Raymond Johnson @ downclimb.com

We tend to get a lot of sunny days here along Colorado's Front Range, but right now we're enjoying some much-needed rain. After a couple rainy days earlier this week, the clouds broke Friday morning and we got one clear day before the clouds and rain returned today. Anticipating a nice scene when the clouds broke, I set my Kodak Zi8 on a tripod in my window and let it run. I cut out a 15-minute piece of video using Avidemux  and then used modified code found here and here to prepare the video. First, I extracted two frames from each second of video: ffmpeg -i 2011-05-13-original.mkv -r 2 -f image2 png/%05d.png I then made a text file with the names of all the images and used mencoder to make a 30fps video: ls -1tr > files.txt mencoder -nosound -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=5000 -mf w=1280:h=720:fps=24:type=png mf://@files.txt -o time.avi I then went to Jamendo to get some Creative Commons-licensed music to use the in the background. I chose " ...

I really don't get excited about the coming and going of school years. In fact, the end of a spring semester always makes me a bit sad. Teachers and students are working at their peak (or their limit), showing off all that they've learned and accomplished and then it just stops and suddenly it's summer. My transition into summer will be smooth, as I'm still working for my advisor and I'll be taking at least one class in July. But I suppose getting this far is an accomplishment in itself. I don't know how much longer it will take for me to finish my doctoral program, but I know I'm now one year closer. Now that we first-year students have some breathing room, my friend Jackie and I headed out yesterday for a photography excursion. Our destination was Red Rocks Park and Amphitheater , located west of Denver near Morrison at the edge of the Rocky Mountain foothills. Red Rocks is, by almost all accounts, the best natural amphitheater in the country, if not one...