Get The F Out Of The House! - A Real Life Dynasty (Loads of big images and video)

[sabotai]

From the New Year's Resolutions thread (Resolutions/Goals for the New Year? - Front Office Football Central)

1) Get out of the house more often. Perhaps start a vlog. Not the sit in front of the camera and whine about my day kind. Just take my FlipCam, go to parks, go on hikes, take "Weird NJ" road trips, etc and record them. Take pictures too.

Now that the weather is getting nicer, it's time to get to it.

Prologue, March 21, 2010

Over a year ago, I had started to do this, only to give up on it pretty quickly. Hopefully that doesn't happen again, but here are some pictures I took from the few walks I took last year.

Chestnut Branch Park - Mantua, NJ

A very large storm had passed by the area a few days before I took these.

Put the pics inside spoiler tags so they don't all always load up when viewing the thread.

Spoiler

[sabotai]

April 1st, 2010 - Red Bank Battlefield - National Park, NJ

On the Delaware River on the other side of Philly.

Images inside the spoiler tag

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There's a geocache on this little island









Coming in for a landing

[sabotai]

April 8th, 2010 - A "scenic" area at Riverwinds, West Deptford, NJ

This was on the day of my first time looking for geocaches....I was 0 for 1

Spoiler

These little birdhouses are over the area





The geocahce is here....somewhere. I looked for about 15 minutes, moved on and was going to give it another shot.....but I ran through a field of stickler bushes because (I thought) I was being chased by a few bees (and I'm very phobic when it comes to bees and wasps probably due to being stung many times as a kid). I tore my legs up and had to cut the adventure short.

Actually, it wasn't the running through the field that did it. After I ran through it, I found myself at a dead end. I tore my legs up when I was trying to carefully walk back through it. Lesson learned, always run through a field of stickler bushes, don't walk.

[sabotai]

And that was it. I didn't go looking for geocaches again or go to any parks. Until today, over a year later, when I took another trip to Red Bank Battlefield. This time I walked all over the park for about a half hour and worked up a nice little sweat.

April 23rd, 2011 - Red Bank Battlefield - National Park, NJ

I recorded some video but it pretty much sucked. I didn't realize how shaky my FlipCam was. I tried using Vegas Studio to stabilize it, but it just made it look like shit. Next time I'll try not to walk so much while recording.

Spoiler

James and Ann Whithall House. Built in 1748.



The back of the house

[MJ4H]

Awesome. Was going to suggest geocaching to help give you more of a reason to do what you are doing, but it looks like you had the idea already. If you need any tips, I'd be happy to help. Nice pics!

[sabotai]

April 30th - Riverwinds, West Deptford, NJ

Wasn't planning on going anywhere today, but I had to run to the store for a few things I forgot to buy the night before. So, I grabbed my camera and hit this little park area near where I live. It's the area where I'd go to run (one of the two) when I tried that. Battery died when I was walking around. Spur of the moment decisions mean I forget to check how charged the battery is....

Spoiler

Walking towards the Delaware River.











Commodore Barry Bridge (full zoom on my camera - it's pretty far away)





Coming in for a landing!









Oil Tanker (?) leaving the port





Part where I'd run

[Dodgerchick]

Great pics Sab! The jogging trail looks really nice.

[sabotai]

So it's been a few weeks, and with my sister's wedding today and my hangover tomorrow, I probably won't get out again for a bit. I wanted to this week, had the time, but the weather did not cooperate.

Anyway, I figured I would keep this a bit alive and share with you one of the people I follow on YouTube. His name is softpapa and posts a lot of videos of his hikes in Japan. Lots of interesting things. He shows abandoned buildings/cars/etc., he has a few videos about giant hornets, and other cool things. He has well over 500 videos posted and posts something almost daily.

Here's his YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/softypapa

Here's a recent video of his.

[sabotai]

Mid July, 2011 - Hartford, CT

I went on a road trip during the summer with a friend of mine. We hit Hartford CT, Springfield MA, Albany NY, Glens Falls NY and Lake George NY. Here are some pics I took of that trip.

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[sabotai]

Mid July, 2011 - Forest Park Zoo - Springfield, MA

Our first stop in Springfield was to this small zoo at Forest Park in Springfield, MA. Was a really nice looking park, too, but we didn't have to time to walk around the park. Just hit the zoo and on to the next stop.

Spoiler

[sabotai]

Mid-July, 2011 - Springfield Museums - Springfield, MA

There were four small museums we went to in Springfield, but I only got pics of 3 of them. Battery died before we got to the 4th one.

Spoiler

First up, Springfield Science Museum















GW Smith Art Museum - The air conditioner was broke and it was 95+ degrees that day, so the 2nd floor was closed.















Michele and Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts - Got these two shots of 2 Roman Emperors before the battery went. (Nero and Caracalla)

[sabotai]

Mid-July, 2011 - USS Slater - Albany, NY

Went to take the tour of the USS Slater, a destroyer from WWII.

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On the road from Springfield to Albany









USS Slater

[sabotai]

Mid-July, 2011 - Natural Stone Bridge and Caves - Pottersville, NY

The furthest north I've ever been now. It was Boston, the day before this day it was Albany. Now, Pottersville, NY is the furthest north I've ever been (and probably will be for awhile).

Spoiler

Goodbye Albany



On the Road from Albany to Pottersville









Natural Stone Bridge and Caves

[sabotai]

Mid-July, 2011 - Prospect Mountain - Lake George, NY

First stop in Lake George was to the top of Prospect Mountain.

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A few shots from a spot about halfway up the mountain

[sabotai]

Mid-July, 2011 - For William Henry - Lake George, NY

Our third and last stop in Lake George (our second stop was to the Adirondack Pub and Brewery for lunch where we had this insanely cute chick named Gwen as our waitress - sorry, no pics. This was my first road trip and did not think to prepare for that contingency. Will not happen again. ). I was pretty underwhelmed by the fort. Most of it seemed more geared towards kids, which makes sense. I'm sure a big portion of their target audience is schools.

Anyway, I only snapped a few pics. One of the tour, a few of Lake George from the fort.

Spoiler

And that was the end of the road trip. At least the pic taking portion. There were a few more places in Lake George we wanted to hit up, but we were pretty wiped out after the fort. It was 90+ degrees that day.

The day after Lake George, we drove home back to our boring, mundane lives.

[sabotai]

October 29, 2011 - Red Bank Battlefield - National Park, NJ

I bought a camera I probably can't afford (Nikon D3100)....but I bought it anyway (Suzie Orman would kick my ass). It takes awesome pics, though, and I don't even know how to use it yet! Took it out for a spin yesterday.

Spoiler

I didn't get a tripod, which I now know was a mistake. I tried putting the camera down to get a long(ish) exposure shot (I think it was 1 second) of the Philly skyline. It auto-focused on the top of the brick in front of it.



Another try...that's better



Walking to the end of the park, I noticed some deer. Took a bunch of pics of them.

[Izulde]

Just wanted to say I love this thread and the pictures. Have you found yourself mostly sticking to getting out of the house more often, or has it been sporadic?

[sabotai]

I was getting out of the house more often until summer hit. Other than the road trip (during the worst heat wave ever!), I barely left the house. I hate hot weather and stayed in the A/C all summer. But now that the temp has finally come down to a reasonable level (for me, reasonable level is < 70 degrees ), I do plan on getting out at least once a week.

[sabotai]

December 10th, 2011 - Sanitarium Playground - West Deptford Township, NJ

Had some time to hit one of the parks in my town. Was hoping for a nice view of the Philly skyline, but I was on the river (like, right on it, at its level) and the ships from the Navy yard were in the way. There was a higher ground in land, but lots of trees blocked the view. I haven't been to this park in quite some time, and it didn't look like the town had put any time or money into it in some time either. I was going to take some pics of the playground and the not-so-good condition it was in, but I was heading out to dinner with some friends so I didn't have much time.

Got some good pics of the sunset (behind clouds). I'm also getting a bit pickier about the pics I choose to post. These are all from one spot. I did take a few at a different spot, but they came out way too dark.

Spoiler

EDIT: I didn't resize these like I usually do. Let me know if you prefer them resized smaller or if I should keep them big and beautiful like this.

[sabotai]

March 10th, 2012 - Riverwinds, West Deptford, NJ

Got a tripod recently for my camera and went to try out some pics of the sun setting and the Philly skyline. Unfortunately I got there a bit too late to get the sun before it set. Still a few nice shots of the sky.

Spoiler

One of these days I'll start getting to different places...

[JAG]

Originally Posted by sabotai

March 10th, 2012 - Riverwinds, West Deptford, NJ

Got a tripod recently for my camera and went to try out some pics of the sun setting and the Philly skyline. Unfortunately I got there a bit too late to get the sun before it set. Still a few nice shots of the sky.

Spoiler

One of these days I'll start getting to different places...

I usually like how sunsets look a little after the sun goes down anyway. Beautiful pictures.

[sabotai]

April 13, 2012 - Delaware Water Gap - Mount Tammany

First time I've hiked up a mountain. I never felt more out of shape, and a few times I wasn't entirely sure I was going to make it. Of course, when I had those feelings, I was much closer to the top than the bottom and going down seemed harder than continuing going up. It was a pretty steep climb.

Mount Tammany (1537') = Conquered.

Spoiler

[CrimsonFox]

We wqant the Funk! Give up the FunK!