Busy Weekend

On Saturday morning, I got back in the air flying the Tiger. Tony had completed his annual inspection and I needed my biannual flight review. The flight review was an hour of ground instruction followed by 1.7 hours of flying with an instructor that worked with me for my instrument rating. Although the winds aloft were pretty stiff out of the North, it was a beautiful clear day to fly. We worked through various maneuvers prescribed for the flight review and also flew a couple instrument approaches. Since it was such a nice day, I had to wear glasses that restricted my vision to only the instrument panel. Surprisingly, I did pretty well with the landings even though I hadn't been flying for a couple months.

Saturday afternoon Dianne and I went to the Sharon Woods park. It was the first public park in Hamilton County -- it's quite large and includes a nice lake, a golf course, a heritage museum, and lots of shelters and grilling sites. We walked all the way around the lake (nearly 3 miles) and also rented a paddle boat. Dianne and I never rented a paddle boat before. We pedaled around the lake a bit and then just 'parked' in the middle, put our feet up, and drifted while watching the ducks, fishermen, boaters, and people walking. It was the perfect day to relax on the water.

Sunday we got up early, had a quick breakfast at Marx's Bagels, and then drove to Columbus to see the "Bodies...The Exhibition" display at the Easton Town Center. If you're looking for it there, it's on the West end of the complex near Staples. We saw the Body Worlds exhibit in L.A. a couple years ago and wanted to see this version. Click around on both sites to see an explanation of how the actual human bodies are preserved (plastination) and prepared for the displays. This exhibit wasn't as extensive as the one we saw in L.A. Neverthless, it's an amazing way to see all the various systems in the human body -- both when they're functioning properly and when they aren't.

We also walked around the Easton Town Center area. It was another beautiful, sunny and cool day -- quite a contrast to the humid, 100 degree days were suffered through a few weeks ago. Although a lot of the stores are typical mall material, there are some places we don't have in the Cincinnati area and it's a nice setting with some open areas and green space. The large fountain at the right is one example. The sky was very blue today with the cooler temps and no haze. The photo below shows two girls that were having a great time playing in a fountain. The fountain had many independent water jets that were synchronized to pump water at various pressures for different durations to make the water "dance." You can see the two arching streams, caught in mid-air, that were heading towards them. The kids were enjoying it. I got a photo of a different, similar fountain as well as a sculpture and a model train near the area shown in the photo below.

Butterflies

Last week I didn't only see bees on the sedums. They were loaded with butterflies as well. The top photo below shows a few Skippers -- I think the two in front are Fiery Skippers. Not sure about the one in the background. The bottom photo is a Painted Lady. I love the eye.

Soup in the Cafeteria

As far as cafeterias go, we have a pretty nice one at work. There are quite a few choices for entrees, salads, sandwiches, etc. Often I’ll get some type of salad and a soup on the side – especially in the cooler months. There are usually a few soup choices available each day. I started out making my soup choice based purely on ingredients and my likes and dislikes. But sometimes the soup was pretty watery. Some behavioral observations of cafeteria patrons I call “soup sievers” have made me revise my soup selection strategy.

The soup sievers, as I call them, are apparently broth haters that dip the ladle into the soup pot but don’t immediately put their catch into their bowl. Instead they first put the ladle against the side of the crock, tilt it, and pour off as much broth as possible to concentrate the soup solids. I assume they’re trying to maximize the value of their soup dollar. This soup concentration procedure is especially problematic with thinner soups like a vegetarian vegetable. I’ve seen a couple proficient soup sievers stand at the soup area for a couple minutes in order to walk away with essentially a cup of boiled vegetables. Soup sieving is harder with a thicker soup like a cream of mushroom, but I’ve seen skilled soup sievers distill off the broth to enhance the mushroom slice content. Unfortunately, that leaves weak soup (broth or warm cream) for those that follow.

So now my trip to the cafeteria for soup involves a complex selection algorithm driven not only by the soup ingredient and my likes and dislikes but also on the type of soup (thin with solids, thick, or completely smooth like tomato), the size of the crowd (more people = more potential for sievers), and my arrival time. Sometimes, if luck is with me, a late arrival corresponds with a re-stocking of the soup station so I get first crack at a fresh pot. It’s almost like winning the lottery!

Yesterday I passed on the soup. The vegetarian vegetable had just a few pieces of stuff floating in it. And no, I’m not a siever. I like some broth so I can put crackers in to soak it up.

Green Eyed Bee

The Sedum blossoms were wide open at Michele and John's place last week. The plants were loaded with bees and butterflies! Seeing several bee species side by side made it much easier for an insect newbie like me to pick out differences. This guy was on the big side and the green eyes with the distinctive dot pattern really made it stand out from the others. I didn't have bright sun that day, but I thought this image still turned out OK. See other photos of this bee in the garden photoset on Flickr. I also added some images of a clematis.

Update on 9/11: after a bit of looking on the web, I think this is a carpenter bee. Can anyone confirm that? This view showing the shiny black abdomen is one clue and I did see some other images on the web showing this type of eye -- but others not. Maybe a species difference? Still not sure why the compound eye exhibits this dot pattern. Is it the angle the light is entering/reflecting off the various cones?

The CRG Jungle

On Saturday night, Dianne and I went to the "Welcome to Our Jungle" bout of the Cincinnati Rollergirls at the Cincinnati Gardens. The heat and humidity added to their jungle theme. The event was an intra-league bout with the two CRG teams battling. Congratulations to the Dames of Destruction for defeating the Full Metal Corsets by a score of 85 to 72.

The Rollergirls weren't holding anything back in blocking for this Cincinnati only bout. An example is the photo at the right. It was snapped after Hannah Barbaric, blocked inside by Junk N Trunk, received a cut/stop block from Sadistic Sadie. Ouch! Click on the photo to see a larger version. Look at the position of Hannah's skates and you know she was going down hard. I got some other photos of Junk N Trunk, Blu, Sk8 Crime, and Panterrorize giving blocks. Early on someone gave Collier Mama a block and she fell over backwards right in front of us and whacked her head on the concrete. The helmet protected her, but she was slow getting up. It was good to see her skating again later in the bout.

The pack was skating pretty fast the whole night. The announcers commented on that a couple times. A testament to the vastly improved skating skills of the whole CRG group when compared to other teams they've skated against. The jammers had to skate hard to catch the pack -- reflected in the lower score. But the fast jammers yielded some grand slams for both teams. There was a lot of teamwork on both sides to help the jammers like Blu is doing here for Sadie (does Sadie really need a speed boost!?!). I also like the photo below of Rocky helping Miss Print stay on her feet and keep zooming. What concentration on their faces!



The Dames led from the start, but it was relatively close after the first period. The Corsets seemed to struggle in the second period and the gap widened to ~30 points. The Corsets didn't give up and narrowed the gap in the third period. There were a lot of skaters putting on the jammer star for both teams. Having Hannah on the Corsets gave them the flexibility to move folks around keep the team in the hunt. In the final jam of the event, Juwana Hurt put on the jammer star and showed her speed skating skills to get some points. The crowd enjoyed seeing that jam!

The half time entertainment for the event was provided by Cincinnati Zoo. They brought a few things like this sea eagle that was amazing to see up close. There were also folks in animal costumes like this manatee outfit. They must have been hot in there, but the kids loved it! When the sea cow came by, the kids behind us were yelling "hi manatee" and waving. A good choice for entertainment. The CRG group also presented a donation of $1500 to the Zoo! Considering they volunteer lots of time and could use the money to promote the league, it's very nice of them to give something back to the community.

Although the competition was tough, the skaters seemed like they were having fun -- as shown in the photo of Rocky Balrolla. After the bout the Rollergirls stayed to meet the crowd and sign autographs. I got to meet Blu and Dianne got a photo of us. Unfortunately, some camera issues messed up my photo with the Librarian -- hopefully I can catch her for a re-take at the next home match at Castle Skateland in Loveland on October 14th when the CRG hosts the Burning River Rollergirls. See all my photos from the event in my Flickr set. While waiting for the next home match, check the Roller Derby Diva's blog for league information and results from several away matches in the coming months. Best of luck to the traveling team!

Thanks to all the CRG skaters, refs, volunteers, and supporters for putting on some wonderful derby events at the Cincinnati Gardens this year!!

P.S. All derby fans please read the post below which explains the derby photo badges in my sidebar.

Participate, and Vote For Me!

The CiN Weekly is conducting a neat project called Capture Cincinnati. It's pretty simple -- folks upload photos to the site and provide some photo information including assigning it to a chapter/category. For the next 44 days, you can view all the photos and vote for your favorites. The top photos in the various categories will be compiled into a book that captures greater Cincinnati. They will also put out a DVD with photos.

So if you have photos taken around the greater Cincinnati area, upload them! Read more about the details here.

Now, in a shameless bit of self promotion, please vote for me! I've uploaded several photos I've taken around the area and would appreciate some votes. I've added voting badges to my sidebar. You can see the entire set of photos here. There are some ice storm photos, recent fireworks photos, butterfly exhibit at Krohn, Zoo Blooms, etc. I also posted a couple Cincinnati Rollergirls photos in the sports section and one in the People section. I think it would be great to have a Cincinnati Rollergirl photo in the book -- right along with the other hometown teams like the Reds and Bengals. If Jason or Jeff are eligible, I hope they add some of their derby photos and let us know to vote. In any case, I'd appreciate votes and/or comments on the derby photos (and any others you like) from all the Rollergirl fans out there!

44 days left to upload photos and vote.

My First HDR Images

I've wanted to play with high dynamic range (HDR) images for awhile. An HDR image represents an exaggerated dynamic range of light intensity in a single image. I think it's nice for situations with very light spots and shadows where you want to bring out the detail in both areas. That's often hard to do in a single image. HDR images give some interesting effects.

Just this week I got the Photomatix Pro software that creates HDR images from multiple images with varying exposures. Today I took some shots to try the software. This week the Macro Monday theme is 'rust.' While visiting Michele and John's garden, I noticed the outdoor basketball hoop next door had some interesting rust areas. I took some macro shots and used the Photomatix software to render some HDR versions. They turned out well for a first attempt. On the image below, you notice a shadow across the bottom portion of the hex nut. The rust detail in that shadow area was lost in a single image. By combining 4 images with various exposures, I brought out the detail in all the light and dark areas (like the spider web and rust on the bottom of the nut). Compare the HDR image below to this single image of a nearby area. The light was pretty flat as it was a bit cloudy. The rust detail on the single image just doesn't jump out as much. Check out my other HDR rust images here and here.

Thanks to Chris for pointing me in the right direction for HDR and panorama software. Check out his wonderful photos here.

More Local Photoblogs

Although I've followed her Flickr photo pool for quite awhile, I just found out that local photographer Jana has two photoblogs she maintains using her Flickr photos. The first is called "Cincinnati, As I See It." The subject is pretty obvious -- photos she has taken in and around Cincinnati. The second is called "City of Sculpture" which is relatively new and includes photos taken in and around Hamilton, Ohio (just North of Cincinnati). She must spend a fortune on gas because she posts photos from all over the area. Check them out.

September Activities On My List

There are several events of interest in the Cincinnati area coming up in September.

This coming weekend is the final Cincinnati Rollergirls bout at the Cincinnati Gardens. It's an intra-league bout. Note that there is another event in October at Castle Skateland in Loveland.

On September 15th and 16th, Jim Dandy's Family BBQ in Sharonville is hosting the 2nd Annual Jim Dandy's BBQ Cookoff. The restaurant is owned by a guy I used to work with -- Jim of course. After leaving P&G, he followed his cooking passion full time and started a restaurant a couple years ago. Jim knows how to smoke ribs. We enjoy the food, but didn't see the 1st cookoff. Stop by if you're in the area.

On September 22nd and 23rd, the Blue Ash Airport is holding its annual Blue Ash Airport Days. It has become a large event for the airport. There are several good airshow performers that will be there. Of course you can see the airshow from many spots off the airport property. But there are things to see and do on the airport grounds, and all admission proceeds go to Children's Hospital. There is a car & motorcycle show on the grounds and a 5k run is planned too.

Although not in the immediate Cincinnati area, on September 29th and 30th the Gathering of Mustangs and Legends event is being held at Rickenbacker Field just South of Columbus. Besides a large group of P-51 Mustangs, there will be lots of other warbirds attending the event and an airshow including the US Air Force Thunderbirds. The Legends part of the event are the aviators who flew these planes. Check out the list of aviations legends that plan to attend. They've held these events before, but usually in Florida or some distance away. I'm going to have to drive over for this one.

Do you have other favorite September events coming up in the Cincinnati area?

Sunday Fireworks

On Sunday Dianne and I went downtown for the WEBN Labor Day fireworks associated with the Riverfest celebration. It is by far the largest fireworks display I've ever seen first hand. Dean and family came down from Dayton to join us.

Most of the items are launched from barges in the Ohio river between the Purple People Bridge and the Taylor-Southgate bridge near downtown Cincinnati. Literally hundreds of thousands of people flock to both sides of the river and the surrounding hills to see the display. The only reason we go is that the company Dianne works for makes an event out of it. The office is located at 1 Lytle Place which is almost perfectly centered between the two bridges. They provide passes, parking, and a semi-restricted viewing area so we don't have to battle the masses flocking to the river. It's a great viewing location. We waited in her air conditioned office until a half hour before the event. Pretty painless for such a wonderful display!

I hadn't tried taking fireworks photos before. Below are a few shots. No Photoshop composites, just long exposures. The last one was during the finale when there was a continuous rumble of hundreds of loud reports below the other charges. It was so intense the smoke didn't have a chance to clear. Click on an image to go to Flickr for a larger view or see the entire fireworks photo set on Flickr.

Saturday Excursion

On Saturday, Dianne and I started the day with dim sum at the Grand Oriental restaurant. They have the best in the area we've found -- anyone else have other favorite dim sum spots around Cincinnati? The BBQ pork buns (baked of course) and sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf are a couple of my favorites. They also had a nice steamed baby bok choy dish -- although there was a little grit in a couple of them.

After lunch we continued North on a trip to Springfield to visit Competition Accessories. Along the way we stopped in Dayton to drop off tickets for Sunday's fireworks with Dean. The main purpose for our trip to Competition was to get a new motorcycle helmet for Dianne. They have a great selection. Since fit is so important, it's nice to go somewhere to try on several different ones. She settled on a Nolan helmet that has some nice features including a smoked visor you can raise and lower -- pretty handy as you can't be taking your sunglasses on and off while on the bike.

We took a leisurely back-road drive home. Along the way, we stopped in Yellow Springs to look around a bit. The bike trail, formerly the railroad line, goes right through town and the old station building (in photo at right -- click to see a larger image in Flickr) is a rest stop. It's a nice community with vibrant, eclectic selection of stores likely driven by the student community of Antioch. While walking around, we noticed many signs mentioning the preservation of Antioch College. Didn't know what was up until we got back and found that the Antioch University trustees voted to close Antioch College for at least four years, starting next year, for financial reasons. Obviously that will have a huge impact on the community.

In Yellow Springs we listened to a couple of musicians playing the drums and bag pipe. We also saw this rig for hanging chairs off of a square trailer hitch. Never saw anything like that before.

On the way home we again ended up in the Mason/Deerfield Township area and decided to have dinner at the Encore Cafe. It was very good! I had a roasted shallot soup with chives (gotta get my onion fix while out to eat) and a chicken Napoleon (baked chicken layered with roasted red pepper, prosciutto, and provolone) on orzo with seasonal vegetables and drizzled with a bleu cheese sauce. Yum! There were a lot of other entrees on the menu that looked good. The only bad thing is we were too full for dessert -- always good at a Sturkey restaurant.

Lots of Stingers

Continuing with the garden photo posts, here is a selection of bee and wasp photos I took while looking around. They were more interested in the nectar than they were in me. Lots of activity! Click on an image to see a larger view or go to the Flickr set here.

Cincinnati Rollergirl Photos

Just found the roller derby photo blog called "I Can Has Lead Jammer." It's a collection of photos from all over that are submitted and captioned by skaters. I ran across it from a search because Roseanne Scarr submitted a few photos taken by Jeff Sevier at one of the Cincinnati Rollergirls' recent bouts. Jeff has some excellent shots and Roseanne's captions are very funny! I especially liked this prayer on the photo of Deep Threat. Now I know who to call for clever derby photo titles.

Jason Bechtel, the other photographer for the Cincinnati Rollergirls, posted his photos from last Saturday's bout between the CRG and the Bloomington Flatliners (the Bleeding Heartland Rollergirl traveling team). See his entire set here. My favorite of Jason's photos is this great action shot of the Flatliner skater X Libris flying through air! That's why he's a professional. Who is the CRG skater in the photo that gave the hit?

Ageratum Flower Progression

While visiting the garden at Michele and John's place, I spent a fair amount of time looking at an Ageratum (by the way -- I only know this because Michele provided the name). One pot had flowers at many different stages of development. I took several shots and settled on these five to catch the life of a blossom. I used them to make the slide show below. You can see a composite of the five images here or look at them individually in the photo set.

Songs in Haiku

This post is a little bit of shameless self promotion.

Our other blog project, Songs in Haiku, is a site where each post summarizes a song's lyrics in a three line verse. It's a cooperative blog with Dianne and Pat. If you haven't been there lately, you should check it out as Songs in Haiku got some enhancement a couple weeks ago. Besides providing a link to the actual song lyrics, Dianne thought it would be good idea to add links for facts about the song and a video. She thought the video would be a nice addition especially if you're not familiar with the song.

I thought it was a good idea, but didn't think we'd find many videos. Boy was I wrong! Isn't the Internet wonderful? Nearly every post has links to facts and to a video for the song. Some of the videos are very interesting and clever. A great example is this video for the song "Mad World" picked by Pat. It's a very creative and well thought out video. Other videos are actual performances videos such as the link in the post for "What a Wonderful World." There are some songs where we couldn't find an official video or a performance, but have found the tune associated with other video. A funny example of that is the video link with the post for "Copacabana."

Finally, thanks to Erika Jean, I requested a review of the Songs blog at the Untwisted Vortex site. Read the review here. The review was actually pretty good. Thanks to RT for taking the time to visit the site and provide the review.

Grasshopper

As Yogi Berra said, you can observe a lot by watching.

On Saturday morning, I spent some time looking around the huge garden at Michele and John's place. There is a lot to see! Many things jump out at a non-gardener right away. But I was amazed at how much I discovered by watching small areas of the garden. There were a couple instances where I was setting up and thinking about how to take a photo and some insect landed right in my shot. By moving more slowly and watching closely, I picked up on a lot of activity around me. It was a lot of fun!

While looking at some pine trees, I noticed some movement on a shrub out of the corner of my eye. This grasshopper very kindly climbed up a branch and perched there nicely, breathing slowly, while I got in position for this shot. Click on the image to go to Flickr to see larger views.

Double Dip of Pain

On Saturday night, Dianne and I were among the 1000+ people at the pair of bouts hosted by the Cincinnati Rollergirls. The first bout was against the Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls (Flatliners) from Bloomington, Indiana. The second bout was a re-match against the Gem City Rollergirls from Dayton. Congratulations to the CRG skaters for decisive wins in both bouts!

The first bout was brutal for the Bloomington skaters. They were having a tough time against the experience and strong teamwork of the CRG group. With blocks like the one Black Rose is giving in the photo at the right, there were Flatliners falling all over the place. They are undoubtedly a sore group today. The tough blocking made it very hard for the Flatliner jammers to get through the pack. That led to lots of grand slams for CRG -- so many I lost count. The CRG blockers were also doing well clearing good lines for their jammer teammates. They helped the jammers a lot with whips like the boost Skinnie Minnie is giving Sk8 Crime in the photo here. Everything came together with speedy skating by Skates with Fists, Candy Kickass, Miss Print, and Sk8 Crime to give a final score of 118 to 44. See all the photos from this bout in my Flickr set here. At the break, I was stretching a bit and walked past Collier Mama sitting in the stands talking strategy with a Bloomington skater. That type of sportsmanship was amazing to see consider Collier was tossing players around right and left just a few minutes earlier.

The second bout against Gem City was full of action as well. Although behind from the start, the GCRG group battled hard the whole match. The GCRG skaters Ruff'n the Passer and Hannah Barbaric were tough jammers and got their share of lead jammer status. But it wasn't enough. Again the CRG team was firing on all cylinders with very tough blocking, excellent teamwork, and speedy jammers that were too much for Gem City to handle. The photo here of Junk N Trunk putting a hit on Polly Rocket is just one example of the hard hits that were exchanged in the pack. The way Junk is leaning and positioned with her skates perpendicular to Polly's, you know Polly went down hard. It was a hard hit right in front of us. I caught quite a few pictures of blocks in the photo set from this bout. As usual, it was amazing to watch Sadistic Sadie skating. But the second CRG group rotated quite a few skaters into the jammer position -- including Sk8r-Kinney who started as jammer when the Gem City jammer was in the penalty box. After establishing the jam and when the Gem City skater was about to get out of the penalty box, Kinney passed the jammer star to Sadie. Just another example illustrating how the CRG experience is resulting in good strategy decisions that help them succeed. There were also several grand slams for Cincinnati in the second bout. I think I'm only going to count double grand slams (two laps of the opposing jammer) from now on. The final score of the second bout was 150 to 84.

The least well thought out blocking strategy of the night award goes to Fonda La Boom who put a hard shoulder into Juwana Hurt and knocked her over backwards. Don't get me wrong -- it was a good block. But doing that to Juwana just puts a huge target on your back and you should keep your head on a swivel. Juwana got up quickly and skated full steam to catch the pack. You knew it was payback time for Fonda and sure enough Juwana caught her off guard going full speed. Everyone in the crowd felt Juwana's hit that knocked Fonda down and out of bounds. Ouch!

It was another well orchestrated event by the CRG -- although it was pretty toasty in the Gardens. As usual, after the match the skaters stayed to meet the crowd and give autographs. I was able to meet Juwana Hurt and Emolition. Dianne snapped photos of me with each of them. We're certainly lucky to have such a dedicated group of WFTDA skaters here in Cincinnati. It's a lot of fun to watch them skate! It has to be a thrill for them to be such a strong group skating in the Gardens! They're putting a lot of effort into developing their skill as well growing the events with publicity. And thanks to the Rollergirls for the URL listing in the program as well as the mention in the derby love! Quite a surprise.

If you haven't been to a match, check it out. The next CRG event is an interleague bout at the Cincinnati Gardens on September 8th. After that their schedule has the CRG All-Stars against the Burning River team from Cleveland. The question is can the Cincinnati Rollergirls All-Stars go undefeated this season?

Rock The Square

After work today I drove downtown, met Dianne at her office, and then we walked over to Fountain Square in the heart of downtown Cincinnati to check out the Rock the Square event. It's a concert series held every Friday to showcase local bands and bring folks to the square. The photo at the right shows the group Bad Veins performing on stage with the Carew Tower in the background across the street. There's a nice article about the concert series in the Enquirer.

I told Dianne about the event earlier in the week after reading about it on the Roller Derby Diva's blog. Dianne's been so stressed this week, it kinda went in one ear and out the other. She was very surprised when we arrived and she saw several of the Cincinnati Rollergirls there to generate a buzz for their upcoming bouts. We got to chat with them a bit and the group was kind enough to pose for a photo. In the front are Sadistic Sadie and Sk8 Crime and standing behind are Nik Jagger, The Librarian, Skates with Fists, Gummi Lov, and Miss Print. Good luck on the Double Dip of Pain bouts tomorrow night at the Gardens!



We got to hear two of the bands. We listened to a bit of Bad Veins and then walked over to the Cadillac Ranch for dinner (don't get your hopes up if you click on the link for the Ranch). That place was hopping! Couldn't talk Dianne into riding the bull though -- that would have made for a good photo. After dinner, we went back to the square for a bit and listened to the Lions Rampant. Both of the groups were good -- I liked Bad Veins better. Good songs and the creative clipping or modulation of the lead singer's vocals gave them a distinctive sound.

The crowd was much smaller than I expected! I guess the heat kept folks away. While I was driving downtown to meet Dianne, my car thermometer read 102! Yikes! It was hot, but there was a nice breeze and it wasn't too bad in the shade.

We're #6 and #11!

I'd say a ranking of #6 or #11 out of all cities in America is pretty good -- unless it's on a bad item list. Forbes put out an article a couple weeks ago naming the cities with the most expensive commute and the most unhealthy commute.

Cincinnati ranked #6 in the expense department. What shocked me the most in the Cincinnati summary was the time spent commuting. The summary mentioned a 30 hour delay on average per traveller. Thirty hours! I have a relatively short commute, but I probably waste a day a year waiting in traffic!?! Wow, that's nuts! Well...not really when I think back to my blog rants. Although most like this post, this post, and this post were weather related, there are a lot of other reasons for delays in a commute. And think of the waste of energy due to those delays.

The greater Cincinnati area had a commute that ranked #11 in the health department. Fortunately I don't take that route. I commute in a parallel corridor that's still congested due to the suburban sprawl that's happening.

Thanks to the 'nati life for pointing this out and brightening my day -- not!

Cincinnati Rollergirls Items

Jeff Sevier, one of the photographers for the Cincinnati Rollergirls, posted many photos taken at the away bout in Dayton a couple weeks ago. See his entire set on Flickr. The lighting in the Nutter Center was relatively good and Jeff has some excellent shots! I thought Jeff's photo of Rocky Balrolla (shown at right) was very good. If you want to check out a "Where's Waldo" shot, look at this photo.

Don't forget the home bout this coming Saturday at the Cincinnati Gardens. It's a rematch with the Gem City girls and also a bout with the Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls from Bloomington. The Bloomington team has a skater named Motley Cruel (a rival for Panterrorize?) and a skater named X Libris (is this The Librarian's sister? Seriously, check out her photo in the bio section). Could make for some interesting match ups. X Libris' number is "ML3534" which seems to refer to books that are general histories of rock and roll music. A noisy rocker? She's gonna get shushed by The Librarian.

Should be fun!

Cinematic Geography of L.A.

A group of folks in Los Angeles, led by Blair Erikson, have photographed various locations around L. A. that have appeared in past films. As best they could they tried to get the same angle today as was used in a film. The web site has still photos of locations to let you guess what movie they appeared in.

The group also prepared a YouTube video that strings together many locations. It shows the location on a map, the current view, and then a transition to the scene in the film. Very well done.



Saw this effort on CNN. It's a nice bit of work, but in the grand scheme of things it must have been a slow news day.

Wiki Trust

It's no secret I like Wikipedia. I use it all the time to look up stuff. I think it's a good starting point. However, you have to remember it is a grass roots information source. The wisdom of crowds theory isn't always true and there are errors in entries. If you go in with your eyes wide open, I think it's a good tool.

The folks at the UCSC Wiki Lab put together a demonstration that uses coloring to convey the trust of the person that provided information for a given entry in the Wikipedia. It's an interesting idea. My biggest complaint is the color differences are subtle. It's sometimes hard to discern the difference in shading. It kinda reminds me of a cell phone coverage map where it seems they purposely choose the colors to make it difficult to see differences in service. Nevertheless, an interesting idea.

Accent Quiz

Thanks to Heida at the Tales of Seven blog, I found a quiz that assesses your accent. It's short. My results are below. I guess my accent has morphed into that of a Cincinnati native. Have I lived here too long?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Glowing Tomato

This video shows how to make a glowing tomato using some common household items -- well...except for a syringe. Hopefully that's not a common item.


Make A GLOWING TOMATO ! - Click here for the most popular videos

Dirty Car Art

Most everyone has seen a dirty car where someone has written the words "wash me" by wiping away some of the dirt. I stumbled across this site that takes that to the extreme. Scott Wade creates works of art on dirty car windows. Here is one example -- the classic dogs playing poker. The site has a nice gallery of work including a progressive series of photos leading to the final image shown here. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it.

Cincinnati Rollergirls vs. Gem City Rollergirls

Last night Dianne and I drove up to Dayton to watch the Cincinnati Rollergirls (CRG) take on the Gem City Rollergirls (GCRG) in the “We Got the Beat (Down)” bout at the Nutter Center. The final score shown at the right says it all. Congratulations to the CRG team on the win! They had a lead of 15-20 points most of the match.

The GCRG group has some good skaters. Ruff’n the Passer, Polly Rocket, Hannah Barbaric, and Toma Hawk all stood out as strong skaters and jammers. The blocking was tough from their whole team. It was no picnic for the CRG skaters to get through the pack. Nevertheless, GCRG got behind after the first couple jams and stayed there the whole match. They kept fighting back the whole time, but just couldn’t put a group together that would let them score a lot of points against Cincinnati. Even when GCRG was able to score a lot in a jam, Cincinnati usually matched them.

The whole CRG team was in sync and it showed with solid jams from multiple rotation sets of players. Every skater seemed focused and was contributing. Everything came together for the group and it was really fun to watch. The CRG blocking was amazing! There was a lot of coordination in the CRG pack and many hard blocks that made it very tough for the GCRG skaters. There were a couple jams where the GCRG skater couldn’t make it through the pack. We were surrounded by GCRG fans and you could hear the frustration in the tone of their voice. There were a few times where the lead CRG blockers got more than 20 feet from the pack and had to let the jammer through. The GCRG fans behind exclaimed “there she made it through easy!” I don't think they understood the 20 foot rule and that the blockers had to let her through.

The hard block moment of the night goes to the hit that Juwana Hurt put on Seoul Sister. I don’t know how she does it, but Juwana Hurt gets in position in front of a skater and makes a sharp cut to slow down quickly and lay a hard shoulder block into the opponent. Juwana's hit on Seoul Sister made her fall over backwards and she landed hard. Seoul Sister had to leave the match after that one. I hope she wasn’t seriously hurt, but I’m sure she is sore this morning. The photo here shows Juwana (the blurred #74) doing the same move earlier in the match. Click on the photo to see a larger version. She was putting a lot of hits on opponents. The GCRG fans behind us said they wouldn’t want to be the jammers trying to pass Juwana. Although they didn't like her, they appreciated her blocking ability.

The CRG jammers were strong as well. The hard CRG blocking and the speedy skating of Roseanne Scarr yielded two grand slams for her (when one jammer laps the opposing jammer). Those jams gave a lot of points to Cincinnati. Dianne got a photo of me with Roseanne after the match. Skates with Fists, Gummi Lov, and Miss Print were jamming and scoring as well. There were two jams where Miss Print was jamming against Ruff’n the Passer. In both of those jams, Passer focused on blocking (in effect becoming another member of the pack) to slow down Miss Print and stop her from scoring. Even that strategy wasn’t entirely effective as the CRG group used blocks, screens, and whips to help jammers through. It was a great performance and the Cincinnati Rollergirls have to be very proud of their victory.

The Nutter Center is a very good location for a roller derby match. I was a bit surprised at the size of the crowd (smaller than I expected) and the lack of crowd intensity. At the start of the first jam, it was so quiet you could practically hear a pin drop! I’m probably biased, but the orchestration of the event wasn’t as elaborate as the matches hosted by Cincinnati. However, one interesting feature the Gem City group had was a wireless microphone on the head referee (Harry Brawls). It was like the NFL head ref mike that’s used to explain a call or a timeout. I found that very nice – the sound quality was good and it was interesting to get the info first hand.

I posted a few pictures from the bout on Flickr. Jeff was there and I’m sure he’ll have some great photos posted soon. The next CRG event is August 25th at the Cincinnati Gardens. One of the bouts at that event is a rematch with GCRG. Don’t miss it!

The Money Shot

This week's theme for the Macro Mondays' group on Flickr is green. Instead of taking that too literally, I decided to go with some photos of green backs. Click here to see the entire set of photos. (I couldn't resist putting money shot in the title to this post.)

Cute Commercial

I thought this video was really cute. When I saw it, I didn't know the title. I had to watch it again once I got to the end. Thanks to the swissmiss for pointing this out.

Sky at a Glance

Ever look up in the sky and wonder what planet you're looking at or if there are any special astronomy events coming up? I just know some of the simple constellations, but I'm always intrigued by the evening sky.

The Sky and Telescope site has a nice summary called "This Week's Sky at a Glance." It summarizes the major astronomy things to see -- I guess in the Northern Hemisphere. This coming weekend the Perseid meteor shower will be at its peak and there shouldn't be much light interference from the moon. If you're out late, glance up, catch a falling star, and make a wish.

Body Plastination Exhibit

A few years ago Dianne and I went to Los Angeles to see the Body Worlds exhibit. Here's an old post I had on body plastination. It was a great exhibit to see the various body systems displayed in a unique, artistic way using real cadavers. We planned to see the exhibit there so we could see Michelle and also meet Dianne's parents and niece from Hawaii.

I saw an article in last week's Cincinnati Enquirer that a similar exhibit called "Bodies...the Exhibition" is now on display in Columbus and, starting in January, will be at Cincinnati's Museum Center. That's added to our must do list!

Songs in Haiku -- First Request

"We got one!!" That's one of my favorite lines from Ghostbusters -- when Janine the receptionist (played by Annie Potts) hits the alarm when she answers their first call for assistance with a ghost.

"We got one" on our other blog (Songs in Haiku) on Friday! Each entry on that blog is a 3 line poem in Haiku form (5-7-5 syllables) that summarizes the lyrics of a song. We have quite a few posts up now, so you're sure to see something you recognize. But an early visitor left a comment asking if we took requests. We thought that would be a good idea. Dianne did some research last weekend and set up a request form on the sidebar of Songs in Haiku. It emails us the information on the form to request a song or artist.

Michele sent in a request for "Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum. A great song with some lyrics open to interpretation. Since Pat, Dianne, and I have different approaches to summarizing lyrics, we though it would be fun to write three haiku and post them together. Go check out the three versions. Also look at our other posts -- we plan to try and have something new there daily.

Praying Mantis and Spider

With all the macro photos I've been taking of spiders, we've been paying more attention to the webs in the shrubs near our steps. I'm amazed at how many spiders are in the bushes. It doesn't take long for the spiders to remake the webs after a hard rain.

Last night Dianne and I went for a very quick walk around the community. On our way back home, we noticed a couple tall shrubs that were loaded with elaborate webs. We walked over to take a look and noticed a large spider working on a web. Dianne quickly spotted a praying mantis that was near the edge of the web. I can't believe she picked that out of the dried leaves on the bush! I went to get the camera and Dianne had to point out the praying mantus again when I got back. It seemed like it was stalking the spider -- moving around the shrub trying to get in a good position to nab it. When the praying mantus moved closer, the spider stopped working and stayed in a tight bundle near the center of the web. Oh the excitement!

Good in Soup Photos

The observant readers have noticed a lot of food pictures showing up in the Flickr badge in the right sidebar. What's up? Last week I posted photos from a textile project I was doing for the "Macro Mondays" group on Flickr. It was the first week I had participated. Last Monday evening the group's moderator sent me a note to thank me for participating and to ask me to pick next week's theme. I hate coming up with stuff like that, so what did I do? I turned to Dianne. She had several great ideas in about 30 seconds! She's good at that. From the options she tossed out, I picked "Good in Soup." So this week I've been taking macros of various food items you'd use in soup.

Below is a slide show of the photo set. You can also go to the Flickr photoset here. I have a couple more to upload, but the slide show should update automatically. Enjoy and let me know your favorites. I have to narrow it down to a few to post. Click on the photo to read the description and click near the top of the window to control the slide show.

Slice of Red Onion

I've been playing around with some food photos for another macro photo project. I was happy with the way this photo of a slice of red onion turned out. I cut the onion very thin and put it on a thin, opaque piece of plastic that folks use to make stencils. I like it because it looks a lot like a plastic cutting board. The stencil is supported on a thin piece of glass. That lets me put a flash unit underneath so most of the light for the image is coming through the onion rather than being reflected from the surface. It's an interesting effect for semi-transparent subjects.

Friday Flashback

Every Friday, Erika Jean does a Friday Flashback post where she describes something from her past. This week she challenged her readers to post a flashback of their own. Here's my attempt. The hot summer days we're having brought these memories to mind.

There were several summers when I was young where my mother would drive us down to Southern Minnesota to spend a few days with my aunt Diane and uncle Jerry. My cousin Brenda came along too at least once. I just did a Google map check and the trip is only about 2 1/2 hours, but it seemed to take forever! Are we there yet?!? My mother packed an ice cream pail full of little toys and games to keep me occupied on the trip (way before the era of video games and in car TVs or DVD players). About halfway there we'd always stop at an A&W root beer stand to have lunch. That was so tasty after the long ride!

I have several unrelated memories of my aunt and uncle's place. I do remember it being hot. I recall Brenda and I spending the hot part of the afternoon in the cool basement playing Yahtzee. We'd watch TV -- I remember they had an antenna rotator to get better reception. I also remember listening to music. My aunt is a big Johnny Cash fan and they had lots of his albums.

I remember going to some local hangout where we'd eat and the grown-ups would have a beer. The only good thing about the beer was putting little bits of salt in it to watch the fizz come off the crystals. Actually, that's about all that beer is good for to this day! That spot also had a raised table bowling game I remember playing. It looked something like the game in this picture. The pins would fold up when you hit them with the ball. That was fun to play!

We also went to see stock car racing in the evening in a neighboring town. It was exciting to watch them racing around the dirt track. One summer the track gave away a chopper style mini-bike as a door prize. Surprisingly, I had the winning ticket! What are the chances? I didn't ride it too much -- mostly when visiting aunt Ruby and uncle Roger's farm (Brenda's parents). It was still pretty cool to have won it.

Otherwise it was just fun hanging out and chatting, riding bikes, or going places around their town. It's funny how certain things stick in your mind. I'm sure the Minnesota readers will have other memories of these trips.

Cincinnati USA Best Blogs

Several local organizations, in cooperation with the Cincinnati Regional Chamber of Commerce, sponsored a Cincinnati USA Best Blog competition. The competition was open for nominations last week. Judges made a list of the top 10 local blogs from the 60+ that were nominated. Yesterday they announced the top 10 local blog list from which they’ll select two winners later this week. Check out the list (I’m not on it, but I saw a visit from the Chamber site on Monday – likely a judge). I follow one of these blogs, but the others were new to me. My personal favorite from the list is the Freckle Photoblog.

In my Earl World myopia, I didn’t even know about the contest until late last week when I received a call at work that started out something like this: “You’re going to think this is a strange question, but are you the author of Earl World?” That was a surprise that made me laugh! Turns out the caller was Bex Pistol, one of the Cincinnati Rollergirls, who works at the same place I do. Apparently she had done some detective work to track me down in order to get some information needed for the blog nomination. It was very kind of her to make the effort for the nomination – especially since she’s due any day and probably has other things on her mind. One thing I forgot to ask her when we were chatting was how many Earls she had to call before stumbling on me. I hope not too many because her opening line probably got some strange responses!

Voice of America Park Panorama

On Sunday, Dianne and I went to the former Voice of America site North of Cincinnati that has been turned into a park. It is a large parcel of land that has lots of wild growth to separate a lake for boating and fishing, many soccer fields, a pavilion, and a hill for sliding in the winter. We walked up the hill to take some photos for a panorama. Click here for a single photo of Dianne and me on top of the hill (the Voice of America building is just to the left of us in the background. Here is a 360 degree panorama from the top of the hill. Finally, thanks to the Daily Dose of Imagery site, I made a globe view from the panorama that shows me standing on top of Earl World. It's a neat effect with the water towers above the horizon.

New 7 Wonders & Panoramas

You probably heard several weeks ago the New 7 Wonders project released the voting results for the New 7 Wonders of the World. What I just Stumbled Upon yesterday was a Danish site that has QTVR panoramas for each of the New Wonders. You control the view to pan and zoom the area around each of the Wonders. Very well done! Check 'em out.

Oh, by the way, the New 7 Wonders project is now taking nominations for the New 7 Wonders of Nature. Go to the project site to make your nomination.

Textile Project

My project for the day was to take some photos for the "Macro Mondays" Flickr group. This week's theme is textiles. I used the exercise as another way to experiment with my new flash units. I'm getting a better feel for the effects created when you move them around or change the flash intensity. There are a lot of options to consider. I put some of the photos together in a mosaic shown below using fd's Flickr toys. You can also go here to see the entire textile set or click on the captions below to go to a larger version of each block in the mosaic. I think my favorite is the block in the lower right (textile 10). What do you think?

Many thanks to Cathy for providing a bag of fabric for this experiment!



1. Textile 9, 2. Textile 8, 3. Textile 7, 4. Textile 6, 5. Textile 5, 6. Textile 4, 7. Textile 20, 8. Textile 19, 9. Textile 18, 10. Textile 17, 11. Textile 16, 12. Textile 15, 13. Textile 14, 14. Textile 13, 15. Textile 12, 16. Textile 10

Attention Crash and RSS Feeds

I'll admit it...I'm a blogging addict. I like to post and I also enjoy reading posts and commenting at other sites. I don't actually surf to most sites though. Instead I follow their RSS feeds using Bloglines (which I'm not entirely happy with lately -- let me know what your favorite RSS tool is). A feed reader is convenient in that you can quickly scan posts and just click on a few of interest. But even with that, the number of blogs I was following was getting out of control.

Several weeks ago I ran across a post by Steve Rubel on the Micro Persuation blog about Attention Crash. In short, he makes the point that information is relatively easy to get everywhere. From newspapers, TV, radio, the Internet, mobile phones, etc. In fact, information is so plentiful that it's easy to overwhelm your capability to keep up.

I reached an attention crash. I've cut back on the number of blogs I'm reading regularly. I have a few groups I look at almost daily (e.g. photo sites, cooking/recipe sites, news sites, local blogs). There are a couple others tossed in -- a gadget site, a couple humor sites, and a couple folks who are frequent visitors. That keeps it more manageable. Am I missing some things? Probably. But if they are very important or viral, they'll probably show up on one of these sites. At least I'm not feeling guilty for getting behind on my RSS reading or experiencing a regular, personal attention crash.

Accident in Oshkosh

Just saw this sad CNN story about two P-51 planes that collided yesterday on landed at the EAA's AirVenture show in Oshkosh. This AP news photo, and the other included with the article, were captured just as the collision occurred.

Disparity = Disinterest?

I was surprised to read the comments on Miss Print’s post, at the Roller Derby Diva blog, about last Saturday’s Cincinnati Rollergirls bout. A couple folks commented about how the disparity in the score between the Dames and Corsets has resulted in them losing interest in the CRG-only bouts. I hope these comments aren’t representative of the crowd. I was surprised since that thought never crossed my mind, I’m looking forward to all the upcoming matches. Here’s why.

First of all, I’m probably more of a Corsets fan so I’d like to see them win a match as much as the next guy. The first intra-league match was pretty close compared to last weekend’s event. For whatever reason, things didn’t gel for the Corsets last Saturday and it wasn’t meant to be. Nevertheless, I didn’t get any inkling that they were easing up in the least. I think the fact that the difference in score didn’t continue to grow was evidence of that. If they’re giving it their all, I don’t understand a derby fan losing interest.

One of the benefits of watching an intra-league match is that you can focus on individual performance and effort – it really doesn’t matter what team they are on. I follow skaters on both teams. Who doesn’t enjoy seeing Sadie or EMolition zip around the track, weave through the pack, catch a whip from a teammate, and do it all again? Listen to the crowd collectively gasp when Panterrorize or Collier Mama gives a hard block and knocks someone out of bounds. Maybe it’s because I can barely stand on skates, but I find that amazing and a lot of fun to watch! Pick any skater and watch them during a jam. If they’re focused and giving it their all, that makes for a good roller derby event. At this level, it doesn’t matter to me what the score is.

The Cincinnati Rollergirls’ league has come a long way in just a single year! Athletic ability, event conduct and logistics, and publicity have improved dramatically. Is everything perfect? Of course not. There’s always room for improvement and I’m sure they will continue to improve on all fronts. I hope they have great fan support for all their upcoming matches, intra-league or not.

Cicada Exoskeleton

I just got some new macro flash units for my camera. On Sunday I put together a macro photography light tent in the basement. I did a little playing with the flash units and the commander unit that controls them.

Thanks to Michele, I had a great subject to experiment with. She had sent over an exoskeleton she found in her garden that was left behind by a cicada. I took some photos from different angles. The first photo below shows the slit in the back where the cicada exited from the exoskeleton shell. Clicking on each photo will take you to larger versions in Flickr or you can go to the photo set here.

New Blog -- Songs in Haiku

Dianne liked the idea of summarizing a song in haiku, so we decided to establish another blog. It's called Songs in Haiku. Pat, a big music listener, is a co-author as well. Our goal is to post at least one haiku a day. I'm hoping between the three of us there will be a good variety so you'll see a familiar song. I moved my entries from the other day to the new site and Pat and Dianne have added several so it's off to a good start.

The posts about songs I'm very familiar with are the funniest for me. Dianne's take on the Alabama Song and Pat's post on Another Brick in the Wall both made me chuckle.

Check out the new site! Bookmark it and come back often. I've added it to my blog roll on the right for convenience.

CRG -- Scars and Stripes

On Saturday evening, Dianne and I went to watch the Cincinnati Rollergirls' Scars and Stripes event at the Cincinnati Gardens. It was a match between the two CRG teams -- the Dames of Destruction and the Full Metal Corsets. Not sure of the exact final score, but the Dames won pretty decisively.

Just by chance, Miss Print's parents ended up sitting next to us along side the track. Her dad was busy taking photos as she predicted. However, Miss Print's mom wasn't covering her eyes. She did shout "that was mean" when Miss Print fell a couple times after some hard blocks. That comment was immediately followed up by "she's so little." I suppose taken together they fall into the eye covering category. Miss Print had some good jams and her parents were proud to see her scoring against the tough Dames team. It was great her folks could see a match in person (and get a break from work at the new house).

The Dames did very well right from the start. Sadistic Sadie was on fire as usual, making jamming look easy and scoring a lot. There's a reason she was asked to join Team Awesome at RollerCon. Roseanne Scarr was doing a lot of jamming for the Dames as well. Not perfect, but I like this picture of Roseanne taken during the warm-ups. The Dames' blockers, led by Panterrorize and Arche Enemy, were tough. Blu showed her skill as a pivot for the Dames.

I thought the Corsets were doing well at the various positions, but things just didn't click together for the whole team. Even though the Corsets fell behind early, they didn't give up and seemed to pick up the pace to stay about 40 points behind the Dames for the rest of the bout. Sadie was doing some taunting of the Corsets and apparent "trash talking" while skating. It's fun for the crowd and I'm sure motivational for the Corsets. Juwana Hurt and Sk8r-Kinney stood out as blockers for the Corsets. And it was good to see Collier Mama back in there skating, at least for a while until she was ejected. I missed what led up to that. EMolition was doing a lot of the jammer work for the Corsets and scoring quite a bit.

Hits and misses from the match? Both a hit and miss was the "half time" entertainment from Dante's Gypsy Circus. They were good, but it ran a bit too long. Other hits -- easy to see names and numbers on the new Corset shirts; the use of spotlights for intros and half time was a good addition; and as always the Rollergirls play to the crowd and that makes it fun. The extra effort -- things like staying for autographs and photos (me with Rocky Balrolla of the Corsets), Morgan Donor tossing out organs, and Sk8 Crime's super soaker are just a few examples. That effort (along with increased publicity) explains why last night's crowd was large! I believe Matt or Private announced there were approximately 1100 people! A minor Miss -- no one skating around with the last jam total score on a white board. Fortunately the announcers were good about reading the jam score -- and the real time scoring helps too.

I posted some photos from the match in a Flickr set you can see here. Plan ahead for their next match at the Gardens on August 25th -- a double header!

Update on 7/24: The jam score was a miss on my part! Thanks to Menace for politely pointing out in her comment that the jam score was on the giant scoreboard over the main floor (when she was really thinking what a goofball, all he had to do was look up!)

It's Quiet

It's quiet on the web this morning. I think everyone must be at home reading a book.