Quick trip to Boston, MA

Pam and I headed to Boston to connect with Kirsten & Alan (Elmo) for some fun and relaxation.  We parked at Wellington Station and took the subway in to the Marriott Long Wharf.  K&A were waiting for us when we arrived around 10AM.

 

We checked in and decided to take an early afternoon “Boston Duck Tour”.   We had some time so walked by the harbor which was nice.  We walked back by way of the Rose Kennedy Greenway with many statues and art works along the way.

The Boston Duck Tour was fun.  We cruised through the Boston and over to Cambridge to enter the Charles River.  The tour guide was full of historic facts about the different buildings along the Charles.

The hotel had a very nice outdoor deck/landing just off the pool.  It had nice views of the harbor looking east toward Logan Airport.  For those of you that know me I had my camera and decided my mission would be to take some time laps photos.  Why I didn’t decide this before we left home was a mistake.  No Tripod … Because of this I would need some Tripod Creativity.

For dinner we decided Italian in the North End.  Kirsten likes Lasagna so that was a must on the menu.  We made a reservation at 6:30PM.  Several restaurants didn’t have openings until 8:30PM and even 9:30PM.  I have never been able to figure out how people can eat that late at night but that’s just me.

Returning from dinner we headed for the outdoor deck.  Looking toward the airport the planes were landing over the water.  No kidding … once I thought about what I wanted to do they shifted and started landing on a different runway. 

The rails were rounded over and the tables didn’t clear the top of the rails.  Tripod Creativity - I ended up leaning out to set my camera on top of the light fixtures hanging beyond the rails.  I was told several times not to drop my camera.  It wouldn’t survive a 4 story fall so I kept my lanyard around my wrist the whole time.

I took pictures from 1 to 15 seconds.  Increasing the exposure time increases the amount of light or brightness of the picture and shows object movement so experimenting was fun.  Here is a day picture and a night picture to compare.  The horizontal lines on the horizon of the night picture are planes descending into Logan airport.

Next we headed to Faneuil Hall and I took a couple pictures.  Tripod Creativity - used the side of a flower planter and a phone charger to point the lens to get the right angle.

There were several wedding parties and a reception at the hotel.  As I was looking down from the fourth floor to the first floor I took a couple pictures of the colorful panels near the escalators.  Also, there were orange colored ornamental lights hanging down from the high ceilings.  They were open at the bottom to project light down toward the escalators.  Still in my experimental mode I decided to take time lapse pictures (pointing my camera straight up) of those lights with different camera settings while going up and down the escalators.  Because I was moving it was tough trying to point and hold the camera straight up.  I did receive some rather perplexing looks while doing this.

Tripod Creativity - I used the hand rail of the moving escalator to try to hold the camera straight up pointing at the lights.  Note to Self … The inside hand rail of the escalator going down at the Marriott Long Wharf moves at a slower speed than the steps you are standing on?  I found that out in my experiment.  It’s something to watch out for next time you are in Boston!  hehe ...

  

Sunday morning up at 5:15AM and off to take more time lapse pictures.  Tripod Creativity - I used a table and my wallet to prop up my camera at the right angle.  At one point I set a chair in the middle of the road and set my camera on that.  Not much traffic that early in the morning.  The red streaks were from the side markers of 2 panel vans going past me when the shutter was open.

Boston is great and full of history.  I decided to think more historic so headed up the street to “The Old State House”.  This is one of the stops on Boston’s Freedom Trail.  The plaque on the building says:  “The Old State House, Boston’s oldest public building, was built in 1713 as the seat of British colonial government.  Here the Royal Governor and Massachusetts Assembly debated the Stamp Acts and the Writs of Assistance.  The Declaration of Independence was first read to the Bostonians from the east balcony on July 18, 1776.

The building served as the State House until 1798, and was also Boston’s City Hall from 1830 to 1841.”

My pictures show the east balcony where that took place.  The headlights and tail lights are from cars as they passed by me.  Tripod Creativity - My camera was resting on top of the corner garbage can lid while using my lens cover to get the right angle … really!

I headed back to catch the sun rise out of the east over the water and started to wake people after 7AM.

Once everyone was up and moving we found a place for breakfast and ended up at the Boston Common by the pond.  We enjoyed the rest of the morning, checked out around noon, and headed for home.

We had a great time and decided New York City may be next.  OH, next time tripod too …

New England Dragway - Super Chevy Show

Anthony and I went to the Super Chevy Show at New England Dragway this past Saturday.  There were several categories including Bracket Eliminations, Stock/Super Stock, Outlaw 10.5, and Pro Comp, Pro 7.  Along with the racing there was a car show with some very nice cars. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect as I had never been to the drag races.  I brought ear plugs which turned out to be a good idea.

One of my first pictures was of this dragster going down the track.  The exhaust heat coming from this dragster caused this mirage effect (the refraction, bending or reflection of rays of light by a layer of heated air of varying density).

There are bleachers on both sides of the track.  I was a bright sunny day so I headed for the side with the sun to my back which is better for pictures. 

I moved around a bit in the stands to figure out a good location.  There are jersey barriers on the outside of each lane for safety reasons.  I went to the top of the bleachers to try to get a better angle on the near lane cars.  I couldn’t get an angle high enough over the barrier so they obstructed the tires a bit.  No obstruction for the far lane cars. 

 

Last week at the Loudon motorcycle races I practiced panning.  I continued practicing playing with my shutter speeds throughout the day.

We watched several runs then headed over to look at the cars in the car show.  We passed by some of the trailers where people were working on their cars.  I liked the back-to-the-future face painted on this car.  This hub cap captured us checking out some of the cars.

 
There was a TV station interviewing some of the car owners.  I really liked this truck and often wonder why the shows on Velocity always lower things to make street rods.  This is my kind of truck …

Many of the cars were not only fast but very pretty.  This is an expensive sport.  Even though there was competition among the teams several times the announcer asked for parts or tools to help another team. 

Two jet dragsters raced in the afternoon.  There was lots of fire and smoke.  They were loud going down the track so I'm glad I had the ear plugs.  They were impressive and entertaining.  

I liked this colorful dragster and slowed my shutter speed down.  I liked the blurry people watching in the stands.

I’m not sure why buy I love gassers and saw 2 of them.  Gassers are based on production models from the 1930s to mid-1960s, which have been stripped of extraneous weight and jacked up using a beam axle to provide better weight distribution on acceleration.  I think they look great.  I like to research and wondered where the name "Gasser" came from.  From doing my searching I found this answer on the internet from a guy named Randy ...kudos to him for his explanation.

"A "Gasser" is slang for a car that was built to race in the NHRA Gas Classes.  Those classes ranged from AA/GSupercharged (top class) to H/G. 

The cars were purpose-built full-bodied race cars.  The modifications allowed were very extensive and so was lightening of the car.  The cars were built to a cubic inch/weight ratio to determine the classification.  The main rule was the car needed to operate on gasoline.

These cars were the top of the gasoline-fueled full bodied classes.  The next classes up were Fuel Altered (before Funny Cars) and Top Gas (front engined dragsters at the time) and Top Fuel.

Most Gassers employed mechanical fuel injection.  The Gas Supercharged ranks used mechanical fuel injection AND a blower.  Examples of those are Stone-Woods-Cook, Mazmanian, George Hurst, etc.

The "Gasser look" stemmed from the car's high power output and the poor tires that were available in the day.  Many competitors found that if you raised the car up, you could achieve more weight transfer hence more traction. Like all things in drag racing, sometimes this concept was carried to the extreme.

This period was before the time of 4-link suspension, sticky tires, tubbed rear ends, etc.  Most cars were raised in the front with a straight axle and used very long lift bars on the rear suspension.  Most sported fuel injected engine combos and manual transmissions or clutch-flite or clutch-hydro transmissions.  They made alot of power for their time.  The tire and suspension technology was in it's infancy, so finding traction was always a prime concern.

Because these cars were so popular, the camshaft manufacturer used them to spotlight their newest cams.  This led to "Cam Wars" between Ed Iskenderian, Sig Erson, Jack Engle, etc.  One week it was purported that a car had an Engle cam and had switched to an Isky cam and picked up huge amounts, or vice-versa.  Everyone wanted to know whose cam was in the winner's engines each weekend.  Then the street guys would run out and buy the hottest new cam for their street car in hopes of emulating that huge performance gain made by their favorite "Gasser".  This was a very colorful period in drag racing." ...  

I wish I had more Gasser pictures to show you but I only saw 2. 

To recap last week … I was taking motorcycle pictures and my camera battery died.  REALLY ...

As I was taking these pictures my screen lit up and said I was out of memory.  REALLY … 

No excuse with a 32 gig SD card in my camera other than poor picture management.  They say it isn’t a good idea to delete pictures from your camera.  Well … I did some deleting and continued for a bit longer.

Anthony and I had a great time.  I’ll go to future events and take more pictures.