rhymes with milk

YARD SALE

2009-03-26T22:27:00.006-06:00

I'm moving! Finally! Shiny new floors, bright whitewashed picket fences, and green well-trimmed yards come at the price of having a bunch of boxes piled high in disarray for at least a few weeks, so don't judge the place before I've fully moved in. You can find it at the corner of:

http://www.rhymeswithmilk.com/blog

just south of nowhere. See you at the housewarming party.

By the way, I'm going to be changing its URL to blog.rhymeswithmilk.com and www.rhymeswithmilk.com/blog sooner than later, so keep your eye out for that. You don't need to worry too much about remembering/bookmarking the wp one.

UPDATE: The URL has been changed. It no longer is /wp.

Coraline! Woo!

2009-03-22T20:02:00.002-06:00

A few weeks ago Ally and I went to see Coraline, but the 3-D projector broke before it started. We were given rain checks, and finally went back last Wednesday to see it. We had thought that it was finished showing in 3-D since the stupid Jonas Brothers (whoever they are) had some equally stupid 3-D feature out, but since no one went to see their stupidity Coraline 3-D started showing again.

We were the only people in the theater. They played a 3-D movie on a gigantic screen
for two people that didn't even pay. What a waste for them, but it was awesome for us.

Chucks

2009-03-22T19:53:00.004-06:00

Ally's new shoes are very photogenic. So are theirs.

There's been a lot of hanging out in Mark 'n Gordon's back yard lately, and I'm not quite sure why it's not been happening at ours. I guess you can't toss cinder blocks here, but we've still got cool things, too. You know, like flagstone and a non-functioning waterfall.

The Broomfield Sky

2009-03-17T10:34:00.000-06:00

"I don't wanna sound like a big tool, but we were wondering tonight what the exact alcohol content of pbr is. We looked everywehre on your cans and on the box of the 30 we got and failed to find anything. So yea you should know this truth. Please get back to me and I'll love you forever. Although i already do love you forever so we're cool....right...thanks! bye!"
– via tufts daily

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I drank a beer out of the bottle tonight. As I looked around at the rich Christians of Boulder surrounding me, they all either had their beers in glasses, or went to classier beverages altogether. The only other guy drinking out of the bottle and not wearing a tie-and-jacket was instead in a sweater-vest and had a white mustache, nulling any connection we might have had over our not-coolness. He knew what was up.

Apples and Allys

2009-03-16T23:52:00.004-06:00

This was a nice day. I've been inspired to shoot lately, so I've got a few new posts coming for you. I was just going to post everything together at the same time, but I've since decided to split them up. This is Ally, the one you all know. Idn't she purdy working so durn hard?

Speaking of working, I know that things haven't changed much over at rhymeswithmilk.com, but that doesn't mean I'm not doing anything. I blew through the PHP tutorials at w3schools, so I now understand basic syntax and functions, but I'm still unsure about how to implement them to make awesome websites. Most of facebook is run off of PHP if I'm not mistaken, and I'm nowhere near being able to understand how any of that stuff works (okay, I understand that I have to start a little smaller than one of the largest and most complex networking website on the planet, but I don't even understand the small dumb ones either). I have therefore started to do some more textbook-style reading to help get a grasp of the breadth of PHP and its uses and how to utilize them, etc. I see w3schools as more of a reference manual whereas a textbook does a better job at describing its complexities.

And while we're on the subject of geeking-out, a few days ago I was checking out a photoblog that I frequent that had recently gone through some major overhauls. As I was navigating around, I noticed that there wasn't a link in the header—or anywhere, for that matter—back to the blog's homepage, and that nothing short of furiously clicking the back button could return you there. I commented on one of her posts to suggest this and she replied that she had tried, but it messed up the whole header layout. Everything shifted off from center. Having recently re-acquired my CSS skills from designing RWM.com's stylesheets from scratch, I decided to have a look at hers to see if I could find the problem. If you notice, blogger templates put their stylesheets at the top of the html file defining the site, thereby making it easily and publicly viewable. I copy-and-pasted her blog's html code into my code editor and went to town. After only about 10 to 15 minutes of fidgeting, I realized that all you had to do was change one 0 to a 25 and a separate 25 to a 0. Easy-peasy.

I emailed her my findings and have yet to get a response/see her header turn into a link. I might have creeped her out a little by unsolicitedly "fixing" her blog. I guess that could be a little weird to some people, but I was pretty proud of myself for figuring it out by myself.

Walden's Lost Tire

2009-03-08T23:19:00.003-06:00

Murder might take place here.

RIP

2009-03-08T19:23:00.003-06:00

My old high school whip was rolled in my old high school parking lot by its current (or more accurately, its most recently former) driver. It's really a shame because it's been in our family for about 25 years (longer than I've even been in our family, so essentially it's more of a son to my father than I am), and it's been driven by me, my father, and my brother. But now:

which = decommissioned.

I was going to post pictures showing its universal damage, how much the roof caved in, etc., but I liked these tight detailed shots a lot more.

Steel Yards

2009-03-01T21:31:00.005-07:00

When I went to title this post, I typed in "Day" and then looked at Adobe Bridge to see what today's folder is numbered. Even though I hadn't kept up with the daily picture lately, I still think this new sporadic blogging is going to take some getting used to. I also just realized that I don't have to start the post with a photo. I think I'm going to exercise that right just because I can. In fact, I'm just going to sprinkle them into the post randomly.

Also, I'd like to note that I'm going to start uploading full resolution images to Flickr (just because? for backup purposes? honestly, I don't know why I'm doing it. maybe it's just because I haven't really used my pro account to my advantage yet.), and have therefore set the privacy to be a little more strict. Only my contacts can see larger sizes of these images, so if any of you want a larger copy (I don't see why you would...), let me know via the email listed over there → in the sidebar and I'll shoot that over your way (pun?).

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On with the real post:

Dustin is in a high school photo class, and one of his first assignments is to shoot a b&w roll. The first half of the photos could be of anything (he shot those when we went walking around on Day 307), and the rest of architecture. I had shot at the Steel Yards on a photoadventure back in September and liked the textures of the area.

Yep. Not a whole lot more to say about that. Oh, we took Hannah with us and she was a little angel (as always).

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I'm starting—ever so slowly—to make a WordPress blog over on my own server. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to try to migrate this whole thing over there when it's ready or if I'm going to start fresh. We'll see.

Speaking of my server, I finally uploaded my current progress on rhymeswithmilk.com's homepage. Thanks to the magic of jEdit and WAMP, I've been able to develop everything in the privacy of my own computer. There comes a time, though, when you actually want to see your stuff out there live, at the fingertips of the world, even though the page has nothing on it...

It's taken a long time for me to do such a simple stupid page, I know, but that's because I've been spending most of my time on that background image. At first I thought about how I really don't care what the background looks like, but then I got to thinking about how I don't even know how to use Adobe Illustrator which is one of their flagship programs. I guess I just took this opportunity to give myself a crash course. At least it'll look good on a résumé (I'm hoping) and that's what this whole thing is about in the first place, right?

In Firefox, if you press Ctrl+U you can view the raw html of my site that I've spent all this time writing. Looks pretty simple, right? First of all, I'm trying to streamline it as much as possible, so simple is good. But then look at the top where it says

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="rwm.css">

That href= is pointing to a CSS file that I also had to write (CSS defines the style of the site from what color the font is to what image pops up below the links). Now go to http://www.rhymeswithmilk.com/rwm.css to see it. Formulating that stuff from scratch is a biotch. I decided not to use any templates or anything else to write that. I figured that trial-and-error was the best way for me to exercise my knowledge. Now that I have the basics of it down on paper, the rest should be pretty smooth sailing. At least I hope.

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Questions? Concerns? Murder might take place here.

On Photography...

2009-02-27T13:18:00.002-07:00

Listen, this has been a long time coming. I need to take a break from blogging since it has become slightly less than priority these days.

For starters, the laboriousness of the daily project has made me resent my photographs, photoshop, this blog, and its readers. I have very little to complain about, I know, since there are hundreds of other photographers out there that are still going strong after their first year; I'm sure they too know the meaning of laborious. I commend all of them for doing something that I am currently not capable of.

Since I am able/willing to devote little time to photography some days, I naturally find myself disliking the outcome. I would much rather devote a few days a week to finding some shots that I'm really pleased with than haphazardly taking throw-aways every day. By doing so, I would hope to capture some of that original excitement I had with this blog, and with my first-ever dSLR.

I am not a photographer and I am not an artist. I am a hobbyist. This is not my dream, nor is it my life. It is something that I love to do, and I would like to keep loving it. If I keep going with the daily project, at this rate I'll start hating photography by summer. It's tough to keep doing a hobby you despise. I'm not going to wait around and see if that day actually comes.

Am I quitting? Maybe. Call it whatever you'd like. But what I am doing for certain is finding the joy in my photography again, and sharing that joy with you here from time to time. This means that you shouldn't delete RWM from your bookmarks quite yet. I will shoot pictures, I will update, I will post, I will keep you posted.

Sorry. Kinda.

Day 309

2009-02-18T23:59:00.008-07:00

The Ladies

Apparently I have an affinity for overexposing Hannah.

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Sorry I'm not doing much updating. Lately I've been spending most of my computer time bettering my web development/graphic design/figuring out how to log in to my SFTP account via FileZilla (I now have it, but thanks for nearly clicking on "0 comments" below to let me know what I was doing wrong) skillz.

I've beed doing some playing around, and I think I almost have a bare-bones version of rhymeswithmilk.com ready. It's simple, clean, and—to be honest—contentless. The purpose I intend for it to serve is as a jumping-off point to my different corners of the internet. It's an "Everything Michael" link hub.

I bet you're all so fucking excited to finally have one of those, huh?

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So it appears that the new Google friend connect widget (that you can see at the top of my left sidebar) has replaced Blogger's Blogger-account only version. You might notice that it takes up a lot more vertical space. There are a lot of interesting articles out there about browser's CSS defaults (if you don't define certain properties in your websites' CSS documents, then the browser imposes its default values on those properties) and how to get rid of them (more-or-less) if it pleases you to do so. I specifically made the follower div 120 pixels tall because that was plenty of space to accommodate the old version. Though the widget has now changed, the containing div has not and is still 120 pixels tall. That means that the div right below it (the one with "and then there was nothing" in it) starts at pixel 121 (from the bottom of the header margin) even though the widget (NOT the div, remember) extends to at least pixel 200.

What I'm leading up to is that in Firefox, its defaults make it so that the bottom 80ish pixels of the widget are still visible and merely overlap the surrounding divs (ie the "and then there was nothing" div). Conversely, everything beyond the top 120 pixels of the widget are hidden in Chrome and the "and then there was nothing" div is still whistling merrily since it has not been forcefully overtaken. I don't know how it behaves in other browsers, but it doesn't matter because these two display opposite CSS defaults. Firefox defaults the overflow property to visible whereas Chrome defaults to overflow: hidden.

Someone somewhere in some Google cubicle made that decision, probably arbitrarily. Or I wonder if a team or a board or a group had to come up with a joint decision for all defaults. I mean some browsers even put borders around images by default. Why? Who thought that would be a good idea? Who assumed that if the designer didn't think they needed to add border: 1px solid #000000; to their CSS that they ACTUALLY meant that they DID in fact want a 1 pixel wide black border around their images. At least it seems arbitrary to me.

Was this interesting? You be the judge. I will point out that I just spent half an hour figuring this shit out and writing it down for you all, so I think you know whether or not I'm interested.

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BTW, I'm over trying to get viewers to this blog. I recently realized that it's a lot of work trying to get people you don't know to care about you. And unless you drug your children, can play bomb guitar riffs on your keyboard (and then subsequently get approached by the drummer from STS9 (who I have served beer to (score!)) with some beats for you to mess around with), or are hilariously catchy, you're NOT going to become an internet celebrity.

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Happy bday, Dust. I'm glad you're okay, but a call or a text wouldn't hurt.

Day 308

2009-02-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

Leftovers

From the Gondolier. Spice-ay.

Day 307

2009-02-16T23:59:00.001-07:00

Arch

Like I've said before, somebody is always watching the watcher.

Dustin and I walked around taking pictures for his high school photography class. We had a good time looking at parts of Boulder that we don't usually see every day.

Day 306

2009-02-15T23:59:00.003-07:00

'Round the World

Denver International Airport.

Day 305

2009-02-14T23:26:00.003-07:00

Valentine's Day

Chocolate. What a terrible photo. It was shot at ISO 3200, then I added a lot of extra noise in PS. Like a serious amount.

Day 304

2009-02-13T23:59:00.003-07:00

Quartet

Strobist: lamp with some lightbulbs in it.

Day 3OH!3

2009-02-12T23:59:00.020-07:00

Colorado Sunshine

So you might be wondering why there's that blank area right there ↑ above the text and below the picture. Since most of you have probably already pressed Ctrl+U (mac users: Cmd+U) and scrolled down to where it says

<embed src="http://www.rhymeswithmilk.com/media/3oh3_coloradosunshine.mp3" autoplay="false" loop="true" width="367" height="14"></embed>

you already know why. Probably both you and I, however, have no feakin clue why a lil' quicktime bar isn't showing up there and playing a gloriously streaming song. For some reason, though, if you actually go to the above mentioned URL the song will in fact play.

You also might be curious about how it's hosted on rwm.com and unlike other songs I've posted before, this one is still going to play (at it's source URL) tomorrow. Well it's because I've finally invested in some server space. For those of you that aren't too technically inclined, here's an approximate summary of what that means:

There essentially is an abstracted computer somewhere in the world sitting in a climate controlled room full of abstracted computers that are always connected to the internet. When you type rhymeswithmilk.com into your address bar, I have made the great phonebook of the internets point you to one little section of that abstracted computer that is designated for me. That little section contains a tiny notepad file called index.html with a small amount of crappily written html code that your browser (most likely Firefox if my analytics is at all accurate) interprets and outputs a visual that looks like my homepage. Since it is always (more-or-less) connected to the internet, you should be able to go to that webpage as often as you'd like and it should always be there.

Now, you remember that notepad file (it's not reeeeeeeally a notepad file, it was just created there) I just mentioned? Well, it's not the only thing on that computer associated with my website. I can upload pretty much anything I damn well please since hosting services these days are the bomb-diggity and give you unlimited space. Yeah, that's right, UNLIMITED. So I can upload terabites worth of shit and their hardware shouldn't blow up or anything. Long story short, 3OH!3's song is now on that computer, fully clickable and listen-to-able, but apparently not embedable.

Here's what I was doing for several hours today in an attempt to make myself more marketable to the computer programming/web development industry. Though the page looks like shit, and the html you see by pressing Ctrl+U (Cmd+U for the mac assholes) looks unimpressive, what went into generating that html is actually pretty neat.

I'm going to keep working at it, though, and once I start feeling comfortable enough, I'll start incorporating it into my actual web design. So there's more to come in the near future. Much more.

Day 302

2009-02-11T23:59:00.002-07:00

The Fine Print

He's actually reading the recipe to LOST lasagna.

Right now I'm listening to NIN radio on Pandora, and it's playing everything I used to listen to in high school. The last four songs were:

Ava Adore by Smashing Pumpkins
Change by Deftones
Blue Monday by Orgy
Breathe by The Prodigy

I'm loving it.

And I just drank that PBR kinda fast, so I keep going cross-eyed while staring at photoshop. jsyk

Day 301

2009-02-10T23:59:00.006-07:00

February

It was a really beautiful snowy night on Pearl when I got out of work at around 9:00.

I really like this photo to begin with, and I didn't intend on much post-processing, but for some reason I couldn't stop adding adjustment layers. I really like the outcome, however. I only ended up doing a pretty standard curves layer, a b&w (with a sienna tint) at around 60% opacity, and a color balance more-or-less pushing blue into the shadows and red/yellow into the highlights.

That is all.

Day 300

2009-02-09T23:59:00.002-07:00

Target

It was windy as hell today. I sat in my car at the far end of the Target parking lot just watching shopping carts go truckin' down the lanes at a good 20mph and then slam into the curb at the far end. If there hadn't have been humans around, it would have looked post-apocalyptic. I don't know why.

Day 299

2009-02-08T23:59:00.003-07:00

Helix

Man, that ending is heartWARMING!!!

Day 298

2009-02-07T23:59:00.003-07:00

Nick Charles

This was a fun day, but I wish Ally could have come.

We drank for a while at a place called the Thin Man in Denver. Hence the name. Duh.

Day 297

2009-02-06T21:24:00.000-07:00

Fire Star

[Nothing]

Day 296

2009-02-05T20:56:00.002-07:00

Solitary

Day 295

2009-02-04T23:59:00.002-07:00

Tea & Cakes

After walking back and forth about 10 times to get my EcoPass, Ally and I treated ourselves to some cupcakes.

Day 294

2009-02-03T23:59:00.003-07:00

She Made Me Feel Happy

Didn't really take any pictures today. This was it.

I've come really close to quitting this project over the last month. I think a big part of that is that I'm not going outside much now that it's cold and the sun sets between 3 & 4 o' the clock. I don't have any speedlights, and have taken pictures of just about everything I find interesting in my house anyway.

It also doesn't help that I've been getting really far behind on my editing. After New Zealand, it took me a while to catch up but I finally did it. Then for some reason, I missed a few days randomly and then got sick, only to realize that I had gotten more than 2 weeks behind.

I'm getting back into it again. I want to take pictures again. And I'm nearly caught up on editing. This photo is from february 3rd, and I'm posting it on the 10th. I've taken very few pictures in the week between, so editing those shouldn't prove to be much of a hurdle.

I hate getting stuck. I start blaming my gear, thinking that it's not good enough to create interesting images. Then I start blaming my photoshop abilities. Then my confidence. Then my desire. Then my interest. Then I find photoblogs by guys my age with only as much experience as me that are taking phenomenal photos days after day and getting explored at least once a week, and all of my feeling get reinforced.

But fuck that. I'm not going to give up. I can take a good picture, too, if I really put my mind to it. This project has only about 2 months left (at least the first leg of it), so I'm going to try to squeeze some photos out of that time that I'm actually proud of.

This is not one of those photos.

Day 293

2009-02-02T23:59:00.001-07:00

Reader Beware

love

2009-02-02T22:31:00.002-07:00

NOTE: This must be viewed on a Windows machine. All photos were taken by Mark, not me.

Day 292

2009-02-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

Murder-Suicide

Nice blood, Ally.

Day 291

2009-01-31T23:59:00.000-07:00

The Splurge

I don't usually buy expensive single-malt scotch but have always wanted to and it was on sale during my latest trip to Liquor Mart while I was buying Shannon an Arrogant Bastard bomber for the Super Bowl Secret Santa so I thought "what the hell" since there's no better time to finally allow yourself a luxury than when it's cheaper than it's likely to be for a long time. Take that, recession.

Day 290

2009-01-30T23:59:00.002-07:00

Back Ending

This isn't exactly how I wanted this photo to look, but it's close. Closer than the original, at least. I guess false cross-processing isn't really something I'm good at.

Day 289

2009-01-29T23:59:00.002-07:00

Interior Nighttime Scene #43: Bamboo

Day 288

2009-01-28T23:59:00.003-07:00

Unsung

Notice how the last three days of pictures were all taken from the same place on the couch? (Yesterday's was taken by putting the camera on the floor pointing straight up the back of the couch while I peeked over, id est I didn't move.)

Day 287

2009-01-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

Attack

Still siiiiiick.

Day 286

2009-01-26T23:59:00.002-07:00

Tunnel Vision

Siiiiiick.

Day 285

2009-01-25T23:59:00.002-07:00

Snowy Night

Day 284

2009-01-24T23:59:00.000-07:00

Day 283

2009-01-23T23:59:00.002-07:00

Stereonics

Not quite symmetrical. Such is life.

Day 282

2009-01-22T23:59:00.002-07:00

"Coot" Is Not A Bad Word

Which came as news to me.

Day 281

2009-01-21T23:59:00.002-07:00

Captured

Leopard I know it's long, but you really should read the whole thing.

Or you can save yourself some time by just reading why you shouldn't read it here. I wholly disagree with this approach.

Day 280

2009-01-20T23:59:00.002-07:00

[nothing profound]

Day 279

2009-01-19T23:59:00.002-07:00

Skyline

Mouse au Vin

March 4th
need to write more better journal writing

Day 278

2009-01-18T23:59:00.001-07:00

Grab Ahold

I'm an idiot.

Day 277

2009-01-17T13:33:00.001-07:00

After Midnight

I was at my wits end with my computer when I took this picture.

Day 276

2009-01-16T23:59:00.000-07:00

Step Back

Day 275

2009-01-15T23:59:00.000-07:00

"Here Here!" Say the Wealthy

Day 274

2009-01-14T23:59:00.002-07:00

Spilled

I really, really need to do a timelapse of this wall. I tried today for the second time, but my crop was pretty bad. Useless.

Day 273

2009-01-13T23:59:00.003-07:00

Sk8

I'm not allowed to break my neck until I get health insurance. Word.

Day 272

2009-01-12T23:59:00.005-07:00

Up Up & Away

Snowy snowy. Bonnie Bonnie. Good stuff.

Day 271

2009-01-11T23:59:00.000-07:00

LOVE

10 cows were killed to make my sandwich at Snarfs.

Day 270

2009-01-10T23:59:00.000-07:00

Bad Moon Rising

So you know all that complaining I've done about Flickr messing up my colors? I've been wrong this whole time. Firefox is the true culprit.

Firefox doesn't have their color management turned on by default because it can slow your browsing by up to 30%, but you can manually turn it on. Viola, my pictures are vibrant again. Except for the one above... So sorry to those of you that I offended with my hyper-saturation in an attempt to make up for Firefox's shortcomings, as seen on Day 218.

Check out this article. It's a pretty good summary of my love/hatred for Chrome, and as a double bonus, it summarizes how different browsers manage color profiles (Hint: Safari defaults to badassiness, so good on ya, Mac users.).

Day 269

2009-01-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

Coloradan

Day 268

2009-01-08T22:37:00.016-07:00

picture update (aka update iv)

BYTE

I just wrote 1,300 words on the trouble I went through getting my computer running again, but I stopped caring and didn't want to write anymore. I'm over it.

CS4 is pretty different from its predecessor. My first reaction was to ditch it and revert back to CS3, but I had said the same thing about it when I upgraded from CS. There are just a few things I need to get used to, that's all.

Btw, the differences between how my photos look in Bridge and when they're uploaded to Flickr is much more pronounced now. Maybe I have to recalibrate my screen. Maybe Flickr's just being a lil bitch. Who knows?

update III

OMG! Everything's working. 10 days after the initial dismantling of my computer and 22 hours after the peak of my long, slow emotional breakdown, everything's working again.

I did an entirely fresh install of Windows, so it's going to take me a little while to get all of the programs that I need reinstalled. But things are now running faster and smoother than ever before. I might be able to start posting pictures again tomorrow, depending on how much time I'm willing to spend in this crusty chair that I've now been in for 2 days straight.

Time for some fresh air now.

update II

I've been working on getting my computer to work, finally, for 6 hours now. I finally repaired Windows and got it running (at around hour 4). Then I couldn't connect to the internet. I spent about an hour staring at My Network Places wondering what I should do to diagnose the problem. Maybe the driver for my built-in modem isn't working, I tell myself. I then spent about half an hour trying to get the motherboard driver disk to work. Hmm, my CD-ROM drive doesn't read DVDs. Now I have to physically switch it with my other ROM (that does read DVDs) so that the only IDE ribbon in the whole computer can reach it from the HDD. Furrow brow over disk not showing up on computer when inserted. Then wrestle my rarely-used external DVD burner from its packaging, and insert the disk into that. Furrow brow over drive not showing up on computer when inserted into USB. Stick disk back into internal CD-ROM. Furrow. Look reeeeeeeeeeally closely at the disk bay and find no mention of DVDs. Realize that BOTH CD-ROM drives - BOTH!!! - are non-DVD compatible. Furrow. But why doesn't the external drive work? That's a completely separate problem. All the USBs are working just fine. Insert installation CD for external drive into CD-ROM, get spammed with NERO and "EZ Creator Suite 9" bullshit and find no mention of drive installation. Realize that manual says that Windows XP is supposed to automatically work with external drive. But...it's not. And neither is my internet...still.

Furrow.

I'm so fucking pissed off and stressed about this shit. I just want my computer to work. Fuck. I just want my computer to work. How many more things can go wrong? I'm so frustrated. I'm SO frustrated.......

I don't know when pictures are going to resume. Don't hold your breath or you'll die. Just like my computer will when I punch it right in the fucking RAM.

update

Okay, it looks like my new graphics card will be arriving on Thursday.

Btw, newegg.com is pretty bomb at getting things out to you asap. They usually ship things the day after the order is placed, and they use UPS 3-Day. I'm so used to Amazon's super-saver shipping that takes nearly 2 weeks from order to arrival. Granted, most of their products don't have free shipping like Amazon (I had to pay nearly $9), but their prices still usually beat theirs anyway. When it comes to computer hardware, they're the shit.

End of shameless plug. If anyone from Newegg reads this and wants to pay me for advertising to all 10 people that read this blog, feel free to contact me at

kohnmd [at] gmail [dot] com

Oh, another btw, I think I just set up my DNS to route ANY emails that end in [at] rhymeswithmilk [dot] com to my real email address. That's kind of cool. As soon as my computer gets a-runnin' again, I'll probably start developing that site again.

Last btw, Mark seems to be the only person to have noticed so far, so I'll just let you all in on the secret. There's a new book club post. I posted it about 2 weeks ago, so if haven't found it yet, you probably never would have.

I installed my new motherboard only to realize that it doesn't have an AGP expansion slot, and therefore the AGP graphics card from my old motherboard now has nowhere to connect to. The only way to plug my monitor into my computer is via that graphics card. Soooooo, yeah. No pictures without a monitor, or until Ally lets me download CS3 onto Edward.

Either I stick the old, grumpy, dusty motherboard back into my computer, or I start doing some research and buy me a new graphics card! I like that idea. Except now it makes me want to get a new monitor, too, and that's just something I honestly truely do not need. But I want.

Day 267

2009-01-07T23:59:00.002-07:00

He Is Watching, Still

This is now the third fire I have photographed (along with Day 5 and Day 74). I remember both of those previous photos were really difficult to edit (the first because I still didn't know how to use Photoshop except for the saturation slider apparently). I didn't really care with this one. It's orange, it's smokey, you get what you're looking at, right?

I drove around for over an hour trying to find a good vantage point where I'd be close enough to the fire to resolve it and high enough to get an unobscured view. Most of North Boulder was closed off (it's pretty flat out there anyway, so an elevated view would have been impossible to find), and the fire was burning on a northeast facing slope, making views from the south pretty minimal. This was taken from Flagstaff. I got a few from the big Arapaho hill just west of 75th with the smokestacks ironically placed in the foreground, but the wind was so bad that my tripod kept moving around during the long exposures. Also, I hiked into the middle of a field that I'm sure was full of snakes, coyotes, mountain lions, tigers, and murderers/rapists. It was scary. Thank Brad for the near-full moon giving me some light.

Day 266

2009-01-06T23:59:00.002-07:00

Looking Down At The Slope

I just wrote a lot about my mustache. I think it might come up in tomorrow's post. We'll see.

----jesusfuck-----------=------

When looking for a photo to take today while photoadventuring with Mark, I was thinking a lot about this photo and its story. It influenced my shooting a lot.

I also wish I hadn't seen this photo before I started editing the photo of the day. It think that I was trying to emulate it while editing. It wouldn't have turned out much differently if I hadn't, but still...

Just to show you that I have some originality, the inset picture was mine. All me.

I had a good time taking pictures today. I'm glad we did that.

Day 265

2009-01-05T23:55:00.003-07:00

Under the Bridge

I'm now one hundred days away from finishing a year. I guess that's a milestone?

Today was really nice. Ally and I got to spend some good time together. We went to Glacier to get some coffee and work out her new laptop. I meanwhile further tweaked my blog's layout. Then after getting a hint (a not-so-subtle hint), we got some late lunch at Tsing Tao. I swear to you, if I was given that soy sesame chicken without being told that it's not meat, I would never know the difference. They even upgraded their little balls of soy to chunks of that are actually shaped like chunks of flesh torn from a defenseless bird's body.

Then, since we were already in SoBo, I figured we should drive up to the Fairview football field to take some pictures of the sunset. Once we got there, though, there were some devastatingly bitter cold winds rushing down across the open field. Naturally, Ally did the smart thing and stayed in the car. Well I thought I could brave them, so I took my camera out, and my bare hand started to shake from being so cold after being exposed for only moments. I stood there in the middle of the field, all alone, no one else around, and I started to laugh. I laughed hard. The cold was piercing through my brand new fleece-lined hoody (which is supposed to be my new "warm jacket" since my only other warm bits of clothing are non-lined threadbare hoodies) so much that I couldn't help but think that it was funny.

This winter I have hiked around Chautauqua in sub-zero temperatures (creating little icicles on my beard), and taken the dogs on walks when it was in the single digits (all in my non-warm hoodies), but this was still somehow the coldest I have yet been. I took about two pictures after the laughing subsided, and ran back for the car. I had to climb a fence to get in, and on the way out I almost faceplanted climbing back over because I was trying so hard to get back to the car as fast as possible. When I got back, I had to laugh again just a little bit.

I ended up taking this picture at home, again while experimenting with an off camera flash, while waiting to watch Rock of Love Bus with Ally.

Day 264

2009-01-04T23:44:00.009-07:00

Lacey

This is officially the first picture I've ever posted with off camera lighting.

Mark, thanks for hanging out with me, and thanks for the flash.
Scott, congrats on completing your first year. Way to go, dood!
Ally, congrats on completing your first of fifty books. Way to go, gurl!

Day 263

2009-01-03T23:59:00.005-07:00

California Rummy

If I really wanted to pimp this photo out, I would have created a texture layer for each card. I didn't, however. Sorry. So shoot me.

----------

After a tough day at work yesterday, I decided to take today off. I got someone to cover my shift, and I just took it easy. I spent most of the day doing some good family bonding. Homemade banana bread and lasagna really hit the spot.

---
WARNING: This story is long, drawn out, and boring. Please skip down to bulleted list below.
---

I also decided to start upgrading my computer. This was initially prompted by the new computer speaker system I got for christmas. My current hardware configuration isn't 5.1 surround compatible, so I looked into my options for upgrading. I first started looking at cheapy $30 sound cards that would easily do the trick plus enhance (slightly) my onboard sound quality. This started raising compatibility questions, so I looked up the specs on my current motherboard. (Remember, this computer was handed down to me, so I really didn't know what kind of hardware I was working with.)

Well, it turns out this motherboard was pretty damn good for its time, but it's become dated. It can only handle a Pentium processor (not the newer Core 2 Duos or Quads), and 1GB of RAM (which it already has). As far as I understand (which isn't too far...), those are the biggest components contributing to general computing speed. So if I ever wanted to upgrade, I would need to start with a new motherboard. Because of a rather generous rent modification made by my landlord, I currently have a small bit of savings in the bank, and decided to spend that on a new, highly (comparatively) expandable motherboard and 2GB of RAM to kick my photoshop startup time up a notch. Plus, it comes with integrated 5.1 built in.

A whole snowball effect then started to unfold. I realized that my current OS (Windows XP Professional SP3) can't support more than 4GB of RAM. This is why I just bought 2GBs to add to the 1 I already have, rather than 4 more for nearly the same price. I have no idea what the numbers mean or are referring to, but each OS comes in two variations: 32-bit or 64-bit. You have to own the 64-bit version—which of course has to be more expensive—to run between 4-16GB of RAM (which this new motherboard will be capable of). So I then started looking into buying XP 64-bit, but then started thinking that with that much RAM and a super new badass Intel Core 2 Quad processor (which is just another damn thing to buy), I could probably handle all of Vista's memory-sinks without too much problem.

Also, I could have bought an identical motherboard minus a second PCI-Express x16 (or some shit) slot for about $15 less, but instead sprang for the more expandable one. So I now have to find some awesome cards to fill these new PCI ports. Maybe get a pair of $500 video cards to run, you know, like some awesome games or something. Not that I play computer games (besides Diablo III when it comes out! Holla!), so I guess that wouldn't be necessary. But if I didn't do it, then the extra $15 I spent would go to waste.

SUUUUUUPER long story short, since I just bought a new motherboard to be able to use my new speaker system, I now need:

New processor
Vista 64-bit/Windows 7 64-bit when it comes out
More RAM up the ass
Two hardcore gaming video cards
Hardcore games so that aforementioned cards don't go to waste
Audio card, just because. Maybe one for 7.1 surround in case I ever get a new speaker system.
New speaker system to use with aforementioned audio card

So what started this whole thing, the new speakers, have now become obsolete because of all the upgrades I'm making to be able to use them.

What the fuck?

Day 262

2009-01-02T23:55:00.010-07:00

The Wicked

I sometimes wonder how much of this blog would make it into court as evidence if I was ever framed for murder.

Day 261

2009-01-01T23:59:00.005-07:00

Backwards

I had plans to hang out with Mark and Scott for New Years, but I pooped out at the last minute. Work, tired, then more work today. I hate how what I do to live is getting in the way of me living. Sleep is the same way. Just stop wasting my time, sleep!

But at least I might get into the mountains some time this weekend. Oh my god how great that would be. Don't poop out on me, Sherry, the way I pooped out on Mark and Scott.

At least I've been making a lot of money this last week. I'm about to purge my bank account to add to my IRA. How grown up. Now if only I had a grown up job with a 401k and shit.

Day 260

2008-12-31T22:53:00.005-07:00

He's A Survivor

Ally cried tonight when we saw this on Animal Planet.

Happy New Year. Here's to 2009.

Day 259

2008-12-30T21:50:00.018-07:00

When Stars Align

It's sad how little I have to write these days. It's not because I don't want to or am bored with doing it. I simply don't have anything to say anymore. Nothing interesting enough, I guess.

I feel like writing tonight, though, so go to the bathroom now while you have a chance. This might take a while. It's going to be epic, you just wait and see.

----------

I'm going to be really freaked out on the day that 'N Sync is played on KOOL 105, the oldies station. They're starting to play '70 stuff, which is a mere heartbeat away from playing some Guns N' Roses or—god forbid—Paula Abdul; you know, all the stuff that came out around the time I was born.

But honestly, if 'N Sync makes it into the definitive music collection of my generation, I would actually be okay with that. Sure they're kind of lame, can't dance very well (watch Dancing With The Stars recently?), and mostly have higher voices than Hilary Duff. But so what? Regardless of those things, they were a worldwide phenomenon. I firmly believe that if they had stayed together for another decade or had put out a few more albums during their time together, they would have been the second coming of The Beatles, the boy band of the '60s. According to this wikipedia list, they really didn't sell all that many albums, but they also only had 3 original studio albums compared to The Beatles' 18 in the US [source].

Please, if you have it handy, start listening to Celebrity right now (just because that's what I'm listening to right now. If you've got No Strings Attached, I actually recommend that more highly). Now get over the fact that N' Sync is "so last millennium" and that most of their songs were heavily overplayed on TRL. Just forget all of that. Now try to tell me honestly that there wasn't a single song in there that you didn't want to wiggle in your seat to, or you didn't close your eyes at some point and try to belt out some sultry falsetto tune with real feeling ("I been sittin' here/ can't getchoo off my mind/ tried my best to be a man and be strong..."). It's impossible, you can't tell me that. I even bet that more than one of you actually got up and did a Michael Jackson kick-n-spin.

You know, we can be as embarrassed as we want about our musical history, but there had to have been a reason that we were drawn to it in the first place. There had to be something about that stuff for it to have been so damn popular in its day. I recently listened to Kris Kross for the first time since I was about 10 years old, and I thought "Man, this shit sucks." Well, Jump (Extended Mix) is actually still pretty bomb, but the rest was tough to get through. But after taking another look at it, from the eyes (ears might be more appropriate here) of my 10 year old self, I remembered why I liked it so much: two of my peers were rapping about staying up all hours of the night, sneaking into clubs, partying with grownups, and catching some fine little ladies' attention. All of this right around the first instances of boy-girl parties, dating (hand holding was optional, kissing only allowed during spin-the-bottle), and middle school was on the horizon (where all the hot chicks are!).

Then for some reason it became unpopular to like them. Just like that, before I knew it, nobody liked Kris Kross anymore, and they had left me in the dust. I was still a fan. When I finally caught up with reality, I remember turning to Kris Kellogg (a 5th grade friend of mine with an awfully coincidental name given the current topic) and saying, "I can't believe I used to listen to Kris Kross. I'm so embarrassed." I was lying. I was just trying to cover my tracks in case I ever let it slip that I still liked them after their fall from grace.

He responded, "It's okay, don't worry about it. We all used to listen to them."

Hot dog! He hit the nail on the head. He was absolutely right. We ALL used to listen to them. So if you're ever embarrassed about having listened to (or still listening to) some bands that it's cliché to hate, just remember, the person sitting across from you or in the car next to yours probably used to blast it from their Diskman, too.

So I say own up to your musical tastes, past and present. Whether or not you fit into the typical demographic for a particular artist shouldn't matter. They created that music to entertain people, and by golly, you're going to let it entertain you! We ALLLLLLL listened to 'N Sync at one time or another, and whether or not you enjoyed what you heard, you're a part of their legacy and they're a part of ours. Our generation embraced them, were defined by them, let them change the landscape of music forever, and it's time we acknowledge them! They deserve it. They deserve to not be criticized or hated in hindsight.

At the very least, they deserve to be on KOOL 105 when the time comes.

-----

Now, as I said earlier, I am in fact listening to them at this very moment. This might be kind of surprising after the preceding rant, but I'm actually not a huge fan of theirs. I can't seem to get into any of their non-singles, but I do enjoy the occasional romp around the room while waving bye, bye, bye.

The reason I'm listening to them is because I'm on a mission to listen to every song in my iTunes library. I've been on this mission for 6 months now since I got my new computer and loaded a brand new iTunes onto it. I have the library sorted by play count, and every time I open the program, I scroll down to below the songs I've already listened to and double-click at a random spot and start listening. Rarely do I seek a particular song or artist out, and almost never will I listen to it if it's already been played once.

Today, I randomly selected the middle of an album by My Morning Jacket, and 'N Sync just happened to be the next artist after them.

I currently have exactly 11000 songs in my library, and I have listened to 3366 of them at least once, or approximately 9 days 6 hours worth of music. I have been charting my progress for the last few months, and I have been banking almost 1000 songs a month. That's like 3 whole albums per day. Craaaaaaazy.

I originally thought that this was going to be a good way for me to get re-acquainted with my music collection and find all of those hidden gems I forgot about, but I've realized otherwise since. I'm pretty notorious for being a digital pack rat. I don't throw music away unless the album is incomplete or it was a particularly terrible recording (CD was skipping, lots of digital hiccups, etc.). So pretty much every album I've ever downloaded or purchased has made it onto this list.

I tell you, some days I really regret having made this goal. The days that Mariah Carey comes up are particularly tough ones. I've started to listen to only one or two of her songs each time I open iTunes and then quickly move on. That way I'll never have to spend three consecutive hours listening to her vomit into my ears. I'm chiseling away at that shit, slowly but surely.

Day 258

2008-12-29T18:35:00.006-07:00

The End is Nigh

read readread read read read read rea read read rea read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read read eread read read read rea dreda rea read read read read read read read readr read read reaed read erad read read read read read read read erea df read read read read

Day 257

2008-12-28T23:59:00.004-07:00

Sculpture for the Astronaut

Poor Ally. She was so cold. What a good sport, though.

Day 256

2008-12-28T01:26:00.004-07:00

Someday

Bonnie McWiggles watched us play some Wii with Mark. Good times tonight.

I'd like to read now, so I'll be seeing you tomorrow. Hopefully I'll post in the afternoon to avoid coming home late from the "Tom is home!/Gordon graduated!/Eric graduated!/Scott still doesn't have a job or a degree!" gathering and posting some incoherent, rambling post (much like this one is turning out to be) with a poorly edited photo (like most of mine are anyhow).

Day 255

2008-12-28T00:40:00.003-07:00

Wiimote

I don't like how this photo turned out, but taking it was good experimentation for me. It's as close as I can come to creating "studio" lighting or a lightbox or whatever. I just threw the controller on some printer paper on my stove under the only daylight blend CF bulb in the house.

One problem I've found in the past with taking still-lifes on the stove/counter is that my tripod is more hassle than it's worth. Trying to take pictures from almost directly above the subject while the camera is mounted to a tripod is nearly impossible without tons of fiddling for each shot, or worse, tipping the setup too far over and having your camera come crashing to the ground.

But at the same time, the tripod is a necessary evil when shooting these close-ups. In order to get these pseudo-macro shots, I need to use my 18-55mm lens which has an aperture of f5.6 wide open at 55mm. ISO and exposure times become very unconducive to taking nice, pretty studio shots.

Long story short: time to invest in some lighting.

Question: what's the difference between shooting still-lifes with strobes versus with regular always-on light bulbs behind umbrellas/diffusers??? Mark, I've seen you take portraits both ways, so what's the advantage of each? How do you choose which to use?

Day 254

2008-12-25T23:59:00.004-07:00

Town's Clock

Merry Christmas.

Day 253

2008-12-24T23:49:00.003-07:00

Carols

Oh my god, I just caught up with all of my editing only to let it gather up on me again. I'm now posting this two days late. Yes, I feel like a schlamiel (yeah, all the Yidz in da house throw ya hands in da air!!!).

So I worked on Christmas Eve, which is lame, but it was actually kind of a nice day. It was busy enough that I made a few bucks, we closed the doors at 2:30, all the tables had left shortly after 3:00, and a bunch of servers just hung out around the bar drinking free booze (Avery IPA, Pernod [France's licorice-flavored liquor that looks like Mountain Dew], Sambuca [Italy's licorice-flavored liquor], espresso shots).

I finally left just after 4:00, and on my way out the microphone of a singer on the mall caught my attention. The sun had set not long before (yay for post-equinox day elongation) and the sky was just starting to fade to a deep blue, but there was just enough light for the silver of the microphone to still gleam. As he finished singing a Christmas carol, I approached him and asked if he would mind me taking some pictures. I think that this is the first time I've ever actually approached someone rather than awkwardly trying to take candids from afar*. I talked to Brian about this fact, and he said that at a photo workshop he took, one of their assignments was to walk around on the street and ask people to pose for pictures. It's tough, but a little Pernod helps calm the nerves I guess.

*Ahem, remember this guy? Yeah, he's staring right at me. This was the first and only picture I took of him because he stared at me for like 10 minutes after I took this. Consequently, that's a terrible picture. Oh, and as for this guy, he asked me to take his picture. He was like "Oooh, this is a classic hip-hop pose. Oooh, how about this one?" I liked him so much that I bought a demo-disk from him.

Anyway, the singer (named Anthony Choice) was very nice, shook my hand, made some smalltalk with me and told me to shoot away. I thanked him by tossing a contribution into his tip container, sat down, listened to him sing a few songs, and did as he said: I shot away. We exchanged contact info so that I could send him some of the pictures, and I walked back to my car wearing shorts in the freezing cold twilight with a big smile on my face.

Day 252

2008-12-23T21:59:00.005-07:00

Netflix

CRTs are tough to photograph, especially when you're too lazy to jury-rig a tripod out of books and tissue boxes. Therefore, here's what I meant to shoot:

"Look at that fuckin bone."

Day 251

2008-12-22T22:31:00.008-07:00

Walls

Day 250

2008-12-21T23:59:00.004-07:00

It's Coming and It's Going

Guess what? I'm finished. Rather, I'm caught up. I'll still be here posting tomorrow night. At least, though, it'll finally be a post of a picture taken that day.

See you then.

Day 249

2008-12-20T23:59:00.002-07:00

Morning Light

Wall. Shadows. You get the point.

Day 248

2008-12-19T23:59:00.000-07:00

Sounds That Pound

Day 247

2008-12-18T23:59:00.002-07:00

collage

Day 246

2008-12-17T23:59:00.003-07:00

Hark

I got to hang out with Mike T. (the chimney-sweep) and Miss Day 7 (aka Miss Day 182). (Sorry for spamming you with all those links.) Finally! Mike's got an awesome projection setup, so we watched the first half of The Dark Knight while eating his homemade chili and drinking some 90 Shilling. Then Emily and I played a game of checkers. I dominated.

Day 245

2008-12-16T23:59:00.002-07:00

Straggler

Remember that little "meta" sticker half-hidden in the second inset photo from Day 60?

Yeah, me neither.

These are funny colors to be seeing on a 10°F day in December.

Day 244

2008-12-15T23:59:00.001-07:00

Leader

I took a lot of pictures on this photoadventure. Photoshopping them took forever, and they all turned out like shiot. HDRs didn't turn out "cool"...again. Fuck this picture.

Day 243

2008-12-14T23:59:00.004-07:00

Winter on Pearl

I usually push contrast with my B&Ws, and I tried to scale that back on this picture. I think gray-and-white is more wintry than black-and-white.

I got three hugs today from strangers holding a "Free Hugs" sign. Ally hugged (and was clearly pretty excited about it) one of the original "Free Hugs" guys on the Pitt St. Mall in Sydney, Australia back in 2005 before we had any idea who they were. He was just standing there with the sign, and I told her to go hug him. She was a little creeped out by it, and wasn't sure what the catch was, but she eventually caved. The guy she hugged is pretty visible at around 2:03 in the official Free Hugs Campaign video (he's the one in the white USA shirt that hands the sign to some other guy).

Day 242

2008-12-13T23:59:00.000-07:00

Baby Ruth

Distressed texture, attempt #1. Overboard? Maybe.

I lost $20 because the other guy caught a full house on the river, beating the straight I flopped.

Day 241

2008-12-12T23:59:00.002-07:00

Earl of Grey

I forgot how much I like my cheapy 18-55 VR. Like I found out earlier, it's the most macro of my lenses by far. I'm obsessed with macro photography, or at least really like to stick my camera as close to a subject as possible, so it was fun being able to do it today.

By the way, here's a Christmas gift idea for anyone who cares.

Day 240

2008-12-11T23:59:00.002-07:00

Ku Cha

Ally and I walked from High St. to Pearl St., and along the way I pointed out all the pictures I had taken in those 4 blocks. Every few steps I could point out another daily photo. Once we got to the mall, I finally gave up because they were becoming so numerous. I need a new action space. I need a new job. I need to move.

Day 239

2008-12-10T23:59:00.002-07:00

Cloned

Day 238

2008-12-09T23:59:00.004-07:00

Christmas Time

I got to work early so that I could walk around and take pictures of the snow.

This is my postcard shot. Time to start selling out.

The green in the trees is fake. I painted that in. I put a solid green layer on "color" mode, masked it all off, and started to paint bits of it back in. I could have gone more, but it started to look falsely green. I'll tell you that this looks a hell of a lot better than the muted brownish red that they used to be.

Day 237

2008-12-08T23:59:00.001-07:00

Stovetop

Thanks to Martha Stewart, I now know how to make eggnog from scratch.

Day 236

2008-12-07T23:59:00.000-07:00

Rusty Diamonds

I tried making a bunch of HDRs from this series using Photomatix to process them, but none really turned out too well. I got the software after seeing this guy's site. He's a local amateur photographer from nearby Longmont that works with computers (perhaps at CU from what I can gather) here in Boulder. He's got a ton of pictures of the office building he works in, and I still can't figure out where the hell it is. Anyway, a good 90% of his most recent photos are HRDs processed using Photomatix. I figured I'd give it a shot, and my first attempt turned out okayish. I'm still not very well learned in how to use the program, so I couldn't get today's HDRs to look the way I wanted them to.

Just for fun, I then tried to open a single RAW file using Photomatix to see what it could do with it. Right off the bat, the tone map it automatically generated was more dynamic than anything I could subsequently get Photoshop to produce. I made little tweaks to it in Photomatix before sending it over to Photoshop to add a little more shadow depth and a slight vignette. I was so pleased with the result that I decided to do all of today's photos the same way so as to learn the program a little better. The picture of the day was processed solely using Photoshop, though, because it already had such good colors and contrast already, and Photomatix exagerated those so much that it turned the photo into clown piss.

Day 235

2008-12-06T23:59:00.000-07:00

Santa Claus is Already in Town and He's Looking a Little Thin

I took very few pictures today giving me very few to choose from.

I settled on this guy. He stands outside the Cafe nearly every day and plays the three chords he knows on his guitar in random sequences singing songs like "This Old Man" with lines from Beatles songs occasionally woven in. Then he puts his guitar down, grabs his maracas (or recorder, or tambourine) and continues his song using said instrument, all seamlessly as if he had never missed a beat.

I could be reaching a little by saying this, but I don't think he knows the first thing about music. A single guitar book would go such a long way with this guy. His skillz would double instantly, and I'm sure his income would as well. He has to heckle passersby to get them to even acknowledge his tip box, and even then they rarely if ever throw anything into it other than a painfully pitying gaze.

Day 234

2008-12-05T23:59:00.003-07:00

V for Victory

Chy Thai after the BFA show at the Dairy Center.

Someone's head snuck into photo. It's the little black dome at the bottom of the image. I wonder who that was. I wonder how many of his/her hairs were actually captured in this picture. Like, I want numbers. I wonder where he/she tonight and if he/she is warm. I wonder how he/she is going to die, and how many miles that will be from where he/she was born. I wonder what kind of a job he/she has and if they're hiring. I wonder if I sent them my résumé, would they hire me? Would he/she be my interviewer? Could we be friends, or at least amicable co-workers?

Most importantly, I wonder if we've ever met before this fateful top-of-the-head portrait session, or if we will ever meet again.

Day 233

2008-12-04T23:59:00.002-07:00

Zero Degrees Warm

I went from this to that ↑.

When we were sufficiently over the Pacific Ocean, I starting thinking about how almost-cool it would have been if we crash landed on an island and got attacked by some strange french woman with a rifle, and had all of our babies snatched by others, then found a button to push, etc. It didn't happen, though. Maybe that's for the better. I guess.

We got to fly business class, meaning we got seats that converted into flat beds, and a "concierge" came by and shook my hand as if I was a big deal. He (a Kiwi) noticed my University of Colorado hoodie and talked to me about how one of the world's best dojos for some type of a Japanese martial arts is in Boulder, and how he visited "Lewi-ville" last year.

Small world. Airplanes have made this world very small.

Day 232

2008-12-03T23:59:00.003-07:00

These were taken about 12 hours after the picture of the seals in yesterday's post, but in the same NZ day. We made it back to Christchurch for out last night in NZ, so AJ and I decided to live it up and went out to the bars, namely those in SOL Square. The picture of the day is of Yellowcross from the balcony of Fat Eddies. Later in the night we actually made it into Yellowcross, had some home-brewed beers, and listened to these two girls sing the last song in their set.

These were the last pictures I took in New Zealand, thus concluding my trip posts. The next pictures I took were out of the airplane window at the snow coming down on DIA more than a day and a half later. But fear not, I never skipped a Boulder-timezone day of pictures. The above pictures were taken at about 5am Boulder time (1am-ish Chch time), and the DIA ones were taken at 5pm the following day.

I photoshopped these NZ pictures much less frivolously than I did the ones from Greece, and it therefore took me about a week longer. It, however, went much more smoothly for me. Despite wanting to throw my hands in the air and admit defeat numerous times, I'm glad I did it but I'll be happy to catch back up to present time. Posts of everyday boring life soon to come, I promise you that. And much more rapidly, too.

Day 231

2008-12-02T23:59:00.002-07:00

Human Hamster Wheel

This thing is dangerous. It really shouldn't be used by children.

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I have no idea what I did to this picture while post-processing. It's a really tight crop of the lower right corner of a much larger picture. You can see seals on those rocks, so I guess that's cool.

Day 230

2008-12-01T23:59:00.002-07:00

Half Full

Wine tasting day.

Day 229

2008-11-30T23:59:00.001-07:00

The Bakery

Like I said: epic skies.

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This little guy found us at our holiday park. We started playing frisbee and he chased it around for a good half hour. Anytime we tried to throw it directly to him, he would run away from it. He hung out by our RV for another hour or so, just dozing at our feet while we read.

After he barked at another dog in the park, some guy in a neon shirt and short-shorts came to confront us about it. Upon learning that he wasn't ours and was just a lost, lonely dog, the bad man took him away. I hope lil' Bruno is okay and eventually made it home.

Day 228

2008-11-29T23:59:00.000-07:00

The Feeling of Knowing

This is my second triptych. The first was on Day 135.

Day 227

2008-11-28T23:59:00.002-07:00

Screamin' Eagle

New Zealand has some epic clouds.

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I really don't want to put this guy's slideshow on MY photoblog, but I thought it was rather coincidental that all the photos were taken in NZ and it's set to the song that I named today's picture after. I found this video after naming the picture, not the other way around.

Day 226

2008-11-27T23:59:00.002-07:00

There's A Glacier Right Behind Me...

...and this is what I took pictures of.

Day 225

2008-11-26T23:59:00.002-07:00

Flight

Day 224

2008-11-25T23:59:00.003-07:00

The Postcard Shot

That's Mt. Pembroke (elev. 2000m or 6562ft) as seen from Harrison Cove (see map). Early morning in Milford Sound.

I used really strange pallets for these pictures.

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Day 223

2008-11-24T23:59:00.005-07:00

JSYK, for the rest of my NZ posts, I'll upload larger photos so that people (namely AJ) can have higher-res versions for their computers. I won't always post the largest size available, so if there's one you want to save, go to my Flickr page, find it, click on "All Sizes", then "Download the Original Size".

I tried to photoshop a ton more pictures from today, but then I realized I took the same ones better the "next" day, aka after about 5PM.

This is Milford Sound, one of the most incredible places I've ever been to. A sound is a glacial valley that's been flooded by the ocean. The floor of the valley is about 200m under the surface of the water (which is at sea level), and has vertical walls coming off of it. You can therefore nearly touch where the water meets the valley wall and still be in 600 feet deep water. Not only that, but the mountains surrounding it are extremely rugged and tall. Mitre Peak, the tallest in the area, is no more than several hundred meters from the water's edge (as the crow flies), and it's summit is over 1 mile high. That's gnarly.

Milford Sound happens to be the wettest place in New Zealand, and among the wettest in the world (depending on where you look, it's only second to Mt Waialeale in Hawaii [this site doesn't show Milford Sound (it's tiny and not terribly well known, so it might be overlooked on a lot of these lists), but using wikipedia's estimations on it's annual precipitation, it would fall at #2]). It receives approximately 266 inches of rainfall every year, compared to Boulder's ~20 inches and Seattle's ~40 inches. This causes thousands of temporary waterfalls to sprout during rainstorms, and the permanent ones to gush hardcoredly. We came in during monsoon-hurricane style rains and winds, and left when it was calm waters and blue skies. We got to see a whole gamut of weather conditions. More pictures of this to come in the next post...

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(Picture taken morning after deadly hurricane-force storm from the parking lot we slept in. The waterfalls started to recede by this time, but the clouds were still raining on the higher peaks.)

Day 222

2008-11-23T23:59:00.002-07:00

Skipping Rocks

This one was taken while we were driving. The black bar on the right is where the "dining room" window in the RV ended. I contemplated cropping it out, but I didn't.

Day 221

2008-11-22T23:59:00.000-07:00

Accurately Recreated Historical Representation

I'm posting too slowly. I'm not averaging a very high post:day ratio.

Day 220

2008-11-21T23:59:00.002-07:00

Toothbrush