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Sunday, June 17th, 2007In the last two days I’ve gotten a nice auxiliary input installed into my car, taken Skype to the vet (which unfortunately will result in a follow up visit and some minor surgery on Tuesday), had an automatic shutoff value on a gas pump fail and spray almost a gallon of gas all over me and my car, thrown my back out sneezing from allergies, and celebrated not one but two birthdays – Brien and Dom (its a little creepy that they share the same birthday.
How’s that for one lightspeed run-on sentence?
Update: I managed to get roughly 14 hours of sleep starting Sunday late afternoon and ending Monday morning at my usual time. It made all the difference and helped my back out quite a bit. Big week at work here I come!
The Olympic Sculpture Park: now even less exciting
Monday, May 28th, 2007This morning brought Brien and myself to the B&O for a nice Monday breakfast, and then the worlds quickest Costco experience (it failed to occur to either of us that they might be closed for Memorial Day) prior to heading home.
Later in the afternoon Rob and I went to the new Olympic Sculpture Park on the Seattle waterfront today to take photos of the sculptures. Unfortunately the park was not nearly as cool as we had hoped, but we did manage to find a few cool shots. The park itself is a nice adaptation of its prior incarnation of Myrtle Edwards park, but after the Seattle Art Museum hyped it up so much it was a but disappointing. None of the sculptures really jumped out at me and the collection was rather sparse.
The above shot was my favorite and was taken with a Lensbaby 3G. I waited around for quite a while waiting for nobody to be in the shot (execpt the people at the ‘point’ which I like) and eventually realized that it simple was not going to happen. Luckily I was able to lock it in with my tripod and take 4 photos to use as static background plates to mask out all the $%@# people.
I’m really going to be sad to see the Memorial Day weekend go. I’ve had fun relaxing and taking photos over the last couple of days and I feel much better for it. Now with my batteries recharged tackling work in the next few weeks should be much easier.
“Infinity point” by sparktography
Memorial day weekend done right
Saturday, May 26th, 2007I’m enjoying the heck out of myself this weekend. My group at work got a 4 day weekend for Memorial day and I’ve been making the most of it and doing a good job of relaxing myself and getting out to do fun things I don’t normally get to do.
On Thursday night I went out with Troy and Tommy to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End. It’s a fun little flick with great action sequences, and over the top special effects. The Davy Jones locker sequence is particularly well done both artistically as well as using a unique and brilliant storytelling method to help the audience experience Jack Sparrows stay in the locker. There are a good number of cheesy lines sprinkled throughout – no doubt a side effect of being a Disney production.
Aside from the Pirates of the Caribbean showing I’ve been doing quite a bit of photography the last few days and I plan to keep it up over the next two as well. I’d put down my camera for over a month being so busy at work and it’s really nice to pick it back up again and continue to build my skills and explore new ideas:
Jesse, Nate, and Brenda joined me at Greenlake park in Seattle for some experimentations with water and high speed photography. A flash and a fast shutter speed (combined with a attempts and experimentation) resulted in some pretty cool results. This is an arc of water suspended over Jesse.
To see a moment about 1/10th of a second of this photo check out this photo. For a look at all the photos from our water tossing experiments that I posted check out my throwing water tag on Flickr.
In pursuit of more photography, and due to the increased number of forms I’ve had to print and sign of late I decided to finally bite the bullet and buy myself a printer. I planned on getting a cheap little thing for black and white document printing but once I got to the store I realized that for not much more money I could get a great Epson photo printer with a built in scanner thats a higher resolution (and color bit depth) than the one I have now. I ended up heading home with an Epson Stylus Photo RX580 and so far I’m pretty happy with it. The scanner seems very accurate (I’ll have to really put it through it’s paces tomorrow), and with 7 separate ink colors it seems to do a pretty decent job of printing on high quality photo paper.
“Water arc over man” by sparktography
Biking with the best of them for Mothers Day
Monday, May 14th, 2007This last weekend brought me home to Walla Walla for Mothers day. It’s always nice to see her, and after the tragic death of a close friend of hers several years ago on Mothers day I try to be with her on that weekend to help support her. After gliding down in the A6 (sweltering in the heat of Eastern Washington as a result of my broken AC – I toyed with naming this post ‘Gliding through the heat’) on Friday night I got to spend the weekend with them and some old friends.
Saturday morning the Wheatland Wheelers held their annual ride to memorialize Ann Weatherill up Mill Creek to Kooskooskie near Walla Walla to drink a toast to Anne’s memory. It’s good to see that my former teacher, and my moms best friend is remembered well by her community.
The above shot I got on the way back from the ride of my mom. I was pacing her in my car and ended up being not quite happy with the composition (the light upper left corner is the doorframe of my car – cropping it out fails to help the rest of the composition sadly), but while driving a car and trying desperately not to hit a tree, biker, or drive into a ditch while taking photos is surprisingly tricky. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone unless you are in a very remote location like we were – it could be quite dangerous. I took some other shots at the mid-point of the ride that can be viewed here.
I’m glad to be back from Walla Walla – I’m such a homebody that I really do appreciate being home no matter where I’ve gone, or how long I was gone. I was a bit stressed out last week with packing and keeping up with work, but now that it’s all behind me I’m ready for one heck of a week. The ride home had a few surprises as well which added to my relief at getting home, but I won’t go into those here and now.
Happy Mothers day Mom!
“Back bikers line” by sparktography
“Mom rolling shot on bike” by sparktography
Sick time with Mario and Skype
Monday, April 23rd, 2007It’s been a long and unpleasant weekend for me. It started off on a positive note with my father in town and dinner with him and Brien at Wasabi Bistro, but then descended into a 2 day plague of fevers, chills, coughing, and generally feeling like crap. The whole sickness started last Thursday as what I had through to be a mixture of quitting smoking (again – hurray) and allergies, but quickly descended into something far more sinister.
Luckily the weekend before I had picked up my copy of Super Paper Mario for the Wii at Costco and found it to be the perfect accompaniment for fading in and out of consciousness on my couch. Over two days I managed to log almost 10 hours of play time and made it through 5 of the 8 worlds. It’s a fun little mix between the classic Mario platformer game and a kid-oriented RPG. Sometimes the storyline got to be a bit childish for me, but overall I like the concept of leveling up your hit points and damage in a Mario style game. Super Paper Mario also features a delightful number of puzzles which can be solved by various pixl’s (our hero’s new helpers – equivalent to special abilities in other RPG style games), sometimes involving a large number of steps to be orchestrated over several screens.
Skype was very patient with me this weekend. Even being a dog he can tell when people are sick and I could tell he was worried about me. He spent 95% of the weekend squeezed up next to me on the couch licking my arm from time to time as if to say “I’m here dad – get better soon”. I feel bad for not having given him more exercise (it was all I could do to walk him three times a day) and once I’m better I’ll have to make it up to him with some extra time at the dog park later this week.
For better or worse I’m back at work today – I’m hoping to make a quick day of things here and get home to rest further. I’m still stick, but no longer floored (or couched as the case may be) and am able to make it up and about. This morning I have one really important meeting I can’t reschedule, but after that I should be free to go work from home if I feel the need.
Of changing names and ritual
Saturday, April 14th, 2007One of my friends has just taken a very big step in his life: he has chosen his name. For him the reason is religious, and he has picked his Hebrew name as a part of his personal spiritual path. Having chosen myself to pick a name that suits my personality I have an inkling of what a significant milestone in his life this must be for him. Changing your name is more than just changing a label, it’s putting a stake in the ground and expressing to the world who you really are.
Welcome Akiva Raanan Martin, may your life’s experiences (including both a chosen name, and soon to be married man) be full of friends and fortune.
Grandpa
Saturday, March 24th, 2007Today I drove up to Abbotsford, BC to join the rest of the family with my Grandpa Vernon for dinner. I don’t see him as often as I would like, and it troubles me. I love my Grandpa for many good reasons, and hate being around him for equally good reasons.
He’s a genius – speaks 7 languages, understands fine art, and grew up a professor of language as an open man – embracing of all cultures and walks of life. Grandpa was a role model to many of his students, and as well for his two children.
Sadly when he retired he moved back to the Mennonite community in Abbotsford and has been gradually becoming bitter, bigoted, racist, and homophobic. His Christian moral values are becoming more extreme, and his world view is becoming more and more negative.
Losing Grandma last year was very hard on him. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be married to someone for 60 years – it’s so much longer than I’ve been alive – let alone lived with someone. I sympathize for him and have appreciation for he’s lived through – he’s experience everything from WW2 and the great depression to losing Grandma after a life of pain.
I love him and realize that he’s lonely and should visit more often, but it’s really hard to do when everything around him seems to center around negativity and hate. The decline I’ve seen in both his outlook on life, as well as and end to his feeling of swamped and love for all human being fade has left feeling that It’s simply no longer fun to be around him.
“Grandpa” by sparktography
A fun day: family and technology
Friday, March 23rd, 2007My cousin Heather was in town this evening with one of her friends so we went out to hit the town. Her 23rd birthday is tomorrow so I took her out for some Sushi and a birthday drink at Blue C. It was good to see her, and a good start to a family-tastic weekend: tomorrow morning I’m headed up to Abbotsford to see my Grandpa, Uncle, Aunts, and other cousins. Sadly Grandpa has not been doing as well, so I think it will be good for the family to get to hang out with him for a while.
In technology news I’ve been on one heck of a spending spree – I need to stop! In two days I’ve purchased both a GPS unit for my car, and one of the new Apple TV’s. The GPS unit is cool (and might help keep me from getting lost), and makes up for one of the two missing features in the A6. The other missing feature is rain sensor wipers and I doubt if there is a way to hack that in after market.
In a way I’m looking forward to the drive tomorrow as it will be my first long haul in the A6 (now affectionately named the PimpMobile (in honor of Bender)), and a great chance to play with the GPS unit. I already asked it to calculate the route up to Abbotsford and it is a different one than I’m familiar with. Looking at the details in Google Earth it actually looks to be a faster and shorter way there so I think I’ll give it a go.
The Apple TV is great so far. Exceptional and simple out of box experience (like all Apple products in recent years), and the initial setup was a breeze. I plugged it in to the wall and to HDMI and I was off. After selecting my 802.11n network, entering the WPA password, and selecting the computer I wanted to sync with it was ready to use. Total time from plugging it in to me watching an episode of the Colbert Report: 2 minutes.
Back in the saddle again
Wednesday, March 21st, 2007It’s been a crazy and fun week! I’ve been keeping myself busy with all sorts of things – my dad passed through town and I’ve gone on a few dates. Dad being in town was great – he is on his way to up Abbotsford to see my Grandpa and stopped by to stay the night last night on his way. As always it was nice to see him, and I’ll be seeing him and the rest of the family this weekend when I drive up to join them at my grandpa’s house.
I’ve also gone on a few dates recently! In the past few years I’ve been either dating Brien, or not dating at all. Not dating sure is an easy solution to relationship problems, but it’s not necessarily a good one. As with all things “long forgotten” it can be hard to get back into the dating scene. I almost feel like I’ve forgotten how to meet new people.
Dating is such a funny concept any way – It seems somewhat forced and contrived by our society. I’m certainly in favor of hanging out with friends, but often if a friendship (or a new acquaintance) suddenly gets the ‘date’ label applied to it something changes. It becomes less casual, more formal, more examined. I don’t know if becoming less casual is necessarily a bad thing, but I don’t see why the whole concept cant be relaxed into simply hanging out and having fun with someone rather than putting huge labels and expectations on it. If things work out and it gets serious then great, if not who cares – you made a new friend.
Oh well – hopefully something good will come of it soon enough, and I’ll just keep enjoying the dates as they come.
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