My apartment parking lot, this afternoon.

This wasn't the worst first snow of a season I've had, but it's certainly the earliest in memory. The worst was in November of 2004ish, where it took me 6 hours to get six miles to home, after leaving work at 3 PM. I found out that the majority of the slow down was caused by lights turning green, and cars unable to move forward because the ground was so slick. This action backed up the entire interstate to the point of parking lot status. I experienced not being able to go at a green light myself, while in my front wheel drive, low to the ground, Honda Prelude. Luckily this season's first snow happened on a Saturday, and I didn't have to deal with any traffic shenanigans. I don't think it was bad enough to cause super serious traffic jamming, but it definitely would not have been a pleasant drive home for anyone. If only I were driving an SUV; maybe I could have put enough carbon dioxide into the air to prevent this from ever happening again.

Last week I thought I'd be done with my 5th music video by now, but I haven't even started it yet. It's one of those things that once I start it, I can't really rest until I finish it. So I'm scared to start it.

My Prelude's battery died some time a few weeks ago. Had to jump it to move it from one spot of the parking lot to another and back again, so they could paint new lines. The last time I put a new battery in it, was at an NTB while my girlfriend (who is now my wife) still lived in Georgia, and I was stationed at Ft. Bragg. I left Bragg in late 2001, so whatever no-name battery it was that I had in there, it did a pretty darn good job keeping the car alive. So I got a new battery. It was a pain undoing the bolts that haven't been touched in nearly ten years, and then putting them back on. The amount of corrosion that is crumbled all over, underneath my hood is a bit staggering. My lower back is killing me today from working on it. Before the snow came in this morning, I took the car for a spin around the apartment complex... it really is a fun car to drive. I wish I had a garage to keep it in. As for the smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe, I'm starting to think it was caused by too much oil. I checked it recently and it was easily a quart and a half too high. How 'bout that for buying a new vehicle because you think your old one is dying? -29OCT2011

More Grand Tetons, Jackson Hole, WY. Taken late December, 2002

Continuing on with my old pictures chronologically, here is another picture of Jackson Hole's Grand Tetons, but at a different time of day and from a slightly different location. At this time, the breeze starts to kick in and being outside is no longer fun. Good thing we had plenty of free (to us) cable TV to watch.

So I finished my 4th episode of my traffic music videos. Click here to see it. This one was produced with Vegas Movie Studio 9, but rendered with the trial edition of Vegas Movie Studio 11. Why? Because Vegas 9 can't handle my intense footage, I guess. Vegas 11 was better built for 1920 x 1080 clips... and so when the trial edition worked great, I went ahead and ordered it without really knowing anything about it except that it renders what I wanted Vegas 9 to render without crashing. -23OCT2011

Grand Tetons, Jackson Hole, WY late December, 2002

Easily one of the more interesting times of my life, here I was in Jackson Hole for work, for two weeks through both Christmas and New Years. My hours were from 4:00AM - 6:30AM for one day out of every three, and to be on call (meaning less than half an hour away) at all times. I couldn't really do anything but walk around and take in the scenery... Oh and I had my trusty old laptop of course; this is also the time where I did a lot of work on my website. Additionally, this time in my life is where I discovered my very high tolerance for cold temperatures. I remember one morning at 4AM, standing outside in my suit. I didn't have a coat or long underwear or anything that a sane person would have purchased at some point. It was 6 degrees (Fahrenheit), but because there was no wind, I was able to "chill" for about half an hour before I decided it was time to warm up. My feet were the first to get really cold, due to the cold concrete wicking away the warmth of my toes degree by degree. Another strange thing I remember is seeing a weird shaped hole in the snow, on the edge of the sidewalk. Looking into it was a perfect foot-deep shaped cutout, where at the bottom laid a dog turd.

When I was done with my duties, I'd find someone to take me to Bubba's and I'd get a monster breakfast burrito, and have the rest of the day off (relatively speaking).

I miss those days sometimes. Who wouldn't? -15OCT2011

Not a normal style Photography Phaturday, but this time a bit more work went into it. I woke up this morning and noticed our Peace Lily needed some water. I got my old Canon G5 out, set the Intervolameter to take 100 images, one every three minutes. After watering the plant, this was the result. I batch cropped/resized the images using the free software Irfanview. I don't know what I'd do without that software... I've been using it for almost a decade now, and I get excessively frustrated with other image editing software that makes it 100x more difficult to do simple things.

In computer news, I upgraded to Windows 7. As with each time I wipe my computer clean, I try using different software other than the 12 year old 1st Page 2000 (it came out in 1999). Here, I am using Komodo Edit. It's slow. As I type now it takes about half a second for characters to catch up (to be fair, this happens with 1st Page as well, but only since I got this new video card, three years ago). Also, there's no live spell check, and you have to save the code in order to preview it. Other than these things that I've gotten used to (that are missing with the new software), it looks to be pretty powerful. I don't think I'll continue using it though.

In work news, we went to my work HQ in New York for a 5, 10+ anniversary dinner. It was good... got a $100 gift card. It really doesn't feel I've been out of the army and have worked for the same employer for five years. -08OCT2011

Mr. Simone, May 2005

When I was 16 we got a kitten. We named the kitten Simone, after my mom's cat Simon from when I was too young to remember (well, I do have some memories of cats but I don't remember what they looked like. One time I put one of them in an empty drawer and forgot about it for I don't know how long, until my mom asked me if I'd seen it. I didn't tell her of course, but I opened the drawer and out it popped... like lightning). Well, it turned out that as Simone grew up a bit, it wasn't the female cat that we thought we had. His name became Mr. Simone because we didn't want him to develop multiple personalities, as he certainly would if we changed his name at this critical learning stage in his life.

He was an extremely playful cat, probably because I played with him incessantly. He loved to hide and pounce on you and run off. He'd take lazy swipes at you, lying on his back, if you walked close by him. He followed me everywhere, and came running upstairs or downstairs if his name was called (if the rare event happened that he wasn't following me). He had a scratchy, barely audible meow on purpose, when he was hungry. It really seemed like he didn't want to be annoying (but this changed as he got older). His favorite game was if I got behind a closed door, and stuck a stick underneath it. He did not hold back in attacking whatever I put under the door. Sometimes I'd see him in a room doing whatever, and get behind a corner, sticking only a portion of my head out. If he didn't notice me, I'd make a noise so he'd look in my direction. Upon seeing me, he'd get real still (because he thought I was stalking him) (he did it to me all the time), eyes wide, ears perked. He'd come towards me and I'd lower my head, which gave him greater cause for concern. This was always hilarious to me... sometimes he'd meow as if to say "Hey, quit playing around. This isn't funny.". Sometimes he'd randomly jump straight in the air and run off. Sometimes he'd just trot over and jump up and swipe at my face (claws in), and then start cleaning himself at my feet.

Then, when I was 17, I joined the army. I don't know what happened while I was gone, but the cat was not happy to see me when I got back from my 12 week disappearance to Basic Training (and other army related duties). I suspect my (now ex) step dad abused him at some point, leaving the cat very untrusting of males (because when Mr. Bobby tried to pet him, he was attacked). From late 1997 on, the cat and I had a fragile relationship. He'd play with me, but as soon as I put a hand on him to pet him, he'd stiffen up. If I continued to try to pet him, he'd freak out; one time he latched onto my forearm and backclawed it enough to cause me to bleed enough for blood to drip down to and off of my fingertips. That was about when he permanently became my mom's cat.

Yesterday he was put down. He was sick, and he was suffering for a month or more. I loved the cat because of our very close friendship for the first year of his life. Even though in his crotchety old cat age he hated me (except when I played with him), it still ruined my day knowing that I'd never see him again. Wherever Mr. Simone is now, I hope there's lots of fern, catnip, and lizards. -01OCT2011

Fall is here again. My old apartment complex in Alexandria. - November, 2002

The leaves on certain trees around here are starting to change color. Fall has officially started, and the weather is finally getting bearable again, as I hate any temperature above 80 degrees.

I think I'm going to stop with my traffic music videos, at least for a while. The first one was a big hit, but the next two didn't get nearly the same response, despite being extremely similar in content and style. Maybe because it's just more of the same, but I'll be danged if I can figure out a better way to entertain internet people with compilations of bad driving. -25SEP2011

Wow - I don't know if I've ever done anything this stupid before... I probably have, but... man this is embarrassing. I updated my website but I never uploaded my update. I don't know how I missed it, but I did. Last Phunday's update follows below. Kind of sucks that no one told me I didn't update, but then I guess people I know would actually have to look at this page on a regular basis for them to notice and tell me about it. -22SEP2011

Sioux City, IA - November, 2002. I bet I'm the only person you know that's been there.

This was an interesting trip for my work at the time. It was 70 degrees when we took off out of Maryland, and was about the same temperature when we landed in Sioux City. Our next destination was to be Duluth, MN. The temperature there was 40 degrees, and I didn't bring a coat. So I bought one at the Sioux City JC Penny (St. John's Bay brand) and it lasted me until last year's winter. It was the most comfortable, unassuming, and functional coat I've ever had (unassuming because I don't want to stand out with brand names, loud colors, or something that makes noise as I walk). It was perfect for 95% of cool weather... Unfortunately the outer shell fabric started thinning and tearing at the seams and I got rid of it.

I also ate at a Chili's there and got horrible service and my food was cold.

I made my 3rd Bad Drivers music video and published it on YouTube this week. It's my best one. Click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQRxH4p6McU to see it. -18SEP2011

LaCrosse, WI - edge of the town, October 2004.

The Cliffs of Moher in Ireland are pretty famous. Less famous is this (unnamed?) natural formation on the river that runs along LaCrosse, WI. This town is probably one of the most underrated towns in the US. Lots of good places to eat, and very picturesque (obviously, assuming you've been paying attention). - 10SEP2011

"Piece by piece". It's a phrase that is ingrained in my brain, and is associated with only one person. I heard it on the television just now, as I sit at my computer, and I cannot stop thinking about this association.

What is significant about this phrase? I'll tell you. When I went to Senegal (around June/July, 2003), a 23 year old boy/man by the name of Shawn Gillespie was on my team, while I was there. Outside of setting up communications infrastructure, we went to local places and ate local food. At each of these places, were locals, surprisingly (okay, not surprisingly). One was a guy, who was peddling an intricately carved wooden boat, with oars, sails, and even big-headed men to man the boat. Shawn showed interest in it, which excited the man selling it. In the end, Shawn decided that it would break in his luggage, and could not buy it. The man exclaimed "IT COME APART PIECE BY PIECE SO YOU TAKE HOME" - I know that sounds like an Asian thing to say, but I assure you this was Africa. Shawn insisted "No, thank you." but the peddler was desperate. Shawn, along with my encouragement tried to avoid the man as we boarded our shuttle to take us from (wherever we were) to our hotel. The salesman, in his desperation, seeing "wealthy" white people interested in his product for the first time in what may have been years, followed Shawn onto the bus, to sell him the wooden boat. It was a crazy scene. The bus driver, being paid to perform one of the few jobs available in the country, did not hold back in kicking the peddler off the bus. Me talking to Shawn after the event, he couldn't get over the phrase "it come apart piece by piece". He kept laughing, making fun of the peddler's combination of desperation and limited English.

My interpretation was that he was disturbed by what happened, but needed to laugh about it to make sense of it. For me, I thought there was a lot more I could learn about the every day life of a street salesman in Senegal, but had no desire to actually go through the learning process (otherwise I'd be able to tell you all about what it's like selling stolen items at entrances to tourist-y hotspots).

Shawn did a few other things that were pretty memorable on that trip - but one thing I'll never forget is the way he handled the "Piece by piece" guy... a smile that says "you're out of your mind", but with hands that say "I like you, but leave me alone."

Over the next few years, things started falling apart for Shawn. Problems with his marriage, and a handful of career ending decisions dropped him into a hole that I imagine he thought was impossible to climb out of. On March 24th, 2008, in King George, VA, Shawn took his own life. -05SEP2011

UPDATE: While I wrote this on the 5th of September, I did not upload it until my following update. The purpose being more about getting it off my chest than about people I know reading it. I don't want to diminish it by making it a "headline" on my page. This is Shawn's deal, and one of many life lessons I now take into account every day that I'm still breathing.

LaCrosse, WI - edge of the town, October 2004.

With my recently bought $580 camera in hand, this was (I think) the first time I actually went out of my way to get pictures. What you see here is the best of about 13 pictures I took of this same area, from the same angle. The matured photographer within me wishes I'd gotten closer to the clock, and maybe even used a tripod - not to mention taking the shot with multiple exposure levels. Merging the different levels of exposure into one, brilliant photo would make this an incredible capture. For now, it's just this week's Photography Phaturday (Phunday) update.

Trying to get started on my 3rd traffic music video. A wall I didn't expect to hit, was the wall of not being able to find a song to use. I have a few candidates, but their owners aren't giving me the rights to use them. By "not giving me the rights", I should clarify that they've simply not responded to my request. In the meantime, I'm editing the clips to block the license plates. When I'm done, if I don't have permission to use a song, I'll just proactively implement one of them and wait for the lawsuit. -04SEP2011

The extent of the damage in our Virginia apartment, caused by the earthquake, on August 23, 2011.

I got those wooden carvings while I was in Ghana. There was a garage sale style market down the road from the hotel where they were selling those, plus other wooden carvings. More interesting was the variety and quantity of carvings of human penises (penii?), of which I bought none. To the right of the carvings you see a Matryoshka doll of Vladmir Putin (and other Russian/Soviet leaders), apparently shocked by what he's seeing. I got that in Moscow. The smallest figure inside is near impossible to separate; there's definitely something inside it as it rattles around. I've always assumed it was some sort of GPS based spying device. The battery is probably dead by now.

Unfortunately, I was out of town during the earthquake. I've been in one before when in the Philippines... Was on the 20th-ish story of a hotel, and the building was shaking the same way a bridge shakes as you are sitting idle, and a large truck drives by on the opposite side. I think the earthquake in Virginia this week was a bit stronger though. In the meantime we're getting pummeled by hurricane Irene (and by pummeled, I mean rained on slightly). I'd be surprised if I lost electricity. -27AUG2011

The view from my hotel room (for work), in Baltimore, this week.

Couldn't have asked for a better view. Not much I can say about Baltimore except that I didn't have time to really sightsee. It's only an hour away; probably very picturesque (from what I could tell by driving in/out of the city). The opportunity to go back is always in my hip pocket, but I probably never will, seeing as how I rarely (as in, less than once a year) go to DC while it's just a quick metro ride over.

I hate paying for parking, and I hate sitting at a light at every block, and I hate getting weird looks from people when I take pictures of things. -20AUG2011

Picture taken recently, about 1 week after these phone books showed up.

So much work goes into producing these things... not only to make sure all information is correct and laid out properly, but also to print them, and deliver them. No one wants them. They might be handy if the internet breaks down one day, but until then, they take up too much room and never get opened. I felt sorry for these poor, unwanted inanimate objects; so I took a bag and now I have phone books dutifully sitting in a corner on top of some clothes that I've been meaning to take to a dry cleaner for the last three weeks or so.

I finished my 2nd traffic music video yesterday. I did a pretty good job with it, I think. In shallow hindsight, I should have removed a couple of the traffic clips and ended it more succinctly with the music. Other than that though, the video will knock your socks off. Click here to see it.

Since the Prelude isn't legally drivable (well, technically it is, but come the state mandated emission check day in a couple months, it will no longer be legal), we bought a 2005 Toyota Sienna today. It's not a bad little minivan. I got suckered into getting an extended warranty for it, but they knocked $500 off the price, and it looked like a pretty good warranty, so I don't hate myself for it. -13AUG2011

LaCrosse, WI October, 2004

I once again, broke my systematic elimination of PWP (or, Pictures Worth Posting) in my older folders of pictures. Rather than going with another old Kodak picture from 2002, I went with an old Canon pic from 2004. "WHY?!?", you ask incredulously. Well dear reader, I will tell you. This update is my 52nd Photography Phaturday update, and I wanted to use one of my upper tier UPWP (or, Unposted Pictures Worth Posting). Yes - this marks a FULL YEAR of (near) weekly updates. And you thought I couldn't hack it. Tisk.

So what do I have to say about my Photography Phaturday event, after a year? Not much really. It's obsolete icing on an obsolete cake. I lamented as much a few weeks ago, but I am proud of it, as I do have some really good PWS (or, Pictures Worth Sharing).

I'm trying to work on my second traffic music video, and have encountered a problem that has frustrated me more than most things that frustrate me. My rendering software... my video editing software continually crashes when I try to render the video. When I did my video review, I had the same issue, but was able to bypass it by rendering only 3 minute sections at a time. Now, this time, for some reason the issue is whenever two clips are blended together, I get a crash. I can't even render 10 seconds, if there's a blend somewhere in that 10 seconds. I don't know what is causing this new behavior... but it is making me very angry and makes me not want to do this sort of thing any more, even though the video is going to be even more awesomer than my last one. I hope to be done with it by the end of next week. -07AUG2011 (yes, I'm a day late to the 52 week celebration)

This is the last picture from Yellowstone you'll see here. October, 2002.

See what great photos I've been holding back on, for all of these years? There are about 10 more that I considered posting, but I think that Photography Phaturday is pretty much Yellowstoned out, so I picked what I thought was the best one from what I had left, and there you have it. What's sad is that I don't remember much about the trip. Granted, it was a lot of sightseeing crammed all into about 6 hours during the day, but it only reinforces the the reason behind bringing a camera wherever I go (though I still feel foolish when people are around, while I'm taking pictures. Don't know if I'll ever get over that.).

I guess one thing I remember pretty vividly, was we were coming back, leaving the park at night. Everything was pitch black and there was an oncoming car, whose headlights briefly disappeared and reappeared. This caused the guy driving the vehicle in which we were riding to slow down in confusion. Turned out to be an elk, whose back was about as tall as our minivan, just kind of chilling in the middle of the road. Had the oncoming car not been there, we might have nailed that thing. I was in the back seat, so I probably would have survived anyway, but it was still pretty exciting. The driver creeped up to the thing and started honking repeatedly (a practice I've absorbed whenever encountering animals that don't want to move out of the way - very effective). The elk reared up on its hind legs, screaming in its broken, adolescent sounding roar, and ran off into the woods. Good times. -30JUL2011

This is the extremely delicious chicken stew I was talking about last week (over mashed potatoes).

I did all of two sentences of an update to my Delicious Meals page (don't go looking, I haven't updated the changes, and will not until it's complete.). Hopefully I'll have time/motivation to work on it throughout the week. If not, then it will be the week following. And if not then, the week after that. Etc. -24JUL2011

So my traffic music video has been active for quite a while. I know I said I'd post it here as soon as I was done, but I didn't. So I'm posting it now, okay? Here! Happy now? [Update 30JUL2011: Only one person clicked on it in two weeks. :( (Thank you, cousin Stacey!)] I started working on an update to my Delicious Meals page and was going to tell you about my video when I was done with that, but then I stopped working on it and now here we are 24 hours later, with no update telling you where my superstar YouTube video is. Well, until now of course.

On another note, I watched Ninjas vs Vampires on Netflix. Like Thankskilling, you have to lower your expectations to really enjoy it. Lots of work went into the movie (and now that I've made a couple of music videos, I'm an expert on all things movie-making related), and you can tell that the people involved really enjoyed what they were doing. There was some cheesy dialogue of course but the director didn't take himself seriously and that made it okay somehow. There was also some awesome dialogue, but you have to be about my age to agree, I think. -18JUL2011

A friend's home, viewed from the back yard.

So this was the picture I would have posted last week if I didn't forget my camera in the car. The house was owned by a horticulturist (the word used synonymously with horticulturalist), and had all kinds of hybrid plants, including a magnolia tree that grew upwards. Of course, my friend didn't know what the hybrid was, but it was evident the tree was there for a very long time (it was tall) and there was absolutely no root damage done to the sidewalk or driveway, as I remember being done to my childhood neighbors (who had a fun-to-climb magnolia tree in their front yard) sidewalk and driveway. There are also some planting mounds in the back yard (fertilized, ready for seeds) that the previous owner spent a lot of money cleaning up, I assume in the hopes that the new owner would use them in the way the previous owner would have. That won't be the case, but then again, there's that thing about property value and the weird things you can do to increase it (so, not all is lost, Mr. Horticulturist).

I've been working on a traffic music video for a while now. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to pull it off, but I think I actually managed to make an entertaining traffic cam video. Right now, it's mostly done. I just need to block out license plates (a very tedious process, especially on bumpy roads) and then I'll upload it to YouTube, and post a link here. (not that I expect anyone to click on it; the last one I posted got a total of 1 hit from this site, and I know exactly who clicked it. I did, for testing. But that's enough self pity for now.)

I made chicken stew yesterday. When the wifey is out of town, it frees me up to experiment with cheap, large amounts of food, because if it turns out to be bad, I'll still eat it. Well, in this case, it turned out to be extremely delicious. I considered updating my Meals page; I've taken pictures of the process I went through and what the final result looked like. Hopefully, if I do it, I can be creative enough to embellish it with anecdotes and make it reasonably entertaining to read. But I haven't even started the update yet, so don't hold your breath. -16JUL2011

Every now and again I look through some of my old pages on my website here and read the things I said years and years ago. I'm amazed at the wit that I had then, not that I was especially witty, but that I was so much wittier than I remember being, no matter how many times I've sporadically gone back to reminisce. Every time I do go through my old pages, reliving what I've lived through, I get a sense of who I was and how exciting it was to be one of the very few of my peers to have a website; an empty canvas with which I could share my thoughts and ideas with the world. That excitement bubbles up even now; it has motivated me to update on a non-Saturday. I don't have a goal here... I'm just rambling, knowing few people, if any, who happen onto this page will actually read anything. I do have some really good pictures scattered throughout, and those do get tons of hits. Photography Phaturday has been incredibly successful at bringing image searchers here, but I have to wonder if any ever come back. Looking at my stats for the last month, it seems I have no regular visitors. At all.

I talked to a friend last week who said that he stopped checking my website a few months ago because I stopped updating it. I've been updating it every week since August, last year (I suppose, technically, you could call it "a few months ago"). Four more weeks will mark my 52nd Photography Phaturday. Truth is, with the advent and evolution of social management websites, there's little reason for any friend or family member to visit here, ever. Basically, my site has become a strand of hay in a haystack for image searchers to visit, and leave. "Sharing thoughts and ideas with the world" has turned into little more than leaving a binder with handwritten notes on a public bench; maybe someone will pick it up and look at it. Most won't open it, and the few that do simply look at the pictures (maybe even steal them ), and then put the binder back down.

So with this realization (that I've had for more than "a few" years now), why do I keep this website? I created it thinking I was going to be some sort of internet superstar with my (embarassingly bad) music reviews and (sometimes mediocre, sometimes really good) game reviews (Blade of Darkness still gets the most hits out of everything, by the way). I have no delusions about what this website is or what it will ever become. I have no aspirations of improving the site into something that makes sense to navigate, in order to compete with (???) and get more visitors. Though, I didn't answer my question. Why do I keep this website? I honestly don't know. Maybe it's some sort of personality disorder. Maybe it's because I've had it for so long, there's no sense in killing it. Maybe it's because, in some sick way, I actually like it. -12JUL2011

Yellowstone, again, October 2002.

A lot has happened this week. My Prelude started smoking out of its exhaust pipe. Had a compression test done and it turns out that it probably needs a new engine. It will be brought to another place next week, a place that can open the engine up a little bit and look closer, and hopefully they'll figure out that it's really something that's fix-able. Like a gasket or something. Man, after typing that I feel like I'm practicing some serious self delusion. So yeah I'll probably be in the market for a new used car sometime between now and September, when the Prelude will need an emissions test. It still drives great, but it's embarrassing having a plume of smoke come out of the back of it whenever accelerating. A new (used) engine installation is roughly $4k, all said and done.

I'm trying to compile video clips of bad drivers to make some sort of music video to post on YouTube. I got permission to use someone's song but I'm worried I won't be able to keep the footage up with the music in any way that would seem natural (it's a fast paced and heavy song, but traffic is slow and mundane). If I can make it look good though, it will be like climbing Mt. Everest, and it will feel great.

I bought Paintshop Pro X3 (that's apparently 13 for my generation) because it was on sale for $40 (normally $99), and came with a ton of other goodies (a $240 value!). Haven't used it yet but if I ever do I'm sure it will be pretty good at what it does. I'm familiar with Paint Shop Pro 9, but the feature missing from it is one called "merge to HDR" which will take multiple exposures of the same object (if you take a picture with cloud cover, and another one without cloud cover, for instance... and you can also adjust camera settings of course) then it will merge them together in a way that makes it look vibrant and detailed at the same time. X3 has that feature, and I will keep mind to use it one day. Also I wouldn't mind if they fixed some of the annoying bugs of the PSP 9. The one review I read of it didn't mention anything about bugs, so I might be fairly safe.

I helped a friend move today... the same one that I helped move a baby grand piano about a year ago. It was tough work... the hardest workday I've participated in, in probably five years or more. I took some pictures of his property but the camera was forgotten in my car and I'm in pajama pants so I will not be posting a picture from that today. Nope. More Yellowstone for you. -09JUL2011

In my apartment common area, picture taken this morning.

I love it when I can update for Photography Phaturday with a picture that I've taken during the week.

I worked for a very long time on a YouTube video... a review of sorts for a Kodak ZX5 digital camcorder... a product I bought last Friday with the intention of using it as a dashboard camera. If you want to watch it, click here. My whole point was to talk about the camera in a way that would have been informative to me when I was in the market for a camera. There are some neat cameras out there... ones that will even use GPS to impose your speed and location on the video, but the video quality of those is all around bad. For this, I am happy with my purchase and I hope that someone from Kodak's marketing team recognizes my effort and sends me royalties. -02JUL2011

Yellowstone Park, Wyoming. October, 2002.

This is one of my favorite pictures of that trip. It's me plus two other guys admiring how clean the water is. When I noticed our shadows on the ground, I captured it... and I don't think it could have come out better. The glare on the water starts at the perfect location, allowing for maximum shadow and reflection viewing.

So... What's going on in the world? North Korea has gone back to becoming a non-issue. Libya is being barraged by NATO (okay... fine. By the US), and no one knows what it will look like (politically) when the dust settles. The Syrian government is murdering protestors in droves, but there doesn't seem to be any UN concern over that. Israel hasn't blown anything up lately, nor have they been blown up (or, if it's been happening, I haven't heard about it).

Europe is in a debt crisis. We're trying to ignore our own debt crisis. Three years ago I bought a bunch of canned goods to prepare for the inevitable hyperinflationary apocolypse. They're all expired now (especially since the wife quit her job, and cooks me dinner most nights, I don't have the chance, much less a reason to eat canned watered down food). I want to be prepared for a dollar collapse, but there's also the "fool me twice, shame on me" thing. I've gone from bewilderment to sympathy for Ben Bernanke, who gets on the TV and seems oblivious to what's going on with our currency (well, this is assuming that nuclear bomb sized amounts of money being injected into the economy has a negative effect on the value of a dollar)... but one day I realized that he can't tell the truth. What he's doing with QE, QE2, artificially low interest rates is an absolute necessity, but he can't tell the truth about the side effect of those things because the country would end up in panic. The stock market crashes by a couple percent in an hour when he does little more than acknowledge the bad data the number crunchers have already made public. In essence, the Fed's policy is hamstrung by Washington's policy. The Fed has to keep pumping money for as long as Washington spends money it doesn't collect... Responsible monetary policy is slightly more suicidal than inflationary monetary policy. The economic sickness is in our federal fiscal and regulatory policy. But that brings up another question - and that is if there were no Fed, would Washington be this irresponsible?

There's a sort of showdown between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats say we need to raise taxes, and Republicans say we need to decrease spending. They're both right of course, but what Republicans need to do is go after the loop holes that were created in the last 10 years. What I mean by loop holes, is deductions. Education deductions, home mortgage interest deductions, green energy deductions, deductions where you can write off a trip to Bali because you're writing a soon-to-be-published book... all deductions crafted to incentivize behavior the government deems proper for a good citizen. Democrats will be in an uproar because this will hurt the middle class, and Republicans need to make the case that it's the middle class tax cuts, thanks to Bush, that have lost Washington the most revenue... and they should also remind them that rich people use deductions too, and their taxes will be effectively raised as well. Then there's the whole cutting spending thing - defense needs cutting, as well as entitlements, both sacred cows neither party wants to touch seriously. Paul Ryan wants to turn Medicare into a voucher system, which I think is great, but is too hard to explain to people why it will be better because it relies on a lot of that whole "supply and demand" thing to bring down costs and improve quality. It's been called a very extreme plan... even called right wing engineering by none other than The Brain, Newt Gingrich (though he later rescinded, saying his answer was taken out of context. What a politician. Shame that he has the support of all the talking heads). Ryan's plan looks like it has a chance similar to that of a snowball in a really hot place.

Well, that's my non-Photography Phaturday rant for the quarter. Hope you enjoyed it. -25JUN2011

I have no idea what this is. Seen on a Guard base near Hershey, PA.

Hershey, PA is weird (I was there for work, for a couple of days this week). Things that have nothing to do with chocolate or cocoa are named after it. Cocoa Diner. Cocoaplex Theatre. (Well, there's Chocolate in the names of a lot of places, but to be fair they are located on Chocolate Avenue, which is where the Hershey's factory is located. Walking by it you can smell it being cooked, as they blast the warm air from the vents right onto the sidewalk. The bushes in the area look really healthy. I didn't bring my camera for the walk around town. Sorry.) The street lights have Kiss-shaped canopies over them. It's a veritable Disney World of Chocolate, complete with a Hershey Park amusement area about a block away from the factory (has about 10 roller coasters, all jumbled together for a neat looking park). -18JUN2011

Seen on the trail to Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's estate), taken last week.

This was an interesting sight... I don't do a lot of nature hiking these days, but I was in Boy Scouts for a good while... and I've never seen anything like this. My wife said it was one tree being a parasite to the other one. In a rare occasion, I interpreted a situation nicer than her. It looked to me like the smaller tree was passionately hugging the other one. The reality of course, is that the smaller tree is feeding off of the larger one, suffocating it (at the same time, the larger tree doesn't seem to mind). -11JUN2011

Some flower buds of some plant. Background is the mountains and hills southwest of Charlottesville, VA.

I tried to reserve the weekend at Charlottesville for my wife's birthday (which is today. Happy Birthday, baby!), but it was pretty full because I get pretty lazy about planning ahead, and waited a bit longer than I should have to make reservations. So I took a half day off Thursday and we went down there for that evening, all day Friday, and came back Saturday. Turns out the one Saturday where I get double digit hits is the Saturday I forget to update the site. Sorry!

So, that makes two weekends in a row where we actually left the apartment and did something. Now it's time to clamp down on the trusty credit card for a few months. -05JUN2011

Facing out from Union Station, DC.

We went into DC today, to meet Mr Bobby and Mrs. Vicki and Mark to go do something in the city. We originally went to ride the duck, but they were sold out for the day (in fact, the last one leaving can be seen in the above picture). We almost went on a bus tour, but that was $35 a pop. We ended up going to the Air and Space museum and then to a Mexican restaurant. Got to see the motorcycles parked on the mall in preparation for Rolling Thunder. All in all one of the few days I can honestly say I enjoyed while in DC. Better hurry up and upload this. I only have 32 minutes left before Photography Phaturday becomes Photography Phunday. -28MAY2011

The outside of a business building, across from Fairfax Courthouse.

From here, turn right and walk through a door, go down a hall, and to the right is where my wife got almost all of her hair cut off yesterday. :(

If the rapture happens soon, and you don't get a chance to see this picture, I apologize for not posting it earlier today. It was in the back of my mind all day long to post ASAP, or else I might never get the chance again, but I kept being lazy. -21MAY2011

Yellowstone again. October, 2002.

I normally try to keep human figures out of my pictures because I don't want to think I'm posting pictures of people for the world to see, without their consent. This is a rare exception, because I wanted to show how close the buffalo (not to be confused with beefalo) were comfortable with being near humans. So, thank you stranger, for being such a good sport. -14MAY2011

The first thing worth seeing after entering Yellowstone National Park - October 2002.

Sorry for my lateness. Welcome to the first edition of Photography Phonday. It won't be the last edition, I'm sure - but hopefully you won't see it too often.

This was the first of many pictures of Yellowstone that I took on my one day there with two of my coworkers - the limitations of my Kodak could not stop the beauty from coming through on most of them... But some of the pictures would have come out so much better if I only had more zoom, or more (or any) control over the shutter speed.

Bah. For someone who complains about his old Kodak so much, I sure do post a lot of good old pictures from it. -09MAY2011

Hotel Rosenhof, Germany. Pork with onions and mushrooms, with potatoes.

So I went to Germany for the week. The picture above was the best meal I had while I was there (a very close second, was white asparagus in a butter sauce, plus little bread nuggets and pork medallions). The potatoes were cooked to perfection; the flavor of everything was incredible.

United lost my bag... twice. I might be making a page about that. There was a lot of driving (well, sitting in the passenger seat for me) and not very much sleep. Jet lag, as usual, didn't affect me too much over there... if history is anything to go by, it will bother me now that I'm home over the next week or so. The beer was good. The weather was good. I might be writing something up about it in the future - unfortunately I didn't get very many pictures of anything good. I missed a chance when we were in Heidelberg ("we" meaning my coworker and I). It was by far the most picturesque place of the trip, but I did not bring my camera for the walk to the downtown area, a combination of not knowing how beautiful the town would be and not wanting to lose the camera. -30APR2011 (11:38PM - just in time)

La Crosse, WI, October, 2004. From the roof of the Radisson hotel.

Taking a break from my Wyoming 2002 string of pictures (and messing up my systematic elimination of old pics unshared), I found this one from one of the most picturesque, yet unheard of towns I've ever been to. La Crosse, Wisconsin. The downtown area was nice, and restaurant prices were incredibly cheap. I had one of the best sandwiches in my life here, at a sit down restaurant with a semi-elegant setting, for about $4. The town overall was very safe, very quiet, very clean. Traffic was light. -23APR2011

Somewhere in/around Jackson Hole, WY - October 2002.

This week was another incredibly busy week. Went to St. Louis. Didn't even have time to take pictures for this update. At the same time though, I have about 50 or so pictures of the town from a previous trip there that are really good, and can use later.

I've been playing old video games because no new ones have come out. I realize I've done a review for Gothic and Gothic 2, but never did one for Gothic 3 because I never finished the game. I actually got severely frustrated with it because of the plethora of not-fun bugs I encountered while playing (Example; a sabertooth tiger disappears into a boulder I was standing on and kills me, with horrible screaming effects). Well, because of the potential of the game, a huge community in the internet world at large has spent a lot of time and effort (four years worth, now) modifying the game script files fixing bugs like this and other (much worse) ones. So this is the old game I've settled on for now, and am very happy at how well it plays compared to how it used to play. I might even type up a review when I'm done. Thank you, internet community. -16APR2011

It's a satellite dish. A large one.

So, all week long I worked near this thing, doing a demo for our much smaller terminals. Probably put in over 60 hours, including driving, and have been incredibly tired. It was well worth the experience though - much better than sitting in a cubicle all day, for sure.

When I joined the army, and picked my MOS, this picture is exactly what I saw in my head when I read the title (Satellite Communications Systems Operator/Maintainer). I didn't really have an exact idea of what I was going to be doing, but I thought it would look something like this. Boy, was I wrong. Instead, it ended up looking something like this. -09APR2011

US-15 in Pennsylvania, going south. Taken the previous Friday, March 25th.

It was that drive where I wanted to listen to the music Sepultura's Chaos A.D. CD, and realized I'd never ripped it to my computer. It was that CD that helped me turn tepid fear into anticipatory excitement (specifically, the song The Hunt, that I later found out was written by a British band, but didn't sound as good) (because of the drums and melodic structure, not because of the lyrics - I couldn't understand them anyway) as I couldn't sleep the weeks before leaving off to Basic Training.

So at some point this week... I think it was Monday I went looking for the CD to digitize it for future listening in my car and/or MP3 playing device. Along with that, came a rediscovery of probably 20 CDs that I'd completely forgotten about, and couldn't remember a single song from any of them. Some from bands that I really like (but aren't my favorites), like Testament, Soilwork, and Summoning. Listening to these brings me back to the time I last listened to them... probably a decade or more. I feel younger and more energetic. Thinner. -02APR2011

My car at a hotel in New York this week.

It never fails. The moment I take my collapsible snow shovel out of my trunk, and put it away, it snows the week after. I didn't need it to dig the car out (this time), but it is very consistent in that this has happened four winters in a row, each one being 10 - 14 days later from the last year's date that I put the shovel away. I blame global cooling. -26MAR2010

The front of Chateau Elan (taken March 10th, 2011).

Got rid of my expensive bagless Bissell vacuum cleaner today, after smelling something burning the last time I used it. In its place now is a much cheaper Hoover Tempo - that uses bags. Bagless vacuum cleaners are the dumbest idea in the world and I don't know why so many of them are being manufactured, or why a good bagged vacuum cleaner is so hard to find.

It's been months since the floor was last vacuumed, so I put the new vacuum to the test today. It doesn't have a front light - something I forgot to look for (not that it would have mattered, it was between this $80 one and a $300 one that probably wouldn't fit in my closet, out of the bagged cleaners available). It's very loud and hard to pull backwards (the brush seems to want to propel the cleaner forward). It sprays dust everywhere, but so did the Bissell (dust being sprayed everywhere is probably a result of going very long periods of time without vacuuming), despite its kaleidoscope of expensive filters. As far as being able to walk on the floor barefoot without getting rock-like pieces of randomness stuck to my foot, the cheap vacuum does the job just fine. When it comes time to empty it out, I will undoubtedly thank myself for not shelling out more $$$ for a quieter bagless vacuum with a light. -19MAR2011