, though I've stopped drinking out of streams years ago. It is just not worth the chance of picking up a parasite.


The gurgling stream may be good for the soul, but it also nice to replenish the body. Marianne was baking cookies when I left for my ride...


From the lowland stream it is up more hills to another Land Bank Property, the Middle Ridge Preserve off of Tea Lane. The view from there looks East South East over South Beach all the way to Edgartown.


















After going on through WASKOSIM’S ROCK RESERVATION I took the new trail easement to the MIDDLE LINE WOODS PRESERVE where the big rock was a bit too much for me: see the picture in the blog below.






This rock was a little too big.
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New IPhone video test

I broke my old phone when I crashed on my bike (nothing serious I was standing still, just forgot we had tightened the clips on my pedals) So I just got the new IPhone 3g-S. Pretty good timing since it is the first IPhone to have video.


So Here is a test video uploaded directly from the IPhone to YouTube. The IPhone says that it compresses the video before it sends it.


Then here is the same video uploaded from the IPhone to my laptop and then to YouTube. This way should send YouTube bigger and hopefully better resolution video.


With the second video you can see it in HQ (Higher Quality) which is quite a bit clearer (noticeable when looking at the reflections on the framed paintings), but probably doesn't make any difference most of the time. Let's try a larger size next:


Unfortunately all this new tech stuff takes time to learn and work out the bugs. I wasted hours yesterday and this morning trying to get my IPhone to do mail and the web. Turned out the problem is something to do with my wireless router. Probably the easiest thing is just to buy a new one.

Jay's Sculpture Garden 6/8/09


Posted by PicasaThe Wood Nymph near Marianne's Perenial Garden
The clay huggers were made by Jennifer Christy. Betzy, my mother, gave me a nice computer controlled kiln for my 50th birthday (fifteen years ago this week).
The Wood Nymph is a bronze casting of a sculpture I carved out of a piece of chestnut wood that I found in the woods near my house. I saw the Wood Nymph inside standing deadwood that had been killed by the chestnut blight. She was upside down and trapped inside a dead tree, but I still fell in love with her and tried to let her free.
















Like a lot of things the sandbox has changed over time. First storms broke the cover and then the boards rotted out so now we are left with just the sand and toys. In a few more years the grandchildren will be interested in other things and the brightly colored plastic will wander away to places with young kids or to the dump.











The late afternoon sun lights up the Running Girl.















Courting Swans has a familiar heart like shape. In the backround is the Vampire Dancer.











This torso was made out of styrofoam covered with Silpro - a special type of cement. Over the years some birds dug out a hole in the armpit and right now two little chickadees have hatched inside so the parents are constantly flying in and out to feed them. So this piece won't get repaired for a while.












Over time the white silpro develops an interesting patina.

Back from Vermont

June 9, 2009
Posted by PicasaBack home from a long weekend in Vermont. Sophie scored her first Lacross goal and I caught it on video:
Click here or the Screenshot above to see the video on YouTube
Let's also try putting the video directly here by embedding it>

We can also try uploading a higher resolution video directly to this blog>

That is not so great because the image is so small. So here is the same video file uploaded to YouTube and embedded here>

That was Sunday in the second half of Sophie's two games up in Burlington, Vermont. On Saturday we drove south to Manchester where Sam had three games and scored three or four goals.
Here is on of Sam's goals:


This next goal has a nice spin move, unfortunately there was a player between the camera and Sam, but look carefully and you can see how he spins between two defenders and scores.



Malia is turning into quite a good videographer. Most adults think I'm crazy to let a 7 year old use my good Sony HD videocam. If she busts it, then I might be wrong, but if she learns???

Anyway, Monday was the long drive home. The nice thing is that this time of the year the sun sets so late that it was totally beautiful we got home that I had to take my video camera out for a few pictures before the weather turned nasty. It is cold and raining outside as I am writing this.


Here's the same Clip but saved differently by Flip Video. There are just so many things to learn if yo want to be able to do all the things that are so easy to think of. So here's the video as saved by Flip for uploading to "other" websites.


This is the trouble with life; it just keeps going on and when you try to work on the past life still goes on and new things are constantly coming up so it is hard to finish anything. The reason I decided to write here today was to get the pictures I took of the sculptures up on the web. I still don't know where I want to put them. Do I put them here, or in Flicker or my website www.gowildisland.com ?

Sculpture Garden Party this Saturday, August 12, 4-7pm All are Welcome.

 I am having an open studio at my sculpture garden on Saturday August 12 from 4 to 7. The address is 18 Wequobsque Road in Chilmark. Turn l...