Floor 94

This is the view from the 94th floor of the John Hancock building. Well, before you climb out of the elevator anyhow. It gets better after that.

Strat Abuse

Vision

Ansel Adams took this picture in 1941. He almost missed it as he drove by the small New Mexico town of Hernandez, as the light was fading and he couldn't find his light meter. He guessed the exposure and got one shot before the sun was completely down and the scene was dark. It is called "Moonrise over Hernandez, N.M."

Ansel had a very powerful way of internally visualizing the final result he wanted from a photograph. And that result was one that differed from reality in precisely the way he wanted it to. For all the wonders of his natural subjects, he did not try to reproduce them accurately. He bent his scenes into the artistic realm by adding to them according to his vision. He did this both with the initial exposure (using deep red filters to darken the sky, for instance), and in the development process (dodging/burning, altering exposure, etc.)

He printed this picture many times throughout the years, each time adjusting the process, tweaking the chemistry, trying different paper and altering his dodging and burning patterns. He finally got a print that matched his original vision...but not until the 1970's, more than thirty years after he took the picture.

I think of this story alot because it shows the value of forming a vision of what you want to accomplish and then following through to achieve that vision no matter what hurdles must be overcome.

This photograph is now considered Ansel's most famous. I think that is because he remained true to his vision.

Some of my favorite Ansel-isms:

"A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed."

"A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words."

"The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance."

Cleaning Up

You can make a frittatta with almost anything, as long as you use eggs too. I've made them with shrimp, leftover pasta, fried rice, spinach, bologna, nuts...the list goes on. It's my clean-up hitter. I make one near then end of the week when the only thing staring back at us when we open the fridge is a scary group of emaciated leftovers. Try it, you'll like it.

Code Faster, Monkey!

I want 10.5.2 pretty soon, Ok Steve? You guys have hogged it long enough, time to set it free...

Big Butt & Smooth Skin

OUT ON THE TOWN

Act I
Scene I

[Cozy but drafty pub on Woodward Avenue. Old warehouse with high ceilings and highly varnished wooden floors. Second floor with a nice view down darkening Woodward. A guy and his pretty wife are sitting at a booth having micro-brews and eating better-than-average bar food. They are ready to move on to their next adventure but the waitress is nowhere to be seen with the check. A mid-90's alternative rock song plays in the background, something by Collective Soul.]

Dave, getting a little anxious: "Where is that waitress with the big butt and smooth skin?"

Heather: "Smooth skin?"

Dave: "Yes, and big butt."

Heather: "Smooth skin?

Dave: "Y....yes."

Heather: "You noticed her skin?"

Dave: "Yes....er...um...and her big butt?"

[The big butt is irrelevant to the issue, and is summarily dismissed by Heather. It's the skin that matters here...]

Heather: "The big butt is out there for anyone to see, but you really have to look hard to see that she has smooth skin. I would rather have you say she had nice boobs."

Dave: "She reached her arm right in front of me, and I saw her skin! Big deal. Besides, she doesn't have nice boobs..."

[Guys. We never learn, do we?]

Wild Heather

We had a good weekend. We're all still pretty tired in general, but we got a babysitter (Papa & Gramma) Sunday and had some fun anyhow. Heather and I went out on a rare "date" to our favorite pub, The WAB. It was relaxing and the Hefeweizen was flowing like water. HB got a new hair style and glasses I really like!

A Tender Moment...

...shattered by a forking maniac.

It's The Least We Can Do

Sharp Wit

"Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind."

- E. B. White

Bodies Come And Go, But Lenses Are Forever

I'm posting this just in case a rich widow in my vast army of readership wants to get me one of these beauties for a mid-winter gift. :)

Ice Cream Parlor Tricks

(The family is sitting in the living room. I give Maddie a spoon of ice cream, which she eats fast)

Maddie: "Moooooore?"

Zach: "How come I'm the only one who has to say thank you? Maddie never says thank you!"

Maddie: "Thangoo!"

(Zach grimaces, trying to hide a big smile)

Eye Wonder

We "see" the world through our eyes. We think and talk all about what we see, but have you ever thought about what you're NOT seeing? Our eyes, wonderful as they are, are very limited compared to some other creatures. This makes sense, as our eyes have evolved to suit our particular needs as a species. But, consider that:

- Humans see in only three colors. Some fish see five. (A very few human women are tetrachromats; they have four types of color receptors)

- Humans cannot see into the ultraviolet, like bees.

- Humans cannot see infrared, like pit vipers and some fish.

- Humans cannot easily detect the polarization of light, like ants and bees.

- Humans can see only in front of themselves. Many other animals have far greater fields of view; examples are sandpipers and dragonflies.

- Human vision is poor in the dark; the vision of owls is 50 to 100 times more sensitive in darkness. Some deep-sea shrimp can detect light hundreds of times fainter still.

- The range of distances on which one may focus is measured in diopters. A human's range is about fourteen diopters as children, dropping to about one diopter in old age. Some diving birds have a fifty-diopter range.

- The resolution of human vision is not as good as that of hawks. A hawk's vision is about 20/5; they can see an object from about four times the distance of a human with 20/20 vision.

- Humans have a blind spot caused by the wiring of their retinas; octopuses do not.

- The Four-eyed Fish (Anableps microlepis) has eyes divided in half horizontally, each eye with two separate optical systems for seeing in and out of the water simultaneously. Whirligig beetles (family Gyrinidae) also have divided compound eyes, so one pair of eyes sees underwater and a separate pair sees above.

- The vision of most humans is poor underwater. The penguin has a flat cornea, allowing it to see clearly underwater. Interestingly, the Moken (sea gypsies) from Southeast Asia have better underwater vision than other people.

- Humans close their eyes to blink, unlike some snakes.

- Chameleons and seahorses can move each eye independent of the other.

So, what would our lives be like if we had different eyes? Among many other things, think about the implications on our art. As an aspiring photographer, I can only grope at the implications for that field. Imagine being able to interpret a picture with 20 stops of dynamic range, or color from infrared up through ultra-violet, with polarization effects. I wonder what such a picture would "look" like to someone capable of interpreting it.

I'll never know, but I'll always wonder.

Stare Way

Zach could stare-down a stone gargoyle.

Rocking

Got Comfy?

Cyborg

Zach had his 24 Hour EEG this weekend. He did great! It must be hard having to be wired up like that, but he was a trooper. He was merged with the world of electronics and a little computer took data from his brainwaves for a whole day. Some time this week that data will be analyzed and we should know more about what's going on inside his smart brain. We hope they don't want him on meds, we like our family as un-medicated as possible...but we'll see...

No So Long Ago

Zach And The Power Of Juju

Zach has a new favorite show. In today's episode, Tak uses his magic on a rotten tooth and accidentally wakes all the other rotten teeth from the dead. They then leave the rotten tooth cemetery and converge on the village, invading the mouth of Jibolba, the old man with no teeth, turning him into a zombie. A zombie with rotten teeth.

Who says good writing is dead.

Old Skool Z

The Shoe Man Of Chi-Town

The Giving Arms

Prime Primate Time

Chicago Sky

Josephoartigasia Monesi Terrier?

They ("they" in this case being the perennially dusty and dedicated bunch of loveable misfits known as paleontologists) have discovered fossils from an ancestor of the modern rat that tipped the scales at about a ton. This was no Mickey Mouse, this guy. As scary as a two thousand pound rat sounds to us though, can you imagine how scary it must be to a Rat Terrier like Jake? No wonder he had terrible nightmares and vomited last night.

Disturbing Medical Fact Of The Day

Surgical sponges have been left inside people with such frequency that they invented a word to describe it: gossypiboma.

Moby

Moby Dick is full of the most interesting writing. Melville really had a way with descriptive phrasing. And that guy could write a long sentence too, rambling and wonderful, all held together with semi-colons. That kind of writing has left the world, unfortunately. Modern people just don't have energy to read too many words in a row without a period to rest on. Here's an example, one glorious, busy, extravagant sentence, and not even close to being the longest in the book:

"Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other's live meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks, also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to turn the whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing, that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently buried; and though one or two other like instances might be set down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea."

Tired?

Journey's End

Zach and I finished reading The Hobbit on Thursday. What a great book. He loved it. I think he wishes he was born an Orc. Or perhaps a shape-shifting were-bear like Beorn. I'm pretty sure Beorn doesn't do homework, that could have something to do with it. Next up: The Spiderwick Chronicles.

Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan-Maria Ramirez

(Tuco is in a bubble bath. The One Armed Man enters the room)

One Armed Man: "I've been looking for you for 8 months. Whenever I should have had a gun in my right hand, I thought of you. Now I find you in exactly the position that suits me. I had lots of time to learn to shoot with my left."

(Tuco kills him with the gun he has hidden in the foam)

Tuco: "When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk."

Moscone West, 9:00AM PST

If you're a Mac fan, it's a good day to be alive.

Not Every Day, And Certainly Not For Everyone

You don't read something like this every day. In an article about synthesizing hearts from stem cells, I found:

"You can watch a video describing the work. Warning: it does show one dead rat and a guy with a knife, and there are pulsing pink blobs of hearts in glass chambers, so it may not be for everyone."

Going "Postel"

Zach's class is making up an imaginary city, and they each have to choose a profession. This is done on the class blog, and I just read what Zach wants to be:

Zach said...
I want to be a postel office person.
9:09 AM

Hacking Like Lumberjacks

Heather and I have been in the grips of a vile and evil cold lately. The kind that takes up residence in your nasal cavity and converts it into a party loft. You get to enjoy a sore throat for much longer than the cold medicine warning label says you should have one. And the coughing is enough to crack a rib...on your neighbor. If I didn't know any better (and, really, who does?) I would say we have tuberculosis. But I think we cough too much for that.

We're hoping the party moves on sometime before spring...perhaps the bug with his increasing roster of friends will need bigger digs eventually. Until then, hold onto your drug company stock portfolio.

Guest Post!

Coco has been pestering me to let her do a guest post, so I finally gave in. I told her not to get too crazy, so we'll see what she says. Ok, ready? Here we go...

Hi, this is Coco. Can you believe they named me Coco? And worse still, they call me all kinds of weird names like Jackal and Dingo. I should have stayed in Mexico. It's a real mess living with these people! They expect SO much from me. I hear them talking about how I never do anything around the house. What's a girl to do? I hardly ever complain, and I take up WAY less room than that creepy Jake who stalks me all day long. All I expect in return is 22 hours of restful sleep a day, peace and quiet (except when I need to bark), gourmet food, a walk with no leash, a squirrel to chase, and a few good back rubs. Oh, and my soaps. I always miss my soaps because they lock me in a cage and leave me alone all day and don't even have the decency to leave the remote control and move the cage into the living room so I can see which dogs are sleeping around on GH!! It's no wonder my hair is falling out all over the place. See? There goes another big clump. Oh well, I'll just leave it there on the couch. They wash me with WATER too! Look at my hair in this picture (Exhibit A). No expensive mousse, styling gel, or shampoo...they used DOG shampoo on me last time. And they made me air dry. I made sure I shook as much water as I could on the bookshelf to anger the big guy though...that made up for it a little. But still...can you believe they haven't replaced my leash in over a year?!?! Gross me out! I am abused, I tell you. The two upright children get to eat at the table while me and creepy Jake have to scrounge for chicken skin and bones down on the cold cold floor. And that crunchy dog food they put in my bowl is terrible. It gives me bad gas, which I promptly share with them. If I feel a really bad one coming on, I'll make sure I go lay on the couch next to them so they can know my pain. And talk about stingy - they won't even let me rummage through the garbage for a snack!! I mean, it's not like they want that stuff - they threw it out! See? They don't seem so nice NOW, do they?

Oh...all this fretting has made me irritable and tired. I need a nap...

Fleeting Forts

I love the smell of wet cardboard. It reminds me of the days when my brother and I used to build forts in the backyard out of large appliance boxes. Just thought you should know.

The Industrial Revolution, As It Relates To Burnt Popcorn

The experience of being in a large-scale vehicle assembly plant during the night shift is something that everyone should experience at least once. It is difficult to describe the sensually jarring juxtaposition of beautiful, titanic-scale clockwork machines mixed with the horrible racket and general griminess that you are assaulted with.

Bleary eyed and going on as little sleep as I am, the ultra bright, reverberant sound stage of a plant going full bore is beyond surreal. Every sense tingles. You can hear ten thousand sounds all at once, and it is very hard to localize them. Disorientation sets in and it covers one square mile. The scale of this place is very hard to grasp, it takes a while to come to terms with it. We're used to buildings with normal-sized floors. You could fit many football fields in here.

And it's alive with action. Metal is moving everywhere around you. Giant steel conveyors, some overhead, some below you, clank, lurch and rattle. Partially built cars, like colorful steel skeletons, move without warning, jerking towards you with a loud groan as you pass over the line in front of them. The age of "Just-In-Time" manufacturing ensures hundreds of loaders and fork lifts move with stealthy swiftness along corridors of grey concrete, supplying small batches of life-sustaining parts to each station with precision timing. Warning lights glare at you from every angle, red, green, yellow, blue, orange, and even purple. Computers are everywhere, and tracking it all...down to the residual torque of the remotest fastener, accumulating huge amounts of data that's all going...somewhere offstage.

And people with Megadeth T-shirts and headbands attach the parts that cannot be automated economically, all the while talking on their Bluetooth headsets to...someone offstage. They stare at me, traveler from another world, and keep talking on the phone. Each time a barcode is read, a loud "laser blast" sound effect is blasted through a speaker somewhere (offstage), telling the operator that the part is the correct one.

The luscious sweet smell of some chemical that I recognize only from other plants invades my nose. What is it? I can't tell if it's the best smell I have ever experienced, somewhere between flowers and candy, or if it's going to make me sick. Perhaps both. And then, as I walk, a new smell...burnt popcorn, I think. But from where?

Mercury vapor lighting gives the whole place a sickly pinkish glow. Colors just aren't right. You can't tell what anything you're looking at really looks like, but you know it's wrong.

Adding to the ambiance, there is an enormous thunderstorm moving through the area right now. It is rocking the foundations of this 90 year old plant as if it was made of bamboo.

Now I pass a group of people working on a bolt rundown station. One of them is wearing a kitchen sponge wrapped around his head with tape, to soak up sweat presumably. Another guy, impossibly skinny with blond hair down to his belt and a huge beard, is saying something into the ear of a man who looks like Albert Einstein's head was placed on a 70 year old Arnold Schwarzenegger's body and wearing a hard hat decorated with ocean shells. The James Bond theme song is blaring out from some speakers...offstage, and this whole thing is starting to resemble a Fellini movie. I wouldn't be surprised to see jugglers with giant paper-mache masks.

A horn mounted to the wall looks a hundred years old. It's painted grey but the chips on it reveal at least five other, previous colors. I marvel at this further contrast as my eye moves over to what it's wired to: state-of-the-art computer-controlled robot, obviously new for this build. I think that when Mr. Grey Horn was installed, there were no robots in here, and the cars didn't have heaters.

I Leica

"Shooting the Leica is like going out with Pamela Anderson. The camera keeps saying you can make me clean, cook, raise the kids, but I won't be very good at it, though if you let me do what I'm good at you'll be very happy." - James Russell, Photog.

Hambone Jake

So, we hosted Christmas dinner at our place, sick though we were. I got a big ol' ham, the spiral sliced kind, and everyone loved it. I had so much left over than we now have ham coming out of our ears. We've had sliced ham, ham sandwiches, and even a ham frittata. And yesterday I made ham and lentil soup for tonight's dinner. Early reports say it's going to be good.

After the soup was done simmering I had a few giant ham bones to hand out to the pups. To say they loved them is a grotesque understatement. They finally came hobbling into the living room a couple hours later, licking their chops and groaning with pleasure. It is amazing to me that Jake ate almost the entire femur of a pig in a couple hours. Where does he put it? And what kind of internal geometry do you need to be able to process a leg bone from a large mammal? I'm not sure I want to know, come to think of it.

Viral Load

We have been assaulted relentlessly these past few weeks by the constantly evolving biological landscape that is daycare. The viral and bacterial stew that Maddie swims in all day has come home to roost, and it likes it's new digs. Our illnesses never seem to subside anymore, they simply change into something else with different symptoms every week or so. It's very hard to track the vectors. I feel like an "emerging threats" specialist with the CDC, assigned to the border villages of the Congo rain forest.

I know this is a consequence of the large numbers of interactions we deal with nowadays in our communities and that she'll be pretty well protected by kindergarten, but for now it's bio warfare on a grand scale. Now, where did I leave my Bio Safety Level 4 plastic spacesuit?

Just Thought You Should Know...

Too Fast, Too Soon

My break from work is almost over. This is the last day. Tomorrow it's back into the hamster wheel.

Wings

Detroit Zoo Butterfly Garden

The Last Cork

We said goodbye to some good friends of ours this weekend. They are moving to Pennsylvania for a new job. It's always sad to say goodbye. I've had lots of good friends leave over the years, and it always takes a part of me away.

So we toasted one last time and promised to visit, but we all know that may never happen.

I do wish them well. I feel like my friends must have when I moved to Arizona all those years ago. New adventures await the departed, while those left behind get the same old life with a great big new hole in it.


"You left, your tired family grieving
And you think they're sad because you're leaving
But did you see jealousy in the eyes
Of the ones who had to stay behind..."

- The Smiths, London