#sjf

Just a few snapshots of #lb (aka Leah Bryn) for the fam:

May 16th, 2009 will be recorded as a special night in San Diego music memory. While we here in southwest corner of the country enjoy arguably the best weather in the nation, we often play second fiddle to LA and other larger cities for concert date schedules. Not. This. Time. Saturday night was a fantastic confabulation of good weather, great friends, and killer music. (oh, let us not forget the good tequila, either, because it certainly did not forget Us come Sunday morning) (continue reading…)

I set out last Sunday early in the morning to take some photos intended for publishing in Barnett’s magazine — but it turned out to be more of a learning session. I learned that I don’t operate well in the early morning, and I spent too much time at a location that offered flat light instead of taking advantage of the soft tones of the early morning sun. Oh well, some of these came out okay compositionally, I just need to learn to back up a bit and then crop in. (and I haven’t spent any time adjusting these at all, could emphasize the lighting and add some color/saturation, just don’t have time right now)

Well, she’s not as big as a gorilla…yet. But she is a whole lot cuter.

I’m a sucker for gorillas, birds, and butterflies. And the occassional well-lit flower.

We had a fantastic 5-day trip with the Miller family to Sugarloaf, just East of Big Bear Lake. Here are some photos from the excursion which included fishing, hiking, snow-play, and just a whole lotta fun! Many thanks to Brian and Lisa for including us in the adventure!!

Leah at the Bowling Alley, having a Great time.

Michele has been taking Leah to swimming lessons 2x/week for the past several months. (thanks Honey!) These two short videos — which I should compress and refine, but have not --  illustrate what her progress is like.  She really enjoys it.

Learning happens in a myriad of ways, but recently I’ve noticed that there are more and more vehicles and mechanisms available for the broadcast and consumption of information. Blogs. Podcasts. RSS feeds. Twitter. “Regular” web sites. Video sites. Social sites. The list continues to grow almost daily.

I remember the first computer in our house, an Apple ][+, which is to say that, although I have been around computers most of my life, while i was growing up, they were not a significant source of information gathering or broadcasting. We learned *about* computers, not on them. (continue reading…)

Well it has been a few months since I touched this blog. What’s a geek gonna do with a free day off work? (hey, in my defense it is raining outside today) Upgrade the blog, that’s what.

So now I have a shiny new version of Wordpress(2.7) and a dirty new theme, I feel dirty theme by studio ST.

If you use wordpress, please send me a list of your favorite widgets.

So far I’ve installed

• tweetThis (share me in the cloud)
• twitter for wordpress (oh you lucky twats)
• wptouch (check me on your ipod/iphone!)
• smart youtube (vids coming to this blog - wO.ot)
• upgraded Slimbox (note to self: go test older posts)

Thanks to Brad, Rick, Dave, Jack, Craig, and especially Christo for a fantastic weekend in the Lake Mead, Nevada Recreational Area.

Was going to write an extensive trip report, but I’ll let the pictures tell the story — I had a phenomenal time, and am still in awe of how much we were able to do and see in the 2.5 days we spent along the river.

75 Photos from the trip

Some highlights included:

• First night around the campfire, most of the group has their blackberry out and is texting. hehe. getting away isn’t what it used to be.
• Capsizing on the rapids (me) and losing nothing — my cellphone still works, and my second sandal came floating by 10 minutes later! (wallet is gonna need replacing tho)
• Cliff diving - although I did not jump, I had more fun taking the pics.
• The food! Yes, we drank like fish, but we also ate like Kings - Christo is a true Master. (pizza, tri-tip, pancakes, breakfast burritos, smores, you name it)
• Hot Springs, rain, ducks, slot canyons, friendly folks, losing and finding my glasses…ah, just go look at the pics.

I’m about a month behind on posting photos to finkels.net…

Are you one of my five friends? Take a few minutes and watch this vid of entertainment industry folks encouraging people to vote. You might even find it mildly entertaining.

http://www.redcampost.com/google.mov

The light wasn’t favorable at the beach, but I was there, so I tried to make the best of it. That last shot actually is one of my favorites now — love that wave shape on the tank, as well as the reflection.

When I stopped for gas in Del Mar, and was chatting with another guy there, i told him, “What I REALLY love about this bike is….well, everything!”

Stay tuned. Just one more short chapter until it is declared complete. The leather addition is going to change the look quite a bit.

She’s two and change. Tonight it was her idea to go to sushi. “Go have sushi with dadda!” It was a really good idea…

Here are some recent photos of the little wonderbug.

If you like music, check out Pandora.com. It allows for the creation of “stations” based on Artist or Song. This service is free, and what is perhaps more interesting is the way it works. It’s called the Music Genome Project, and it seems to be doing a great bit of work - I’ve been using this for about a week now, and I have unofficially declared my iPod obsolete. (long live the ipod!) (continue reading…)

They’re baaaack! Just when you thought it was safe to be a developer again, here comes the 800# Googorilla with the latest greatest in browser tech. They thought it was so novel, they made a comic in an attempt to help simplify the complex. As if we didn’t have enough browsers and versions to test on as developers, now we have a whole new platform to develop for!

But wait. Hold the cynicism. If the underlying Goog methodology — namely of beefing up the browser’s role at the machine-level, making it more stable and secure by using more processor threads and memory up front – takes hold as an architecture piece, this WILL revolutionize what you can do with the browser from a coding perspective, making it a springboard for the next generation of ‘net functionality.

And speaking of perspective, here’s one I think is pretty well grounded on this topic. I have a leg on either side of this fence — the developer in me is somewhat excited (and somewhat cynical), the user in me is moderately interested. But it will take time to see what impact this has. When you throw a large rock into the middle of a lake, the full effect is not known until the waves reach the shore.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of browsers, if you use Firefox 3, you have simply GOT to check out these two plugins. The first is more eye-candy with a bit of “gee that’s clever” usability in it, but I’m not sure it will really prove to be revolutionary. Time will tell. The second one, though, is the contrary. It is revolutionary now, but has little or nothing in the way of eye-candy. Still, both are worth an install.

1. Cooliris
2. Mozilla Labs: Ubiquity

 

Yesterday’s paddling lessons learned:

• taking a 16′ open-deck boat out through the surf zone requires careful timing, which I did not have. Although I did keep the boat upright (to the exclamation of a few nearby surfers), it was half full of water by the time I got out.
• paddling a 16′ boat that is half full of water is, well, challenging. Bailing a 16′ boat with your bare hands is not as bad as you might think.
• having a dry bag is key. especially if you plan to take pictures.

 

• carbon-fiber paddles rock, but when they are too short for the boat you’re in, it makes things interesting.
• Timing is everything. I was absolutely certain that I was going to get swamped on the way back in. So much so that I took 15-20 minutes to size-up the wave sets rolling in. And it paid off, as I was able to follow a set-ender in and hit the beach clean. OH yeah!

The San Diego Maritime Musem has been doing the Festival of Sail for several years now, and this event has grown considerably into a full-blown street-fair along harbor drive. I joined friend Jim B. over in the Shelter Island area for a brief photo-shoot of the Parade of Ships.

I also discovered the hard way that I have another hole in my gear — no polarizer for the 70-200mm lens! Drat, that makes shooting at water a bit tougher. And the light was terrible.

If you want to learn more, visit the SD Maritime Museum Festival of Ships website.