Sunday 30 November 2008

Kid speak: disco disco

This is one of those things that if you aren't the parent probably don't seem nearly as funny nor as interesting...

Tonite while putting up holiday decorations, my 4 year old held up a small red round ornament covered with little red mirror squares, and repeating "disco disco" while dancing. (yes, it looked like a tiny red disco ball)

It isn't innate behavior, but he sure didn't learn it from us... :-)

rootie

Are you a "man"? What your web history might say about you...

51% male, 49% female.

Must be the online holiday shopping.

http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/07/13/using-your-browser-url-history-estimate-gender/

rootie

Tuesday 25 November 2008

August Rush

I just finished watching August Rush. The plot line was simplistic, but the music and musical production took my breath away. I often judge a movie by how much I find myself engaged in it. This one made me want to play music something awful. (Of course, anyone who has heard me play knows I'm awful. anyone care for a solo harmonica concert? :) Highly recommended. (the movie, not my harmonica playing)

This concludes the official portion of today's blog post.

The human mind and human body are amazing things. Adaptable and creative, full of possibility beyond what most of us would aspire. The world (and for most of the readers of this blog) the country (social, economic, and political environment) in which we live provides us with almost limitless opportunity to pursue personally fulfilling interests, sometimes even for money. We can be artist, engineer, teacher, baker, musician, friend, athlete, parent, and politician; sometimes all in one day.

With all this seemingly limitless possibility, we have one life, and one day at a time in that life to spend, to move in the direction we want to go. In these 24 hour blocks, we have 8 hours for sleep, 3 hours for eating, 2 hours for commuting to and from work, another hour for getting dressed and ready in the morning, 8 hours for work, and that leaves 3 hours to split between family time and personal pursuits. (no, those numbers aren't going to match yours -- drop it, ok!?)

There is the fallacy of the theory-practice dichotomy; the idea that theory and practice won't align. In theory, you have limitless possibility, but in practice, you have 3 hours per day in which to make good choices. It's a fallacy in this specific instance, because the theory and the practice are both wrong.

The practice is wrong because you have more than 3 hours per day to make the choices that direct your life. It is a question of personal priorities. It is a question of personal purpose.

The theory is wrong because you don't have limitless possibility. I can practice my entire life and never be as good a skater as Nadia, as good a biker as Lance nor as good a theoretical physicist as Albert. Ability aside, there aren't enough hours in the day to pursue all those directions. It just won't happen.

Music is one thing that my heart yearns for which has gotten the short straw many times among my priorities. August Rush reminded me what I've set aside, and I enjoyed the reminder.

thanks for reading,

rootie

Friday 21 November 2008

Target Women: cars (fun)

ht: Cara

In case the embedding doesn't work, here's a link: Target Women: Cars


Thursday 20 November 2008

Blog tagging pyramid...

Amy tagged me. Chain blogging, whatever you want to call it.

Here are the rules:

  • Link to the person who tagged you.
  • Post the rules on your blog.
  • Write 6 random things about yourself.
  • Tag 6-ish people at the end of your post.
  • Let each person know he/she has been tagged.
  • Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

6 random things about me:

  1. I spend a lot of time working with numbers. Consider this: if all 6 people tagged by a post respond to it, in less than 13 links of the blog chain, every blog on the planet will have been tagged. 14 links would be almost 2 blog tags for every person on the planet in the year 2012. If each of those 13 billion posts consumed 5,000 bytes, (500-1000 words) and were stored in an array of commercially available hard drives you could buy the entire array (enough for two medium-short blog posts per person on the planet) for less than $8,000. (now you know why disk space is almost unlimited on gmail)
  2. It has been well over 10 years since I rode a unicycle. I wish now that I had kept mine, but I am too cheap to go out and buy one. I have enough toys. :)
  3. There are scars on my head from when I was hit with a hoe by a friend. A "friend" you ask? It is a long story whose summary is only to wonder how I have survived to live this long. (head wounds bleed profusely)
  4. My RSS feeds include a couple blogs that are so far out of my realm of experience or daily thought process, that you have to wonder why. This blog, and this blog specifically are both well written, eye opening and have been educational for me. I'd encourage finding a viewpoint on the world that isn't the same as your own (but isn't a waste of your time).
  5. Repetitive and substantial sleep deprivation has a number of physiological and mental effects. Have you heard the acronym TMI (too much information)? You can thank me later -- I won't enumerate those effects here.
  6. I enjoy making music. I can sound "shave and a haircut" by hitting the top of my skull with my knuckles and adjusting the resonance of my oral cavity (mouth) to intone the notes. Honestly though, I can fumble quasi-musical emanations from at least 4 instruments and several body parts, though none of them well enough that anyone would ask me to perform for them more than once.

people to tag? hmmm...

Greg Perkins

Burgess Laughlin

Wednesday 12 November 2008

Photo: The bear in the Air!

My son was throwing his bear repeatedly into the air and gleefully exclaiming "The Bear!...In the air!" obviously delighting in both the rhyme and the silliness of a flying toy. At this age, you have no idea where such a thrown toy will come back down. I got lucky on multiple counts -- nothing was broken, and the bear ended up on the ceiling... :)


Opportunities like this don't usually allow much time for fancy composition, and with a preschooler doing the tossing, framing is luck of the draw. I was already sitting on the floor, with my camera handy from a previous "cute" shot, so it was quite simple and natural to shoot up toward the ceiling to emphasize the heights involved.

Enjoy!

rootie






Sunday 9 November 2008

Photo: The tree and the fire hydrant

Ansel Adams once said "A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed". That is what brought me into photography, and what has kept me coming back, again and again. When I look at the picture later, I want it to return me to the place and the time when it was taken.


It isn't about the camera, it isn't about the technology, it is about the heart of the image, about finding the right way to capture a moment in time in a way that epitomizes both the scene and the emotions of the time. On seeing the photo later, I want to inhale deeply and smell the wet bushes of the first snow, to feel giddy and giggly at my son's antics, and see through my love's eyes and into my own heart. Taking others to that same place is just a bonus.



The tree has defied my attempts to take a picture that leaves me satisfied. (yes, I'm not above cheap humor) I'd really like to have the idyllic setting, hilly rural pastures, with nice morning light, a barb wire fence and a dirt road, maybe a light fog in the distance. Instead I'm stuck with the street, the houses, power lines, cars, sidewalk, and this ... this fire hydrant. Perhaps I'll try again next year.



rootie

Friday 7 November 2008

A tree the color of autumn itself...

Every season has something unique and wonderful; an appealing point for which we wait all year with anticipation, and whose absence is often worth mourning. Especially in recent years, I really like the leaves of autumn.

I grew up in the Rodney Dangerfield of deserts. Bare dirt with something close to 2 varieties of plant: occasional 3-4 inch tall salt sage, and a short prickly pear cactus heavy on the prickle and short on the pear. You want a real nice desert, go to Arizona. A barrel cactus with those long hard red needles has real charm, and it is hard to beat a teddy bear cholla for charisma.

Being desert raised, I have very little youthful experience with tree leaves, so it was in adulthood, on my morning walk across the parking lot to the building at work, several (dare I say many?) years ago, I discovered the joy of crunchy piles of leaves. The wind would blow them into neat rows against the parking blocks and into the gutter. On any given fall morning, I will avoid the sidewalk through the parking lot. Instead you're likely to find me walking in the gutter, kicking my feet while entranced by the "shuffle-crunch-shuffle-crunch". On rare occasion, I notice other people going just a couple feet out of their way, for exactly the same little delight. Sometimes our eyes meet, and there is an instant recognition, a shared smile among autumnal sensualists.

Maybe it is all subjective, but I think this fall has been particularly well-lit, leaving my photographic side daydreaming of a free morning, fresh batteries in the camera, and memory cards waiting to be filled with images. The trees seem to have taken every opportunity to use the wonderful autumn light to show off, presenting every color from green to red to brown, sometimes all on one tree. (ah, wonderful micro-climates!)

I've often found myself staring out the window just to admire a tree across the street from my house with the richest, most beautiful orange-brown color leaves, leaves that will only become deeper and more saturated with color as they age in my memory. Mother nature won't let it last much longer, but for me, it will live on as one of my memories of autumn.

rootie

Life's little lessons #5001 - 5005

I bought a new camera the other day. Oh the excitement of a new toy. Just think of the wonderful pictures I'll be able to take! (and share with all my friends)

What an education!

5001. There is a phenomenon I am sure the mechanics among you will recognize. If you have an old car with many years and miles on it, replacing one part will often mean you must replace other parts. What starts out small can grow beyond your expectations.

5002. 2 memory cards @ 8GB each. 2GB free hard drive space for picture downloads. (something's gotta grow all right :O )

5003. I can shoot RAW images at incredible speed. I'll just pull them into the software I already have...uh...hmmm...Nikon changed their RAW file format so none of my current (preferred) software will read the raw format images. I guess I need another upgrade.

5004. Shopping for personal items (ahem, I mean a camera bag, which is definitely personal preference) can take longer than expected and shouldn't be done while accompanied by a preschooler. I figured 10, maybe 15 minutes tops -- about an hour later we were back on the road.

5005. 20x spotting scopes at convenient eye level make great entertainment for a 4 year old...though I bet the camera store clerk gained a few gray hairs. It's one of those little things: "daddy daddy, come look, there's a video in this! it's a video daddy, come look! it's a video!"

It has been a busy autumn with so many lessons to learn.

May your fallen leaves be crunchy, colorful and deep!

rootie