Archive for October, 2006
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Monday, October 23rd, 2006This morning the fog was serene and beautiful. Unfortunately I was not enjoying it because today was a classic Monday. I have a big launch today at work and had put in some extra time over the weekend to make sure I was ready to meet my deadline. Part of doing that extra work had involved bringing my laptop home with me last Friday – something I almost never do.
After waking up early this morning to check on things and head into work this morning I was dismayed when I got to work and realized I had left my laptop back at home. 8:00am in the morning is a horrible time to make a 35 mile round trip from Redmond to Seattle (after already fighting my way from Seattle to Redmond once this morning) particularly when a 9:00am launch is looming.
The good news: I made it back here in time. The bad news: we will see if there is any bad news.
*fingers crossed*
Blue, Red, and Tan
Saturday, October 21st, 2006
Brien and I went out today to go to the Army/Navy surplus store and get his car washed. On the way back I took this photo out of the sunroof of his car while at a stoplight just north of Downtown. I love the way the colors came out on it.
I also took this shot while out and about. This one outside of Pacific place from the passenger window of Brien’s car. I’m slowly getting better at taking pictures of people in public places. It’s something I’ve been struggling with for a while and I’m finally starting to get happy with my results.
After a dinner of Sushi we came back to my place so that I could introduce Brien to the a truely groundbreaking film from my youth: John Carpenters “The Thing”. It really is surprising to me that as much of a film buff as he is there are some classics that he simply hasn’t seen!
“POTD 10/21/06 – Blue, Red, and Tan” by sparktography
“Standing at Pacific Place” by sparktography
Yellow on grey
Thursday, October 19th, 2006Fall is here – today was a miserable rainy mess, and nobody knows how to drive. I spent nearly 2 and a half hours in my car today just getting to and from work. Luckily things are going well at work so my overall stress level didn’t get too high. I hate it when I get anxiety attacks from being stuck in traffic for too long.
Now I’m home and have had a chance to relax a little. I downloaded Lumines live from Xbox Live last night and am getting into that game. I really do have to say for the record that the Xbox Live Arcade is pure genius – Microsoft has enabled smaller gaming companies to bring simple fun games directly to consumers. It’s good to see that gaming manufacturers are going back to their roots in some ways and learning that gameplay is as important as graphics and framerates.
Todays picture of the day is a found shot, with minimal leveling in photoshop. it’s simple, but I like it. The color and texture contrast between the leaf and the stones behind it provides balance. I took it while walking outside during my lunchbreak. Luckily it had stopped raining momentarily so I took a 15 minute walk to get all energized for my afternoon.
While I was out I also took this shot, which is also a found shot, but does have a bit more photoshop work than the other one. I really like the texture and slimy feel of the yellow leave against the hard grit of the pavement.
“POTD 10/19/06 – Yellow on Grey” by sparktography
“Wet yellow” by sparktography
A “few” bags
Wednesday, October 18th, 2006
This morning I stopped by the Tom Bihn factory to talk with Tom about some technology and pick up a couple of bags to review. I’ll be posting a full review of their Imago at some point soon.
I like this shot because it says something about me. I have a ton of bags – both for my computers, but also my DSLR, and other technology. What’s sad was this is just the pile of bags that I was able to scrounge up in 5 minutes around the house. I have another bag in my car, and two more at work in my office.
I love bags – I think that a well designed and manufactured bag can make a huge difference in your life – Being able to have a camera and computer with me at all times changes the way I interact with the world.
Sorry about the quick and dirty shot – I only got about 5 hours of sleep last night and am now quite ready for a good nights rest.
“POTD 10/18/06 – a “few” bags” by sparktography
Waiting for the news & domino violence
Wednesday, October 18th, 2006
My picture of the day today was taken during my lunch break at work. I was walking around and I found this curved line of newspaper bins and it caught my fancy. I took a few shots of them and ended up being most happy with this one after a little photoshop tweaking.
My semi-regular fix from Amazon arrived today with all 14 DVD’s and HD-DVD’s shining in their full glory. I even had Mikba and Brien over to watch Batman Begins on HD-DVD. Beforehand I played around with a few shots and found this one:
I really pushed the colors a lot on this one in photoshop – I like the kind of gritty feel – I think it goes with a phrase like “domino violence”.
* * *
I’m finally finishing this post this now at nearly 1 in the morning due to an asshat parking in someone else’s spot in our condo building. As a member of the homeowners board I had to help get it towed so the poor lady could park her car and get some rest. I have an early day tomorrow and am none to pleased. More to follow!
“POTD 10/17/06 – Waiting for news” by sparktography
“domino violence” by sparktography
Confessions of a cell phone junkie
Tuesday, October 17th, 2006CNET posted a great write up on a “cell phone junkie“. I guess they now have a name for my condition. I think I might be something worse though: a technology junkie – I just can’t help it.
Oh look – SHINY!
Blue meta
Monday, October 16th, 2006
This shot is of my new MyBook portable hard drive. It has some great patterns on of the vents on the side that remind me of morse code or binary. This was heavily tweaked in photoshop for colors to bring out the feel that I was going for – in actuality the hard drive is black and there was a yellow background to this shot.
One thing I don’t like about this photo is how noisy and overly textured it gets when viewed large. I really like the form that the shot captures though and will be experimenting further with this HDD enclosure as a subject.
“Blue meta” by sparktography
Vodcast quickie: Skype with a firetoy
Monday, October 16th, 2006I had to share this one – I think it’s adorable. I took a video of Skype playing with a toy made of fire-hose. He loves them because once the stuffing has been removed they are virtually indestructible. Now without further ado or any apologies for the crappy video quality:
DS vs. DS
Sunday, October 15th, 2006Brien and I headed to Costco this afternoon for frozen foodstuffs and a Firewire Hard Drive for iChoad to expand on the internal storage for iTunes. Brien finally got himself a Nintendo DS after months of playing with mine every chance he got.
He got a Black one and of course a Black vs. White photoshoot commenced. The black one looks awesome, but is a total fingerprint magnet. If they had them available in a matte black I would be tempted to switch out myself.
The hard drive I got was the MyBOOK Pro 500GB which features both Firewire 400 and USB 2.0. It also has a second Firewire port and I was able to hook up other firewire drive through it with no problems. Tiger is much happier with the extra drive space now that iTunes has a drive for itself and the system drive has some breathing room.
“POTD 10/15/06 – DS vs. DS” by sparktography
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