November 21, 2009
Castle Hunting & Research :
Castle Hunting
People often ask why I call what I do Castle Hunting.
While exploring Ireland in 2003 I happened upon many unmarked ruins. Quite often the GPS would report the street as “unnamed country road”, I would have no idea of what town I was in and even worse it was not uncommon for the locals to just refer to it as the local ruin without having any idea of its name or history.
In order to avoid this type or frustration I try to keep very good notes to help me on the trip and allow me to further investigate when I return home.
Of the 95 castles I visited during my 2004 trip to France I was able to record the names of 94 of them. The one that eluded me was a ruin on a hillside somewhere on the D14 (the only information that I have). I promised myself that one day I would try and identify it and moreover that I did not want that to happen again.
Both before and during my 2009 expedition to France I conducted an extensive amount of research and I brought with me binders of information and maps and along the way took notes and of course photos.
Especially challenging are the mountaintop castles because they look very different from the air (which are the photos usually seen in books) than from the base of the mountain than from directly in front of or from inside. In fact on the entire drive to the Chateau de Peyrepertuse in the Pyrenees I was not 100% sure about whether the castle I was seeing in the distance was in fact Peyrepertuse or another of the many Cathar castles. The question of Peyrepertuse was quickly resolved as I drove up the mountain and was able to verify its identity in person.
From the peak of the Chateau de Peyrepertuse you can see another chateau in the distance this is the Chateau Queribus. It is well documented as being visible from Peyrepertuse and also very identifiable.
The next day as I was driving out of the Pyrenees towards the Mediterranean Sea and I spotted a small tower on a mountain peak. I pulled over to the side of the road and too this photo:
At the time I thought it was the Chateau Queribus from the other side and only later did I realize that I was nowhere near Queribus so now I had an unidentified chateau.
For this trip I used a geotagger. A geotagger is a GPS device that records in regular intervals exactly where I am located and saves this information as a time-coded data stream. By cross referencing this data with the time-stamp in my digital photos it can tell me exactly where I was when I took each photograph. From this I can see that the unidentified chateau photograph was taken from the side of the road in Cases de Pène.
My research could find no castles related to Cases de Pène which is not surprising considering how far away the castle looks from my location in the picture. This is the bad part about geotagging photos – it only tells me where I was standing – not in which direction I was looking or how far away the subject was.
Looking back at the photograph it is clear that the castle is situated on the peak of a hill so to find my unidentified chateau I need to look at a terrain map of the area.
Most of the elevations appear to the northeast where I see three possible peaks.
Returning to the satellite imagery, it is still very hard to see anything that looks like a structure.
However, when I zoomed in on the first location I can clearly see the circles of a structure that looks like a base and a tower. While not definitive proof, nothing rules this out as my unidentified chateau and I mark it on the map as the most likely item to research.
Returning to a wider view of the area it is becomes clear that the closest city to the unidentified chateau is not Cases de Pène but instead Tautuval.
The city of Tautuval has a very nice website (in French of course) and it mentions in the region that there is a local castle and a tower farther off.
http://www.tautavel.com/
The Château de Tautavel is located inside the city, on a much flatter area, and is made up of several ruined structures so it can’t be the one I am looking for.
The tower “la Torre del Far” however looks close. Described as being situated on a peak between the villages of Tautavel and Cases de Pène, could this really be the same place as the photo I took but from a different angle?
A quick search about the tower took me to a website about the history of the region.
http://histoireduroussillon.free.fr/Thematiques/Batiments/Histoire/TorreDelFar.php
The page includes an engraving of the southern elevation of the tower.
This exactly matches a close-up of unidentified chateau which is logical as I was in Cases de Pène and facing north.
There can be no question that the unidentified chateau is “la Torre del Far” - the Fire Tower also known as The Sentinel of Roussillon. While no records exist of its construction it is mentioned in an order to provide supplies for it in 1341.
Voila! I love research!
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November 20, 2009
New Media Literacy Course! : Jared as Multimedia Instructor
I am posting this flyer around campus for my New Media Literacy SAGES seminar.
Figured my off campus friends might want to see it!
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November 16, 2009
The Saga of My Brakes : No Hat in Particular
A few months ago my Subaru needed a brake job. As you know brakes can be very expensive and anything on the Subaru seems to cost more money.
I have helped put brakes on a car before and even once did it solo and I figured - what the hell - save a few bucks and spend a few hours.
I went out and get the needed parts - pads, rotors, grease, brake parts cleaner. I also went out and got some better tools - nothing like a set of good wrenches or a nice jack and some jack stands to help.
The front brake job went - OK. I got stuck on a few bolts (and YES I used various forms of penetrating oil - everyone always asks this) but after much fussing and fighting I was able to get it all done.
I did run into a snag where I broke a wheel lug off - but my friend Ed talked me though the replacement.
Overall I was very pleased - it did take a few days but I was able to finish the job with only making phone calls to my friend Ed for help and not for physical assistance.
The next day I was hurting pretty bad though. They say the muscles that hurt are the ones you don't use - well apparently I don't use my ass.
I was very proud when I pulled up to Ed's house the next days to show him. He then proceeded to take my lugs nuts off and tell me that I had put them on backwards (the lug nuts!). Well every job you learn something new.
--- Jump 4 months later.
So I know that my rear brakes are a mess - I can hear em crunching every time I stop. Normally I wouldn't consider doing a rear brake job but on my 2000 Subaru Legacy they are also disk brakes - so I figured this shouldn't be a problem.
First to find the rotors and pads. My local Murray's (which is now O'Reiley's didn't have them but could get them in a few days. The idea is not to wait so I called around.
My local NAPA store had this really nice guy named Norb who hunted down the parts for me at another store. So I went and purchased my pads, rotors, brake parts cleaner, and grease.
I went home and thins started to go very well.
1) Jack up car and place on stands
2) Remove tires (without braking any studs)
3) Remove Caliper
4) Remove what's left of the rear pads (they where horrible).
Now when I went to retract the calipers I almost forgot to pop the lid off the master cylinder but after I did that I was able to clamp them back without any problems.
All I needed to do now was the remove the caliper bracket that would allow me to slide the very corroded rotors off.
This was a problem. First there was NO room to get a tool in there. I found that you needed a very short tool for on and a very long tool for the other. Once I found that out I realized that the bolts just didn't want to move (penetrating oil wasn't helping).
I went to the store and got better sockets and a breaker bar but the moment I felt the socket skip over the head I knew I was in trouble.
I was 4 bolts away from getting these rotors off and they wouldn't move.
Could I give up? Put my good pads on my crappy rotors and hope for the best? Drive it to a mechanic and pay double?
I called my friends who told me I had done everything but that a pro 'might' be able to heat up the bracket to loosen the bolt but that was iffy unto itself.
Since I didn't want to take it to a mechanic I wondered if I could get one to come to me?
So I visited Craigslist. And yes - apparently there are MANY roving mechanics who come to you to do the work.
Upon making a half dozen phone calls it appears that most of them are just bat-shit crazy.
I finally got a hold of someone who was very professional. He wanted to schedule an appointment and refused to make promises over the phone.
He came by on Friday in a fully equipped truck and proceeded to try and get the bolts off. One came off - three did not.
The good news is that if I had gone to a shop they would have run into the same troubles and then tried to charge me more. The bad news was it was time to cut the brackets off.
I called the dealer and they said it would take 2-4 days and cost $80 per bracket.
So he cut the brackets off (with his really cool torch) and left.
So now I can get the rotors off but I need the brackets.
I didn't want to wait the 4 days to buy it from the dealer so I started making calls to junk yards - nothing!
I looked online - nothing!
Well something. I did find if I was willing to wait a week I could get the pair for like $75. But since I have been walking to work for the week I do need to move on.
I also found out that sometimes the caliper COMES WITH the bracket. Not only that sometimes it comes with pads as well. One local parts place had the Caliper with Bracket with Pads in stock.
The problem was going to be the core fee. As many of you know - most parts charge an extra core fee that you get refunded when you bring the old part back. Well I don't have the old part anymore!
The one place agreed to give ma a partial core fee back (since I didn't need the caliper and I wasn't going to open the brake lines) and would sell me them for $67 each. This was great because then I could even take the pads back (since it came with them).
I drove there first thing Saturday morning to find that they had one and not the other (it was an inventory glitch and a missing part).
So I left. And called literally 100 places. First I was finding nothing at all - thing I started to find them but they were not going to refund ANY core fee so it was going to cost $110 each!
Then I found someone on the west side who had it for $85 each. Turns out it was a NAPA and as I was purchasing it I realized I could save a few by just buying the one and going back for the other $67 one (it was on the way home).
The guy at NAPA was confused when I told him I didn't want the caliper and he had to go in the back and take it off himself and keep it for the core fee but it all worked out.
That is until we realized that it didn't come with bolts. The bolts that attach the caliper bracket to the car. The things that wouldn't move in the first place. The guy at NAPA was concerned because they were specially hardened bolts and he didn't really know where to get them and his only ideas were closed on the weekends.
On the way back to the other parts store I stopped at a junkyard and they didn't know where to get the bolts either.
So you fully understand I am driving all over the city and paying a few extra dollars to NOT have to wait until the next week to do this job.
At the other parts place they sell me the other bracket and also have no idea where to go.
So I call Home Depot.
They put me on hold. While on hold I drive to Home Depot. In fact I was talking to associate while I was still on hold - it was 15 minutes of silence - they never came back. The in-store help was helpful and suggested I call Parma. They had hardened bolts but not metric automotive ones.
Another guy came up and said - that's off your brakes isn't it? He told me to call my dealer and that brake bolts where very specific.
So I call the dealer and surprise they are still open and they have the bolts for $5 each. I run to the dealer and when I show the lady what I want she gets a little worried. They don't have those bolts!
We go through page after page of computer diagrams trying to match the right bolts to no avail.
Finally she grabs a mechanic from the back and after they talk for a few minutes she hands me a handful of bolts and says - these are what you need. She knew I was having a long day and then added "No Charge".
So now I have all the parts but its too late to do the work.
In the am (Sunday) I got up and put the brakes on without any troubles. New parts, new hardware, good grease. It went fine.
I did run into two more little snags.
1) The roving mechanic jacked my car higher then my jack normally goes so it was hard getting it off the jack stands.
2) When I drove the car it braked GREAT but started to make the same grinding noise it had before. I later found out that the rusted out dust shield was hitting the rotor on one side (the other had rusted into oblivion) and after I removed it the car is golden!
Thanks to Kyle Wering (the Mobile Mechanic) who I will use again if I get stuck!
So next weekend - I replace the alternator/power steering belt (no joke folks)!
Posted by jeb2 at 10:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 08, 2009
Tom and Jared - Enter a Video Contest : Jared as Artist
OK so here is the deal. Doritos is having a "Crash The Superbowl" contest and looking for the best commercials. They choose the best 6 (who each get $25,000 and a week long trip to Florida) and then the public votes the 6 down to 3.
The 3 selected then get shown DURING the superbowl. If the USA today poll picks the commercial as first place the entrant gets $1,000,000, second $600,000, third, $400,000. If all three top spots are Doritos commercials then each gets an additional $1,000,000!
OK - so Tom and I put together 2 commercials (a third involving Tom and some outtakes just kind of emerged). Here they are:
"The Wish"
"The Fall"
"2 Flavors, 3 Takes"
Posted by jeb2 at 11:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 02, 2009
My talk "The Future Has No Dignity: The Death of Ethics in the Digital Age" is now online! : Jared as Creative Director of New Media
My talk "The Future Has No Dignity: The Death of Ethics in the Digital Age" is now online!
Listen here:
http://media.nmc.org/2009/10/jared-bendis.mp3
Posted by jeb2 at 11:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack