What I'm Up To

I got one of those "check-in" chain emails this morning. I thought I would post my responses tonight instead of actually putting some thought into writing a real entry.

1. What is your occupation?   Store Manager 
What day is it today? Monday

2. What color are your socks right now?   My Feet are Naked 

3. What are you listening to right now?   The Decemberists, The Sporting Life 

4. What was the last thing that you ate?  Steak and Eggs at Mel's

5. Can you drive a stick shift?   Yes

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?   Midnight Blue

 7. Last person you spoke to on the phone?  My Mother
8. Do you like the person who sent this to you?   Yes 

9. How old are you today?   39

10. Favorite drink?   Water 

11. What is your favorite sport to watch?   Baseball in Person, Football on the Tube 

12. Have you ever dyed your hair?   No

13. Pets?   None, but I'm thinking about getting a Hermit Crab

14. Favorite movie?   8 1/2

15. Last movie watched?  No Country for Old Men

16. Favorite Day of the Year?   Whatever day the MacWorld Keynote falls on 

17. What do you do to vent anger?   You're supposed to vent it???!! This explains so much. 
18. What was your favorite toy as a child?   I don't remember the name but it was a building set with plastic interlocking girders that you could snap film windows on to make skyscrapers. If I still had that it would totally be set up in my apartment. 

19. What is your favorite, fall or spring?   Fall

20. Hugs or kisses?  Both

21. Cherry or Blueberry?   Blueberry

22. Do you want your friends to email you back?  Yes

23. Who is most likely to respond?   Karen

24. Who is least likely to respond?  Paul (He sent it to me)

25. Living arrangements?  Like I said I'm thinking about getting a hermit crab. 

26. When was the last time you cried?   Probably during an episode of West Wing. Political drama get me right there. 

27. Whats on the floor of your closet?   Boxes, and a Computer monitor.

28. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending this to?   John

29. Who is the friend you have had the shortest that you are sending this to?   Brandon

30. Favorite smell?   Beef over Flame 

31. What inspires you?  Person:   The unnamable X   In general:   Music 

32. What are you afraid of?   Death 

33. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers?   Cheese 

34. Favorite car?  #60 on the California Line, # 21 on the Powell Line

35. Number of keys on your key ring?   6 (including one duplicate)

37. How many years at your current job?   2 1/2 

38. Favorite day of the week?  Monday (least number of tourists on the Cable Cars)

39. How many states have you lived in?   2 (plus a variety of Consciousness) 

40. How many countries have you been to?   2 (plus Texas which I don't consider to be America and neither it seems do they)

The Patriot's Lose!!??

You know I was not into the Super Bowl this year. I even volunteered so that my assistant who is from the East Coast could watch. The last thing I wanted was to spend a couple of hours of my life watching the hated Patriot's beat up on New York. That is why I was pleasantly surprised when I check in on the score and saw that the Giant's had come from behind to win it all. Congratulations to New York on this one. Almost makes me feel sorry I didn't watch.

Broke the Streak

So I didn't get home tonight until just now. That officially breaks my streak for consecutive day posts. I was at the movies. For those of my readers that I used to be married to that have been asking me to see No Country for Old Men you got your wish. I'm still in that shock to the system state that a good movie has a tendency to put me in. Joel and Ethan have made a number of essays on the evil that snakes it's way through some of the undercurrents of our country. This was the best one. Despite the fact that it is set over twenty years in the past I think it will be the movie that will best remind me of the feeling that I had about these times when I think back from the future. Our markets, our place in the world, our country seems to be driving right up on that dark border. We are not descending into chaos. But perhaps we are learning to live with it in the neighborhood. 

Losing a Little Steam

Dome at Night
Originally uploaded by lacadaz

I feel a little defeated tonight. I'm pretty sure tomorrow my streak of a hundred view's a day on flickr will come to an end. Tonight my new zoom lens came in the mail. A dark and stormy night is not necessarily the best time to check out a zoom lens. I'm still learning what it can and can't do. I managed to put up six pictures from tonight. The dome was probably the best of them. I'm off to bed. Right now. I need to start playing catch-up with my sleep. Besides I'll want to try to get an hour or two of light before tomorrow's regional meeting.

Bag of Anything $1

Bag of Anything
Originally uploaded by lacadaz

A couple of days ago I was walking past a deli across the street from the back side of the BoA building when I saw this sign in the window. Bag of Anything $1. It may be the most ingenious marketing slogan I've ever encountered. I mean if any place I normally shopped started doing "Bag of Anything $1" I guarantee you I would never set foot inside a competitor's store.

I Went to Coit Tower This Morning

Library
Originally uploaded by lacadaz

Well, my attempts to bring balance back to my life failed today. Yes I managed to clean the bathroom and fix my mother's computer but they actually took far less time than I anticipated. What I did spend my day on was going up to Coit Tower and taking pictures of the murals. And of course the afternoon to clean, tag and upload the images. Still obsessed. I wonder how it's going to be when I get that new lens at the end of the week.

Maybe I'm Not a Photographer After All

Tonight I had to go back to the store after I was almost all the way home to take care of an alarm issue. I found myself on an outbound evening 41. This is not a usual bus for me. I got on at Hyde Street to a packed coach. After a couple of stops I managed to find a seat near the front. Across the aisle from me was an active young woman who was intently reading. The book she was reading was very thick and I noticed that she was coming up on the end of it. She had maybe 50 pages to go. The book was War and Peace. 

I myself have not yet gotten around to tackling that particular classic. But I couldn't help marveling that she was reaching that most perfect time when a truly great book begins it's conclusion. Her face betrayed that very thing. Brows furrowed in a combination of empathy, horror and wonderment all at the same time. The fact is that what she was projecting at that moment was much deeper than anything I could describe. 

The thing is I really didn't have to. I was wearing my new camera around my neck. It was powered on and set for an auto exposure right under my jacket. She was so engrossed in the Tolstoy that she may not have even noticed it. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to even possibly risk breaking that spell she was under. There is still that part of me that sees taking pictures as a form of stealing. And there is part of me that is still far more married to the written word. 

One Week

So I've had my new camera for a week now. It has been a bit of a life changing experience for me. I've been carrying around the camera every time I set foot out of my apartment. I've managed to take a different route home each night from work to get exposed to different scenes. Now I've just got to incorporate that back into a more regular routine. Tomorrow I need to get restore a little bit of balance back to my life. I do love new obsessions but I've got to restore a little more productivity to the other aspects of my life. 

My W-2 Arrived Tonight

My W-2 arrived in the mail today. I had my taxes filed within 10 minutes of walking into my apartment. As I had already pretty much spent part of the refund already I should not have been thinking about what else to buy with it. Yea, right. Within the hour I had sent B&H Photo a little slice of that future check from the government. By the end of the week you should be seeing the effect of a 55-200 mm zoom lens with built in vibration reduction. My photography obsession continues unabated. Tonight's contributions were from my commute. A couple of shots in the morning from the bus ride and some shadowy exposures from the walk from Van Ness to my apartment. 

Up Early Again

So I woke up this morning at a quarter to four and couldn't get back to sleep. Around six I just said to heck with it, got up and dressed and went out to take some more pictures. I guess this is the good thing about getting the photography bug–it's getting me out of my apartment more. Hell last night I got off the bus 10 blocks early just to walk through Chinatown to take some pictures as the stores were closing up. When I sat out this morning I was hoping that this storm would have more wind than rain. Not quite. I ended up getting pretty damp while walking around looking for shots of San Francisco in the rain. It wasn't too bad of a walk though and I ended up getting warm again at the Peet's in the Ferry Building. As usual the fruits of my labors made their way to my flickr site. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacadaz/

Lightroom Kicks iPhoto Out of My Workflow

I lost one of the main reasons to use iPhoto over Lightroom this morning when I found a good flickr up-loader for it.  So now I'm tagging my photos and using the tools in Lightroom to do all my post-production work. I remain enamored with my camera. Tonight in the rain I got off the bus in North Beach and took pictures of Stockton Street shutting down for the night. I have passed this scene countless times on the bus but tonight was different for me. I ventured out more into the world. This is a fantastic byproduct of my new hobby. I've taken a load of pictures every day since I picked it up on Saturday night. Today was my most popular day on flickr. In fact since I bought this camera I haven't had less than a hundred frame views. I'm feeling pretty darn good about that to tell you the truth. 

Photo Obsession

So I've been spending more time on flickr than ever before. I joined a couple of San Francisco groups and have been sending some of my new snaps their way. By far the most interesting is Guess Where SF. The idea is to guess the location of whatever picture of the city is posted. I can see how this can become addictive and a useful kick in the pants to get out and walk the city with my camera. On the one hand it makes me want to try to find more unique locations. On the other hand it makes me try to identify more unique locations. I put up a picture of the Sunday school gates at the Christian Science Church at Franklin and California. Somebody figured it out and posted in seven minutes. I'm pretty impressed with the group so far. It has the most active members I've encountered on flickr. The picture I posted yesterday already has 84 views. I'm not telling where it is yet and no one has guessed yet. 

I'm also lurking around some other photography sites. The language on these sites is so different from what I'm used to on the net. Mostly I read news and politics and tech. You can't read more than two comments on any of those subjects without someone getting their blood pressure cranked up. People are actually encouraging to other people's opinions and art. I can't believe it's the same internet. 

Lion Sex

Along with the newer pictures that I've been uploading to flickr were the zoo pictures from last April that I thought I had lost during a software upgrade. I remembered that I had made a gallery on my old .mac blog. So I went and rescued them and put up a set on flickr. In a matter of hours the pictures of the Lions having sex had already gotten more views than all but two of all the pictures I had ever uploaded. I guess sex sells. Even lion sex. Anyway here is the foreplay picture, you'll have to go to flickr to get the juicy stuff. 

A Night with My New Camera

I'm not sure how long my posts are all going to be me gushing about how much I love my new camera. At least this one and maybe even one more. I've taken several hundred pictures since I brought it home and have gone out of my way to hit areas I know are good for photography. Anyway here is the last one I took on my way home from work tonight. I'm pushing the flickr link out there again because I've put a little more into my page including updating the map portion so you can click and see exactly where I took the shot on yahoo maps. 

lacadaz on flickr

A Day With My New Camera

I had an inventory to do early this morning but I brought along my camera. I took some pictures on the way to work. I took some pictures while running an errand for work down to the Wharf. I took some pictures along The Embarcadero. I took some pictures on my way home. I took some pictures on my afternoon walk down Powell to Market Street. All in all I took about 200 pictures. I could not be more pleased with my purchase. I kept the camera on nearly all day. I snapped whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I didn't even get the battery readout to budge from full all day. I still had room and power to shoot another 200 pictures. 

I'm definitely still learning the ins and out of this camera but I was very satisfied with the results. With all the pictures I'm sure to be taking I've switched back to Lightroom and am then adding only my absolute favorites to iPhoto. I managed to process 20 pictures and upload them to my flickr account. Take a peak if you are so inclined. 

lacadaz on flickr

Tomorrow's Should be a Vivid Post

Well I finally did it. Tonight I snuck into Circuit City as they were shutting the doors and bought my first real camera. I should be asleep right now as I have an early morning inventory. Instead I'm trying to will the battery to charge so I can actually try out my new Nikon. I've got the afternoon off after that inventory so hopefully by tomorrow night I'll be putting some new pictures up on flickr. 

My Cold is Back

I spent the day walking and taking the bus all over the north side of the city. I had to move stuff between five different stores in anticipation of inventory this weekend. This would have been fine except for the fact that my cold pretty much came back yesterday. Walking all over hell and gone and forgetting to eat all day was not a very good idea. I'm going to blow my nose now and try to get some sleep. Tomorrow's I've got some more of the same except that we'll have some good business going to. I'm afraid it's going to be a long couple of days for me. 

If Only They Could Blame the Writers Strike

So I blew off Macworld and went across the street to the Metreon and caught a movie. I saw the sequel to National Treasure. I'm not sure but I think it was called National Treasure II: Unbelievable Scenarios. It wasn't a bad plot. The acting wasn't bad either. Well no the acting was actually on the not good side of things. But it was this script that just did me in. They kept running into complications like characters are supposed to. The only problem was that each character would then come up with the most elaborate and idiotic way to do everything. I keep wanting to like these movies. I love all that conspiracy bullshit and what the hell I like Nicolas Cage and Jon Voight well enough. It's just that these scripts are so utterly void of any sign of intelligent life. God, I can hardly wait for the Indiana Jones movie. Inndeeeyy!!!

I Was Wrong About the Keynote

Turns out there is no iAir in a can. What there is, is the Macbook Air the newest and most portable Apple has ever put out. Sure I want one but it's one of those things that wouldn't change my life all that much. The iPhone changed the way I did things. My present computers did too. The Macbook Air would be nice to own but I wouldn't want to sign the check to pay for it. 

Now the Time Capsule is a different story. I'm getting myself one of those. I'll wait for it though. To tell you the truth I'm thinking more about a new camera with my tax refund. That's been my plan for the last year and I didn't see anything new from Apple to change my mind about that. 

Last Minute, Fearless Keynote Predictions

The tag line of this year's MacWorld is "There is Something in the Air". Conventional wisdom is pointing to an ultra portable MacBook or a delivery upgrade for the iPhone. I'm going to go completely off the page on this one. Last night I kept waking up thinking about that phrase. I tried to put myself in the shoes of The Steve. For starters I've got a bunch of rabid fans. The iPhone proved that they would pay a premium to replace what has really become a need in modern life. If I had a captured audience what would be the ideal goods to sell–what are the most basic needs of humans? That's when I realized that there was no puzzle to this year's motto. The answer is right there in the copy. If I could corner a market it would be on air. Air and water. Then maybe food and oil, but first air and water. What does this have to do with technology? I'm betting it's all in the delivery system. It's not all about air quality, it's about how you breathe it.