Earl World

Increase Depth of Focus in Macros

2010-07-12T21:47:00.003-04:00

A limited depth of focus is one factor to consider when composing any photo, but it becomes especially important for macro photos. All other things equal, the closer you get to your subject the shallower the depth of focus. You can leverage that to create some interesting moods, but sometimes you want a sharp focus across the entire image. In some instances you can get by with lots of light and a small aperture to improve the focus. That might not always be feasible or possible.

One alternative I recently “discovered” was sitting right in front of my eyes in Photoshop CS4. Photoshop lets you blend a series of images where the planes of focus in the series span the object. Here's how:
1 – Select your images in Lightroom (Note they should be organized in order by plane of focus)
2 – Select Photo->Edit In->Open as layers in Photoshop
3 – In Photoshop, select all the layers and align the images (Edit->Auto-Align Layers, use auto projection)
4 – After the layers are aligned, then blend them together (Edit->Auto-Blend Layers, Stack Images and seamless blend)
Let it run and then, voila – an image that is crystal clear in focus from the first focus plane to the last. You can flatten the image and save the result.

Here is an example using a dried leaf that wasn't pressed so it curled a bit. The first two images are the first and last frames in the sequence of focus across the leaf. I took about 12 images from start to finish. In the first image, the point closest to the camera (the central part of the leaf near the stem) is in focus but the tip and edges of the leaf are blurred. In the second image, the tip of the leaf is in sharp focus but the base of the leaf is blurred. Click on either image to see a larger version.

The image below is the result after blending all the planes of focus in Photoshop. By masking and blending the sharp parts of each image, Photoshop forms a composite image where everything is in focus. It takes a bit of extra work, but if you want a larger depth of focus this technique works well. Give it a try.

The Sodastream

2010-06-25T23:09:00.002-04:00

A couple weeks ago Dianne and I were visiting Rookwood Commons to get some frozen yogurt at Yagööt – a favorite for Dianne. We were there during the day and decided to take a walk around the commons. One of my favorite stores to visit there is Sur La Table, a cooking store. We stopped in to look around and one item caught my eye. The sodastream (shown at right) is a unit that lets you carbonate your own water. I was drinking a lot of diet soda and the cans were piling up in our recycle bin. I also like sparkling water (San Pellegrino is my favorite), so the unit seemed like a great idea. Dianne knew it was over as soon as I saw it. It took me a couple minutes, but I made the impulse buy and picked up some diet root beer flavoring and fruit essence flavors.

It was one of the best impulse buys I’ve made in a long time! I use chilled, filtered water from our Brita pitcher to fill the bottles. Using near ice cold water makes the carbonation process more effective. You connect a bottle to the unit and open the carbon dioxide valve in short bursts until the release value kicks in at least three times. Remove the bottle and cap it until you use it. It only takes a minute! I usually keep one of the bottles as plain sparkling water and add some flavor to the other bottle. The diet root beer flavoring is pretty good and the fruits are good too, although adding a couple drops of lemon juice or lime juice (or both) works just fine too!

If you like sparkling water, I highly recommend the sodastream unit!

Skittles Tube Sock

2010-05-31T19:29:00.002-04:00

I don't typically eat Skittles, but this commercial just might make me go out and buy some. It is SO weird I love it! The Skittles folks owe their marketing group big kudos for this one. Enjoy if you haven't seen it yet.

The Look of Bugs

2010-05-16T07:54:00.004-04:00

If you're in to microphotography of insects and insect parts, you have to check out the work of Charles Krebs. The video below is a news story from Seattle that gives a good amount of information on his technique. I like the fact that he uses what he has and improvises to get some beautiful photos of insects. Go to his web site to see many wonderful photos. Thanks to The Strobist for pointing out this one.

Spring Is Here

2010-04-11T20:54:00.003-04:00

After several days in a row with temperatures way above normal, Mother Nature got a huge push to get plants going. It seemed like the daffodils came up in just a few days, everything greened up, and the flowering trees came into bloom. It's a beautiful time of year when the Winter greys disappear.

I made a trip over to Michele's garden -- my first visit in the Spring. It was a beautiful, sunny day. There were several types of daffodils in bloom. One is shown at right -- taking using a fill flash to get some light into the center of the flower. A fill flash also creates some shadows that give a bit of depth to the straight on view.

There were lots of flowering trees to look at too. The photo below shows a close-up of one of the blossoms.

This is one of my favorite photos of tree blossoms.

The subjects I found most interesting were the fiddlehead ferns that were just starting to emerge from the ground. Michele pointed them out -- otherwise I would have missed them. The photo at right shows them just as they stalks start to come out. When they get up a few inches, you can see a well developed structure even though they are only about the size of a $0.25 piece. The first photo below shows a macro view at an early stage. As they get a bit higher, a kind of red fuzz appears on the stalks and the head. The second photo below shows the fuzzy texture. In both cases I used a fill flash on the side away from the direct sun to get rid of the dark shadow.

You can see all the photos from my visit in a Flickr set here.

An Annoying Oil Change

2009-09-10T21:37:00.004-04:00

Dear Jiffy Lube,

Thanks much for leaving the air intake disconnected after my last visit to one of your establishments for an oil change. No really, thanks. That helped me detect the smell of burning transmission fluid quickly. The fumes were getting sucked in to the seating area very quickly. Why were there fumes? The dipstick wasn't inserted properly and fluid was coming out, running down the lower part of the engine, and dripping on the hot exhaust manifold and burning. The smell let me pick it up quickly before the smoke coming from under the hood got too bad. I only went in for an oil change, so coming out with a transmission fluid leak was a bonus.

I returned and complained. I explained the situation to the manager and asked him to check everything they did. He said he'd fix it and clean up the mess. I pulled over a block after leaving a second time and checked the area where the leak was. It seemed to be fixed.

But I hadn't learned my lesson. I didn't check everything like I should have.

Two days later, after driving about 800 miles and parking in a spotless garage, I pulled the car out the next morning only to discover a fluid spot on the floor. Yup, I was leaking oil. Not a lot (thank goodness), but enough to be worrisome since I had never lost any oil before my visit two days before. Another bonus when I went to look under the car. The rubber flap that allows access to the oil drain plug and oil filter was sagging down because only two of the four clips that hold it in place were installed after the last oil change.

To make a long story short, a visit to a mechanic to put the car on a lift to check the drain plug at least slowed the loss. He didn't have clips, but used zip ties to secure the flap. When we got home I went to my Subaru dealer to get it fixed. They informed me that the filter used was an after market brand that doesn't seat well and leaks. A replacement from my dealer fixed the issue and my car is back to normal.

Was I bad for not checking the work done on my car after visiting one of your establishments? Yup. Did I expect quality service from Jiffy Lube that I wouldn't have to check and that wouldn't create problems? Yup. Did I expect the use of proper parts? Yup. If you don't have the right parts, should your mechanics say sorry, explain the situation, and not change the oil? Yup. Have I lost trust? Yup. Will I now drive miles across the metro area to visit my dealer for an oil change rather than visit the Jiffy Lube about a mile away? Yup. In the long run, it will be a time saver for me.

DDR Style Alarm Clock

2009-08-17T19:31:00.000-04:00

Undoubtedly you've seen people in a video game arcade stomping on colored lights to the beat of a song like crazy people. That's the basic idea of Dance Dance Revolution -- to tap squares in a specific sequence at faster and faster speeds to keep in the game.

Some clever and also evil inventor thought that would be a good basis for an alarm clock. This little gem requires you to use your fingers to tap out a DDR style sequence in order to turn off the alarm. There is no way I could turn this off on the first try -- or the tenth try for that matter. You can order it on the ThumbsUp site by going here.

GDGT -- Gadget Review Site

2009-08-14T19:04:00.000-04:00

Last month I read this New York Times article that described a new site for the review of gadgets called gdgt. Founded by guys that were involved with Gizmodo and Engadget, the new site is different in that all reviews are written by consumers rather than paid writers. I guess that could be good or bad depending on who contributes. Has anyone written any reviews for the site?

Second Strobist Bootcamp Assignment

2009-08-08T18:37:00.000-04:00

The second assignment in the Strobist blog's summer bootcamp was food photography. The classic approach for a typical food dish photo is to have the key light coming from the top down using a softbox. I made a softbox quite awhile ago using a shoebox. I lined the inside with aluminum foil, cut a hole in the side just big enough for my flash, and topped it with tracing paper to diffuse the light. It was pretty well for a simple, homemade contraption.

The first photo is of red lentils, brown lentils, and split peas arranged in a bowl (thanks to Dianne) that is sitting on top of a black IKEA cutting mat. I used just a single flash into the softbox that was held pretty close to the subject just above and behind the bowl. I also used a silver reflector just below the camera in order to soften the shadow on the front of the bowl. I like the lighting and the colors.

The second photo is of my favorite vegetarian dish -- a lemony chickpea stirfry. The lighting setup was the same as the photo above. The recipe is from the 101 Cookbooks blog. It contains tofu, kale, chickpeas, the zest and juice from a lemon, and zucchini. The bowl is sitting on a red IKEA cutting mat. I wanted the red to compliment the green of the kale.

Bandsaw Skills

2009-08-05T18:34:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the Random Good Stuff blog, I ran across this YouTube video showing a guy with some crazy skills on the band saw. I'd only have 7 intact fingers left if I tried to do something like this. Check it out!

Strobist Activity

2009-08-02T15:02:00.005-04:00

I certainly have a backlog of photo work to describe -- things I've done over the last few months. The Strobist blog has probably had the greatest influence on my photo activities of late. The basic idea of the Strobist group is to get your flash or flashes off the camera to have the light coming in at different angles on the subject. You can use that approach to create interesting effects or enhance natural lighting and balance the overall exposure.

Since I'm new to the Strobist ideas and how to apply the concepts with my equipment, I've been experimenting with non-macro subjects. This summer the Strobist blog is having a lighting bootcamp where assignments are given every several weeks. The intent is to get the basics down by forcing you to try different techniques. The assignments have also been geared to try and help others in some way.

The first bootcamp assignment was to make two headshots that was somehow related to the state of the economy -- and also get a photo folks could use for a resume or website or whatever. One was to be a self portrait and the other had to be a friend. I've always wanted a teaching related photo so that one was easy. I talked Dianne into getting a photo in front of her computer since all her work is computer based.

For my photo below I used three flashes. High and right front I bounced a flash out of an umbrella for the main overhead light. A second flash with a grid came from the left behind my head and was focused on the writing on the blackboard. Finally, front low left there was a third flash to ease the shadow on the right side of my face. I was pretty pleased with the result.

For Dianne's photo, I first adjusted the exposure settings to get a good exposure on the monitor -- that was in effect my key light for the exposure. The main flash light came from high left bounced out of an umbrella. That light put a huge shadow on her face because of the ball cap. To reduce that shadow, I put a second flash low and right with a grid that was focused on the underside of her cap. If I were to do it again, I would soften that light a bit with a diffuser so there would be a little more of a shadow. But not bad for a first try. I'll describe some of my other Strobist style photos in future posts.

Roller Derby Bout Recaps

2009-03-24T23:54:00.004-04:00

If you are here looking for a recap on the Cincinnati Rollergirl bouts against the Hard Knox Rollergirls, I've moved all my roller derby posts to RabidDerbyFan.com. Go there to check out my impressions of the Schooling of Hard Knox bout and other derby happenings in the area!

100 Things

2009-02-06T12:01:00.000-05:00

There are several of these sorts of lists that I've seen circulating lately. I thought I would jump on the bandwagon and post my responses to this list that I saw on the Can You Keep A Secret blog. That blog is written by a Cincinnati area photographer, Sonja McGill. She has some great photos in her posts.

Here are my responses to the list -- I bolded the things I've done and put comments in parentheses. I'm glad I haven't done some of these.

1. Started your own blog (you are here)
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band (saxophone in school bands)
4. Visited Hawaii (duh!)
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Bathed in a river
7. Been to the Taj Mahal
8. Walked on a glacier in Alaska
9. Caught and held a snake
10. Spoke in front of a big crowd
11. Bungee jumped (but I watched Dianne do it)
12. Had a whirlwind love affair that broke your heart (don't know about whirlwind)
13. Found an arrowhead or fossil
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Rescued an animal
16. Ate sweet breads, glands or tripe (eeewwww!)
17. Seen Mount Rushmore in person
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train (several times)
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hiked to base camp on Mt. Everest
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort (lots of these)
25. Watched an animal being born
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Learned a foreign language
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Stayed up for more than 24 hours
31. Trained a dog to do cool tricks
32. Been on a cruise (sort of -- day/overnight trip from Greece to Italy)
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community 36. Can drive a stick shift car
37. Won over $1000 in a raffle or lottery (I wish)
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person (been to the top)
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Been serenaded
44. Visited Africa (went to Egypt in college)
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight 46. Broke a bone (unfortunately)
47. Started your own business
48. Quit a job because you were totally unhappy
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the Eiffel Tower
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling (snorkeling in Hawaii)
52. Kissed in the rain passionately
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in
55. Been in a movie (made 'movies' growing up with a neighbor)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Joined a prayer group
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
62. Gone whale watching
63. Received flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving (this isn't ever happening)
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy (I have a couple)
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar (yes, once -- ONCE! Yuck!)
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the changing of the guards in London
77. Broken something extremely expensive
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book (does writing a thesis count?) 81. Visited the Vatican
82. Got a tattoo
83. Been to a coffee shop in Amsterdam (been there, but didn't get coffee)
84. Seen the aurora borealis in person
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (I guess a fish counts)
88. Had chickenpox (have the marks to prove it)
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury (as an alternate on a vehicular homicide case -- not fun)
91. Met someone famous
(several -- Linus Pauling and Hubert Humphrey are examples)
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Toured the UN
95. Hiked to Machu Picchu
96. Swam in the Indian Ocean
97. Conversed with someone when neither of you spoke each others language (relates to #32)
98. Dirty danced
99. Been stung by a bee (nope)
100. Acted in a play

Better Get to Pigall's

2009-02-01T09:40:00.000-05:00

Readers of the Cincinnati Enquirer probably read this story that reports Pigall's is closing at the end of February. I was surprised to read that story given that the restaurant just received a 4-star rating in the Mobil travel guide.

Hopefully Jean-Robert will open another spot that will be top notch.

In the process of looking around for that news, I discovered the wine me, dine me blog. It's obviously a blog about places to eat -- but it covers the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area. It is always good to get an opinion about a restaurant. Stop over there to browse the reviews before heading out to eat.

Friday Flashback

2009-01-30T11:25:00.000-05:00

Erika does a lot of Friday Flashback posts on her blog. I don't have the discipline to do that on a regular basis -- and my memory isn't that good. My dad sent some old photos recently that inspired this flashback post.

The first photo is me, just over two years old, sitting on cinder blocks that my dad used to build an addition on to the garage. You have got to love the Minnesota Twins baseball cap. My dad needed the extra space as he ran a bicycle shop and used the addition to store bikes that needed to be assembled. I do remember that part of the garage being loaded with bicycle boxes on occasion.

The second photo is of me riding a bicycle in a parade in Randall, Minnesota when I was twelve. It was a fourth of July parade. This wasn't just any bike. My dad spoked the wheels using many different length spokes so that the hubs of the wheels were off center. If you look closely, especially at the front wheel, you can see the hub is off center in the wheel. When you pedaled the bike it bobbed up and down or rocked back and forth depending on whether or not the wheels were in sync. It was quite a sight! The pole on the back held a sign for Dick's Broiler, a local hamburger joint that we stopped at now and then.

Winter Storm

2009-01-28T18:58:00.002-05:00

Along with a large area of the US, Cincinnati was hit with a large snow/sleet/ice storm. This was our first major snowfall of the season. There were a lot of closings and the roads were a mess.

Yesterday I decided to stay home and use a vacation day I carried over from last year to avoid the crazy drivers. Overnight we got about a half inch of ice. When I woke up and heard the weather forecast for several more inches of snow, I realized today was a work from home day. I spend most of my time on the computer and phone anyway, so it isn't difficult to work at home. It turned out to be the right decision as Hamilton county declared a level 3 snow emergency -- only emergency vehicles on the road -- to allow the plows and salt trucks space to do their thing.

It took Dianne and me about 45 minutes just to shovel our way out of the house and get to my car to clean it off for tomorrow. I heard on the news that in the last two days we received 7 inches of snow and a half inch of ice. I know that's not much to my Minnesota readers, but it causes a lot of problems in this area. At one point there were nearly 50,000 people without power -- mostly due to tree limbs covered with ice breaking off the tree and taking down power lines.

About an hour after the snow stopped today, the sun poked out from between the clouds and lit up the ice covered trees. I took a couple macro photos of the ice covered trees outside our place (per Erika's request). If the forecast holds, it might not be until Sunday before the ice melts off the trees.

New Blog -- Rabid Derby Fan

2009-01-27T21:25:00.003-05:00

I'm so prolific here on Earl World, that I decided to start a new blog :^)

Regular readers know I enjoy watching flat-track roller derby. Over the last few years I've had quite a few posts discussing local roller derby matches Dianne and I have attended. I know not all my readers are derby fans (although I'm not sure why) and not all the roller derby folks that read the bout recaps are interested in reading my other ramblings.

As a result, the Rabid Derby Fan blog was born. Starting this year I will be posting all my bout recaps to the Rabid Derby Fan site. If you are here looking for derby information, go to the RDF blog and bookmark it. There are a few bout schedule posts there now.

Baby Twitters

2009-01-16T18:22:00.001-05:00

A few days ago I posted about Twitter -- the micro blogging service. Thanks to Hack a Day, I discovered that you can follow Twitter tweets from the unborn. A student at NYU developed a waist band with some electronics that monitors a baby's movement in the womb. The device sends a twitter when the baby kicks. Read more about it here.

You can see the Twitter feeds of the kickbee here. OK, it might not be the most exciting read, but it does have the cool geek factor going for it.

Botanical Art

2009-01-14T18:08:00.000-05:00

Ping mag, now on hiatus, had a post about a 97 year old botanical artist from Japan. The interview and his work are wonderful! Below is one example of his work. Go here to see the whole article.

Split Tongue

2009-01-12T19:03:00.001-05:00

YouTube is really amazing. There is something for everyone. Thanks to Boing Boing, check out what you can do with a split tongue.

Twitterholic

2009-01-11T22:24:00.003-05:00

I've been a blog post slug lately, but you may have noticed Twitter updates (tweets) on my sidebar that provide a few updates. If you want, you can follow my tweets directly on Twitter -- I'm Cincisquirtle on Twitter.

One benefit of Twitter's popularity is that other services now integrate well with Twitter. One example is Facebook that can suck in Twitters and put them in your status. That's convenient so you don't have to make status updates in multiple spots. It's also good since I've become a big fan of Facebook. Send a friend request there if you want to add me. Besides status updates, you'll find photos, news feeds, games, etc.

One problem I have with Twitter is that it can be hard to find people to follow. Sure, it's easy to find tech evangelists like Robert Scoble or Guy Kawasaki, but it can be tough to find friends, specific feeds, or posts about topics. Thanks to Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion I found Twitterholic. It's a Twitter stats site that lets you look at users sorted in many different ways -- date joined, popularity, number of followers, location, etc. Supposedly you can combine these, but I haven't played around enough. I was intrigued by the top Twitterers in the Cincinnati area that you can see here. Not surprisingly, Cincinnati Rollergirl and Enquirer reporter Miss Print ranks up there at #26. There are a lot of personal feeds, but some publications like Cin Weekly are in there too. Check out the site to find some feeds.

Dismembered December

2008-12-16T22:26:00.005-05:00

On Saturday, Dianne and I drove to Evansville to watch the Dismembered December tournament put on by the Demolition City Roller Derby group and held in the Veterans Memorial Coliseum that was built in 1916. Four teams (Demolition City Roller Derby (DCRD) Dynamite Dolls, Naptown Rollergirls, Slay Belles, and Quad State Terrors) participated in 4 bouts. Congratulations to the Quad State Terrors for winning the tournament! It topped off the day to see them win the championship bout.

Evansville's Memorial Coliseum is quite the historic venue as seen in the fisheye photo above (click on the image to see a larger view). It reminded me a bit of a venue you might see in the movie Hoosiers. The track itself was laid out on masonite panels pieced together to protect the underlying floor. The panels seemed well placed and except for an occasional stumble getting on and off the layer, I didn’t see many skaters having issues with the seams between the panels. The jammers were pretty speedy when out in the open.

The first bout was between DCRD and the Naptown Rollergirls team – a team that was a mix of all their skaters. It was a good bout, but the DCRD team had the edge at the half with a lead of 28 to 18 that they increased in the second period to finish with a score of 58 to 22. The photo at right, such as it is with the natural light, shows some of the action between the teams. I wasn’t keeping a tally, but it seemed Naptown was hurt a lot by penalties. There was one point in the second period where one of the Naptown jammers, Ivanna B. Naughty, had several trips to the box including back-to-back penalties that really slowed the Naptown scoring.

The second bout had the Slay Belles (a pick-up team composed of DCRD skaters and skaters from several teams including Naptown, Radioactive City, and Lafayetter Brawlin' Dolls) pitted against the Quad State Terrors (made up of mostly Black-n-Bluegrass Rollergirls with a few additional skaters like Nastee from R.O.C.K. and Envy Myoni and Celia Graves from DCRG). To say the least, the Slay Belles struggled the entire bout. The Belles were trying hard, but their lack of experience and limited coordination/communication during the jams really hurt them. Quad State got a couple skaters at the front of the pack in every jam to control the pack and effectively shut down any offense. That, combined with solid Quad State trailing blockers that nudged Slay Belle jammers to stop their progress, made things rough for the Belles. In one jam with a skater in the penalty box, Nuk‘em held three Belle skaters back for a few laps by herself (see photo below). Jamming duty was shared by Roseanne Scarr, EMolition, Pistol Whippin' Wendy, and Envy MiYoni. The photo at the right shows Juwana Hurt clearing the way for jammer Envy MiYoni. There were a lot of grand slams and at the half Quad State was ahead with a score of 54 to 0. Near the end of the second 20 minute period, one of the Slay Belle jammers finally got lead jammer status and the place erupted with applause. On that jam the Belles managed to get three points on the board. The match ended with Quad State dominating with a score of 115 to 3. Unfortunately at one point in the match Arche Enemy and Rockscar took a tumble together in turn four and Rockscar was hurt and carried off by the EMTs. The announcers later mentioned that Rockstar broke her tibia and fibula. The DCRD page today says her surgery the following day went well. I hope she gets well quickly.

The third bout was the consolation match between the Naptown Rollergirls and the Slay Belles. It was another struggle for the Belles as Naptown came out strong and dominated the less experienced skaters. Unfortunately, skater I Teazem went down hard in turn 2 during one jam. I was coming down from the mezzanine after taking the fisheye photo above, so I didn’t see the spill. The EMTs took extra precautions with her neck and she was carried out to an ambulance on a stretcher. Today the DCRD homepage indicated she is doing well with some head pain. I certainly hope the EMT measures were precautionary and that she gets well soon. At the half Naptown led with a score of 93 to 6 and sadly the trend continued in the second full period so Naptown ended up winning with a score of 177 to 6.

As one would expect in a tournament, the last bout between the DCRD Dynamite Dolls and the Quad State Terrors was the best of the day. However, it was a long day of derby and a lot of spectators left after the Naptown consolation match. Perhaps they were Naptown fans wanting to get back to Indy before it got too late? Quad State continued their recipe for success using jammer speed, pack coordination, and tough blocking to establish an early lead and hold it throughout the match. The photo at right shows a typical Quad State configuration with Nuk'em, Nastee, and Juwana Hurt controlling the front of the pack. Considering the group hasn’t been skating together long, it was impressive to see how well they came together and used each others’ strengths to make an effective team. But the DCRD skaters were tough and made the Terrors work for the victory. In the initial jam, one of the DCRD blockers gave Juwana Hurt a solid shoulder in the pack to perhaps send a message – Juwana wasn’t hitting hard in the initial Slay Belles match. Juwana caught up with the pack and sent a tough shoulder block message right back to the DCRD skater. You can see the result of another one of Juwana’s blocks in the photo to the right. All the Quad State blockers contributed and really worked hard to control the front of the pack and the inside lines (see the photo below). At the half Quad State was ahead with a score of 46 to 17. In the second period, DCRD did make some adjustments and the scoring was about equal. However the Quad State victory was never in jeopardy and they won the bout with a score of 74 to 43.

You can see more photos I took at the bout in my Flickr set here. Also, Jack King took photos at the event for Quad State and will undoubtedly have some excellent shots despite the lighting.

Overall it was an interesting day of derby that helped fill the off-season dry spell for this crazed roller derby fan. Thanks to the Demolition City Roller Derby group for making the effort to organize and host the event during a busy time of the year. It was a long day, but I found it instructive to see teams with varying skill levels battling back-to-back. It helps me appreciate the skill, techniques, and strategies of the game and how skaters and teams adjust (or not) to changing situations. It really is an interesting (as well as entertaining) sport to watch once you get the hang of what to look for. If you haven’t been to a flat track roller derby match, you have to check out a team near you next season!

Finally, a special thanks to the Black-n-Bluegrass Rollergirls for the invitation to the tournament and to all the Quad State Terror skaters (see the photo below) that made us feel welcome. Congrats on winning the tournament! Look for big things from that group in the 2009 season.

Thinking Styles Quiz

2008-11-09T18:00:00.003-05:00

The results of this quiz shouldn't be earth shattering to anyone who knows me. What is your style?

Your Dominant Thinking Style: Modifying

Super logical and rational, you consider every fact available to you.

You don't make rash decisions and are rarely moved by emotion.

You prefer what's known and proven - to the new and untested.

You tend to ground those around you and add stability.

What's Your Thinking Style?

Red and Yellow

2008-10-10T10:43:00.000-04:00

Michele has several knockout rose beds in her garden. They give a lot of red color to the garden that really stands out in the Fall. The photo at right, a fisheye view, gives an idea of how many flowers were in bloom a couple weeks ago. That was taken using the natural light and shade on the plants. There are some insects on the flowers, but nothing like those found on the sedum flowers.

The first photo below is a close up of one of the rose blossom taken using a few flashes to get a good depth of field. I like the soft texture of the rose petals.

The second photo below is of a plant that gives some more yellow color to the garden. It is one cluster of flowers on a Lantana. The cluster is about the size of a quarter and they branch off of some medium length stalks. I was intrigued by how the little rectangles unfurl into trumpet shaped flowers.

Survivor Gabon

2008-10-09T07:33:00.000-04:00

I'll admit it -- I'm a reality TV junkie. One of my must see reality shows on broadcast TV is Survivor.

For the past several seasons folks have organized a Survivor pool at work. This year Carla is running the "team building exercise." My Survivor contestant is Jacquie, which is appropriate since she grew up in Minnesota. You can read her whole bio here. She seems like a solid competitor and, more importantly, someone who does not have an annoying personality that grates on the other contenders. Go Jacquie!

Favorite iPhone Applications

2008-10-08T10:22:00.000-04:00

There aren't a huge number of free applications for the iPhone that I use a lot. But there are two of them that are really cool.

The first is Shazam. Have you ever been listening to a song and wondered what the title of the song was or who was singing? With Shazam, you simply hit a tag button when the song is playing. The software listens to the song for a few seconds and checks the sample against its database of recordings. Generally within a few seconds it returns the song title and artist along with links. It works pretty well even with background noise. I use it in the car when I'm listening to the radio and I hear a song I want to write up for the Songs in Haiku site. I just hit two buttons and bingo the song is tagged on my list of songs. No need to try and write something down while driving. You don't need an iPhone to use the service. Check out their web site.

The second application is called Trailguru. It's an application that keeps track of bike trails, hiking trails, etc. using a GPS. The iPhone ap uses the built in location services to record a trail as you walk or bike. It also keeps track of stats like average speed, distance traveled, etc. The screen capture below shows a trail that Dianne and I created while walking around the Deerfield Towne Center area. The green flag was our starting point outside of the Polo Grill. We walked along and did some window shopping -- the blue line. The red flag is our stopping point at the car. The Google map photo was taken while the strip mall was under construction, so it just looks like a barren field. But it gives you an idea of what the service does.

Check out these applications.

Day Trip to Louisville

2008-10-07T07:30:00.001-04:00

Dianne and I drove down to Louisville early to look around before the evening roller derby bout. Our first stop was the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory -- the spot where the Louisville Slugger baseball bats are made. I had a Louisville Slugger bat growing up as likely did a lot of folks reading this post.

I thought the factory tour was interesting. You followed the manufacturing process starting with a rough billet all following it all the way through finishing. They were manufacturing bats when we were visiting and many of the machines were being used. Unfortunately they didn't allow photography on the tour. :^(

The building also has a batting cage, small museum area, a gift shop, and various displays. The photo above and right shows Dianne near one of Adam Dunn's bats that is on display near the wall of signatures. She is holding our little bats we got on the tour of the manufacturing area. If you're in the neighborhood and have any interest in baseball it is worth a stop. It's an easy place to find. There is a HUGE bat outside the building. The bat is over 4 stories high! Here is a fisheye photo showing Dianne at the base of the bat. The fisheye lens exaggerates the size, but it is quite large. Click here to view a larger version of the photo.

After visiting the museum, we walked along Main street towards downtown. There is quite the mix of old buildings (some well kept and some not) and new buildings. There is also a mix of shops ranging from Army Surplus to upscale galleries and restaurants. It was very clean though -- which could be because there was very little pedestrian traffic to make any kind of a mess. The photo below shows some of the old buildings on Main.

We also walked toward the Ohio river and found a park overlook near the dock for the Belle of Louisville riverboat. The photo at right shows Dianne looking out toward the river with the Belle of Louisville docked below in the distance. Click on the photo to see a larger image. There was a large statue of William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame) there. As usual, Dianne struck the same pose as Clark in the photo below.

After that we drove around the University of Louisville (a lot of angry cardinals in the pavement around the school) and also drove in to Churchill Downs. Overall it was a relaxing day in Louisville. See a few more photos from our visit in this Flickr set.

Sour Smash Roller Derby Bout

2008-10-05T17:53:00.004-04:00

Dianne and I capped off our visit to Louisville yesterday (more on other activities in a future post) by attending the Sour Smash event at the Kentucky Expo Center where the Derby City Roller Girls hosted the Black-n-Bluegrass Rollergirls. We thought, and rightly so, that the BBRG would need a couple more people in the crowd cheering for them. It was a good match with the BBRG beating DCRG by a score of 106 to 41!

The Black-n-Bluegrass Roller Girls took the lead on the first jam and never looked back. They easily adapted to the faster surface and the pack was moving fairly fast. The photo above and right shows BBRG jammer EMolition and DCRG jammer Envy Miyoni. The first period was a bit strange in that there were several zero/zero jams. At face value, that isn’t out of the realm of possibility. It was just the way the jams were called off that was strange – sometimes the DCRG lead jammer was ahead and in the open and called off the jam without even trying to get one or two points before the BBRG jammer could catch the pack. There were some tough blockers on the DCRG team – of particular note was Sk8 Ninja who dished out many hard blocks. The photo at right shows Morgue Ann le Slayer going down after a hit from Sk8 Ninja. Despite the DCRG blocking, there were several jams where the BBRG scored 4 or 5 and DCRG had zero. EMolition, Roseanne Scarr, and Morgue Ann le Slayer were rotating as jammers and at the end of the first period BBRG was ahead by 28 to 13. The photo below shows everyone looking at Roseanne to either block or help her.

The second period was generally more of the same, with a lot of tough blocking. The BBRG had a great rotation of blockers including the Hurt sisters, Hot T. Molly, and Buckhead Betty. There were a couple jams when the BBRG pack was less well organized and not able to help their jammer as well as they could, but in general there was good teamwork and excellent defense! The photo at the right shows Juwana Hurt putting the hurt on a DCRG jammer. The photo below shows the defense on both sides as Morgue Ann gets hit as Buckhead Betty dishes out a hit. At the end of the second period BBRG had opened up their lead and the score was 55-25 in their favor.

The third period saw several other BBRG skaters wearing the jammer star to get more experience and score some points. I probably will miss some folks, but Jewel B. Hurt, Aine Ass, and Hellaina Havoc all got lead jammer status. I think those additions to the jammer rotation helped spread the workload and allowed BBRG to widen their lead even more. The BBRG defense was also tough -- as shown by the Hurt sisters slowing up Envy Miyoni at right. The DCRG fought hard the entire way and they were dishing out their fair share of hard blocks. I haven’t travelled to very many away derby events, but the DCRG crowd has to be one of the most vocal that I’ve heard. It makes for an exciting derby event and must help motivate the DCRG skaters.

The Derby City folks know how to put on a fun derby event. The Kentucky Expo Center is a nice venue (although parking is $6) and they have a solid, clear sound system that made it easy to hear the announcers. The announcers were good and helped to whip the crowd into D-C R-G chants periodically. I’m not convinced about music playing during the jams, but their DJ did a great job picking tunes to add to the excitement.

During the breaks between periods, several of the BBRG folks came over to say hi. That was nice, but I wasn’t sure how well received that would be in the middle of a sea of DCRG fans :^) After the match, Dianne and I were able to talk to several of the BBRG skaters. Special thanks to Buckhead Betty and to Morgue Ann le Slayer for coming up and introducing themselves to Dianne and me. Dianne got a photo of me with Juwana Hurt (above) who had several great hits during the evening. We also got to talk with EMolition and Dianne got a photo of me with her too. It was exciting to see EMolition back in competition and she certainly posted quite a few points for BBRG. We met and talked with BBRG fan T.J., who can’t wait for BBRG to get WFTDA status and take on the Cincinnati Rollergirls in the future. We’re fortunate to have a couple derby teams in the area and there should be some exciting local derby action to see! Finally, we also got to talk with Skinny Minnie who unfortunately did a number on one of her fingers that was really swelling up fast. Hope you are doing ok.

I posted quite a few photos from the bout in a Flickr set that you can see here. There are a couple nice series of photos taken in rapid succession that shows the action unfolding. In particular I liked this series (first, second, and third) showing a sandwich block on Morgue Ann le Slayer that works out well due to some quick thinking in the pack -- and this series (first, second, and third) showing a failed attempt to slow Roseanne Scarr.

Congratulations to all the BBRG team on a big win to finish the season!

Chrysanthemum Bonanza

2008-10-01T18:19:00.000-04:00

When I was visiting Michele's garden a couple weeks ago, she had several pots of chrysanthemums that were bursting with color. The photo at right shows one of the pots on her porch, taken in the morning sun with a fisheye lens. They really add color to the garden.

The first photo below is a close-up of one of the blossoms. The early morning light gives the petals an almost golden color. After spending some time taken insect pictures, I discovered another pot in the back garden. By that time it was later in the morning and as the sun got a bit higher the flowers lost a bit of that gold hue. In the background shade you can see some purple flowers that are from a pot of asters.

Finally, the third photo below is a set of photos taken from one mum pot, on the same day, that shows how the flower opens up. I wonder what time span this represents if it were a single flower. I was intrigued by how the color changes as the flower opens up. The photos show the actual colors as best I can. Go here to see a larger version on black.

Energy Sword

2008-09-30T17:52:00.000-04:00

After our visit to TDI, we each got a ka-bar knife to carry if necessary. They come with a tight clip for your belt that is very difficult to yank off.

While that is nice, all Halo fans know that type of knife is like a pea shooter compared to the power of a Covenant energy sword. Well, you can get your own energy sword at this site. OK, it's a replica. It's probably not sharp or sturdy. But it still looks cool and might intimidate any attackers.

Graphic Science

2008-09-29T08:40:00.000-04:00

The Make Magazine blog had an interesting post a while back about Science comics. I might have to get some of these.

Asters, Beetles, and Fungus

2008-09-28T09:14:00.000-04:00

The asters in Michele's garden have changed a lot in the past week. The central disk flowers have opened up completely and in the process have changed from yellow to a more purple hue. Compare the photo here to the one in my post from last week.

I also noticed in one aster plant there were several yellow/greenish beetles crawling around the blossoms. Dianne's Google skills revealed that they were spotted cucumber beetles. As explained in the information at this U Conn site, the beetles feed on pollen and go for certain types of plants. It also says that when a beetle finds a good food source, it emits a pheromone to call other beetles to the feast. That explains why I saw several of them on one pot of asters. The photo below shows one of the beetles walking on an aster blossom. It was originally near the center of the flower, but started moving away when my flashes kicked in. Sorry guy!

Michele discovered a bird's nest fungus this week and set it aside for me -- I never would have seen it otherwise. She explained that the members of the order Nidulariales have cup shaped "nests" and they have their spores in little structures that resemble eggs. You can see that structure in the top down view shown at right. When raindrops hit the nest the eggs are dispersed from the nest to spread the spores. It is a neat structure. I should carry a ruler in my photo bag. Each of the nest structures is smaller than a dime. The photo below is a side view that gives a better feel for the cup like structure of the nest.

Lemony Chickpea Stir-fry

2008-09-27T13:12:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago Dianne suggested we have more vegetarian dinners. That's kinda hard to do given the small number of vegetables that we both like. I ran across a recipe for a chickpea stir-fry at the 101 Cookbooks site that fit the bill nicely. The photo on the right shows my dish. It turned out well. The lemon balances out the bitterness of the kale. I think maybe some ginger might be a nice addition next time. Dianne suggested adding almonds for some extra crunch.

What is your favorite vegetarian dish? I'm always looking for ideas.

Keep Your Pants Safe

2008-09-26T18:12:00.000-04:00

Dianne and I got bicycles a few weeks ago. My bike doesn't have a chain guard, so I have to be careful about not getting my pant leg caught in the chain/sprocket. That hasn't been a problem so far since it has been too hot to wear long pants when riding.

I saw these unique pant clips on the Swissmiss site. You can order them from the MoMA store. They are made of reflective material and when you wear them you'll look like the Greek god Hermes. Sure you could use a rubber band, but it wouldn't look as cool.

Asters

2008-09-25T19:11:00.000-04:00

Michele has a beautiful pot of asters near her front porch. Of course a purple flower is always going to catch my eye. I had no idea what they were -- just that they sort of looked like a daisy. As she explained, the aster is a member of the daisy family (Compositae). Not only is it fun to try some different photo techniques to get some shots of her garden, I learn some botany and entomology in the process.

The flowers looked fantastic in the morning sun. Surprisingly, the asters didn't get much attention from the bees and butterflies. The photo to the right, of the whole plant and pot, was taken using my fisheye lens. The close-ups below were taken with a macro lens using only the natural sunlight.

A Little Produce Problem

2008-09-24T15:32:00.002-04:00

About a month ago this story surfaced about a hard-nosed, greater San Francisco area mayor who put a stop to a produce stand being run by a couple little girls. From just the info in that article, it sounds like the mayor was taking the situation immediately to the extreme.

Whew! Apparently I just dodged being busted with a lemonade stand when I was a kid.

Toad Lily Blossoms

2008-09-23T15:12:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite Fall flowers in Michele's garden is the toad lily. It has a unique shape and a hint of purple (which is always a plus). It is a small blossom that is just a bit bigger than a quarter. The particular plant I found that had the nicest flowers was in partial shade. The photo to the right is taken using the natural light that was available. For the two photos below I used a couple of flashes to add to the natural light. That let me use a much smaller aperature that gives a larger depth of field so more of the blossom is in focus. The main trade off is you lose the background. Which do you prefer -- the natural light or the flash? Click on any photo to go to Flickr to see a larger version (click all sizes above the photo in Flickr).

Black-n-Bluegrass Rollergirls' Heartbreaker Bout

2008-09-21T12:31:00.004-04:00

On Saturday night Dianne and I went to watch the Black-n-Bluegrass Rollergirls team the Moonshiners take on the traveling team of the Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls from Bloomington at Sportsville in Florence, Kentucky. It was their last home bout of the season and I wanted to see some of my favorite skaters back in action. The event was billed as "Heartbreaker" and the BBRG Moonshiners did break Bleeding Heartland by beating them with a score of 115 to 67.

The first period was a see-saw battle. Both teams have some speedy jammers and good blockers that were doing their best to stay on their feet on the slippery gym floor at Sportsville. On the Bloomington team, I was impressed with the efforts of Bad Mudda Trucka and KaKa Caliente. Right near the end of the period, Roseanne Scarr (shown at right as lead jammer) had a 10 point jam (with zero for BHRG) that put the Moonshiners ahead by a couple points.

In the second period, the Moonshiner blockers effectively shut down the Bleeding Heartland jammers. I think Bloomington managed to score less than 10 points the whole period! Great job to all the BBRG blockers. Not only did the BBRG blockers shut down the offense, they also helped their own jammers through the pack. The photo at right shows Juwana Hurt moving in to position to help Pinup Pussycat. While Bloomington was stymied, the BBRG jammers (including Morgue Ann le Slayer, Petal to the Metal, Pinup Pussycat, and Roseanne Scarr) continued to rack up the points. The photo below shows Morgue Ann le Slayer going around the outside to score. At the end of the second period the score was 70 to 48 in favor of the Moonshiners.

Most everything continued to go the way of the Moonshiners in the third period. BBRG was trying some different things like letting Buckhead Betty take a turn with the jammer star. Petal to the Metal did take a hard fall right in front of us after a block knocked her off balance -- we were in the middle of the Petal fan club and there were a lot of gasps. The photo below shows her fall.

After the match I was able to chat with Roseanne Scarr in her BBRG garb. It was nice to see her back in action. Dianne got this photo of us after the match. Roseanne racked up quite a few points during the bout and it looked like she was having fun doing it. She also took her turn as a pivot and blocker.

I also got the chance to meet and talk a bit with the BBRG jammer Pinup Pussycat. She also did well last night -- when, as she herself said, she wasn't in the penalty box. She was speedy on the slippery floor and got her share of designations as lead jammer. Dianne took this photo of me with Pinup.

You can see several other photos from the match in my Flickr set by clicking here. The crowd seemed a bit thin and hopefully the Moonshiners will get a larger following next year. There was quite a contingent from the Derby City Rollergirls who were doing some scouting for their upcoming bout on October 4th in Louisville. Congrats to the BBRG group on a great win!

Bees, Bees, and More Bees

2008-09-20T11:15:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I finally made another trip over to visit Michele's garden. There is still a lot going on this time of year. Just like last year, the remaining bees and butterflies are visiting the sedum blossoms and other flowers in her garden to get the last bits of nectar for the season. I got a relatively early start and it was fairly cool overnight. I think that made the bees a little lethargic and that helped me get set up for photos.

There were several different species roaming over the plants. I focussed on the larger bees as they were moving more slowly. This bee (maybe a carpenter bee?) was the same species I saw last year. The green pattern in the eyes and the yellow mark on the front of the head is pretty distinctive.

Here is a close-up of the head. I was using a bare flash for fill so you can see some glare on the eyes. Reflected light next time.

Below is another type of bee I saw. In this photo you can see the additional 3 eyes on the forehead. I used a fill flash on this macro as the plant was in partial shade. Click here to see a larger version of the photo below. I think this is my favorite of the bee macros.

Here is a side view of the same bee.

You can see a bunch of bee photos in the Flickr set here.

Capture Cincinnati Mini-Contest

2008-09-19T16:27:00.000-04:00

The Capture Cincinnati photo contest is coming to an end quickly. During the voting, the organizers have tossed in some mini-contests where they ask contributors to submit photos on specific topics. Rather than having open voting on the entries, the organizers judge the entries and select their favorites.

A couple weeks ago they called for photos related to Fall, to Winter, and to Spring. I submitted a few of my photos. A couple days ago they announced their favorites. Check out the top photo in the Fall category -- click here. That photo looks familiar! I'm psyched!

Windstorm in Cincinnati

2008-09-18T22:23:00.003-04:00

Things have been crazy in the Cincinnati area since last Sunday. On Sunday afternoon the remains of hurricane Ike passed through the area. We didn't get any rain, but the wind was some of the worst I've ever seen. The paper reported consistent gusts in the upper 50 mph range with peak gusts in the upper 70 mph range. Trees were down all around the area and lots of shingles were blown off buildings. Over 600,000 customers were without power. Gas stations couldn't pump gas, traffic lights weren't operating (and people apparently don't know the intersection becomes a 4 way stop) -- it was nuts.

We were pretty fortunate. We only lost our power for about 18 hours. Several of my friends at work still don't have power today. We just got our cable TV and Internet access back today, so this is the first chance I've had to post some photos of the damage in our neighborhood.

After the storm passed we went for a quick walk around the neighborhood. Just a few buildings away a tree fell and damaged a second story deck and broke the glass on a sliding glass door. One of our neighbors got out his chainsaw and started the cleanup. Click here to see a larger version.

A couple blocks away a large tree fell across the road and took out a lot of electric and telephone wires in the process. Click here to see a larger version.

Finally, this tree trunk snapped at the base and when the tree fell it just missed the corner of a house by about 6 feet. It took out quite a few wires too. Dianne is there for scale. Click here to see a larger version.

Hopefully crews will get power restored to the rest of the customers within the next couple days.

Cubicles Aren't So Bad

2008-09-17T18:48:00.000-04:00

I work in a cubicle environment. It's nice for co-location of work groups (although I spend a lot of time on the phone working with other sites or partners), but the distractions can sometimes be frustrating when you're trying to focus.

But then I see a photo like the one here, found on the Shorpy Photoblog, and it reminds me that life in a cubicle isn't so bad after all. Go here to see the post and the description. The Shorpy site posts old, mostly B&W photos that illustrate what life was like in years gone by. There are some interesting photos -- made all that much more amazing when you think of the photography equipment used in days gone by. Check it out!

Ancestry Map

2008-09-15T18:23:00.000-04:00

Below is an interesting map based on data collected in the 2000 US census. Click here to see a large version. The map shows the ancestry with the largest population by county for the US states.

Lots of Germans around the Cincinnati tri-state area. Not a surprise since it is the home of the world's largest chicken dance held at Oktoberfest-Zinzinnati (which by the way is next weekend).

Also not surprising is the huge pocket of folks with Norwegian ancestry around the Fargo/Moorhead area. I lived that for 4 years at Co ncordia. If you were a Norwegian immigrant to the US say 100+ years ago, wouldn't you have settled someplace warm instead of picking a region where the average low temperature in January is about 2 below F?

You Could Win $25 at Best Buy!

2008-09-14T07:51:00.000-04:00

Not here...you have to check out Erika Jean's blog and her contest. She is running a contest to celebrate having nearly 700 posts on her blog. This post is my entry for her contest -- although I've had her listed on my often read blogroll (see my sidebar) for ages.

I'm not 100% sure how I stumbled on her blog -- I think I was looking for local Cincinnati blogs on the MyBlogLog site. Erika grew up in the area and she recently graduated from UC and is now in Arizona. She has lots of posts about the Cincinnati area. But her blog has interesting life stories, lots of art work (she has some amazing doodles) and photos, and just crazy stuff she finds on the web.

However, my favorite set of her posts has to be her Friday Flashbacks series. Each week she writes a post about some past memory. It's a great idea for a blog post. You have to check out her flashback post this week about Castle Skateland. The results of her Google search are hilarious.

Erika also has photos on Flickr here -- she is in the middle of doing a self-portrait a day. Oh, and I should mention she has been a past guest contributor to our Songs In Haiku blog. That is an honor (?) that hasn't been given to very many folks.

Quite the creative gal and a very interesting blog. If you haven't already been to her site, check it out!

Evil Gadgets?

2008-09-13T18:00:00.003-04:00

With great power comes great responsibility. Wired magazine had a post a couple weeks ago on the top 5 gadgets that will get you arrested. Of course that's only if you use them improperly.

My personal favorite of their choices is the handheld laser marking system that can etches materials with a 2 mJ laser. How cool is that? The flyer from the makers (Laser Photonics) says it is capable of 2D matrix codes or bar codes. I suppose that's what a lot of people use it for. But they also say it can handle AutoCAD, Illustrator, or other vector/raster file formats so you could etch just about anything you wanted into an object. Go here for the details.

MySpace's Raison D'etre

2008-09-12T10:36:00.004-04:00

I have a MySpace account, but I don't use it much. I look at some general bulletins that some "friends" put out, but I find Facebook a much better social networking site. That is until today.

Many thanks to Kyle for pointing out the Internet find of the decade! MySpace has a video section called MySpace TV that I never explored. Kyle found out that MySpace TV has old episodes of ALF available! How cool is that!?! If you are a member, check out an episode here.

I would find it hard to believe, but if you're not familiar with what is probably the best sitcom of the late 80s (and maybe even the best sitcom ever) click here. You can watch ALF with Willie, Kate, Lynn, and Brian (and even Lucky the Cat) in all their glory. I watched a couple episodes this morning and they hold up well and are as funny as ever.

Thanks, Kyle!

P.S. I know there should be a circumflex in the title, but it is too much effort.

Enhanced Podcasts

2008-09-11T13:57:00.000-04:00

I like the new Apple iPhone -- although not as much as Dianne who absolutely LOVES her iPhone. Rather than move my music from my iPod over to the phone and suck up all the phone memory, I decided to leave my music and photos where there were and use the phone for podcasts. I never have been much of a podcast listener. It seemed like too much effort to subscribe and download the latest and greatest (even though it is really simple). Since I'm connecting the phone to the computer a lot, that barrier goes away. The podcasts also give me something to listen to if I have some down time while waiting somewhere.

I enjoy the standard audio podcasts. I listen to several science podcasts, the news from Lake Woebegon, etc. But it wasn't until I started poking around for other podcasts to get some variety that I appreciated the value of an enhanced podcast. The enhancement is that the creator can display images and synchronize them with the podcast audio. You can view them on-line or mobile if you have an iPod capable of displaying video.

The two podcasts that really drove that home for me are both from Jeff Curto, a photography professor at the College of DuPage. One is called Camera Position and consists of fairly short commentaries on one or a small handful of photos. Jeff uses the enhanced podcast very well to show the whole photo he is talking about or to zoom in on a region of the photo to make a point. I'd highly recommend this series if you're in to the history and the creative side of photography.

The other podcast Jeff does is called the History of Photography. These can be longer podcasts from his college lectures, but again he uses the video iPod images very well to enhance his presentation. The summer series of podcasts was a bit more condensed. I wish I would have had something like this when taking art history in college!

With my new found appreciation for enhanced podcasts, a recent post on the Swissmiss site about a video podcast on origami sounded pretty cool. Has anyone been following this series?

Let's Improve Our Aim

2008-09-10T17:26:00.000-04:00

A couple months ago I moved from one area of the building at work to another. That means a change in bathrooms. Unfortunately, this change was for the worse.

If you go in one of the men's bathroom options I have now after mid-morning, it always smells of urine. It seems that in general the people in that area of the building have the worst aim ever when using a urinal. It's not like they are exceptionally small. I just don't get it and I feel sorry for the janitorial staff. C'mon people, let's focus for a minute and make life better for everyone.

So this Boing Boing post that has a link to this original Good Magazine post about motivating change in human behavior is interesting. Let the urinal etching begin!

Photos From Eden Park

2008-09-09T18:56:00.000-04:00

A couple weeks ago while Dianne was at a Sunday morning practice, I went down to Eden Park in Cincinnati (technically Mount Adams, I think) to look around. It was hot and humid that morning, but there wasn't too much wind so I was hoping to get some nice macro photos.

The park is where the Krohn Conservatory is located. Although it was very dry here in August I was hoping there would be something in bloom. There was a nice large plant (a Standard Lantana) loaded with yellow flowers just outside the entrance to the conservatory. Click here to see a larger version on black. I love the fisheye lens!

Rather than go inside the conservatory, I decided to try and take some photos of the water tower in Eden park. It is a 174 feet tall brick structure that was completed in 1894. The challenge I came up with was to get some photos of the tower that excluded other towers or buildings from the background. I was limited in angles that were well lit because of the relatively low angle of the sun.

The first photo I took was from a bit of a distance as I hiked up the hill. I adjusted the exposure to lighten the shadow under the tree in the foreground. Unfortunately, that also washed out the color of the bricks (compare it to the other photos below). I used the trees to both frame the tower and mask a building on the right side. You can see how brown the grass is from our lack of rain. Click here to see a larger version on black.

The second shot is taken a little closer to the tower. By moving up the hill and closer, I got the interfering building out of the frame. I also didn't worry about the detail in the dark shadow at the bottom of the photo, and this helps give a richer look to the colors.

To avoid getting some type of transmitting tower in the photo at the left side, I cropped the image so the tower is off center in the frame. In the original photo, the tower is centered in the frame so the vertical lines on the tower are straight when using the fisheye lens. However, this off center crop gives an uneven distortion to the trees on the left and right sides of the frame. This isn't too evident with trees, but still this isn't my favorite photo. Click here to see a larger version on black.

The last water tower photo is my favorite. This is taken near the base, just across the road that circles the base of the tower. Compared to the other photos above, this view is looking more at the left side of the water tower. Instead of having the sun at my back as in the photos above, the sun is now at the right rear, so you can start to see some shadows on the left side of small cylinder and on the bricks.

I like the depth that the shadows create. I also like the framing from the trees. Like the two photos above, I centered the tower in the lens to minimize distortion of the vertical lines on the tower. But with this photo I cropped it evenly left to right. I think having the distortion balanced results in a better effect. Quite an impressive structure. Here is a larger version on black.

After getting my fill of water tower photos, I walked across the bridge that starts near the base of the tower and goes over the top of Eden Park Drive toward the Ohio river. I had never been on that road before. It takes you to a wonderful overlook of the Ohio river, just upstream from Cincinnati. There were just a couple people there enjoying the view of the Sunday morning boaters on the river. All in all a nice visit to Eden Park.

Desparate for Wine

2008-09-08T12:10:00.000-04:00

Have you ever been somewhere and wanted to drink some wine from the bottle you brought along, but forgot a corkscrew? Personally, that's why you carry a Swiss army knife. The folks from Wired posted this article about how to open a bottle with a screw, screwdriver, and a claw hammer. Yeah...like if I don't have a corkscrew I'll have all this stuff with me!

She Called Us!

2008-09-07T18:14:00.003-04:00

We had a phone call today from Sarah Palin. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to pick it up. But she left a very nice voicemail message reminding us that she is going to be at the historic Golden Lamb in Lebanon, OH on Tuesday morning. I'm sure the kman will be there.

I bet if I had talked to her directly, she would have mentioned her views on banning books from the library and also her stance on teaching creationism in the classroom. I really want to ask her what deity and what view of creation she would want in the textbooks. I can only assume she is a Pastafarian and a member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. RAmen!

Fertility and the Didgeridoo

2008-09-07T11:55:00.003-04:00

Apparently Sarah Palin's oldest daughter does not play the didgeridoo. See this story.

Interesting Photography Sites

2008-08-30T21:05:00.000-04:00

I'm going back through blog posts I've added as favorites over the last few weeks. There have been several interesting photography related entries.

The first went viral pretty fast. The writer of the Morbid Anatomy blog, Joanna Ebenstein, put together a collection of photos taken of items in public museum collections. You can look at the results here -- click on Gallery. It's a wonderful body (no pun intended) of work! Joanna is now looking to extend the project to include photos of items in private collections.

Speaking of photographing items in science museums, Meera Sethi, a member of the Utata group, has an excellent post about photographing items in museums. You can read the post here.

If conventional light photography is too mundane, go out and get a few x-ray machines and make some photos that way like Nick Veasey. Wired Magazine had an interesting article on Nick and his use of x-rays. I liked some of the composite images where he has stitched together radiographs of separate objects to make a scene that appears to have been x-rayed all at one time. Check out the images in the article.

Finally, I'm always a sucker for high speed photography. Flickr user Nebarnix has an amazing set of high speed photographs in his Flickr photostream. They are worth a look. The photo below of an egg getting blasted is one of Nebarnix's shots. This is a favorite from Nebarnix's collection.

Beautiful Katamari

2008-08-29T23:36:00.003-04:00

Several years ago Dianne bought a video game for our Sony Playstation 2 called Katamari Damacy. The basic idea of the game is that you control a prince (a paper version pictured to the right) or one of his cousins that is using a magical, sticky ball to collect object as the ball rolls over them. The bigger the ball gets, the bigger the items are that can be collected by the ball. The prince and his cousins all have this characteristic cylindrically shaped head.

When Dianne first described the game play, I thought it sounded like the lamest idea ever for a game. After watching her play a few rounds, I decided to try it. Once you get the hang of controlling the ball, there is something very pleasing about rolling up everything from little bits of candy to buildings to mountains and clouds. I was addicted. Many items you roll up make sounds and that adds to the fun. The music is cute too and Dianne even bought a CD of one of the soundtracks. We now have a few different versions of the game that have different worlds with a variety of objectives. If you've never tried it, give it a shot sometime.

Just the other day Dianne found a good deal on an Xbox 360 version of the game called Beautiful Katamari. It's the same idea, just some different worlds to explore. I've been playing that a bit.

Given my like for the game, it's not surprising that a post about a Katamari hat on the Craft Magazi ne blog caught my eye. The writer of the itchy stichy blog wrote a post about how to make a Katamari prince hat for a baby. Doesn't that just win the cutest hat ever award for a baby? I could see Kyra wearing one of these. Compare the baby costume to the paper character above -- pretty good match!

Dayton Dragons Baseball Game

2008-08-19T10:04:00.001-04:00

It was a busy weekend of activities for us. In addition to roller derby on Saturday night, we went to watch the Dayton Dragons take on the Great Lakes Loons from Midland, Michigan in a minor league baseball game on Sunday evening. I’m not entirely convinced the Loons thought through their team name and branding, but they ended up beating the Dragons 9 to 8. It was a beautiful night for a baseball game.

Before the game, Dianne and I were looking around outside the stadium a bit. She took a photo of me next to the oversized baseball and bat sculptures that line the pedestrian area. I also got to meet Gem, the female dragon mascot of the team. She wasn’t too talkative, but she was very expressive. Most of the little kids loved her, although Gem did freak out one boy that started crying when his parents tried to get him to stand next to her. I couldn’t resist having Dianne get a photo of me with Gem (I guess named because Dayton is the Gem City). It is similar to my rollergirl photo collection. The person inside the costume was really good and earning their pay.

The best part of the evening, thanks to Carla, was that we had free Sky Box tickets. Actually this was our second visit to the box. I didn’t blog about the first game a few weeks ago. The photo at the right is a fisheye lens shot of the Sky Box suite. There is an air conditioned lounge area with a TV so you can watch the game or a host of other cable channels. If you go straight out the glass door on the left there is a private, 10 seat stadium seating area where you can sit and watch the game. That is a fantastic way to take in a baseball game! If it is hot you can come in, cool off, and not miss any of the action.

We were there with Kyle, Tresha, Trei, Kyra and some of their friends as well as three other folks. Kyle got a great photo of us when Dianne was trying to get a photo of us with her iPhone. It was a very nice group, although we missed Carla (she wasn’t feeling 100%) and her parents. Here is a photo of the group.

Besides the baseball game itself, the Dragons organization does a great job involving the crowd. After every side out, they have some type of short activity, dance, skit, etc. to keep the crowd in to the game. My favorite is the Lemonhead sponsored contest where they select three babies from the crowd and have their moms bring them out on the field in strollers and face the crowd. A video camera person is there showing the kids faces on the jumbo-sized scoreboard screen. One at a time, the moms give the kids a taste of lemon juice and the crowd cheers for their favorite sour face. I know, it seems a little cruel, but it is funny to see the expressions.

Below are a couple shots. The first is of Dianne watching the game near the start and the second is the stadium just after the sun went down. It was a fun evening. Thanks much to Carla!!

Crosstown Knockout

2008-08-18T01:33:00.002-04:00

I’m not a basketball fan. In all our years in Cincinnati, we’ve never been to a Crosstown Shootout event where the local basketball teams from Xavier and the University of Cincinnati compete. On the other hand, a Crosstown Knockout can’t be missed. Dianne and I went to the Black-n-Bluegrass Rollergirls’ Crosstown Knockout bout where they hosted the Silent Lambs team of the Cincinnati Rollergirls. The event was held at Sportsville in Florence.

The BBRG team, the Moonshiners, came out strong and controlled the first few jams to hold the Silent Lambs scoreless and jump out to an early lead. It was pretty obvious from those early jams that the BBRG jammers Morgue Ann le Slayer and Petal to The Metal (in photo at right) were speedy skaters with good ability to find holes, slip through the pack, and get lead jammer status. They made the Lambs’ blockers work especially hard all evening – both when jamming and blocking. Perhaps it was early bout jitters or maybe it was getting used to the basketball court surface, but the Silent Lambs settled in after those first few jams, chipped away at the early Moonshiner lead, and ended up +18 by the end of the first period. Early on the usual Lamb jammers Dr. McDerby, Miss Print, and Cherry Choke were scoring, but several skaters including Maim E. Van Gore’n, Shirley Temptya, and Bex Pistol wore the jammer star during the match.

As Miss Print discussed in her pre-bout post, there are several former CRG skaters now with the BBRG. Undoubtedly that added a little tension to the match, but in general it seemed everyone skated with good faith intentions for fair blocks. Nevertheless, there were some friendly jabs being tossed about that added to the crosstown rivalry. The Moonshiners had a poster above their bench that said “Sheep – it’s what’s for dinner.” Pretty funny. Quite a few of the CRG’s Black Sheep were sitting in the suicide seats, cheering on their CRG teammates with specially made posters. The photo at the right shows CandyKICKass holding a couple of them during a break.

In the second period, the scoring was fairly even and at the end of the period the Silent Lambs were ahead by approximately the same margin as at the end of the first period. I’ll guess that the relatively slick surface and some fearless blocking both contributed to a lot of falls during the bout. The photo at the right shows Miss Print falling on her knees after a block. BBRG blocker Buckhead Betty was tough and gave some hard blocks, although she did receive her fair share of penalties associated with that effort.

In the third period, the Silent Lambs once again picked up the scoring pace to widen their lead. I wasn’t tracking penalties, but it seemed like the BBRG team had a few more and a couple that involved their jammer and that hurt them. The whole Lamb team was contributing to blocking and seemed especially focused on controlling the inside line at the front of the pack. The Silent Lambs ended up winning the bout by a score of 92 to 66. Congratulations to all the Silent Lambs.

After the bout I had a chance to meet Geez Louise, who made several hard hits during the match to open up holes and slow the BBRG jammers. Dianne got this photo of me with Geez Louise. You can see all my photos from the event in this Flickr set. Below you'll see one of the better photos I got when Miss Print fell on her knees after taking a hit.

This was the first time for us at a BBRG event. We enjoyed the air conditioned Sportsville arena and the lighting was fantastic for a derby event! I can’t wait to see Jason and Jeff’s photos from the bout. With all those extra photons to work with, I’m sure they’ll have some especially interesting photos. As BBRG grows their league, I’m sure they’ll start drawing larger crowds and will refine their logistics to put on better and better events. They have some talented skaters and a lot of potential that will lead to some interesting Crosstown Knockouts in the future. They have one more home event on September 20th, so check them out.

I believe this was the last of the regular season bouts for the CRG teams. However, they do have some tournament battles coming up. Good luck to the Black Sheep in that effort. Check their site, Miss Print’s blog, and the Flock message board for more info on the post-season and off-season activities.

Our Weekend At TDI

2008-08-14T22:11:00.003-04:00

Lots to blog about, but I haven’t been posting like I should.

A couple weeks ago, as our anniversary present to each other, we spent 3 days at the Tactical Defense Institute in West Union, Ohio. We took their handgun sequence I, II, and III along with three other friends from work. Dianne took this picture of me with Gary on the pistol range. We both wanted to improve our shooting technique and, as an extra bonus, the first two days fulfill the training requirements for Ohio’s concealed carry permit. I don’t know how much of a bonus that is since I doubt I’ll be doing that very much if I get the permit.

I had heard a few positive comments about TDI and read a bit about them. However, you never know exactly what to expect. When we got there, I was pleasantly surprised at how large and nice the facility was. When we walked in to the classroom, there were about 30 people there! It was a mixed group of some less experienced shooters and some experienced military and police officers. I wondered how much instruction we’d get with such a large class, but there were also about a dozen or so instructors. That student/instructor ratio was nice to both create a safe environment and give you enough time with an instructor to learn something.

The first day was mostly classroom instruction, with some shooting at the end of the day. It was a typical hot, humid Southern Ohio day so that was OK with me. The second day we spent about ¾ of the day on the range and the last day was all on the range. We got to know our new pistols very well as Dianne and I each shot over 1000 rounds for the long weekend. They showed us a lot of techniques and explain why they suggest doing things that way. I have a lot to practice! I found all the instructors knowledgeable, patient, and very good about providing constructive feedback and encouragement.

The highlight was a search exercise in one of the “live fire houses” at the end of the third day. The “house” was a framed, single floor structure with chipboard walls. The entire structure was surrounded by earth walls. The objective was to apply all the tactical techniques we learned to search a house and deal with thugs or innocent people pictured on targets placed throughout the house. You used live rounds in your pistol to handle the targets. When going through the house, an instructor was right behind you to both set up the search scenario and provide coaching and a final evaluation. We were sent to the house in pairs, but did the exercise one at a time. I went through the house first and did ok hitting the thugs and not shooting unarmed targets – except for the last target that was a hostage situation. I took three shots and got the thug in the head and neck with the first two but then I went low and hit the unarmed hostage in the head. Obviously I need some practice :^) After that, I was able to follow Dianne and the instructor through the same house -- of course not saying anything or giving anything away. Dianne did very well! Don't mess with her.

Overall we enjoyed the weekend and learned a lot. I’d highly recommend TDI for anyone interested in that type of training. All the instructors were very professional and they handled safety issues quickly and assertively. We plan to return one day and take some of their other course offerings once we’ve had a chance to practice the basic techniques we picked up.

Nineteen Years Ago Today

2008-08-12T08:47:00.001-04:00

What were you doing 19 years ago? I was getting married. Happy anniversary, Dianne!

It is dinner out for us at Bella Luna to celebrate.

Webisodes of The Office

2008-07-22T15:28:00.000-04:00

As Erika has pointed out, I'm usually behind the times on posting web finds. This post probably falls in that category.

If you are a fan of NBC's The Office, you probably heard the one hour season premier is scheduled for September 25th. Until then, are you watching The Office summer webisodes that are following Kevin's antics? There are two webisodes available that you can watch here.

Hell on Wheels and CRG's Southern Discomfort

2008-07-20T17:37:00.010-04:00

It was a roller derby weekend for us. On Friday night Dianne and I went to see the documentary “Hell on Wheels” at the Know Theatre in Cincinnati. The film chronicles the revival of roller derby in Texas at the start of the century. There was some footage of derby bouts, but most of the film was spent following the skaters and covering the league politics that happened behind the scenes. It was interesting how the model of skater owned leagues evolved from the initial model where a few people tried to control decisions. Since the teams use a pay-to-play approach, control of a league by a small group reminded me of the taxation without representation issue. And yes, there was a revolution that led to skater owned leagues emerging all over the country and world today. If you’re interested in roller derby, you’ll enjoy the film.

Saturday night Dianne and I went to the Cincinnati Rollergirls’ “Southern Discomfort” event at the Cincinnati Gardens. It was a steamy night in the Gardens that was made even hotter by a nail biting bout between the Black Sheep and the Carolina Rollergirls (who were ranked #3) that Cincinnati won with a score of 74 to 69! Congratulations to the Black Sheep for the big win!

Before the skating started, several people including CRG skaters Panterrorize and The Librarian got their hair cut for a hair donation to Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths program. The hair donations are used to make wigs for women who have lost their hair due to cancer treatments. The first picture on the right shows Panterrorize with her girls who were getting their hair measured and tied up to the proper length for the donation. The next photo shows The Librarian holding her freshly cut hair. It was nice so many folks made the donations.

The CRG Silent Lambs apparently couldn’t find another team that was willing or available to skate against them, so they split into two small squads (the Demon Barbers and the Beauty School Dropouts) that played off the hair donation theme. It was a short scrimmage, but it looked like some of the skaters were making good use of the opportunity to get out some aggression and make some hits on their teammates. The photo at right shows Skates With Fists ahead of Maim E. Van Gore’n (was she visiting or has she transferred?) during a jam. The photo below shows Bex Pistol giving a block to Skates With Fists. Don't you love the bloody barber aprons on Skates and Miss Print?

The main event of the evening was the bout between the CRG Black Sheep and the highly ranked Carolina Rollergirls. I have to say going in I thought this was going to be another interesting, but painful bout to watch since Carolina was ranked #3 – similar to the match between Cincinnati and Philly earlier this year. But after the first few jams, Cincinnati held the lead and looked very strong. They were shutting down the Carolina jammers in the early jams. Even when Carolina started to score, Cincinnati’s speedy skating, coordinated blocking, and strategic stopping of jams gave them a few point advantage on each jam. At the half, Cincinnati was ahead with a score of 47 to 24! In my post from the Philly bout, I mentioned the contrast between the CRG blockers that seemed to focus on defense and the Philly blockers that had the ability to shift from defensive blocking to helping their jammer. Cincinnati must have learned and practiced that blocking coordination because they were using that tactic effectively to keep ahead of Carolina. Special kudos to tail blockers Panterrorize (more aerodynamic after her hair cut) and Ruff’n the Passer who were shifting from defense to escort duty to aid their jammers through the pack. The photo at right illustrates that effort as Panterrorize pushes CandyKICKass to give her a boost of speed to get through the Carolina blockers. When the tail blockers moved up that must have been a clue to the other blockers to help the jammer if not tied up with holding back the Carolina jammer. The coordination was really fun to watch. Combine that with some tough CRG pivots in front and Carolina had their work cut out for them. The tough blocking went both ways though and everyone in the pack got a workout in that heat.

After a male flat track derby demo at the half, Cincinnati got off to a rough start in the second half. There were a string of penalties, including some track cuts by the jammers, that really slowed Cincinnati down. It’s hard to shift blocking from offense to defense when you’re not at full strength. Jammers in the box obviously slow you down and as a result it was anyone’s game with about 8 minutes to go. Sadie got a major penalty for back blocking or hands/forearms in the third to last jam that sent her to the box. It was across the track from me, but it appeared she was pushed into hitting someone from behind. In any case, that gave Carolina the chance to get within a couple points. However, Sadie came out of the box and in the next to last jam got lead jammer status, scored some points to seal the victory, and called off the jam before Carolina could score. The entire crowd was standing and cheering during that jam. The last jam was academic just to run out the clock. Congratulations to the CRG Black Sheep on the big win!

What an amazing finish to the last home bout of the season! After the match I had the chance to meet blocker Mae C. Stars and Dianne took a photo of us. I didn’t take too many photos because I was caught up in the excitement of the match. You can see some other photos in my Flickr pool here. Although their home events are done, there is another CRG match locally when they take on the Black-n-Bluegrass Rollergirls at Sportsville in Florence, Kentucky. It may be interesting to see CRG skaters take on some of their former teammates that are very familiar with their style. Stay tuned to Miss Print’s blog and the CRG Flock page for additional events. Thanks to the CRG group for another exciting year in the Gardens and congratulations on the Carolina victory!

The iPhone Plunge

2008-07-16T23:35:00.003-04:00

Last Friday Dianne and I got up early and headed to the Apple Store in the Kenwood Towne Centre to try and get the new iPhone. We got there just after 7 and there was a long line already forming. While Dianne waited in line at the Apple Store, I went to check out the AT&T kiosk. When we walked past the kiosk there was hardly anyone waiting there. I found out the line was short because the AT&T kiosk only had 20 units – 10 of the 8 Gb phones and 10 of the 16 Gb phones. I left the kiosk line and rejoined Dianne. We were 83rd and 84th in line.

The wait wasn’t too bad. We were talking with folks in line and the Apple store was providing coffee and water for everyone. A guy next to us had arrived about 1 in the morning, but couldn’t get in the mall to get in line until the doors opened. Unfortunately there was some confusion about which mall doors should open first and he happened to be at an entrance that opened later. As a result, he ended up in line near us and was way behind folks that arrived later. It’s too bad they didn’t issue numbers to keep it fair.

The store opened at 8 and we were in the store about 9:30ish. The salesperson talked to us for a bit, found out what we needed, and started to process our purchase. He had to do them one at a time. My purchase went through right away. I was handed off to an activation specialist to register my phone and activate it via the Apple iTunes store. That didn’t work. The iTunes store was overwhelmed with requests and they couldn’t activate it as advertised, so I was given instructions on how to do it at home. I went to see if Dianne was done with her purchase, but the salesperson had barely made any progress since the AT&T server connection went down! Yikes! It took about 30 minutes to get through and purchase her phone. At least we got them!

We had our phones registered in the early afternoon and were checking out the features. The portable email and web browsing are pretty cool. The GPS with traffic reports will be handy. Overall, an amazing product so far and a huge improvement over our LG phones we had through Verizon.

The only thing that has been disappointing is the MobileMe service. We’ve experienced a lot of server delays and synchronization issues that really shouldn’t happen with an Apple product. Usually things happen like magic, but this service has taken quite a bit of fiddling to get set up. Hopefully they’ll get their act together soon.

A Cooking Memory Aid

2008-07-14T15:18:00.000-04:00

Ever have trouble remembering how many cups are in a pint or how many pints are in a gallon? Check out this drawing that serves as a memory aid for the cup/pint/quart/gallon relationships.

Mailboxes

2008-07-12T14:59:00.000-04:00

A couple weeks ago the weekly theme for the Macro Mondays group on Flickr was "mailboxes." We share a small locking box that is grouped with about 24 others into a case provided by the USPS. They are a few years old and the excessive amount of salt used to treat the roads in the winter has taken its toll on the metal. I got a couple photos of the rust on the external part of the boxes. One of the photos is shown to the right and you can see the other one here.

For something different, I thought it would be interesting to get a photo from inside the box looking out while a hand reached in or an eye looked inside for mail. Since mailboxes are so long and hard to access, I made a false mailbox using an aluminum foil oven liner. Instead of making a standard box shape, I made the opening on one end of the box a lot larger than the other so it was easier to fit the camera lens in tight and light the interior. I used a fisheye lens to enhance the distorted perspective. Dianne, my creative consultant, took the shot so I didn't have to bother with a tripod and she also directed the placement of me and the mail to get the right effect. I illuminated the shot with a single flash, bounced off an umbrella and used another reflector on the opposite side of the box to soften some shadows. It turned out well and made Flickr's Explore.

Street Views

2008-07-10T14:42:00.000-04:00

I'm a big fan of Google Maps. It's my first choice when looking for something. It has some nice features to plan routes, adjust them on the fly, overlay satellite views, etc. But Dianne just clued me in to the latest feature -- Street Views.

When you're looking for an address in a major city, click on the street view button and you're likely to see a view right from the location you searched for! And the view is from right in the street! But it gets even better, the image is a full 360 photo that you can rotate to see all the buildings around that location. It's the ultimate for situational awareness to help you expect what to see when driving to a certain spot. The interface also lets you move along the street just like you're driving down the road.

So how did they do it? This article explains it very well. Google worked with Immersive Media that installed 360 degree cameras on the tops of cars that have crisscrossed streets in 13 cities. Fortunately one of those cities is Cincinnati. I used the street views last week to find out exactly where a particular bus stop was located and what businesses were around it for reference. Pretty cool. Check it out next time you're using Google Maps.

Things From Work

2008-07-08T14:21:00.000-04:00

A couple weeks ago the weekly theme for the Macro Mondays group on Flickr was "things from work." I expected there would be a lot of photos of typical desk items, so I tried to think of something different.

The photo to the right is actually a composite of several shots of my hand in different positions above the calculator to give a sense of movement. I started with a base photo of the calculator with my left hand beside it. I overlayed the photos of my right hand on top of that. I'm not that great at Photoshop, so it took forever to piece together. I tried another shot using a long exposure and moving my hand, but I like the photo here a bit better.

A friend at work was kind enough to let me borrow a model of a human vertebra. Before moving to the QA area, I worked in different osteoporosis research positions. It was always handy to have models around for discussion purposes. This is a vertebra from the second lumbar level. I used two diffused flashes (one from the right and one from the left rear) to create the shadows and bring out some of the texture of the bone. It pops out nicely from the black felt background.

Capture Cincinnati Photo Contest

2008-07-06T08:21:00.001-04:00

I'm not too proud to beg.

CiN Weekly is once again running the Capture Cincinnati photo contest. Just like last year's contest, the end product of the contest is a book that will include a DVD with it. The book will have the top photos from each chapter/topic (people, nature, everyday life, sports, etc.) based on votes, comments, and hearts that indicate people who "loved" your photo. You're guaranteed at least one photo on the DVD (last year I had several), but not necessarily something in the book.

That's where you come in. I have entered many of the photos you've seen here on my blog in the contest and I'd appreciate your votes, comments, and hearts to move some photos up the ranking. You must register on the site to vote, but it doesn't take long. Then click through to my photos and vote for any that catch your eye.

Right now my top vote getter is the Chilo globe shaped panorama I described here. It's a nice, unique photo but I'm a bit surprised that's my top photo so far without any promotion. The next in line is the night photo taken after our blizzard earlier this year.

You can click on either of the photos below to take you to the voting or click on any photo in the sidebar to the right. Thanks for any votes and comments! If you have photos taken around the greater Cincinnati area, upload your own photos and leave a comment to let me know what your name is.

How is Your Pepper Palette?

2008-07-05T14:08:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite food blog reads is Harold McGee's Curious Cooks site that has a collection of his articles from the New York Times. He weaves some technical background into his articles on a variety of food and cooking topics. His recent article about pepper notes in wine was interesting -- especially the fact that a significant portion of the population lacks the ability to detect some flavors. That creates an interesting challenge for cooks trying to season a dish for the average person.

Visit to Findlay

2008-07-04T13:33:00.002-04:00

I have a backlog of items to blog about. A few weeks ago on Father's Day, Dianne and I visited Findlay Market near downtown Cincinnati. It was almost a year to the day that we had last been there.

We had some delicious panini sandwiches for lunch at Angelina Fine Italian Food and then walked around to check out the vendors. We bought some Swedish and some hot Italian sausages from Kroeger & Sons Meats (they have a huge selection of great sausages) and some produce from the outdoor vendors. There weren't a lot of people there, so it was easy to get around. The guitar player at the right was singing a blues tune about fathers. The shot below is the restored store fronts bordering the Market House. The window boxes are very pretty.

A Double Win for the Cincinnati Rollergirls!

2008-06-29T22:48:00.004-04:00

On Saturday night we went to the Cincinnati Rollergirls’ Summer of Shove event at the Cincinnati Gardens. The event was a double header with CRG hosting teams from the Harrisburg Area Roller Derby group. CRG’s Silent Lambs took on the H.A.R.D. Fallout Femmes and CRG’s Black Sheep battled the H.A.R.D. Nuclear Knockouts. Both of the CRG teams won their bouts – the first time that happened at home this year. Congratulations to all the Cincinnati Rollergirls!

It was an extra special night as we had a large group friends from work and their families who joined us for the match. Stephanie labeled the group the Bleating Beau Beeps and made shirts for many of the folks in the group. The photo above shows her with family in the suicide seats. It seemed everyone had a great time thanks to all the friendly volunteers, staff, and skaters. Our folks in the suicide seats were cheering hard for all the Sheep and Lambs and just a couple seats down, Sadistic Sadie had some added cheers (see the photo).

In the first bout between the Silent Lambs and the Fallout Femmes, Cincinnati controlled the match from the start. As in past bouts, Dr. McDerby did an excellent job as a jammer. I wasn’t keeping any stats, but I’d guess she led scoring for the Lambs. The photo at the right shows her sprinting to catch up and pass the pack again.

Miss Print also had a great night scoring and I think had a couple grand slams. She kept up her momentum in the pack and had some good help from the CRG blockers to open up some holes. I really like the photo below that shows Miss Print passing the pack. Other jammers included Cherry Choke, Shirley Temptya, and Rocky Balrolla. All the CRG blockers were doing well at coordinating their efforts to stop the Femmes and aid the CRG jammers. All the Lambs have to be excited about their win! The Lambs won handily with a score of 143 to 56.

In the second bout between the Black Sheep and the Nuclear Knockouts, the pack was skating fairly fast and both teams were pretty physical. The blockers were really working hard on both teams. There were quite a few skaters that took some hard falls and I’m sure there are a lot of sore shoulders today. All the blockers and pivots were contributing to stopping the Knockout jammers – and were pretty effective at doing that. The Knockouts were no pushovers though and they hung in there until the end. I thought one of the best Knockout skaters was Rainbow’s Revenge – both on offense and defense. She didn’t back down from anyone.

Cincinnati held the lead the entire match. Sadistic Sadie was on fire as usual and probably led the scoring. The photo at right shows her keeping an eye on Knockout skater Mother Trucker (I think) while Polisa watches. CandyKICKass also had a good evening with her speed being a lot for the Knockouts to handle. One of my favorite photos of the night is the one below showing Sk8r Kinney giving a hard block so candyKICKass can get around the outside of the pack to score while Fireman Bill keeps a watch on the pack. Hannah Barbaric, Ruff’n the Passer, and Jungle Lacy also jammed for CRG. The Black Sheep won the match with a score of 115 to 69. There was a bench clearing brawl near the end of the match – a surprise and something we haven’t seen for quite a while. One of the Knockouts ended up being ejected from the match.

After the match Dianne got a photo of me with Shirley Temptya, one of the Silent Lamb skaters. Earlier in the evening I got to meet her parents and in-laws that were there to cheer her on. We also talked briefly with Miss Print and her parents, who were visiting from out of town. They picked a great night to see their daughter in action. Jeff Sevier, one of the photographers, came up and introduced himself. Jeff took a nice shot of Dianne and me talking with Morgan Donor after the last home bout. He and Jason take some great derby photos that they post in their Flickr photo streams. Finally, although I have a funny look on my face, Dianne got a photo of me with June with a Cleaver (center) and Killian Destroy (right) who are two of the blockers on the Black Sheep team. Thanks to all the skaters for taking time to chat.

I have a few more photos in my photo pool in Flickr. There is one more scheduled home bout on Saturday, July 19th when the CRG Black Sheep take on one of the top ranked teams in the country, the Carolina All-Stars (now ranked #5 on Flat Track Stats). It’ll be an exciting match and a tough bout for the Black Sheep. Be there to cheer them on at the Gardens. The night before the bout, at the Know Theatre, I just read there will be a showing of “Hell on Wheels,” a roller derby documentary. I'm sure there will be lots of CRG skaters there for the film even though they live the experience.

Summer of Shove

2008-06-26T22:34:00.003-04:00

The Cincinnati Gardens will come alive this Saturday night when the Cincinnati Rollergirls have their "Summer of Shove" doubleheader against the Harrisburg Area Roller Derby teams. Several friends from work and their families will be sitting together as a group for this bout. It should be a great cheering section for the Sheep and Lambs.

I just checked the Flat Track Stats site and CRG moved up after their recent bouts to #19 in the rankings. It's only the second season for the H.A.R.D. skaters, so I'm guessing Cincinnati's talent and experience will pay off with a couple wins. I found a fairly recent bout recap for a H.A.R.D. match against Philly that you can read here. From that recap, it seems like the Nuclear Knockout jammers Mother Trucker and Rainbow's Revenge will be the ones to watch. That article also calls out H.A.R.D. skater Dosa Badazz as a formidable blocker. We'll have to see if she can stop the Black Sheep.

If you haven't caught the Rollergirls yet this season, what are you waiting for!?! This is the next to last scheduled home bout, so get to the Gardens and cheer them on! See you there.

More Cicadas

2008-06-12T22:59:00.003-04:00

I posted about seeing cicadas around here a couple weeks ago when walking to our local Memorial Day parade. This past weekend they have come out in full force near our house and the noise is deafening during the day! When Dianne came in the house a couple days ago, she said she couldn't hear the beep sound signaling the locking of her car doors.

The cicadas are covering the trees and flying around all over the place looking for a partner and laying eggs. The photo to the right shows them in the shade of a tree outside our place. Here is another shot near our neighbor's door.

If you don't have cicadas in your area and you're not familiar with them, you can read more about cicadas here. I found this page with some recordings of cicada sounds. It's hard to appreciate what a chorus of hundreds of them sound like. I think Dianne pegged it when she said it sounds like the Martian noise in the original War of The Worlds film. I found this segment from the film on YouTube. Listen to the sound about 2:30 in to the clip. I'm sure that was their inspiration.

I tried taking some macros of the critters. They are about an inch long, so it's hard to get all of them in focus in an interesting way. The shot below was the best of my close-ups. This one was taking a break from climbing up the tree trunk and just hanging out in the sun.

ADrive

2008-06-09T06:04:00.000-04:00

This site gives 50 Gbytes of online storage free. I guess you always have your stuff available in one central spot. However, it is beta so I could see you losing everything. Is this really better than a thumb drive?

CRG's Welcome To Our Jungle

2008-06-08T15:31:00.003-04:00

On Saturday night, Dianne and I were joined by Carla, Bob, Sue, and Stephanie at the Cincinnati Rollergirls’ event called Welcome To Our Jungle. The doubleheader event pitted the CRG Silent Lambs against the North Star Rollergirls from Minneapolis and the CRG Black Sheep against the Steel City Derby Demons from Pittsburgh. It’ll make Brenda’s day to hear the North Star team beat the Silent Lambs with a score of 109 to 31 (the Minnesota gals must have heard you cheering). In the WFTDA rating bout, the Black Sheep beat Steel City with a score of 130 to 98.

The North Star Rollergirls have a solid team all around. Their blocking was fairly well organized and very tough. The North Stars also had some good jammers. The toughness of the North Stars looked like it made skating in the pack a lot of work! But the Lambs weren’t shy and I thought all the blockers were working hard the entire match. There were a lot of folks trying their hand at jamming. It seemed like the Lambs were swapping folks to find a magic set to get some big points. Dr. McDerby, Miss Print, Jewel B. Hurt, Cherry Choke, Shirley Temptya, and Rocky Balrolla all wore the star at least once. It’s good experience, but I can’t help but think that made it hard for blockers to coordinate and anticipate how to help a particular jammer. I would guess having a couple folks absent (like Jungle Lacy and The Librarian) and a couple moved to the Black Sheep (like Sk8 Crime and candyKICKass) must have affected the team dynamic too. Nevertheless, the whole team worked their tails off until the end. Although it was a tough loss, they all should be proud of their effort. The photo below shows Dr. McDerby and Rocky Balrolla (right in black) look to stop the North Star jammer (in green with star) while just behind her a North Star blocker puts a hit on CRG jammer Cherry Choke.

In the other match, the CRG Black Sheep had a bit of a rocky start against the Derby Demons. I expected the Black Sheep to take an early lead and never look back. It was close for a while, but CRG did finally pull away – especially in the second half. Early on it seemed there were quite a few CRG folks in the penalty box which seemed to hurt some. As usual, the CRG blockers were tough and they seemed better coordinated last night. Most all of the usual suspects were giving some hard hits (I was surprised not to see pivot Kinney) to keep Steel City bottled up. That was a tough job against Steel City jammers like ‘snot Rocket Science (in the photo at right about to be hit by Panterrorize) who is a solid, determined skater! The usual CRG jammers Sadistic Sadie, Roseanne Scarr, and Hannah Barbaric were joined by candyKICKass. It seemed like an additional jammer in the rotation let them get enough rest and still rotate in the pack regularly to help with blocking. Sadie was giving some hard hits like the Bekkie sandwich she made with Mae C. Stars on the inside (see the photo below). The Steel City team had some good blockers too which required CRG teamwork to make holes for the jammers. I thought Steel City’s lead blocker was Athena. She was dishing out some hard hits and just slowing down the CRG jammers in general. Congrats to the Black Sheep on a solid win.

There was a pause in the Black Sheep / Derby demon bout when June with a Cleaver took a hard fall and did a face plant on the concrete. It looked like she split open her chin. She did skate one jam after that with a bandaged chin, but she was bleeding. I certainly hope she feels better soon.

Aside from being kinda hot in the Gardens, I thought it was a good event as usual. I didn’t hear a crowd count, but it didn’t seem like there were as many as the first home bout. What’s up with that? There was a lot to cheer about and the place came alive several times. At half time the Cincinnati Zoo brought out an eagle and some zoo characters for the kids and it was nice to hear some live music at the event.

We had the chance to meet and chat with several of the CRG folks for the first time. First, thanks to Cam for the hospitality and taking time to say hi in between running around for his event duties. It was nice to meet and say hi to Pale Rider before the bout. I hate to disturb him while he's preparing for a match so it was nice of him to stop and say hello. After the matches, Dianne got a photo of me with Silent Lamb skaters Trauma Tease (at left) and Skates with Fists (at right). It was my first time meeting both of them. They were both blocking hard in the Lamb’s bout. I also met Fists’ husband, Brian – always good to meet a fellow derby blogger. Finally, Dianne got a photo of me when we met Morgon Donor (below).

You can see more photos with captions from the event in my Flickr sets for the Silent Lamb match and the Black Sheep match. I decided to kick up the film speed and go flashless, so there is a little grain. A different look, but nice.

The next home bout is on June 28th when the Cincinnati Rollergirls have another doubleheader with two teams from Harrisburg, PA at the Gardens. Be there to cheer on both CRG teams!

Organic Water Macros

2008-06-06T06:15:00.001-04:00

The Macro Mondays group theme this past Monday was "organic water." They had done water before, so the organic clause was attached to eliminate any potable water -- or water you would typically drink.

One thought I had was a teardrop. Dianne kindly served as a model once again and supplied an eye. I put on a couple drops of water as a fake tear. She gave her best sad eye look. She was dealing with allergies and sneezing a lot so her eye is a little red and watery. That added to the effect. I bounced the flash off a white reflector in front of her face for the main light. A grazing flash from the left created a little shadow across the face.

The next shot was a shrub outside our place that has very waxy leaves. The rainwater beads up nicely on them. Since we didn't have any rain this weekend (contrary to the weather people that said we'd have showers) I had to use a spray bottle to mist the leaves. I chose a fairly bright flash and used a small aperture to make the background dark even though it was shot in the middle of a sunny day. After looking at some of the other photos in the pool, I think I would do it differently in the future. A grazing flash from above enhances the drops on the leaves.

As a final shot, on a whim I misted a spider web on some type of evergreen shrub near our place. The web suspended the drops nicely. I took the shot and then later noticed when processing it that all the big drops acted like little magnifying glasses and you can see the reflection of the shrub in each drop. It looks pretty cool, but I didn't think the photo was that great from a composition standpoint. I was pleasantly surprised to see this made it to #4 at one point on the Flickr Explore list of the top 500 photos of that day. You can see a larger version by clicking here.

It's a Roller Derby Weekend+

2008-06-05T05:49:00.000-04:00

This Saturday night the Cincinnati Rollergirls have another double header scheduled at the Cincinnati Gardens. The CRG Silent Lambs will battle the North Star Rollergirls from Minneapolis. You can see the North Star travel team here. I know all you Minnesota readers will be pulling for the North Star team, but we'll see if they are in one piece after challenging the Lambs. In the other WFTDA bout, the CRG Black Sheep will take on the Steel City Derby Demons from Pittsburgh. You can see the Pittsburgh travel team here. According to the rankings on Flat Track Stats, the Black Sheep should have a good night. Be there to cheer all the CRG folks on.

On Thursday evening, the Cincinnati Rollergirls will be in the Milford Frontier Days Parade. This is also their pep rally for the bout on Saturday. For more info on the parade route, check out the Frontier Days site here.

Also, on Friday evening, the Rollergirls will be at the C&D Cafe in Northside from 7-9:30. That was posted on the CRG Flock message board. I'm sure you're all registered there and visit regularly, so this is probably old news.

Marital Rating Scale

2008-06-04T06:29:00.000-04:00

I find old articles an interesting glimpse into the thoughts and culture of the time the article was written. This article on the American Psychological Association's website caught my eye. It has one page of a marital rating chart that a husband would use to rate his wife. Dianne would rate high -- I knew that even before I saw the quiz. One reason for her high score is she would have very few demerits. She never wears soiled or ragged dresses and aprons around the house, never wears red nail polish, never has cracked seams in her hose, and never goes to bed with curlers on her hair or much face cream. Now, item #9 is a different story.

Check out the article to see a larger version of the chart.

Another To-Do List

2008-06-03T06:51:00.000-04:00

A week or so ago I posted about a new todo list site called remember the milk. That might be too complicated when you can just grab a pen and jot something on your hand. How many folks haven't done that before?

Well here is the high-tech implementation of that approach. To-Do tattoos. Check it out here.

Out and About on Sunday

2008-06-02T06:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Dianne and I went to Lunken airport to see the Liberty Belle, a B-17 Flying Fortress. You can read the specifics about the plane here. It's always a thrill to see a beautifully restored warbird in use. I saw it fly over our place on Saturday. I heard it coming -- a very unusual engine sound. I knew the plane was in town this weekend so I popped my head out the window and saw it flying back down to Lunken.

I didn't take a ride. The $430 price for a 20-30 minute ride was too steep for me. It was just great to watch it in action. There was quite a crowd as you see in the photo to the right showing the Belle taxiing for takeoff. The photo below shows the Belle on the ramp near the old terminal, exchanging passengers for the next flight. If you look closely, you'll see the left two props spinning as they wait to load.

After visiting Lunken, we drove to Devou park in Covington, Kentucky. The park is just across the Ohio river from Cincinnati and there is a pavilion at the top with an overlook that gives a wonderful view of the Ohio river and downtown Cincinnati. The photo below shows us at the overlook with downtown Cincinnati to the left. A nice park to catch the view.

What Happens In Vegas...

2008-06-01T08:37:00.003-04:00

...stays in Vegas unless you blog about it and post a video on YouTube using the iMac in your hotel room. The Fontainbleau hotel and casino, scheduled to open in 2009 at the North end of the Vegas strip, says it has partnered with Apple to provide a digital media program and will have an iMac in every room. As their brochure says, "an iMac in every guest room inspires guests to share memories and encourages personal expression." Can you imagine the material that will be available from a 3889 room hotel/casino/resort?

Peel P50

2008-05-30T18:48:00.001-04:00

Stephanie's love of automobiles and of the BBC television show Top Gear has got me tuning in more often -- especially since we're in the summer TV dry spell. The other night we caught this segment below where Jeremy tests a 1960s era car. It's a cute segment that really had me laughing. Can you imagine commuting in a "car" like the Peel P50?

Cicadas Are Back

2008-05-29T18:40:00.000-04:00

When Dianne and I were walking to the Blue Ash Memorial Day parade, Dianne noticed several cicadas and their exoskeletons on trees near the Hunt Road House. There wasn't any noise, so they must have recently emerged from the ground and started their climb up the tree. The first photo below shows one that had just shed the exoskeleton and was moving its wings in the sunshine. The second shot shows one trying to emerge. Actually, it was hard to tell if it was stuck or dead, but it was interesting to see how the back splits and they come out. If you want to brush up on your cicada anatomy, I found this site pretty interesting.

Obsession, Passion, and Addiction

2008-05-28T19:12:00.001-04:00

That was the theme this week in the Macro Mondays group on Flickr. Dianne came to mind immediately. I worked that into a triptych shown below. I have to work on the eye photo technique, as there is quite the lighting reflection in the eye. I really like the hand hold macro.

For the other shot I went with wine corks to fit the theme. I used a combination of synthetic and cork, red wine stained and not. I played around with a few different arrangements before I came up with a composition I liked. The lighting also took some time to figure out. The main light was a flash with a grid (to diffuse the light a bit) from high left. To break up the shadow from that light, I used a softbox on the left. That still left some harsh shadows and the undersides were dark. I placed the corks on a white, opaque sheet of craft plastic supported on a piece of glass raised above the table. Underneath I placed a mirror on the table and bounced a flash off the mirror to illuminate the corks from the bottom. It makes the support whiter, lightens the shadows even more, and illuminates the undersides of the corks. I love that trick.

Plane Crash at Blue Ash Airport

2008-05-27T18:34:00.001-04:00

There was a plane crash at the Blue Ash airport this weekend. You can read the story and see a photo of the wreckage here. It's amazing the pilot walked away. This plane was the backup plane I used during flight training when my favorite rental was being used or out of service.

Memorial Day Weekend

2008-05-26T17:54:00.005-04:00

Memorial Day weekend was pretty quiet for us. We stayed close to home.

Saturday was a beautiful day here. We ran a couple errands and made a visit to the lake part of the Sharon Woods park in the greater Cincinnati area. I wanted to get out and do a little walking. We didn't walk around the whole lake, but my leg is feeling much better and I'm better able to keep pace with Dianne -- compared to my shuffling of last week. This photo, from the top of the boat rental building, shows some people renting paddle boats. The place was packed and there were quite a few boats coming and going. Several folks were fishing and we saw a few catch some sunfish. The water seemed a bit muddy from the rain we had.

Today we went to downtown Blue Ash to watch the Memorial Day parade. It's kind of sad we've been here well over a decade and this is the first time we went to the parade. There were the typical (for me) color guards, bands, National Guard vehicles, etc. A couple F-16s flew over (the speaker for the service at the veteran's memorial was from Wright Patterson AFB) and three of the Cincinnati Warbirds did a fly-by as well. Being an election year, there were LOTS of political candidate groups in the parade. All of them were tossing out candy for attention and the little kids were like vacuum cleaners sucking up the morsels. I don't remember the candy thing going on in Memorial Day parades when I was growing up.

The photo at the right shows the American Legion color guard that led the parade. The first shot below are members of the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office Pipe & Drum corps. The second shot is a Shriner clown car. The car was carefully balanced over the rear axle. It could drive down the street normally, but a slight shift in weight would make the front wheels come up. The car could spin around on the back wheels and the casters below the rumble seat. This is when they were spinning around and waving to the crowd. One of the clowns was riding a bike where the hubs of the wheels were off center. He was bobbing and rocking as he was riding along. That brought back memories of a similar bike my dad made. Too funny.

Remember the Milk

2008-05-24T17:44:00.000-04:00

Do you keep a 'to do' list? Is it scattered in many spots? Or maybe it is organized in one spot, but not one that you can always get to readily? If so, the site Remember the Milk might be for you.

In its simplest form, Remember the Milk is a web service that maintains your to do list. But it goes way beyond having to log in to see your list. The service interacts with many different sites and devices such as Twitter, Gmail, iGoogle, Google Calendar, Blackberries, iPhone, or the iPod Touch. I just set up the service myself yesterday. I like the interface with the Google Calendar as Dianne and I have a shared calendar set up already.

So if you're out and about and want to jot a to do item, you can send it to RTM (I do it via Twitter on my phone) and the item gets added to your list. You can access your list almost anywhere with a Blackberry or iPhone, or near a WiFi spot with an iPod Touch. If you establish contacts you can create todo items for others. That might be dangerous :^)

Anyone else tried Remember the Milk? Let me know so I can assign some to dos to you.

Film Noir Macros

2008-05-23T18:26:00.000-04:00

This past Monday the theme in the Macro Mondays group in Flickr was "film noir." I've been watching a lot of film noir in the past year, so I was excited for the theme. Just earlier this week I watched a film noir classic In a Lonely Place with Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame. I thought it was a very good, but tense film. I'm biased though as I'm a big Bogart fan due to many of his film noir efforts like Dark Passage, High Sierra, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, etc. and I've always liked Gloria Grahame. She played Violet in It's a Wonderful Life, but I liked her best in the film noir classic The Big Heat. I'm not a huge Glenn Ford fan, but The Big Heat is a great film and Gloria gives a solid performance.

Although I was familiar with the style, I wasn't sure how to do that in a macro. The film noir look is also a very different style of photography than I'm used to shooting so it was a challenge to get the right gritty, dark mood. I was happy with the outcome and the first shot made Flickr's Explore.

For my first shot I wanted to capture a murder scene and decided to use a bloody knife at the main subject. I used a piece of tapestry left over from this project as my background. I used concentrated cherry juice as my blood and used a stick to spatter some "blood" on the cloth. It took quite a bit to get a gruesome murder scene look. I also put some on the knife blade and on the handle where the bloody glove would have been holding it. To make the blood stand out in black & white, I used a green filter to enhance the red color (or darken it in b&w). I used a snoot on the flash to localize the light and did some post-processing to even enhance the vignette effect. Here is the result.

For my second shot, I tried to create a photo of items on Sam Spade's desk under light shining through the window from a streetlight or the moon. I wanted to create a shadow effect from the window pane or writing on the window. I was stymied until I discussed it with Dianne and she quickly suggested printing what I wanted on a transparency and then hold that above and shine a light through to create a shadow. She's full of great ideas! So what would Sam have on his desk? Probably a revolver, some cigarettes (which I had to buy), and matches. I used a flashlight with a tight beam to light the scene through the transparency of a skylight window pane. This is borderline macro -- maybe an up close still life. Again I did a little post-processing to enhance the vignette. Here is the result.

Sciatica on the Ropes?

2008-05-22T22:07:00.003-04:00

I've been dealing with some bad sciatic pain these last few weeks that has really limited what I can do. I had an MRI a couple weeks ago that showed some degenerative changes in my lower spine that are causing some narrowing of the canals where the spinal cord travels and where the nerve roots branch off going to my left and right leg. The pain/tingling/numbness/muscle weakness is on my left side. It's been especially bad in the morning, consistent with the stenosis diagnosis and the third paragraph of the clinical description on this page. The physician's assistant for the orthopedist was most concerned about my lack of knee reflex on the left side. She even had me do the Jendrassik maneuver with counting backwards to no avail.

This morning I had my first epidural steroid injection. Except for a couple "bee stings" of anesthetic (see this post for my love of that -- this wasn't as bad as the dermatologist), it was just an odd feeling of pressure when the steroid solution was injected. They said it would take 1-3 days to kick in, but I felt considerably better later today (placebo effect?). I'm hoping the sciatic pain is on the ropes. I'm still far from 100%, but if the effect continues I'll be much better off this weekend. I'm hoping it'll be relatively painless to get out of bed tomorrow morning.

Tumblr

2008-05-21T18:28:00.000-04:00

Many months ago I signed up for a service called Tumblr. It's a service that creates a content stream that is made up of items pulled from lots of locations that you pick. I have a stream of consciousness site set up that shows everything I post in Blogger, Flickr photos, Twitter tweets, and my del.icio.us links in one spot. It puts out an RSS feed that you can subscribe to if you would like.

Aside from setting up a stream, I haven't done much else with the service. I've poked around at some other people's streams and some are nice. The ones I like are more polished and selective, maybe taking content from one spot or constructing info specifically for Tumblr use so it appears more polished.

Anyone else using it? If so, how?

Photojojo

2008-05-20T18:17:00.000-04:00

I remember growing up my Dad kept a diary. It was always interesting to look back at the entries to help recall what he was doing and what his impressions were.

Are any readers using Photojojo? The service looks in your Flickr pool of photos twice a month and emails you a time capsule using photos you took a year ago in that period. I like getting the emails. I know...you could just go in to your Flickr pool of photos and scroll back a year, but how often do you do that? Having the service sure makes it easy. And I don't seem to be getting spammed from it. Check it out if you have shots in Flickr.

Cincinnati Rollergirls -- In The Garden of Beatin'

2008-05-18T16:40:00.008-04:00

On Saturday evening, Dianne and I went to the Cincinnati Rollergirls’ event called "In The Garden of Beatin’" at the Cincinnati Gardens. It was a double header event with the CRG team Silent Lambs taking on the Moonshiner team of the Black-n-Bluegrass Rollergirls and the CRG team Black Sheep taking on the Liberty Belles of the Philly Rollergirls. The Silent Lambs won by a score of 77 to 36 and in the WFTDA event the Black Sheep lost to the highly ranked Liberty Belles with a score of 35 to 102.

In the Lamb & Moonshiner bout, I thought the CRG team showed a lot of improvement compared to their first match about a month ago. They seemed to be working together a lot more. Once again, candyKICKass (at right) was zipping around and doing a lot of scoring. Jammers Dr. McDerby and Jungle Lacy did a lot of work and Skates with Fists got to jam as well. The pack was doing a good job too. I have to say I miss seeing Sk8 Crime wearing the jammer star, but she’s becoming quite the pivot! I think GeezLouise won the hardest hit award when she gave a solid shoulder block to a Moonshiner and sent her into the suicide seats. Apparently Louise has been to the Juwana Hurt school of blocking. My favorite photo of the night is the shot below showing Ima Payne pulling Dr. McDerby with a great whip (thanks for doing that right in front of us). You can clearly see her braced and pulling through her shoulder.

The other bout between the Black Sheep and the Liberty Belles was both hard to watch and amazing to see. The Belles had control from the start and it was tough to watch the Belle jammers getting through the pack and scoring while the CRG jammers were getting tied up. I wasn’t keeping notes, but there were at least of few of the early jams where the Black Sheep were scoreless. It took me a while to appreciate what the Liberty Belles were doing to hold the Black Sheep. I thought the Belles’ main strengths were coordination and teamwork in the pack. If their jammer was being held up, a couple skaters shifted position (sped up or slowed down) to throw some blocks, make a hole, and help them get the jammer through. The amazing thing was not all the Belle pack shifted, so there were still blockers to hold back CRG’s jammer. I couldn’t tell how they were communicating and maybe there wasn’t much – just the experience coming through. That ability to dynamically and quickly assess the situation, shift position, and work together was amazing and really fun to watch. The photo below illustrates the Liberty Belles positioned and looking to slow CRG jammer Hannah Barbaric (in black with the jammer star) while one blocker is available to help their jammer around the wall of pivot Sk8r-Kinney (at the right).

The Liberty Belle skaters were all solid and good at blocking, but I was particularly impressed with Nina Knockout and the smaller skater Annie Christ. Technique can prevail over size as many small skaters show. Cincinnati did adjust during the break and came out in the second half looking much stronger. They had some good jams in the second half that excited the crowd. There were a couple times when the pack consciously slowed to create a 20 foot gap between them and a couple blockers holding back the CRG jammer. That forced the Belles to let them by. That sort of adjustment and smart skating just wasn’t consistent enough to bring them back into the match. While it’s sad to see Cincinnati go down, I know they’ll use this experience to improve themselves in future bouts. They have talent and just need to develop that extra telepathic communication to adjust like the Belles.

The halftime entertainment was a group from the Powel Crosley YMCA doing a Double Dutch jump rope demo. They were really good! That was a great choice for entertainment. In the shot below, one girl helped the other flip inside the ropes.

There were a couple noticeable changes in the event logistics that I really liked. First, I noticed they centered the track underneath the overhead scoreboard. I think that helped a bit with the light and also opened up a lot more seats to even views of the track. I know that was at the price of the large warm-up area, but I liked it. Also we all heard Professor Murder explain some of the calls via a wireless microphone. Of course I’m biased, but I loved it. There were a couple times where he explained what was going on – once was explaining there is a limit of two skaters in the penalty box, but the refs will send a third skater there when a penalty is within 10 seconds of finishing. Good job Professor!

After the match I was able to meet Silent Lamb skater Dr. McDerby (above) and Black Sheep skater Sista Sacrelicious (at right). Dianne very kindly took photos of me with each of them. I have quite a few additional photos in my Flickr set that you can see here. Of course they don't compare to Jason's shots that I'm sure you'll find here shortly and Jeff's photos.

The next CRG home event is on June 7th when the Silent Lambs take on the North Star Roller Girls from Minneapolis and the Black Sheep take on the lower ranked Derby Demons of the Steel City Rollergirls in Pittsburgh. Be there to cheer on all the CRG skaters!

Aircraft Collisions

2008-05-17T15:38:00.002-04:00

This news story about two aircraft colliding in Dallas was prominent in the news. Here is a video showing how the Piper ended up perfectly balanced on the Cessna tail dragger. Fortunately no one was hurt in that accident.

That story reminded me of the mid-air collision just North of the Blue Ash airport that happened about a year ago. Read my blog entry about that accident here. There is a more detailed description of the accident here. Unfortunately all the pilots in that collision were killed. I just realized that the NTSB released their official report on the accident at the end of April. You can read the synopsis here. With both airplanes rolling and clipping wings, it would seem like they saw each other at the last moment when it was too late to avoid the collision. It's sad that the Beech pilot asked for flight following since he was maneuvering north of the field but was denied due to controller workload. That's not the controller's fault -- it is an optional thing for them to do. It's just unfortunate the controller was too busy at that particular time.

The Bureau of Communication

2008-05-16T16:03:00.000-04:00

The site called the Bureau of Communication has been around for awhile, but it's worth mentioning again. They have various stationary templates that you can fill out and send to someone via email. Kind of cute -- although I could see it leading to spam.

CRG at Home This Weekend

2008-05-14T13:15:00.000-04:00

The Cincinnati Rollergirls have a home bout, a double header, this Saturday at the Cincinnati Gardens. The CRG Silent Lambs will be skating against the Black-n-Bluegrass Rollergirls. In the second bout, the CRG Black Sheep will be taking on the Philly Roller Girls' Liberty Belles. Philly is ranked pretty high (#12 on the Flat Track Stats site), so it's going to be a tough match. Be there to cheer them on!

Also, tomorrow there is a pep rally at Quatman Cafe in Norwood from 7-9. Get psyched for derby action this weekend.

By the way, you can read about CRG's away match last weekend against Boston (ranked #17) on the Roller Derby Diva's blog.

Honda's FCX

2008-05-12T20:30:00.000-04:00

You may have seen the TV ads for Honda's new hydrogen fuel cell car, the FCX. I saw the ad several times before I saw the url of the website for the car. It's a neat concept that uses a hydrogen fuel cell to power an electric motor. Unfortunately, because you need a hydrogen refueling station, the distribution in 2008 is only in a few cities in Southern California. Seems like an expensive, nationwide ad campaign to create the buzz for a small region of the country. It'll be interesting to see how the safety stats turn out for the car -- both when in operation and when refueling. The website also mentions work on home refueling stations. That would be cool. Use solar energy panels on your house to run an electrolysis apparatus to generate hydrogen from water. Fill up your car and you're ready to go. With gas prices on the rise, the economics might not be that bad.

Ault Park

2008-05-11T10:32:00.005-04:00

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day here. We decided to make a visit to Ault Park -- one of the larger parks in the Cincinnati area that we had never explored. It was good for my back to get out and walk around a bit. Here is a satellite view of the park.

There is a large pavilion that was closed due to a private event -- a wedding reception. Walking around we saw four wedding parties there taking pictures at various spots in the park and in the late afternoon there were quite a few prom couples there for photos.

I had Dianne sit on a park bench with her back to the sun to experiment with some fill flash techniques that I've been reading about on the Strobist blog. She was playing with her Nintendo DS lite so she was a patient subject. If you look at the photo below, you see her back is in direct sunlight and there is a distinct shadow on the concrete. Her face was in a distinct shadow and so she wouldn't show up well in a regular photo. I used a flash on the ground, pointed toward her, to get rid of the shadow. The flash is just outside the right of the frame. I had to experiment a bit to get the right exposure. This shot was with the flash set at 1/4 power. By the way, thanks to her for helping carry stuff too!

My next project I thought I'd try is to get a 360 degree panorama shot from the center of the Observatory Circle area in the park. That's something easy to do while standing up straight. The photo below is a planet view of the panorama with the tripod at the center of the photo along the iron fence. If you want to see a traditional view, click here to see a large version on white. If you look closely at the bottom of the globe or on the right side of the panorama, at the base of the fountain in front of the pavilion you'll see one of the wedding parties getting their picture taken. You can't miss the satin, bright blue dresses the bridesmaids were wearing -- ones that will never be worn again. It was a beautiful day at the park.

Afterwards we stopped on Hyde Park Square to have dinner at Indigos and walk around the square a bit. Indigos is one of our favorite stops in Hyde Park. The square was hopping with everyone sitting outside enjoying the Spring evening.

Strawberry Memories

2008-05-10T19:15:00.000-04:00

Growing up, one sign of late Spring or early Summer for me was the first ripe, native strawberries appearing. My aunt had a large strawberry patch and she would make the absolute best strawberry jam on the face of the planet -- Brenda knows what I mean. Nothing like fresh strawberry jam on one of her homemade buns. Yum!

The fever for the opening of strawberry season carried over into graduate school. For at least a couple years a group of us went to a local strawberry farm and picked a boat load of strawberries. We cleaned them up and prepared them for a strawberry get together. We made everything strawberry for the Chemistry folks -- strawberry shortcake, strawberry ice cream, strawberry daiquiris, etc.

I like strawberry flavors year 'round, but the sight of the first fresh strawberries still makes my mouth water. I picked up some at the market (shown in the photo) and made some strawberry shortcake last week. They weren't local, but they looked great and I couldn't wait. I love The Fresh Market in Kenwood.

How Long Would You Survive?

2008-05-09T21:25:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Erika, I ran across this site.

Created by OnePlusYou

You'd Never Guess...

2008-05-08T23:02:00.003-04:00

...by looking at my picture that I had a minor procedure done at the dermatologist today. That bandage is huge! By the way, those are my new reading glasses.

I never had any major skin problems growing up -- except for the occasional sunburn. I didn't have to deal with acne issues. Quite a while ago I had a small black spot on my cheek that I thought was maybe an ingrown whisker. I was at the dermatologist for something else and had him look at it. Nope, it was a blackhead. Go figure. He cleaned it up and warned me this was a large pore and that it could possibly happen again. Sure enough, as predicted, it did. I went back a few months ago and he cleaned it up again and suggested just taking out the pore to eliminate the problem. He takes a punch biopsy and puts a couple stitches in to close it up. Today was the big day.

The worst part was the injection of the local anesthetic. "OK, you'll feel a little stick" said the nurse. Yeah, when you hear that you know they're trying to downplay the stick. The problem I discovered is the nerve that feeds that area fans out so she had to move the needle around to make several "little stick" injections. That gets old pretty fast. After a couple minutes she checked the skin with a needle to make sure everything was numb. I still felt the needle in a couple spots so she made a second round of injections. Even after working that in, one spot just wasn't getting the drug. So yes, you guessed it, another "little stick" series of anesthetic injections. The nerves in your face are pretty sensitive!

After that, the rest was just a little pushing for the biopsy and some pulling for the stitches. No discomfort though. I have to wear this pressure bandage for a day and then keep changing things until next Wednesday when the stitches come out.

Spring Memories

2008-05-01T20:05:00.000-04:00

We had a huge maple tree in our backyard where I grew up. I had a tree house and sandbox at the base of the tree. Every Spring the seeds would appear, dry up, fall off and spin to the ground around the maple. There were seeds everywhere! I was always intrigued by their shape and how they resembled a helicopter blade spinning when they fell.

Dianne and I were out for a walk on Sunday, trying to get my back loosened up a bit, when I saw those seeds on a small maple tree in the neighborhood. I grabbed a couple to take some pictures. I like the way this turned out. I used a grazing flash to accentuate the texture of the seed. I don't remember them being so fuzzy -- maybe this isn't so apparent when they are dry or perhaps it's a different type of maple.

Click here to see a larger version on a black background.

Paint Macro Project

2008-04-30T21:06:00.003-04:00

This week the Macro Mondays group theme was paint. A pretty wide open topic that was interpreted many different ways. Carla very kindly provided several bottles of nail polish to use as one subject. I like the sparkles in the first photo below of the nail polish brush. In the second shot, my expert finger model Dianne helped me get a shot of her brushing on some nail polish. I used a slow shutter speed and a rear sync for the flash to capture the idea of movement. The flash fires just before the shutter closes so the brush is most clear at the end of the stroke. From the background light you can see a more faint image of the brush initially and as it moves. The final photo is some acrylic paint on a white piece of paper. Surprisingly, this made Flickr's Explore.