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Oneonta Photographer Julie Pecenco

My minty inspiration July 14 3:09pm

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.

Jonathan Vaughters on Crashing July 12 12:33pm

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.

Ride Planning Web 2.0 Style: Bike Route Toaster July 10 10:32pm

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.

Elevation: Franklin Mountain (A World Wide Panorama Submission) July 7 5:42pm

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?

The Tour de France in the Palm(OS) of your hand July 6 8:32pm

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!

Sarah and Mike: June 21, 2008 July 5 8:45pm

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!

A Very Curious Birthday July 1 10:45pm

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.

Things are going swimmingly June 28 10:06pm

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.

At the End of the Rainbow: Sarah and Mike June 24 10:05pm

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.

Stay (really) current with Twitter updates June 14 11:48am

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 …)