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Sunday, September 23rd, 2007People get older and fatter - I now realize just how much it’s happening to me. My friends Akiva and Shae are getting married today and while getting I discovered that none of my slacks fit any more. It’s been years since I’ve worn them so I’m not entirely surprised that they were no longer tailor fit, however I was a little surprised (offended, repulsed, aghast) to discover by what margin they no longer fit. It’s not even a matter of being slightly too small - the clasps are now inches away from each other, straining in vain to connect. Oh well - it happens to the best of us.
Oh yeah: have a fun life and a great marriage Akiva and Shae - Congratulations!
Sparky duality
Saturday, August 18th, 2007
Today was a busy day! I did a massive deep clean of my condo - ripped everything out of my closet and with the help of Sylwia and Jenn deep cleaned everything while managing to dispose of roughly 30% of the crap that has accumulated over the years. I made a hard and fast rule that everything I hadn’t used in 2 years had to go, and slid the scale down to as little as 3 months for a few things.
This evening brought photo fun with Jessie, Brenda, and Nate. We did some experimentation with 3D photography using parallax mirrors in front of my DSLR. Not everything came out very dimensional, but some cool shots happened like the one above and this one.
“Sparky duality” by sparktography
Well, that’s another year gone by
Sunday, August 5th, 2007Well it was bound to happen sooner or later: I turned 26 and I’m now in the last year of my mid-twenties. 26 doesn’t seem any different from 25 was, or even the year before. Change in my life seems more gradual these days, a side effect of getting older I suppose; each year being less tumultuous and seeming shorter given it’s comparative length is shorting as my life experiences lengthen.
My actual birthday was last week, but I didn’t celebrate too much on that day so as not to make the next day at work not be a living nightmare. Brien bought me 300 on HD-DVD and took me out for a nice dinner. I did crack a tooth at dinner (on Pad Thai no less?!) which did manage to put a bit of a damper on things, but overall it was a great end to the first quarter century of my life.
Yesterday was my annual birthday movie marathon. Some very good friends came by to have a drink, watch movies (this years theme was Action!), and celebrate the passing of another year. After a number of flicks (and much berating of Judge Dredd - how blasphemous) we dined and I went home to snuggle in bed with Skype.
This morning I took a photo walk with my lensbaby while in quite the strange mood. All of my shots today feel very experimental for me - not what I would typically look for in shots. I like what I got - check out the the all of todays photos, or see my two favorites below.
This poor abandoned TV got quite a few treatments and this ended up being my favorite. Blur effect done entirely in camera with the Lensbaby. I keep feeling like this photo makes some profound statement about the grand life-cycle of technology, but capturing that statement and writing it down eludes me.
“Televised” by sparktography
This shot is another in my sticker series. I’m highly amused by this angry little cloud. It was taken on the side of a Seattle Weekly newspaper box, and recently it looks like someone spilled some bright red/orange paint down the side putting this poor sticker in jail.
“Cloud in jail” by sparktography
Radio silence
Saturday, July 28th, 2007I’ve been silent for the last week, but I have a good excuse dammit! Both my peer and my boss on the PM side of things at work have been out of the office and a few 14 hour days have ensued keeping up with things. Unfortunately not everything went perfectly, but we have mitigation plans and I think everything will work out in the end. The stress kind of got to me by the end of the week but I managed to keep everything going and for the most part keep all the fires under control while helming the ship.
It’s been stressful on me (and Skype) but the weekend is here, and at least my peer is back so I’ve been able to for the most part take things easy this weekend and relax. Sylwia is here helping me clean right now while I’m working on a few projects, and later Ken and Scott are coming by for an evening of excess - just what the doctor ordered.
Mirror
Saturday, July 7th, 2007My non-vacation vacation is turning out beautifully! Yesterday I had a bunch of friends over for my ‘drinking and driving’ event featuring 2 Xbox 360’s, 2 Xbox 306 Wireless Racing Wheels, Forza 2, and Project Gotham Racing 3, and a pair of displays for some drinking, driving and mayhem!
Today I decided to go for a walk downtown with my camera. I walked down Olive, around Westlake center, and then back up Denny. I found the below shot of a worn down sticker on a power transformer:
I took a couple of other shot’s including a nicely framed Space Needle iPhone wallpaper, an antique power connector, and a neat stack of chairs.
“Mirror” by sparktography
Transformers
Thursday, July 5th, 2007Awesome graphics, absolutely no plot - just the way I like my movies (sometimes)! I just got back from watching it with Brien, Mark, and Erin and we all had a good time. It’s big budget special effects movies at their best. I was a little worried I wouldn’t like it since it’s not terribly true to the animated series I grew up on, but it stands on its own well and Michael Bay has succeeded in creating his version of the Transformers worthy of the silver screen!
I was a little disappointed that the Transformers were more robot and less car when converted - I really liked how in the original series the transformers ‘humanoid’ forms were still very car-like with their arms being made of car parts and their faces being the grill of the car. The new Transformers have some automobile in them, but they are larger and far more elaborate than the machines they transform from.
Non-vacation
Thursday, July 5th, 2007For the first time in a couple of years I’m enjoying a non-vacation. I took Thursday and Friday as vacation days, and combined with the holiday on the 4th of July it makes for a 5 day weekend. The last few times I’ve had any real amount of time off I’ve gone home or to CES and not really had a chance to just kick back and relax, hang out with friends, and take some photos.
I’m also taking the time to write up my proper iPhone. I still love this thing and am interested to note that it’s gained Cingular AT&T over a million activations. As much as having Apple as a partner can have it’s downside the iPhone has certainly proven that it will make it worth AT&T’s while for all the two year contracts they just signed.
Mindcamp 4
Sunday, July 1st, 2007Although Mindcamp 4 was smaller and shorter than previous Mindcamp’s it was in no means inferior. Due to the difficulty of getting a good venue and crowd on the July 4th holiday weekend there were less than half the attendees we normally get, and the event was shortened to 11 hours from it’s normal 24.
I personally was glad it was changed in such a way - being as tired as I’ve been of late meant I likely wouldn’t have gone had it been the full meal deal. Doing most of the day however was perfect, and I got to go get my geek on with fellow Seattle techies without straining myself.
One things that surprised me this time was how well Apple is hitting their target market with the iPhone. Mind camp was 2 days after launch, and more than 15% of the attendees had one. Admittedly world has been waiting for this phone for quite some time, but it was still rather shocking to see that many of them all together at once. There were a lot of discussions of not only what a world changer this device will be (and of course nerdy details as to help enable this through cool use of it’s technology), but also a good explorations of its weaker points.
More to come on the iPhone - I’m still wrapping my head around all the little details and don’t want to go into the full rundown of my opinions quite yet, but suffice to to say most of it will be positive!
I are smart
Friday, June 22nd, 2007To my sister Janet,
Sorry to say but the New York Times reports that I’m likely smarter than you (login required for link). From the article:
The eldest children in families tend to develop higher I.Q.’s than their siblings, researchers are reporting today, in a large study that could settle more than a half-century of scientific debate about the relationship between I.Q. and birth order.
Family Influence The average difference in I.Q. was slight — three points higher in the eldest child than in the closest sibling — but significant, the researchers said. And they said the results made it clear that it was due to family dynamics, not to biological factors like prenatal environment.
Researchers have long had evidence that firstborns tended to be more dutiful and cautious than their siblings, and some previous studies found significant I.Q. differences.
Family dynamics or no I’ll just take it as gospel that I’m smarter because I came first 
Love,
Sparky
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