Fall Fashion: Horizontal Stripes

The trees are changing colors and I decided to take advantage of a sunny day by working on a project I've been planning for at least a year now.  The concept is simple: trees look really good in the fall and I could take stunning photos.  But I wanted to capture more than just a few trees.  I wanted to take pictures of Portland.

My photos have more than just pretty trees.  These photos also have power and telephone lines.  You'll feel like you are in Lake Oswego on a sunny fall day, surrounded by all the colors of the rainbow represented in the delicate texture of fading leaves.  And by our fine city's vast cable network.  If you've got the telephones, flaunt it.  Don't be shy.

I've shared a handful of photos at my gallery here.  Please check it out.  All photos are unprocessed, unfiltered, 21mm.

Summer is Over

Today feels like the first day of Winter.  Many people think of winter as the season starting in late December and lasting until the flowers bloom.  As a former Alaskan, I think of Winter as the season starting around the first snowfall in late September or early October and lasting until Break-Up in April.  So this is the right time of year for Winter to come, in my little world.

The rains came heavy today.  We have a new season.  Time to start wearing a jacket.

For the record

OK, sometimes I think I'm a computer smart guy.  Capable.  And all that.

Today I spent 30 minutes trying to figure out why Google Reader doesn't save my password.  I started with my browser, telling it to autofill.  When that failed, I updated my keychains and removed the entry for Google so that I could make a new one with the right properties.  When that failed, I reset my browser, deleting all cookies and stuff.  When that failed, I didn't know what to do.

All of this takes 30 minutes because fixing problems on a computer is mainly about perseverance.  It still didn't work.  So I persevered.

Ultimately, the fix was to adjust my bookmark.  It took me to a login page instead of to the general page where it would remember my login.

Fixing problems isn't about knowing the solution.  It is more about trying and trying and not giving up.

Fat Guy in a Little Coat

The movie Tommy Boy had a scene where Chris Farley puts on David Spade's coat and starts to sing "Fat guy in a little coat, fat guy in a little coat."

I wouldn't remember it except for a guy in my 9th grade biology class who thought it was the funniest scene ever, and he'd sing the song and swing his arms around.

This weekend I've been assigned a short paper, 1600 words, no framework provided, and the topic is big enough to write a book about.  My problem is that I've got to lose 1000 words before it fits.  And I've been holding my breath in to get this far!

Windows

I installed MS windows on my mac today.  I've got some old games that I want to play.

Here's a record of my problems:

• The bluetooth keyboard tool gives you two seconds to type eight character passwords.

• I installed to an unformatted partition.  It didn't work.  It wouldn't ever work.  But it let me try for 30 minutes.

• I connected to the internet and went to windowsupdate.  The first thing I could do, before actually updating the computer, is verify my computer by downloading WGA.

• In the 10 minutes I needed to handle WGA, my computer was passively infected with a virus.

• The virus wouldn't let me install SP3 or the windows virus remover.

• Thank Steve Wozniak that I can figure it out on my own.

• Four reboots to update to the latest files.

Thanks for reading.  This one was for me, not you.

This is where I can improve

My latest hobby is photography.  I'm self trained, which means that I read a few books and I don't receive any advice from real people.  In truth, my photography is worse for the lack of photography friends.  Further, my results are stymied in another way that I've recently realized: my "process" does not include examining every shot.

In the great olden times of photography, each shutter activation was tied to a fair amount of expense and effort.  Every *click* was soon followed by an hour in the darkroom.  Failing that, each shot would at least be developed at the drugstore and the results would all be delivered in hardcopy.  Either method cost enough money/time that only the rarest photographer would be willing to shoot many photos of the same scene.

The result was that the older photographer would take time to frame a shot, viewing the scene their mind, making sure all the settings were right, and taking a single photo with their fingers crossed.  Once prints were made, a good photographer might look each one over and decide how they would have improved the shots that failed.

And this is something I rarely do.  Instead, I'll have 10 photos in a series, each taken in rapid succession, each with minor changes in settings.  I'll modify the exposure slightly in search of a good setup.  I'll take a few photos in hopes that one will be in focus.

And then I go to my computer and choose the best one of twenty, and discard the remainder.  I rarely make prints.  I don't look at the results too often, and the bad results are ignored before they were even half seen.

And this moment, when the photos are done, when nothing remains to adjust and all the light meant to be captured was captured, and all the light that could have been is lost, this is the moment where I have not been taking my lessons.  Instead, I discard the results.

I know that print examination makes a difference.  I know because my office has a dozen prints on the wall.  And I look at each print and I know where I got things wrong.  And each print tells me what to improve the next time I shoot.  And I remember some of these lessons the next time I shoot.

But these few are the only prints I exmine.  Thousands of photos and only a dozen get critique.

This is where I can improve.

Spring Break Collection

Jingu Stadium, Japanese Baseball.  We caught the season opener on a half-rainy day at the ballpark.  The Tokyo Dome ballpark is right next door, and is protected against rain.  Jingu Stadium, however, gets wet.

Natasha and I discussed the possibility of seeing baseball while we were still outside of Japan, but it wasn't in our itinerary.  I think I was inspired, at least partially, by seeing the stadiums from the top of the world.  The next morning, I looked to buy tickets online using the hotel's computer in the lobby.  Buying tickets is the hardest part, so I'll explain the whole process.

First, I checked the Yakult Swallows website and was unable to find instructions in english.  I did find a schedule, and it clearly labeled the first game as 6:00 pm on that very day.  Lucky us.

Next, I tried to talk the hotel clerk into showing us how to buy tickets.  He began by pretending to call someone to get a schedule, and told me, "so sorry, no game today at Tokyo Dome."  I think he tried to get himself off the hook without lying.  There was no game at Tokyo Dome, but there was a game at Jingu Stadium.  He was probably still bitter with me for eating twice as much food as anybody else during the free breakfast.  Also, I couldn't tell the difference between combustible waste-product and non-combustible.  The yogurt packages, for example, look like waxy paper or maybe a plastic or part-styrofoam cup — and I have no way of knowing where to put it.  It might burn if the temperature was high enough, but so would styrofoam, and I wouldn't want them to burn styrofoam.  I'm pretty sure that guy was looking at me funny when I'd try to categorize my waste.

I told him that I had found a schedule online, and then showed him the webpage with all the info, and then asked him how we can buy tickets.  He read through the webpage and told us that we would need to buy the tickets at a convenience store, such as 7-Eleven or AM/PM.  Luckily, these are all over the place.  There were probably a dozen within two city blocks.  It was like trying to find a Starbucks in downtown USA.

At 7-Eleven, following the usual communication by gesture and endless repeating of a single word, the clerk communicated that we would use a special phone in the back of their store, hit the blue button, and then work out a deal with the person on the other end.  So I tried this, and using a handy book of phrases I asked if the person on the other end spoke english.  No.  Nobody there speaks english.  The phone jockeys probably speak Japanese and Malay.  I tried calling a few times, got different people, and nobody could speak with me.

I'm not so egotistic as to believe that they should speak english.  But it was frustrating, because we'd spent half of the morning getting this far.  So we carried on with our business for the time being, toured Roppongi and other areas, and decided to wait and see if we could make it to the stadium to buy tickets in person.

Luckily, that afternoon, we were in a 7-Eleven and I found a guy who spoke english and was willing to help us.  He was clearly not Japanese.  He used the special Bat-Phone and dialed the red button instead of the blue, and he talked for a couple minutes with the person and found us tickets.  He wanted ¥3000 (about $30) in cash.  When he got the money, he went behind the counter and disappeared for a while, without telling us what was going on or providing a receipt.  We both had that feeling you get when someone has just robbed you and you can't do anything about it.

After about 5 minutes, their electronic ticket machine behind the counter started working, the guy came back, and he processed the sale and gave us our tickets.

At that point, we had a plan.  So we continued our sightseeing and began a long trek toward the stadium on aching feet.  On the way, we found Honda's world headquarters where they have everything Honda makes on display, from cars to motorcycles to lawnmowers.  We also found Sony's HQ, which had many large TVs hooked up to PS3s playing unreleased games like Gran Turismo 5.

We arrived at the stadium well ahead of schedule, and were still too late to get the good cheap seats.  The first-come-first-served seating fills up early.  We ended up behind the foul post in right field.

The teams playing were the Yakult Swallows and the Yomiuri Giants, Tokyo's two biggest teams.  We sat in the Yakult section, but Natasha's bright orange jacket was better suited to the Giants colors.  "Swallows" is, apparently, a very difficult word to say for the Japanese people.  The fans were doing some cheers in english which I couldn't even tell was english until the tune set in.  I first discovered that they were saying "swallows", then I figured the rest out.  These small breakthroughs excite me.

Our section had flag wavers and head cheerleaders.  When the team scored everybody would bring out their mini umbrellas and sing and dance.

Good thing they all brought umbrellas.  It rained pretty hard during the first half of the game.  I stood in a line to buy a garbage-bag marketed as a rain jacket.  When I was close enough to touch, they sold out.  The second half of the game was dry, though.

Natasha ate a funny looking soup.  I ate an expensive bento box of mediocre food.  Garlic fries would have been a welcome addition.

The scoreboard was high tech.  It looked like an old card-based scoreboard, then turned into a super high-res video screen.  Very neat.

We had a great time at the ballpark, and I highly recommend that you visit.