Journal

morning

I have always liked wandering around in cities at ridiculous hours. Everything takes on a surreal quality. I used to work a semi-third shift at a newspaper, and would come home at 3, 4, or 5 in the morning, in a small town. And everything was quiet. It was when I first notice that night time tends to have no weather. Especially no wind. It's a Twilight Zone episode, where you're wandering around an abandoned city and nothings moving. My favorite memory of that job and those people happened when two of my coworkers, driving home from the same job, pulled over and started a snoball fight, in a suprisingly bright street at 3am.

The last couple weeks, I've gone to a club about 6 or 7 blocks away. It's very nice not having to think about how I will get home. If someone offers me a ride, great. But otherwise, it's nothing more than a short walk. And I've been stopping at CVS on my way home, since I'm inevitably hungry by the time I get out of the club.This CVS just makes me cringe in daylight. It's every depressing aspect of city life all rolled into one little cell. But at 3am, even it becomes fascinating. And everyone wandering the aisles looks briefly at you as you pass, probably wondering why you would be out at such a strange hour in a place like this, (forgtting of course that they're also doing the same).

About 4 o'clock this morning, I went down to the lobby to get a soda from the machine. Someone was running the dryer in the on-floor laundry room. That's life in the middle of the night. You know it's out there, but it's all locked up behind walls and doors.

clean

Today was a good day.

Last September, when I was checking out of the hospital, the doctors mentioned in passing that whole testing me for everything under the sun, they also saw something in my other lung. They didn't know what it was. But they were "fairly certian it's nothing". Just in case, though, I should have it checked out again in about a year.

So while being able to walk and stand and breath again was all good, I've spent the last year wondering if I was just getting better so I could die of lung cancer.

But today I went to the same doctor who took care of me last winter, and he looked at my tests and tells me not only are my lungs clear, but I was in better health than I could have been after last year's fun.

I feel better.

An open letter to women

This is an open letter to almost every woman I've ever met. It's certianly specific to every woman I've dated, and even several of my friends recently. It's not for one specific person, but there are certianly several people it can apply to. You simply don't get to be upset that I haven't fixed a problem you never told me about. Or more realistically... you don't get to expect me to feel bad about it. I didn't know it existed... I couldn't even contemplate it much less solve it. And no... "I should have known" is not acceptable. If you have a problem, it's your responsibility to bring it up. And no; hints and insinuations and a cold shoulder are not acceptable substitutes. I, and from what I can tell - most men, simply do not get a hint. Ever. At all. Period. This is not an exaggeration. There are no exceptions. I mean any hint. EVER. Period. Zero. Zilch. I'll be the first one to agree I can be an asshole. I can be insensitive. I can be inappropriate. But if I am one of those things, tell me. Because if you hold it in and it makes your life hell in some way, and you come back to me weeks, months, or years later... I am not going to feel bad. And that's only going to make you more upset... to which, I repeat... I won't feel bad.

Shut Up

Most of the trouble I cause in my world comes from an inability to stop myself from talking. At least 95% of those instances revolve around me being agitated to one extreme or another about something. And while I well know I should keep my mouth shut when I'm worked-up, I'm not always succesful. I could argue that most of the agitation is caused by someone else making inappropriate comments in a similarly excited state. But being occasionally unable to ignore such provocations--as you would expect from any rational person--isn't something to be proud of.

I seem to be able to better handle it in business than my personal life. But then you won't survive long in business if you take it personally, for various reasons, (mental health, upset clients, lack of objectivity, blah blah blah). And I've found that even when a client does go off the deep and attempt to take me with them, if I just keep quiet and wait a day or two, cooler thoughts will prevail without any intervention from me.

But friends and family have signed some waiver. They've probably seen me behaving like a jackass at some point, and still decided to continue talking to me. So my guard is down, my filters are off. While there's still plenty of things I shouldn't say, I usually don't see them coming until they're on the way out of my mouth. In extreme cases I've cut off any meaningful conversations with certian people, in order to avoid conflict. But I don't like that, and it's not friendship, to me.

I don't have an acceptable excuse. I don't have a solution. I'm still working on it.

collage chaser

I felt kinda good about today. Was an overall positive day. And I felt like I accomplished something while working. And Refresh was entertaining, if not educational, tonight.

So it's unfortunate when I got home that my email was clogged with messages from clients whining about a pile of petty little things. Doubly depressing when, after hadling what I immediately could and filing anything undeserving of a response, I had only 1 email left. So not only did they piss on my mood, but it wasn't in the least bit productive.

This calls for a photo collage. My recent favorites:

Failure

Failure is being without resource or hope. You have nothing and nowhere. You're not only homeless, but literally on the streets, with nowhere to go, and no one to turn to. And you have no idea what to do to make it better.

To me, that was always the ultimate worst outcome of failure. (Sure, you can argue death would be worse, but if I died, I don't think I'd care any more about the failure aspect. And I'm looking for real suffering, here.)

But...

Look at street people. Talk to them. Or, try to anyway. Most of the real, hardcore street people are not there because of a single bad turn of events in their life. Losing your job and getting kicked out of your apartment does not directly equate to peeing yourself and sleeping under a bridge for 15 years. I'm not trying to make any judgement call about these people except to say that they've usually got larger issues than a rough patch in life.

So barring extraordinary circumstances, no matter how bad the average, healthy person fails, they're never likely to hit that perceived rock bottom.

The whole point of this is then to ask: if I simply cannot fail like I always worried, then what's stop me from trying... anything? What have you always dreamt of doing, but you feared the worst? Well if the worst isn't a possibility, then what's stopping you?

mmmm... camera

Thanks to Stephanie, I went to the 'yardsale' the Washington Photography School was holding this weekend. I could have gotten in a lot of trouble there... but I generally behaved myself.

I picked this camera up as soon as I saw it. I've been wanting to try out some Through the Viewfinder photography, and the glass on this camera's viewfinder was in perfect condition, and huge. (Yes, yes, I was looking for a nice piece of glass).

Every piece of identification has been removed from the camera. All nameplates remove. There's been some painting on the top, I think. But from what I can tell, the body, at least, is a 1928 Rolleiflex Original. But the viewfinder housing doesn't match up. The body and lenses are such a dead-on match, though, that I have to assume this is either a poorly documented varient, or a well-done mod-job. (All future versions of the Rolleiflex changed distinctly, so it's not one of them).

I haven't gone out with it yet. Just tortured pixel with a few pictures.

Besides that, for myself I just picked up a couple polarizers and some color filters.

But oh... so much temptation.

leash

Unanticipated side effect of the new Macbook. It has magnetic latches for holding the lid shut, apparently at each corner. And Pixel--who loves to rub up against the corners--has a tendancy to become attached to the laptop by her metal collar tags.

Deck Warming Party

(click image for more)

Protest

The more complete collection available on flickr.

iPhoto 6

I played with iPhoto 6 this weekend, in probably the most detail since I got it. It leaves me conflicted.

The problem comes from timing. I'd been using iPhoto for years, since I bought my first digital camera. It's never been the most powerful tool, but it was the most flexible. I got this most recent versison of iPhoto when I bought my new laptop this spring. But the new computer triggered several things. I'd also been waiting for a new computer with a DVD burner, so I could switch to shooting in RAW format. (RAW files are just too big to easily backup to CDs.) So now I had the new computer, and started shooting in RAW. And conveniently enough, the new version of iPhoto was the first one to handle RAW files.

But...

I really don't like the way it works. The first time you edit a RAW photo in iPhoto, it resaves it as a JPEG. (First rule: always preserve the original file). And from then on, you're always resaving off that JPEG. But that means if you want to make non-destructive changes to your image, you have to start over again from scratch. And even if you're willing to do that, iPhoto has never been the most efficient piece of software in the world. 2 or 3 copies of each photo can really add up.

So I stopped using iPhoto. I found a system that worked better for me.

Original photo:

But playing around this weekend, I found they had made a few improvements in iPhoto that really would have made my life so much easier. Just being able to adjust the temperature and tint (essentially white-balancing) is amazingly handy. And it works right on JPEGs, which I don't think even Photoshop does natively.

First Draft, c. 4/06:

So I used the few photos I still had floating around in iPhoto as test files. Color correction mostly. I've always been obsessed with color, like and half-decent designer. But I've only been white-balancing my still camera for about the last 6 months. So I have plenty of orange photos laying around. My basic color correcting would fix the worst of the color casts, usually. The above picture was a first pass at correcting, from last spring; (though admittedly not my most detailed). Some of the orange has been removed. There's a bit more contrast. Nothing serious. That is how the image was posted at the time.

Current Draft:

But with the new version of iPhoto, and it's finer level of control, this is what I got. It really just blows away the last proof. All of the color cast is gone. The black in the dress is incredibly rich. And the decorations on the corset practically sparkle. And with a little bit of sharpening, which iPhoto handles amazingly well, the whole thing just pops. It's really incredible what you can now do in iPhoto.

iPhoto. Which I don't use any more.

Poo.

(Disclaimer: Yes the photo is blown out, because the lighting at the shoot was too blown out for my setup. And yes, she has incredibly pale skin in real life as well. Probably not the best person to be shooting in a black dress against a dark backdrop.)

Really makes me want to go back and clean up that whole shoot, though.

male prostitute

You know I get no end of joy out of watching the prostitutes as I walk home late at night. Flambouyant doesn't even begin to describe them. Is 'miamiviceish' a word?

But last night as I walked back from the metro around 3:00, a big, black SUV pulled up near me, and the two attractive women inside asked me if I was doing okay. To think I look like a male hooker is probably the least likley thing you can imagine.

(The only other possibility I can come up with is that the sexual come-on was just a lure for some less enjoyable event. But we won't think about that.)

drink

I think I may be addicted to Root Beer. I really can't stop thinking about it. The good stuff, that has some kick to it. Not the overly-carmelized crap.

No doubt it started at Fuddruckers on 18th, sitting there until 4 AM with a bottomless cup of soda and an ever cooling tray of fries.

How long before I'm selling blood to buy a Hires?

a manly purse

I think maybe I need something new in my bag.

I carry a bag. It's really a purse by any other name. But it's big and bulky and I take it everywhere. It's the stuff I need on an average day while traveling through the greater Washington area. There's an umbrella so I don't have to check the weather report every time I want to run out. There's a book, because you can be sure no matter where you're going and how you're getting there, you will have to wait, at some point. There's my camera. Originally I said that this city was so crazy that you needed to always keep the camera with you, on the off-chance that something interesting suddenly took place in front of you. But now, I'd say it's just because I'm a photography fanatic. My iPod is usually in there somewhere, too. And I like the bag, because it's big enough and generic enough to hold all this and more. Most photo bags or courier bags are too specialized to hold an umbrella, or the book.

But I want some kind of vacuum pack of supplies for a night out. The odds seem to be pretty even that any time I go to a planned 'event' with my friends, I won't come home 'til the next day. But I hate wandering around greasy and feeling grungy. So I just want to vacuum-pack a t-shirt, boxers, and a comb, maybe. Enough so I can walk into someone's bathroom in the morning and come out feeling like I won't scare yuppie families in the park.

Just... you know... something the size of those little travel umbrellas or smaller. Or is part of the fun of going out, in coming home completely burned out and in need of showering?

Camera Geek

All Stephanie's fault: