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On the last day of 2012 I spent the bulk of the day painting. I expected that it would go fast and it did--there are no floors in yet, or trim, or even switches, electrical outlets or lights.
I blew-through five gallons of primer in 6 hours of continuous work and then I was done, not with the job, but at least with the day since I was out of paint.
As I was progressing I had a couple of thoughts:
1. I am glad I ignored the advice of the paint clerk at the hardware store. He thought I should need only two gallons of paint, reasoning that each will do 400 square feet and the addition is about 800. I reasoned that the 400 figure was wall area not floor area and that is about the coverage I got.
2. I nearly got one gallon of paint onto the walls per hour of effort and so wondered what kind of benchmark "real" painters achieve? On further reflection, I doubt painters measure their work that way. Most are probably paid by the hour, not by how much paint they use-up. Even if you paid by some measure of how much work was completed, you probably would not want it to be by paint volume since that might just encourage wasteful application of product.
I have never hired a painter since it seems like the quintessential do-it-yourself kind of thing. But I may look into how they quote for jobs. Do they just come in and do everything? Or do you buy the paint and they just apply it?
At the end of the last day of 2012, I was exhausted. I don't know how I managed to find the energy to go out after that and pick-up more paint, but somehow I did. Yet the next day I (with Wife's help) finished the primering and the amount of time on the job was similar to what I had spent on painting on the day before. But I felt fine. I suppose that one's body adapts to whatever kind of work is demanded of it.
3 Ocak 2013 Perşembe
Memory Conforms With What We Now Believe.
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The above is a quote from someone I know on Facebook who is a "worrier" when it comes to global warming.
He was refering to Lake Champlain. I was in Vermont for eight years (1992-2001) and I had vaguely remembered that it froze the first winter I was there and the second but then maybe only once after that, so I was curious if my experience was typical.
The records were easy to find.
The records go back to 1816 and there is no year in which the lake was frozen by New Year's. January is the most common month though. Also, while the lake did freeze more often in the past, 1851-1918 without missing a year, this is long before this guy was alive. In his personal memory, it freezes about half the winters. The trend is slight: 19 times in his first 30 years of life and 15 times since then.
Probably the largest influence, besides confirmation bias, is that the lake has gone 5 years in a row of not freezing. By March, we will know if it has made it 6 years in a row.
The lake used to be frozen over by New Year's. Sadly, no longer.
The above is a quote from someone I know on Facebook who is a "worrier" when it comes to global warming.
He was refering to Lake Champlain. I was in Vermont for eight years (1992-2001) and I had vaguely remembered that it froze the first winter I was there and the second but then maybe only once after that, so I was curious if my experience was typical.
The records were easy to find.
The records go back to 1816 and there is no year in which the lake was frozen by New Year's. January is the most common month though. Also, while the lake did freeze more often in the past, 1851-1918 without missing a year, this is long before this guy was alive. In his personal memory, it freezes about half the winters. The trend is slight: 19 times in his first 30 years of life and 15 times since then.
Probably the largest influence, besides confirmation bias, is that the lake has gone 5 years in a row of not freezing. By March, we will know if it has made it 6 years in a row.
Brave 'Net World
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Amid the widespread elation over the role of the internet - including and especially Facebook and Twitter - in helping to foment the popular uprising in Egypt against the longstanding autocratic rule of Hosni Mubarek, the New York Times ran this bracing review of a new book questioning the internet's inherent democratic qualities. Reviewing Evgeny Morozov's book The Net Delusion, technologist Lee Siegel rightly notes that, while the internet's democratic bonafides are still in question, the internet has shown itself to be unquestionably useful in information-gathering, an activity that ends up especially benefiting corporations and governments - i.e., those institutions that are increasingly organized to gather as much private information about people as possible.
Here's Siegel, who in this passage moves between the ways the internet supports both large corporations and centralizing governments:
I keep hearing people speaking of the rise of social networking and connectivity as a new form of evolution. Their view echoes the millenarian hopes of Marshall McLuhan, who wrote at the dawning of the internet age of a new "pentacostalism" that would allow us to transcend the limits of individual consciousness: "The computer promises by technology a Pentecostal condition of universal understanding and unity. The next logical step would seem to be, not to translate, but to by-pass languages in favour of a general cosmic consciousness."
Perhaps without realizing it, he echoed the utopian hopes of Richard M. Bucke, whose popular and influential 1901 book Cosmic Consciousness sought scientifically to prove humanity's evolutionary ascent to a condition of shared and universal consciousness. Arguing that we were on the cusp of a universal attainment of our final evolutionary step, Bucke's work faded into obscurity with the intervention of World War I and later, World War II and a series of savage and brutal wars and genocides that seemed, if anything, to suggest that Spengler was the better prophet of the age.
Still, the dream is not easily abandoned, and we are well-advised to remind ourselves of the pitfalls accompanying our fantasies. Above all, the prism of progress too often allows us to dismiss as superfluous or unimportant the brutal truths that contradict the fantasy. It would seem Morozov's book, and Siegel's able review, is a helpful first corrective, reminding us that the oppressions and manipulations of the internet are not ancillary, but perhaps more central its current and future role than our techno-optimists are willing to admit.
(h/t, Cory Andrews)
Here's Siegel, who in this passage moves between the ways the internet supports both large corporations and centralizing governments:
Morozov urges the cyberutopians to open their eyes to the fact that the asocial pursuit of profit is what drives social media. “Not surprisingly,” he writes, “the dangerous fascination with solving previously intractable social problems with the help of technology allows vested interests to disguise what essentially amounts to advertising for their commercial products in the language of freedom and liberation.” In 2007, when he was at the State Department, Jared Cohen wrote with tragic wrongheadedness that “the Internet is a place where Iranian youth can . . . say anything they want as they operate free from the grips of the police-state apparatus.” Thanks to the exciting new technology, many of those freely texting Iranian youths are in prison or dead. Cohen himself now works for Google as the director of “Google Ideas.”
For Morozov, technology is a vacuum waiting to be filled with the strongest temperament. And the Internet, he maintains, is “a much more capricious technology” than radio or television. Neither radio nor TV has “keyword-based filtering,” which allows regimes to use URLs and text to identify and suppress dangerous Web sites, or, like marketers, to collect information on the people who visit them — a tactic Morozov sardonically calls the “customization of censorship.”
I keep hearing people speaking of the rise of social networking and connectivity as a new form of evolution. Their view echoes the millenarian hopes of Marshall McLuhan, who wrote at the dawning of the internet age of a new "pentacostalism" that would allow us to transcend the limits of individual consciousness: "The computer promises by technology a Pentecostal condition of universal understanding and unity. The next logical step would seem to be, not to translate, but to by-pass languages in favour of a general cosmic consciousness."
Perhaps without realizing it, he echoed the utopian hopes of Richard M. Bucke, whose popular and influential 1901 book Cosmic Consciousness sought scientifically to prove humanity's evolutionary ascent to a condition of shared and universal consciousness. Arguing that we were on the cusp of a universal attainment of our final evolutionary step, Bucke's work faded into obscurity with the intervention of World War I and later, World War II and a series of savage and brutal wars and genocides that seemed, if anything, to suggest that Spengler was the better prophet of the age.
Still, the dream is not easily abandoned, and we are well-advised to remind ourselves of the pitfalls accompanying our fantasies. Above all, the prism of progress too often allows us to dismiss as superfluous or unimportant the brutal truths that contradict the fantasy. It would seem Morozov's book, and Siegel's able review, is a helpful first corrective, reminding us that the oppressions and manipulations of the internet are not ancillary, but perhaps more central its current and future role than our techno-optimists are willing to admit.
(h/t, Cory Andrews)
Tell Us Something We Don't Know
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Wiki Leaks is slipping. In a case of stating the obvious, their latest "disclosure" shows the U.S. Government having reached the conclusion that the Saudi's have been significantly overstating the amount of their oil "reserves," and that we can expect a shortfall of promised deliveries within a year. Why would they do such a thing? Could it have to do with their certain knowledge that the revelation of their dramatically falling production rates would cause a spike in oil prices, at once causing the world to spiral into a deeper recession while also providing a (late, even belated) effort to develop "alternatives"?
Charmingly, the Yahoo news doesn't have a clue. They suggest that the upshot of this disclosure reveals that the Saudis will face "peak oil," missing the point that as go the Saudi's, so goes the world. And, "Yahoo" draws the conclusion that this will be bad news for SUV drivers. Not to mention industrial civilization.
Yea, this is really news, at least for those who haven't been paying attention...
To our young people - this is as good a time as any to revisit Wendell Berry's prescient and sage advice to the graduates of Bellarmine University in May, 2007:
Charmingly, the Yahoo news doesn't have a clue. They suggest that the upshot of this disclosure reveals that the Saudis will face "peak oil," missing the point that as go the Saudi's, so goes the world. And, "Yahoo" draws the conclusion that this will be bad news for SUV drivers. Not to mention industrial civilization.
Yea, this is really news, at least for those who haven't been paying attention...
To our young people - this is as good a time as any to revisit Wendell Berry's prescient and sage advice to the graduates of Bellarmine University in May, 2007:
What more than you have so far learned will you need to know in order to live at home? (I don’t mean “home” as a house for sale.) If you decide, or if you are required by circumstances, to live all your life in one place, what will you need to know about it and about yourself? At present our economy and society are founded on the assumption that energy will always be unlimited and cheap; but what will you have to learn to live in a world in which energy is limited and expensive? What will you have to know – and know how to do – when your community can no longer be supplied by cheap transportation? Will you be satisfied to live in a world owned or controlled by a few great corporations? If not, would you consider the alternative: self-employment in a small local enterprise owned by you, offering honest goods or services to your neighbors and responsible stewardship to your community?
Even to ask such questions, let alone answer them, you will have to refuse certain assumptions that the proponents of STEM and the predestinarians of the global economy wish you to take for granted.
Caylee's Law and the Specter of Civil Breakdown
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In the wake of the "not guilty" finding in the Casey Anthony trial, large numbers of outraged individuals have begun a campaign for the creation of various State and even a Federal version of "Caylee's Law." In addition to such an effort in the state of Florida, similar legislation is being explored in states such as Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. This law would promulgate strict requirements under which parents or guardians would be expected to report a missing and deceased child to police. Under such a law, it can be presumed, such actions as that of Casey Anthony would have led to a guilty verdict - if not for murder, at least on the scandal of a parent failing to report a missing child.
The law is clearly a response to the outrage and anger felt by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in the wake of the Casey Anthony verdict. Yet, what would be the expected efficacy of such a law? Can it really be expected that it would deter what must be a infinitesimally small number of parents who would not immediately call the police at the slightest suspicion of a missing child? (Let's face it - if anything, most parents are likely to contact authorities before checking all the likely places a child might be).
The pressure to pass such a law is most obviously an expression of thwarted vengeance, an outburst of outrage and frustration toward someone the public believes got away not only with murder, but the murder of her own small child. This is an understandable human response.
But it seems also plausible that the pressure to pass such a law reflects more deeply the anxieties and fears of many that the fabric of informal social norms have become so frayed that only the impotent passage of largely pointless laws can give some comfort in the belief that there is some kind of replacement. What strikes one about Anthony's is how relatively "normal" they are in today's America. The Anthony's had moved to Florida from Ohio, indicating a normal "mobile" American lifestyle. They live in a suburban neighborhood in Orlando, one of innumerable such "communities" where people can live in relative anonymity amid proximate families. As of 2006, there were 12.9 million single parents raising over 21 million children. Some four million of those single parents live with their parents. The stories of Casey's insecure employment history is not unusual for many young people today, particularly for under-educated single mothers. The anxiety provoked by the Casey Anthony story is not born of the perception of someone so wildly different from the way many Americans live today; it arises from the deeper perception that this is the way that many more of us are likely to live in America today.
In his recent book The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama seeks to explore the question of how more advanced industrial societies have moved away from "kinship relations" of more "primitive" societies to more complex societies of strangers in which our relationships are based on impersonal legal and economic relationships. Fukuyama - still evincing his characteristic progressive worldview - regards these advances as an inevitability of evolution itself, a sign of our greater advancement. But these very "advances" render us increasingly strangers even to those near to us - not only our neighbors, but our own children and parents. Our liberation from "kinship" is based upon our increased ability to artificially create radical forms of isolation from even those kinship relations. As Fukuyama correctly notes, "that individualism seems today like a solid core of our economic and political behavior is only because we have developed institutions that override our more naturally communal instincts" (29).
The calls for lawmakers to "do something" in the wake of the Casey Anthony "not guilty" verdict shows the limits of our impersonal age. Lacking confidence in the remnants of the social norms (not legalisms) upon which those kinship cultures were based, we turn now to the law to instruct fellow citizens how to behave with their children. The passage of such laws, far from indicating a triumph of our greater civility, reveals its unceasing attenuation and even breakdown. Our anxieties will only be stoked, not relieved, and each "solution" will only exacerbate the root causes of our deeper alienation.
The law is clearly a response to the outrage and anger felt by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in the wake of the Casey Anthony verdict. Yet, what would be the expected efficacy of such a law? Can it really be expected that it would deter what must be a infinitesimally small number of parents who would not immediately call the police at the slightest suspicion of a missing child? (Let's face it - if anything, most parents are likely to contact authorities before checking all the likely places a child might be).
The pressure to pass such a law is most obviously an expression of thwarted vengeance, an outburst of outrage and frustration toward someone the public believes got away not only with murder, but the murder of her own small child. This is an understandable human response.
But it seems also plausible that the pressure to pass such a law reflects more deeply the anxieties and fears of many that the fabric of informal social norms have become so frayed that only the impotent passage of largely pointless laws can give some comfort in the belief that there is some kind of replacement. What strikes one about Anthony's is how relatively "normal" they are in today's America. The Anthony's had moved to Florida from Ohio, indicating a normal "mobile" American lifestyle. They live in a suburban neighborhood in Orlando, one of innumerable such "communities" where people can live in relative anonymity amid proximate families. As of 2006, there were 12.9 million single parents raising over 21 million children. Some four million of those single parents live with their parents. The stories of Casey's insecure employment history is not unusual for many young people today, particularly for under-educated single mothers. The anxiety provoked by the Casey Anthony story is not born of the perception of someone so wildly different from the way many Americans live today; it arises from the deeper perception that this is the way that many more of us are likely to live in America today.
In his recent book The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama seeks to explore the question of how more advanced industrial societies have moved away from "kinship relations" of more "primitive" societies to more complex societies of strangers in which our relationships are based on impersonal legal and economic relationships. Fukuyama - still evincing his characteristic progressive worldview - regards these advances as an inevitability of evolution itself, a sign of our greater advancement. But these very "advances" render us increasingly strangers even to those near to us - not only our neighbors, but our own children and parents. Our liberation from "kinship" is based upon our increased ability to artificially create radical forms of isolation from even those kinship relations. As Fukuyama correctly notes, "that individualism seems today like a solid core of our economic and political behavior is only because we have developed institutions that override our more naturally communal instincts" (29).
The calls for lawmakers to "do something" in the wake of the Casey Anthony "not guilty" verdict shows the limits of our impersonal age. Lacking confidence in the remnants of the social norms (not legalisms) upon which those kinship cultures were based, we turn now to the law to instruct fellow citizens how to behave with their children. The passage of such laws, far from indicating a triumph of our greater civility, reveals its unceasing attenuation and even breakdown. Our anxieties will only be stoked, not relieved, and each "solution" will only exacerbate the root causes of our deeper alienation.
2 Ocak 2013 Çarşamba
Tell Us Something We Don't Know
To contact us Click HERE
Wiki Leaks is slipping. In a case of stating the obvious, their latest "disclosure" shows the U.S. Government having reached the conclusion that the Saudi's have been significantly overstating the amount of their oil "reserves," and that we can expect a shortfall of promised deliveries within a year. Why would they do such a thing? Could it have to do with their certain knowledge that the revelation of their dramatically falling production rates would cause a spike in oil prices, at once causing the world to spiral into a deeper recession while also providing a (late, even belated) effort to develop "alternatives"?
Charmingly, the Yahoo news doesn't have a clue. They suggest that the upshot of this disclosure reveals that the Saudis will face "peak oil," missing the point that as go the Saudi's, so goes the world. And, "Yahoo" draws the conclusion that this will be bad news for SUV drivers. Not to mention industrial civilization.
Yea, this is really news, at least for those who haven't been paying attention...
To our young people - this is as good a time as any to revisit Wendell Berry's prescient and sage advice to the graduates of Bellarmine University in May, 2007:
Charmingly, the Yahoo news doesn't have a clue. They suggest that the upshot of this disclosure reveals that the Saudis will face "peak oil," missing the point that as go the Saudi's, so goes the world. And, "Yahoo" draws the conclusion that this will be bad news for SUV drivers. Not to mention industrial civilization.
Yea, this is really news, at least for those who haven't been paying attention...
To our young people - this is as good a time as any to revisit Wendell Berry's prescient and sage advice to the graduates of Bellarmine University in May, 2007:
What more than you have so far learned will you need to know in order to live at home? (I don’t mean “home” as a house for sale.) If you decide, or if you are required by circumstances, to live all your life in one place, what will you need to know about it and about yourself? At present our economy and society are founded on the assumption that energy will always be unlimited and cheap; but what will you have to learn to live in a world in which energy is limited and expensive? What will you have to know – and know how to do – when your community can no longer be supplied by cheap transportation? Will you be satisfied to live in a world owned or controlled by a few great corporations? If not, would you consider the alternative: self-employment in a small local enterprise owned by you, offering honest goods or services to your neighbors and responsible stewardship to your community?
Even to ask such questions, let alone answer them, you will have to refuse certain assumptions that the proponents of STEM and the predestinarians of the global economy wish you to take for granted.
Caylee's Law and the Specter of Civil Breakdown
To contact us Click HERE
In the wake of the "not guilty" finding in the Casey Anthony trial, large numbers of outraged individuals have begun a campaign for the creation of various State and even a Federal version of "Caylee's Law." In addition to such an effort in the state of Florida, similar legislation is being explored in states such as Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. This law would promulgate strict requirements under which parents or guardians would be expected to report a missing and deceased child to police. Under such a law, it can be presumed, such actions as that of Casey Anthony would have led to a guilty verdict - if not for murder, at least on the scandal of a parent failing to report a missing child.
The law is clearly a response to the outrage and anger felt by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in the wake of the Casey Anthony verdict. Yet, what would be the expected efficacy of such a law? Can it really be expected that it would deter what must be a infinitesimally small number of parents who would not immediately call the police at the slightest suspicion of a missing child? (Let's face it - if anything, most parents are likely to contact authorities before checking all the likely places a child might be).
The pressure to pass such a law is most obviously an expression of thwarted vengeance, an outburst of outrage and frustration toward someone the public believes got away not only with murder, but the murder of her own small child. This is an understandable human response.
But it seems also plausible that the pressure to pass such a law reflects more deeply the anxieties and fears of many that the fabric of informal social norms have become so frayed that only the impotent passage of largely pointless laws can give some comfort in the belief that there is some kind of replacement. What strikes one about Anthony's is how relatively "normal" they are in today's America. The Anthony's had moved to Florida from Ohio, indicating a normal "mobile" American lifestyle. They live in a suburban neighborhood in Orlando, one of innumerable such "communities" where people can live in relative anonymity amid proximate families. As of 2006, there were 12.9 million single parents raising over 21 million children. Some four million of those single parents live with their parents. The stories of Casey's insecure employment history is not unusual for many young people today, particularly for under-educated single mothers. The anxiety provoked by the Casey Anthony story is not born of the perception of someone so wildly different from the way many Americans live today; it arises from the deeper perception that this is the way that many more of us are likely to live in America today.
In his recent book The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama seeks to explore the question of how more advanced industrial societies have moved away from "kinship relations" of more "primitive" societies to more complex societies of strangers in which our relationships are based on impersonal legal and economic relationships. Fukuyama - still evincing his characteristic progressive worldview - regards these advances as an inevitability of evolution itself, a sign of our greater advancement. But these very "advances" render us increasingly strangers even to those near to us - not only our neighbors, but our own children and parents. Our liberation from "kinship" is based upon our increased ability to artificially create radical forms of isolation from even those kinship relations. As Fukuyama correctly notes, "that individualism seems today like a solid core of our economic and political behavior is only because we have developed institutions that override our more naturally communal instincts" (29).
The calls for lawmakers to "do something" in the wake of the Casey Anthony "not guilty" verdict shows the limits of our impersonal age. Lacking confidence in the remnants of the social norms (not legalisms) upon which those kinship cultures were based, we turn now to the law to instruct fellow citizens how to behave with their children. The passage of such laws, far from indicating a triumph of our greater civility, reveals its unceasing attenuation and even breakdown. Our anxieties will only be stoked, not relieved, and each "solution" will only exacerbate the root causes of our deeper alienation.
The law is clearly a response to the outrage and anger felt by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in the wake of the Casey Anthony verdict. Yet, what would be the expected efficacy of such a law? Can it really be expected that it would deter what must be a infinitesimally small number of parents who would not immediately call the police at the slightest suspicion of a missing child? (Let's face it - if anything, most parents are likely to contact authorities before checking all the likely places a child might be).
The pressure to pass such a law is most obviously an expression of thwarted vengeance, an outburst of outrage and frustration toward someone the public believes got away not only with murder, but the murder of her own small child. This is an understandable human response.
But it seems also plausible that the pressure to pass such a law reflects more deeply the anxieties and fears of many that the fabric of informal social norms have become so frayed that only the impotent passage of largely pointless laws can give some comfort in the belief that there is some kind of replacement. What strikes one about Anthony's is how relatively "normal" they are in today's America. The Anthony's had moved to Florida from Ohio, indicating a normal "mobile" American lifestyle. They live in a suburban neighborhood in Orlando, one of innumerable such "communities" where people can live in relative anonymity amid proximate families. As of 2006, there were 12.9 million single parents raising over 21 million children. Some four million of those single parents live with their parents. The stories of Casey's insecure employment history is not unusual for many young people today, particularly for under-educated single mothers. The anxiety provoked by the Casey Anthony story is not born of the perception of someone so wildly different from the way many Americans live today; it arises from the deeper perception that this is the way that many more of us are likely to live in America today.
In his recent book The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama seeks to explore the question of how more advanced industrial societies have moved away from "kinship relations" of more "primitive" societies to more complex societies of strangers in which our relationships are based on impersonal legal and economic relationships. Fukuyama - still evincing his characteristic progressive worldview - regards these advances as an inevitability of evolution itself, a sign of our greater advancement. But these very "advances" render us increasingly strangers even to those near to us - not only our neighbors, but our own children and parents. Our liberation from "kinship" is based upon our increased ability to artificially create radical forms of isolation from even those kinship relations. As Fukuyama correctly notes, "that individualism seems today like a solid core of our economic and political behavior is only because we have developed institutions that override our more naturally communal instincts" (29).
The calls for lawmakers to "do something" in the wake of the Casey Anthony "not guilty" verdict shows the limits of our impersonal age. Lacking confidence in the remnants of the social norms (not legalisms) upon which those kinship cultures were based, we turn now to the law to instruct fellow citizens how to behave with their children. The passage of such laws, far from indicating a triumph of our greater civility, reveals its unceasing attenuation and even breakdown. Our anxieties will only be stoked, not relieved, and each "solution" will only exacerbate the root causes of our deeper alienation.
Crossing the canal
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It occurs to me that I often shoot photos with traffic in blurred motion against the foreground and background that is static and sharp. I guess this is to create contrast, but I can tell you that this bridge was in motion too. When this truck hit the bridge deck it was like I was on a trampoline... well not quite, but it is surprising how much bounce there can be in what I assume is a structurally sound construction.
It occurs to me that I often shoot photos with traffic in blurred motion against the foreground and background that is static and sharp. I guess this is to create contrast, but I can tell you that this bridge was in motion too. When this truck hit the bridge deck it was like I was on a trampoline... well not quite, but it is surprising how much bounce there can be in what I assume is a structurally sound construction.
Where's the snow?
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Not that I am complaining, but usually when Christmas is only a few weeks away we have seen at least some snow cover, and sometimes more that just cover. Today the temperature reached almost 70F here but the warmth has already dissipated and will continue to retreat tonight.
This shot looks a little familiar to me. I have photographed the Irondequoit Creek as if flows through Ellison Park many times, but never from this bridge. The creek has a crazy path, zig-sagging though several counties before finally making it way to Irondequoit Bay, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence, and finally the North Atlantic.
With the sun shining today it seemed like a photo was needed, and this is about all I could come up with.
Not that I am complaining, but usually when Christmas is only a few weeks away we have seen at least some snow cover, and sometimes more that just cover. Today the temperature reached almost 70F here but the warmth has already dissipated and will continue to retreat tonight.This shot looks a little familiar to me. I have photographed the Irondequoit Creek as if flows through Ellison Park many times, but never from this bridge. The creek has a crazy path, zig-sagging though several counties before finally making it way to Irondequoit Bay, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence, and finally the North Atlantic.
With the sun shining today it seemed like a photo was needed, and this is about all I could come up with.
White Christmas
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Well, we did get a bit of snow for Christmas Eve, and a bit more in the forecast for tonight and Christmas Day. It all seems a bit hollow in light of the tragedy that has struck so close to home (just a few miles from our home). When will we get out from under the influence of the NRA and take some positive steps in this complex issue? I am sure firefighters carrying loaded weapons into a fire does not make any more sense than armed volunteers patrolling our schools.
But enough of that... Merry Christmas!
Well, we did get a bit of snow for Christmas Eve, and a bit more in the forecast for tonight and Christmas Day. It all seems a bit hollow in light of the tragedy that has struck so close to home (just a few miles from our home). When will we get out from under the influence of the NRA and take some positive steps in this complex issue? I am sure firefighters carrying loaded weapons into a fire does not make any more sense than armed volunteers patrolling our schools.But enough of that... Merry Christmas!
1 Ocak 2013 Salı
View of Downtown from Millenium Bridge, Denver, CO
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The Millennium Bridge is pedestrian bridge that allows people to walk above railroad tracks and connects the Central Platte Valley neighborhood with the Downtown Pedestrian Mall. I took this shot the night of October 3d when there were so many thing to watch on TV. However, those things didn't interest me on this day! But the thing was, a cold front had blown thru Denver that day and the night was pretty cold and windy! So, I didn't stay out too long!
Sam's No3
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Across from where we stayed in Denver is a great restaurant called "Sam's No3". It sits on the corner of 15th and Curtis. Eileen and I ate breakfast there the first and last mornings of our trip. I can't tell you how other meals are, but if they're anything like their breakfasts, you'll be impressed! They had a wide variety of stuff and huge portions! I'm not trying to shill for them, but we really enjoyed it. I liked it so much that I thought I should at least get a shot of it, especially at night. It has this old 50's era diner look to it which I think is cool. What do you think?
Driskill Hotel Christmas Card
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Work and Windows 8
Well, this is the first post on my little blog since Thanksgiving. Things have been pretty hectic. At work, we've had some crazy issues happening that has caused a bit of overtime. Without boring you with too much of the details, lets just say it's something that happens in the life of a systems administrator, but hope that it never does. I just hope what's happening at work gets better soon.
Another thing going on is that I thought I would give a shot at Windows 8, Microsoft's new operating system for tablets and desktop computers. I loaded it onto my home computer and after two weeks, you know what? I rolled back to Windows 7. I just am not impressed with the "Metro" apps and crap. I understand that it's a new operating system and we should all try to learn to like it. However, don't like having to boot to the crazy screen with the huge tiles and then having to rely on those tiles for certain "apps" such as games and stuff. And then, if you open a game such as Solitaire through those tiles, you have to login to Microsoft just to get them started and then it's a pain to try to close the game out when you are done. I still haven't figured that out. Another thing I like to do at home is sync files across multiple systems for backup. Well, if you want to map a drive to another machine and auto sync files, Windows 8 won't let it happen unless you use the built-in file sync tool which I don't like or you have to actually click on the mapped network drive of where you want to sync files to and then my 3d party file sync tool will work. I know this may not sound like much, but this new operating system just didn't seem like something that should run on a desktop. It's probably great for a tablet, which I do not own, but it seems more in tune for that. Maybe in some time, Microsoft will tweak this more for desktops as more people complain. We'll see.
Driskill Hotel Christmas Card
The shot below has been selected by the Driskill Hotel here in Austin, TX for their 2012 Christmas Card! It's also currently on a portion of their main webpage! I am pretty excited about that! I took this shot about 3 years ago and posted it on flickr, but I don't think I ever posted it here on the blog. Well now I have a reason to! I hope you like it, too! It's getting me psyched up to go back to the Driskill and get some new shots! They really do it up nice there for Christmas and they really have no problem with photographers and their tripods wandering about and shooting! It's great stuff! Thanks, Driskill Hotel! And for any of you photogs out there who follow this blog and come to town, check out the Driskill and shoot it up! You won't be disappointed!
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Well, this is the first post on my little blog since Thanksgiving. Things have been pretty hectic. At work, we've had some crazy issues happening that has caused a bit of overtime. Without boring you with too much of the details, lets just say it's something that happens in the life of a systems administrator, but hope that it never does. I just hope what's happening at work gets better soon.
Another thing going on is that I thought I would give a shot at Windows 8, Microsoft's new operating system for tablets and desktop computers. I loaded it onto my home computer and after two weeks, you know what? I rolled back to Windows 7. I just am not impressed with the "Metro" apps and crap. I understand that it's a new operating system and we should all try to learn to like it. However, don't like having to boot to the crazy screen with the huge tiles and then having to rely on those tiles for certain "apps" such as games and stuff. And then, if you open a game such as Solitaire through those tiles, you have to login to Microsoft just to get them started and then it's a pain to try to close the game out when you are done. I still haven't figured that out. Another thing I like to do at home is sync files across multiple systems for backup. Well, if you want to map a drive to another machine and auto sync files, Windows 8 won't let it happen unless you use the built-in file sync tool which I don't like or you have to actually click on the mapped network drive of where you want to sync files to and then my 3d party file sync tool will work. I know this may not sound like much, but this new operating system just didn't seem like something that should run on a desktop. It's probably great for a tablet, which I do not own, but it seems more in tune for that. Maybe in some time, Microsoft will tweak this more for desktops as more people complain. We'll see.
Driskill Hotel Christmas Card
The shot below has been selected by the Driskill Hotel here in Austin, TX for their 2012 Christmas Card! It's also currently on a portion of their main webpage! I am pretty excited about that! I took this shot about 3 years ago and posted it on flickr, but I don't think I ever posted it here on the blog. Well now I have a reason to! I hope you like it, too! It's getting me psyched up to go back to the Driskill and get some new shots! They really do it up nice there for Christmas and they really have no problem with photographers and their tripods wandering about and shooting! It's great stuff! Thanks, Driskill Hotel! And for any of you photogs out there who follow this blog and come to town, check out the Driskill and shoot it up! You won't be disappointed!
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Driskill Bar at Christmas
To contact us Click HERE
Politically Incorrect Christmas Video!!!
OK.. Just for the record, I love Christmas! It's the best time of the year! Other than football of course, hehe! :-) But, sometimes the little mischievous/devilish side of life gets to me and that pushes me to put out these little tidbits... Plus someone who shall remain unnamed sent this to me. Again, I love Christmas... Ho, ho ho and all that stuff! God bless us, everyone! With that, watch the video and I hope you have a chuckle! (Sorry Santa, but I bet this guy's last name is Fudd!)
Driskill Bar at Christmas
So I took my own advice and went out to the Driskill Hotel in Austin this past week to get some more up-to-date shots. The original ones I had are three years old so it was time to get new ones. They always do it up nice there. I stopped by on my way to work. Luckily it's not too far off the beaten path for me. This is a shot inside the bar which is just off the main lobby and up half a flight of stairs...
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OK.. Just for the record, I love Christmas! It's the best time of the year! Other than football of course, hehe! :-) But, sometimes the little mischievous/devilish side of life gets to me and that pushes me to put out these little tidbits... Plus someone who shall remain unnamed sent this to me. Again, I love Christmas... Ho, ho ho and all that stuff! God bless us, everyone! With that, watch the video and I hope you have a chuckle! (Sorry Santa, but I bet this guy's last name is Fudd!)
Driskill Bar at Christmas
So I took my own advice and went out to the Driskill Hotel in Austin this past week to get some more up-to-date shots. The original ones I had are three years old so it was time to get new ones. They always do it up nice there. I stopped by on my way to work. Luckily it's not too far off the beaten path for me. This is a shot inside the bar which is just off the main lobby and up half a flight of stairs...
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Moon Over Courthouse
To contact us Click HERE
Better Christmas Video
OK, yesterday I put out a pretty bad video. However, this one here is much better. It's a video of someone's house that has been decorated with tons of lights and synced to music. I'm sure you've seen many of these before, but this one seemed better to me. Maybe it's because everything is covered in snow or something. I don't know, but I like it. Hope you do to...
Moon Over Courthouse
Williamson County decorates their courthouse on the square very nicely every year. I have taken a few pics there in the past and last night I decided to get a few more. Unfortunately there were quite a few people roaming the streets so it was a little difficult to get some shots. One cool thing that happened was the moon peeked though the clouds a few times. I thought it helped add to the shot a little...
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OK, yesterday I put out a pretty bad video. However, this one here is much better. It's a video of someone's house that has been decorated with tons of lights and synced to music. I'm sure you've seen many of these before, but this one seemed better to me. Maybe it's because everything is covered in snow or something. I don't know, but I like it. Hope you do to...
Moon Over Courthouse
Williamson County decorates their courthouse on the square very nicely every year. I have taken a few pics there in the past and last night I decided to get a few more. Unfortunately there were quite a few people roaming the streets so it was a little difficult to get some shots. One cool thing that happened was the moon peeked though the clouds a few times. I thought it helped add to the shot a little...
View Larger Map
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