Oneonta Photographer Julie Pecenco

I’d volunteered to make dessert for my small group ministry tonight (how odd to think I’d ever be involved in anything with the word “ministry” in it, but that’s UUism for you.  It’s fun stuff with churchy names.)  Anyway, I’d volunteered to bring dessert thinking that I might be able to make a cake, something I love to do.  I was trying to figure out what to make, and had been wanting to make a mint chocolate cake for some time now, but unable to find a recipe which suited me.  I thought about the chocolate cake I often make that is always a huge hit.  It’s a devil’s food cake with a whipped chocolate ganache filling and a chocolate ganache glaze.  It’s actually not one of my favorite cakes, since the semi-sweet chocolate used makes it too bitter for my tastes, but the chocolate lovers are in heaven when I make it.

I usually stick to recipes when I bake, but it occurred to me that this recipe was the ideal base for my mint cake, and I had the idea of making a mint white chocolate version.  Which is exactly what I did.  Like most of my cakes, it isn’t the prettiest thing out there, but oh is this going to be good.  Just based on the tastes I’ve had on the filling and glaze, it tastes heavenly.  I can’t wait to try it.  (Let’s hope I’m right.)

The hard part, other than keeping it intact on the ride there, is going to be making sure I have enough left to bring home a piece for Leah.

BTW, if anyone is interested in the recipe, I used the Devil’s Food Cake Cockainge from The All New, All Purpose Joy of Cooking with mint extract in place of vanilla, and their recommended Whipped Ganache Filling and Ganache Glaze, replacing the chocolate with white chocolate and again adding mint extract.

There’s been a new Versus commercial during today’s Tour de France coverage. Cue the obligatory video of some of the worst crashes in the Tour, and then add Jonathan Vaughters (former rider and Director Sportif of Team Garmin Chipotle) painting the following picture for us:

“Next time you’re in your car, at 50 miles per hour, strip down to your underwear and jump out. That’s what it’s like to crash in a professional bike race.”

Now that’s a mental image. Ouch.

Last night, I was thinking about trying to ride to Price Chopper, the grocery store on the other side of town, partly to go for a longer ride, and partly to pick up some veggie dogs for Leah, which they don’t sell at Hannaford, the closer grocery store.  I mapped it out and realized that it wasn’t actually that much farther than the rides I’d been doing recently.  Oneonta, however, is called “The City of the Hills” for a reason, and my rides have been relatively flat thus far.  Before I tried this ride, I wanted to get a sense of how hilly it would be.  I turned to Google, and to my surprise, found several tools designed for exactly this purpose.

Bike Route Toaster and veloroutes.org both utilize Google Maps for their tools, and provide similar interfaces to plan a ride.  After checking both sites, I chose Bike Route Toaster because it uses auto routing.  I selected my starting point and my destination, and created a route, with elevation profile.  If the route generated is not the one I wish to take, adding intermediate points is easy.

To verify the profile, I used my eTrex Summit GPS to track my ride today.  I know of no way to download the elevation profile from the eTrex, so I imported the GPS track into National Geographic TOPO! to compare.  (TOPO! uses it’s own database for the profile, rather than the GPS data, I believe.)

I also plotted the raw GPS data in a spreadsheet (I admit I’m a geek.  I worked many years as an engineer, and I love spreadsheets), and the results are similar to the TOPO! output.

The data looks fairly consistent, so I think I’ll be using Bike Route Toaster to check out my rides in the future. I love cycling, and I love maps, and this is an ideal combination of the two.

This year, I spent the Summer Solstice focused on a wedding, but the Solstice also means something else: time for another World Wide Panorama.  The theme this time around was “elevation,” so on the Thursday before the Solstice, Leah and I went up to the Franklin Mountain Hawkwatch at the Delaware Otsego Audubon Society Sanctuary.  From their, one can see a sweeping tableau looking out over Oneonta and southern Otsego County.  It was somewhat overcast that day, so the view was a bit more restricted than on some previous outings, but it was still a lovely sight to see.  I shot two panoramas, one at the Hawkwatch, and one at the picnic table and shelter about halfway up the hill.  The latter was my WWP submission, which you can see below, or in fullscreen at the WWP site.

If you haven’t experienced interactive VR before, I have written a tutorial on how to view and interact with them: FAQ: What am I supposed to do with these VR panoramas?

Le Tour de France started yesterday, so our television will be tuned mostly to Versus for the next three weeks.  For the past few years, I’ve used a couple of pieces of software on my PDA, the Garmin iQue 3600, to help me follow the race.  With the slow demise of the PalmOS, they aren’t being publicized much, so I had to track them down.  Having done so, I now share them with you.

The first is Ulrich Riepert’s Tour de France 2008, available from his web site at http://www.ulrich-riepert.de/TDF.htm The page is in German, but the software itself has an English language mode.  It lists each of the stages, as well as all of the teams, with riders listed by their number, which can be a great help when watching the race and trying to figure out which rider is which.  Even better, it has a fullscreen mode on a 480×320 screen.

Deepweb Internet Solutions has been publishing their Tour software for several years now.  Le Tour 2008 is available at http://www.deepweb.nl/deepweb.asp?taal=EN&page=palm It lacks information on the riders and teams, but shows the race profile for each stage, including the sprints and climbs, the latter labeled by category.

Between the two programs, you can have some of the most useful data when watching the Tour right on your Palm.

Enjoy the ride!

Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of photographing Sarah and Mike’s wedding at the Chestnut Inn at Oquaga Lake, in Deposit, NY.  The were a great couple to photograph, and their love for each other radiated from their faces.

We had lovely weather on the Summer Solstice for their lakeside service; the rain held off until everyone was inside enjoying their dinners and dancing the night away.

All of the photos from the wedding are now available for viewing and purchase at my PhotoReflect site: http://juliepecenco.photoreflect.com/ There you can purchase photographic prints and my latest offering, fine art canvas gallery wraps.

The gallery wraps are printed on fine art canvas, and stretched over a wooden stretcher frame, in the same manner as a painted canvas.  They come ready to hang, and are the perfect way to showcase a special image.

Large images (16×20 and above) come mounted on masonite to preventing warping.  The masonite mounting is also optionally available for 11×14 prints as well.  I offer custom matting and framing for all of my work.  (Contact me directly for this option.)

If you have any questions about the gallery wraps or any of the products I offer, feel free to contact me before placing your order.

Congratulations to Sarah and Mike!

Our niece Megan officially turned 3 today, but we celebrated at her party on Sunday.  Megan loves Curious George, so that was the theme for the party decorations and the super bright cupcakes that Leah and I helped Annette decorate.  The cupcakes were a hit, and thankfully the frosting easily washed out of clothing.

The kids enjoyed the pinata, and the recent additions David made to his playground, but weather provided the real excitement.  The sunny morning turned dark, and the skies broke loose in torrents of rain, so we all huddled under the tent the guys had erected and enjoyed our lunch.  The sun returned, and everyone ran around like crazy, including me when I gave Megan a ride on my shoulders, only to quickly get requests for the same from her two cousins, both of whom are bigger than she.  Thankfully, none of the other kids noticed, or I might have soon fallen over.  Playtime came to an abrupt halt with another rain shower, so Megan opened her gifts.  When the storm intensified, and the cracks of thunder shook the sky, the party quickly cleared out.

Leah and I spent another night with the family, and headed home yesterday.  She begins a period of six weeks of nearly constant travel, and I am back to work as well after a wonderful weekend.

Leah Bridgers gets the photo credit for the photo of me and Megan.

We’re visiting my family this weekend, and there have been all sorts of things going on.  Yesterday afternoon we watched Molly graduate from preschool.  We had planned to watch my brother on some portion of the 62.5 mile bike ride he was doing this morning, but less than an hour into his ride, he got a flat, and didn’t have the tools he needed to fix it (the wheel had no quick release, of all things.)  So he got a ride home and tried to replace the tube, only to pop yet another tube.  Eventually, he gave up on his road bike, climbed onto his cheapie old hybrid, and headed off down the road to rejoin The Ride for Roswell (a benefit ride for the Roswell Park Cancer Institute) and do a shorter loop.  In the end, he still rode around 48 miles, most of it on a lousy bike.  So hats off to David for his ride.

Meanwhile, we played with the girls, helped Annette with cupcakes, and played with the girls some more.  In the evening, Leah, Annette (my sister-in-law) and I decided to walk the 4.3 miles to my parents house, while David drove himself and the girls in the van.  We had a nice, but warm, walk, and appreciated the oppurtunity to go for a swim when we arrived.  The girls joined us, and Molly had a blast with the new snorkeling set her Nonni had for her, picking up how to use the mask and snorkle in minutes.

Megan requested a swim with Aunt Julie, so she and I shared a swim before we all had to get changed for dinner.

Tomorrow is her third brithday party.  There’s just all sorts of stuff on the schedule this weekend.

Photo credit for the swimming photos goes to David Pecenco.

They didn’t have time for an engagement session, but on Friday I attended Sarah and Mike’s rehearsal at the Chestnut Inn at Oquaga Lake.  It rained on and off on the drive there, and was still sprinkling lightly during the walk-through.  As the bride’s father walked her towards the awaiting wedding party, I looked beyond them across the lake to see a complete rainbow framing the group.  It was a bit faint, so you’ll have to look for it in the photo.  (Click the thumbnail to enlarge.)

What a sublime moment as they begin their lives together.

Stay tuned for a sneak peak at the weddings photos.

In a recent post, I mentioned that I am on Facebook and LinkedIn and a few other social networking sites. Leah pointed out that I provided a link to my Twitter page, but didn’t actually mention it in the text.

First of all, let me say that I think Twitter is incredibly silly … and highly addictive. I find that I have been updating my status up to several times a day, which is significantly more regularly than I update the blog. The beauty of Twitter - a concept known as “micro-blogging” - is that it is quick to post and quick to read, since updates are limited to 140 characters. It’s a way to share as those little random things that happen throughout the day but don’t merit a full fledged blog entry. I also have it set up so that whenever I update the blog, it sends an status update to Twitter, so that if you followed me there, you’d see all the blog updates as well.  I also have a “What I’m Doing” section on the right side of the blog showing my Twitter status.

As if anyone really needs to know what I am doing all the time :)   If you’re interested, however, you can follow me on Twitter, at http://twitter.com/pecenco And be sure to let me know if you’re on Twitter (or Facebook or LinkedIn or …)

For many reasons, I’ve wanted for some time to start riding my bike again.  It’s great exercise, it’s better for the environment, it saves on gas (thus saving money), and it’s fun.  We got the bikes tuned up not long ago, and I recently ordered and installed some thinner and smoother city tires to replace the MTB knobbies I’d had on the bike since I bought it.  I added a mirror and a rack, and was all set to start running errands and commuting to meetings and events on my bike.

Last week, Leah and I rode to the library, and Monday night I rode to a church event.  I’m not yet kitted out for night time riding, so I had to walk home, but the next day I walked back to pick up my bike.  These little rides around town are getting me back into cycling shape, and allow me to avoid driving while still getting places quickly.

After a few days of very warm temperatures, it was finally cool enough to mow the lawn today.  When I went to start mowing, however, I realized that we were out of gasoline.  The gas station is about 3/4 of a mile away, and it seemed so silly to drive 1.5 miles to buy gas.  So I strapped the gas container to my bike, and off I went to the gas station for a fill up.  It was busy (since the station directly across the street from it has inanely priced the regular at $0.16/gallon higher) so I had to wait in line to use the pump.  On my bicycle.  It was fabulous.  When I was re-securing the cannister to my rack, a man commented, “That doesn’t need gas.”

I feel so green.

(Photo credit goes to Leah Bridgers on these two photos.)

As I sit in a dorm room at Hamilton College, sweating like crazy in the heat and forced to listen to a drunken party just outside the window, I’m going to try to write a blog entry.  We’re at Hamilton for Leah’s ten year reunion, and apparently some people have not grown up since college, and bring the party back to campus with them.  But that is not why I’m writing.

Regular readers will notice that I haven’t been very diligent at updating the blog in the past month or so.  My online time has been spent chasing Web 2.0.  Frankly, though I am online all the time, and have heard the term used all over the place, I had no idea what the heck it meant until I decided to figure out what all the fuss was about, and how I could use it to help build my business.  So first stop was to Google “Web 2.0″ which led me to the conclusion that the term doesn’t really mean much of anything.  :)  What it’s all about is active web sites versus passive sites; Web 2.0 is about users creating content, versus content provided primarily by the big companies.  It’s the social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Linked In, etc., as well as blogs, apparently.  So, without even knowing it, I was already participating in the Web 2.0 phenomenon.

Here at the Hamilton Reunion, Leah and I heard Dan Nye, CEO of Linked In, speak this afternoon.  It introduced Leah to Linked In, and I learned a little about what was behind the scenes, though it was mostly a pitch for Linked In.  I’ve been on Linked In for a while now, though I must admit that I am on Facebook far more often.  I’ve wasted many hours on Facebook, but I have also gotten back in touch with people from high school to college to my years as an engineer.

So, are you on Facebook, Linked In, My Space and the like?  I’m always looking to connect. You can find me using the links below.  (The Facebook link is to the Julie Pecenco Photography page; if I know you, I’ll gladly add you as a friend.  Just search on my name.)  As for MySpace, I’m there, but I never really use it.

I have added a web page to facilitate the purchase of Julie Pecenco Photography gift certificates and wedding gifts.  You can buy either standard gift certificates which can be used for any of the products and services I offer, or your gift can go directly to the wedding couple.  The page is available at http://juliepecenco.com/giftcertificates.php

After I shot their Holiday Concert for my Oneonta for the Holidays series, the Catskill Choral Society hired me to shoot their recent spring concert so that they would have photos for a web site redesign. I photographed Thursday night’s dress rehearsal and Friday night’s concert, both held at the First United Methodist Church of Oneonta. It was a varied program, with pieces ranging from the Russians to the Beatles.

To view the proofs (and order prints,) visit http://juliepecenco.photoreflect.com/

Note: These and all my event photos on PhotoReflect are proofs. Final prints will be exposure and color corrected, and cropped to final size.

When I was creating my Christmas wish list for my family last fall, I decided that I wanted a basketball. The one I’d had since high school had long since gone on to a new home in a major decluttering, which made sense at the time, since I never used it. But recently, I decided that it would be fun to shoot some hoops again, which required a basketball. I didn’t receive one for Christmas, but I was at Target last week, and decided to buy myself one. None were specifically labeled as women’s size, but the “intermediate” seemed about right, so I came home with a new basketball. And a Rubik’s Cube. But that’s another post.

Today was an errand running day, and as those errands involved things like picking up our sewing machine from the repair guy, and exchanging a 20 lb propane tank, walking was really out of the question. So I had to spend my Earth Day driving around town, and not enjoying the day on a walk. I still wanted to enjoy the day and get some exercise, and since one of my errands took me practically into Oneonta’s Neahwa Park, I decided it was the perfect time to try out my basketball.

Back in the day, I was a jock. Mind you, I wasn’t always very good, and my grades were generally far better than my athletic achievements, but I was a jock… In my own head, at least. Over the years, I played soccer (lots of soccer,) field hockey, basketball, volleyball, and lacrosse. Asthma, problematic knees, and life after school have long since brought me to individual (and for me, non-competitive) sports. I last played basketball my junior year of high school, which was 19 years ago (is that possible?) and it’s probably been at least a decade since I shot baskets. I was also not just a bench warmer on our (admittedly talented) varsity team, but the last one off the bench. So, it was not surprise that when I first started shooting today, not one shot went into the hoop. But as I got a groove, a few started going in, and I was eventually shooting about 1-in-3. Hey, I got a workout, and I had fun. In the end, that’s what matters.

The real trick was taking photos of myself playing basketball. I love my D200.

After a snowy winter (for this part of the state, anyway) spring was much anticipated. Spring has finally arrived, leaving us talking about the weather yet again, because this spring has been unseasonably warm. For the past week and a half or so, the weather has been summer-like. It has been sunny every day, with temperatures significantly above normal. Emerging from a wretched cold and winter at the same time has left me energized and enthusiastic about the many projects and plans I have for the next few months. With the weather as beautiful as it has been, I don’t have to convince myself to go out for a walk; I’m looking for excuses to walk. Today I walked the three or so miles to the dentist, had my teeth cleaned, stopped at the library, and walk back home. It felt great (so I guess I’ve finally kicked that cold.)

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

- William Wordsworth

With the warm weather have come the outward signs of spring. The grass is greening quickly, the trees are just beginning to bud, and the daffodils have burst forth in great profusion. Seeing my neighbor’s garden the other day, I was put into mind of the famous Wordsworth poem, Daffodils. Many years ago, before going down a very different technical path, I was leaning towards a writing career. In addition to writing poetry, I memorized a bit for the personal enjoyment of it. One such bit was the last stanza of Daffodils, and twenty years later, it’s still stuck in my head. In spring, when my mood emerges from the still of winter just as the buds emerge from dormant branches, my heart does indeed “with pleasure fill” and I dance with the daffodils.

Technically, it is two days early for Passover, but tonight Leah and I attended the annual Unitarian Universalist Society of Oneonta Passover Seder. Being Italian American and having been raised Catholic, this was only my second seder, the first a moving event put together for a group of us in the dorm by a college friend way back in my freshman year of college. The UU seder was almost entirely in English, oddly, but some of the Jewish members of the congregation contributed some Hebrew versions of the prayers to the events. As with nearly every event at our church, it was filled with laughter and fellowship, and plenty of good food. And unlike Easter this year, this holiday came in the midst of delightful spring weather, with temperatures in the seventies and bright sunshine.

It’s April, and Earth Day is just around the corner. TLC, which I happen to be watching at the moment, is doing a “Green Week.” In general, I try to think about the environmental impact of my actions. (Though it can often be contradictory with what works best from a technological perspective.) There’s much more that we could be doing, but we try. We’ve been using compact fluorescent bulbs for years, and I diligently sort our recyclables. One of the greenest things I do is to try to walk places instead of driving. The beauty of living in a small city is that so many things are within walking distance of my house. Both the post office and my bank are easy walks, so much of my day-to-day business travel can be conducted on foot. It gets me outside for much needed sunlight and exercise, and the car stays in the driveway.

Today I needed to go to the post office to send out some prints (and my tax returns - yikes! I cut it close this year.) Unlike the walk to the bank or the library, which heads into the City of Oneonta, the post office is in West Oneonta, the other direction, along rural roads. Every time I take the walk, I see all of the trash along the side of the road, and think that I should bring a bag and clean up some of it. Alas, I remember the mail, but forget the bag. Today, however, I happened to have carried the prints in a plastic bag, so after mailing them, I had an empty bag. On the way home, I decided to fill it up with bottles. On this first trip, I decided to stick with returnable deposit containers, and make a little money in the process. I filled my bag, and my free hand, before having to stop from lack of additional carrying capacity. I ended up with about thirty cans and bottles, which will net me a whopping $1.50 or so. Every little bit counts, however, both on the financial impact and the environmental impact.

In the end, I not only ran my necessary errands, but got some exercise, made some pocket change, and cleaned up a tiny little bit of my world. I’ll wait to pat myself on the back until I clean up the recyclables and trash for which I won’t get paid.

The solstices and equinoxes mean one thing - another event of the World Wide Panorama. The theme this time was Beginnings, which is appropriate for the vernal equinox. It might have been snowing at the time, but spring is clearly on the way (this past week has been delightful.) My interpretation of the theme was to include my nieces, both as subjects and in helping me shoot the panorama. Molly has been interested in photography since she was old enough to press the shutter button, and she and I made a panorama together last summer. We shot two panoramas when I was visiting at Easter, and I chose the second one, which we created on Easter Sunday, as my submission. Using the camera’s IR remote, each of the girls took three of the six images around that went into the panorama. I added the zenith (top) and nadir (bottom) and did the stitching and post processing, of course.

Until I work out the coding for launching full screen Flash panoramas from the blog, I’ll just present this small embedded one. You can see it fullscreen at the WWP. Visit my page at the WWP to see all of my submissions over the past few years.

After success with Super Grover, I wanted to try a larger object to test my equipment and technique.  Here is the result.