Pictures from above

[greatbear]

In my last post, I made mention of hoisting my GoPro camera aloft once I get the hang of being a drone pilot. Well, that really didn't take long, and Sunday I had installed and tuned up the camera rig and sent it up for a peek in the skies around the house. Because I have no view on the ground as to what the camera is seeing (no "first-person view") I had to mostly guess as to exactly where the camera is pointing. That turned out to be relatively easy, since the camera pans with the rotation of the copter. I have control of camera tilt by a dedicated lever on the remote control. so it was simply a case of spinning the drone to where I wanted to see and tilt the camera down a bit. I took it up to various altitudes, I estimate at about 400 feet at the highest, and did a slow pan and tilt. I had no idea what to expect, so after a while I landed the rig and took it in the house. I pulled the tiny SD card out of the camera and put it in the card reader, and I was greeted with some amazing shots. Kid-in-a-candy-store time! Since I can't operate the camera shutter or other controls from the ground (yet), I set it to take a shot every two seconds. Later in the day I put the thing in the air again, but this time I flew it quite a bit lower and did a slow circle around the yard, to see the house from all angles, and hopefully getting a shot similar to the aerial picture that was taken of the house 20 years prior. I am proud to say I got pretty close for a first attempt.

This is the photo from 1994:



Here is what the place looks like today:



I cropped the shot to more resemble the first photo. You can see how big all those little trees became that I had planted maybe a year before the first picture was taken. The house sits inside a lot of lush greenery compared to before.

I think some explanation is needed about the origins of that first aerial photo. As is often the case around here, it was the result of happy coincidences. A good friend of mine had an aerial photo of his house and grounds, and I had it in my mind to maybe some day have one taken of my place. He had a friend who was a pilot, and he had obliged his request as a gift. Well, I knew no one who was a pilot, so my desire for an aerial pic would have to be shelved until I had (if ever) such an opportunity. Fast forward to 1995. It was my birthday, February 2nd, aka Groundhog Day. I was not feeling well, and my Mom had a chance to see a concert with her good friends that day. So, I was left alone, with only Patches as company. No one else I knew was available, and being that I was pretty miserable, I felt it best to be by myself anyway. This didn't mean I was happy, however. Later that day, there was a knock at the door (no one ever seemed to use the bell), with a strange man standing there with a business card and a large case. He said he was from Aerial Photo, Inc.. I invited him in the house and after a few words, he produced the photo, already matted and framed. The photo had been taken just less than a year ago, as it showed the yard in early-mid spring, when the fruit trees were blooming and the grass was slowly greening itself after a cold winter. Well, I was surprised and delighted. While the photo wasn't cheap (I recall it was about 120 dollars), but I just had to have it. He and I continued to talk for about two hours or more about photography, aircraft, and other things. His company operated by flying in various "picturesque" areas, taking photos while making note of the locations, and they will print the best of the lot and go out and try to sell them to the people whose property was photographed. In his case he had several more framed prints as well as some unframed, showing houses in the area, some of which were stunning. Turns out, many people (like me) find them irresistible, and fork over the cash. Not such a bad business model.

So here I was, "given" a really cool birthday present that I had always wanted, by a stranger. Upon closer inspection, I discovered the photographer had managed to catch Mom and Patches, but doing what they loved doing. Mom is working in the gardens as she loved doing, and Patches is dutifully standing guard and keeping her company. Laundry is hanging on the line, and I am at work, as my truck is not parked in front of the garage. It was a snapshot of everyday life, not some posed shot. This only added to the charm. Now that both Mom and Patches are gone, this photo became even more special to me. I got choked up when I scanned and cropped the print.



The photo, at 13x19 inches, is too big for my flatbed scanners. I also made a quick scan with the office scanner versus dragging out the photo scanner, but the results are good enough. The cropped area shows Mom watering the plants in the flower beds, and Patches scanning (see what I did there?) the distance for potential trouble. She was the best watchdog and awesome company for both of us.

As it turned out, two other aerial photo outfits came calling in later years, one just offering a card and to say they'll be in the area and if I was interested in a picture. I politely declined, saying I already had one. Not long after, a guy showed up much like the first one did, with an unframed print that was nowhere near as nicely composed or as high quality. I declined that one too. I had the perfect one.

What was at first turning out to be a rather depressing birthday had become one of those happy circumstances of life.

Comments

[greatbearmd.livejournal.com]

Even the beams were an adventure. The company that makes the house (Foremost of PA) spec'd 10 inch x 49lb-ft beams. The steel company asked me what sort of skyscraper I was making. And I was the living example of measure twice and cut once. There are four beams total, and somehow I managed to get two of them exactly one foo short. I still don't know how that happened, and when it came time to set the beams and columns, things didn't fit quite right. I had to add a foot to the end of one of the beams, and when I asked the steel company if they had any left over, I came up bupkis. I managed to find a bigger, 52 lb-ft section and welded that together. My nice red iron beams had a rusty old piece added to the end. Me and my neighbor traded welding duties, and that was the longest continuous weld I ever made. I also suffered a bad case of welder's flash later that night. Just being in the vicinity was enough. Ouch.

Even the electric company was accommodating when I said I wanted a 400 amp service.

As it stands today, I had pretty good luck with longevity and very few problems. In 2005, I had to replace the two crummy Pease concept doors (six foot "French" doors with one operating panel) that constantly leaked air, needed glass replacements and were never right. Turns out they had also leaked water too, ruining about a foot and a half of subfloor along their width in the process. At the time I was also dealing with my mother's declining health, so I did one of them in the late fall in the dining room, and the other in the spring, which was in the master bedroom. I had to rip out the subflooring and replace it, it was rotten. I replaced the doors with Andersen Frenchwood doors with two operating panels. They seal tight against wind and water, and feel (and lock) like vault doors. The front door, also made by Pease, is in horrible shape. I was going to replace it about five years ago, but ongoing health and injuries kept me back. I felt good enough to do it before our wedding in June, but the lead time was too long. I gave it a quick and dirty paint job that turned out far better than needed or I expected. I have the new door on order now, and I got a call today (the original delivery date) that it will be another week. I hope this doesn't drag on and on.

I had to repair the roofs of both the carport and the sunroom. The carport had some building issues that needed to be corrected. The front corner of the roof where it meets the house wasn't properly attached, and sagged over time. I also cut costs by having a stippled drywall ceiling that was a constant source of sagging and dropping chunks of spackling. I ripped all that down, discovered the whole structure was spreading apart at the ceiling joists as well. It was a stupid move by the builder, who changed my original design from trusses to joists-and-rafters. There was a center beam for support, with the joists nailed into that as well as the front and back beams. Over time this was pulling apart, so I used cables to pull the structure back together, lots of Teco brackets to tie everything together solidly, and I added knee walls to correct a bit of sag, then jacked the whole mess up and properly anchored the corner to the house. Gone is the drywall, in its place it 3/8" plywood with beaded soffit that still looks fantastic.

(I'm very talkative tonight...)