Tuesday, March 29, 2005

A couple more Flickr pics and...

well... what to say - i dunno its just getting hot...

TOO DAMN HOT

57 fraeking degrees... and sunny...

i'm wanting my month of 40-45 degree weather...

bummer...

anyway - playing with the solar position (before daylight savings screws it all up completely) is gonna bump these images off flickr's pages... maybe i should just ante-up and pay the shiat for the 'pro' account...

rvm 1 rvm 2

black iridium 1 black iridium 1 black and white

Friday, March 25, 2005

Roadside wildlife

I'm a driver... just like my good friend little P talked about

And drivers don't just get in the car and reach a destination... its about the journey...

Part of that journey is what you see along the way... sometimes its possible to capture those images...
rose sky and power lines

ice and sun

but sometimes the camera is burried or its a fleeting glimpse of inspiration...

This week i've had a few of those camera-less moments... and its been nature, wildlife specifically that have 'made' the drive...

A herd of 100+ Deer grazing in a corn field... the harvester that went through there musta been broken or not very efficient because the Deer have been browsing that field for months... They aren't always there, and sometimes they are way off to the western edge of the field, sometimes they are along side the road. When they are closest to the road i succumb to the temptation and honk my horn, the Deer, well some of them, stop, look up and kind of shrug and go back to eating... they don't care about the highway, they have no intention of crossing the road...

Later that day there was a second herd of deer... in a different field, equally as unconcerned with the busy highway...

But cementing the experience on that drive was a pair of Sand Hill Cranes lifting off out of a still frozen wetland across 4 lanes of traffic, giant graceful birds... gaining just enough altitude to clear the cars that are blasting along at 80 mph...

The next day on the way home... two wild tom turkeys were on display... pretty impressive with their tail feathers fanned out and their body all puffed up...

fleeting moments like the Cranes... impossible to capture and share that specific moment, well i suppose if i ran video footage of every drive and then edited it down each night... but that would require no demands at home, and the ability to go without sleep, neither of which i'm granted the luxury to do now. Not to say that the rewards of the demands aren't a worth every minute of work, they are...

I've chosen the path i'm on, either actively or by inaction. What i have now i wouldn't trade for any change in the past. Life offers up what it does, and i think children are the ultimate gift and reward for the choices. They are precious and valuable beyond imagination... life is grand... life is special... even when it is difficult or confusing... faith, hope and love get you through...

peace all...
G

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Flicker Images - Next 8 to fall into the black hole...

Here they are
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
tues pm shepard sign tues pm

shepard sign mon pm Wed Am

US Mail Truck

rush hour traffic

vwsalt

Thursday, March 17, 2005

So... I'm having a double post kinda day

I want one of these: Better Light

A nice write up here: WiredNews:Photos Richer in 144 Megapixels

too bad they cost in the many thousands range... would be cool to have... but then many things would be megacool to have...

i guess i stick with my pinhole and graphics Arts film...

St Pats!

Listenin to a bit of Black47 today... nuttin better for this American Holiday that started here! Driving in watching all the bars that opened early packed full of cars... hearing about drunk college girls stumblin to class... part of me wants to say screw it all i'm off to the bar... part of me says - get some sleep ya big dumb idiot... nuthin like waking up at 5am and not being able to finish off the night of sleep... that last hour is frustrating to miss out on... that and coffee's gone - gotta round up some somewhere to survive the day i think... that or some beer or Whiskey... but somehow i don't think that'd be a good idea...

maybe i should just go play with the pinhole...

Oh - made some BioD... my first batch - seems to have turned out perfectly... just started with about 2 liters of used oil, nice and dry, all the ingredients in fact, evidence by the complete lack of any soap.

Just gotta separate the second mixing and then wash...

I figure if i can add even 1/2 gallon of "free" biod to the mix my fuel economy will go up... 1/2 gallon of "additives" makes enough difference to fantasize that i'm getting better economy than i am... not real gains but in a way they are...

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Flickr Image Set #2

Here's the next ten (i hope i didn't miss any between sets)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

self portrait3 white pickup

sunrise_commute3 sun commute sign

sun commute sunrise

relief

sunrise mon_pm

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Last page of Flickr Images

just so i can have something to access these as they fall off the page into the hidden archives...

Olalla005

Olalla001

Olalla006

Olalla011

Olalla013

Olalla015

Olalla016

self portrait

self portrait2

sunrise_commute

Oh and BTW... Jesus IS a Liberal

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

what kind of liberal?

a Humphrey Bogart Liberal. Dats right - i heard it last night on the way home...

more or less teh definition is: always standing up for the little guy!

For the workers against the rich fat exploiters/corporations

that kinda stuff - i'm kinda amazed i remember to write it down. It was used to describe Dan Rather by a not so favorable review of his career, and i heard it and thought: 'damn that's perfect'

so - this is just a short thought for today... but i think a good one :D

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

the corporatizing of education and other random thoughts strung together

how in the world an education institution supposed to recover 100% costs? Esp Public Universities? It doesn't make sense? How can you quantify value on teaching and research? You can certainly charge tuition and cover it that way. But what about a class like Intro Psyc? With 1000 students and one professor and a bunch of bubble sheets that a computer scores to evaluate and grade students? How does that compare to a hands on graduate level class using instruments (NMR/SEM) that might have 10 students in it? Equipment that Costs hundreds of thousands to acquire and then tens of thousands a year to maintain can't be compared to a single professor that may or may not be a temporary person getting paid $800/credit hour when the students pay $400/credit hour for the Intro Psyc AND the same for the Advanced SEM Class?

I dunno... what happened to many whole "expensive" research areas? They've been eliminated from the US and are now exclusively say in Europe or elsewhere. Where is that technology being applied? Certainly not here in conservative corporate greed land.

Sure lets vote to raise our own salaries 7 out of 8 years in a row, but the minimum wage? Nah... lets keep that super low, we don't want those millions of women and low income people to come up above the poverty line, that wouldn't be fair to the buisnesses exploiting them, not fair at all.

Now i hear Hunter S Thompson didn't shoot himself, its a right wing conspiracy to shut him up. He was too dangerous, his new book exposed too much, he was too close to breaking open the whole underground corporate mind control game the GOP is playing. Now don't go off and label me some liberal wacko, but i do favor individual rights over corporations, i favor protecting the environment over profit margin (but mostly because its a long term conservative approach), i favor choice but find abortion wrong, guns are great... if you hunt and enjoy it as a hobby, war is almost always the cowards way out of a problem, it is generally started by people who have nothing to loose personally by tossing their armies at another force, defending one's territory is different than "spreading democracy" with bombs and guns, and the root cause of nearly all war and violence is religious idealism, hitler, bush, Osama... You name em... they ain't no different, all egomaniacs, all killing/ed lots of misguided people who blindly (or not so) follow orders in the "name of the cause"

Was Gonzo on the trail of something more compelling and irrefutable than F 9/11? We'll never know i guess. Maybe he did cash in his chips himself, maybe not, maybe he's been unsuccessful at doing it with less dramatic ways (drugs, alcohol, motorcycles) and finally went the way the warden did in Shawshank...

Whadda ya say to someone who doesn't see the wrong in USA policy? How can anyone believe a slim majority is a "mandate"???? Regan had a "mandate" 'cause he blew the election away in a landslide... little Dumbass Dubya, the curious George president, certainly thinks he has one... flabbergasting...

Now another subject that gets people all worked up... photography of the human figure, generally naked. Now sure, i've been known to click on a few free 'nrop' sites (nrop, cause i donna wanna put the proper spelling in so no webcrawling buggers pick it out - and this is a second change now its just spelled backwards). But then where do you draw the line between nrop and art? For me i've not had a problem deliminating, from the artistic POV, there is nothing more compelling than a female figure as a subject, in photography, in sculpture, or in painting... Black and White photographs tend to be much less prone to the stereotypical "nrop" label, but there are boundaries. Now where would Palybyo (misspelled on purpose) fall? its certainly closer to the border, but in the intent and color and subject with emphasis on certain anatomical parts or expressions pushes it over, in my mind at least. I think everyone has to draw the line somewhere.
Take Picasso's sketch books. I saw the exhibit in LA at the museum there, what about 16-18 years ago maybe now. And i would certainly label many of his sketches in his notebook pages as 'nrop'... why? well the perspective and attention to the focus and the fact that they appeared to be grouped as specifically/explicitly just the female genetalia, now sure - its a sketch, pencil or pen, done by a master Picasso... but does it blur the line effectively?

anyway - there's art and there's pron and there's a different view on where the distinction falls... find the line for yourself, if for nothing more than you know where it is or so you know when you cross it...

sheesh... whadda day

and anyway who the hell is H. C. Hoffman:
H. C. Hoffman's Barn

Monday, March 07, 2005

i finally did it

i got out on the bike on the road both days this weekend...

it was fantastic - and damn it all if it isn't down to 25ºF here and falling after be'n almost 50 this morning... we'll see but the rollers are not looking like they'll get much use tonight - but... maybe i can get enough energy up to hop on em for 45 minutes or even just for 30...

dont wanna let this weekend go to waste... well it isn't a waste in that the rides were worth it isolated, but if i can keep building... that'd be super... i don't think i'll even come close to Mike W.'s 1000 miles at 65% max HR. Figurin mines around 190 max or so (well it was last i checked) that puts me at 124 as the target max for the first 1000 miles... well i blew that every rise pretty much... i wonder if that 1000 miles means being inshape first ;) or not loosing 100% of the base fitness from the previous season (which in my case ended over 6 months ago). I only hit 80% twice... and not for extended times... i'm thinking with some discipline and some more cold weather i could get through this in the basement on the rollers keeping the HR low... but 1000 miles? nah - no way - (maybe if i'm negative enough about the numbers i'll make it)...
ooh and i wanna try something with the flickr stuff:
Olalla005
http://photos4.flickr.com/4167169_d026319f97_m.jpg
http://photos4.flickr.com/4167169_d026319f97_o.jpg

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

pinhole

my latest experiment in imaging.. Pinhole Camera... I made one up (still gotta get the pics online - will do soon) and its pretty damn cool... the lastest crop of Flickr Pictrs are from the 'camera'

using an old used Electron Microscope aperature kicks ass... now i just need a more stable base - ie tripod i'm thinking to make it all work better... that and get my exposuring better.

F5 Kodabrome paper is TOO contrasty. RC III paper with no filter... works okay and if the exposure is good - photoshop can make it all happen.

nothing like getting in the darkroom a bunch. Down side to this camera i've made is: One shot- develope -reload... that and i've used most of the close areas more than once... still a bit of the library i wanna capture and the music building, but in essence i gotta tripod this sucker first...

Oh and i found the downside of a free flickr account... only 100 images are visible... means i gotta be doubly selective about everything from now on... that of dig deep for the $$ they want... although being an academic means i've never paid for ANYTHING internet wise... free webspace, free email, free dialup... all above board and legal stuff too... as cool at flickr is, the $ is abit much, more in principle than anything else...

anyway - i might look at creating a polaroid back type pinhole... that way i can load a 10 pack and shoot with faster results... and since the image becomes digital ultimately, no need for longevity...

wow - i'm not so profound anymore - maybe thats a good thing... maybe i should change... *shrug*