March 26, 2008

Late Night Booty Call of Different Ilk

Apollo has something of a foot fetish. If he sees bare toes, he'll sometimes try to give them a tongue-bath. I have no idea why - it can't taste too good. I'll admit, I do let him go at them (and wash them afterwards) once in awhile, but not often. It feels too weird.

At some point last night, I had rolled onto my stomach and my feet were hanging over the edge of the bed. Once asleep, I'm very hard to wake. At some point in the night, I felt something wet slowly, stealthily slurp the sole of my foot. That weird sensation woke me up out of sound asleep. I jerked my foot away and turned to look at Apollo who was laying at the foot of bed. He grinned at me and wagged his tail a few times, looking pleased with himself.

Dork.

Read more...

March 23, 2008

Sunday Photographs

Warning: Long post.
It was pretty quiet today, and I decided to take Apollo on a jaunt around my neighborhood. I'm not happy with these photographs. But the later ones I took of Apollo make me smile, so let's start with these first.

Because my little sofa is more or less on its last legs, I've been letting Apollo get up on it. He made himself very comfortable today.


(I was fiddling with the white balance in this last picture.
That's why it's got a weird pinkish pepto-bismol tint going on).


And now, the bad...I always critique my own pictures. I'm pretty hard on myself because I know I need to improve if I want to compete with the pros. Here's some thoughts I have, looking at these.

This isn't horrible, overall, but the angle of the sign isn't quite right-on, so it gives me the feeling that the overall picture is askew, even though the pole is almost perfectly straight. That said, it's not a very interesting picture. The wires draw your eyes away from the sign.
This is a little better...The wires and the pole draw your eyes to the sign. But still not very interesting.
I like the "wideness" of this picture, but the second horizon (the treetops) is cut off. It's a poorly framed picture.
Here, I was trying to capture the 2nd horizon (the first is where the road "ends"). Lost some wideness in the picture by making this a vertical picture. I think this is worse than the above, because the other details distract you from the road. In hindsight, I should've shot as close to the road as possible, and eliminated the sky altogether.

Someone in my neighborhood has a few awesome classic cars that he leaves parked out on the street. This is a Chevrolet, I think. Not sure of the make - I'm not familar with early models.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get a decent shot of this one...Foreground is distracting with the shadows. The background is distracting with the houses and trees. I cropped what I could. This first one is a bit truer to colors (see the white exterior of the right house? - compare it to the second one...the second has a greenish tint).
But this second one is slightly better because it's not so dark. You can see some features in the shadows, like the grille. I'm splitting hair though...These two are nearly identical pictures.

What would I do to fix this? I'd come back at a time when the shadows wasn't hanging over this car, and shoot a couple feet closer - then the background would be a bit more blurred, using some field of depth trickery.

One more picture!

This is an awesome looking truck though. I remember riding in the back of my neighbor's pickup truck that looked a bit like this - but was yellow-ish. Anyway...Again, we run into the problem of distracting backgrounds. I'm baffled at how to fix this other than using field-of-depth to my advantage to blur the background a little. The light is not horrible - a tad overexposed.

Read more...

March 21, 2008

J-O-B

The other day, I was browsing a few outdoorsy websites when I noticed one of my favorites has a j-o-b listing for a copywriter. I'm very tempted - the company sounds fabulous. From the sounds of it, they don't keep strict hours, and encourage workers to take the day off to go skiing/boarding if there's a good snow day ("powder day", it's called on their website). Here's the dilemma. It's in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Now, I've been talking about moving to somewhere the Rockies region in a year. My concern is, will a company hire someone on the other side of the country for what is essentially an entry-level job? I had a hard enough time finding work here in D.C. when I lived barely two hours away. Recruiters were very concerned about that distance even though I'd reassure them that I'd move at my own expense.

Plus, with the economy and job market what it is, the thought of spending $500 on a gamble (flight, hotel, rental car) irks me.

Ah well. Nothing ventured is nothing gained.

Taken with my cell phone:


Read more...

March 18, 2008

Baby Apollo

About 3 or 4 months old - a week or so after I got him.



Read more...

March 16, 2008

Random Pictures

From last Sunday


This cracked me up. A sign on edge of my apartment's property.The ONE time Apollo looks at the camera...

How can anyone resist this fuzzy goodness?
Snowdrops?
The letter "S" is for...
Stained?

No clue what this is. Looks like a funky anchor to me.

Read more...

March 9, 2008

Man-Holes

"Man-Holes." Reading this makes me snicker every time. When I told a friend of mine (JC of Texas) I was going to do a photo series of manholes, he started cracking jokes about how it'd either be easy or hard (depending on joke) to get a guy to show his "hole."

A very plain man-hole.
Watery Man-Hole
Mm, not going there.
As I say whenever the topic gets too touchy..."Let's change the topic!"
Cute lab pup did not like Apollo and I walking by his fence.

Read more...

March 6, 2008

Irish Drinks

Guiness: Diageo - British
Baileys: Diageo - British
Bushmills Irish Whiskey: Formerly Pernod Ricard (French), now Diageo - British
Jameson Whiskey: Pernod Ricard - French

Are there any commercial liquors that are still pure Irish? St. Paddy's Day is coming up, and I don't want to drink French or British-produced liquor.

Read more...

March 3, 2008

Climbing

It's an idle fantasy of mine to open the perfect rock-climbing gym in an old warehouse (or better yet, an old Ikea store). It'd have state of art features without being obnoxious about it.

The facility would have:

  1. "Smart" Cameras - not only to function as security, but also to keep an eye on climbers so that if anyone had an accident, there's no need for the climbers to run to the front desk. The camera/computer would alert the staff immediately. An added bonus - it could take snapshots of people climbing and staff would either sell them (like at theme parks) or display somewhere on a digital wall.
  2. Self-belayer system - so that the climbers who don't have a partner could climb. This already exists, but most gyms don't have this.
  3. Computer matching program for climbers - enter information about times when you climb, your skill level, age, and so on, and the program matches you up with other compatiable climbers to trade belay with (Match.com for climbers, romance optional).
  4. Magically cleaned shoes for rent - anyone who has rented shoes will appreciate this.
  5. Regularly-changed routes - 'nuff said (climbers will know what this is about).
  6. A state of art gym
  7. A very-separate area for classes, kiddy parties, and so on.
  8. A very thorough training session for the new folks. None of that "Ok, you know how to tie a knot, off you go" brushoff.
  9. Digital climbing wall and simulated weather conditions - want to pretend you're climbing a frozen waterfall? The digital wall can be changed to mimic a waterfall while following the same contours the real wall has, along with an occasional cold gust of wind or fake snow. Crude version of a holodeck ala Star Trek. More feasible: hire an artist to paint the walls so it looks like real rock.
  10. ???

Read more...

I Went to Mecca and Didn't Know It

A friend of mine felt bad about my lack of climbing partners, and offered to go with me to the indoor facility yesterday. I told him I wanted to stop at Ikea and pick up a few things that I'd seen online. Ok, he readily agreed.

I expected a big box warehouse store like Walmart or Home Depot. Wrong. When we drove up, the first thing I saw was the Ikea sign...It loomed over the highway, signalling us. The closer we got, the more apparent it became that the sign was bigger than my apartment.

Finally, we got to the exit and turned onto the road - "Ikea Road". The store is so freaking big that it has its own road.

When we pulled into the parking lot, the first thought I had when I saw the building was, "Oh crap." Then I thought, "Man, this building would be great for an indoor climbing gym." Three "super" walmarts could've fit in this building.

Inside, we were "guided" by a series of signs up to the second floor where we had to follow the circuitous, winding path leading through various segments...Living rooms...offices...kitchens...bedrooms...bathrooms...All set up to give you an idea of what your homes could look like with various Ikea furniture. It reminded me of the old Disney ride, I forget the name, that took people on a tour of the future.

Geez...I confess, I did buy some items. It was hard to pass up on bargains on incidentials that I needed. I'm not proud of myself for supporting these kind of stores - in the hard times like now, we should be doing all we can to support small businesses. But on the other hand, in these hard times, it's hard for me to muster up motivation to shell out extra dollars that I'd rather save. It might not sound like much - just a few dollars - but it adds up fast.

This little detour sidelined us and took us about 3 hours (darned tour) instead of the expected 20 minutes. Never made it to the gym. Alas.

Read more...

About This Blog

A mix of personal-yet-not-too-personal blogging and photoblog.

Recent Posts

  © Blogger templates The Professional Template by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP