Uncle Sam on the Fourth of July

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The year 2007, and earlier.
The year 2008.
The year 2009.
The year 2010.
The year 2011.
The year 2012.
The year 2013.
The year 2014.
The year 2015.
The year 2016.
The year 2017.
The year 2018.
The year 2019.
The year 2021.
The year 2022.
The year 2023.
The year 2024.
The year 2025.

Approximate picture count: 56+ (no systematic collection of pictures)

Poway News Chieftain, July 10, 2008

After the Polaroid experience, I felt pretty strongly that we should be using digital cameras and photo printers to create the prints, and told the park that I wanted to take ownership of the picture taking process. At the time I worked for HP, which designed and sold photo printers out of Rancho Bernardo. I talked to one of the design engineers, and he enlisted the marketing department to create our digital solution.

The marketeers came with half a dozen cameras (some of them very nice), and half a dozen of a new printer product called the "Home Photo Center". The HPC was a small kiosk appliance with a built in printer and a touchscreen of 4-5 inches in size. It could read almost any camera card, and you could select a picture and print it from the touchscreen.

The marketing people and their families made a day of it. They would take a picture, extract the card from the camera, plug it into an HPC, find the picture, and print it. Then, they would move the card back into the camera for the next shot. And this was done over and over, for probably more than 100 pictures. Because it was promotional, we couldn't charge for pictures, and people loved that.

But there were clearly scaling problems. It took a lot of people and a lot of equipment to take and print a lot of pictures, and being in the center of it was like being in a maelstrom. Digital cameras and printers had to be the future, because Polaroid as a whole was dying. But digital cameras and printers had to be used in a smarter, more connected way.

Approximate picture count: 189

The marketing year was great, but they were not about to repeat that, so something else had to be done. Later that Summer I bought a Canon SD430 Wi-Fi camera. It had features that can be hard to find, even today, like remote shooting, and automatic transfer of new pictures to a computer. To help the camera along, I used an HP 1000 Netbook and made a self contained (peer to peer) network to shoot and share the pictures, and used the image viewer in the Netbook to print them.

Camera batteries would only last an hour or so, so we had a pipeline of batteries and battery chargers feeding the camera, and the whole thing went down when the camera battery ran out. I don't remember how many printers we had, but it was not enough. There were lots of other niggling little problems, like the operator having to jump up and adjust the tripod a lot. But the basic system worked great. The cameraman could shoot the camera and dispatch a print job without extra help, and the speed of the process seemed to be limited by the printers themselves, not by people running around with camera cards.

Approximate picture count: 203

Ha, ha. This is the year that they forgot to get my costume. Rather than give up and cancel, I improvised. And we took and printed close to 200 pictures that year.

A lot of people wanted to take pictures with their own cameras, or with their phones. Some even asked how they might get an electronic copy of the picture that was taken and printed, but I really did not want to collect email addresses and associate them with particular pictures.

But the problem was out there. People really wanted to get a copy of the picture so they could post it to Facebook, or whatever.

By the way, the felt hat that was used that year is the very same one that got me into all this trouble in the first place.

Approximate picture count: 162

Each year I try to make some improvement to the process, and the problem of providing a downloadable copy of each picture was worthy of some thought. There are issues, of course. There are a lot of pictures of little kids, so only the original subject should have the download privilege. I run a personal Web site (budwin.net) and work on Web projects from time to time.

For the pictures, the solution chosed was to hand out a paper ticket with each picture with a secret URL on it, different for each picture. For this to work, I had to print hundreds of tickets, and be able to hand them out in the correct order. Ticket booklets were printed with a hundred or so tickets in each book, bound with a heavy duty staple, with tickets to be torn off and handed out in order.

The secret code (w3vnnh in the sample below) represents a 30 bit number in a base-32 symbol set consisting of letters and numbers. There are about a billion 30 bit numbers, so it is really, really unlikely that a secret code can be guessed.

For the year 2011, the tickets looked like this:

Thanks for visiting Uncle Sam!
To get your picture, visit:
http://sam/w3vnnh/
( img_1055.jpg )

The printing of the picture was completely scripted, so that a single double click on the image file would choose the next printer in rotation and spool the print automatically. If a printer ran out of ink or paper, it could be taken out of the rotation, while the other printers picked up the load.

After the event, there was still a lot of work to do. The pictures had to be processed into Web pages (mostly scripted) and uploaded to my hosting provider. Only when that is done can Poway's Uncle Sam relax.

During the day a television reporter was covering the celebration for TV station KUSI, and I was asked something like what the 4th of July means to me, which seriously put me on the spot. If you want to see how I responded, watch the video.

Approximate picture count: 257

The next year, I again printed tickets, but a great idea was rapidly looking tired. The biggest problem was not printing or binding the tickets, it was making sure that the correct ticket was handed out. If we got out of sync, then every ticket would be wrong, so incredible vigilance was necessary, with constant checking of the image number against the ticket. The tickets themselves hardly changed:

Midland Park Uncle Sam 2012!
To get your picture, visit:
http://sam/bknnfc/
( img_1109.jpg )   Thanks!

And here is a picture of one of the actual ticket books. Image name and code are different for each page, image names are in order, and each book had 100 tickets. They were bound like a book, too, with groups of folded pages (called quills) stacked and bound with a single staple to form the finished book.

Approximate picture count: 220

Sometimes, when you have a thorny problem, a fresh perspective can show a better way. I was talking with my son about the ticket problem when he suggested printing the ticket on the back of the picture. It did not seem possible, the printers could not duplex, and the back side of the picture was not suitable for printing anyway.

But the key feature of this idea was pure gold. If the picture and the ticket were brought together as one, ticket preparation and ticket synchronization problems all went away. It was worth working on.

In this case, the ticket is a kind of picture caption, and software that can add captions is not that hard to come by. For the tiny PC that is used to catch and print the pictures, I was able to install Imagemagick, a suite of image processing and modification programs, and program it to insert a caption on the right side of the picture with the ticket information.

This placement of the caption solves a second problem that we had just been living with. The camera we were using has an aspect ratio of 4:3, which means the picture height is exactly 3/4 of its width. However, the printer paper was 4x6, or an aspect ratio of 3:2, for a picture height of 2/3 of its width. By adding the caption on the right, I was able to correct the aspect ratio of the printed image to match the printer paper. Not a huge deal, but it means that no unexpected cropping of the top or bottom of the print would happen.

Okay, I am done nerding out. The ticket was added to the picture, and the two line caption was as simple as possible:

 Old Poway Park 2013
budwin.net/sam/8j4dsw/

The only real problem with this is I don't think a lot of people realized that the second line was really a Web URL that could be typed in to download the picture, so not very many people did that.

Approximate picture count: 262

This time the caption was expanded to make it clear that budwin.net is a download URL.

Welcome to Old Poway Park - July 4, 2014
Download at http://sam/vp66u3/

In keeping with the continuous improvement theme, we had started bringing a bag of felt hats so that the kids, or even adults, could play a little dress-up for their picture. People liked the idea.

And, I added a pan-tilt mechanism from an old surveillance camera, which turned out to be easy to control using the electrical equivalent of a Commodore-64 joystick. With this and the remote shooting software, the cameraman could point and zoom the camera before shooting, without getting up out of his chair.

Here are some nice pictures from 2014 of the rig with printers and pan-tilt.

This was the year that the Pomerado Community Band invited me to conduct the Stars and Stripes Forever. Being up close and personal with a good sized band is a unique and loud experience, and I thank the band and its leader for the opportunity and the thrill.

Approximate picture count: 304
Caption style:

Welcome to Old Poway Park - July 4, 2015!
     To download this picture go to:
      http://sam/pq5fqh/

Every year is different, but I can't remember any huge improvements we made this year.

The record picture count tells and interesting story, though. The Fourth of July is normally a hot day in Poway, but in 2015 it was cloudy for much of the day. This kept the temperature below 90 for most of the day, resulting in a good turnout, and a high demand for pictures.

This, plus the fact that the equipment and process were now working really well, gave us the high picture count. What we had, in fact, was a well oiled machine.

Approximate picture count: 270
Caption style:

Welcome to Old Poway Park - July 4, 2016!
     To download this picture go to:
      http://sam/ng7k5u/

Nor can I remember huge improvements for this year. There is a story to tell, though.

In 2016, after the Fourth of July, the MLB All-Star game was held in San Diego. While I did not go to the game myself, I scored some tickets to the "Fanfest", a floor show in the Convention Center. After a couple of days spent getting baseballs signed by famous people, I noticed people (kids, usually) going around with green foam hats that looked like wicked mohawks. They were labeled "Scotts" and were supposed to look like growing grass. Now freebies are the mother's milk of convention floor shows, and I had to get a green hat.

So I found the Scott's booth, and asked the woman there what I had to do to get a hat. She told me I had to get my picture taken. There was a place for a line, but no line (the actual All-Star game was going to start soon). On the photo stage were props: a bat, a glove, a ball. I put the bat on my shoulder, and *flash*, the picture was taken. Then, 15 seconds later, it popped into a tray for pickup, dry and ready to stuff into a pocket.

The inkjet printers have always been on the critical path at the Uncle Sam booth, and here was something that left them in the dust. I went to the back of the printer and photographed it with my own camera. The tag said "Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd., DNP Model DS40". And an Internet adventure was begun.

The DNP DS40 is a $1000 printer. No big surprise there, but it looked like exactly what I needed. Fortunately DNP has a newer, less expensive model, the DS-RX1. At around $600 it is still pricey, but the economics are pretty clear.

The HP inkjet printers are obsolete and are no longer being made. They take over a minute to make a print, and the cost for paper and cartridges is around 60 cents per print. Each year the cost goes up. If the printers were being made, they would cost over $100 each, and we need three of them to make prints fast enough.

The DNP printers are a growing product line. Not only can they produce a print in 15 seconds, but the per-print cost is 15 cents. A single media load is enough to make 700 prints, which is one reason the machine is both big and heavy. But only one DNP printer is needed.

In late 2016 I bought a DNP printer and made plans for using it in 2017. Sorry, HP.

Approximate picture count: 265
Caption style:

News Chieftain, 2017 ("File Photo" is from 2016)

This year we rolled out the DNC DS-RX1 dye sublimation printer. It made 265 prints for the people that came, and did it fast enough and without complaint.

In addition to the new printer, I reworked the caption on the picture, adding a little tiny Poway City Seal to the caption. Maybe this is getting too fancy, but nobody complained about it. Nobody told me it was great, either.

In addition to the new printer, I followed through on an idea to get people more involved. I made a bunch of small white signs, intended for patriotic messages or shout-outs. Things like USMC, Vietnam, or Korea. Or Home Front, or Purple Heart. A Sharpie marker was there to make signs on the fly, to make your picture unique or special.

Approximate picture count: 264
Caption style: Same as last year.

Things that struck me this year:

• There were a lot of dogs in the park this year. I even saw park rangers fanning out looking for a lost dog. Big dogs, little dogs, in between dogs. Even a seeing eye dog. But always well behaved dogs. Congratulations Poway dog owners. Here is a shout out for training and managing your dogs so well.
• It seemed like we had more international travelers this year. Two different groups had people from Brazil, there was a group traveling from Germany, and there were foreign exchange students from Spain.
• This year a Muslim woman had her picture taken with Uncle Sam, the first I can recall. I hope this trend continues.
• A couple of kids wanted to pull my beard this year, to see if it was real. Selling them on my eyebrows was more difficult.
• Last year I introduced signs as a way to let folks show what they had done in service to America. But the signs were open ended, with blanks and a Sharpie so folks could make their own. This year it really took off, with sentiments from "Happy 4th" to "Beat Army", penned by a Navy guy, to "Cancer Survivor". We used up most of our blank signs, but next time we will bring more. Also, the signs show what we already know, that there are a lot of women military veterans out there. They deserve respect from all of us.

When the Poway Princesses came to have their picture taken, they noticed a ratty old print that we have been using as a prop for the last three years or so, and recognized "Hey, look! It's Jackie Foster!"

The picture in question is HERE. Jackie has the sash that says "MISS POWAY". Jackie is now sort of famous, starring as a contestant on "The Voice". I am always honored by every single Princess who comes to pose with me, but to have this happen with one of them is special.

Approximate picture count: 295
Caption style: Same as last year.

Publicity in the News-Chieftain:
Click for story:

One big change is that this year I am supplying my own costume, so now I am a fully self-supporting Uncle Sam. The company that the city was renting costumes from, Buffalo Breath, went out of business, so sourcing of some of the costumes the city uses has become more difficult. But after over 10 years in rented costumes, I know what is needed, and what makes a good costume and a bad costume. I really hope you are pleased with the choices I have made for the new Uncle Sam!

There are always a lot of people celebrating the Fourth that are from other countries, and I was struck by the variety this year. Sometimes they are just visiting, sometimes staying, sometimes naturalized US citizens. This year, visitors from Spain, Italy, and Germany showed up in the same group, there was a family from Latvia, and another family from Peru. I have had many connections with Sikh culture, and indeed there was a Sikh family at the celebration. It means a lot to be part of the welcome wagon.

We have a sign you can hold up that says "WW II Veteran". I don't think it got used last year. This year, we found our man, who is looking forward to turning 101 soon, and is still walking around like he is only 80. God bless our veterans.

As for the hold-up signs, the most popular sign by far was one that someone with an artistic bent had created in an elaborate script with fireworks graphics, all using a black Sharpie. The slogan was "This land was made for You and Me". By the end of the day it was starting to get a little shopworn.

Also popular: the simple but to the point "MERICA!". And, someone who had been in New York on Sept. 11, 2001 had me make him a "911 Survivor" sign.

And babies. We had a one-month old, and others in the range 2-4 months. Someone wanted me to hold a baby, but the kid was old enough to understand that I was definitely a stranger, and his fussing put a stop to that. The chance to hold a baby requires adventurous and tolerant parents and a tolerant child, so it only comes by every few years. But it is definitely one of the perks of the job. Maybe next year.

Approximate picture count: 315
Caption style: Same as last year.

The year 2020 will go down as the lost year. Not because nothing happened, but because everyone's life was radically changed, and one of the biggest changes was that congregate activities like Poway's Old Fashioned Fourth of July could not be held. This year, mass vaccination has made it safe enough to again hold this event. Personally, I would not do this if I were not fully vaccinated. Do your part, for America.

Publicity on Facebook:

For technology changes, this year we ran with a bigger and faster laptop.

And what a great year it has been. Once again, I got to hold a baby, a super chill mellow boy. And check out the dog picture in the sample images. What a champ.

This year it seems like everyone was piling into the hats and signs, and we brought color Sharpies and not enough blanks. So I know what we need to bring more of next year.

And I got a surprise when the Poway News Chieftain landed on my doorstep. This picture was on the front page "above the fold", a great honor in the newspaper biz. The image is from pomeradonews.com.

Poway News Chieftain, July 8, 2021

Since everyone has been "outed", here is the photo as taken and given to the famous family a few seconds before the newspaper photograper appeared.

To make things complete, here is the photographer at the moment the picture that ran in the paper was taken.

My heartfelt thanks to all the people and families who came to make this event a success, and let the world know that America is back!

Approximate picture count: 287
Caption style: Same as last year.

Another successful run, and it was really nice that it was not too hot his year. Miss Poway and the princesses were back (they are really busy on this day).

Approximate picture count: Unknown
Caption style: A new style for the first 22 people, as shown in this example.

This year was supposed to be a showcase of new features. My son suggested that perhaps adding a Q-R code would help more people access the Web page that is created for each picture. Problem is, the page used to be created after the event. So I cooked up a scheme to upload the Web pages on the fly, using a mobile phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot to access the Internet.

All of this was working, but the camera was not. After 22 pictures, it signed off in a most rude way, as we were trying to photograph the Poway Queen and her court. Here is the view from my "eye in the sky" of the photo attempt, but the camera itself provided no usable picture:

When the equipment failed, we created an alternate plan on the fly, which was to have people take photographs with their cellphones, and to provide a photographer so that the cellphone owner was not left out of the picture.

The Poway News Chieftain honored me with a picture. The photo was taken by Criselda Yee, and I have copied it here without permission because I'm in it.

Approximate picture count: 200+
Caption style: Here is an example of what the printed pictures look like now:

This year was a near complete hardware reboot. The 20-year old cameras had remote shooting software that was written for Windows XP, and had never been updated. So a new camera was needed. Remote shooting now means a "fancy" camera (DSLR or mirrorless) because camera makers don't want to support remote shooting using cheap cameras. Fancy cameras are often sold for "vlogging", or creating a video log.

There is another class of camera that can shoot remotely, called the "webcam", and these have gotten much better in recent years, sporting full HD (1920x1080) and even 4K (3840x2160) resolutions. And the fanciest ones even come with PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom), allowing me to retire my old surveillance pan-tilt hardware. Best of all, a 4K PTZ webcam costs about the same as a "fancy" vlogging camera.

I'm not crazy about Windows 10, but stuff like the camera and printer have to be supported. The operator needs a reasonable interface, and pictures must be formatted and sent to the printer. To glue all the software pieces tobether, I chose the programming language "Python", which is well supported on both PC and Linux operating systems.

The new camera and image processing software all worked very well, but we need more practice in setting it all up quickly.

The picture format was changed because the aspect ratio of the new camera is different, so empty white space for the label was to be found not on the side of the picture, but on the bottom. I can geek out all day about why this had to be done, but I won't because nobody cares. People just accept the new picture layout.

The new system does all of the things that the old one did, and more. Pictures are uploaded on the fly using a Wi-Fi hotspot. This means that as soon as their picture comes out of the printer, the Q-R code can be scanned with a phone, and the Web page containing that picture will be displayed.

Pictures can also be taken and printed in a vertical format. For example, see the picture of the dog from this years public images.

The Union Tribune honored me with a picture in the "Pomerado" section. The photo was taken by Criselda Yee, and I have copied it here without permission because I'm in it. Her caption is:

"Uncle Sam (Charles Keith) is sought out every year by the Wilson Family: Joe (dad), Sydney Wilson-Binder (daughter), Riley (puppy), and Leslie (mom). They've taken a family photo with Uncle Sam at Old Poway Park for the past 13 years. (During the pandemic, they took their family photo with a photo of Uncle Sam). (Criselda Yee)"

Approximate picture count: 222
Caption style: The picture format is essentially unchanged from last year.

This year lots of people were telling me stories about how they have been having their picture taken with me for the last umpteen years. One person claimed 20 years, which I was obliged to correct. Check out the history page, the years I have been doing this are carefully documented!

While the weather was really not very hot, and I tried hard to drink lots of water and soda, I wound up getting rather dehydrated by the end of the day. Sorry for wilting on you. I'll try to do better next time.

This year I was honored to get another shot at big-time local TV, sort of. A roving video journalist set up in our area, and I repeated my pitch from way back in 2011 (see history). It is included in this report (2 min 49 sec, 480p) on inland celebrations of the July 4 holiday.

All in all, I'm counting 2025 as a roaring success, and look forward to next year.

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