The front yard view in the place I was sleeping, Jackson Hole, WY, June-ish, 2003.
On my long forgotten DeviantArt account, I posted this one with the title "Sunshine, Green, and Blue". As for the location, for some reason, it just came to me that this was called the Kline House. I sat for a while last week trying to remember the name of it, and couldn't. Scanning through my pictures now, it hit me like a quick falling feather. No excitement or relief, with a slight "oh yeah". Kline House.
Additionally (I have been using this word a lot. It's very professional and confident sounding.), I completely forgot to post the link to my new dashcam video. It is here. -23:19, 19MAY2012
A large house in Jackson Hole, WY. June-ish, 2003.
This was one of my favorite couple of weeks. This house was a timeshare property that my employer at the time reserved for three weeks. For the first two weeks there was just going to be two people living in it, me and another guy. I managed to get the master bedroom for myself, which had a 20 foot high ceiling and a king size bed. Additionally, there was a computer desk with a dial-up line for my Juno internet access. It was during this time that I did a lot of work on my website, and had a lot of great conversations on message boards. There was nothing to do but read the newest Sword of Truth book, play on the internet, and enjoy the beautiful weather/scenery, with the occasional (very) early morning work call. I remember that house being insanely quiet and peaceful, until people started showing up at the end of the second week. It did have six bedrooms after all. I even got kicked out of the master bedroom... it was fun while it lasted.
So this update is two days late. Nothing I can say about it except that I've been under quite a bit of stress lately. Looking for a new job, baby on the way, plus other stuff going on all adds up to me not wanting to post updates on the internet. Well, I've gone and done it now. You're welcome. -14MAY2012
A fountain in front of a luxury hotel, Richmond, VA, 2003.
This picture is the best non-daytime picture I took with my Kodak. It was for a quick trip for work in Richmond... The coworker that was with me for it drove us down in his new SUV. He said we were going to take 301 down and avoid I-95 traffic. It took us four hours (Richmond is 100 miles away). At some point I determined he was not the type to use Rain-X on his windshield, and then I asked him if he did, and he said that it didn't make much of a difference so he didn't use it. It was then that I knew that he was the type of person, that when he comes to a parking aisle to park, and there's an empty space in front of him, that he would not pull through so that he wouldn't have to back out when he left. When we parked (somewhere), he proved me right. He even went a step further; when we left, the spot in front of us was still empty, and he backed out anyway. Over the years I'd slowly learned to keep my mouth shut and just let people do what they do, and it took every ounce of effort I had to do just that for this particular coworker.
In other news, I want to take the opportunity to introduce Peanut to the world. Peanut is the humanoid blob currently residing in my wife's stomach, and in 6 months or so will have a gender and a new name. As far as I know, everyone who infrequents this website already knows the news, but just in case I missed someone, here it is. Sorry you had to find out this way, but at least you found out. -05MAY2012
A sunrise. I don't remember where this was, maybe Dallas, May, 2003.
It's crazy going through my pictures and seeing what I took pictures of. For instance, this reminds me of a time when I used to boil eggs on a near-daily basis. It was easy (well, once I learned to put the egg in cool water instead of boiling), healthy, and cheap. I haven't boiled an egg in years, and I have no idea why I stopped.
I started work on a sixth traffic music episode. I'm not liking how it's turning out, and I don't really know why. It may have something to do with my song of choice, but there's not really a way around it as there aren't many songs to choose from. I guess I could always pick out some classical stuff that everyone's heard a thousand times... hmmm... I'll have to consider that while I review what I've done to this point. Due to many days of travel coming up, I may have a link to the new video posted near the middle of May. If I weren't traveling next week, I'd have it done by Wednesday. -29APR2012
My grandfather's 2nd to last (foreground), and final resting place (background).
This week was my grandfather's memorial service. Of the 40 or so people that were there, I knew a total of 4: my mom's aunt, my mom's cousin, my mom, and my sister. It was very well put together, and I'm very happy to have went. I got to meet my (step aunt?) for the first time, and we had some good conversations. It was fun hanging out with Rebecca, as always.
On the way to that I got to see my niece, who will represent another Photography Phaturday entry for this Phaturday. She's mind-staggeringly cute, super smart, and funny. Even when she's sick she has a way of lighting up the room wherever she goes (and she always seems to be sick when I/we visit). As tired as Nina must be, she seems to never be out of energy for Anne, and never loses patience. I find that amazing. But then again...
... how could anyone lose patience while looking at this face? -21APR2012
Anacostia Naval Station, March, 2003.
On December 11th, 2011, I posted an image from January, 2003 depicting an orange cone sitting in a pothole. This was the growth of that pothole in eight weeks' time. You can see the original cone cast aside in the upper right hand corner of the picture. The gentlemen running in the background are now internet superstars, thanks to my posting this on my wildly popular and successful website. -14APR2012
Downtown Tampa, Wednesday last week.
I'm a couple of days late this time. I've been run ragged with work, and burnt out on everything.
So I decided to play with my camera here, whilst drinking an Old Rasputin Imperial Stout, unsuccessfully trying to set it up so that it would capture this traffic light throughout it's green/yellow/red cycles. Some guys sitting a good distance to my right were making comments about photography in general, I suspect because they were watching me for a time. I heard a train and one of them said "Here's your shot, right here." and I looked over but neither of them were looking at me, nor were they holding a camera. Anyway I played with the settings on the camera to make it appear as though the train was going a hundred miles an hour through downtown, and I think it worked. -09APR2012
Hey look it's a sunset. San Diego, Tuesday evening.
I told you I'd find something good to take a picture of. I stayed away from the downtown area for the most part... because I'm scared of downtown areas. There's no parking, either. I like to park my car. Luckily this coastal area wasn't far away at all from my place of duty, or my hotel (and there was free parking, though I had to double back a couple of times before a spot opened up). It was about 50 degrees and very windy (as beaches usually are), and I didn't bring a jacket because I thought Southern California was always warm. Due to the cold, I wasn't able to enjoy the scene as much as I would have liked, but I took special notice of the other people parked to my left and right. People getting back from workouts, or wearing a suit after a long stressful day, and of course some apparent homeless (by choice) people, all gathered together to watch the same sunset. Once the bright circle disappeared, car doors started closing, and people gradually vacated the once jam-packed area. -31MAR2012
Cherry blossoms, Tuesday morning this week.
Spring time is here, and things are blossoming all over. New life is being created... evidence being my black car is yellow from the pollen. The weather is predictably unpredictable, varying from 45 degrees and sunny to 80 degrees and rainy.
No matter now, though. I type this from San Diego, where it was beautiful... sunny, windy, and 65 degrees when I walked out to my rental car. As I sit in my hotel, on the other side of my window it is dark, very windy, very rainy, and 50 degrees. I would have liked to take some pictures in downtown to post one here instead of the cherry blossom one, but I have this thing about not wanting to destroy my camera by letting it get soaked. Maybe next week. -25MAR2012
The sun, some clouds, a prep school, and Hillsborough River in Tampa, FL
So I was in Tampa all week. My hotel was located right on the edge of downtown, which allowed me to see lots of stuff with minimal walking distance. Three days in a row did I take my camera, and capture things to be seen. I ate at half a dozen different restaurants (none were seafood... I didn't find any seafood restaurants); the most expensive meal I had was $14. I didn't look at Google Maps to find anything... I just ventured out with no real plan or direction, and probably got more exercise in those three days than I have any other three days for the last few years. The weather was perfect... about 70 degrees and breezy, and not a drop of rain the whole time. I was there to give more training, and this class couldn't have gone better. I actually had a week to prepare (though, it still wasn't enough, but I doubt the class noticed), and there was minimal floundering. The class was punctual, respectful, and paid great attention. On the fifth day I was at a loss for new things to cover, because they quickly absorbed everything I knew to teach. So I did the course summary and had them fill out their critique forms, and got mostly 5/5's. This kind of confidence boosting week was much needed after the last class I gave in Germany. It's also been at least half a decade since I've taken more than a few dozen pictures in one area... In Tampa's case, I took 170.
As good as the week was, I'm glad to be home. If it wasn't for some necessary paperwork that I didn't have time to do Friday, this would have been the fifth full weekend since the first week of November that I've actually had off (not counting holiday weekends). -17MAR2012
Taken earlier today, in Gettysburg, PA
We went to Gettysburg, PA for our anniversary (5 years!), and I noticed this boulder sitting there, that looked remarkably like a heart. So I took a picture. The exact location is called Devil's Den, a site of some horrific civil war fighting. To the left of the heart shaped boulder, about 300 yards away is the base of Little Round Top hill, the other side of the horrific civil war fighting. Between these two sites, were piles of freshly dead and severely wounded bodies as the fighting went back and forth in one of many many battles over the course of Gettysburg. How romantic.
Somehow I managed to forget my good camera, so I had to fall back on the camera I always keep in my car for emergencies. That camera being my 12 year old Kodak DX3600. It was a bit embarrassing walking around with this thing; most people have cell phone cameras that take better pictures, but it certainly was better than nothing. I'd forgotten how irritating it was to use. From the time you turn it on, until the time you could actually take a picture, is about ten seconds. The screen is impossible to see if you're outside. ... Okay that just about covers it. The thing takes pictures, and by all reasonable expectations should have broken by now, especially after what I put it through before I upgraded in 2003ish.
Did I mention today is our five year anniversary? I would like to take this opportunity to thank my wife for being my wife. She does so willingly, and I will never understand why. I am glad to have her by my side, and hope she can put up with me (and my outstanding flatulence) for at least another five years. I love you, baby! -10MAR2012
Frankfurt, Germany. Taken about two hours before I took the photo for last week's update.
In a rare moment of adventurism, after arriving at the hotel and taking the prerequisite pictures from my hotel window, I took my camera to the streets. The picture above was taken by hand; I thought it would come out blurry but it didn't (I guess my hands are steadier than I thought). I looked around for a place to set my camera, to line up a non-blurry shot, and in my search I managed to set off an automatic pedestrian sensor, that puts up a red light at a cross walk. There was a cab driver in front of the line that was visibly frustrated with me, but I had no idea that such a thing existed until I saw it for myself, noticing the proximity sensor on the "Walk" light only after it lit up to allow me to walk (sensor not seen in picture). How embarrassing. I'm glad this picture came out good; I like how the new-looking skyscraper in the background dwarfs the old-looking houses/apartments in the foreground.-03MARCH2012
Frankfurt, at night. Taken from the 34th floor of the Marriott, about an hour ago.
Sometimes I update a day late. Fewer times, I update a day early. This is one of those few times. I'm doing this now because I know for certain I won't feel like it when I get home, and for some reason I feel like doing it now. Make sense? Good.
So I gave a class this week to some army pukes. It wasn't great. While I felt like I could have done better for the Air Force, with the Army guys I felt like I wasn't given a fair chance. They were pretty disruptive at times, and refused to pay attention. I'd lay out a procedure, type the steps up on the board, tell everyone to "Start", and only one or two guys would even look at me.
This class reminded me why I wanted out of the army. It was the senior enlisted that acted up the most, and the lower enlisted followed their lead. The couple or so students that were interested were frustrated with me for going so slow, as I spent so much time trying to get the non-focused students caught up. Punctuality was nonexistent. Every day was at least half an hour late starting. Every time I gave them a 10 minute break, they took 25. I give them an hour and a half for lunch, telling them to come back at 1, they came back at 1:30, and then they want to leave at 2:30 when I had another two hours of instruction planned. I normally would be okay with everything, except they wrote on critiques that the technical level of instruction was not adequate, and graded my "knowledgeability and professionalism" fairly low. Stuff makes me depressed.
So now I'm here complaining about it to "the world" with the hopes that I feel better about it. I've driven from Ramstein to Frankfurt to be closer to the airport. It's 10PM, and I have to wake up at 3:45 to fill up my rental car (with diesel), and catch my plane at 6:40 at the airport, which is 20 - 30 minutes away. What a great way to spend my Sunday, President's Day holiday, Friday off, and following Saturday. Bleh. -24FEB2012
Picture taken Friday, Feb 10.
The coworker I was traveling with didn't want to pack his tools with his luggage, and decided to ship them out through FedEx from the military base that we were on. From there, we drove two hours to our hotel in Stuttgart so that we could fly out the next morning without too much trouble. Well, by pure accident I found out, due to US government export/import compliance regulations, tools and other work items that are brought in to another country needs to be brought back to the US or else massive fines and potential jail time would occur. So, we drove back to the base which was two hours away, and by pure accident, I had the personal email address of one of the military guys that could grab the tool case for us. It was nearly midnight when we finally did get back to the hotel in Stuttgart, and had to wake up at 5 the next morning to get to our flight in time. The picture above is a picture I took while I was waiting on confirmation that we absolutely needed to go back to the base and get the tool set.
And today, I go back for another week. Landing into Frankfurt this time, but what's fun about that is the ground workers for that airport are on strike (demanding pay raises that would mean a 5 - 70% increase, depending on who would be affected). I am supposed to land at early in the morning and have pretty much all day Monday to relax and leisurely make my way over to Ramstein. Now, I'm not so sure. Unions suck. -19FEB2012
The view from my hotel room balcony, in Kaiserslautern.
The picture here is of some soccer fans walking up to the stadium to watch the soccer game. For several hours prior to the game, people were gathering in the streets, drinking (walking around in public with a beer is okay everywhere except the US), singing, and chanting. It was freezing, but the fans were dedicated. I watched the game on TV, with the sound muted because sometimes I just get tired of hearing German. It was about 12 degrees that evening, and the players were running around in shorts and short sleeved shirts. I used to have that kind of metabolism. Kaiserslautern lost to Cologne 1 - 0, and the fans left with sad faces.
So Germany was pretty cold the two weeks I was there. Supposedly, they were, and will continue to be the coldest two weeks of the Winter. Temperatures were above 30 degrees only for our first two days there. After that, we were lucky to see it break 20. Lows in the morning, when we first started driving out, ranged from -4 to 8 degrees. Luckily, there wasn't a lot of snowing, and that would have made the 35 minute twice daily drive much, much worse.
I did much better in the second training class. There was a lot more equipment to distract the students with, and I was much more familiar with what I'd be doing, and familiar with the training area and students in general. There were a number of obstacles that prevented the perfect training course, but I think that if I had to do something like this again, I could get exponentially better. I now have a much better grasp of what needs to be taught and what doesn't, and which methods work best for me. The critiques were better this time around... the line "The instructor was knowledgeable and professional" was 5/5 for every one.
Otherwise, the overall German experience was pretty good. If it weren't so dang cold, I would have gone out a lot more. Everywhere we ate, we had a good tasting, fresh meal. My worst meal was when I ordered a burger at the hotel (their other food is good; I really liked their club sandwich), because the patty they used didn't have any flavor and appeared to have been frozen for a very long time. Unfortunately, I didn't get to try a lot of different beers. Needing to be up at 5:45 every morning, plus needing to be mentally awake to talk to students for 7 hours made for some short, boring, and quiet nights.
The hotel we stayed at for 10 days wasn't that great overall. I had a large (for Europe) room, a balcony that I could walk on, and a decent sized flat screen TV with some 20 channels in English (though, all seemed to be news). My room lacked an ironing board, a real alarm clock (had to use the TV, and my 'domestic only' personal phone as a backup (my $400 work phone doesn't have an alarm clock application (this is parentheses within parentheses within parentheses)), because the TV would sometimes not kick off), and drawers (That's right. The room furniture had no drawers.). The internet was 10 Euro per day, and painfully slow. My biggest complaint is about the shower. It was strange; the door only blocked about 1/3 of the tub, and the detachable shower head was mounted on the wall opposite the door (but not really a door... more of a swingable shower water blocker, I guess), so I had to turn it into the corner, giving me about 1 square foot of standing area to be under it. If you turned the water on any higher than 1/5th of the way, water would splash out everywhere onto the bathroom floor. There was no way to prevent this, except to turn the pressure way down, making a normally 10 minute shower take about 20. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn prior to this, and they had something similar except you stood in the shower, and there was only a glass half wall that didn't move. Again, water goes everywhere if you turn it up more than 1/5th of the way. So I think it's a German thing to have soaking wet bathroom floors, or they just never shower. -12FEB2012
Yesterday morning, Ramstein, Germany. -08FEB2012
A pedestrian bridge, on Tuesday afternoon, in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
I fixed an italics issue that I created on the last update. Did anyone notice? Hello? Bueller? Bueller?
In speaking of Ferris Bueller, remember when Ferris Bueller jumped on a float in a parade in Chicago, and started singing (here I go with the italics again) Danke Schoen? Well, I think about that everywhere I go recently, because that's what they say in Germany, and I happen to be in Germany.
I was very scared of driving here. Somehow, I've gotten used to it. The narrow lanes, with sharp, tire busting curbs... and if it's not a sharp, tire busting curb, it's a line of cars parked bumper to bumper... I've gotten comfortable. I don't know if this is a good thing; my instinct says it isn't, but my heart tells me it is. At first, I was nervous when a car was behind me. Even though I'd be going over the speed limit, if they were close to my rear bumper, I felt a pressure to go faster. I'm a vistor here, and I don't want to intrude. After a week of driving, I feel more like "Screw 'em. They can stay back there.". While I normally speed, I speed because I'm comfortable and feel safe doing so. Here, I'm not. The limit is pretty liberal... 50 kmph (about 35 MPH) on a two lane road when there's barely enough room to fit two cars side by side (and it's also a road that busses use), and you have a visitor (me) that's perfectly content backing up a line of cars, as that's preferable to a slight misjugment in vehicle diminsions that would cause a sure flattening of the side of a nicely curved BMW rental car.
So why am I in Germany? I'm giving a class on our stuff. I've had very little time to prepare for it, and this week, I've mostly winged it. The students could tell, but luckily I had enough knowledge of our terminals to be able to describe to them the theory of their operation, and every one of them learned something valuable. I feel good about that, but I definitely feel like I could have done a lot better. (Making excuses starts now: ) I only had about a week's notice of what I'd be doing, and during that week I traveled to Kentucky to do calibrations on terminals, and then an all day demo in Maryland. The projector based presentations were catered to other customers, and I had to explain exactly that with the appropriate slides. It was shitty, but there was little I could do about it. At the end I had them fill out course critiques. I got surprisingly high marks.
Now I have to give a week-long class starting Monday, on different equipment. Luckily, I'm familiar with that equipment too... but I have no established plan on how to teach it. More winging and flailing. Yay. What makes it better is that it will be a high of 18 degrees (F) through Wednesday. -04FEB2012
What it looked like outside of my hotel room, Wednesday morning, Clarksville, TN
So this has been a rough few months. Been working my tail off, traveling every work week but two since the first week of November, and I leave again tomorrow (tomorrow, as in Saturday) for two more weeks. I'm getting run ragged. The trips are running together... I can't remember what happened where or what I did somewhere else. It's worse than when I was in the military... of course, I was never shot at. I guess, if I really wanted to know what stress is, I could try going somewhere that that could happen. Well, there's the perspective I needed to make me feel better about my current situation. This website actually is therapeutic.
Anyway, as I said, I leave tomorrow so that's why this update is on Friday. My stress... I can feel my hair falling out. Is that normal? -27JAN2012
UPDATE: The video is done. Watch it HERE.
Screen capture from my dash cam, from Friday morning.
My very first digital camera was 2.3 megapixels. I paid $300 for it. The resolution of the highest quality picture that camera could take was 1800 x 1200. The above picture is from my first digital camcorder. I paid $170 for it. It's 1080p, which in real terms means it records at 1920 x 1080. I don't know why it took this long for it to occur to me that I could post images from my dash cam videos; I see strange things on the road quite often, and even though it's not technically a photo, I think I can make an exception.
Unfortunate that the manufacturer of both my first digital camera and digital camcorder, Kodak, has declared bankruptcy. :(
I am working on my fifth episode of My Meager Collection of Vehicular Asshattery Captured in/around Northern Virginia. It should be finished by the end of Sunday. I'm hoping to be done with it today. In either case, I'll update this page with the YouTube link, when it's up and running. -21JAN2012
The pay-by-quarter car wash on Bolling AFB, January 2003.
This isn't the first time I've posted this picture on this website. It was one of my "main page" pictures for a time, probably late Jan - Feb, 2003, guessing from the date the picture was taken. This is one of the few pictures I've taken that tells a story; a dirty car in front of a car wash, that's closed off due to ice. But you already knew that, because the picture already tells that story.
So I didn't update on Saturday or Sunday this time. Monday works today, I guess. As I've said before, with my boat loads of travel, I've had zero motivation to spend 30 minutes of my free time updating this website for Photography Phaturday.
Last week I got to stay in a Hilton Home 2 Suites for the first time. It was pretty bad. The A/C fan would not turn off. At around 5:30 I asked them about it, and they called maintenance. At around 9, I figured no one would be by so I decided to let go of what I'd been holding for the last three hours and use the bathroom. Not 30 seconds into it I get a knock on my door. "Give me a minute!" The door opens, but is held back by the lever-socket thing (like a chain lock, but not). "Maintenance!" I say louder, "GIVE ME A MINUTE!". A strange scraping noise is heard, as the maintenance guy un-levers the door, and I greet him in my bathroom mirror, sitting on the toilet. "GIVE ME A MINUTE!". He apologized and waited in the hallway until I let him in. He said he didn't hear anything because the lobby music was too loud (but if the lever is blocking a door from being opened, you can assume that someone is in the room and it's best not to walk in on them. No excuse.). A board needed to be replaced in the A/C unit, and it took about an hour. When he was gone, I locked up, and tried to enjoy the newfound silence. This is when I became forcibly aware that my room was on the first floor, closest to the lobby with the elevator motor right up against my wall, so any time someone went up or down, I got to listen to a loud metal click, and a steady hum, followed or preceded by a ding. Not only that, but apparently some people decided to have a party of sorts in the lobby, so I got to listen to their yelling and laughter. Defeated, I turned on my A/C fan to drown out some of the sounds, but it wasn't loud enough to drown out the elevator. As I was getting in bed, I went to set the alarm. There was no alarm clock. I called the front desk, asking if this was some sort of strange European thing (they try to model the hotel after Europe's, but it looks cheap... like you walked into an Ikea store) that they thought you wouldn't need an alarm clock. I was assured that there was supposed to be one, but all she could do was give me a wake-up call.
The following day, I was looking forward to the one saving grace about the place being "European styled"... the European style breakfast. I expected a number of meats and cheeses, lots of fruit, and maybe even a chef to cook my eggs. I got nothing like that. They had cereal, milk, packaged oatmeal, and some small packaged breakfast entrees that you're to run through a conveyor toaster. Fresh fruit was limited to green apples.
I hope I never have to stay there again, and I hope you don't have to either. -16JAN2012
One of potentially billions of pictures of the Washington Monument, January 2003.
Not really much to say about the picture, except that it was the first picture I took of the monument after living in DC for over a year.
It's difficult for me to get out of holiday mode. I feel like the smallest of responsibilities are ten times more annoying than they really are. The prospect of having to travel every week for the rest of the month doesn't help. Maybe I'll at least get some good pictures out of it.
Since I don't have much to talk about, please enjoy this video clip I made today of me driving with the wife down I-270, and grabbing the northwest portion of the beltway to our exit to get home from the holiday party my company held (in upstate New York), all during the sunset. Right click, save as, or download it however you want. Right clicking, and saving as was necessary back in the day. Not so much anymore. I'm sure you can figure out how to watch it... though it is in WMV format which is incompatible with Apple stuff. But you Apple users are smart cookies and can figure out how to watch it, I'm sure. -07JAN2012
Overlooking the Black River, near Riverwood.
So what have I been up to? Lots of work and lots of Skyrim. Just like when I made a Fallout 3 screenshot my week's update, I'm now making a Skyrim screenshot this week's update. I have finally been home enough to play this game the way it was meant to be (all day). It's also why I didn't update yesterday. Because I was playing.
Oh. Happy 2012. Hope this year is better than last one. -01JAN2012
A dental imprint from my birthday buddy, Anne.
So I didn't update last week for the first week since I started this Photography Phaturday thing. I've been traveling so much with work lately, the last thing on my mind was updating. On Sunday, I remembered that I forgot, but I was on my way to another remotish location for work at the time. It was my fourth Sunday where I was on the road for work, out of the last six.
I finished up on Wednesday and we drove to Asheville visit Nina and Dan and Anne for the first time in over a year. It's amazing to see how much Anne has grown since I last saw her. She's forming sentences, laughs at silly jokes, and knows exactly how far away from you she needs to be, to run without you being able to grab her before she runs into the cash register area of a bookstore to tell the staff "Mera Christchmasch". In her play room, I picked up this foam yellow letter H and saw the cutest little teeth marks I've ever seen, and decided that's what I'd post in this week's Photography Phaturday.
Merry Christmas to all who look at this thing. -24DEC2011
My birthday dinner, 2011.
Yesterday I turned the ripe old age of 32. I spent the day working and running errands that needed to be run for the last month and a half or so. One of which was taking my car to get an oil change. Jiffy Lube is easily the most convenient place to go, but I think I'm never going to go there again. Why? Because about 10 minutes after getting my oil change there, sitting at a light, smoke started billowing out of my hood scoop. I parked it at the closest place I could and looked under the engine, and fluid was drip drip dripping onto the ground. I called them and a guy came out to me to look at it... turns out it was just spillage. A lot of spillage. He pulled a rag out after wiping something down and it was soaked in black, old oil. A lot of it got 'trapped' on top of my exhaust manifold and was burning off (good thing there wasn't a fire I guess).
So that took up most of my free time, but at least I got to have a most excellent dinner. The stuffed filet was incredibly buttery, considering how done it was (I like my steak well done; it was on purpose). Dill mashed potatoes - delicious! I don't know why I like asparagus, but I do, and it was very asparagus-y. Many kisses go to my wifey for spending so much time and effort to perfect this meal. It's just as good leftover today. -13DEC2011
Anacostia Naval Station, January 2003.
I took this picture with the express intent of posting it as my main picture on my website (before I started doing this Phaturday thing, of course). Looking through my archives, it appears as though I never did... Better late than never.
I removed the "main" picture at the top. I was getting tired of looking at it, and I haven't come across anything especially amusing/funny/ironic since I posted it. -11DEC2011
Fayetteville, NC - Wednesday morning.
So this week I was in Fayetteville, NC working on systems my company sold to the army units there. The area around Ft. Bragg has changed a lot since I last lived there, in 2001. There are a lot more upscale restaurants, and a lot of the places I used to frequent are long gone. Rock-ola Cafe, one of the most underappreciated restaurants I've ever known is gone. All the music stores are gone... I used to spend entire days driving from store to store, looking for different new CDs. Paradise Music, Musik Hut, FYE, the other FYE, and there was some used CD store that I can't remember the name of. All gone. I think I bought more CDs on any random weekend, than I've bought in the last two years. The place where I bought my Prelude, Valley Mazda, is now Valley BMW.
Even more strange is how a place where I lived... no... owned for three years can feel so foreign to me today. The young kids driving around aggressively I look at with disdain, but nostalgically recall what it was like to be one of them. I used to know every road and every shortcut, but now had to use a GPS to get where I needed to go. My favorite Mexican restaurant... Monterrey's... is now a veritable house of vomit piles on a plate. Have they changed that much, or have I been exposed for ten years to a quality of Mexican food that is several orders of magnitude better than what I thought was good? Bella Villa, a good little Italian restaurant that was always packed, was dead empty at lunch time when I ate there this week. Soldiers, instead of driving around in riced-out 5 year old Hondas and Neons, are now driving around in riced out $40k brand new muscle cars and $50k trucks that sound like Thunder of the Gods when they drive by. The whole week was filled with weird emotions. I didn't enjoy living at Ft. Bragg, but I miss the youth and arrogance that I had during that time. I also miss being able to eat anything I wanted and not having to worry about it. One of my favorite things to eat for dinner on every Sunday was to go to Arby's, and get a Chicken Cordon Bleu sandwich and a Chicken, Bacon, and Swiss sandwich combo (with curly fries), an apple turnover (without icing), and a Jamocha milkshake. Using Arby's Meal Calculator, that meal was over 2700 calories... nevermind the sodium. The Monday morning for PT I would be pretty tired, but once we got started with warm-ups I had an endless amount of energy. Strangely, if I ate McDonald's the night before, I felt like crap during PT, and the whole rest of the day.
On the way back home, I drove to Lexington, NC to see my sister and have dinner with her. Talk about things changing... We went to Applebee's and I was actually impressed with what I ordered. I highly recommend one of their new items: The Chicken Parmesan Stack. They put a lot of heat in it... not sure if it's jalapenos or what, but it was perfect for me, and the breading on the chicken was very crispy and delicious. The spinach and artichoke dip that my sister ordered, and has always ordered, is now in a much smaller portion of dip, and with twice as many chips (so I don't recommend that). After dinner (and dessert) we just drove up and down the road and talked about stuff, until it was time for her to get back to her group home routine. The drive home from there was mind-numbingly boring, but it was good to finally be home with my wife, and with no prospect of going out of town the following week, for the first time in over a month, if that makes sense, and if you like commas. -03DEC2011
Picture taken at the Dixie Classic Fair in North Carolina, 2010.
I noticed this guy had some pointy growths on his back. Hopefully they don't lactate. - 26NOV2011
Somewhere over the Midwest in early January 2003. Picture taken from the window of an airplane (because I can't jump that high).
While I agree that this is a very good picture (thank you), I can't help but imagine what beautiful scenes could be captured if I were a little closer (say... 30,000 feet closer). At least it was warmer in the plane, and usually there's no hungry, scavenging bears to worry about.
These last few weeks have been hectic. I've traveled every week this month so far, and it looks like it will continue until December. Strangely, I have zero pictures to show for it. I guess my Photographer's Eye has gone into hibernation. And then there's my dash cam music video hobby... I still haven't started my next video. Too much travel - when I get home I just want to relax... playing Skyrim, or watching TV with the wifey. The most hectic thing I do is wash clothes for my next trip, and read/write emails. Though today I did work on the website a little more than usual. I shortened the main page, and created a fourth archive page. I also fixed the boortz.com/nuze link that's been broken for a few months. -19NOV2011
Jackson Hole again, taken early January, 2003.
This scene struck me... It's one of the few things I'd seen after the age of very young, that changed the way I thought of the tangible world. Here we see a visible line (mostly horizontal - I'm not talking about the ski slope) in the trees, where snow stays and where snow melts in the pine needles. Before seeing this I always knew that the higher you go, the colder it got due to lower air pressure... but never imagined that the difference between pressures could be defined by such a line in nature. Since then, every time I've seen a cloud that is flat on its underside, I think of this.
Sometimes I see old photographs and look at the cars in them, and think about how weird it must have been to live in a time where the old cars I see today were new. I get that same feeling when looking at this picture. I'm getting old. -12NOV2011
My 2nd car. Picture taken in June, 2005.
This is the best my Prelude has looked in 10 years or so. It was immediately after getting fixed up, after I rear ended some poor lady. I was in the right lane, and the left lane was empty. The SUV in front of me decided at complete random that they were going to take their foot off the gas and slow down. So I passed them on the left. As I accelerated, the SUV decided "Hey, I guess I'll start doing the speed limit again, now." and they started going faster. I made the stupid decision to go even faster (but completely within the speed limit of course), and that's when, about 7 cars ahead of me, someone realized they had to turn left and slammed on their brakes. The lane came to a stop really fast and I was the last to notice. So some $2000 later (mostly insurance money), this picture above is what my car looked like.
Less than two weeks after taking that picture, I was behind an SUV. We were both making a right from a stop sign onto a 50 MPH speed limit road. The SUV went and I moved forward. I saw an opening in traffic, raised the RPMs so I could pop the clutch a little to take off, and when the moment came, I went. BAM. Turns out the SUV didn't go after all. It was very much facing in the direction of traffic, but off to the side, mostly on the shoulder; invisible to anyone on the side street who doesn't turn their head right of center. The damage to the Prelude wasn't bad... It's still there, in fact. The quarter panel actually stabbed a hole in his bumper. I paid him for his damage out of pocket ($700)... but damn was I angry at myself for doing something so stupid so quickly after my last stupid move, and I'm reminded of it every time I look at the rusty, bent corner of my quarter panel.
So why is all of this relevant to our current global economic situation? It's not. However, it is relevant to this update because I've spent the last week or so fixing the car up. Battery was dead. Replaced it. Brought it in for an oil change and a brake inspection. Good to go. Except when they checked the spark plug wires they broke one of them... they only said to me that it was "toast". I assumed I was getting the car back in the same condition I brought it to them in... but nope. I drove it on three working cylinders to our apartment (felt like it was going to die at times, but once the engine started going, it felt mostly normal... just with much less power). Today I got the new wires and popped them in. The car runs pretty good now. No smoke, no hesitation... A/C still works, all the electronics work. I need to drive it around more though... rotors are getting rusted and it causes it to make a horrible scraping noise everywhere I go. It's starting to become a tangible project. It makes me feel better to get this old vehicle that's been with me for almost all of my adult life, back to reliable working condition. I hope it doesn't get too expensive. -05NOV2011
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