Bees, Bees, and More Bees

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

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

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

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

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 Concordia. 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!

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

Interesting Photography Sites

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

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 Magazine 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

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

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

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

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.