By Charlie at Pasty Central (Chopper) on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 - 07:36 am:
Today begins year number 9 of the Pasty Cam. The whole thing began because of a request to put a baby picture on the web.
Since 1996 we had been posting only occasional photos of the area, like during winter carnival. In those early days we only had a VHS-C video camera, and would do frame captures to copy up to the server. It was a very tedious process.
Then early in 1998 Jonathan wanted to try out a new camera, which actually had a FLOPPY DRIVE BUILT IN! He ordered the hot new Sony Mavica, with a whopping 640x480 resolution. Now he could take shots on his way back and forth from Eagle River to Michigan Tech (where he was a student), and easily upload at will.
During the over-nighter at Winter Carnival in February of '98, while Jonathan was browsing around the snow sculptures on campus, he ran into his buddy Abe Voelker, an avid Pasty Central supporter:
...and the two of them talked about the new possibilities the web had created, which weren't really even being used yet. At the end of that month Abe took his wife Chrissy to the hospital for the birth of their son Alex. Chrissy's dad Tony Bausano ran into Jonathan at the hospital (with the new Mavica), and Tony asked whether it might be possible to put his new grandson's picture on the web, so relatives across the country could see the newborn that very day.
Jonathan rushed home and sat down with me at the computer, where we came up with a page for posting Alex's picture on Pasty Central. Almost immediately we received feedback from the family's relatives in California, thanking us for sharing the shot. We talked about how neat it would be to have at least one new picture every day, for people around the globe to see what was happening in our little corner of the world.
The next day (Sunday, March 1) after church, while we were eating at the new Burger King in Calumet, Jonathan happened to see a little boy in the field across the road, bogged down with his miniature snowmobile. Along came a Houghton County Deputy and a local resident to help him out. It was a classic Copper Country moment, which Jonathan captured, and we took home and uploaded.
"Let's try to do a picture every day this week", I remember saying... little knowing the 10,000+ man-hours we were committing to over the next 8 years :o)
...to be continued.
Printed on Recycled Internet
