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ubassman.nyc’s timelapse

Lower Manhattan seen from NJ

30 Days In 30 Seconds

New HS under construction in Woodside.

New York City’s SCA recently started building a new high school near me so I decided to attempt a long term (construction) timelapse. It wasn’t practical for me to dedicate a DSLR for this so I chose to use a Raspberry Pi with an attached camera module. After some experimentation I came up with the following configuration.

  • Raspberry Pi 3b running bullseye
  • Raspberry Pi v2 camera module with custom lens
  • motion capture software
  • fswebcam software
  • ffmpeg software
  • Various scripts and crontab

The motion software runs continuously on the Raspberry Pi and allows me to view the cam via web browser to check operation. It also captures an image every (60) seconds and creates a a (24) hour timelapse every day. These timelapses were not used for this experiment. The fswebcam software was set to capture an image every (3) seconds during work hours using cron. Once a day the captured images were converted to a video clip using ffmpeg. Then (30) of the resulting clips were then assembled into a (30) second video. The Pi and its camera the v2 module are not capable of capturing high quality images or video. However, I think the results were pretty good. Raspberry has a new HQ camera module which I may look into. I hope you enjoy my experiment.

The Bass Is Back

A Kala Ubass hanging on a stand.

As mentioned in previous posts, health issues kept me home bound for much of 2022. My health is much better now and this past Friday I played my first gig since April of 2022. I played with The Flynns at Donovan’s Pub. This was their regular Donovan’s First Friday engagement. The Flynns have been playing first friday’s for about the last ten years.

For my first gig in nine months I played my new Kala ubass. This was a “blem” that I picked up direct from Kala at a good discount. The bass looked perfect. It took me a while to find the blemish. I swapped out the regular poly strings for some flatwounds (Gallistrings), replaced the nut with one designed for flat wounds and finally cut done the bridge saddle to get the action right where I wanted it. It plays like a dream now and sounds great. Looking forward to playing lots more gigs with this beauty.

Friends and family came down to welcome me back and cheer me on.

Goodbye 2022

Paul McCarthy in front of the Vessel in NYC.

Hello people,
The year 2022 has been a remarkable one for me. I suffered a brain bleed in April and had to undergo emergency brain surgery. That surgery was followed by a few others to address complications that occurred. I’ve spent the remainder of the year recovering and regaining my strength. My wife Dawn stood by me all through this. There was not a single day where she did not visit me in the hospital. After I came home she was the perfect care giver and nurse.

As I put 2022 behind me I’m looking forward to the new year. Looking forward to once again playing music with The Flynns and the Accidental Gypsies. Also looking forward to taking lots of photos and creating timelapse videos. I’m hoping my wife and I can finally take our much anticipated and delayed roadtrip together. This was initially put on hold because of Covid and the hold was extended due to my illness.

This entire experience has opened my eyes to just how lucky I am. Not only to have survived this health crisis but also to have received the outpouring of love and caring that friends and family sent my way. I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year.