Posts from — April 2007

Since I’ve had several requests from folks to do some portrait work (which I’m still trying to schedule), I finally got around to putting together a web site for my photography. I still have my Flickr account, but this is an effort to make me seem a bit more professional (though not having taken any money in exchange for service, I still do not claim that moniker yet). 

I do not know how serious I will get; my biggest limiting factor up to this point has been time. Nonetheless, the site took me all of an hour to put together on a Sunday while watching a baseball game*. Either way, I’ll probably print up a some business cards with the URL on them to hand out. If you know anyone looking for some photography done, send them my way (I promise my rates are competitive)

[*Ok, I lied. I was actually watched two baseball games, at the same time! Dish just pushed a software update out to our receiver (the Vip622) and the new PiP mode is awesome on a widescreen TV.  The old modes are there, but there is now a third where instead of the second channel being inset obscurring the primary channel, both channels are display side-by-side in split screen mode.  I had the Brewers/Astros game on one, and the Cubs/Cardinals on the other.  Hitting PIP Swap allowed me to game what audio was playing.]

In the car the other day I heard the the Pulitzer Prizes for 2007 were announced, and I’d been meaning to look at the photo(s) that won this year.  Renee C. Byer won the prize for Feature Photography for her series documenting a single mother and her son has he loses his battle with cancer.  For all the technical stuff you can read about photography, it is images like these that remind you there is a whole lot more to it than lighting modifiers and exposure settings.

The images hit close to home - we have family who lost their 8 year old to cancer a couple years back.  They took him to the doctor one day since he was looking a little jaundice, less than half a year later he was gone.  An an instant he was gone.

Thomas Hawk pointed it out best:

 Please forgive the off topic direction of this post, but for those of us with healthy children I think it’s important that every single day we recognize how truly truly fortunate and blessed that we are as parents.  The luxury to spend time… with our kids is a treasure indeed and I think it’s important that we always remember this.  Not everyone is always this lucky.

link

Mom decides to pick up some cheap movies at the thrift store for the kids. Upon firing up the cinemographic masterpiece “The Cat in The Hat” she quickly realizes that someone had taped over it with something a bit (ok, a lot) less “G” rated.  This story totally sounds like a plant; someone took a kids movie, taped something else on to it and then gave it to Goodwill, St. Vincent de Paul, etc. It sounds like mom caught it before there was a lot of explaining to do to the kids. Either way, someone out there has a sick sense of practical jokes (though the fact the tape opened with the racy content does make the arguement for accidental taping.  Someone who really wanted to do this would have put the content about 30 mins into the movie).

It does make me wonder how many people are still using VCR’s. I think still have one in the house somewhere, but it is definitely not hooked up. Both of my sons will probably grow up never knowing what “rewind” means, except to watch something again on the TV (via the TiVo/DVR). The TiVo/DVR has also led to other interesting contexts such as “pausing” Candyland or the driveway basketball game to go potty.

Nonetheless, we’ll have to be careful to see if any thrift DVD’s we pick up are actually mastered ones, or a writeable ones with some “unsavory” content. Given you can print right to DVD’s now, someone could probably pull this stunt with a DVD with little effort.

How bad is your drug habit when mix some cocaine in with the ashes of your cremated dad and snort it? I’ve never understood the appeal of the Rolling Stones, especially after all these years. Sure, some of their songs aren’t too bad, but it’s not like I’d drop a couple hundred dollars to see them in concert or something (especially since they usually place huge stadiums and you’d be miles away from the stage). Come to think of it, I doubt I’d go if I got the ticket for free since I could think of quite a bit of other things to spend my time doing.

Then again, maybe the appeal is that someone like Keith Richards still is alive. Comedians have always joked about just how much drugs he does. I guess his latest story only serves to back that claim up.