According to the ChaseCam forum I can:
- Use a lower quality video setting.. or a lower screen resolution on the PDR.
- Use a faster Compact Flash Card...or a smaller Compact Flash Card.
- Make sure your card is freshly formatted before use.
2007-04-15
In car cam update
I bought a new Compact Flash reader today, and I now have access to all the in car video I have taken. Hooray! Hurroo also though. It turns out the card hasn't been able to keep up with the data being sent to it, and all the clips have occasional blips in them as the data stream gets reset.
According to the ChaseCam forum I can:
According to the ChaseCam forum I can:
2007-04-14
Day 9: Houston, TX to San Antonio, TX
This morning I posted a request on EliseTalk asking for some things to do in Texas. Lo and behold someone responded saying that there was a LOST (Lotus Owners of South Texas) meet about 10 minutes away in 2 hours time! We got our stuff together and headed over. We knew we were on the right track when a black Elise appeared behind us, and arrived in a three car convoy.
LOST are a wonderful bunch of people and welcomed a couple of outsiders warmly (I suppose that made Jared and I The Others). There were a good dozen people there driving mainly Elises, with a Seven and a couple of Esprits too.
They had their meeting and we convoyed over to a British pub for lunch. The drive was quite fun. Most of the time I was following the V8 Esprit which sounded phenomenal. I captured a ChaseCam video of it, but am still scuppered by the faulty CF reader so how it turned out will be a mystery until I get a new one. I am praying that the card itself hasn't gone bad as I have taken a lot of video so far that remains stranded on it.
The food was good and the company even better: "Everybody say warranty"
As we were leaving someone noticed that Jared had a sizable piece of metal sticking out of his rear left tyre. We had to make a stop at a repair shop and after the usual lecturing on how to correctly jack up the Elise they removed the offending item. Thankfully it hadn't punctured the tyre and we were soon on our way.
The LOST crew had given us some good tips on how best to cross Texas, including one suggestion that we should 'drive to Houston airport and catch a flight to New Mexico'. Reassuring stuff indeed for the days ahead, but we also managed to collect some terrestrial tips and updated the route once more. Today's plan was shortened to a relatively short drive to San Antonio where we would stay tonight.
The weather was cooler today; a welcome change from the hot and muggy last few days. Storms were threatening in Houston but towards San Antonio it was really pleasant. We arrived in the city in the tourist section which is a really nice area. It's refreshing to see a US city geared towards pedestrians. We visited the Alamo:
It reminded me of the joke the late, great Brian Glover told in An American Werewolf in London:
There was this aeroplane over the Atlantic on its way to New York, and it was full of men from the United Nations. So halfway over the ocean the engines run low on petrol, so they have to lighten the plane. So they heave out all the baggage, but it's still too heavy. So they chuck out all the seats, but it's still too heavy. Finally, this Frog, he steps up, shouts "Vive la France", and leaps out. Then an Englishman, he steps up, shouts "God save the Queen", and he leaps out. But the plane is still too heavy. So the Yank delegate, from Texas, he steps up, shouts: "Remember the Alamo", and chucks out the Mexican.
Hotels in the city were pretty expensive apparently due to a boxing fight, so we traveled north for a while past the airport and found a really nice, quiet place for a more reasonable price. As we were arriving at the hotel we finally saw our first other Elise driving around. It only took almost 3000 miles, 9 days and 13 states!
We couldn't pass on a good old Texan meal. I almost made it through an enormous chicken fried steak and some nice large margaritas (I made it through the drinks, just not quite the food).
More Texas to come tomorrow...
LOST are a wonderful bunch of people and welcomed a couple of outsiders warmly (I suppose that made Jared and I The Others). There were a good dozen people there driving mainly Elises, with a Seven and a couple of Esprits too.
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
They had their meeting and we convoyed over to a British pub for lunch. The drive was quite fun. Most of the time I was following the V8 Esprit which sounded phenomenal. I captured a ChaseCam video of it, but am still scuppered by the faulty CF reader so how it turned out will be a mystery until I get a new one. I am praying that the card itself hasn't gone bad as I have taken a lot of video so far that remains stranded on it.
The food was good and the company even better: "Everybody say warranty"
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
As we were leaving someone noticed that Jared had a sizable piece of metal sticking out of his rear left tyre. We had to make a stop at a repair shop and after the usual lecturing on how to correctly jack up the Elise they removed the offending item. Thankfully it hadn't punctured the tyre and we were soon on our way.
The LOST crew had given us some good tips on how best to cross Texas, including one suggestion that we should 'drive to Houston airport and catch a flight to New Mexico'. Reassuring stuff indeed for the days ahead, but we also managed to collect some terrestrial tips and updated the route once more. Today's plan was shortened to a relatively short drive to San Antonio where we would stay tonight.
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
The weather was cooler today; a welcome change from the hot and muggy last few days. Storms were threatening in Houston but towards San Antonio it was really pleasant. We arrived in the city in the tourist section which is a really nice area. It's refreshing to see a US city geared towards pedestrians. We visited the Alamo:
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
It reminded me of the joke the late, great Brian Glover told in An American Werewolf in London:
There was this aeroplane over the Atlantic on its way to New York, and it was full of men from the United Nations. So halfway over the ocean the engines run low on petrol, so they have to lighten the plane. So they heave out all the baggage, but it's still too heavy. So they chuck out all the seats, but it's still too heavy. Finally, this Frog, he steps up, shouts "Vive la France", and leaps out. Then an Englishman, he steps up, shouts "God save the Queen", and he leaps out. But the plane is still too heavy. So the Yank delegate, from Texas, he steps up, shouts: "Remember the Alamo", and chucks out the Mexican.
Hotels in the city were pretty expensive apparently due to a boxing fight, so we traveled north for a while past the airport and found a really nice, quiet place for a more reasonable price. As we were arriving at the hotel we finally saw our first other Elise driving around. It only took almost 3000 miles, 9 days and 13 states!
We couldn't pass on a good old Texan meal. I almost made it through an enormous chicken fried steak and some nice large margaritas (I made it through the drinks, just not quite the food).
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
More Texas to come tomorrow...
Day 8: New Orleans, LA to Houston, TX
New Orleans by day and New Orleans by night are so different they are, well, night and day. The older one gets the more enjoyable the days are over the nights., at least for me There is always something going on but we really struck gold as the New Orleans French Quarter Festival started on Friday. Music and food all over the place.
Here is a little video of a jazz band playing.
We milled around there for a couple of hours, eating different dishes and listening to some great live music. One thing is for sure: the cities following New Orleans are going to have to do pretty well to match that. I actually experienced the first bit of sadness leaving New Orleans as we were leaving when a great event was starting. Also I had been there less than a year ago for the wedding of some good friends of mine and a wave of nostalgia for that great time swept over me.
But...nothing gets you over the last like the next, and we headed onto Houston. The drive there was made to feel longer than it actually was due to another thunderstorm but more so by the awful road between the two cities (I10). Not much happened during the drive. After entering Texas I was expecting to see more adventurous food, but was still a little aghast to see a big sign advertising a "Human Buffet". After some scrutiny I realised the M was just a really poorly crafted N.
Regarding the itinerary, we have decided to not go to Dallas. We played with the idea of taking the long trek through south Texas to El Paso, but after gathering a number of opinions we will do one day in San Antonio, then take the hill roads to Austin, and then go north west through Texas, staying in somewhere like Abilene or Lubbock, and then onto Santa Fe.
Some people have been asking where the in-car footage is. I have taken quite a bit of it, but the compact flash reader I bought in Panama City has stopped working already, so it is all stuck on the card still. I am not taking any more for fear of overwriting the earlier clips. As soon as I get a new way of retrieving the clips I will put some up.
From a technological struggle to a triumph: I have started using my phone to record little voice memos to myself when on the road as reminders when writing the blog. They are extremely handy, especially given my awful memory. Since learning this Jared suggested I do one day's blog as a podcast. It's an interesting thought, and if I can stay eloquent and interesting for sufficient time I may do one. Every voice memo I have recorded so far starts with "also..." which is really starting to annoy me, so I would have to fix that first :)
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
Here is a little video of a jazz band playing.
We milled around there for a couple of hours, eating different dishes and listening to some great live music. One thing is for sure: the cities following New Orleans are going to have to do pretty well to match that. I actually experienced the first bit of sadness leaving New Orleans as we were leaving when a great event was starting. Also I had been there less than a year ago for the wedding of some good friends of mine and a wave of nostalgia for that great time swept over me.
But...nothing gets you over the last like the next, and we headed onto Houston. The drive there was made to feel longer than it actually was due to another thunderstorm but more so by the awful road between the two cities (I10). Not much happened during the drive. After entering Texas I was expecting to see more adventurous food, but was still a little aghast to see a big sign advertising a "Human Buffet". After some scrutiny I realised the M was just a really poorly crafted N.
Regarding the itinerary, we have decided to not go to Dallas. We played with the idea of taking the long trek through south Texas to El Paso, but after gathering a number of opinions we will do one day in San Antonio, then take the hill roads to Austin, and then go north west through Texas, staying in somewhere like Abilene or Lubbock, and then onto Santa Fe.
Some people have been asking where the in-car footage is. I have taken quite a bit of it, but the compact flash reader I bought in Panama City has stopped working already, so it is all stuck on the card still. I am not taking any more for fear of overwriting the earlier clips. As soon as I get a new way of retrieving the clips I will put some up.
From a technological struggle to a triumph: I have started using my phone to record little voice memos to myself when on the road as reminders when writing the blog. They are extremely handy, especially given my awful memory. Since learning this Jared suggested I do one day's blog as a podcast. It's an interesting thought, and if I can stay eloquent and interesting for sufficient time I may do one. Every voice memo I have recorded so far starts with "also..." which is really starting to annoy me, so I would have to fix that first :)
2007-04-13
Day 7: Panama City, FL to New Orleans, LA
..and then there were two.
Hot news of the day: Cory has left to go house hunting with his wife in Ohio. We wish him all the best with it, and understand that the timing has been bad for this trip with him and the whole house situation.
This has left myself and Jared to fly the Lotus flag for the rest of the tour. We had a sit down and thought about the trip, and decided it was a good juncture to see how we could improve things. We decided that we are doing too much city-to-city driving without enough local culture, so from now on we are selecting some things to visit between destinations.
Putting this plan into action, we decided to take the coastal road from Panama City to Pensacola. It seemed like the area was being aggressively built up and was a hot new area, but later when speaking to a couple in New Orleans I learned that it sustained considerable hurricane damage and is being rebuilt, although I think the truth is a combination of the two.
On the outskirts of Panama City we visited a diving museum. That sounds boring but it was a great little place. Outside the building was an array of small submarines.
Inside we were greeted by a man called Doug. If one was asked to imagine the archetypal nautical enthusiast then he would be the result; sailor's cap and white beard. Brilliant. UK readers would have immediately thought of Uncle Albert, although the beard could have been bushier.
Without any ceremony or introduction he launched into his lecture, declaring "The air on land is so-and-so inches of mercury and for every 100 feet one descends in water the pressure..." and continued for a few minutes on this theme. Upon finishing we introduced ourselves and he then then took us through the museum, playing DVDs and explaining the items. He was a really nice fellow and the museum was precisely the kind of diamond we were hoping to discover in the rough off the major roads.
One charming thing about the south is how people introduce themselves. We met a family at a petrol stop and the wife came over, shook my hand and said something like "Hi I am Lou-Anne Henderson from Mobile, Alabama". More information than I am used to in an introduction but I appreciate the openness. In hindsight my response of "hello" appears to be a little insufficient but never mind.
A more confusing question we experienced was 'what's on the dash?'. My answer of 'not too much, a little dust and a parking stub from yesterday' was met with a bemused look. I then found out the man was trying to determine what the largest number on the speedometer was.
We arrived in New Orleans and met up with my friend John and his friend Larry, had a nice fish dinner and patrolled the French Quarter for a while, catching some good live music and having a laugh.
I finally got the ChaseCam going today. It's a fabulous product but thankfully I did some tests clips and realised I do far too much 'steering-wheel guitar' and moved the camera location from the back window to in front of the rear view mirror. I took a fair amount of footage and will get some clips online once I decide the best place for them. I think Picasa can host video.
Hot news of the day: Cory has left to go house hunting with his wife in Ohio. We wish him all the best with it, and understand that the timing has been bad for this trip with him and the whole house situation.
This has left myself and Jared to fly the Lotus flag for the rest of the tour. We had a sit down and thought about the trip, and decided it was a good juncture to see how we could improve things. We decided that we are doing too much city-to-city driving without enough local culture, so from now on we are selecting some things to visit between destinations.
Putting this plan into action, we decided to take the coastal road from Panama City to Pensacola. It seemed like the area was being aggressively built up and was a hot new area, but later when speaking to a couple in New Orleans I learned that it sustained considerable hurricane damage and is being rebuilt, although I think the truth is a combination of the two.
On the outskirts of Panama City we visited a diving museum. That sounds boring but it was a great little place. Outside the building was an array of small submarines.
After traversing eight states in the first two days we had been in Florida for five, and it was a little refreshing to hit new state borders: Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
One charming thing about the south is how people introduce themselves. We met a family at a petrol stop and the wife came over, shook my hand and said something like "Hi I am Lou-Anne Henderson from Mobile, Alabama". More information than I am used to in an introduction but I appreciate the openness. In hindsight my response of "hello" appears to be a little insufficient but never mind.
A more confusing question we experienced was 'what's on the dash?'. My answer of 'not too much, a little dust and a parking stub from yesterday' was met with a bemused look. I then found out the man was trying to determine what the largest number on the speedometer was.
We arrived in New Orleans and met up with my friend John and his friend Larry, had a nice fish dinner and patrolled the French Quarter for a while, catching some good live music and having a laugh.
I finally got the ChaseCam going today. It's a fabulous product but thankfully I did some tests clips and realised I do far too much 'steering-wheel guitar' and moved the camera location from the back window to in front of the rear view mirror. I took a fair amount of footage and will get some clips online once I decide the best place for them. I think Picasa can host video.
2007-04-11
Day 6: Tampa FL to Panama City FL
We had a rest evening yesterday, and as a result didn't see any of Tampa. Hopefully next time I am here I can experience the city. However we did stay in the kind of motel that, as an Englishman, is associated with movies where bloody and gruesome things normally occur. The movie Memento popped into my head. "Lenny!"
The original plan for today was to make it to Pensacola, but we changed this to Panama City. This helped as it equated today's and tomorrow's journey times as Panama City was an hour and a half closer to Tampa. We left in much better weather than yesterday:
A few Lotus related things happened today: first off we drove under a bridge that was called "Jim Clark Road". I didn't have time to grab a picture of it unfortunately. At the next petrol stop we met a family whose father told us his mother was from Norfolk. He was quite pleased when we informed him that the cars he had just been cooing over were from there too. He did however come out with one of those classic lines for people with English ancestors: "my grandmother shot at V2 bombs in the war". It's like anyone with a long lineage in the US had family on the Mayflower; that ship must have been a massive cruise liner. Or anyone in Liverpool in the 50s used to go to see The Beatles at The Cavern, which of course held 100,000 people.
There were a couple of mileage milestones: I hit 2000 miles for the whole journey so far, and my Elise clicked over to 25000 miles since I got her in April 2005:
We had to shop around for a hotel as down by the main waterfront it was full of college kids doing what they do, and we didn't want to leave the cars in areas where they would be up to mischief at night. It seems that Spring Break hasn't yet finished. That area of town was full of youngsters revving beaten up Camaros and Civics with body kits so we headed out a little. We ended up at a quieter area with rooms overlooking the cars so it all turned out ok. Dinner was (yet another) steak.
I realised that we have yet to see another Elise (or any Lotus) so far on the trip. Tomorrow we hit New Orleans; I know there are a couple of EliseTalk people who live there so maybe tomorrow we will have more luck.
See the gallery for more pics, and as usual today's GPS route can be seen at automapic.com.
The original plan for today was to make it to Pensacola, but we changed this to Panama City. This helped as it equated today's and tomorrow's journey times as Panama City was an hour and a half closer to Tampa. We left in much better weather than yesterday:
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
A few Lotus related things happened today: first off we drove under a bridge that was called "Jim Clark Road". I didn't have time to grab a picture of it unfortunately. At the next petrol stop we met a family whose father told us his mother was from Norfolk. He was quite pleased when we informed him that the cars he had just been cooing over were from there too. He did however come out with one of those classic lines for people with English ancestors: "my grandmother shot at V2 bombs in the war". It's like anyone with a long lineage in the US had family on the Mayflower; that ship must have been a massive cruise liner. Or anyone in Liverpool in the 50s used to go to see The Beatles at The Cavern, which of course held 100,000 people.
There were a couple of mileage milestones: I hit 2000 miles for the whole journey so far, and my Elise clicked over to 25000 miles since I got her in April 2005:
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
We had to shop around for a hotel as down by the main waterfront it was full of college kids doing what they do, and we didn't want to leave the cars in areas where they would be up to mischief at night. It seems that Spring Break hasn't yet finished. That area of town was full of youngsters revving beaten up Camaros and Civics with body kits so we headed out a little. We ended up at a quieter area with rooms overlooking the cars so it all turned out ok. Dinner was (yet another) steak.
I realised that we have yet to see another Elise (or any Lotus) so far on the trip. Tomorrow we hit New Orleans; I know there are a couple of EliseTalk people who live there so maybe tomorrow we will have more luck.
See the gallery for more pics, and as usual today's GPS route can be seen at automapic.com.
2007-04-10
Automapic.com updates
As we are having a quiet night in I am doing some updates to the site, based on feedback and my own to do list. These are the current things to do. (Be warned that this may be a little geeky)
- Fix zoom level and scroll position when selecting a leg. When a leg is selected the zoom level is currently too high so I will scale that back. Also the map is centered incorrectly at the first Point of Interest, rather than the start of the leg. (I published this fix a little while ago.)
- Fix the XML Atom news feed. Although the feed contains a fair bit of information, the structure isn't correct and nothing other than the title is showing up in the news readers I have tried (Google Reader and Bloglines).
- Fix the Calendar export. The ICAL export button downloads the journey itinerary in iCalendar format so that it can be imported into a calendar application. This currently works fine for iCal on the Mac and Google Calendar (the only ones I have tried). However Outlook users are reporting that it complains that the calendar scale is not a Gregorian one. Even though I am setting it to Gregorian something isn't working with Outlook. Not sure how easily I can fix this as I don't have Outlook but it's on the list.
- Google Earth export. The Google Earth export buttons have been there for a while, but are simply teasing as I have yet to hook this up.
- Nicer itinerary view. Although the current itinerary shows a nice view of the locations of the stops and their dates, unless the itinerary is imported to a calendar there is no way to glance at the itinerary as a whole. I want to add in a popup table of the itinerary or overlay it on a calendar within the site.
- Better URL handling for locations. If a URL is set for a new location, it will not work correctly unless beginning with http://
- Safari problems. Safari has been working during my tests, but it locks up when displaying a leg path on Jared's machine. I am certain this is due to me not being clever enough with the Google Map path zoom levels; each point in a path has an associated zoom level at which that point should be displayed. I can probably just set every nth one to show up when zoomed out and scale them from there.
- Some additions to the admin section, but those are low priority as they just affect me for now :)
Day 5: Miami FL to Tampa FL
A quick sprint today from Miami to Tampa. There was a danger that we would have to go a long way round as there were some big fires apparently along the road we were planning on taking, although by the morning these warnings had disappeared. We left Miami in reasonable weather; a little muggy but not raining, although it was threatening.
An hour or so later and the threat level was increased from guarded to high.
Then we encountered a storm that would have had Noah scurrying anxiously to his workshop, wood plane in hand.
The Elises performed well in this weather even at decent cruising speeds, although I had no idea where we were or what was around us. I saw these supports at one point and inferred that we were on a bridge of some sort.
Back to those fires; we saw no real evidence ourselves apart from some roadsigns warning of smoke and occasionally we could smell the remains of a fire. We were also hoping to visit a gator farm but they were apparently not on the route we took.
Tonight we are relaxing in the motel, then tomorrow we are off to Panama City.
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
An hour or so later and the threat level was increased from guarded to high.
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
Then we encountered a storm that would have had Noah scurrying anxiously to his workshop, wood plane in hand.
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
The Elises performed well in this weather even at decent cruising speeds, although I had no idea where we were or what was around us. I saw these supports at one point and inferred that we were on a bridge of some sort.
 |
| From 2007 USA Elises |
Back to those fires; we saw no real evidence ourselves apart from some roadsigns warning of smoke and occasionally we could smell the remains of a fire. We were also hoping to visit a gator farm but they were apparently not on the route we took.
Tonight we are relaxing in the motel, then tomorrow we are off to Panama City.
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