Back in March, I visited the Cougar Mountain Zoo in Issaquah early in the morning. It was my first time there. I knew that they had cougars, but they also have two Bengal tigers, reindeer, and birds - lots of cranes and macaws.
Some photos are in my Puget Sound flickr feed: Around Puget Sound - a set on Flickr .
I was quite proud of how the day started, which meant I was destined to screw up. Ah, pride.
After the Woodland Park Zoo incident (not checking my white-balance before taking photos), I made a mental checklist to go over the camera settings before I started shooting. Auto-white balance? Check. Aperture? Looks good. ISO? 100. Alright, the basics are good, let's go.
Some how, my magic fingers managed to change the ISO to 1600 shortly after I started taking some shots. Before I got to the crowned cranes I realized my goof with great horror and suppressed swearing. By then I had already taken shots of the tigers and cougars playing and it had warmed up enough that play time was over and the day-long naps had begun (get there at opening to see active felines).
So in what could have been some nice shots, I've got lots of noise. Like if you look into the mouth of one of the tigers, you see color dots all over the place. Bummer. You can fix white balance in a jiff with RAW, not so much an ISO screw-up.
Cougar Mountain is nice for being up close with the animals, but to do that they put some pretty heavy duty bars up between you and the predator, making getting good shots kind of arduous(shooting between the bars with a significant zoom). The staff is very friendly and ready to give you plenty of background on the animals.
Oh, and I discovered while the cougars and tigers would play all cool and disinterested with me while I was standing there taking photos, one screaming happy child running around would get their attention in a flash. Very handy.
First, read the story, second, you must watch the included video: Flying penguins found by BBC programme - Telegraph .
This is almost as good as the bumper Swiss spaghetti harvest. Kudos.
Wow, this is too bad: Netflix, Citing a Clear Signal From the Industry, Will Carry High-Def DVDs Only in Blu-ray Format - Feb 11, 2008. While I own a few HD-DVDs, I mainly have been watching them via NetFlix.
(Another sick-day for me, so time to catch up on some mindless blogging; hopefully what comes out from my fingertips is reasonable English.)
I didn't go feet first with HD-DVD: I just bought the HD-DVD extender for the Xbox 360. And I've watched more than a few movies on it, but I can tell you that I've had more problems playing back HD-DVDs than I'd like (most recently, the climax for The Bourne Ultimatum - I thought that if I wanted HD-DVD to fail, I'd certainly rent HD-DVD disks and corrupt the climax to a movie...).
So now... Blu-Ray? Maybe. I'd much rather just download the movies and burn them to a data disk or play them off the network. The nice thing about the HD-DVD plugged into the Xbox is that I didn't have to go and find another way to wire HD video and surround sound into my stuffed system. Here's hoping that one day I can download my NetFlix rentals directly onto my Xbox hard disk, maybe unlocking the next video in the queue after I delete what I just watched (and initiate the next download).
Oh, no, what's up with the Redmond Brown Bag Cafe?
My Sweetie and I wanted to get out of the house today (we're both sick with a cold + cough and under the weather) and decided at the Brown Bag Cafe in Redmond would be good (good soup for my Sweetie, bad country-fried steak for Eric). We got there and my first impression was: "Wow, look at all this parking! Yeah! Score!"
Next: "For sale sign?"
Next: "'Open' sign not lit."
Next: uh-oh.
Looks like The Brown Bag Cafe is shut down. I had just called a little earlier to check on how long the wait might be but got their standard answering machine greeting. There were too many confused cars making their way in and out of the parking lot to get out and see if there was a note about what was going on. I might have to park nearby and see if I can find out the story.
In the meantime: bummers.
(Oh, I did a quick blog search: one fellow mentioned he read the note and went to the Kirkland Brown Bag to ask what was up, not getting much of an answer other than the owner had decided to close the Redmond location. Hmmph.)
Last weekend, my Sweetie and I enjoyed our first trip together to Leavenworth, Washington to be there for their Festival of Lights.
I put up some photos:
Just for grins, I also uploaded the pictures to flickr, too (since I work on one of the most awesome Photo teams in the World, and yes, we publish to flickr in addition to Windows Live Spaces):
One thing that's cool about flickr is that I've allowed it map any pictures that I've geotagged. While I need to go through and geotag my Vancouver pictures (still), I uploaded one from my AT&T Tilt that was taken through locr, adding the latitude and longitude of the picture downtown. You can go to my flickr map to see that:
(as more show up, more pictures should be available).
The trip was fun. We arrived Friday and had the town pretty much to ourselves. We really liked hanging out at Uli's between adventures. We had dinner at Mozart's in the middle of a nice snow - I think about four-inches fell Friday night and Saturday started out with sunshine and was absolutely beautiful.
By the time we took the shuttle to the Icicle Creek sleigh ride it was lightly snowing again, which was grand. Our driver, Aaron, was just as interesting to me as the sleigh ride itself.
We got back in time for the big lighting festival, followed by a townwide Chicken Dance. Yes, I did the Chicken Dance and I believe I did it quite well.
Sunday we got a quick walk in along the river park. I didn't realize that the park was so big, and goes to a little island. It's certainly worth putting time aside to escape the crowds and go enjoy the park.
The one really, really smart thing we did thanks to my Sweetie was to take a bus. It was scheduled via Greyhound and we picked it up in nearby Monroe. On the way there, we passed one bad wreck (semi-truck with its cab on the side and one very crushed red pickup) and on the way back almost got crashed into (kid coming out of the ski slope floored his Explorer - gee, who knew you weren't supposed to floor the gas on ice patches?). Being without a car made enjoying Leavenworth easy, too.
Oooh, and I typed on this long enough for MSN Soapbox to finish processing my short two-minute point-and-shoot video I uploaded of the beginning of our sleigh ride (again, uploaded via the very swanky Windows Live Photo Gallery):
Leavenworth Sleigh RideThis is the Veronica as an FBI agent Season Four preview that was pitched but didn't make it: 'Veronica Mars': The fourth season lives! (On the Internet, anyway) | Popwatch | Blog | Movies | Music | TV: Entertainment Weekly .
It's a small bit of closure.
Just a small bit.
This is popular right now: Right Brain v Left Brain | Herald Sun .
My Sweetie pulled it up for me last night. Yup, she spins counter-clockwise for me. Nope, no way to change. Studying the silhouette, I couldn't imagine how the image could. I focused on her feet etc etc and couldn't spin her clockwise.
Then, I:
- Right clicked on the image to save it to my pictures folder.
- Saw that the image had a boring, technical name by default.
- Gave it a new name that was nice and understandable.
- Saved it.
- Went back to the page, and, who-da-what-sa?!?!
- She's spinning clockwise.
Let me check again...
Yup, still clockwise.
(Oh, no, I inserted her and she wasn't spinning, so I had to go through Live Writer to ensure it wasn't dorking with the image: made it original size and removed the drop shadow. Now she's back to spinning counter-clockwise. Sigh.)
Thanks to a random Facebook-moment, I just found out tonight that Marc Olson passed away last week.
I only knew and worked with Marc for a brief time while transitioning around the Office team, but every conversation I had with him was a delight. One of my big regrets moving out of Office and to Live was that I wouldn't have a chance to work with and learn from Marc.
I can't begin to imagine how much he'll be missed.
Here's a snippet from a New York Times article about "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand and how Alan Greenspan, part of the Collective social circle with Ayn Rand, responded to early criticism of the book:
Shortly after "Atlas Shrugged" was published in 1957, Mr. Greenspan wrote a letter to The New York Times to counter a critic's comment that "the book was written out of hate." Mr. Greenspan wrote: "'Atlas Shrugged' is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should."
(From Ayn Rand’s Literature of Capitalism - New York Times )
Well, it ends up that I'm currently playing the fantastic game Bioshock for the Xbox 360 right now. Sure, it's great fun and all and fantastic graphics, but the back story of this underwater city of Rapture is especially engaging for me because it's about a failed Ayn Rand hero-like figure and this great endeavor he brought about.
The word "parasite" above stands out because it is often referred to in the unraveling story (you find lots of recorded diaries) and posters around Rapture. Rather than "Who is John Galt?" you see "Who is Atlas?" posters.
Just as Ayn Rand wrote about a failed communist community, Bioshock lets you have a peek into a failed Objectivist community and the issues and breakdowns that ensued.
Fifty years in the making...
Last week, I watched the film 300. It was kind of an accident because I just wanted to see how the first few scenes looked (okay) but then I just kept watching it. I enjoyed it. It's based on a graphic novel around The Battle of Thermopylae. I was reading about the battle on Wikipedia and hit this quote:
"Good heavens! Mardonius, what kind of men are these against whom you have brought us to fight? Men who do not compete for money, but for honor"
(from Battle of Thermopylae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)
Some takeaways for me:
- I'd love a dose of Spartan culture in our culture. For many it's too indulgent and too entitled.
- Another meditation on sacrifice: Articles of Faith Our culture's slouch toward sloth not whole story.
- I have totally missed out on knowing about this battle and all the pop-culture references. That makes me sad.
- When Queen Gorgo sends off King Leonidas with the farewell, "Spartan! Come back with your shield - or on it," it reminded me of an illuminate quote of Heinlein's Lazarus Long:
- "… Roman matrons used to say to their sons: 'Come back with your shield, or on it.' Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome."
I think about that last quote a lot and what it means to be in a state of decline.
And she can be visited at The Golden Compass Trina page. And you can go to the site to discover your daemon.
I can't wait for the movie!
I tried to show my Sweetie http://icanhascheezbuger.com/ off my laptop yesterday but I couldn't stop laughing, especially at this one...
…WARE HIZ EYE GOES?
(First, I'm doing better at making the T in Saint silent when talking about Chateau Saint Michelle. I get it right half the time.)
We went to a misty concert at Chateau Saint Michelle back on June 17th. When you're a member of the CSM wine club, you get tickets to a special summer concert. They provide a choice of two, and this year it was Toto and Brandi Carlile.
Well, we ended up choosing both by getting Toto for 'free' and paying a very affordable rate for Ms. Carlile.
But before this decision, as a further demonstration of my age, I was thinking hard about Toto. I was pretty sure I remembered them as the band that did "Rosanna" but I was fuzzy beyond that. Fortunately, their web site has a video that touches on all their hits to jog your memory.
"Oh, they did that song? Sure I know that one. I haven't heard it in a long, long time, but I know that one."
So first of all, we enjoyed the wine being provided for the members. If you're local to the Eastside / Seattle area and love wine, you should be a member. I absolutely loved the Malbec from the barrel tasting. I can't wait until it's released.
Right before Toto started, the folks sitting next to us won the Willows Lodge retreat giveaway. I'm pretty sure this is the second year in a row that someone next to us has one a big raffle item. We must be good luck.
Toto started (ooo, and now with Leland Sklar), and given that they have a bunch of new music, played probably about ten songs straight of rocking stuff I'd never heard. We happened to be hanging out up front (and protected from the rain from the overhanging stage design) when they played "Rosanna." Nice.
And we ran into Alex Rector.
We wandered back to our blanket and hung out until they played "Africa" - their so-long-and-farewell song - and then hoofed it for the Subaru.
It's the first time in a while that I've been to a concert where, well, I wasn't a big fan of the band I was just there to hang out and have fun. Mission accomplished.
Well, I'm a bit late sharing this, but I was lucky enough to go to the 2nd "The Police" show in Seattle on June 7th.
Here's a flickr site search with a number of results:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=%22The+Police%22+%22Key+Arena%22
It was a fantastic show: tight, well run, and highly energetic. And I had a pretty good seat, too. Sting would talk to the audience here-and-there, but either my ears are shot or his mic was tuned more for singing than talking because I couldn't make out a single echoey word he was saying.
Sting's son was the opening act and I got to see maybe three of his songs near the end of the set. Main thing that impressed me: he got up high on one of the amps and jumped down. Do that, pops!
The audience was really revved up and did a good job singing along (surprise!). My only grief was, having had done a team hike to Rattlesnake Ledge that day, aching feet that stood in disbelief that everyone in the audience wanted to stand for two hours straight during the concert. Well, also that Eastside and Seattle traffic is such a nightmare that it took well over an hour-and-a-half in my stickshift to get to Key Area from Redmond. My left leg was begging for mercy.
But it was worth it!
(Except for the part thinking about the Synchronicity album released back in the summer I graduated from high school... 1983 and that was... twenty-four years ago... o... m... g... I'm old. When did that happen?)
Another Sisyphean endeavor:
How to prove, during the late summer, that you're new to the Northwest: "Oooo, blackberries! How wonderfully special! Let's go get some!"
I turned my back on one small patch of blackberries and before you knew it, the patch was crawling up a small tree just beyond our fenced back yard and engulfing it. I spent a good chunk of Saturday hacking back the invader and yanking it out of the tree.
I've pushed the patch back to a thatched wall between my neighbor and myself. I'm too pooped to go on right now. Luckily, very little blood was spilt.
Best wishes to Derek as he deals with his health news (Derek K. Miller - Penmachine words music comment - Vancouver, Canada: Dead man walking? ). We crossed paths at last year's Gnomedex 6 and he was kind enough to take a picture of my Sweetie and I in a super-retro pod chair at the Experience Music Project party (I would link to the picture, but... well... geek belly and pod chairs don't go together too well. But I love the enthused expression on my face and my Sweetie looks great. Cropping to the rescue.).
Best wishes, Derek.
Hey, I'm having fun with Facebook. I had tried Friendster and never got beyond my Sweetie as my friend. I guess since I'm a corporate guy Facebook is more interesting to me.
My public profile: http://www.facebook.com/p/Eric_Richards/673881861
My Facebook badge:
I've been on a non-intended blogging break, with a lot of "ooh, I should blog about that!" thoughts but little typing. So, given an actual free lunch hour, I thought it would be good to get back into the blog groove.
I just downloaded an installed my favorite blogging tool that has recently been updated, Windows Live Writer. Very nice. You can find the latest beta here: Windows Live Writer Beta. There are also new betas for:
Good stuff.
Saturday my Sweetie and I went to our... 2004, 2005, 2006... fourth Folklife festival at Seattle Center.
It was a mixture of seeing bands, going through the vendors, getting some food we usually don't have access to (sambusa! beignet!), listening to the street performers, and enjoying the very nice day. One of the bands I loved from 2004 showed up again: Skweez the Weezle. Fun! Well, except for the fact that they sang the song with the chorus "What do you do with a drunken sailor?" and now it's stuck in my head.
We got there early and by 5pm is was some kind of packed:
It was a smaller festival this year, and dancing was off the menu for us. So, it wasn't quite the tragedy that the Big Bamboo Hall wasn't opened for day long swing dancing. Maybe next year.
Some recent NetFlix delivered movies I've watched at home, from best to worst.
The Departed
We watched this Friday night. Sure, it was violent but still a nice story, though a bit contrived in places. The ending was a bit of a surprise. We watched one of the extras and it's interesting how a tightly-knit community will resort to self-policing.
I scanned through the plot summary of Internal Affairs, the Hong Kong movie this was based on, and I'm surprised at how much the two fit together.
HD-DVD notes: I didn't really get any sense of increased quality given that this was on HD-DVD.
Children of Men
Another dystopian society movie, though not too far in the future. I never really connected with the main character. Two things I appreciated was the high-tech touches of the future that they didn't dwell on (mostly interactive ads playing on any flat surface) and a deep appreciation for the terror of occasional random bullets passing through an old building.
HD-DVD notes: a wee bit increase of quality. Funny thing was: this started out very jumpy and slow in my Xbox HD-DVD player. This was after being paused for a long time. I ejected & started over and all was well.
Clerks 2
Profane. Very very profane. Though touching, too. I didn't have high expectations for this and it delivered more than I was expecting. I've sort of exited my Kevin Smith man-child fanboy phase and this was a nice way to wrap it up. I first watched Dogma and then Chasing Amy, Clerks, Mallrats, and Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back.
My favorite scene was Star Wars fan vs. Lord of the Rings fans fighting it out - verbally - which was a better film trilogy. Anyway. A film specifically for the View Askew film universe fans and no-one else.
HD-DVD notes: wow, I noticed a lot of increased video quality here. Second to V for Vendetta. Which is kind of strange for a movie pretty much all shot in a fast-food restaurant.
The Grudge 2
Another movie I had very, very low expectations for. The original The Grudge had succeeded in creeping me out... to the extent anytime I heard my squeaky door leading to the garage I'd think of Kayako's croaking haunting.
Wow, this movie sucked. How does something like this get made, let alone edited and finalized and released? And under Sam Raimi's watch? It was a mess with no chance for any sort of redemption avoiding the curse. I was getting more and more pissed off as the movie went that I really didn't care for any of the booga-booga supposed-to-be-scary moments.
It could have been so much better with just one story line vs. three. Of course, The Grudge 3 is going to happen. Oy.
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