This idea was inspired by a series of posts on this blog which I read from time to time.  Here is a specific post with a bunch of other “best of” posts and gallerties.  Enjoy.

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So I am in the market for some new ski gloves this year.  After roughly 12 years I feel it may finally be time to replace my Reusch Racing gloves.  I love my old gloves, full leather and they held up forever as you can tell.  I may go with another pair of Reusch but I have been looking at the Hestra offerings.  Anyway, check out this review on the Hestra Heli 3 Finger glove, raw, uncut and unedited.  Enjoy!

These gloves are just crazy. I use them for skiing but they would be great for snow boarding because you get the pointer finger unlike mittens but they are way warmer than gloves. The hestra people are just genious! So what you look like Yoda, you will stay warm and alot of people think these things look sick (like me). I’m only 13 (well I’m 14 now but when I was using them I was 13) and when you’re younger your hands get colder and my hands got cold only once on a chair lift going to the very top in Utah when it was crazy windy but seriously, any grown man would still be warm. They are really long which is good because when you bite the dust, you won’t get snow in your gloves. The leather palms are really nice and really really tough and pretty grippy. These are well priced for the quality but blowing 100 on gloves can sound crazy to some people but these were sooooo worth it. These are all you need unless your in like the north pole. haha well I love these things and anyone and everyone who skis or snowboards should just buy them.

We started from the second trailhead on Spruceton Rd which makes the hike a little shorter compared to the first.  The benefit is there is a really nice waterfall about a mile into the trail.  After we spent some time at the waterfall we continued on.  The trail was in very nice condition.  You could tell that fall was in the air.  There was also plenty of leaves on the trail and a multitude of colors in the trees.

Westkill has a funny false-summit.  Once you think you are at the summit you actually have to continue on a ridge for a while before your final climb to the actual summit.  Buck Ridge Lookout is where you want to stop and enjoy the views.  There are two areas to view the surrounding scenery from. It was really cold on the lookout, the wind was whipping across the exposed rocks.  After taking in the view we retreated to the tree cover to enjoy lunch. After lunch (and the relentless wind) we started our descent back to the waterfall and finally to the car.  It turned out to be a long day with the time we spend at the waterfall, summit and the drive but it was a great hike.

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The next day we were back on the road with our shortest leg of the trip.  We drove from Louisville to Memphis.  Our one goal in Memphis was to have an authentic Memphis BBQ dinner.  After asking several local people we finally decided on Interstate BBQ.  This location was the original one that started the now famous Neely’s BBQ name.

Dinner was great, beef ribs with cole slaw and a Bud (not even Bud Light).  Jason got Rib Tips and Pulled Beef with potato salad.  After dinner we headed to Beale St. The area around Beale St. can be a little dicey but nothing too bad.  Again the main section of Beale St. was off-limits to cars and had an open-container policy.  The street is basically lined with bars, places to get drinks (you know the yards with lanyards and live music.  I don’t know if it is the original but there is a Coyote Ugly bar towards the end of the street. We didn’t stay out too late as we were really tired and needed to get up early the next day for our final leg of the trip.

The next morning we had an early breakfast and then headed out for Dallas.  The trip wasn’t overly long but we had to get to Dallas in time to pick up the keys for the apartment.  The drive went really fast, we made in there in plenty of time.  Here are some observations from the portion of the drive from Arkansas to Dallas:

• They are not very original with naming towns.  There is one town called TexArkana.  I imagine the naming of the town went something like this:  “we are in Texas”, “no we are in Arkansas.”  OK, split the difference and call it Texarkana.
• There are also towns called Arkadelphia, Bald Knob, and Beaver (I found the last two on the Arkansas Wikipedia page)
• There are long stretches in Texas where there is nothing around Rt. 30 (the main highway from Arkansas to Dallas).
• People are very eager to stop and offer assistance for other cars on the side of the road.  Perhaps because of the previous bullet point.

We finally arrived at Jason’s new apartment.  We picked up the keys and unloaded what we had in the car.  We had a hotel room for that last night as the movers were coming the following morning.  By the point both Jason and I were beat, we grabbed some dinner at Bone Daddy’s then went to bed.  We didn’t get much rest the next day.  The movers were at the apartment bright and early.  After everything was unloaded I helped Jason start the unpacking process.  We also went out to pick up various things he needed for the new place.  While driving around town I did notice an REI store less than 10 minutes from his place.  We definitely made a stop there to pick up some stuff.

All in all we had a great trip.  I remember September seemed so far away during the summer, then all of a sudden I was packing up for the trip.  The next thing I knew we were waking up before dawn to get me to the airport for the flight home.  Good luck Jason, and enjoy.

Here are some additional pics from the trip.  I took some footage, I am trying to get a small movie together.

Check out my previous post which shows a video I put together.  Below are some pictures from the day.  I will post more of when we were walking around town.

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I had a great time filming and thoroughly enjoyed the hike.  The views from the top of the firetower were spectacular.  The firetower on Overlook Mountain is one of the few remaining firetowers left in the Catskills Mountains where hikers are still allowed to claim to the top.  From the top you have a great 360 degree view of other Mountain tops, Albany and can look in the general direction of New York City.

Overlook Mountain Hike 9-6-09 from Michael Holtzman on Vimeo.
Click the link above to watch in High Def.

Even though I have put together and published a couple of other videos on my flickr page, examples here and here, I put more time into the editing of this video.  I created a vimeo account as even with a Pro account on flickr, they still have some harsh limits on videos (ie. clips can only be 90 seconds).  Personally, I feel that they have had the video feature available long enough that they can start to raise the features on it.  Especially with sites like Vimeo and even SmugMug advancing fast in the video space.  I know flickr’s focus is and will remain photos, but with more and more cameras capable of HD video they will need to adjust.

Even though I am using Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, I still found the work flow surprisingly difficult.  Basically Premiere Pro can’t handle the raw movie clips, even though my computer is more than capable of playing the raw footage in Quicktime.  I did some searching on forums and this is a known problem with Premiere Pro.

I was able to get through the editing but it really took much longer than it should have, this is before I even got to the issue of exporting the final video.  I found this old POTN thread which had some helpful tips to get me through this go around.  I was also disappointed (but not too surprised) that work flow on a PC seemed to be more complicated, or at least have extra steps compared to a Mac.  Though on a Mac the process still isn’t perfect.  I am going to need to figure out a better work flow fast as I have a couple of videos to create from my Dallas road trip.

In my initial research I found a couple of options to improve the process.  They were creating proxy files for use during editing and trans-coding Canon’s 5D Mark II raw footage into an intermediary format.  I am going to do some experimenting this week and will do a write-up once I have the process down.  For now enjoy the video.

I did take a break after lunch to open a package I was expecting.  It contained my new Canon 50mm F1.2 lens.  I will write a post after spending some time with the lens but after mounting it on my Canon 5D Mark II, all I can say is WOW.  This lens/body combination just feels right in your hands.  The weight seems perfectly balanced. 

So after I blasted through the rest of my todo list I headed home to finish packing and say some goodbyes.  We loaded up the car and Jason and I were off.  The first leg of our trip was to Buffalo.  The drive from Albany to Buffalo has to be one of the most boring drives there is.  You basically head west on the Thruway for 4.25 hours.  Every 10-15 miles you see a rest stop with either a Mobil/Burger King or Sunoco/McDonalds.  Repeat and repeat.

Tomorrow is our long drive day.  We are jamming out early to try to get to Louisville by late afternoon.  On top for later that night is a stop at duelin’ piano bar.  We are still open for a place for dinner. 

That’s all for tonight, we need to get an early start tomorrow.

Some of you  probably know that my brother is moving down to Texas  to accept a promotion at his company.  The time has finally come, he will be leaving in a week.  Instead of letting him drive down straight through I decided to turn it into a little road trip and make the drive down with him.

I haven’t been to this part of the country so I figured I would make the most it.  We are planning on extending the trip by a day or two so we have some time to stop and enjoy sites along the way.

Here is our tentative schedule:

• Depart Albany Tuesday after work
• Drive to Buffalo and spend the night.
• Depart Buffalo and drive to Louisville, KY.
• Tour Louisville at night and spend night.
• Spend early part of day in Louisville then depart for Memphis, TN.
• Arrive in Memphis for dinner.
• Nightlife in Memphis then spend the night.
• Tour Memphis until early afternoon then depart for Dallas, TX.
• Arrive in Dallas Friday night.
• Nightlife in Dallas Friday and spend the night.
• The movers will have all my brother’s stuff ready in the apartment Saturday morning.
• Fly back to Albany, NY Sunday morning.

I want to document the trip by taking pictures of the places we visit and the people we meet.  My original idea was to take my new Canon 5D Mark II and only a single prime lens, something like the 35 1.4L or the 50mm (either the 1.4 or 1.2).  I haven’t pulled the trigger on buying either of these lens yet so for now the plan is to take my 24-70 2.8L and a Canon 580 exII flash.  There may still be a last minute purchase, we’ll have to see. I’ll see if I can post some pictures here during my trip, worst case I will get to it on Sunday when I get back.

We are looking for places to eat and visit in Louisville and Memphis.  Let me know if you have any good suggestions.

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As you may have saw in a previous post I stayed at the W, Montreal.  What a great hotel.  It was right in the heart of downtown.  It was a very easy walk to the main festival grounds, Old Montreal, St. Catherine Street and basically everywhere else you want to visit. 

I will try to get a gallery of images I took from the weekend up soon.  Here is a preview of a movie I took with the Canon 5D Mark II.  I have only played around with the video capabilities a little but I am starting to get the hang of it.  Not having auto-focus takes a little getting used to.

Here is one image that I liked how it turned out and posted it to Flickr.

Back to the fireworks.  Last year for the fourth I shoot fireworks up at Alexandria Bay in the Thousand Islands.  You can see that flickr set here.  Overall I was impressed with some of the shoots, but I was excited to see what I could come up with this year.  The fireworks in Albany are set up from the Empire State Plaza.  I decided to set up shop just across the Hudson River.  I had a perfect view of the fireworks along with the larger buildings to better frame the shots.

View the full set on flickr here.  Of course I was dying to try out the movie mode as well.  I took a few different clips throughout the night.  I produced one video that was about 4 minutes long.  I decided to further cut that down to about a minute of just the finale.  A couple of notes.  First:  the movie editing software that comes with the Canon software sucks.  I am already looking at getting something more powerful.  Second, movie editing is fun!

Music Credits:
Independence Day by DoKashiteru