Below is the 2nd edition of the Byteful Travel blog carnival which spans a delightful variety of travel topics. I’m currently on-assignment on the East Coast, so I don’t have time to say much, but I will say that I’m very happy to report that once again there are some articles with great photography included (including some great glimpses of Paris) and some oddly fascinating video clips, as well. And if you happen to be in this month’s edition, be sure to retweet and stumble this article to get more attention to your own blog. It multiplies the reaching power of this blog carnival very much, and you’d be doing your blog a favor.

But enough talk. Come and explore the farthest reaches of the Earth with me…

Travel Destinations

Jennifer Miner presents:
Top Things to Do in Seattle, Washington posted at The Vacation Gals, saying,

“There are so many great things to do in Seattle, this “best” list barely scratches the surface! I loved visiting Seattle, and I hope you get the chance to travel there sometime, too.”

Travel Photography

Laura presents:
Milan. Where Nothing Is What It Seems posted at Travelocafe Travel Blog.

Zhu presents:
Sights of Paris (Part I) posted at Correr Es Mi Destino, saying,

“I’ve been to Paris a thousand of times, as a tourist, a concert-goer, and a student. The only way I can stand the city for more than a few days is by going full tourist mode. In fact, most of the time, I just pretend I don’t speak French. Parisians see me as an idiot but a foreign idiot, so it’s not as bad in their eyes.”

Ryan Murphy presents:
Strange new world posted at Eleven Degrees North, saying,

“I am a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines. This post is about my father’s visit to the country earlier this year.”

Travel Stories

Ryan Peligrino presents:
Schengen Visa, St Malo and the French Couple part deux posted at Wandering Pinoy.

Kristie presents:
Bangalore’s Dancing Priests posted at Culture Shock.

Melissa_Abroad presents:
Sola the Greek, or Everyone has a Travel Story posted at The Innocent Abroad, saying,

“In this article, the author tells the story of a retired immigrant police officer and questions the ethics of telling stories belonging to other people.”

Morgan Schwartz presents:
Body Scanners at Eppley Give Suburban Mom a Cheap Thrill posted at All Cracked Up by Vicky DeCoster, saying,

“In between work, errands, and chauffeur service, Moms in Omaha might not have that many opportunities for excitement in their day. One Mom found the new body scanners at Eppley Airport good for a cheap thrill—and a little awkward self reflection.”

Travel Tips

Susan Howe presents:
How to Save Money While Traveling posted at Get Rich Slowly, saying,

“While traveling, there’s no way to escape all those expenses but there are plenty of things you can do to keep your overall costs low. Here are some easy ways to save while traveling.”

Want to grow your audience?

You too can be a part of Byteful Travel carnival! If you’re a writer, and you’ve written something that relates to travel in some way, I’d highly encourage you to submit a piece you’re proud of.

Why? Because blog carnivals are a fantastic way to get the word out about what you’re publishing on the web. I know this from firsthand experience because blog carnivals have been incredibly helpful in spreading the word about Byteful Travel.

To request an article you wrote to be considered for inclusion next time, please submit your blog post (just one please, and one that provides real value and is not spam) to the next edition of the Byteful Travel carnival using the Byteful Travel carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found in the blog carnival index. (And if you’d like to host the carnival itself, as I have done here, please contact me via the contact page.)

A big thanks to everyone who submitted! Without you, this carnival never would have happened. And if you submitted an article but it wasn’t accepted, it probably was under 300 words or it wasn’t about travel.

Since I’m currently on assignment travelling on the East Coast, I’m not sure when the next carnival will be, but let that stop you from submitting to the carnival anyway!

Looking forward to seeing more of your travel articles next time!

Related Articles

1. Byteful Travel Carnival #1 – Inaugural Edition
2. Carnival of Cities for 2010 May 19

Well, if it’s been a while for you, today I’d like to give you a taste of what that feels like, and it starts with an invitation. A friend had invited me to explore a hiking trail deep within Colorado’s interior, and I gladly accepted. The trail was steeper than the Mt. Galbraith hike, and it took us about a half hour to reach the vantage point which was, perhaps not surprisingly, incredibly beautiful.

Come with me though the Elvish woods, past the stream, up to the top of the continent to see what we can see…

An Elvish Feeling…

On the way up, we passed by a patch of lovely white birch trees, and the feel in the air was almost elvish. Looking back now, I wonder what kinds of people lived there hundreds of years ago. A narrow trail snaked through this patch; but judging from its wear, it probably wasn’t more than a few decades old.

Further along, we practically stumbled over a small stream running right across the trail! It was perfectly picturesque, and just off the trail even a very tiny waterfall. I decided to stop and take some time to photograph this area since it was so photogenic. I experimented, taking photos with longer exposure to create a more silky effect in the water. The photo to the right has an exposure time of 1/6th of a second, and it’s a good example of this silky water effect.

The Magnificent Blue Peaks of the Rockies

Although it was hard to leave this little stream, I pulled myself away and continued along the path. When I reached the vantage point, I was shocked at just how much I could see. An entire green valley was spread out below me, and to my left I could see the magnificent blue snow-covered Rocky Mountain peaks in the distance and a lake below. Directly in front of me were more peaks, and these were covered in even more snow and seemed to be nearly kissing the sky.

As I was gazing on, huge clouds began to flow over some of the nearby peaks, and I began to realize on a deeper level than ever before why this mountain range has such a profound affect Colorado’s weather, as well as the surrounding states. (And I later found out that I wasn’t far from the Continental Divide.)

However, the clouds were heading toward us, and we decided it would be best to start heading down before it started raining. We were practically and running snapping pictures as we went. And as it turned out, it started raining just one minute before we got into the car.

Thankfully though, our cameras were fine.

— — —
Photos from this trip are in the Green Trail to the Blue Rocky Mountains album. All photos in the Byteful Gallery can be used as desktop wallpapers and are released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license.

Related Articles

1. A Rainbow and Purple Rain over Mt. Galbraith Trail
2. The 3 Unforgettable Sights at Red Rocks Park
3. Why the Colorado Capitol Dome is Worth Visiting
4. Denver’s City Park Jazz & The Haunted Fountain
5. The Ancient Secret of Denver’s Cathedral Basilica

You’ve probably never heard of Mount Galbraith before, but it’s a fantastic place to hike and appreciate the natural world, which is too often overlooked these days. Mount Galbraith Park is just a half hour drive west of Denver (here it is on gMaps), and when I visited one of its trails I was lucky enough to go on a day when a rainbow appeared in the sky.

I took the Mt. Galbraith loop trail, and at first the trail was pretty rough (not to mention confusing on the way back). But after about a half hour, I arrived at a lookout point, and I realized that all my efforts had completely paid off. From where I stood, the sky itself seemed to smile down on me by presenting me with a stunning rainbow.

The Smile of the Sky

Even though it wasn’t a complete rainbow, it was still incredibly beautiful, and photos certainly don’t do justice to how it looked. I stopped and took lots of photos of the rainbow. Wide ones, vertical ones, but still, none of them can compare to actually seeing it.

Continuing down the trial, I soon saw a huge white letter M marked on the side of a hill. That’s because a well-known Colorado University, the Colorado School of Mines, was nearby. Then I looked to the West and noticed the sun was beginning to set. Looking over the entire valley was calming, and the sunset turned some of the blue clouds orange, creating a really beautiful contrast. (You can find that photo in the A Rainbow above Mt. Galbraith Trail album.)

Was this purple rain?

But even more beautiful sights awaited me farther down the trial. Looking north this time, far off clouds were gently raining down on the plains in the distance, creating deep purple shapes below the clouds. This color mixed with the violet colors of the sunset, creating a uniquely beautiful sight. As far as I can remember, that’s the first time I’d ever seen such a thing. And now that I’m writing this, I experience an odd synchronicity for me as well, because a few days before I began writing this article, I got Prince’s Greatest Hits which, of course, includes the famous song “Purple Rain”.

I started heading back and by the time I was coming down, the city lights were already beginning to glow in the valley below; though that wouldn’t be the last time I hiked in Colorado…

Would I make it back in time?

Next time, we’ll journey beyond an immaculate patch of birch trees, past a hidden stream, and look down on a valley below the blue Rocky Mountains, all while storm clouds head towards me. Would I make it back down in time before it rained? Would my camera get wet?

You’ll have to tune in next week to find out!

— — —
Photos from this trip are in the A Rainbow above Mt. Galbraith Trail – Colorado album. All photos in the Byteful Gallery can be used as desktop wallpapers and are released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license.

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2. Return to the Rainbow Rocks
3. The 3 Unforgettable Sights at Red Rocks Park
4. Denver’s City Park Jazz & The Haunted Fountain
5. Why the Colorado Capitol Dome is Worth Visiting

Yep, it’s true. But I’m getting ahead of myself. To start, I found out that every sunday in the summer, Denver’s City Park hosts free jazz concerts on their outdoor stage. The program is called City Park Jazz, and the city of Denver sponsors it every summer, usually from the beginning of June to the beginning of August. It’s free, and all you have to do is show up. So, I decided to show up, and I got more than I bargained for.

Free Music and Free Water?

That sunday, an especially groovy jazz fusion band was playing, and after a while, a crowd of dancing people formed in front of the stage! It was wonderful to watch, and a real feeling of community was in the air.

Denver Water company was also there. They may even been have sponsoring the event, but I didn’t ask. I was glad they were there though, because they were giving out free filtered water, and who can say “No” to free filtered water?

Some City Park Jazz Tips

If you’re going to check out Denver’s City Park Jazz, there’s a few things you should know. Here’s the list I wish I would have seen before I went:

1. Get there early to claim your spot.

There tends to be a big picnic crowd that spans for hundreds of meters, so if you want a spot closer to the stage, you should get there at least an hour early. The picture to the right of this list is a good example of how large the crowd can be.

2. Bring snacks.

I headed over to the jazz concert on a whim that afternoon, but I wish that I’d brought some food. Towards the end of the concert, my squirrel-like digestive system was pretty hungry, though I was very lucky that someone actually asked me if I was hungry and offered to share!

3. Either bring a good folding chair or a comfy picnic blanket.

Depending on if you want to have a picnic or not, you should either bring a chair or a blanket. Be aware that this venue has no seating, just grass. It’s flourishing grass, but it’s just grass.

An Unexpected Delight: The Prismatic Electric Fountain

Going to the park and staying until the end of the concert had a surprise bonus for me, though. As the sun sank under the horizon, I noticed that beyond the stage, way out in the middle of Ferril Lake, was an illuminated fountain. Later, I found out that this beautiful fountain is called the Prismatic Electric Fountain (named so because it produces a rainbow of colors just like a prism does), and it’s the 21st century replacement for the original fountain built for City Park in 1908. This new fountain was dedicated in August 2008, one hundred years after the original fountain was completed.

Watching the fountain cycle through reds, indigos, and blues was mesmerizing; and I was very thankful to have my Fujifilm camera on hand so I could use its 10x optical zoom. For this shoot, I decided to keep the film speed at 400 ISO because I didn’t want much noise in the pictures. However, this resulted in longer exposure times, so to make up for the longer exposures, I braced myself on a nearby railing. It worked.

As with any shoot, the more photos you take, the more likely you are to capture a photo that truly suspends the magic of the moment. For instance, I took 21 photos of the fountain, but only 6 of those were worth post-processing and adding to the gallery. In particular, I’m rather pleased at how this red and fuchsia one came out:

And for some of the photos, I allowed the camera to leave the shutter open for a bit longer, and some of those pictures created a ghostly effect for the fountain. Like this one, for instance:

Kinda creepy-looking, isn’t it? That’s because THE FOUNTAIN IS ALIVE.
Just kidding! (maybe…)

Don’t be a goon! Be jazzy, instead.

So, to recap, if you’re in Denver during the summer and you like jazz, you’d be a goon to miss City Park Jazz. And if you don’t like jazz, you should at least stop by Denver’s City Park at dusk and witness this beautiful prismatic fountain! The City Park Jazz schedule is on their website and more information on the Prismatic Electric Fountain can be on its website.

And if the fountain turns ghosty again, try not to worry to much.
I’m pretty sure it’s benevolent.

Pretty sure.

Next time, we see a rainbow in the clouds from the top of a MOUNTAIN.

Yes!

— — —
Photos from this trip are in the Denver CIty Park Jazz album. All photos in the Byteful Gallery can be used as desktop wallpapers because they are high resolution (1920×1440) just like the fullscreen & widescreen wallpapers.

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4. Where can you find a surprisingly good Elvis impersonator? Denver People’s Fair, apparently.
5. Why the Colorado Capitol Dome is Worth Visiting

I’m sure you’ve already noticed the most obvious part, the new Byteful Travel logo on the top of every page. The background has also been revamped and text styles have also been tweaked to better match the new look. And seriously, this update is overdue. None of the site-wide graphics had been changed since January, and the site had been in need of an overhaul for a while.

So today, I’m spilling the beans, sharing some of the world’s ugliest webpages with you, and showing you a few core reasons why visual design is pretty darn important.

And the funny part is, I never planned to complete these changes this weekend, but inspiration struck me. I’ll elaborate on that later on, but first I must address the question:

Why are these design changes important?

Well, when designing a website, it’s really important that it be visually accessible, as well as functional. The visual layout and color choice on a webpage has a profound effect on how you process the information on that page. Think about it.

The Ugliest Webpages on the Net

I’ll give you a couple of examples of what not to do, mostly because it illustrates my point, but also because sharing ugly webpages with you is pretty enjoyable in its own right.

And of course, the best place to find examples of what NOT to do when designing a webpage is on MySpace! Here’s a myspace page that illustrates what happens when you don’t know what contrast is: amiecmonjohn

It can get much worse than this though. How much worse? You don’t want to know… at least, you’ll probably want to turn down your volume or mute your speakers before you discover the glory that is this wonderful cacophony of visual and audial insanity: ukcraigb

But animated GIFs and looping MIDIs aside, would you really want to keep reading something on a site that had serious layout or color problems? I realize those two examples aren’t typical, but they’re great examples of how a website’s appearance can dramatically affect how you process information. (Although that song on the 2nd page is starting to get stuck in my head since I’m letting it play as I write this. I know, perhaps I’m crazy but it actually grows on you.)

In light of how the layout and color balance of a webpage affect how you process the information on this website, I carefully designed this major revision to invite you to be even more comfortable while reading Byteful Travel, as well as to attract new readers. And, as a travel site, it’s important that Byteful Travel’s appearance evoke an adventurous, and even mysterious, feeling when you’re visiting here. And I believe these new changes do just that.

Simplifying Type & The Dangers of a Free Typeface

Basically, the header really needed a cleaner, more identifiable appearance, and one of the things I did to achieve that was to remove the secondary text that used to be below the words “Byteful Travel”. Now, the header simply reads “Byteful Travel”, and truthfully, that’s all it ever needed. (Fun fact: this is the first time the header has only included 2 words, and no other types of letterforms, since June 2007. That’s a while!)

You may also notice that I’m using a completely different, and much more relevant, typeface for the logo in the header now. This lovely typeface is called Carolingia, and the celtic brush style to the letterforms lends an older, and more worldly feel to the header. I’ve also taken the time to manually join some of the letters together, as if they were written by an actual inked pen. (I tried it on two letters and realized it would be unwise of me to stop because it looked so much better. Alas, this is what designers do.)

I fully realize that not everyone is going to notice a subtle detail like that, but it’s in my nature to make everything as polished as it can be (within a reasonable timeframe, of course).

However, since this typeface is available for free at DaFont.com, some designers would suggest that I have treaded into unprofessional waters. In fact, some designers look down on any typefaces offered for free as automatically inferior to their commercial counterparts. This bias within the industry has existed for some time, and perhaps it started out with good reason. (Free typefaces used to be utter crap.) But today there is no excuse for passing up a very polished typeface, even if it’s available freely. At any rate, I don’t mind if designers have a problem with my typeface choice. I’m pleased at how it works within the new logo. And unless they can offer constructive criticism, their words won’t factor into my actions.

Inspiration: Before & After

You also ought to notice the newly polished Charamandala (the circular logo to the right of the header). In case you’re not up to speed, the Charamandala was introduced in April 2009 as an abstract logo for Byteful Travel. Some wallpapers were made based on it. It was then completely overhauled in December 2009 in preparation for the complete upgrade and facelift that the site got in January 2010.

Over the weekend, the shape itself wasn’t changed at all, but the Charamandala’s shading and feel of substance has been greatly improved, making it much more visually soothing as well as easier to see from a distance. You’ve got to see a before and after on this, and you’ll see what I mean:

See the Charamandala to the top right? See how it actually has substance now?

Much better!

So why does this new design work?

In fact, looking at the before and after like is a fantastic way to show off why this new design works. Most obviously, the site has gone from a monochromatic look (i.e., way the heck too much blue), to a duo-chromatic look of cyan and dark indigo. The header text is much more expressive and intriguing; and the background gives the entire site much more depth than it had before. (Not to mention it evokes sands or ocean waves, which both imply far-off lands and travel.)

All of this serves to better visually organize the information on this site. In fact, this is the highest contrasting header I’ve ever created for the site, and it works because it draws the eye’s attention to where it belongs, while at the same time soothing the eye. First the eye goes to the logo text, and then it goes down to the title of the article which flows into the body of an article. Chicken Voila! It’s Magic!

You know, metaphorically speaking…

Acting out of Inspiration

Now here’s the funny part. As I mentioned before, the actions that resulted in this new site-wide design were triggered by inspiration. Instead of chaining my soul to my To Do list, I’ve been paying more and more attention to my feelings and what’s inspiring me in the present moment; and I act on those inspirations whenever I can. You could say I’ve been listening to my heart instead of just my head. Perhaps the inspiration for this… inspiration idea has been Steve Pavlina’s 30 day inspiration trial that I’ve been following for the past week. As he correctly illustrates, when we act out of inspiration, we can create higher quality work; and this work will be much more in tune with our hearts, because true inspiration only comes from a heart-based place.

So this weekend, I felt inspired, and instead of writing down “revise yadda yadda something header project” (in classic GTD style, of course) in my to do list, I decided to sit down and act on the inspiration while it was still hot. And the result was that, not only did I finished these revisions much faster than I anticipated, the finished product was also better than I imagined!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these changes, and I hope you learned something.
I know I did.

I’m going to continue following Steve’s 30 day inspirational trial.
I guess you could say it’s inspired me.

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1. Find Inspiration Everywhere with Quotes

I wrote this article because many people benefitted from my previous article about this issue regarding what I learned when encoding video for Byteful Video. This article is a followup to that article. However, if you don’t create video, you can safely skip this article; and in the next article we will return to our regularly-scheduled travel programming.

First of all, while researching this article I was shocked at what I discovered versus what I’d heard. It seems there’s a lot of confusion around video, and that’s not surprising considering how absurdly complex it can be. Today, I’d like to clear away the confusion and openly show how I solved this problem one and for all.

When I set out to write this article originally, I thought that the popular video encoding program Handbrake was the solution to the dreaded H.264 gamma brightness bug that has been plaguing video creators for years. And if you export video to H.264, you’ve probably heard of this problem.

Basically, when you export a video from Quicktime Pro as H.264, the resulting video is brighter than the original, and usually it looks horrible.

Yet I’d heard this problem was easily solved using Handbrake because it used a different encoder than Quicktime, namely the award-winning x264 encoder. Yet after conducting various tests, I was able to repeatedly demonstrate that using Handbrake does not solve the brightness bug at all. It doesn’t desaturate the colors as some methods do, but it isn’t the solution. Here’s a simple animation that alternates between a frame from my original uncompressed video and the same frame from Handbrake’s version of the video:

The main problem with this gamma shift (sometimes referred to as a color shift) is that your video’s black levels become unrealistic, and you loose the ability to have rich shadows. And in case you’re curious, this was done using a slight variant on the iPod encoding preset included in Handbrake, and these results mean that Handbrake decides to treat gamma in the same inaccurate way that Quicktime Pro does. Therefore, it would never be able to solve my problem.

So now that Handbrake had failed, what could I do?

Then it occurred to me, what if I bypassed Handbrake altogether? What if I used the x264 encoder directly with Quicktime Pro?

I decided to give it a try.

I remembered that x264 was also available as a standalone Quicktime plugin, so I did some research. At first, all I found was a stand-alone plugin from 2006, so I grabbed it off of MacUpdate. After a quick install process, I ran a few tests and exported a few different times, trying different settings each time. And, while the gamma problem was completely gone, I could not get any resulting movie files to play on any mobile devices.

Basically, I tried every variation of advanced settings, and nothing would work. This plugin simply doesn’t have the specific settings needed to create a video that will play on an iPhone or iPod.

So I had to resume my research, and I soon realized that Japan is still producing truly awesome people.

I’ll explain.

What finally saved me was a newer plugin by a Japanese guy named Takashi Mochizuki. This plugin is still based on the award-winning x264 project, but it has over ten times as many fine controls on its settings page than the other x264 plugin. This incredible beast is called x264Encoder, and it’s available on Takashi’s site, completely free.

After reading some of the documentation and conducting various tests, I finally refined a way to create flawless H.264 video that works on a variety of devices, all without any gamma bug. But before you can delve into the powerful controls of this new plugin, you have to install it and relaunch your video editor.

x264Encoder Quick Install

1. Download the plugin on Takashi’s site.
2. Copy the x264Encoder.component to Mac HD/Library/QuickTime/
   • Make sure you’re opening the Library folder at the root level of your hard drive. Don’t put it in the library folder in your Home, because that won’t work.
   • If you have trouble with installation, please read the directions that come with the plugin. Seriously.
3. Quit any video editing programs you have open because they’ll need to be relaunched to see the new Quicktime encoder you’ve just installed.
4. Open your video editing program and do one of the following:
   • In Final Cut Pro, choose:
     File menu > Export > Using Quicktime Conversion
   • In iMovie, choose:
     File menu > Export > Quicktime Tab
     Choose, Compress movie for: Expert Settings
     Click “Share”
5. Then enter the detailed settings below.

Detailed Instructions for Flawless H.264 Output

Select: “Format: Quicktime Movie”
Click “Options” button
Make sure “Video”, “Sound”, and “Prepare for Internet Streaming” are all checked.
Then, under “Prepare for Internet Streaming”, choose “Fast Start” “Settings” button.

Under Sound, click “Settings” button
Change the settings to this:
Format: AAC
Rate: Recommended
Render Settings: Quality: Normal
MPEG 4 AAC LC Encoder Settings: Target Bit Rate: 160kbps
Click “OK”

Under Video, click “Size” button
Just look at this to make sure that it’s the size you want. (I mention this because when testing, I noticed that this would default to “Compressor Native” which was too small.)
Click “OK”

Under Video, click “Settings” button (this is the really important part)
Change the settings to this:
Compression Type: x264 Encoder
Frame rate: Current
Key Frames: Automatic
UNCHECK Frame Reordering
Encoding: Best Quality (Multi-pass)
Data Rate: Restrict to 1500 kbps (if you want iPods to be able to play it)

Alternatively, you could just make your settings look like this:

Then click “Options” button at the bottom left of the window.

This is where it starts to look a little crazy, but it’s easier than it looks.
So hang in there! This is totally worth it.

Now, you will see this vast array of options:

But you don’t have to worry about setting all of this up because presets are included!

Click the “Load Preset” button at the bottom left, and a sheet will slide down.

Presets make it easy to make iPhone-ready video

If you’d like people on mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch (as well as the PSP and Zune) to be able to play your video, choose the “iPod Tuned” preset. (According to the x264 docs, this takes a bit longer to encode than “iPod Default”, but the results look better. It’s worth it.)

Click “OK”

And while we’re here, click on the “Values” tab to look at all the settings you don’t have to worry about because Mochizuki-san provided some excellent presets! Domo arigatou, Mochizuki-san!

The Key is Setting the Gamma

To finish up, let’s activate the color spacing tag that fixes the problem that spawned this entire situation.

Click on the “Tagging” tab and check the checkbox “Add gamma 2.2 (SD/HD content)”. Adding this gamma tag simply and elegantly solves the problem without any unnatural color filtering or adjusting. That’s why this method is superior to all other methods. No “BlackWhite” restore, brightness filter, or strange alpha channel methods are needed. This is an important point. Shifting the brightness or contrast during exporting in order to fix the gamma problem is a bad idea. Not only does the export take longer, but worse, you always lose more quality than if you hadn’t adjusted. That’s why I’m so thankful that Mochizuki-san has put so much work into this plugin.

Now that you’ve set the gamma, you’re settings are complete!

Click “OK”
Click “OK” again
Click “OK” once more

Then click “Save”, and wait. (It may take hours depending on the speed of your machine and the length of your video. I recommend that, before you spend hours encoding your entire video, that you experiment on a clip only a few seconds long to confirm that it looks the way you want it.)

The result? Beautifulness.

The resulting video will not only have the same brightness as the original, but it will also play back on mobile devices like the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Also, I’ve heard that every time you use Takashi’s x264Encoder, an angel gets its wings; and although I happen not to have concrete evidence for that at the moment, you will believe me. Yes, yes you will. I thank Takashi very much, because at the end of the day, using this plugin lets me say two words I love to say.

Problem solved.

Related Articles

1. How to Fix Washed-Out H.264 Video
2. How to Encode Video for a Podcast
3. How to Make a Widescreen Movie without an HD Camera

As I mentioned before, I’d just finished marveling at the creativity exhibited at the Denver Chalk Art Festival when I walked right into the People’s Fair, which was literally about one block away. And to my great delight, a surprisingly good Elvis impersonator was performing “Suspicious Minds.”

Thankfully, I had enough camera memory to shoot a video for your viewing enjoyment. Here’s a short 60 second version of the video:

If you’d like to hear more of the song, the full length video is now on YouTube. (And if you enjoyed this video, you should consider subscribing to the Byteful Travel Video channel on YouTube.)

With music loud and long

There were other delightful things to see, too. Nearby, guitar and drum lessons were being given, and among the tents I even stumbled upon an old man playing a particularly unique instrument: an Appalachian Dulcimer.

You may be familiar with the Hammered Dulcimer, an ancient instrument that’s been used for thousands of years, but this dulcimer was an Appalachian Dulcimer, something altogether newer in design. Also known as a mountain dulcimer, the Appalachian Dulcimer is plucked like a guitar, not struck with a hammer like its ancient counterpart. And its sound was quite mesmerizing amidst Denver’s summer air.

A Surprisingly Musical Day

And as I left, I was given to one final musical treat for the day. A particularly good street performer by the name of Jentry D. McCombs was performing near the edge of the fair. He was truly a professional street performer because his money box was basically a business card, complete with his email and phone number in large letters. Not a bad way to spread the word about your talent…

Overall, it was an excellent ending to a truly artistic, and surprisingly musical, day.

— — —
Photos from this trip are in the Denver Chalk Art Festival album. All photos in the Byteful Gallery can be used as desktop wallpapers because they are high resolution (1920×1440) just like the fullscreen & widescreen wallpapers.

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2. The Top 5 Surprises at the Denver Art Museum
3. Denver Doesn’t Know What Century It’s In!
4. Denver’s City Park Jazz & The Haunted Fountain
5. The Ancient Secret of Denver’s Cathedral Basilica

And you probably won’t be surprised to hear that the people I saw had widely differing attitudes on what they were doing. So differing were the attitudes and behaviors of the people I passed, that a strange parallel began to dawn in my mind.

How is a path like a planet?

I was lucky; it was a gorgeous day, a little more humid than I’d prefer, but excellent biking weather, nonetheless. I was riding a trail along Lake Mendota on my way to downtown; and, not surprisingly, I observed quite an array of attitudes and behaviors. As they were approaching me from the other side of the trail, I could tell that some biker’s were incredibly focused, their eyes narrowed and cold, as if they were incredibly determined to lose weight or gain the physique they always wanted.

Still others seemed to be having a bit more fun, and usually these were the ones biking with a partner, but not always. You could tell the ones that were obviously having more fun because they’re pacing was a bit leisurely and they seemed more relaxed than the hyper-focused bikers. Sometimes people even tried carrying on conversations between themselves, but constantly varying distance between their two bikes made it difficult. (I don’t recommend it unless it’s especially quiet, such as at night. Otherwise, it’s just too difficult to carry on any cogent conversation.)

What caught me off guard

And still others were just walking, and these were almost always in groups. (And as you can probably guess, they were more easily able to carry on conversations than the bikers.) What caught me off guard though, was a couple children who passed me as they were running the other way, right along the bike path! They both seemed a little panicky and I never did find out what they were after. By the time I could safely look behind, they were gone.

But I think the most pleasant sights I saw while on the path were an older couple holding hands as they walked, and a small group of children smiling and talking as they followed the path.

And then it hit me

And it then a strange parallel occurred to me:
How is this path any different from Earth itself?

We all walk this Earth. We all depend upon it. We all walk a path, but we may not be going the same directions or for the same reasons. And we can tell those we meet along the path to always remember to not take the path for granted. It wasn’t always here, and it won’t always be here.

We all share the path and all benefit by keeping it clean and useable.

The path is beautiful.
What do you value most about it?
What are some things you can do to keep yourself from taking it for granted?

Related Articles

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You may think that chalk, as an artistic medium, isn’t capable of truly astounding art. I know my expectations of chalk art weren’t that high.

That is, until I experienced the annual Denver Chalk Art Festival — an amazing (and free) event where I saw some truly eye-popping works of art. And although the drawings were technically only chalk on a street, emotionally they consisted of much, much more.

So what is the Denver Chalk Art Festival?

I’ll break it down into some digits for you:

• 200+ artists spend
• 10+ hours creating street art for
• 2 days at the festival which happens
• 1 time each year and costs
• $0 to attend but the experience is
• Priceless

What would Bob think?

Basically, these chalk artists do with chalk what Bob Ross does with paint: they really own their craft.

Beautiful things (even copyrighted things!) were being scribed onto the street for all to see. In every direction, people were either observing or creating chalk art. Some of the drawings were done in fiery colors, some looked like they were from a child’s story book, and some were drawn to almost photographic detail. And where there were cracks in the pavement, the artists somehow worked that into the work, too.

Without seeing this, I never would have guessed that chalk was so darn versatile!

But instead of telling you any more about the art, I’m going to show you. We’re going to briefly touch on some of the highlights.

Ready?
Let’s begin…

Where the Wild Things Are Drawn

Walking down the street, I even spotted a wild thing from the classic children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak.

While the drawing was unfortunately only partially done, it was pretty obvious to see that whoever drew this was very experienced because they managed to capture the lifelike quality of this wild character. You could almost imagine the creature leaping right out of the street and walking away.

It’s a good thing that isn’t possible. I don’t want to think about what would happen if a wild thing got let loose in a fair with all those food vendors around…

The Fiery Orange-Red Lady

I love the fiery colors in this one. The yellow to orange to red gradients were done really well.

Like most of the work I photographed, it wasn’t quite finished yet. (Although the artist did such a good job on this one, she could have stopped after finishing the flowers.)

Thankfully, I did get to see the final product, and so can you. On the festival’s website, there’s a photo gallery. (Just look under “2009 Event Photos” and click “Browse All Art”.)

Incredibly-Detailed Faces

When I saw this, it nearly stopped me right in my tracks. The level of detail he was able to achieve in this street drawing is pretty incredible. And luckily he wasn’t the only person this talented at the festival. You couldn’t throw a stick without seeing something fascinating.

Although, I do consider this one special because it was one of the most photo-realistic drawings there. I found another fantastic face drawn onto the street, too; but I didn’t want to clutter up this article with too many photos. So to see that, you’ll have to check out the Denver Chalk Art photo album in the gallery.

The Tale of the Orange Owl & Green Grasshopper

And to finish up this phototastic article, I present to you something I’ve named “The Orange Owl and the Green Grasshopper”.

I really liked this one; it reminded me of the colorful and mysterious children’s books that I had as a child. (In fact, this may even be a recreation scene from a children’s book I’ve never read. If it is, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.)

Clearly children’s illustration was an inspiration to Heather Brown, who is the talented artist who drew this; and if she was trying evoke a sense of childlike playfulness and joy, I’d say she succeeded.

— — —

I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief tour of the Denver Chalk Art Festival, and if you’re ever going to Denver in June, you’d be a crazyperson to pass up this opportunity to see so much amazing (and free) street art!

And then I wandered right into…

But there’s more to the story because quite near to the chalk art festival was another festival, and I happened to wander right into it.

Coming up: a nearly forgotten instrument, a street performer so hip he’s got his own website, and a video of a surprisingly good Elvis impersonator.

— — —
Photos from this trip are in the Denver Chalk Art Festival album. All photos in the Byteful Gallery can be used as desktop wallpapers because they are high resolution (1920×1440) just like the fullscreen & widescreen wallpapers.

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5. The Fiery Tree

If you’ve been reading Byteful Travel for a while, you’ll know that I occasionally (read: very rarely) release desktop wallpapers on the gallery. And if you haven’t been aware that there are dozens of free desktop wallpapers in the gallery, consider this your formal invitation to check them out!

And although it may not be immediately obvious, these desktops are usually travel-related. Instead of taking you to Earthly places through travel photography, the digitally rendered and painted wallpapers are meant to transport you to a place you may have only seen in your dreams. Most of my work in the Fullscreen and Widescreen wallpaper galleries is meant to evoke a feeling.

So today, I have three visual morsels for your eyes, and they’re some of the most joyous wallpapers I’ve ever created.

What do you get when you add a mosaic and a silk ocean?

Late last month, I started playing around with mashing up two wallpapers again. I’d already done this in the past with the Snowy Peak mashup (and I can’t believe it’s been almost 3 years since I created it), and this time I was working on combining Sol over Silk Ocean and Digital Mosaic.

Not as easy as it looks.
But, as I said before, the result are some of the most joyous wallpapers I’ve ever created.

Tinker to Find Solutions

If you’ve never played around in Photoshop before, you’re really missing out. The way you can manipulate and combine imagery is actually really incredible, and once you’re comfortable with the program, using it feels more like play than work.

After a lot of experimentation, I decided it was best to combine just the mosaic pattern and not include the numbers from Digital Mosaic. (The numbers made it too cluttered.) After a few sessions of experimentation (in which I existed in a flow state), I finally got the composition and blast of color I was looking for. (If you’re curious, it involved a Color blend and a Linear Light blend.)

Time and time again, working in Photoshop shows me that tinkering is a fantastic way to solve problems. If I never tried something without knowing the outcome in advance, I wouldn’t learn much. By taking some risks, I stumbled upon solutions I never would have thought of. And that’s ironic because this parallels life as well, doesn’t it?

I Could Tell, but I’ll Show

Risks certainly paid off here; and I could go into sublimely mind-numbing detail on the process I followed such as how I spent time making certain squares in the mosaic element darker and certain squares lighter (because I guess I’m pretty eccentric/obsessive about visual projects by now), but I’ll skip over that so I don’t inflame your ADHD even more than, I’m sure, it already is.

So, time to show and not tell.
I present: Cherry Mango Sunrise.

And if you’re an anti-mosaic-ite and would prefer the sky without any squares, I’ve created a version without squares (as well as a rockin’ cool blue version), and put them in the gallery. As I said above, this is one of the most joyous wallpapers I’ve ever created, and although it doesn’t represent a specific place you can visit (like my travel photography, for instance), I hope it can bring you to a specific feeling.

As always, the desktops are available in widescreen or fullscreen sizes, in resolutions up to an astoundingly ginormous 2560×1600 for widescreen and 1600×1200 for fullscreen.

To me, this wallpaper symbolizes Joy and Hope for the future.

When you look at Cherry Mango sunrise, what do you see?

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5. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Charamandala 1

And how would you find out?

More and more over the last few years, I’ve come across stories and first-hand accounts of how powerful intentions are, and how the intentions I hold in my mind affect more than just my own actions. I kept coming across stories about something called the Intention-Manifestation model of reality that suggested that my thoughts and intentions actually ripple out into the Universe and eventually reflect back to me, often in powerful ways. It stated that these intentions reflect back to me from the Universe itself, because the Universe is reflecting back to me the reality that’s most aligned with my thoughts and beliefs. On the surface, it seemed strange and maybe even a little crazy the first time I heard about it, but as I’ve experimented with this worldview more and more, I’ve been startled at how my life has been transformed.

So today, I’d like to share with you the story of something really inexplicable and outright weird that happened to me which wonderfully illustrates the powerful ways Intention-Manifestation can occur while travelling. And perhaps along the way, you’ll gain a new sense of curiosity and wonder for this strange universe we live in.

Many Names, One Principle

This worldview goes by a few different names, and you may have come across this theory before since discussion of it among philosophers and well-known thinkers has been growing over the past few years. The phenomenon is referred to as the Law of Attraction or the Intention-Manifestation model of reality.

Recently, this has been showing up in popular media, too. You’ve probably heard of a movie called “The Secret”, and if you haven’t, you probably will. This movie is the most popular explanation of the Law of Attraction that has emerged in the last few decades. (And for the sake of saving ink, paper, time, and my sanity, I’ll abbreviate Law of Attraction as LOA for the rest of this article.)

Beyond simply being an enjoyable movie, “The Secret” contains some pretty powerful ideas, and it’s one of the more profound movies that I’ve seen in the last few years. However, to be honest, I was pretty disappointed in the movie, because it gave a disproportionately large amount of time to how to use the LOA to become wealthy and earn more money. Perhaps the book that the movie is based off of is better, but the movie put the wrong emphasis on what the LOA truly is.

Many People throw out The Baby

Now, there’s nothing wrong with becoming wealthy; but, because of the way the movie discussed money and wealth, there’s a real danger that people will make a false association that the LOA is always about wealth and becoming rich, which it is definitely not. There are various problems that arise when you become preoccupied with the wealth-creation aspect of the LOA.

Probably the biggest problem is that, for complex reasons (which would require another article to adequately explain), people new to the LOA invariably fail to manifest the money of their dreams. So guess what they do? They throw out the entire LOA model and decide that, since they couldn’t generate wealth in x-number of days, it’s completely bogus.

Forget “throwing the baby out with the bath water” — that’s like throwing out the entire bathtub.

Over a cliff.
Onto sharks.
With lasers on their heads.

It’s not pretty.

See, the LOA basically states that every thought is an intention. That means any and every thought is an intention, including any worries, hopes, and recurrent thoughts you may have throughout the day. According to the LOA, your sum total reality is a reflection of the sum total of your thoughts/intentions; and therefore, you’re directly responsible for everything in your life.

It follows then, that to change your life, you have to change your thoughts, right?

Yep!

Easy?

No.

It’s pretty darn difficult, because to change your thoughts, you have to reevaluate, and sometimes completely rebuild, your belief frameworks (or core belief systems).

I’m not going to sugarcoat this. Challenging your belief frameworks, and growing from that, is one of the hardest tasks you can ever take on. But there’s no rush, and over the longterm fewer things are more rewarding than challenging your belief frameworks and growing from the experience.

An Interesting side note

Recently it’s come to my attention that this principle may even be hinted at in the Gospel of Mark in reference to prayer. I’ll quote the relevant part of chapter 11, and you can come to your own conclusions:

Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to Him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.”

So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

~ Yehoshua of Nazareth
As chronicled in the Gospel of Mark 11:20-24 (NKJV)

Story Preface: Expectations Restrict You

So now that you’ve just had a beginner’s crash course in what the LOA is, I can preface my story.

I feel really lucky that this particularly inexplicable thing happened to me, because it clearly demonstrated to me, first hand, that the real key when using the LOA is to not hold specific expectations about the outcome of what you want to happen. I’ve found that, once I’m clear about what I want, any attachment to a particular outcome limits the LOA from working as it should.

Basically, expectations I hold about how something will manifest actually minimize the chance of anything manifesting in a profound way.

Instead, I found that if I have faith that what I need will come to me in its own perfect time, and I remain very flexible about how and when it will arrive (i.e., not placing specific expectations on outcomes), intentions manifest into realities a heck of a lot faster, and in more compelling ways.

Recently, I saw this summarized beautifully on twitter:

Attachment is the enemy of manifestation.
~ Steve Pavlina

And frankly, I never would have believed that my thoughts actually have a such a profound, and inexplicably-fluid, effect on my reality… until I began to experience it for myself. But I never could have experienced the LOA at work in my own life until I started relaxing my own beliefs about reality a bit. For instance, I started asking myself questions like, “What if this really is how reality works? What if I don’t understand the link between my mind and my reality as well as I thought?”

Once I opened myself up to the possibility, some weird things started happening to me. Some wonderful, weird things. The story below is one such example.

How I Manifested a Solution in 60 Seconds Flat

So how did I solve my travel dilemma in 60 seconds flat using the LOA? Well, the following story happened to me just last month, and it’s an excellent example of the LOA at work.

I had just set out on a long bicycle trip out of Madison. I’d carefully packed my travel inventory into my pack and attached the pack to my bike’s rack using some handy bungee cords. After biking for a few minutes, I suddenly remembered that I’d forgotten something crucially important.

My front tire’s air pressure had been low for a few days, and I’d meant to stop somewhere and fill it up the day before. I’d forgotten, which resulted in a very interesting dilemma:

1. I could go back and fall way behind schedule.
2. Or I could press on but risk ruining my wheel’s rim if the tire lost any more pressure.

Don’t you just love dilemmas?

Just 60 Seconds later

After stopping (in my mind) and screaming “KAHN!!!” to the sky (again, in my mind), I thought to myself, “Where the heck am I going to find an air pump station around here?”

I didn’t know the far-western side of Madison that well, and the thought occurred to me that it would be really great if I ran into an opportunity to refill my front tire without spending a bunch of extra time looking for a gas station with an air pump.

Guess what happened 60 seconds later.

After arriving at the next intersection, I saw a fellow biker head towards me. For various reasons, I got the feeling that he really knew what he was doing (though not because he was wearing a spandex biking outfit, because he wasn’t, thank goodness). So as I was about to pass him, a small voice inside of me said, in a not-so-small tone, “ASK HIM ABOUT FILLING UP YOUR LOW TIRE!”

It continued, “SERIOUSLY. RIGHT NOW.”

Sigh.

I’d heard this small, still voice before, and I had the feeling that I’d regret it if I didn’t listen to its advice.

So I did.

It turned out that he actually had an air pump with him (and if you’ve done some biking, you’ll know this isn’t exactly common anymore), and he was really glad to help. He even pumped the air for me, and 30 seconds later my tire was at the correct air pressure again. I thanked him profusely. He smiled. And after saying farewell, I was on my way once again.

So what just happened there?

Let’s recap: I went from thinking about needing to fill up the air in my tire, to someone connecting an air pump to my tire in about… 60 seconds flat.

Think the Law of Attraction is crazy?

To be completely clear, I don’t expect to convince anyone anything with just one story, or even many stories for that matter. Convincing you is not my goal. My goal is to get you curious. My goal is to get you really suspicious, suspicious of your current beliefs about the way reality works. After all, if you consider yourself a true skeptic, you must be at least slightly skeptical of your own opinions and beliefs. Otherwise, how pure is your skepticism, really?

Now, challenging your belief frameworks isn’t easy. It took me time to internalize and understand this particular framework and open myself up to these kinds of possibilities. It’s easy to write off these kinds of stories if they’re perceived as isolated cases. It’s a lot harder to brush them all off as coincidences if they’re happening to you personally and things start to manifest more quickly and more often.

And that’s exactly what happens the more you open yourself up to the possibility that this is how reality actually works.

Challenging at first, but The Blanket does exist!

The concept of the LOA may sound weird, and that’s because it is. But in my experience, it works. (And I’m not alone. Many thousands, perhaps millions of people around the world also use the LOA every day. One good place to meet people who use the LOA are on discussion boards like this one.)

So the LOA may strike you as weird, but do you want to hear something that’s even weirder? If you decide that the LOA is completely impossible, that’s an intention, too. By denying the possibility of the Law of Attraction, you actually send out the intention to have the Universe reflect situations back to you that are designed to raise more doubt in you over whether the LOA is real or not. So in essence, by “deciding” that the LOA is impossible, you use the LOA against itself in your own life.

It’s like believing that, once you put a blanket over your head, you can decide it doesn’t exist because you can’t see anything!

This Wonderful Universe loves Congruency

But don’t worry. If you want to try this out yourself, you can. You just need to keep in mind that any conflicting thoughts you generate will result in conflicting realities. And conflicting realities usually cancel eachother out which results in nothing ending up manifesting. So the less conflicting your thoughts are, the better. (This is called being Congruent.)

So if you remember only 1 idea from this article, remember this:

The more time and the more you can lock onto the feeling of what it will feel like when you’re living with the results of what you want to manifest, the quicker it can manifest.

The feeling part is really important since the emotional energy behind any thought regulates how powerful the thought is. So be responsible, be congruent, and really tune into the feeling of what it will feel like once you’re living with the results of having/being/achieving what you want… and let me know how it goes!

And as far as the story goes, anything like that ever happen to you?
I’d love to hear your stories in the comments.

Funny and wonderful universe we live in, isn’t it?

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Below is the inaugural edition of the Byteful Travel blog carnival which spans a variety of travel topics. And I’m happy to report that the majority of the articles below include some great photography to compliment the text (some of which is absolutely hilarious!).

As I said last month, blog carnivals are one of the best ways to discover new quality content in a vast array of different topics. For this first carnival, I was impressed by all of the articles, but if you’re in a hurry and only have time to read a few, I thought “13 Silly Signs Guaranteed to Make You Smile” (which is really hilarious), “20,000 kilometres by thumb: A hitchhiker’s lap around Australia” (which is pretty extraordinary), and “Hawaii Vacation with Parents and Children – The Waikoloa Petroglyph Field” were especially enjoyable entries.

Ready? Here we go…

Destinations

William Wallace presents Modern Day London Icon The Millennium Bridge posted at London Is Cool

Zhu presents Ushuaia, The End Of The World posted at Correr Es Mi Destino, saying,

“Traveling to the Southernmost city in the world is pretty exciting. Sure, it’s a silly symbol, but it’s fun to sit by the seaside and imagine that Antarctica is right there, barely 1,000 kilometers away. To know that Canada is 13,000 km north. To reach the end of the road, literally.”

Photography

Katie Sorene presents 13 Silly Signs Guaranteed to Make You Smile posted at Travel Blog – Tripbase

Travel Poetry

Contrecoup presents Sojourn posted at Life observed from the Edge, saying,

“Not so much a tale about a destination, but rather a poem exploring some of the more abstract urges that drive me to continue on down the road.”

Travel Tips

Andy Hayes presents Inspired by the View posted at Sharing Travel Experiences, saying,

“Sometimes a little height is all you need…”

Travel Stories

Jordy Clements presents Tents for Haiti – an Omaha relief effort posted at Omaha.net – Local Writing from the Heartland

Emily Gerson presents An Encounter With Cross-Country Vagabond Sean Robinson posted at Maiden Voyage

Andrea Nicole presents 20,000 kilometres by thumb: A hitchhiker’s lap around Australia posted at InspiringTravellers.com

Jennifer Miner presents Hawaii Vacation Parents Children – Waikoloa Petroglyph Field posted at The Vacation Gals, saying,

“A simple hike in Hawaii with my parents and children became incredibly meaningful to me. I hope you like this post.”

Austin Morgan presents Interview with an American Working at a Preschool in Norway posted at Foreigners Finances, saying,

“Interview with an American woman who moved away from everything she ever knew in Central Illinois to start a new life as a preschool teacher in Norway.”

Vicki Potts presents Fez, Morocco – how I got the travel bug posted at redheadedtravels, saying,

“This goes back 22 years to when I first caught the travel bug and progressed from holidays to travelling.”

Iain Manley presents Travel and Nostalgia posted at Old World Wandering: A Travelogue, saying,

“Travel and Nostalgia is about the difference between how we experience life and how we remember it, something I think travel helps to highlight.”

Want to grow your audience?

You too can be a part of Byteful Travel carnival! If you’re a writer, and you’ve written something that relates to travel in some way, I’d highly encourage you to submit a piece you’re proud of.

Why? Because blog carnivals are a fantastic way to get the word out about what you’re publishing on the ‘net. I know this from firsthand experience because blog carnivals have been incredibly helpful in spreading the word about Byteful Travel.

To request an article you wrote to be considered for inclusion next time, please submit your blog post (just one please, and one that provides real value and is not spam) to the next edition of the Byteful Travel carnival using the Byteful Travel carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found in the blog carnival index. (And if you’d like to host the carnival itself, as I have done here, please contact me via the contact page.)

A big thanks to everyone who submitted! Without you, this carnival never would have happened. And if you submitted an article but it wasn’t accepted, it probably was under 300 words or it wasn’t about travel. If you have any questions about how to submit an article or why your article wasn’t accepted, please let me know.

Looking forward to seeing more of your travel articles in the next carnival!

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