Traveling
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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
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.
Dragon mist
Saturday, January 13th, 2007
A shot of the main fountain display outside of the Caesar’s Palace casino in Las Vegas, NV. I like how with a little bit of photoshop tweaking the wing caught in the mist looks like it’s radiating energy.
“Dragon mist” by sparktography
Cascade
Saturday, January 13th, 2007
Another Lensbaby 2.0 shot from my CES 2007 trip to Las Vegas. This one is of the front fountain facade in front of the Treasure Island casino and hotel. I like how the Lensbaby gives it a miniature look akin to some of the tilt-shift miniature fakes I’ve seen.
“Cascade” by sparktography
Looking up at paris
Friday, January 12th, 2007While in Las Vegas the Gearlive crew stayed in the Paris Hotel. It was a very nice hotel (particularly since I wasn’t paying for it) and we had a good time. We did have 6 people in 2 rooms though – next year I hope to have enough notice to try and save up for a room of my own. I have a hard enough time sleeping in hotel rooms – let alone with other people in the room.
Above is a Lensbaby shot taken from the base of the 1/2 scale Eiffel Tower at the Paris. I also took another similar shot of the tower different angle which has a very different feel to it:
“Looking up at paris” by sparktography
“Eiffel up” by sparktography
Home at last
Friday, January 12th, 2007After 6 days of traveling, interviewing, walking, and talking I’m finally home. Skype is very glad to see me, and I’m very glad to be home. I’m getting ready to pass out cuddled up with Skype and spend a much needed night in my own bed.
CES was a blast. So many sights and sounds. Gearlive recorded well over 100 individual video segments and I’m excited to see the rest of them them get in up the coming days. CES is a very impressive event: everyone spends a fortune showing off their best and brightest of current and future tech.
Triumphant blogger
Tuesday, January 9th, 2007
It’s day three of {(b|v)loging} CES here in Las Vegas and I’m already exhausted. Two days in a row of doing 20+ interviews with companies, shouting over the din of the crowd, and trying desperately to stay on my feet 12 hours a day.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m having a blast. Lots of very cool new technology is everywhere. My picks so far would be two things: the Meridian Digital Cinema iPod dock – it upscales iPod video content to 1080P and does a fantastic job of making it look somewhere in the middle between HD-DVD content and a good upscaled DVD. My other pick would have to be the Samsung television lineup – they are doing some truly amazing things with LCD – great contrast and black levels, and color reproduction.
I’m off to bed – I have a ton of things to do tomorrow and I really need some sleep.
“Triumphant blogger” by sparktography
CES on ice
Saturday, January 6th, 2007
Vegas is a truly excessive place. The architecture and and environment here is simply amazing – everything is a giant maze designed to distract and entertain. It’s an engineering marvel designed to give pleasure to humans while extracting their money from their hands – and I love it.
After a very early start to my day this morning I finally ended up in Vegas with the Gearlive crew. We got to see the press only unveiling CES event this evening and do a few interviews. Now that that is out of the way it’s going to be pretty quiet until the show gets into full swing on Monday.
“POTD 1/6/07 – CES on ice” by sparktography
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