←December 2006 | Main | February 2007→
January 29, 2007
Jim Thompson: Space Ace
Jim Thompson, co-anchorman alongside Dwight "Windows4Evr" Silverman over at the Houston Chronicle's TechBlog, has this really cool new side gig. Jim was invited to join the team that is building Orion, the next manned (U.S.) spacecraft, as the lead of the team that is developing the audio-visual flight software. (Jim's been working in the space business for the past 11 years.)
Jim's new side gig leaves little blogging time. Maybe every so often, once in while, occasionally, here and there he'll write, but people familiar with the subject assure me Jim's still around, will continue to blog and that's a good thing. Now I know I'll be able to sleep tonight. *chuckle*
(I promised Jim I wouldn't bring up the Sexy Geeks -- you may recall I nominated Jim and Dwight back in November. I s'pose I just broke that promise, didn't I.)
Anyhoo, this post is dedicated to Jim Thompson: blogger, sexy geek, space ace... who still wears socks with his topsiders. (ew.) ;-)
Posted by me, of course! | Comments (4)
January 26, 2007
Friday Feathers - Flubs
Almost doesn't count except in horse shoes and hand grenades.
It's either a Mockingbird or a Thrasher but it doesn't matter. The photograph was taken on a sunny afternoon. The sky was blue, no clouds, and most likely the camera setting was on automatic. The photo looked good on the camera's display but it was something entirely different when transferred to the computer.
The background is fine, but where the hell is the bird's face? Great that the bird was busy singing or chirping so its beak was open -- that's a plus -- but that funky, dark hue is hiding the bird's face, and I want to see its eyes.
I dragged the photograph into Photoshop and used the Curves Tool to lighten the image. Doing so blows the blue background right out of the photo and turns the tree branch into a moldy looking green but hey, there's the bird's face and now I can see its eyes.
Though I manage to get a clear look at the bird after the fix, with the blue background gone and the branch color not exactly what it should be, the photograph is a miss.
Posted by me, of course! | Comments (4)
January 25, 2007
Quote
One kind word can warm three winter months. - Japanese proverb
Posted by me, of course!
File Your Taxes by April 17
Taxpayers have until April 17 to file their 2006 tax returns - IRS
Posted by me, of course!
NYC to Launch "Official" Condom
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration is focused on reducing rates of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS, and part of the strategy is the aggressive promotion of free condoms. Officials are banking on the idea that more people will use condoms if they're wrapped in jazzy packaging. - wnbc
There's a joke in there somewhere...
Posted by me, of course!
January 24, 2007
Speaking of birthin' babies...
Five Komodo dragons were born today -- the offspring of Flora, an eight-year-old virgin KD (Komodo dragon.) She became pregnant without ever having a male partner.
Kevin Buley, the zoo’s Curator of Lower Vertebrates and Invertebrates, said: “Flora is oblivious to the excitement she has caused but we are delighted to say she is now a mum and dad. When the first of the babies hatched, we didn’t know whether to make her a cup of tea or pass her the cigars.”
Posted by me, of course! | Comments (1)
January 22, 2007
Live in/near Bellevue, WA?
If you’re in the Bellevue, Washington area stop by Caffe Lento -- 509 156th Ave SE, Lake Hills Shopping Mall. They're having a very soft opening and are testing coffee/pastry recipes on the willing. There might even be chocolates! 9:30 a.m.- 2:30 p.m. Monday-Friday.
Best of luck, Steve and Elena!
Posted by me, of course!
January 19, 2007
Up the Duff
Greg (Reject Reality) and his lovely wife Vanessa are expecting their first child. We have been working together on a project (*chuckle*) and my emails to him have included inquiries about his wife and how she's feeling. Greg has been busy reading some books for dads-to-be and mentioned one titled Up the Duff.
Definition: "Up the duff" is an Australian colloquialism meaning pregnant (example "she's up the duff")
Greg writes:
"Up the duff" is a real world view of the whole [pregnancy] process including sane information on what can go wrong. It was written in such a way as to acknowledge the problems, explain the causes and what you can do. This is significantly different to most other books which pride themselves in scaring the bejezus out of flummoxed parents-to-be by effectively telling them that they will be giving birth to an iguana. In some cases with the information you are provided, it really does sound like you've got some form of lizard on the way.
My view is we don't need to be petrified into learning what's going on; we're more than happy to research it properly ourselves.
I told Greg I thought "up the duff" sounded obscene, until he provided the definition for me. I am sure there are other colloquialisms/slang out there from other countries that are equally, uhm, surprising. One of the more distasteful examples of this comes from the good 'ol U.S., knocked up -- among others that just aren't rising to the surface of my brain right now. (Those of you who reside in the U.S. can certainly help fill in the blanks of my mind and deposit your slang in the comments.) For those of you outside the U.S., do chime in with yours!
One more thing. I told Greg his comment about "giving birth to an iguana" and "some form of lizard on the way" made me squirm. Talk about imagery! Eww.
Posted by me, of course! | Comments (4)
Friday Feathers - Flubs
Look! Up in the tree! What IS that orange thing up there?
It was a bird I'd never seen before, so I stood there for a few minutes craning my neck, my eyes locked onto it, watching as it flitted from branch to branch, completely forgetting about the camera in my hands. It then occured to me that I should take some photographs.
I wouldn't know what type of bird it was until closer inspection of the photos I took. A quick check to my bird guide brought the surprise that it was a Baltimore Oriole. I'd never seen one before. When I viewed the shot at 100 percent, this is what I saw:
*bummer*
I've not seen an oriole since.
Posted by me, of course! | Comments (2)
Quote
"I wanna hang a map of the world in my house. Then I'm gonna put pins into all the locations that I've traveled to. But first, I'm gonna have to travel to the top two corners of the map so it won't fall down." - Mitch Hedberg
Posted by me, of course!
January 12, 2007
Friday Feathers - Flubs
Last week when I posted that Friday Feathers would be in a holding pattern until I had new photos, reader Steve asked me to post some imperfect photos in the meantime. I thought this was a terrific suggestion, just to give you an idea of how hypercritical I am about my photographs.
Below is a recent photograph I took of a White-breasted Nuthatch. Using my Tamron 200-500mm zoom lens on my Nikon D50, I pointed the camera up toward a nearby tree and spotted the Nuthatch way up high on a lone branch. The sky was a brilliant blue and looking through the viewfinder, the setup seemed perfect.
I took the shot, checked it on the display and it looked good. When I finish my shooting for the day, I then transfer the photographs to my laptop and review what I've shot. With the photographs ported into Nikon's Picture Project software, I view them in slideshow mode and immediately delete the obvious blurred and botched images. All files are saved to my desktop, backed up to an external CD and then further inspection takes place via Photoshop or Apple's iPhoto.
To me, I've taken a good photograph when I enlarge it and everything is crystal clear and in focus and nothing is blurred, backgrounds are pleasing to the eye and nothing is distracting, such as errant tree branches, etc. I really liked the photograph above until I enlarged it and saw that the bird was out of focus:
As a beginning photographer, I have taken numerous photographs and soon realized that I didn't want to spend a lot of time altering a photograph in Photoshop or iPhoto. Tweaking a photo (brightness, contrast, etc.) is okay once in a while, but I am aiming for those photos where it isn't necessary to fix anything. I now save only those photographs which meet that criteria, even though I managed to find some in my photo library that fall under the "flubs" category.
I'll continue posting flubs on Fridays until, as stated previously, I have photographs of birds that haven't appeared previously on this blog. Sure, I have many different photos of birds, but each bird has already had its 10 minutes of fame in this space. One more thing. Contrary to the impression that I have a huge garden, I am not that fortunate. The majority of the bird photographs featured here have been taken outside of NYC.
Posted by me, of course! | Comments (5)
January 9, 2007
Thank You Very Little
A man falls from a subway platform, a toddler tumbles from a fire escape — two quintessential urban nightmares. Three men race to the rescue. One jumps onto the tracks to save the fallen man. The two others position themselves to catch the child.
Both dramas occurred in New York City and were celebrated nationwide.
Yet the reflexive willingness to pitch in, to involve themselves in other people’s lives at crucial moments, seems so at odds with the decades-old (or maybe centuries-old) stereotype of New York as a hard-nosed, hardhearted place where everyone is on his own, where even innate do-gooders squelch the impulse to do something to help out. If you fall on the tracks, that is your problem. - What Would You Do?
That article reminded me of situation where helping didn't exactly go the way one would think.
I was crossing Broadway one early evening during the pre-holiday December rush. Looking ahead of me to the corner in front of the neighborhood Starbucks, I saw a baby stroller and a man standing near it. As I stepped up the curb to continue walking (the stroller right in my path,) I noticed the stroller, with baby inside, began to roll toward the sloped part of the curb (on every street corner, the curb slopes downward.) The guy standing near the stroller was busy yapping on his cell phone and did not have his hand on the stroller, but it was obvious it was either his child or a friend's or relative's offspring. Without thinking, I reached down to the front of the stroller, extended my arm and hand and stopped it from rolling down the curb and tumbling into the street. Then I looked up at the guy, who was still on his cell phone yapping away, and he glared at me in a way I can't describe other than THE LOOK OF DEATH.
EXCUSE ME?
I couldn't believe it. I COULD NOT BELIEVE this guy would shoot me a look like I did something wrong, unless his plan was to let the stroller roll along on its way to disaster. Un.fucking.believable. Had I not been in a hurry, verbal warfare would have ensued and you can be sure I'd use the word ASSHOLE.
So much for being helpful in NYC.
Posted by me, of course! | Comments (3)
January 8, 2007
Great Find for the New Year
Thanks to Joost who didn't tip me off that he found this and just snuck it onto his blog.
Strauss - Radetsky March
Yay! Hope y'all clapped along. ;-)
P.S. I was the blue-haired lady in the first row. *wink wink* Also, if you haven't been playing along these past umpteen years, this particular piece is my FAVORITE from the Vienna Philharmonic's annual New Year's Day Concert in (duh) Vienna, Austria.
Posted by me, of course! | Comments (1)
January 5, 2007
Friday Feathers
Until I've got some new bird photographs to put here, Friday Feathers will be in a holding pattern. However, the full collection of Friday Feathers photographs from 2006 can be found here.
Posted by me, of course! | Comments (3)
January 1, 2007
Happy New Year...
... and all that. :-) I wish all of you only the very best of the next 12 months - good health, prosperity, etc. etc. !
Posted by me, of course! | Comments (3)