SpottsBrothers.com

Rockin' and Rollin' With Some Friends

2009-01-27T19:31:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday nite a friend texted me about a pizza party at a friend's house, and since I didn't really have any plans, I thought it would be fun to see many of my motorcycling friends (aka locals) who love the dragon as much as I do.

Darryl (Killboy) and Lori (Killgurl) were there of course, as well as our gracious host Mr. K, Mike, Francois, Megan, LeeAnne, Rob, Tyler, as well as many others.

Although I'm not much of a Guitar Hero / Rock Band participant, many folks were, and there was also a Playstation 3 setup running MotoGP, which many of us enjoyed...

Darryl was busy shooting some party footage with his GoPro, which you'll be able to see over at Killboy.com as soon as he gets done editing it.

Here are a few shots from my iPhone... Note that this was about 2am when many people had left ... It was standing room only a liitle earlier :-)

Mike on the Drums!

Darryl and Lori

Lori and LeeAnne

Rob and Tyler playing MotoGP (sorry it's blurry)

I had a great time, and really wish to thank our host Mr. K. for his hospitality!

It was really great to see all you guys!

Test Drive Unlimited (TDU) XBOX 360 Photos

2009-01-22T00:34:00.001-08:00

It's been quite a while since I've played TDU, but I thought I'd share a few photos and some info on how to get them.

The game is awesome and includes 1000+ miles of roads on the island of Oahu, dozens of cars, and some nice motorcycles (once you get far enough into the game to unlock them).

I'm a mac user and software developer (mostly java these days, although I'm looking into iPhone development as well), but since the photo sharing functionality of TDU is apparently never going to be implemented (that I've found), one needs a PC to get the photos from TDU.

About a year ago, I used the Unofficial TDU Photo Extraction Tutorial to connect my xbox360 memory card to my mac running bootcamp.

You need some hardware mentioned in that post and I have the Datel memory card kit.

I went thru some photos I had extracted back then and uploaded some of my favorites to this Flickr set

I had a lot of fun riding around the island with my friend Darryl (multiplayer mode via the internet), and hope to spend some time playing it a little more this winter and "shooting" some more photos!

I do wish it was easier to get photos from the game and am going to see if I can use VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop rather than having to use Bootcamp.

My Dear Friend Cathaleen

2009-01-20T11:55:00.000-08:00

I recently received an email from a very dear friend Cathaleen (Cathy) ...

We have not really kept in touch since we went to school together at RIT back around 1980, but I hope to change that as I really miss her after hearing from her.

I was a computer engineering major and she was a photography major, although I was really majoring in being a Disco DJ and minoring in Foosball :-)

I was also into 35mm photography as a hobby (back in the days of film), where most of my photography was done with slide film.

Before I moved here to Tennessee (August 2004), I had an Ultimate Garage Sale, where I sold / threw out / gave away just about everything I had collected over @ 40 years of life. If I couldn't put it into one of my large (40+ gallon) rubbermaid totes, it was not being kept, as I was moving to Tennesee on a motorcycle, and planning on having my most important belongings shipped down to me by UPS when I got settled and could afford it.

The reason I mentioned this is that one of the things I threw out was my large slide / photo collection (mostly slides). Prior to doing that, I had scanned most of my slides and had them somewhere as digital photos. When I read Cathy's email, I immediately thought of some of the photos I shot on various trips with Cathy, but I couldn't find them ... aaarrggghhh!

iPhoto To The Rescue ... Although I'm now a professional photographer with Killboy.com, I hadn't used iPhoto in a while, but I thought I had some old pictures of Cathy and I as well as some of my older photos. iPhoto came to my rescue and helped me find the shot of Cathy and I you see above.

I *think* the photo was shot around Niagara Falls as Cathy and I made several trips to both the American and Canadian sides of that wonder of the world.

Cathy now has 2 beautiful grown-up daughters, and manages a large team of photographers with AOL.

I haven't had time to organize / upload more of my photos, but I did put together a small Flickr Set about Cathy.

One of our most memorable trips was to Fort Lauderdale, FL to see our friend Disco Debbie (another friend from RIT). I was of course Disco Dave and in many ways I still am! :-)

As I recall, Cathy and I took my very first Honda Civic from Rochester, NY to our old home in Gang Mills (sorry, no street view yet!), before heading South for the 24+ hour trip to Florida. Oh the days of being young!

Anyway, Cathy found me because of this blog, so I am thankful for being able to get back in touch with such a dear friend!

Jim's Vulcan at Erwin Pond (October 2004)

2009-01-05T15:24:00.001-08:00

To see the complete set as a slideshow, click here.

Key West December 2008 (40D pics)

2009-01-04T16:05:00.000-08:00

I recently got back from a bike trip on the F800GS. I have been wanting to go to Key West on a bike for several years now as part of my "4 Corners of the US" adventure(s), and I finally got to do the south east corner (Key West Florida) December 18th-24th ....

I used my GoPro Hero for some onboard video and stills (coming soon), but I shot all of the pictures below with my Canon 40D.

The GS on Roosevelt Blvd (Map, Street View)

Why is that guy over there taking our picture?

What the heck is Killboy.com?

Our Key West Branch Office :-)

Francois and Megan? (no their cruise was later) :-)

Some folks soaking up the sun

A pair of Seagulls looking pretty

A couple kids in the *chilly* water

And finally two of my favorite sunset pics

For a Flickr slideshow of these pics (and a few more), just click here.

Deals Gap via Google Street View

2009-01-02T21:46:00.000-08:00

A week or so ago I was doing some Google Earth / Maps research for a Gap / Dragon simulator / game I've been toying with / working on for several years now.

In the process of doing this, I found that Google finally has Street View available for the Dragon / Deals Gap area ...

Before using any of the links below, here are some pointers once you get to a street view:

#1 Hide the left pane by clicking on the "<<" box at the top left of street view ... This will give you more space to view...

#2 Once street view comes up, make sure it has "focus" by clicking somewhere within the image...

#3 Use the arrow keys to move around:

left arrow = pan left
right arrow = pan right
up arrow = move forward
down arrow = move backward

You can start from the Deals Gap Store heading North (the start of the dragon for many):

Or how about from the Tennessee side, heading from Tabcat Bridge South:

You can also find some excellent info on this post at Killboy, and at the WhyTheyRide blog.

My First YouTube Upload081229 Locals At The Gap

2008-12-30T23:53:00.000-08:00

Hey all ...

I recently got a GoPro Hero (miniature video / still camera) ... I've been playing around with it and took it with me on my recent Key West trip. Photos / videos from the trip should be online soon.

Here's a very short video of some locals at the store I shot while at the gap Monday ...

For best picture, use the "hi quality" option available if you open the video in YouTube or click here, then choose hi quality.

The New Site

2008-12-29T17:22:00.001-08:00

Hello all and welcome!

Although my brother Jim and I have been working together for years on dozens of projects, we thought it was about time to create a blog-based site to make it easy for us to keep everyone up-to-date about what's going on in our Adventure Of Life :-)

You can find links here to a few of our current sites / projects:

WeLiveMax.com, an incredible network marketing opportunity featuring astounding (and patented) nutraceuticals, including MaxGXL, MaxWLX, and Max-N-Fuze. You'll be hearing lots more about these fantastic products and the company, so stay tuned!

Killboy.com, the original and best TailOfTheDragon photographers!

MicroBillboard Brand Premium Identity Cards

DSpotts.com Java Software Engineering (site is outdated, sorry!)

XPlaneUpdate, a (now outdated) utility for X-Plane users