The Unofficial HybridFest Live-Blogging and photo thread 56K beware.

[hobbit]

I haven't even come close to catching up yet either, but after
spending a very comfy night in a local campground in Scottsburg
IN, I'm at Steve's shop at AutoBeYours and just got the grand
tour of his all-prius boneyard. Wow! Views of internal parts
you'd never see, and of course tons of pieces and parts all
stacked up and ready to put into other cars. A total playground.
I think I'm going to help deal with a couple of cars that are
going out to new owners today or something, and get more pix,
and frankly I have no idea how long I'm going to be here yet.
But I held the mail back home, so there's no hurry to get back
east. No, I'm probably not going to spend the rest of the
summer here, as tempting as that might be.
.
More updates, and my pitiful little collection of pictures from
the weekend, whenver I get time...
.
_H*

[Fenrir]

Evan, you got a nice shot of my backside sticking out the front passenger door of the Prius as I snapped a shot of the disassembled dash. Had I realized you were shooting, I would've stayed out of your way. Amazing what that Hybridfest lanyard would do for you... I just stepped right over the ropes and nobody seemed to care.

[JimboK]

Originally Posted by Delta Flyer

On the lighter side, JimboK - a Redskins fan was extemely gentlemanly for taking this Cowboys fan from Chicago to Madison. One of the things he put up with was we past the boyhood home of Cows Quaterback Tony Romo and I attempted to pray in the direction of the holy city of Burlington, Wisconsin .

You don't know how much I was biting my tongue!

Seriously, I was glad to have you along. The conversation kept me awake. I'm one who can get jet lag -- or more accurately in this case, car lag -- traveling across just one time zone.

And it was my pleasure meeting so many of you! I am tempted to list names, but I know I'll leave someone out. So let it suffice to say thanks to everyone for a terrific weekend.

[Pravus Prime]

Originally Posted by Right Lane Cruiser

Wow, you weren't kidding, Wayne -- great set of pics,

Yeah, where'd they come from? Man, they look professional!

[efusco]

Originally Posted by xcel

___Again, great pics and what do you suggest for a pro-sumer, mostly automatic digital so as to take much better pics on my own. My pictures suck and one reason why I am glad my Kodak 5MP was left at home for the weekend

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Thanks again Wayne,
re: camera recs. There are a lot of good ones out there. The first bit of advice I give is to NOT get a SLR/interchangable lens camera unless you know exactly why you need those features and exactly how you'll use them and that you're very willing to spend 3-5 times as much on the lenses as on the body. Otherwise the sealed unit cameras that are out now are excellent and versatile, easier to take care of and have better lenses than most "kit" lenses that you get with low end digital SLRs.

The next tip is to look at a site like dpreview.com for detailed specs on any of the cameras you're considering. Pay particular attention to low light performance and (my pet peeve) shutter lag...the amount of time it takes b/w pushing down the shutter release and the camera capturing the image. Many low end cameras have long shutter delays and you can miss action easily.

Carefully consider the battery type too. I really like prosumer level cameras that use AA batteries or offer the option of an adapter for AAs. You can get good rechargables but keep or buy Lithiums for back-ups if the rechargables die or you forget to recharge them. My Nikons have OEM rechargable batteries, but also come with adapters that allow you to put in Li+ for backup.

Specific rec. My wife has a Canon S2 IS that I really like. They're up to the S3 IS and I seem to remember that there's an S5 IS. These offer good low light performance with the built in image stablization, they use SD cards (durable, no pins to bend, small and convenient as they're almost universal), they use a Zeiss lens with 10x or 12x optical zoom (digital zoom is lame and meaningless as it is just an in-camera crop).

All the major manufacturers make excellent cameras and you should pick one that has the features you like, feels good in your hand, is easy to find the functions you want and meets the criteria above. There is absolutely no reason to pay extra for a camera with larger than 8MP unless you routinely enlarge to 20"x24" posters or larger. You also shouldn't have to pay more than about $350 for a very good camera and, on sale, you can get some excellent cameras for $250.

[xcel]

Hi Evan:

___Thank you for the great camera advice! I will be looking for a replacement of my very own in the very near term. I purchased the Kodak’s for my wife and oldest boy for Christmas on a steal of a deal but their low light performance and shutter cycle time is absolutely horrendous unless you place them into that night shot - slow shutter mode (that is almost a guaranteed blur) or with a tri-pod for action shots. For outdoor use, they are great but even then, a few shadows or dark areas and they fall apart

___Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

___Good Luck and thanks again for the advice.

___Wayne

[hobbit]

Still here at Autobeyours. Going to spend the day trying to
catch up on forums and such, and helping evaluate a car that Steve
sold to a local lady who then had another accident with it
shortly thereafter! Steve said it's vindicating that the same
front end he repaired/rebuilt got whacked and his welding job
held up just fine. But the plastic nose is knocked askew and
it remains to be seen what else took damage underneath.
.
Yesterday we finished stripping the last bits out of another
car -- a Prius down to the bare and I mean BARE chassis. Next
step is to flip the whole thing over and recover the battery
wires and exhaust system and at least one A-frame, and then the
rest goes off to steel recycling. I probably won't be around
long enough to help with the last bits of that, but trust me,
I've been saying it for days now, pix are forthcoming.
.
Tonight we're going to wrap it up a little early and I'm going
to get on the road toward DC, which is the next stop. I'm
planning to get a little ways east and overnight somewhere, and
then spend most of tomorrow tooling around the secondary highways
in West Virginia -- I figure the more wiggly they are on the GPS,
the more likely they're going to have serious hills! Way
outside regen capacity for the downs, but wtf, I expect I'll
finally see the good ol' WV mountains that I keep hearing about.
After I finally drop out of there, I'll hit Rt. 66 and head in
to another friend's house to spend a couple of days [and likely
do a lot of laundry].
.
Oh, Steve took me jet-skiing yesterday on a local lake. While
they're fuel-sucking pigs, they *are* a lot of fun -- I'd never
been on one before, but I quickly found my old dirtbiking chops
coming right back to raise up off the seat a little and absorb
the minor waves -- at 50 MPH over the water, no less. The place
was virtually empty and the water pretty much mirror-flat, heading
into a gorgeous sunset over the dam at the western end. That
was a really great way to finish off the day. Steve's one of
these fellas who works hard and plays hard...
.
Of course the shop's right here in downtown [for what that's
worth] Scottsburg, and it's eminently clear that most of the
people around here have *no* concept of ecodriving ... plenty
of kids in loud pickups runnin' around.
.
_H*

[hobbit]

Slotted into a quiet spot in the back lot of a Hampton Inn
somewhere just into West Virginia, and their wireless seems
to cover the parking lot reasonably well. Lessee if someone
comes along and bangs on the windows at 3am, even though they
can't see inside.
.
Running 63.1 mpg avg so far; that's probably about where I'll
end this tank unless I hit the serious hills first. I wasn't
in any particular hurry today; just to get east a ways before
nightfall.
.
I tooled through the truck section at the TA across the street.
It's kind of impressive drifting quietly through the maze of
sleeping giants, and of course most of them are snoring loudly.
I decided it would be quieter over here.
.
_H*

[hobbit]

I finally arrived home yesterday, and the first half of my
pix are located here. The house is still standing, woohoo...
.
Tomorrow night, Aug 1, is when the Boston local CBS hypermiler
segment airs. On the 11pm news, in theory. There may be a
link off http://www.wbztv.com/ where it can be streamed or
downloaded after airing; their site is such a script-swamp that
I can't find it but I'm hoping some friends can capture the
thing and burn some sort of recognizable media.
.
You're all probably waiting for the deep-Prius-innards pix from
Steve's back lot -- hang on, it's in the works...
.
In the meantime, the person I was staying with in DC has posted
a real ripper of an "anti-hypermiling" blog entry, in which
it's clear that she's slurped up all the press kool-aid on
what real-life ecodriving is NOT. With anonymous commenting
turned off I get no opportunity for a rebuttal, which it clearly
needs, so I'll put it over here: Smooth != slow, which I tried
to make clear several times. Consider this scenario: what if your
"idiot" was someone from out of state on the way to visit someone
along that dark and sometimes twisty road, and simply trying
to FIND a turn? Like I could easily have been the first time
I tried to find your house? Please keep in mind the HUGE gulf
in navigational competence between someone in unfamiliar territory,
versus someone driving their normal route home which they can
[and probably have] done in their sleep. The best way you can
help those people is to BACK OFF and remove the increased
pressure which is MORE likely to cause the accident. If your
own timely arrival is so important, leave earlier next time,
because there is always likely to be some "idiot" who isn't
necessarily appreciating your impatience for a host of sound
reasons. The attitude you refer to as "normal driving" is
exactly why the roads are so choked and dangerous these days.
If it's a decision between "smooth" and "abrupt", take one guess
on which is orders of magnitude safer. You have no right to
intimidate those you share the road with, and any trail of wreckage
that your "Mr. Magoo" leaves behind is the fault of those who
follow badly and screw themselves up.
.
_H*