110205 173538 chuq flickr

going to be a bit quiet on the blog for a bit; went out on a long bird chase over the weekend — 500 miles of driving in the central valley, hitting Isenberg Crane Reserve, Woodbridge Road, Staten Island and Consumnes River Preserve on Saturday, and then overnighting in one of those places with towels that give you a free exfoliation along I5, and then visiting San Luis NWR and Merced NWR on Sunday, and visiting the Gilroy tundra swans on the way home (my best view of tundra swans the whole weekend. go figure). 800 images day one, 400 images day 2, and I’m just starting to sort through them, but definitely, some of them do not suck.

Sunset at Isenberg was slow as far as birds, but, as you can see above, I don’t think I’m complaining. I ended up with an 80 species weekend for the bird list, which was rather nice, and the only winter duck I missed (as usual) was redhead. I already know I got some nice images of at least two nemesis photo birds, the Marsh Wren and the Belted Kingfisher.

More when I have time, but HP/Palm has this little shindig going on this week, I’m in team briefings for a lot of the week, and I’m sorting through the images; my first day ding rate was about 65% which was lower than I expected, and there’s some nice stuff, but it’s all going to take some time. Which this week, I’m short of..

So just enjoy the sunset, and think to yourself — boy, I wish I was there for that. Because if you had been, you’d have been amazed at the colors.

Today’s Shared Links for February 4, 2011

Vacation time..

So I have bitten the bullet and scheduled vacation. Given I have over 160 hours piled up, it wasn’t going to be long before someone started yelling at me to take it or start losing it. I decided to go ahead and schedule out two weeks (I considered one; I’m insane), although for various reasons, I did it as a week off, a week back at work, then another week off.

Wait. that actually makes some sense, since I’m going to be doing different things in different climates. Current plan for the first week (mid march) is to visit mom, then hit Salton Sea for some serious birding, and then two days exploring Anza-Borrego and Joshua tree, a day in Carrizo Plains, and end it up with a day in Morro, doing the southern cal bird and wildflower loop. I decided against Death Valley, which really warrants a trip of its own. I may change this depending on the state of my knees and the weather, and how the wildflower reports kick in.

The second week (last week of march into april) I’m hoping for early spring in Yosemite for a few days, with hopefully good waterfall action and some early dogwood blooms. If I time this right, I’ll extend the trip. if I don’t, I’ll shorten it and see what else might make sense, like coming home and sleeping. It’ll be way too early for Tioga to open, or Glacier Point, but there should be some nice opportunities to explore up by hetch hetchy and around Mather before the crowds arrive and the wildlife disappears. I decided a later visit for spring was more interesting than another run at the park during the winter (but Laurie just finished a few days there and was quite happy with things….).

And I’m hoping to do a lot of interesting photography and get off the grid. Unlike the last couple of years, the plan is to get completely away from work, barring an emergency and not multi-task. The knee’s about 98% and I expect it to be ready to go by then, and with any luck, the weather will cooperate and the waterfalls will kick butt..

The Salton Sea trip is to finally do the one I had scheduled in 2008 when dad got sick, and I haven’t been able to break some time free at an appropriate time since, so I’m thrilled it finally looks like it’ll happen. Carrizo should be blooming by then and full of interesting critters and far enough past the rainy season to be passable. That’s another area I was just starting to explore when dad got sick, and I’m just not getting back to it again.

And then it’s back to work….

Today’s Shared Links for February 3, 2011

Learning to love life….

I got an email from an old friend this week, and it dealt with something I was going to talk about, so it’s a good starting point for this…

I just wanted to drop you a note to let you know that I follow your blog; greatly enjoying your photos and prose since sometimes last year. I am saddened to read about your health problems.

I appreciate that sentiment — but to be honest, I’m really pretty happy with life. That hasn’t been true in the last number of years, but one thing I realized after I had the breakdown was that if I didn’t get to the root of things, none of the rest mattered and ultimately, I wouldn’t get it all fixed. The root of much of this was that along the way, I stopped liking myself, and so I went out of my way looking for reasons to be negative about myself, and that’s a big part of what drove the anger and depression that led to the collapse, and was a core cause of a lot of the weight gain — eating as punishment, eating because I didn’t give a damn. Probably, at some level, seeing eating as a really slow suicide path that wouldn’t be seen as that. At best, not caring if it happened. So if you play root cause analysis games (yes, life is nothing but a red flagged project needing some structure and a post-mortem), and you solve those root causing problems — you can fix things.

And so I ended up spending an enormous amount of time trying to understand what was making myself so unhappy, both internal and external triggers, and then understanding how to resolve those conflicts and come to terms with them. It was a process of learning to be comfortable and happy in my own skin again. There’s an entire series of blog posts on this down the road, when I can organize it and figure out how to talk about it.

In all honesty, I see myself as really lucky these days. I feel pretty good most of the time, ignoring the knees, and they continue to slowly improve; our seats at the Sharks are three rows off the glass, which is awesome, but that implies a bunch of stairs, which isn’t, but at the Phoenix game this week, for the first time in about six weeks, the stairs were merely annoying, not massively painful (down is a problem. up has never been a problem. go figure). So I’m hopeful this episode is almost over, and I’m trying to do a bit more exercise, within the caution of not overdoing it and causing a setback. I feel good enough that Laurie’s given me a hall pass, and I’m headed out this weekend for an overnight trip into the central valley to do some serious birding and photography, and see how it goes — hopefully Yolo Bypass, Staten island, Consumnes and Woodbridge on Saturday, grab a room somewhere on the I-5, and spend sunday up at San Luis NWR for the fly-out, and Merced NWR in the afternoon for sunset and the fly in. weather looks like it’ll cooperate, and I’m hopeful the birds will cooperate.

Whenever I want to feel sorry for myself, it’s easy to put it in perspective – I caught the diabetes relatively early (I’m guessing 9 months after it came on), and I had a head start of a couple of years on fixing the diet, since I knew I was a time bomb and it was likely to arrive at some point, and so while it’s something you have to watch and manage, for me, it’s more like dealing with chronic allergies or something. I’m not fragile, I don’t need insulin, I’m well controlled — and I hope to keep it that way, but for now, it’s more something to structure lifestyle mangement around than anything.

And when I look at how that (and grumpy knees) compares to what others around me are going through – honestly, my life’s not bad. I have grumpy knees and I have to watch my arthritis, and I need to lose weight. I lost an old college girlfriend to liver cancer this year, another had her 20+ year marriage breakup and she’s now being a single mom. I’ve helped a close friend through breast cancer and a full mastectomy. A photographer I know just announced her Lymphoma is back. I’ve lost friends to bone and breast cancer, my dad to heart problems. I can think of two friends currently under chemotherapy, three who underwent cancer surgery in the last year, two 20 year divorces… I could go on.

When you look at that, you wrap your grumpy knees with a heating pad and count your blessings, because I’m still happily married and working to keep it that way, my heart seems fine (I did a treadmill test a couple of years ago and they didn’t find anything to worry about), I have my photography and now that the apnea and diabetes are well controlled I now find I have my energy back, and I’m getting myself more involved in a bunch of new things which you may or may not hear about at some point. 2004-2006 was when things crashed, and things were pretty sucky for a while before that, but now?

I’m just having fun, and enjoying what I have, and trying not to overthink things or get back into the mindset of worrying and being upset over what isn’t. Because what matters is the stuff that is… And what is, is pretty cool.

So I don’t complain much these days. And that’s awesome, since there’s so little worth expending energy complaining about…

Today’s Shared Links for February 2, 2011

Today’s Shared Links for February 1, 2011

Notes from the Commish – the all star game

Welcome to the latest ruling in “Notes from the Commish” where I as the Commish of the NHL (in my universe) and my Vice President of Disclipine Barfy will pontificate upon the state of the game and what I think needs to be changed. The fact is, NHL hockey is in pretty damn good shape overall, not that you’d believe that reading some of the pundits out there. But the reality is, a business the size of the NHL can never be perfect, and there are always things that can be improved, and there will always be things that need to be fixed. And I’m the guy to fix it. (or replace this with something witty and snarky)

Tonight’s Note from the Commish is the All Star Game.

A few notes on this weekends all star game.

It was fun to watch the game. A little more fun than previous years. The skills competition was interesting, but the camera work on Versus kinda sucked and made it hard to follow some of the action. I’ll chalk that up to nobody quite knowing what to expect, including the cameramen and director. Tough job, did okay.

The draft was… it was a draft. Kind of amusing, and I kinda half watched it. I think it’s nice they’re looking for ways to make this more interesting and change it up a bit. This works, and it’ll probably work for a few years, and then it’ll get boring and they’ll need to do something else.

What annoys me are the people that are annoyed by the All Star game. They want to take it really seriously, and complain because it’s not. Believe it or not, not everything has to be brutally serious and life or death. Yes, this is an excuse for a city a year to come out and party, and a chance for the league to make some money off the event, and to bring their vendors and sponsors in and throw parties for them and generally schmooze the folks paying big chunks of the bills. And nothing more than that. It’s a weekend where the league does some business with the big checkbooks and has a bit of fun and takes a few days up to relax and party and just have a good time. And somehow, some folks, especially in the media, and double-especially in the canadian media, can’t handle that.

That is not the league’s problem. Ya’ll, lighten up. not that you will.

It is also the annual chance for the Canadian media to rip into the NHL and especially Bettman, because, well, the league isn’t perfect (what business the size the NHL is?) and because Bettman is, basically, not canadian enough to run their precious league. It’s all rather sad, actually. So we get the usual stuff about fighting in hockey, expansion (which the league has said for years isn’t on the agenda — so why do some pundits keep ripping the league by saying that expansion would be stupid to do?) and the lack of franchises in Winnipeg and Quebec City, even though neither currently has an arena for a team or an ownership group waiting. Surprisingly enough, speaking of ownership groups, the whining about not letting Balsillie grab a team and ignore league ownership rules was at a minimum. Maybe they noticed the trendlines on RIM’s finances… Nah. Not likely.

Look, the All Star game is a bit of fun fluff in an 80 game grinding death march. So why don’t we all relax and just enjoy it for what it is. Or be unable to enjoy it, but shut up and go do something else for a couple of days. Seems like too much to ask, and from the reactions of some, it is. So I just try to not listen, and kick back and enjoy it for what it is. Unless I’m busy doing something else. But, you know? when it came to San Jose, we grabbed our tickets and we went and had one hell of a time. For the folks in that city, on that weekend — it’s awesome. So let’s stop trying to make it more than it is, and complaining when it falls short of that. Relax and have a cold one instead…

Agree? Disagree? drop a comment with your opinion.

Got a rule or some aspect of hockey you want the Commish or — Colin — to rule on? drop us an email or a comment with the question. And we’ll be back soon with another Note from the Commish.

New Fiction — The Princess and the Dragon

Here’s another one of my early fiction shorts. This one was sold at one point to Pulphouse but never published. Once again I take a fairly straightforward fantasy idea and see if I can turn it on its ear. It’s similar in some ways to Fnord and Gord. And yes, I really did name the sword PligStüche. If you can’t figure that one out, sorry.

The Princess and the Dragon

Once upon a time, many years ago in the kingdom of Nog there lived the Princess Mirabelle. Her father, the King, was quite proud of her, for Mirabelle was a beautiful, intelligent, and obedient girl. All was well in the kingdom until one day when the kingdom was attacked by an dragon. It burnt the fields, slew the sheep, and did all of the things dragons do. The King gathered his soldiers and rode to vanquish the dragon, but while he was gone the dragon flew to the castle, and as normally happens in Fairy Tales, stole the royal treasury and kidnapped Mirabelle, flying off with both to his lair hidden high in a cave in the Cragmont mountains.

The King, heartbroken over the loss of his daughter, not to mention his gold, called out for all his knights to rescue his daughter. He declared that the man who returned Mirabelle would be rewarded with the hand of Mirabelle. One by one they pledged to return his daughter. One by one they climbed the Cragmont in search of the dragon. One by one they disappeared, never to be seen again. First went the tall knights in shining armor mounted on fearsome white steeds. Then went the shorter knights in slightly tarnished armor mounted on ponies. Then went those-who-would-be-knights, with their leather breeches and rusty swords. One by one, all those who were strong enough, brave enough, or stupid enough to try their wits against the dragon climbed the Cragmont, never to be seen again.

One morning, as king Nog sat on his throne, grieving for his daughter and trying to pay his bills , into the throne room came a knight. He wore armor that shined in a way that the King hadn’t seen since knight number thirteen, and he carried a sword whose edge gleamed in a way he hadn’t seen since knight number eight, and his horse, which didn’t belong in the throne room, was a white stallion the likes of which the King hadn’t seen since knight number five.

“Your Majesty,” said the knight. “I have traveled many days to answer your call for a champion to return the Princess Mirabelle to your side. Give me your leave and I shall dispatch that noisome worm and rescue your daughter!”

“Welcome, sir knight!” boomed the King. “Before I give me leave, you are aware that many before you have tried, and not a one has returned?”

“86 as of last Wednesday, but none were as strong nor as brave as I. Most importantly, none had this!” And the knight held his sword high over his head.

“Very nice sword. Sharp, too.”

“This, my Liege, is not just a sword, but the legendary PligStüche, forged by the god Nïvun and used by the hero Andrew the Giant to dispatch the dragon Högge on the island of Delft. No dragon can meet PligStüche in battle and survive!”

“With PligStüche at your side, brave knight, you can not possibly fail. Go with my blessings! And don’t forget to rescue the treasury.”

With that, the brave knight left the castle and began his trek for the Cragmont. It was an uneventful trip, except for the bears and the landslide that killed his stallion. Rather than bore the reader, we will join our knight many days later as he passes the final barrier and stands, finally, at the opening of the cave in which rests the dragon and the Princess Mirabelle.

“Dragon! Your doom has arrived! I am here to return the Princess Mirabelle to her father, the King! Exit that hole and prepare to die!”

From inside the cave came the noise of metal being dropped. A female voice whined, “Oh, bother! He made my soufflé collapse.”

“Princess Mirabelle! Your rescue is at hand!” said the brave knight. At the thought, the great knight shivered in anticipation. “Dragon! Your doom awaits! PligStüche demands your soul! Come out and take it like a reptile!”

From inside the cave came the sound of a large mass shifting. A few seconds later, the head of a huge dragon, steam wafting from one nostril, came into view. The eyes, the color of banked coals, evaluated this new threat as the dragon slowly exited the cave.

<<If you have any brains you’ll leave before it’s too late.>> There was no sound, but the knight heard the dragon as if it spoke within his head.

“Stupid worm! I carry PligStüche! I do not fear you! Meet your doom!”

<<PligStüche won’t protect you, knight. Leave while you can.>>

There was a rustle at the mouth of the cave, and from behind the dragon stepped a girl. She was tall and beautiful and carried herself with a grace that is only taught to girls whose fathers can afford Princess school.

<<Too late. Don’t say I didn’t I warn you.>>

“Princess Mirabelle, I have come to rescue you from this worm and restore you to your rightful place. Your father grieves for you. I shall deal with your captor, and then you shall be my bride.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” The Princess Mirabelle spoke, with a voice of the nightingale. “And you can’t make me.” Perhaps a slightly petulant nightingale.

“What magic is this? Princess, what has this dragon done to you?”

<<She’s all yours. I don’t want her. Take her, and good riddance.>>

The knight pulled PligStüche from its scabbard and held it high. “Dragon, enough lies! Mirabelle, stand aside while I dispatch this evil being!”

“I said I’m not going and that’s final. He wants Cindernose here dead so he can get his gold back. To my father, I’m a property to be sold like his sheep and farmland. I like it here. I don’t have to wear those horrible clothes and chatter endlessly with people too stupid to dress themselves. Ovenbreath here makes sure I’m warm and safe. What more could I want?”

<<If you take her, I’ll give you the treasury. I’ll never eat another sheep in the Kingdom.>>

“Evil worm! Prepare to die!”

<<Have fun, you two. I’m going to go take a nap. I warned you, knight.>> At that, the dragon disappeared into the cave.

The knight stared at the empty cave-mouth and blinked. Slowly, he lowered PligStüche and returned it to its scabbard.

“Princess Mirabelle, you are rescued!” The knight stepped towards the Princess. “Let us return to your glub — “

The knight stopped, then reached up to grasp the handle of the dagger lodged in his throat. He turned and looked at Mirabelle, then collapsed in a heap and died.

Mirabelle stepped over and removed the dagger. Cleaning it on the knight’s shirt, she replaced it into the hidden place in her sleeve. “Hey, Embereyes! Dinner’s ready when you want it.”

The dragon shuffled out of the cave. <<I can feed myself.>>

“If I let you hunt, you’d have my father and a hundred knights up here rescuing me in an instant, dear. Now, we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

<<I do wish you hadn’t thrown that love potion on me while I was kidnapping you. It makes things so inconvenient.>>

“We’ve been over this before. It was the only thing within reach. How was I to know you’d fall in love with me? Besides, I think things have turned out quite nicely. We’re going to be happy together forever..”

The dragon snorted, puffing smoke rings at the girl. <<Well, perhaps the potion will wear off some day. I promise, love of my life, that we’ll stay together as long as we both live>>. It snorted again and smacked his lips.

She pulled PligStüche free from the body. “It had a lifetime guarantee. Tell you what, lover. Tonight we’ll snuggle up together in front of the fire and you can tell me everything you know about this new sword. It sounds like it might come in handy some day. Now let’s go try to save that soufflé.” With that, she turned and disappeared into the mouth of the cave.

A sound somewhere between a choke and a snort came from the dragon. It turned, and tail drooping just a bit, started for the cave. <<Yes, dear.>>

# End #

Today’s Shared Links for January 30, 2011

Today’s Shared Links for January 29, 2011

D&D Banned in Wisconsin Prisons

Today’s Shared Links for January 28, 2011

some thoughts and stats on chuqui.com

Over the last couple of days I’ve been tweaking the editorial content on the site, refining some of it and changing the focus in a few ways, based on studying some of the analytics and thinking about some feedback that’s come in along with my view of what I want this site to represent. None of the changes are major, but I thought I’d talk about them a bit to give people some things to think about when they’re writing the boilerplate for their own sites.

One relatively big change I made was that I made each piece independent; before, I had a few rather generic sections (like “about”), and I felt some of the material simply got lost because nothing was making it visible, so people weren’t seeing it. Now, each content area has its own header. If you think about a typical user, I’ve decided this is important because they aren’t familiar with the site and need some help finding the pieces of information. this is why I use menus and drop-down menu items very sparingly and make sure there are other paths into that material — not only do drop-downs hide stuff from search engines, studying the analytics of them shows me users simply don’t use them often, so I limit them to things that are “optional” for site visitors, not for information I want them to find and access easily.

I wanted to do two main things in refining this content — make the Creative Commons licensing a lot more visible, and rethink the affiliate link area.

On my site, there’s now an explanation of the Creative Commons license. I’ve seen that among many users, CC is seen as being equivalent to public domain, which is incorrect. Since Creative Commons is still a new concept, I’ve come to think that those of us who are using it and promoting it need to help educate users and explain the concept and proper usage, and so I’ve added some language to the site to do that. I’ve also modified the standard boilerplate I put on my flickr uploads to do the same. I don’t expect this to stop people who don’t pay attention to the CC licensing overnight — but I do hope this helps spread the word about CC and help educate people about what it is and what appropriate usage is (and that appropriate usage is what the photographer says, not what the user wants…). It’s a small step in education, and I’d like to encourage others using creative commons to do the same (hence the reason for this post…)

I also re-did my affiliate. The site doesn’t generate much affiliate income, and honestly, I’m not trying to make that happen, so that’s fine. I felt, however, that I was dedicated too much space to it and it was cluttered. Since almost all affiliate income was coming through the Amazon links, I slimmed down to just using that, and I rephrased the area to make it much more of a “tip jar” concept, to keep it low key. I hadn’t put the affiliate links on the blog detail pages (I have no idea why), so in fact, they weren’t being seen by users who just pop onto the site to read something and then leave. I’ve also made sure the Creative Commons text is prominent on the detail pages now, also.

All in all, minor but important changes. I think it better represents my ideas of what the site is about and how I want it to look — and I bet in six months, I’ll feel I need to do some tweaking again because I’ll have learned more based on how users react to this change.

Back in July, I completely revamped the site after living with the old look for a number of years. I’ve been doing some simple analytics of the site since, but in the last week, I’ve done some deeper evaluation to see just how usage has changed. One thing I didn’t like about the old site was that users who came in from outside links never seemed to explore or visit any other part of the site, making every item seem isolated and there really was nothing to encourage users to come back again after visiting for that one item.

So how have things changed? Looking at two typical weeks (in other words, weeks where there aren’t spikes of traffic for some reason), here’s how things have changed from this time last year:

Visits are up 56%
Pageviews are up 90%
Pages per visit is up about 22%, from about 1.3 to about 1.7
Average time on site is up 29% from 1:08 to 1:28.

All in all nice moves in a positive direction.

About 23% of traffic to the site comes from search engines; that could be more if I worked on SEO harder, but since I’m not trying to drive revenue, it’s not a priority. Of the search engine traffic, about 96% of it is Google. Bing is a distant second, Yahoo is third much farther behind. Interestingly, search engine visitors do more exploring and stay longer (1.9 pages per visit, 1:46 time per visit).

There’s been yet another discussion about “is RSS dead” out there (to which I respond “oh, slow news day?’); if that’s true, I’m not seeing it. My RSS subscriptions are flat to up slightly, right around 700. While it hasn’t grown much, article readership via RSS is massively larger; I distribute full articles via RSS, so the vast majority of RSS subscribers never visit the site — and that readership is above and beyond the numbers above, so the growth in eyeballs is actually much higher than the analytics imply. (Hello, faithful RSS readers!). So while the absolute number of RSS subscribers hasn’t changed, the “quality” has — they’re more engaged, they read more. If I wanted to drive revenue, I could add ads to the RSS feed, maybe, but I hate those, so I haven’t (and have no plans to); the joy of not particularly needing to drive revenue around here…

But there is a strong growth in readership via channels that seem to be doing the same thing as RSS, and the biggest one is Twitter; blog posts go out via RSS, they also get announced on twitter, and twitter does cause people to read pieces on the site (instead of remotely within the RSS). it’s too bad twitter doesn’t really integrate with analytics well, it’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on there, but twitter is a top five source of visitors now, and growing. The size of the group following me on twitter is now over double the size of those following me on RSS, and growing, so if I were to focus on putting time and energy into one or the other, the answer is obvious. At the same time, twitter really isn’t the same as RSS (it’s not a passive subscription model), but it also isn’t purely social, either, given that we all dump links onto it as well as converse. It really has turned into this new generation instant messaging mosh pit, and I’m finding it a fascinating beast these days.

Facebook, however, is above that, and growing faster (much to the chagrin of folks who like to diss Facebook). I also see a lot more commenting and engagement from facebook readers; it’s a very active community, and it’s #3 in driving traffic after google and RSS. Right now, it’s about 1/3 of the size of the RSS traffic, but about double what it was a year ago.

If you look at all of the social sites I’m involved in (facebook, stack exchange, etc), places where I interact with the community, the combined traffic they drive to the site is now larger than my RSS feed, and about on par with the search engines. “social networking” can be an infinite time sink if you allow it, but it’s an effective way to build relationships and get known, and those are ways to get people interested in what you have to say and visiting your site. Just don’t expect overnight miracles, and realize if you push too hard, you’ll turn them off you, not onto you. It’s not about using these things as marketing, it’s about building community on them, and that is what markets you.

What’s next? To me, it’s worrying about what I consider is the real, number one, most important driver of interest in a site: good, interesting content. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t matter what you do trying to attract visitors — so I’m going to continue working to create stuff people are interested in reading and talking about, and go back to not worrying much about subscriber numbers or SEO geekery or any of that stuff. It’s fun to dive into it once in a while and it makes for a fun report card (especially when the numbers are “up and to the right”) but ultimately what matters is the writing and images.

Right?

Today’s Shared Links for January 27, 2011

Boors, Birds, and Bad Behavior
The Importance of Cropping

How hard can it be?

It’s interesting, and sad. We’re in a massive obesity epidemic; overall, about 1 in 4 adults in the US are considered obese, and that number is growing. About one in ten are diabetic, and the numbers there are staggering, with an expectation that half of Americans will be diabetic by 2020, and there are estimates that in the next couple of decades, that could rise to one in three.

And yet, do you have any idea how often someone suggests to me all I need to do is put less on my plate? eat less? exercise more? Simple concepts, which, in fact, fail miserably and have for years for wide swaths of humanity.

Here’s a hint: if it was that simple, I’d have probably figured it out by now and done it. (yes, I’m back on the “it’s complicated” meme again. sorry. but it IS).

This is just the latest facet of the damned Nancy Reagan “Just Say No” mentality, where simple platitudes make you feel like you’re accomplishing something, when in fact, you aren’t. Just say no doesn’t work for drugs, it doesn’t work for teenage sex, it doesn’t work for alcohol or smoking or eating. Real life isn’t that simple. If it was, you wouldn’t need to keep running around yelling “just say no” to people, they’d figure it out on their own. But I guess it makes people feel better. Too bad they don’t actually see if it works before building it into government policy…

Okay, enough ranting. well, maybe. I wanted to share some stuff I’ve run into that may help you understand just how complicated this is. Right now, we’re spending billions of dollars on research into obesity between government programs and medical/pharma industry (because they know if they can figure this out, there’s a goldmine on the other end that’ll make Viagra look like a generic pill). The fact is, obesity is winning, because there are no simple cures. And researchers are seeing this in their research.

I’ve been doing some research into what they’re learning and what’s going on out there, and I’m finding a lot of this fascinating. Hope you do, too.

For instance, there’s good data that at least some obesity might be happening because of a virus. So you might have caught a bug, and it’s decided it wants its host fat and happy, and it doesn’t care what you think.

One of my pet peeves is High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). Don’t get me started. (too late). The food industry keeps telling us it’s okay, there’s nothing to worry about. They so believe in the product they’re trying to change the name (so they can maybe hide from the increasingly bad news about it) for a few more years. But some studies have shown a correlation between the growth in diabetes and insulin dependence tracks on a line that matches the growth in the use of HFCS, and more and more research is calling it into question. For instance, an interesting rat study at Princeton showed that rats gained more weight on Corn Syrup than they did on sugar, even when they were fed the same number of calories (now, you have to be careful translating animal studies to human, they rarely are perfect analogs, and you have to be careful about dosage issues and whether the uses are rational for comparing in humans — if it would take 30 pounds of sugar a day in humans, there are bigger problems…). By the way, these rats showed classic signs of metabolic syndrome (a precursor to diabetes) and increased tryglycerides. Another study out of Florida showed the same issues using fructose instead of sucrose (fruit sugars). And the bottom line? Well, according to the folks at Harvard, here it is: The combined findings demonstrated a 26% higher risk of developing diabetes type 2 and a 20% higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome among people who consumed 1 to 2 sugary drinks per day, compared to individuals whose monthly maximum was just one such drink. Even daily consumption of just one 12-ounce sugary drink raised diabetes type 2 risk by approximately 15%.

Still want that Coke or Pepsi? If so, make it a diet.

Other things impact obesity and weight loss. Feeling depressed? Are you getting enough sleep? Urban living, where you run into pollution, seems to be a factor. And there’s growing evident that, in some cases, your genes do it to you. So can snoring, although what I believe they’re really seeing here is sleep apnea, for which severe snoring is a key symptom.

Fortunately, progress is being made. One thing that seems to make a difference is to move from refined carbs back to complex ones. So look at your carb sources, and work to shift back to whole grains. There’s also research showing that more protein helps. Remember my note yesterday about shifting more to turkey and a higher percentage of protein? Guess why?

Science is starting to understand that diets don’t work; that it’s about lifestyle change (hmm, didn’t I say that recently?) A hot trend is forcing restaurants to display nutritional information (hey! just say no!) — too bad it doesn’t seem to work. wish they’d studied it before implementing those laws, but heck, they probably feel better because they did something.

There’s good news out there, too. A little bit of alcohol helps fight metabolic diseases. If you get rid of sweetened breakfast cereals and go with unsweetened ones, your kids will likely go for the fruit to sweeten it, not sugar (so no more count chocula!) And, of course, getting up and moving around is a good idea. Diet alone isn’t enough, you need to add in the fitness aspect. grumpy knees or no.

What do I take out of all of this?

Well, here’s my “I am not a lawyer” thing: I’m a layman. I’m studying this so I can better understand how to fix my own situation. I’m sharing this so you don’t need to put the time in to find this stuff on your own. But — I’m a layman. So talk to your doctor about this stuff, and have them help you figure out what it means for your situation, because your situation is different than mine. And — believe it or not — I might be wrong here.

But… having said that…

As many changes as I’ve made in my life in the last few years, I still have a ways to go. and what this research gives me some hints on things that are useful options.

I gave up most corn syrup years ago; it’s empty, wasted calories. If you haven’t — stop. Now. I love unsweetened iced tea, fortunately, and in fact over the last few years I’ve done a good job of retraining myself away from a nasty sweet tooth in general. But HFCS sweetened fluids are the first thing my doctor told me to nuke, and he was right. There’s an amazing amount of calories there, and it adds nothing to your diet BUT calories. I’m not someone who is in the “no tolerance” camp for corn syrup, because in american society it’s practically impossible and I’m not going Vegan any time soon (heck, with my allergies, I don’t think I CAN, honestly, even if I wanted to), but whenever I have a choice, I choose away from fructose in general, and high yield corn syrup as much as possible.

After that, where I can, I’m trying to eat whole grains over refined grains. I’m trying to eat more lean protein and less fat and a managed set of carbs. Where I eat carbs, I’m trying to eat complex ones over simple ones (that’s a whole different discussion for later). I avoid trans-fats and processed fats in favor of natural ones (butter rules). And yes, Laurie and I still enjoy a bottle of wine here and there, and I am still known to drink an occasional single malt. But my alcohol usage is probably averaging about 1/3 glass a day or less over a period of a week. AND I’m trying to build up the exercise program.

So in my grand scheme of “fix one thing at a time, and fix it permanently” school of building up a new set of healthier lifestyle habits, the first one I recomment to you is to learn to like unsweetened beverages. Or at the very least, diet — if you tolerate aspartame okay. (I don’t, but I don’t mind using splenda).

One goal I set for myself, and I’ve found it to be a useful one, is to work to make every calorie be worth it — we tend to eat a lot of crap that frankly doesn’t taste that good, merely because it’s there. And a lot of that crap is bad for you. And yes, the occasional In-N-Out burger is “worth it” and so it the occasional Kit-Kat Bar, at least in my universe. but the key word there is occasional, and if you stop and think through what you eat, you’ll probably find a lot of stuff going into the mouth not because it’s tasty or good, but because it’s there. And that’s a good place to start your thinking (well, after you nuke the sugared sodas). And for that, the food diary is king, because it forces you to be conscious of what you’re eating, and once you get conscious of what you’re eating, you’ll probably start thinking to yourself “why the hell am I eating THIS?”

And that starts you down the path to eating better….

okay, I’ve probably ranted about this enough for you all for now, so time to shift to something else. but we’re not done here, are we?

Nah. didn’t think so…

update: This article on diabetes just came out. 26 Million people in the U.S. are diabetic, and another 79 Million are pre-diabetic. 8% of America is Diabetic, and a third of the U.S. adult population is pre-diabetic now. wow. (for comparison, the population of the state of California is roughly 37 million, so we’re talking about 3X that impacted here).

Today’s Shared Links for January 26, 2011

It’s complicated…

My plan to get the weight off is off to a slow start, thanks to the grumpy knees. It’s hard to get an exercise program going when you can’t walk, and for a couple of weeks around Christmas, I wasn’t doing much more than hobbling and hiding under a heating pad. It’s been about two years since I was diagnosed with arthritis in the knees, and so I was due for a few bad days. I just wish I knew what triggered it — I have no idea why the knee got inflamed, and the only thing that seemed to knock the inflammation down was time, rest and heat.

It took a couple of weeks after the holiday for things to settle down, but last week, I felt it was time to get moving and see what happened. Half a mile walk, and that evening, things felt pretty good, so the next day, I did it again. It still felt pretty good, so the day after that, I spent some time doing some cleanup and hauling stuff around in the garage. That left things pretty sore, so I spent a day just sitting and resting — and now it feels pretty good again. Not 100%, but probably 95%.

One of the interesting challenges of arthritis is that one of the best methods to keep it in check is to exercise the affected joint, but if you cause inflammation, you make it worse. So there’s this set of lines you travel through and try to navigate between too little and too much, and when you’re just starting out, “too much” might not be a lot. One of the best ways to impact arthritis is to get off excess weight, but if you can’t exercise, getting the weight off is an interesting challenge. so it all twists into itself and it’s this slow, careful process to get the knotted tangle cleaned up and everything moving forward smoothly.

One of the lessons I’m learning — the hard way, repeatedly — is that this is something you can’t out-stubborn. I have to learn when to back off, when to shut it down and use rest as a therapy. I’m getting better at that, but honestly, my personality is to just bulldog through everything that gets in the way, but some things win, and it’s not always easy to realize you need to go around and try a different strategy…

The answer: just keep trying. Learn to listen to the body, pull back when it tells you to, push forward when you can. It’s a balancing act. And not get frustrated when it’s not right the first time, and not focus too hard on results too quickly in ways that cause serious regressions or major downtime by injury. It took many years to get to this point — it won’t fix itself overnight any more than a baseball player can score five runs with a single swing. Baseball players know this — and yet sometimes they still try. they’re wired that way.

And so part of the trick here is to rewire yourself.

When I started talking to my doctor about these issues, that was one of the things he emphasized. It’s not so much about weight loss, it’s about restructuring your lifestyle, and with it, the health changes will come. If you don’t fix the lifestyle issues — even if you lose weight, changes are, it’ll come back.

That’s something the diet industry doesn’t want to talk about — diets don’t work. Even if you lose weight, most people gain it back. Many people gain back more than they lost — and there’s growing evidence that yo-yo weight loss is more harmful to your health than doing nothing.

The plan my doctor and I talked over years ago was to understand what the root causes of the weight were and deal with the lifestyle and diet issues, to get everything under control and moving forward. Remember that in 2004-05, when this process started, I was living on the burger and fry diet five or six times a week (at least), so to say my diet was a disaster is understating it.

All of these things are habits — and habits are tough to change. It takes about six weeks to rewire a habit, and even after that, can take longer before it feels natural. If you break the cycle of rewiring along the way, you tend to fall back on the old habit again and then have to start over. That falling back can be caused by many things, but a prime cause is stress, so stress is one of those things you need to learn to manage and reducing stress in your life is an important aspect of all of this.

I also found what worked best for me was to keep it simple; one of the worst things you can do is change everything at once — because you’re dealing with so many habits that you’re going to lose out on some of them, and once you do, they cascade and you tend to lose everything. What worked for me was picking some pieces I felt I could change and doing them.

Over time, I went from bad fat-laden, calorie heavy breakfasts, fast-food lunches and generally eating way beyond my metabolism, and eating really crap stuff.

Today? Well, before christmas I spent two weeks logging my food.

(digression: the first and best weapon in getting your diet under control is the food diary. I’ve used a number of tools, including pure manual paper logging, but today, I like Livestrong.com as a place to manage that information. Food diaries, if you’ve never done them, mean you take a period of time and you log everything you eat. EVERYTHING. When, how much. what. and then you work out what the nutriional aspects of that food is. I’ll probably talk about food diaries in more detail later, but suffice it to say, it is a great tool for showing you the food you’re eating that you don’t realize you’re eating by forcing you to be aware of it, but it also gives you a baseline for understanding where your diet now, so you, or a nutritionist, can figure out what you can change to improve it, one dietary problem at a time. this presumes you don’t lie to yourself, of course, and that’s sometimes the hardest part of using a food diary, because deep down inside, you know you’re screwing up and hate to force yourself to admit it. And sometimes, doing that alone makes a big difference…)

What I found was pretty much what I expected to find. My diet breakdown was about 35% calories from fat, anywhere from 30-50% calories from from carbohydrate, and the rest from protein. My goal has been a balanced, 30-30-40 diet, so these numbers are things I could take to a nutritionist and feel happy with. It’s a huge change from when I started (when I was probably 50% or more fat in the diet, much of it saturated), and it affirmed to me I was eating pretty much at maintenance (finally) although not losing.

The problem? That’s a gerat diet for a normal person, but for a diabetic, the carbs are too high, and that’s contributed to the weight I’ve gained since I started treatment, since one of the drugs managing the blood sugar does so by reducing insulin dependence and encouraging moving carbs into the fat cells. Which I need to better manage by reducing carbs so they aren’t there to sequester, which… (like I keep saying, it’s complicated….)

So I need to get those rations to around 35% fat, 30% carbohydrate, 35% protein. I don’t want to raise the fat percentage to reduce carbs, that’s for sure. And I’ve already pulled a few hundred calories a day out of the diet, but I need to pull out another 500 or so to make sure the weight loss gets going on on the downward slope, but I’ve found I have to be careful how I do that, or there are side effects. So I know what I need to do, but finding the right combination of changes that work for me has been — a bit of a challenge.

The big problem spot in the diet is mid-day, when I’m running around and at work. At home, I have my stock of stuff and on weekends things tend to work pretty well. But the weekdays are fighting back. See, carbs are portable. I can stuff Clif bars in my backpack and haul them around (and I do, for those times when my body starts doing the “you need carbs” dance or I end up in a meeting that spans a normal mealtime). Protein? You can’t just stuff a turkey breast in a backpack and not expect bad things to happen if you haul it around for a while — this all requires more planning and care. Most proteins need refrigeration, where carbs tend not to; so I’m having to figure out how best to change all of that around, and yes, that means “carry your lunch”, and using blue ice bricks and stuff. and that means changing out some habits, and…

And in my case, this is more complicated than usual, because of some food allergies. One common protein you can use that doesn’t require refrigeration is nuts, and so peanut butter is a common item in all of this. And guess what? I have a nut allergy, so that’s off the list.

Fortunately, I do in fact like turkey and it’s now a staple. The current goal is to move to a much lighter carb load during the day, and swap in some turkey, add in a regular salad and include a couple of pieces of fruit for morning and afternoon snacks to help regulate the blood sugar across the day, and see what happens.

So we’ll see. It’s been working on weekends, so it seems time to shift it to the weekdays. I’ve picked up the lunch sack. I know how I have to change my shopping (and laurie’s a huge help here, also). The grumpy knees have made me, honestly, not really feel like screwing around with other stuff so much, but now they seem to be cooperating again (mostly). So know we see how it goes, I guess.

And if it doesn’t work, we’ll learn from it and try something else…

Talking about “stuff”….

When I started talking to people about whether I should blog about some of the “stuff” going on in my life — the weight, the diabetes, the apnea, and now the arthritis — I had a lot of people strongly suggest I keep that private. A few were seriously freaked I’d even consider talking about the breakdown, which simply shows that we have a long way to go about understanding and dealing with these kinds of issues as a society. Which is, in fact, a strong reason FOR talking about it, to help teach and help people understand. A common worry was that potential employers reading my blog might shy away; honestly, the fact that I’m 50 hinders this as much or more than any potential worry, and to put it bluntly, any employer that won’t hire me because five plus years ago I needed some help getting my head straight over a few weeks is an idiot, and I don’t want to work for them anyway. It’s their loss. (the whole “aging geek” thing is it’s own discussion for some time in the future, maybe).

There’s a lot of self fear — people worry themselves into inaction. I’ve been there, done that. it took me a long time to go from thinking about talking about this stuff to actually talking about it. Part of that was because I wanted to be sure I knew what I was talking about — that I wasn’t going to screw it up and that I could talk about it intelligently and not but proclaim my expertise in something — but there was also the fear factor.

What I’ve found since deciding to start on this is that it’s making a difference. Every time I talk about the apnea, I get one or two emails from people telling me I’ve convinced them to go get checked, and in a couple of cases, I’ve heard back about the diagnosis and how the CPAP has improved their life. That pretty much everything I’ve heard back has been supportive and positive, and that there’s concrete responses that it’s making a difference — that’s huge. And it makes any potential worries about doing this trivial to me. I don’t know what your goals in life are, but among mine are to leave the world around me a better place, even if only in little ways, and to make a difference instead of just existing; and this seems to be working for both of these goals. When the apnea kicked in, and then the diabetes, it drained a lot out of me and I found myself crawling in a hole just to keep the essentials moving, and now, it’s rather nice to be able to see my ability to fill that hole with concrete and build a launching pad on top of it to get back into the place I’d rather be, which is in the middle of stuff and stirring it up….

Three things helped me get over this hump — and be strong enough to start this discussion. And given the news that Steve Jobs is taking another leave to deal with his issues, I thought it was an appropriate time to talk about them and pass them forward to you as items for you to consider as well.

First one is, not surprisingly, Steve and his commencement speech.

I was still working at Apple at the time, but I knew my time was heading towards the end there. One of these days, I need to write about Steve, having been able to watch him and Apple from a close vantage point for so many years (and Laurie worked at NeXT, way back when as well). What I will say right now is that he could be a tough person to work for, but I never saw him demand more of anyone around him than he demanded of himself. Tough, brutally honest, and yes, I saw him obsess over a comma on a couple of occasions, but that’s because he knew those commas mattered. My last project — Chatterbox — was sometimes the object of his affection and sometimes the object of his attention, and it wasn’t always easy, but Steve isn’t about easy. he’s about getting it right and doing it right, and I’ve said more than once for the right situation, I’d happily go back and see how close I could fly to that particular sun, because if it didn’t kill me, it’d make me a lot better at what I do.

Whatever’s going on now, Steve, good luck at it.

The second thing that got me over this hump was Randy Pausch’s Final Lecture:

I didn’t catch onto it when it first came out, but came back to it more recently. I strongly recommend his book The Last Lecture. Here is someone who found out he was going to die, and his response was to look for ways to make a difference, to leave something. You look at what Randy did, and how can you not be inspired to join him and try as well? I was, and I recommend him to you, also, if you haven’t.

Finally, a third person who showed how you can make a difference if you get over the fear and worry of what people will think. Laurie and I have become fans of Craig Ferguson’s Late Late show, and so I read his book, American on Purpose. It’s a fascinating look at how he got to where he is today (and why), but more important, he made a choice not to be afraid to talk about how he screwed up his life and what it did to him — and use it as a way to try to help people avoid going to the places he went to.

If these people can do it, why can’t I? It turns out the person we most fear in stepping out on these issues is ourselves. And when we grow beyond that fear, good things can happen.

Every time I’ve talked about the apnea, I’ve heard from at least one person who’s written to tell me it’s caused them to realize they need to talk to their doctor. This last time, I heard from two, and one of them has since gone on a CPAP and wrote me to tell me how much better he feels already. When I started talking about the diabetes, similar things happened.

And nothing bad has happened. Nobody’s made me wear a scarlet letter, I haven’t been shunned, I haven’t been ridiculed. I’ve been thanked. And I’ve impacted people’s lives in positive ways — perhaps getting someone into a doctor before the apnea causes a stroke, or before that diabetic coma hits or the kidneys fail from trying to clear out all that sugar. These maybe aren’t huge victories — but they’re victories. And that’s awesome.

I expect at some point the trolls will arrive, because that’s what they do. But what’s more important — avoiding trolls that have no power you don’t hand to them in your reaction? Or helping someone change their life for the better.

That first time you do it, it’s tough to get over that hump. Once you do it once, you’ll find it’s pretty good, and pretty easy. So here, for you, are three things that might help you, too, get over that hump.

You can change the world, one person at a time — if only you decide to try.

Today’s Shared Links for January 25, 2011

Today’s Shared Links for January 24, 2011

January 24, 2011

Notes from the Commish — The New York Islanders

Tonight’s Note from the Commish is about the New York Islanders.

Today is the day I call Charles Wang and tell him its over. Lighthouse isn’t going to be built. His existing arena is a pit, and whatever options he thinks he has to replace it are fantasies. It’s clear his interest in building a competitive team is waning and budget is becoming a bigger priority on the Island. he gave the Island a good and well-designed shot to build a new building, and they chose not to.

That’s their prerequisite. Nobody HAS to build new arenas just because an owner wants one. But we, as a league, aren’t required to keep a team in a place where it can’t be competitive and doesn’t have an acceptable place to play.

So I call Charles Wang, and I tell him to open negotiations with the folks in Winnipeg. The Islander lease is up in 2015. There’s plenty of time for a deal to be worked out, for the Winnipeg arena upgrades to be funded and implemented, and for the team to be relocated gracefully and with minimum angst. Assuming Winnipeg can come up with the money for the needed arena improvements and an ownership group that can afford to buy and operate the team. I think they can — but they so far haven’t had to, they’ve just said they want to.

This seems to work for everyone, except the people on the Island. And.. Well.. Sorry, Islanders fans. Talk to the folks who stood in the way of the new arena, okay? We tried. There comes a time when you have to cut your losses and move forward — just as the league did in Quebec City and Winnipeg in years past.

it’s of course possible a Winnipeg deal wouldn’t happen; talk is cheap, funding is not always as easy as you might hope. So the fallback here would be to find the right people and move the Islanders to Kansas City, another place I believe could support a team now. Definitely support it better than being the third team in New York Metro, at least.

But whether it’s Winnipeg, or whether it’s K.C., it’s time to do something with the Islanders, and the thing that needs done is realize it’s not going to happen on the island, and it’s time to move this team forward elsewhere.

Agree? Disagree? drop a comment with your opinion.

Got a rule or some aspect of hockey you want the Commish or — Colin — to rule on? drop us an email or a comment with the question. And we’ll be back soon with another Note from the Commish.

Today’s Shared Links for January 23, 2011

Cold Weather Photography

Today’s Shared Links for January 22, 2011

National Geographic Afghan Girl

Today’s Shared Links for January 21, 2011

detroit, Nabokov and “throwing the dice”

Erik Duhatschek:

The Detroit Red Wings’ decision to throw the dice and sign goaltender Evgeni Nabokov represents a fascinating gamble, but not that much of a departure from organizational policy – pre-lockout organization policy that is.

Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but I’m guessing there’s less dice throwing here than most people think, and as far as I can tell, Detroit has an option nobody’s talked about in public. That is going to one of the teams low in the standings, and therefore with the highest priority in the waiver all, why would you not be interested if Ken Holland called you up and offered you a third round pick to pick up Nabokov off waivers and then trade him back to Detroit? Any reason why Garth Snow would not be interested in a free draft pick? And if the Islanders were to claim and trade Nabby, that’d ace almost everyone out of the derby here.

If Holland is willing to put the money and cap space up to sign Nabokov, I can’t see any reason why he wouldn’t protect his interests by working a deal to make sure Nabokov ends up through waivers and in a Detroit uniform, and dealing with a team low in the standings and offering them some compensation to help seems an obvious gambit here — and I can see nothing in the rules precluding a waiver call and a trade back to the team that signed him. All it takes is a GM willing to cooperate, and why wouldn’t a team like the Islanders want that draft pick?

So I won’t be at all surprised if (a) Nabokov clears waivers, or (b) Nabokov gets picked by a team that trades him to the Wings for some consideration. What will suprise me is if this happens, and people are surprised by it, because the Wings prove time and time again they leave very little to chance.

(update: so the islanders did pick up nabby, but one aspect I missedis that he’d have to go through waivers on a trade, so he’s stuck there. and as of now, he’s saying he won’t report, so we’ll see how this new drama plays out…)

Today’s Shared Links for January 20, 2011

Going out for a walk…

The weather was wonderful here in the Bay Area today, so I went out for a walk. Not a huge one — a total of half a mile, but just before christmas, one of my knees decided to secede from the Union and I’ve been working to bring it back into the fold since.

I think I need a bit of a digression for that to make sense. Back in late 2007, I was out birding and walking, and while out, took a step back and landed in a gopher hole, twisting my knee and doing the “hop around on one leg cussing like a sailor” thing. So I got myself home and got ice on it and gave it a couple of weeks to recover.

It didn’t get better. So I resigned myself to having it checked and went to my doctor, and told him I’d torn the meniscus. So he sent me off to the orthopede and we took xrays of the knees, and he sat me down and said “see this? you’ve torn your meniscus”.

And so I asked him if we needed to go in and clean it up. His response wasn’t what I was expecting, it was “no, we’re trying to delay your knee replacements as long as possible”. And then he showed me the arthritis. Which today I realize shouldn’t have surprised me, since there’s a family history — and since i tore the meniscus of one knee back in high school (long before arthroscopic surgery was invented), grumpy knees the predict the weather isn’t exactly a new thing.

But I do have to admit hearing that I should expect knee replacements at some point didn’t exactly make my day. But we talked over various options and ways to manage it when it flared up, and thanks in large part to 500mg of Relafin twice a day, the last three years have been almost painless (literally), beyond the usual weather predicting grumpiness and the occasional twinge.

This wasn’t a twinge, however. For reasons I don’t know (I have no idea what caused the flareup), the other knee, not the one I messed up in 2007, but the one that’s been grumping at me for 30 years, decided to have a major argument; swelled up, stiffened up, lots of pain and general “don’t you know it’s the freaking holiday, why now?” kind of thing. So for the last month, I’ve been living mostly on the couch under a heating pad. There were a couple of weeks where I should have used crutches, but I’m too damn stubborn some days…

This is the kind of thing where it just takes time to get the inflammation down, although I was starting to think I might need to get my dosage raised or consider a switch to a different drug (but the Relafin works well, I tolerate it nicely, and honestly, I really don’t want to load up on larger doses of NSAIDs unless I absolutely have to…). Fortunately, while it flared up a second time during the trip to SoCal (the main reason we cut the christmas trip short and cancelled our plans for Salton Sea….), it’s been slowly getting better and the last week or so has finally been getting almost back to normal.

So when I say I went out for a walk, given how things were two weeks ago, that’s awesome. Not pain free, but now it’s time to start the dance down the thin line of getting exercise onto the joint without so much exercise that it flares up again. The nice thing is, 30 minutes under a heating pad after lunch at work and the stiffness and pain was all gone, which is what I was hoping for. Shows that we’re almost back to normal.

But this has complicated some of my plans for the last few weeks; I couldn’t implement the exercise program because I couldn’t exercise, and I’ve been doing a lot of sitting on the couch with the iPad consuming stuff rather than at the laptop creating stuff, but that’s also a nice break; I don’t do that enough, honestly, and it gave me a chance to catch up on some reading, which I’ll try to do reviews on soon — that’s been on the todo list for a while.

Being limited to what birding I can do from the car has been annoying, so it was nice to get out to EEC in Alviso and wander a bit. And the downtime has given me a chance to put some research time in on some issues, and you’ll hopefully see the results soon.

And I get to keep my own knees for a while longer, even if they occasionally behave like spoiled teenagers and pout when the weather’s bad…

Today’s Shared Links for January 19, 2011

Free Short Fiction — Gord and Fnord Go To the Zoo

The feedback I got for posting Downtime at Christmas was heartwarming and very positive, so I’m going to post some of my other fiction as well. Thank you all for the kind thoughts.

This story was originally titled Guilding the Lily, and was sold to Jane Yolen for Xanadu 3, published by Tor in 1995. It’s one of my favorites of all time, allowed me to honor Fritz Leiber and his Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories a bit while doing what I seemed to do best, which is take some standard genre conventions and poke at them until they squealed. In this case, it’s not so much a fantasy story as it is a story about living in a fantasy.

Neither of us liked the original title, and neither of us could really figure out what the title ought to be, so I mentioned my working title, which is actually an obscure reference to an obscure Bill Cosby comedy bit, and so we ran with that. You will either really like this story, or you’ll really hate it; it tended to polarize readers based on whether they could put up with me playing games with genre conventions.

Gord and Fnord Go To the Zoo

“Gord! Gord, wake up, dammit!”

Across the stained and battered table, a mightily-thewed warrior lifted his head and groaned, staring at his companion through blood-shot, unfocused eyes.

“Keep your voice down, Fnord. My brain hurts. What do you want?” The head fell back to the table with a thump.

The thin-faced, shifty-looking thief stared at the quivering hulk of his partner. ”Gord, I’m bored. Let’s go do something.”

Gord stirred again. ”You woke me up to tell me you’re bored?” He sat up. Swaying, he almost fell off his stool, but grabbed the table to steady himself. ”Would you rather be bored? Or dead? Barkeep! Another beer!”

“Gord, it’s going to be another week before the Count musters the army and marches us off to attack the Archmage Frelming’s castle in the Valley of the Archetypes. Until then, we have nothing to do.” A large, bald man scurried up, left a full tankard, and hurried back behind the bar across the room. ”We can’t just sit here drinking for another week!”

“Why the hell not? Seems like a reasonable pastime to me!”

“For one thing, you overgrown dolt, if we sit here for a week doing nothing but drinking and watching you pass out for hours at a time, the readers are all going to flip past us and go read the next story.”

“Who cares? I don’t care about those voyeurs, anyway. Have you ever seen one? If they were real men, they’d be carrying swords, not reading about them. The hell with them.” Gord took a huge swallow and then symbolically belched at the ceiling.

“For another thing, we only have enough money for one more day of drinking at the rate you’re putting it away. After that, we’re on the wagon unless we can find some cash to tide us through until the muster.”

“Well why didn’t you say so?” Gord shuddered and then gulped down the last of his beer. ”I am not looking forward to meeting Frelming sober.”

“You don’t have to. I know where there’s a large treasure store about a day’s walk away. We’ll even get a reward from the Count for recovering it, and have enough cash on hand to not only let you drink yourself into oblivion, but to do so at Katrina’s House of Humping.”

The Barbarian’s face lit up. ”Really? Great!” Suddenly, the face clouded over in a frown. ”What’s the catch? If it’s only a day away, why hasn’t someone else gone and got it yet?”

“Nothing serious, Gord. The treasure is protected by a dragon, that’s all.”

“That’s all!” Gord reached across the table and grabbed the thief by the throat. Around the room, conversations stopped. A few of the more timid people dove under their tables.

“Gord! Gord, put me down and listen! GAK! Gord! Put me down!”

The barbarian let go, and Fnord fell to his stool with a clunk. He sat there for a second, rubbing his throat and staring at Gord in disgust.

“Listen, you lunkhead. Think it through. We have a week before the war starts. We’re almost out of money. There’s a treasure hoard just out of town, and it’s being guarded by a dragon. The author needs a sub-plot to keep the reader interested in the story until the real action starts. All we need to do is wander down to the dragon’s cave, kill the dragon, bring back the money, and then the Author will send us offstage for a few days of carousing until the war starts.”

“Right, Fnord. Why can’t the Author simply have us kill the dragon offstage and give us a few days of on stage carousing at Katrina’s instead?”

“We’re not in that kind of book, Gord. You know that.”

“Yeah, well. How do you know the sub-plot isn’t two idiots get eaten by a dragon’?”

“Think about it. Have you seen any other characters in this story? Everyone in the bar is a spear carrier. They don’t really exist. Even the bartender is a generic stereotype, and he’s the only guy who’s even had a walk-on. We’re the stars of this novel. The Author can’t kill us off for at least another 100 pages! Nothing can go wrong!”

Gord rubbed his forehead. ”I dunno, Fnord.”

“Here, look at this.” Fnord reached down to the floor for his pack, opened it and pulled out a sheaf of papers. ”This is the first draft of the book. I sneaked if off the clerk’s desk at the Hero Guild before we signed up for this story. We not only survive the dragon, but we go on to rally the armies when all seems helpless and carry the day on to victory. We’re heroes, Gord!”

“I can’t read, Fnord. I’m a Barbarian, remember? Never trusted all those squiggles and stuff. I still don’t know. Dragons are nasty business. I don’t like the idea of going up against a dragon single-handed.”

“You won’t be going against it alone. I’ll be there, too.”

“Oh, well, that’s different. What the hell. Let’s go. I like the idea of finally being the star of my own story.”

# # #

The next morning, the two adventurers set out. Gord, his furs only slightly matted and his eyes almost focused, bore a huge, gleaming broadsword slung across his back. The thief was in his green-dyed leather armor, and carried a short sword and two daggers stuck into scabbards in his belt.

“Wow, Gord. What a great day. We’re heading out on adventure, just like Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, or Bing and Bob.”

“Who?”

“Never mind. Just some other famous teams of adventurers.”

They followed the wagon path out of town, and at a fork took the smaller path that led off in the general direction of Mount Blackheart, a huge, black outcrop of obsidian that loomed to the south. It was there they’d been told the dragon had his lair.

They made the base of the mountain by early afternoon and decided to rest before beginning the climb. While munching on their cheese and stale bread, they saw a huge black shape cross the sky and disappear into the mountain about a third of the way up. ”See, Gord! There he is! Piece of cake!”

The barbarian shuddered. ”You don’t suppose we can convince the Author to turn the dragon into a rabid wolverine, could we?”

“No, Gord. Has to be a dragon. C’mon, let’s go.”

“How are we supposed to kill this thing, anyway?”

“Well, here’s how the Author’s written it in the first draft. We climb the mountain to the dragon’s cave. He’s just returned from feeding on the Count’s cattle, so he’ll be sleeping. We sneak into the cave without waking him up. I sneak behind the beast to hamstring him, but the dragon wakes up and swipes at me. I’m thrown against the wall and badly injured. It looks like the end for both of us, but in a final desperate move, you make a wonderfully dramatic attack and behead the beast. It dies, you give me the potion of healing I have in my pack, and then we grab as much gold as we can and the head of the dragon and head off for our reward and a few days at Katrina’s. Sound reasonable?”

“I don’t like this, Fnord. How about I give you the broadsword and you make the dramatic attack?”

“Gord, we can’t do that. I’m a thief. You’re the barbarian, right? The Guild rules say that I have to run around in the background and make sneaky backstab attacks, while you scream at the top of your lungs and do berserk things with your sword. You don’t want to lose your card, do you?”

“Um, no.”

“Good. So it’s settled.” Fnord stood up. ”Let’s get climbing.”

There was a sudden rush of wind and flapping of reptilian wings, and the dragon landed on Gord from above. Gord did the only possible thing: he collapsed in a heap.

The dragon turned around and stared at Fnord. He smiled. ”Ah, fresh meat! And they deliver. How nice.”

The thief stared at the huge, black beast. It picked up the former barbarian in one large claw and poked him with the tip of one wing. ”Hmm. They sent this one already marinated.” With a sudden movement, the dragon snapped off Gord’s head and swallowed it. The dragon dropped the former barbarian to the ground and looked at Fnord. ”Your turn.”

“You can’t do that! You’re supposed to be up in your cave asleep so we can kill you! We saw you come back from your cattle hunt!”

“I wasn’t hunting. I was at a Dragon Guild meeting that ran late. I’m lucky I got home in time for your visit.” He licked his chops. ”I’m starved.”

“You can’t do this! The Author won’t allow it! We’re the heroes of this book! We can’t die! We’ve got at least another 100 pages and a war to fight!”

“How long has it been since you checked in with the Guild? You dimwit! There’s been a change. The Editor thought you two were boring, so the Author cut you out of the book. This isn’t a novel any more. It’s a short story!”

That day, the dragon fed well. The next, he returned to the Dragon Guild to apply for a new story.

# END #

Today’s Shared Links for January 18, 2011

20+ years of hockey.

Laurie and I are both part of the increasingly rare group known as first season sharks fans (and cow palace survivors) — laurie was the 150th person to put a deposit down once the Sharks started taking reservations. Our first year at the Cow Palace we did a partial season, in year two, we upgraded to full season and we’ve been doing full season tickets ever since, and we’ve been sitting in 127 since the arena opened.

It’s hard to think this is the Shark’s 20th anniversary, but it is, and that’s a lot of hockey passing before us. We typically get to between 35-40 games a year in San Jose; every year we tell ourselves we’ll sell off a few more tickets, and every year, we rarely do. Our best guess is we’ve been in the house for 650 Sharks games so far, plus/minus about 20. Add to that our season working for the San Francisco Spiders (35 games with the spiders, plus about 30 games with the Sharks that year), and our regular road trips which have included games all over the west coast, from San Diego (the IHL Gulls) and Vegas (the IHL Thunder) and Phoenix (the IHL Roadrunners) to Vancouver, Portland (the WHL WinterHawks), Seattle (the WHL Thunderbirds and Laurie’s seen games in Everett) and even places like Victoria (go Salsa!) for some junior-A action. We even made it to Fresno for the ECHL all-star game a few years ago, mostly so we could say we did…

All in all, a lot of hockey; not bad for an LA-born southern california boy. As of now, my arena life list includes:

NHL –

San Jose Arena (Sharks)
Cow Palace (Sharks)
The Fabulous Forum (Kings)
Staples Center (Kings)
The Pond (Ducks)
GM Place (Canucks)

IHL (may it rest in peace) –

San Diego (Gulls)
Las Vegas (Thunder)
Long Beach (Ice Dogs)
San Francisco (Spiders)
Phoenix (Roadrunners)

WHL

Portland (Winter Hawks)
Seattle (Thunderbirds)

BCJHL

Victoria (Salsa) — both in the old arena (now torn down) and while they were playing in Esquimalt

Still on my list to od some day — a trip through the Ottawa/Toronto/Montreal area for the NHL teams and the OHL/QMJHL teams I can fit in along the way; I really want to do the Calgary, Red Deer and Edmonton trip in the winter when there’s hockey (we’ve done it for baseball, back when there was still minor league baseball in those cities), and a major run through BC to hit some of the WGHL teams, especially out in the Okanagan. Someday.

Until then, I’ll just have to “settle” for the Sharks. Not that I’m complaining.

I was thinking about this at the game the other night — the Sharks (that were at that point losing to Edmonton and looking ugly doing so and I wondered if this team could win against some of the more classic Sharks teams, and the invoked the name of Robin Bawa as I’m known to do. This is not an insult to Bawa, FWIW — he wasn’t the most talented Shark ever to skate in teal, but he brought his work ethic with him every night.

This got me thinking about the good times and good players back in the early days of the Sharks, and given this is the 20th anniversary, what the heck. I decided to create my personal all-time Sharks All Star team.

The rules were simple. Players had to be no longer playing in the NHL to be eligible. I’m trying to build a full team. For reasons I’ll go into shortly, I decided to do three “offensive” lines instead of two, plus an energy line, plus a fourth line, for five forward lines total. Three defensive pairings and two goaltenders.

Here’s my list.

Forwards:

Igor Larionov, Sergei Makarov, Johan Garpenlov
Kelly Kisio, Owen Nolan, Jeff Friesen
Jamie Baker, Mike Ricci, Vinnie Damphousse
Mike Sullivan, Gaetan Duschesne, Ulf Dahlen
Jeff Odgers, Andrei Nazarov, Shawn Cronin

Defense

Sandis Ozolinsh, Jay More
Rob Zettler, Doug Zmolek
Mike Rathje, Gary Suter

Goaltenders

Arturs Irbe
Mike Vernon

Notes on these choices –

The reason I went with five forward lines is because the line of Larionov/Makarov/Garpenlov was a special one for the Sharks (and I hope at some point the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame inducts them in as a line), but I wanted to recognize some of the others that contributed as well and I wanted more than three spots. So I made a special exemption here rather than what typically happens, which is the checkers and energy guys get screwed. So we have three “top six forward” lines, plus a checking line, plus an energy line.
I included Nazarov over Link Gaetz because I think in the grand scheme of things, he contributed more,l onger, to the Sharks, even though Gaetz is legendary — albeit not in a positive way. My other candidate for enforcer is probably Lyndon Byers.
I declared Nabokov “not retired” and not eligible. And then Laurie and I had a long discussion about whether Vernon would be chosen over Nabokov even if he was eligible. I argued in favor of Vernon; I don’t think I won the argument.
Players I’d find a way to attach to this list if they were retired: Ray Whitney, Brad Stuart, Marco Sturm, Evgeny Nabokov (probably; I rarely disagree with Laurie on goalies, because I wouldn’t win).

So, who’d be on your list?

Today’s Shared Links for January 17, 2011

The Social Graph: Revolution or Evolution?

The Social Graph: Revolution or Evolution?:

Arguably, the first serious discussion into implementing archival and retrieval of public online information was via Usenet; in early 1985 Chuq Von Rospach posted an RFC for a “usenet article archive program with keyword lookup”.

Social discussion online in itself is obviously not new. Usenet used to be a particularly social platform, distinguished from walled off forums by being decentralised and entirely public. The same metrics used to grade the value of Tweets and Tweeters could be used in any other public arena of social discussion where links or their equivalent are shared, presuming that individual contributors can be identified (which would admittedly be less clear on Usenet than Facebook and Twitter).

I’d actually forgotten about this stuff. In reality, Brad Templeton did a lot more work looking into keywording (reinvented these days as tagging) on USENET; I did some research into how the keywording that was added to USENET was used and found out that user-added keywords were mostly junk and experimented with auto-generating keywords and just didn’t find it useful in that context. Brad pushed it further, but it never took off.

Another thing in the dark annals of time to mention in this context — Erik Fair wrote an article on a concept called an “Accolade” for :login — which today has been invented as the like button. It’s fascinating to see those ideas in the context of today, now that technology has created the opportunity to actually do these things; remember, at that time, USENET and most of the net was actually driving by low speed modems and not only hadn’t been HTML been implemented (not for another decade), but there were no significant database back ends to store all this data in, much less shared data sets or web services (since HTTP is also close to a decade away); all this data needed to get slogged out to every server to keep a local copy of — USENET ultimately may have been the most wonderfully inefficient use of network capacity ever…

Links for your amusement: link, link, link, link.

Has it really been 25 years? How time flies when you’re having fun.

And I’ll close with a quote from that final link, which is just as true about the net today:

USENET is like Gene Wolfe’s Soldier in the Mists. Every day, it wakes up and sees everything as new.

Today’s Shared Links for January 16, 2011

why I don’t like photo a day projects…..

30 Post 365 Project: 3 of 365 « PhotoCapM:

First, let me say that I’m only 3 days into my first 365 and I can absolutely see why people struggle to get it done. I’m only shooting 30 minutes or a little more and I’m feeling the “crunch” today with time. Wow… You really have to push yourself to get it done.

This statement by Michael Frye, in a microcosm, is why I don’t like photo a day or 365 projects…

I have nothing against them — but personally, I can’t see a purpose for me.

I’ve met too many photographers who’ve committed to one who get in a few weeks or months and find themselves at 10PM at night, taking a picture of their stapler just to do something, and about then, they seem to wonder “WHAT AM I DOING?”

There are many aspects about being a better photographer that this not only doesn’t help, but I feel gets in the way of. It’s not about improving your eye for composition, or practicing your post processing, or studying technique, or extending your craft. It’s about pushing the button — to me, it turns into grunt work very quickly, and sends a message (which I don’t like) that the only thing that matters is pushing the shutter button. How does that improve your craft?

So my recommendation is this: If you go into this kind of project, understand what your goal is and know why this project is going to help you with that goal. The day it turns into a grind you regret starting, or that you don’t feel like it’s helping those goals — stop. it starts being destructive the day it starts making you hate touching the camera….

And remember that pushing the button is really a minor part of being a photographer, and not necessarily a major aspect of photography. if all you’re doing is hauling out a camera once a day and pushing a button while pointing it at something, why are you doing this?

If what you need is some project to force you into the habit of taking pictures — great. but realize that at some point of the year, you’re likely to start taking pictures just for the project, and not for the larger goals. When you do that, ask yourself if the project still makes sense.

And realize that there are many other things you should also be doing to continue your growth as a photographer, and do those as well.

For me, that’s why I made a decision to do the Saturday Foto Fest, and the Friendly Feathery Sunday postings. It forces me to evaulate my portfolio every week, and make choices — and it also forces me to add new material on a regular basis so I don’t run out of stuff to post; but it also recognizes time realities and the other aspects of my life, and that I feel more that it’s about the finished product over time than about a daily ritual of button pressing.

If you want to do a 365 project, have fun! and I guess that’s my point. The day if stops being fun is the day you should stop. Don’t continue just because you started it; continue it because it’s helping you with the goal you set when you started it.

Canon EOS 7D AutoFocus Modes Explained

There’s some really good suggestions here on how to take better advantage of the capabilities of your camera by using custom options to tweak how it thinks — getting out of the default settings and further bending the camera to your needs. You should definitely check out the article by Gary Luhm he points to, because there’s some great suggestions based on how Gary programs his camera for these situations. I’ve always done what many photographers do and reprogram AF away from the shutter button and use the AF button to engage it, but his idea of leaving AF engage on the shutter and using the button as an AF OFF button to turn it off when you want to freeze makes sense. I’ll need to try that. My only wonder — is it going to be easy/possible to hit both the AE lock and AF OFF at the same time? Not that I need that often, but…

Canon EOS 7D AutoFocus Modes Explained | Serious Amateur Photography:

Capturing images of birds in flight is perhaps the most difficult task a camera (and photographer) can tackle. Even the most experienced wildlife professionals are always looking for a more robust AF system in their cameras to improve the “hit rate” of tack sharp shots they take in the field. No photographer wants to spend hours, days or weeks shooting graceful takeoffs and landings of birds in flight and return home to find their images soft, blurred and worthless to their clients. So whenever a camera manufacturer develops a brand new autofocus system for their mid-level cameras like Canon recently did with the EOS 7D, a lot of photographers will sit up and take notice.

Having a camera like Canon’s EOS 7D with a brand new AF system doesn’t guarantee sharp images however, unless you take the time to learn to use it properly. Unfortunately, learning the “ins & outs” of a camera’s AF system can be a difficult and time consuming process, even for the most seasoned of professionals. With that in mind, here’s a few things about the 7D’s new 19-point AF system that you should know before heading out to the field.

2010 Collection of Best Images Listing (via JMG Galleries)

Every year, Jim Goldstein at JMG Galleries collects a list of photographer’s best photos. He’s now published the list, and it’s got a whopping 160 lists, including some really awesome imagery. I’ve included mine for the second year (my list is here).

You can check out Jim’s blog on this (also, make sure you check out his list of best images), and here is this year’s list:

Best Photos of 2010 blog project Results

via JMG-Galleries and Borrowlenses.com

Best Photos of 2010 by Jim M. Goldstein – JMG-Galleries
Best Photos of 2010 by Matthias Wassermann – Mawpix.com
Exploring Light -Top Photos 2010 – Chris Moore
My Top Ten Photos for 2010 – Tom Varden
My Top Ten Photos of 2010 | Craig’s Musings – Craig Vitter
Top 10 Photos for 2010 | Dobson Central – Ken Dobson
Best Photos of 2010 – Carol Bauer
My Best photos from 2010 – Janis Janums
2010 – Year In Review – Jon McCormack Photography – Jon McCormack
S Zacharias: Best of 2010 – Stephen Zacharias
2010 Photos – David Hernandez
Iceman Photography – Top 10 in 2010
Best of 2010 – Dave Wilson
Skolai Images – Bears of 2010 – Carl Donohue
My Best Photos From 2010 – Art Kuntz
2010 in Review – Jay Goodrich
My Favourite Images of 2010– Sven Seebeck
Lunchisoptional: Favorites of Year: 2010 Edition — Ken Trout
Top 10 of 2010 – Behind The Clicks – Mohammad Noman
Top Ten Photos Of 2010 – Jed Link
Chuqui.com- Best Photos 2010 – Chuq Von Rospach
2010 Favorites – Pat Ulrich | Pat Ulrich Photography
Favorites of 2010 – Kevin Moore
Top 10 of 2010 from BlazingB Photography– Bill Pennington
My Favorite Photos of 2010– Mike Criss
My faves from 2010 – Matt Smith
My favourite shots of 2010– Catalin Marin | Momentary Awe
2010 a Year in Review, My Top 10 Memorable/Favorite shots – Mike Criswell
Craig Ferguson Images – A Year In Photos – Craig Ferguson
Top 50 Images from 2010 and Goal Setting – Mike Cavaroc
Jim’s Photography – Jim Wheeler
Sharpimage.net – The best of 2010 – David Sharp
StephenWeaver Photography/Earth Systems Imaging-Stephen G. Weaver
Best of 2010 – Changing Perspectives – Jenni Brehm
katzekotz.de – best of 2010 – Thomas Kneppeck
2010 Favorite Images – Alpenglow Images – Greg Russell
Best of 2010| Simon Says – Simon Ponder
My Favorites Shots of 2010 – Fine Art Prints – Jeff Colburn
Mountain and Climbing Photography – Alexandre Buisse
Olivier Du Tré | 2010 in review (black and white) | 2010 in review (colour)– Olivier Du Tré
John Dunne Photography | My Top 10 Favourite Images of 2010 – John Dunne
Best of 2010 Flickr Set – Tony Rath
Top 10 from 2010 – Behind-the-lens-lukey – Luke Weymark
Evan Gearing Photography’s Top 10 of 2010 – Evan Gearing
2010 Photos in Review: Water– Rebecca R Jackrel
Justin Korn [dot] com – Best of 2010 – Justin Korn
My Best Photos of 2010: Learning and Growing> – D. Travis North
Uncommon Depth – Roberta Murray
Organic Light Photography Best of 2010 – Youssef Ismail / Organic Light Photography
The Best of 2010 – blackandwhite.ie – Neil McShane
My Best of 2010 – Larry Rosenstein
Will Wohler Photography: 2010 A Year in Review – Will Wohler
digitizedchaos – best of 2010 – rian castillo
My best underwater photos 2010 – Suzy Walker
Favorite Photographs From 2010– Fine Art Landscape Photography of Seung Kye Lee
Best photos from 2010 – Amanda Herbert
Graf Nature Photography | Reflections on 2010 photographs – MARK GRAF
VACANT SHOP IN DOWNTOWN SANTA BARBARA – G. Kaltenbrun
Pat O’Brien Photography – A Look Back at 2010 – Pat O’Brien
G Dan Mitchell – 2010 Favorites– G Dan Mitchell
Favorite Photo of 2010 – Naturalvision-photo.com –Derek Griggs
Crest, Cliff & Canyon – Jackson Frishman
2010 In Review - Photoimagery.net – Peter McCabe
Favorite Photos from 2010 – In the Field Photo Blog– Richard Wong
Year in Review Best Photos of 2010 – Matt Graham Photo Blog – Matt Graham
Elizabeth Brown Photography PhotoBlog: Ten Favorite Photos of 2010 – Elizabeth Brown
My Top Photos of 2010 – Jonesblog – Bryan William Jones
latoga photograph: My Favorite Photos of 2010 – Greg A. Lato
Best of 2010 Images – Rob Tilley
Living Wilderness: 12 Best from 2010 – Kevin Ebi
Highlights of 2010 - TO KNOW MORE WEB JOURNAL – KENT MEARIG
My Best Photos of 2010 – Michael Russell | Michael Russell Photography
Best Photographs of 2010 – Chuck Goolsbee
Favourite Photos from 2010 – Tim Smalley
My Best 10 Photos 2010 – A Reconnection to Nature – Mark Fenwick
Best of 2010 – Quotidian Photography – Jessica Sweeney
My Top Images of 2010 – ANDREW KEE
Best 10 of 2010– John Wall’s Natural California
10 from 2010 on the Ann-alog– Ann Torrence
Favorite Photos from 2010– My Photo Blog – Ron Niebrugge
My favorite photos 2010 on Flickr– Markus Heinisch
My best photos of 2010 – Mike Hellers
Dave Reichert’s Best Of 2010 – Dave Reichert
Best Pics 2010 on Flickr – Michael Rubin
My 10 Best Shots of 2010 – ROBIN BLACK PHOTOGRAPHY – ROBIN BLACK
Top 10 from 2010 – Anne McKinnell
Top Photos of 2010– Gary Crabbe / Enlightened Images
Top Images from 2010 – Russ Bishop | Nature Photo Blog
10 Best Photos of 2010 by Scott Thompson – Scott Thompson
My Top 10 photos of 2010– Alexander S. Kunz
My 10 Best for 2010– Dan Baumbach
Unified Photography – Best Photos of 2010 – Ken Snyder
5 From 2010 – Contemporary Wildlife Photography – David Lloyd
2010 Top Ten Photos – Andrew S Gibson
2010 Reflections – Dru Stefan Stone – Dru-Color My World
Best of 2010 – Dave Hammaker
Top 20 of 2010 – Jenna Stirling
LandLopers.com Top Travel Photos of 2010 – Matt Long
Best of 2010 – Stephen Davey
Views Infinitum – Best of 2010 – Scott Thomas
One Per Trip – Favorite Travel Photos From 2010 - The Carey Adventures – PETER WEST CAREY
My top 10 pictures from 2010 – Duffy Knox
Burrard-Lucas Photography– Will & Matt Burrard-Lucas
Hank Christensen Photography Top 10 2010 – Hank Christensen
My Best Photos from 2010 – 365-1/4 Sra
Top Ten Images of 2010– Michael Frye
Jono Hey’s Best of 2010 on Flickr – JONO HEY
My Favorite Photographs from 2010– Stories From Home –David Patterson
My 2010 Best Images of California and Arizona– Steve Sieren
My Top 10 Landscapes of 2010 – Andre Leopold
Best of 2010 set on Flickr – Erik Turner
Top 10 of 2010 – Brian Mangano
Best Photos of 2010 - KBTImages – Kevin Thornhill
Top 10 of 2010 – Chad Griggs
Best Photos of 2010 – WASEEF AKHTAR
My Favorite Images from 2010 – Outdoor Exposure Photography by Sean Bagshaw – Sean Bagshaw
My Best Shots of 2010 – Annika Ruohonen Photography – Annika Ruohonen
Top sights from 2010 – Mariana Travieso Bassi
Year 2010 in Korwel Photography – Iza Korwel
Top 10 of 2010 – Younes Bounhar
Light on the Landscape Photoblog/My Favorite Images of 2010– WILLIAM NEILL
My Best Photos of 2010 – Itsa a greyt day for a photo – Terri Jacobson
Listening to Nature Photography Blog by Rhoda Maurer– RHODA MAURER
My favorites of 2010 – David Richter
Best of 2010 – View from the Little Red Tent – Edie Howe
tmophoto best of 2010 – Thomas O’Brien
Best Photos Of 2010 – Dawnstar Australis – Daniel McNamara
Top 10 of 2010 - Cranial Aperture – Jeffrey Yen
10 Best Favorites of 2010– Sudheendra Kadri
Flickr – Best of 2010 – Chris Arts
Flickr: Best of 2010 – Heidi Donat
Best Photo of 2010 – Anton Huo
Best of 2010 – Travel & Landscape – Eugene Cheng
Preetalina Photography: 2010 Favorites – Preeti Desai
Hidden Light Photography 2010 Favorites – Alan Williams
5Mae 2010 Favourites Flickr Set – Sarah-Mae
Best Photos of 2010– John Fujimagari
Best of 2010 – Paavani Bishnoi
Best Photos of 2010 - Phil Colla
100 Favorites from 2010– Patrick J. Endres
Top Ten Of 2010 – Steve Cole Photography
Some of My Favorite Images From 2010 – Clark Crenshaw Photography

About “the list”

So I got out for a couple of hours of birding on Sunday, my first of the year. I ended up down in Coyote Valley again, where there’s been a couple of Palm Warblers hanging out. I tried for them once before in December and while I think I saw them, I didn’t get a good enough look for me to feel I could say “yes, I definitely can say they were Palm Warblers” and put them on my life list.

This trip was different. I showed up at the location they’re hanging out in, ran into another birder watching them, he pointed out where they were, and about 20 seconds later, one of them popped out and proceeded to put on a show for about 15 minutes, wandering around in bright, full sunlight about 25 feet away. It was almost anti-climactic. I’ve got some nice pictures, but I haven’t processed them yet for upload.

But it got me thinking about lists, and how to explain them to non-birders. Birdwatchers (like any social group with a similar interest) has a vocabulary and jargon that can be rather opaque to outsiders. If you’re not a birder, when I pop in and go “Hey! Palm Warbler! 251 on my life list!” as though that actually is a good thing, I realize you probably have no clue what I’m talking about…

So a short introduction to why birders talk about lists and what they mean….

Birders tend to keep lists — lists of the species they have seen, when and where. In geek speak, the basic piece of data a birder cares about tends to be the set that includes a species name, a date/time, and a latitude/longitude. Over time, you can define your birding career based on all of that collected data.

It’s possible, of course, to add to that data: sex, age, coloration, environmental data, behaviors, pictures — some birders keep very extensive notes, some (like me) tend to keep it more simple, although in general, the rarer the bird and the higher burden of proof there is about the validity of the identification, the more data you tend to collect and report.

But at its most basic, a birding trip boils down to a list of what you saw, when you saw it, where it was seen.

Early on in my birding life, I decided not to keep lists. I kept one in my head, but didn’t do anything formal; I was interested in enjoying birding, not keeping lists or making birding a competition. Ultimately, my list got long enough i had trouble keeping it in my head, so I switched to keeping a formal list. For that, I use eBird, which is run by the Cornell Ornithology lab, and which has a nice side effect of helping create a useful data set for research.

Once you start keeping data, you tend to organize it. Every birder makes decisions on how they want it organized. There are about 10,000 species of bird in the world, and about 900-1000 that inhabit the US and canada. Of that, here in California, 641 species are recognized as having been found in the state. (digression: not all birds are common in the state, not all birds are willing to be seen easily, so every species is given a rarity number from one to six, where one is endemic, like the mourning dove, and six is exceptionally rare).

So when I talk about my life list, it’s every species I’ve seen since I started keeping track. My list is now at 251. One of the realities of a life list is that as it gets larger, it’s harder to find new species to add to it — you either need to chase the rarities that show up (known as “twitching”), or you need to travel to new areas to find species that aren’t local. 250 is a good number for a late beginner, but to get to 350 is going to take some work. Top birders in the US might have 600 species. There are birders who are well over 1,000 species, but they tend to be ones who do extensive travel over a period of years.

After the year list, every birder has their own preferences. I keep a year list, which is the species seen in a calendar year. Some birders keep state lists and county lists, some keep seasonal lists, since with migration, some birds are in a location only certain times of years. How a birder organizes their lists depends on their interests. In my case, I do 90% of my birding in Santa Clara and Alameda county, so I keep it simple. (I also keep a yard list, which is birds I’ve seen from my home property. While typing this, I had a brown creeper wander up the telephone pole at the back of the property near the bird feeder — a new yard bird, #42, which is a nice high number for a suburban backyard. If you keep your eyes open, life can be full of fun little surprises) I’ve met birders who’ keep county lists and who’s goal is to see 200 species in every county in California. I’ve met others who’s goal is 700 species on the life list.

So when you hear a birder talk about lists, that’s what’s going on.

Sharks at the all-star game

Seven d-men likely as Braun back from minors, Couture’s skill competition memories, Boyle glad to be going | Working the Corners:

*****Dan Boyle said that he valued his selection to the all-star team — and, yes, that new format where players are drafted two days before the game could prove more enjoyable for the fans and media than the players themselves.

No offense to Dan Boyle, but he wouldn’t be my pick for the All-Stay game from the Sharks. I know Couture is going as a youngster for the skills competition, but the two players that I felt deserved serious consideration here were Couture (as an all-star, not just a rookie) and Ryane Clowe, who doesn’t have the name out around the fans but really deserves to go. Boyle’s done fine, but Clowe’s really impressed me on many levels — consistently — all season.

Notes from the Commish — A couple of changes in how suspensions are managed…

Tonight’s Note from the Commish is about two changes in how we are going to manage discipline moving forward.

Colin Campbell gets a lot of crap from the media, mostly because he’s an easy target. The reality is, he does a very good job (not that you could tell that by listening or reading to the pundits) in a tough situation. Perfect? No, but I think he gets it right a lot more often than those ripping on him do. And of course, whatever decision he makes is going to piss off whoever he rules against, so no matter what — someone’s complaining, and that’s what you read in tomorrow’s column as quotes.

That said, there are two changes I’d make to how he handles discipline today.

First — I send out the memo announcing that, effective immediately, suspensions will be managed as they are today, but the length of suspensions will be doubled from previous standards. That means a suspension that yesterday would have cost you one game now costs you two. What last week was three games is now six. And etc. I simply don’t believe that the suspensions that are handed out today hurt the player enough financially, or hurt the team on the ice enough to be a significant deterrent. We’ll cap the maximum length at 20 games, so a suspension that used to be ten will now be 20, but one that used to be 15 will also now be 20. Anything that would have been longer than 20 games won’t be changed.

Second — the other change I make effective today is that the roster spot for a suspended player is frozen; in other words, the team can’t call someone up to replace that player. That freeze exists for up to three suspended players at one time (because otherwise, it becomes impossible to dress a full team). If you have a guy suspended for ten games, then you play a player short for ten games. That will — I guarantee — get the coaches and GM’s attention, and the only way to convince players to stop doing stupid stuff that gets them suspended is to have their coaches and GMs convince them to stop doing it. This will help. Oh, by the way, suspended players salaries will count against the cap; no cap relief while they’re out.

Agree? Disagree? drop a comment with your opinion.

Got a rule or some aspect of hockey you want the Commish or — Colin — to rule on? drop us an email or a comment with the question. And we’ll be back soon with another Note from the Commish.

My 2011 photographic goals

I’ve been thinking through the goals I want to set for my photography in 2011. I think I’m going to keep it relatively simple:

Push myself into new areas of photography to continue to improve my skills; specifically, it’s time to get serious about learning how to use flash, and it’s time for me to get serious about both field and studio macro photography.
I want to try to get back to Yosemite sometime this spring, hopefully when the dogwood is out and alive. I had planned a trip for 2010 at that time and ended up not being able to.
I want to get out on a photo trip to an area I haven’t been to and photographed and force myself to figure out how to shoot and then publish a piece about that area and tells its story.
I want to see if I can take at least one workshop as a way to push my skills via hands on work with someone else.
I want to take a close look at whether I can be “photoshop free”. I’m hoping to see what Apple has up its sleeve with Aperture 4.0 — I don’t know a damn thing if this even exists, but I’m assuming it does, and I”m guessing 2011 might be the year I can retire photoshop completely, and see whether Aperture does what I want and make myself free of all Adobe software (I like Lightroom; I don’t think Lightroom will ever be allowed to innovate enough to make photoshop irrelevant to all but the most hardcore photographers — and apple doesn’t have that political problem with aperture).
I’m going to do a personal quest to photograph as many species of bird again this year, and see if I can beat my 2010 number of 142
I need to experiment with video more.

And I’ll note for the record that nowhere in this list is “buy new stuff”; which doesn’t mean I won’t, but the gear needs to be defined by how it will implement the goals, not the other way around…

Happy 2011, all.

2011 projects — back to writing

I really had no plans to get back into writing. Well, I always felt that “someday” I’d start writing again, but I certainly didn’t see it happening any time soon.

But I was off doing some research on app stores and economic realities because I wanted to be able to talk to developers coming into webOS understand what the realistic expectations would be for sales and income, and to see what insights I could come up with as far as marketing that might be useful.

The more I looked around, the more I became intrigued with what I saw as the early stages of a massive disruption and the creation of a new independent publishing channel — ebooks and the ability to push written content out through multiple channels in multiple formats relatively easily, with the ability to charge for the content without having to build a full e-commerce engine. For the small/independent author and for authors with midlist material, this creates new opportunities, and the market is just starting to happen. In reality, the worlds of app development (what I do in my other life) and that of authors and photographers and other visually-oriented content creation are crashing together, and it’s going to create a massive publishing disruption and many new opportunities. I discussed this a bit back in October, and I’ll nudge you at the blog of Dean Wesley Smith (author and former publisher at Pulphouse Press) if you want to see more about that.

What I didn’t expect was that this was going to get me thinking about writing again — but it did, because I started to think about the opportunities here, and then my novel started whispering at me. My initial thoughts were oriented more towards photography and ebook publication of image-centric books (the most interesting and innovative group figuring this out is David du Chemin and his Craft and Vision, and it’s something I want to return to and talk about in more depth later, but I think he’s got a really interesting handle on how to make this work — and why it’s very different than traditional photo book publishing).

But for some reason, after almost 20 years of having no motivation to write, I kept coming back to thinking about getting back on the novel, and how to use the new publishing realities to move back into fiction writing. I’ve more or less ignored this idea for a couple of months while trying to figure out what my 2011 priorities are going to be, and the more I think about this, the more I realize now is a pretty good time to do try.

So I will.

I’m not entirely sure what this means yet. I don’t have any concrete goals, other than “dust off the novel and start typing”. but it just feels like the right time to pull this out of retirement and see what happens while I continue to try to figure out publishing and ditribution strategies and see how this market forms and how I can be a part of it. There’s something really interesting happening here, and the more I poke at it, the more I want to be part of it and try to make it flourish. Back in the 80′s when I was experimenting with e-publishing with OtherRealms the technology was unbelievably primative and we were feeling our way in the dark. I’ve always wanted to return to that kind of experimentation — and so it’s time to try.

One great unknown still for which I don’t have a real answer, though, is how to get content onto the various devices. It’s possible today to take finished content (where finished is some form of HTML/CSS/Javascript) and use Phonegap to turn it into apps that can be published into the iPhone or Android store.

But that doesn’t solve a larger issue, which is also getting that content onto the Kindle and Nook and into the MOBI and EPUB formats. It shouldn’t be too hard (famous last words) to create an environment that you could do some kind of structured set of HTML docs and have it create the navigation for you, and then shove it into phonegap to create apps, and then format it up into MOBI and EPUB, all in an automated or mostly-automated way.

Ultimately, I’d like to be able to build a set of HTML pages that define the content of a publication, push a few buttons, and have it turn into iPhone, Android, webOS, Kindle and Nook packages, all automated and all pretty and worth your $1.99, iwthout a lot of hacking or geeking to get it there.

It seems to be (ahem) there’s a developer opportunity to create a tool suite that (ahem) other content creators would love to take advantage of, and perhaps toss a few shekels at. So that’s a sub-task of this new writing initiative, look into the possibility of creating a tool environment that a writer could use to take their content and push it into the various stores and environments in a graphically pleasant way without needing to be or hire a geek. As someone who more or less lives in both places, I think I have at least a base of information to start exploring this as a possible opportunity…

So I will.

And we’ll see how it goes. But it’s one of the things I’m really looking forward to digging into in 2011.

2010 – the birding year.

A short summary of my birding life in 2010…

I was finally able to break 250 species on my life list, adding 11 species in 2010: Lawrence’s Goldfinch, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Mountain Chickadee, Tropical Kingbird, Band-tailed pigeon, Egyptian Goose, Pine Siskin, Mitred Parakeet, Common Tern, Wrentit, and Northern Fulmar.

I broke my previous number of 197 for year list, getting to 199. I actually broke 197 back around thanksgiving, but a combination of this winter’s really funky and wet weather and a flareup of my knee arthritis stopped me cold for most of December, so it looks like 200 will evade me again. Barely. Well, something to shoot for in 2011. Our plan to go to Salton Sea after christmas was cancelled because of the knees, which was just as well, because two days before we were going to head out there, the Taiga Bean Goose disappeared during a winter storm and hasn’t been seen since. Of course….

Overall, I filed 105 checklists with ebird in 12 counties. Not bad, given time and other contingencies. Over on flickr, a number of us did a photo challenge to see how many species we could photograph in one year. I ended up with 142 species in 140 images, or about 3/4 of my year list. the winner of the challenge had somewhere around 360 species for the year, but this was really about pushing yourself, and I’m quite happy with the results.

I’ve been trying to decide what I want to do with my birding in 2011; mostly, it’s just what I have been doing, and perhaps some bit more of it. But I’m not that interested in twitching for rare species, and birding is something I want to leave as a relaxation and escape and not assign too many rules or deadlines to, so I think my goal for 2011 is “just” to keep working on being a better birder and enjoy the hobby for what it is. It would be nice to expand the life list again, so if I could add another 10 species to the life list, that’d be fun. More even better, but it depends on how much time I have and how able I am to go finding new birds — and whether they’re out there.

For what it’s worth, I filed my first list for 2011; a short feederwatch here in the home office. Nothing too fancy, but the first 9 species of 2011 got ticked off. If the knee and the weather cooperate, I do hope to get out and do some birding before the holiday ends.

Notes from the Commish — about the Winter Classic

Tonight’s Note from the Commish is about the Winter Classic.

Another New Years has come and gone, and another Winter Classic has happened. For the first time, the weather didn’t completely cooperate, but I thought the NHL did a good job of managing the situation, and I like the idea of prime time or evening games. I’m not sure that’s my first choice — but I’ll leave that one to the experts. What matters is they did a great job of handling a less than perfect situation and made it happen. Nobody got hurt, everyone’s happy, and a good game between two good teams.

So, what’s next? I hear the jungle drums beating from New York City already, but them New York is insulted that they haven’t already gotten a Winter Classic, and in fact, insulted that it hasn’t been offered to them permanently. Because they are, you know, New York, center of the universe. Just ask them. Or at least, their beat writers.

I like the Winter Classic setup. I think it’s great publicity for the league and I think it showcases the sport nicely. I also think New York would be a great venue for it. Just not next year. Here’s what I’d like to suggest to the league as they consider next year’s edition:

Go West, NHL. Go West. It’s time to bring the Winter Classic further west, out of the Eastern time zone. My preference: as the Vikings showed this year, there’s this rather nice, if a bit chilly, stadium in Minnesota you can use. Minnesota Wild vs. Dallas Stars, New Years day in Minneapolis. Hopefully in a swirling snow storm. You won’t get rain, that’s for sure… But a second option would be Denver, with the Avalanche meeting someone like the Coyotes or Sharks. Either venue would be viable and interesting and something you could build stories around — and connect with the western half of the league that tends to get ignored far too often.

After that? Detroit, featuring the Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs for the first cross-border winter classic. THAT would be a classic.

And then, another trip west, this time — Las Vegas. We’ve seen games played there in the past, and ice making technology has improved since then. Fire up the UNLV stadium and get the casinos in to help with the hype, and watch what happens on new years when the Kings and Ducks meet.

THEN we go to new york. By this time, the series might need a refresh to make it special again, and how better than to play it out at Yankee Stadium between the Rangers and the Devils? Although I’m not sure I want to be the person explaining this to Charles Wang. Honestly, though, you know in your gut it’s gotta be those two teams. And Brodeur might still be in goal then….

Agree? Disagree? drop a comment with your opinion.

Got a rule or some aspect of hockey you want the Commish or — Colin — to rule on? drop us an email or a comment with the question. And we’ll be back soon with another Note from the Commish.

Looking forward into 2011

Welcome to 2011. If this is how you feel, remember: you did it to yourself, but it’s temporary.

I’m really looking forward to 2011 with anticipation. There have been a number of challenges the last few years, but that which does not kill you makes you stronger, and so far, I’m still breathing. 2010 turned out to be the year I started thinking forward again and deciding what I wanted to focus on, and now that 2011 is here, it’s time to start pushing those things forward.

I don’t know about you, but here in my life I’m interested in way too many things for my own good. My planning isn’t so much about “what should I do?” as it is deciding what of the things I want to do I need to defer, because if I try to do them all — none of them get enough time for me to do them well. One of the hardest lessons I’ve learned the last few years is that I do, in fact, have limits, and while it’s a lesson I don’t like, I’ve learned to try to focus and prioritize and do fewer things well instead of simply pushing harder to do them all.

I have, at least to start the year, chosen to focus on three projects. There are a couple of other projects that I may add to the list later (or replace something on this list with if it makes sense), but I’m not yet ready to talk about them in public, because they depend on decisions by others before I want to commit resources to them. I’ve got a total of five projects on my “A” list right now, but only three of them are at that point I can talk to them and move forward on them now. We’ll bring the others into the light if and when it makes sense.

I’ll be talking about each of these things, but right now, I want to focus on one.

The first — and clearly the most important — project for 2011 is my health and my weight. I was diagnosed diabetic in late 2009 (joining about 1 in 10 of the American population), and 2010 was in many ways a year for coming to grips with diabetes and learning how to keep it controlled and keep things stable. As a friend and fellow diabetic told me, diabetes is one of those things that is no big deal at all — and something you have to take great care with. For 2011, I don’t want to just keep the diabetes under control, but to take the initiative and shove it as far out of my life as I possibly can — by taking off the extra weight I carry, by getting in better physical shape, by learning to be better at managing diet, there’s a good chance I can live life without using diabetic drugs and managing this strictly through lifestyle and diet. It may not happen — but we’re sure going to try.

It’s also crucial that this weight comes off for other reasons; getting it off will reduce the impact of the apnea, and perhaps let me be rid of the darth vader machine I sleep with. Needing a CPAP to sleep has some impacts that might not be obvious at first, but here’s one: you can’t camp or backpack. Life is tied to a hotel room with electricity (which excludes Curry Village in Yosemite, also) — and that impacts your ability to explore as a nature photographer. That was one factor that led me to decide not to try to go pro in my photography this year. another impact on my photography — when you’re carrying around a lot of weight your center of gravity if affected, and so is your ability to scramble off trail or even get down on the ground for a shot and get back up again without looking like a grounded walrus. And when you lose your balance, bad things can happen. Losing weight will in a very direct way make me a better and more capable photographer.

A third aspect of this is — my knees. In late 2007, I was out taking photos and walking when I stepped in a gopher hole and tore the meniscus in my right knee. In talking to the orthepedic surgeon, he showed me the xrays and explained that it wasn’t about going in and cleaning it out, it was about delaying replacement as long as possible, due to the arthritis in both knees. Thanks to 500mg of Relafin twice a day, the knees have been quiet and stable since, until about a month ago when they started acting up, and it’s clear I need to go in and have another chat and probably up the dosage. But the single best thing I can do to improve my knees is to take weight off.

If there’s a plus here, it’s that I weight what I weighed two and a half years ago, and I weigh less than I did at my max in fall of 2008 (but not by much); it’s something that it’s at least not going up. On the minus of that, starting in the fall of 2008, I lost a fair bit of weight — because of the diabetes, and it came back once I started treatment. I do wish I’d been able to keep some of that off, but that’s life.

In American culture — the land of Nancy Reagan and “just say no” — the answer to these problems is seemingly simple: eat less, exercise more. If only; if there was truth to that, the world wouldn’t be having this massive obesity crisis and we wouldn’t be having this conversation (and — hint — pretty much every place some variation of “just say no” is proposed, it fails miserably, whether it’s teenage sex, smoking, catholic priests and little boys, or losing weight. So can I please suggest that we as a society get past simplistic slogans and deal with real problems using real solutions? thanks).

In reality, it’s really complicated. I’ve come up with a set of things I think will work — and now that the holidays are over, it’s time to see if they will; and what needs to be adapted and changed. I’ve also done a lot of research into this whole shebang, and I’ll share some of that with you over time. And no, don’t expect daily weigh ins or any of that; it doesn’t work for me, and it’s incredibly boring for you. but we’ll talk when it makes sense and there’s something useful to say.

This is an initiative I have to make succeed; if I do nothing else, I have to make this work — or I have to decide I can’t, and then start looking at other options seriously, like surgery. And frankly, I look forward to gastric bypass even less than the thought of going through knee replacement, because gastric surgery would be admitting failure over something I honestly believe I can solve — and in fact have been working to solve for the last few years. And now I’ll find out if I’m right, I guess.

The goal? for now, let’s just leave it at ten pounds, and then start on the next ten. I need to lose 100 pounds to get back to the weight I was at 30, and that’s probably a two year process. Step one is to just take that first step, and then build on it… It’s a good question what my goal weight ought to be, but that’s another one of those complicated discussions about something people like to make simple…

and hopefully we’ll chat about that soon.

Until then, to all of you, I hope your 2011 is as good and positive for you as I plan on making it for me.

A last look back at 2010

A quick review of 2010 (and some history that leads into it, too)

I’ve been trying to summarize 2010; it’s really the first year in a while I give a passing grade (so to speak). I think the bottom line is that 2010 is the first year in the last few that I am kinda sad to see go, as opposed to wishing it a fond farewell and that the door not hit it on the butt on the way out. The last few years have brought some challenges, but for the most past, they either seem in the past, or things I now have under control and I can move forward from to other, more fun things. So if I have to grade 2010, I’ll give it a B, and life in general a B+.

2010 was a year of transition and starting the process of moving forward after years of stasis. A body at rest really wants to stay on the damn couch, so it takes some time and energy to get everything going again. 2010 was about figuring out what the priorities are and getting the motion going in those directions, and I’m hoping that translates into momentum on a number of projects I’m trying to get off the ground.

I entered 2010 recently diagnosed with Diabetes — a bit of high blood pressure, triglycerides above 500, A1C about 13% and a blood glucose above 400. For those not versed in medical geek speak, those are numbers that are getting dangerously close to a diabetic coma or some other health crisis. Today, my A1C is normal, my cholsterol and triglycerides are normal, my blood sugar is well controlled and rarely hits 160 after meals, and is more typically 145 or below. My doctor is happy, I’m pretty happy, and I feel great. 2010 was about learning to manage and thrive as a diabetic, because for the rest of my life, no matter what I do, that’ll be part of my life.

There are some challenges remaining; so far, the best I’ve done is battle my weight to a tie. Taking that next step, getting the weight off, is a key goal for 2011. The good news is that my weight is what it was before the diabetes hit, back in 2007; the bad news is that this number needs to be a lot smaller than it is. I’ll be talking about that down the road — one of the things I’ve been doing is figuring out what changes I need to make to make this happen. Now, I actually need to do it.

I feel like I took some positive steps forward in my photography, and I’m quite happy with my work. I still have work to do and areas where I need to grow; I have some ideas on what I want to do in 2011 to move in those directions. I was able to revamp the blog, and I’ve gotten my writing going again on a pretty consistent basis — and I expect to continue that and move it into some new directions in 2011 as well.

Work’s taken up a lot of hours, a lot of energy and created a lot of challenges. The good news is that we did well enough that HP put a billion dollars into us and said “now, go do it better”; in 2011, you’ll see what that means, and I’m looking forward to when we can show that off. Still a lot of work to do, and in reality, that job is just starting, but I like what’s happening and the direction we’re taking, even if I can’t talk about it yet.

So overall, it’s been a good year. More important to me, it’s been a gateway from some pretty sucky years into what I hope and expect to be an even better year. Because of the apnea things started grinding to a halt in 2005; with the apnea and diabetes dealt with, I feel like we put the jumper cables on the battery and we have the bandwagon in gear; we’ll see in 2011 how far we can drive it.

And so, a last look back at 2010, and then we’ll turn the page, and start making 2011 happen. And thanks to all of you for being here and being part of it with me, with your thoughts and ideas and feedback and help. It’s appreciated, and I’m looking forward to seeing 2011 unfold for all of us, together.

2010 Photography highlights

You can find what I consider to be my best 2010 images in their own blog post.

2010 Blog Highlights

January 29: in The Apple TV has not failed, I argued against the geek-echo-chamber-pundits who were writing off the Apple TV as a failure. Since that time, Apple has released the new generation of Apple TV (which many of those same geek-echo-chamber-pundits declared a failure, because it’s not geek-worthy hackable) and of course, they were seriously wrong, since Apple’s noted they sold a million units so far. Ring up another one for the geek community not realizing the consumer device market is very different than the geek market (and much larger) and declaring anything not geeky enough for them a failure. Secondary note — I got my new Apple TV for christmas and installed it today, and it rocks. Not because it’s geeky, but because it sits there and works when I ask it to.
January 29: I also wrote A few thoughts on lenses, which I still think hits the mark with some interesting ideas on how to decide what lenses you need. Laurie decided she wanted a new lens for her camera for christmas, and I ended up getting her the Sigma 18-125mm f/3.8-5.6, which I decided was the best of the moderately priced wide angle “street” zooms. I ended up choosing that instead of 18-200 because while it doesn’t have quite the zoom power, it’s sharper across the range. I’ve come to think that the superzoom lenses have their place and are growing in prominence in the field, but aren’t always the best option. In my case, I’m rarely using my Tamron superzoom in those zoom ranges, so for me today, the sharpness factor is more important than getting the extra magnification.
March 14: It turns out my vacation this year was a couple of days in Yosemite in March. Fortunately, they were some really kick-butt days, as you can see from the photos that came out of it.
March 31: I hosted I and the Bird. For that, I wrote The Bird(ing) and Me.
May 27: I fell down and go boom, sprained the left side of my body, and put myself on the shelf for about six weeks.
June 19: I talk about online images and watermarking.
July 4: My new design for chuqui.com finally ships. and here, six months later, I still like it (but I intend to do some tweaking).
July 29: I bought a new laptop. And for the first time in forever, didn’t feel a need to buy the top of the line beastie from Apple (and then talked about it after I settled in and used it a bit. months later, I’m thrilled at the decision I made, I love this unit).
August 12: Vacation part deux (and part two): two days photographing on the central coast. Man, I gotta stop being so slackworthy at work and slow down at taking so much time off.
August 14: I write about my photographic mentors and inspirations. These are the folks who really pushed me into where I am as a photographer, and are pushing me towards where I want to be.
August 18: and then I talked a bit about why I decided to hold off on going pro with the camera. Something I need to explore further here in the blog. soon.
October 18: I wrote up my thoughts on defining and using keywords in Lightroom. By far my most popular piece of writing in 2010 — thank you for the links and feedback.
October 21: I announced I was making available images for use as desktop wallpapers. You can find the entire set here on my smugmug site. They have been very well received (thank you!) and I intend to expand on this in 2011. Stay tuned.
October 27: I made it out for a birding and photo shoot at Merced National Wildlife Refuge.
October 29: I write about what it takes to do effective bird photography.
December 22: To HDR? Or not HDR? is that really still the question?
December 23: I wander back into hockey writing with the intiation of my Notes from the Commish series.
December 25: A special gift from me to you, the story Downtime; a previously unpublished piece of fiction from me. Expect to see more of my older writing, and more talk about writing, in 2011.

notes from the commish – no-touch icing

Welcome to the latest ruling in “Notes from the Commish” where I as the Commish of the NHL (in my universe) and my Vice President of Disclipine Barfy will pontificate upon the state of the game and what I think needs to be changed. The fact is, NHL hockey is in pretty damn good shape overall, not that you’d believe that reading some of the pundits out there. But the reality is, a business the size of the NHL can never be perfect, and there are always things that can be improved, and there will always be things that need to be fixed. Unlike, say, a large Canadian hockey broadcaster that’s absolutely perfect and can cast stones at all around it without fear of retribution. But I digress.

Remember, kiddos, in the NHL, it’s not a game. It’s a business built around a game. And that makes a huge difference. And people who play the “it’s just a game” card are either stupid, or are being incredibly disingenuous, and for either reason, deserve to be ignored by you, the discerning fan that can actually think.

Tonight’s Note from the Commish is on the no-touch icing rule.

We recently had a situation where Jody Shelley was suspended for two games for a hit on an icing, which has created a situation where some of the hockey pundits have woken up and remembered they used to rag on the NHL for not implementing no-touch icing. So they ragged on the NHL for implementing no-touch icing, and I guess went back to sleep.

After being in the arena and maybe 25′ away when Curtis Foster went down with a broken pelvis, and watching when Marco Sturm was seriously injured on an icing play, you might think I’d be in favor of the no-touch icing rule. And for a long time, I was.

But the NHL has adopted a rule to limit the chance of injury on icing — it’s part of rule 81:

Any contact between opposing players while pursuing the puck on an icing must be for the sole purpose of playing the puck and not for eliminating the opponent from playing the puck. Unnecessary or dangerous contact could result in penalties being assessed to the offending player.

And if you ask me, the rule works; Shelley’s suspension was a big hit, and players get it. Think about the last time a player was suspended for an icing play? It’s been a while. The frequency of the type of play that can lead to a risk of injury has gone way down, so in fact the rule is working as designed.

And even better, the NHL was able to deal with the root of the problem — severe injury risk in a specific type of play — without simply turning hockey into ringette or some kind of boring no-touch sport. Because the fact is, the chase to break up icing and the offensive opportunities that occur when a player does in fact break up an icing play are exciting and can markedly affect the outcome of a game and change momentum within it.

I think the NHL did the right thing here, and I like the rule as it stands. And I believe any time the pundits start playing the “easy fix” kneejerk call for action, you should question it. The NHL has learned the hard way that kneejerking a fix many times makes it worse (remember when they moved the goal line out to increase offense, and merely gave defensemen more room back there to smother the player?), so instead of reacting first and thinking later (like so many pundits do), they sit back and think it through, and quite often, I think they get it right. Which of course pisses off the pundits, because, of course, the league didn’t do what they called for, so by definition, the league is wrong.

Me? I’m all for good, hard-played exciting hockey. Which is why I’m glad the league thinks these things through and ignores the pundits who don’t.

Agree? Disagree? drop a comment with your opinion.

Got a rule or some aspect of hockey you want the Commish or — Colin — to rule on? drop us an email or a comment with the question. And we’ll be back soon with another Note from the Commish.

which hockey writers do I follow?

Recently I made some comments about hockey media that were interepreted as being negative, because, well, they were. There are some members of the hockey media family, especially in Canada, that seem to come from the “if you can’t say something negative, you aren’t trying hard enough” school of writing, taking the idea that good news doesn’t sell newspapers to the illogical extreme of believing that you simply shouldn’t say anything positive. And it drives me nuts. I’m a believer in being balanced, and I know I’m hitting my mark when I’m getting yelled at for being both a suck-up and trashing a team at the same time…

There are some members of the hockey family that I believe are so negative that they are in fact a detriment to the league, because some fans actually pay attention to them and believe their viewpoint that everything sucks. My view? If I really felt that way about something, I’d drop it out of my life and go do something that doesn’t leave me miserable. To some of these guys, I strongly recommend that option.

But in an attempt to be balanced… Here’s my naughty and nice lists, the folks I tend to go to for information and pay attention to when they give an opinion — and the guys I’ve come to feel over the years aren’t worth wasting electrons or oxygen on, and so try to avoid as much as possible. The nice list are balanced, call it like they see it, take time to study an issue and report on it, and generally try to inform. The naughty list tend to take on simplistic, negative, kneejerk positions and hype things as loud as possible, and in many cases turn themselves into the story rather than the event or the sport. If you read them, take them with a grain of salt, IMHO. Or better yet, stop.

A few notes on my personal biases and choices here. I’m focusing primarily on writers and broadcasters with a national audience; I don’t spend a lot of time reading beat guys not in my local market any more, and I’m not commenting on play by play or color guys on TV or Radio, but I am covering the analysts and commentary guys who are more opinion based.

I do this as a fan of the sport; San Jose is my local town and we’ve been going to games since the first year they’ve been in the league, but I consider myself a hockey fan in San Jose, not a Sharks fan. Now, I’m a fan of the Sharks, too — but I’m a fan of hockey and the league first. Your mileage will probably vary.

And I decided not to link to anyone, naughty or nice. If you’re curious, it’ll be easy to find them. It seemed too much like a cheap linkbait, and I felt that was the wrong thing to do in this case. I”m not trying to get in people’s faces, just express my opinion. Unlike most of the guys on my naughty list. And I’m sorting them by first name to avoid any hint that I’m ranking them in any way…

NICE

Bob McKenzie, TSN
Chris Botta, Slap Shot
Damian Cox, Toronto Star (most of the time)
David Pollak, San Jose Mercury News
Elliotte Friedman, CBC
Eric Duhatschek, Toronto Globe and Mail (one of my favorite writers, period).
Gary Greene, NHL Network
Jim Matheson, Edmonton Journal
Mike Chen, From the Rink
Mike Heika, Dallas Morning News
Pierre Lebrun, ESPN (one of the most balanced, quiet and intelligent voices out there. How did he get stuck at ESPN, anyway?)
Pierre McGuire, TSN (okay. I KNOW I”m going to get yelled at for this. But once you get past his sometimes over the top attitude, he knows his stuff. And I’ve come to appreciate his willingness to go over the top on something he feels strongly about, even though sometimes he doe sit too often and turns himself into a self-parody drama queen. His depth of knowledge makes me forgive him for that. Most of the time)
PJ Swenson, Sharkspage
Red Fischer, Montreal Gazette
Roy MacGregor, Toronto Globe and Mail (and the only other writer that competes with Duhatschek as favorite writer, period).

NAUGHTY

Adam Proteau, The Hockey News
Adrian Dater, All Things Avs
Al Strachan, increasingly irrelevant publications. (Just look at his CV and see how the quality of the publications he’s represented over there years has dropped. Why isn’t he retired out to pasture, where he belongs? When CBC brought him back for Satellite Hotstove, I lost all respect for that broadcast. And then they added Mike Milbury.)
Bruce Garrioch, Ottawa Sun (look “how not to be a good writer” up in the dictionary, and you’ll find his picture. The epitomy of negativism and kneejerk writing)
Don Cherry, CBC (for all Don Cherry has done for hockey — and what he’s done for hockey is huge — he stopped being interesting to me after Rose died. He got more bombastic, angrier and less interesting to listen to. Today, I find him mostly painful to tune in on, and I’m sad to say that. But honestly, Don, it’s time to retire. It was three or four years ago.)
Ken Campbell, The Hockey News (Ken, get over the fighting thing already)
Larry Brooks, New York Post (look “it’s about me! it’s about me!” up in the dictionary, and you’ll find his picture. And as far as I can tell, everything about hockey sucks, because that’s how he writes it. The joy of tabloid journalism. Unfortunately, some people take him seriously. Fortunately, I don’t).
Mike Milbury, NESN, CBC (his attitude and opinions on CBC make me wish someone would be stupid enough to hire him as GM again…)
Ron MacLean, CBC (has gone from my nice list to my naughty list over the last few years; he increasingly makes himself the story and injects himself into reporting in ways I find inappropriate. He uses the “get to the guts of the story” as an excuse to jump on some people, but where his biases are more favorable, he’s great at the softball interview. He didn’t used to be that way.)
Steve Simmons, Toronto Sun (and most writers from most of the Sun papers; The Sun papers are the canadian tabloids, and give the new york post a run for the money)
Tony Gallagher, Vancouver Province (most of the time)
oh, hell, The Hockey News in general because it stopped being readable years ago.

So, where am I right? Why am I wrong? Who did I miss? One I’ll note here is Paul Kukla, who I don’t mention because he is more curator than journalist, so I don’t think he qualifies for these lists, but he’d be on my nice list if he did. He does a fine job of what he does. And of course, there’s the guys from that buzzy site, which I won’t mention even indirectly, and which I won’t comment on because nothing they do remotely represents journalism, unless you see Entertainment Tonight as legitimate journalism. And Entertainment Tonight is more accurate.

A special Christmas gift: downtime

Merry Christmas!

Here’s a little christmas surprise — the story is called Downtime, and I wrote it in the early 90′s. It was at one point going to be published by Pulphouse but never made it into print. This is the first time it’s been published.

A bit of history — I wrote a number of stories about your typical IT type contractor, who got into doing work for an unusual clientele; other stories in this series that got published including being hired by God to hack Satan’s databases and working for a witch to fix her spell database on Halloween. The series was about your typical middle class normal working stiff finding out that things we consider fantasy elements were in fact true. I enjoyed twisting the standards of the field in different ways, just to see what happened, and treating fantasy as SF (or vice versa) was a writing hack I liked. These stories also tended to feature Apple computers and cockatoos, just because I could….

The intent was to write a continuing series of these stories, other future clients included an embezzling Tooth Fairy that wanted the evidence deleted, A leprechaun who lost his pot of gold at the track, Elvis and the Easter Bunny. Ultimately I thought I might tie it all together into a novel.

For now, though, it’s just a fun remnant of my writing life, and I hope you enjoy it.

Downtime

The phone rang just as I taped my finger to Kevin’s present. I didn’t want to spend Christmas Eve working, but when you run a business like mine, you do what you have to do. You can’t ignore your customers. Emergencies don’t take holidays off, and nobody would be calling me tonight for anything else. I ran and grabbed it on the third ring.

“Jason Chilson? My name is William Shields. My apologies for calling so late, but we have an emergency and you come highly recommended.”

“Mr. Shields, if you need me tonight I’m available, but it is Christmas Eve. You would save a lot of money by waiting until the 26th.”

“I realize this is an imposition, but we have a critical deadline and the entire operation is at a standstill. If we don’t get things finished up tonight, we’ll lose a major contract.”

There went my hope for spending the evening with my family.

“If you’ll let me know where to meet you, Mr. Shields, I’ll see what I can do. With any luck we can resolve this quickly and get everyone home for Christmas.”

The streets were almost empty, most people already home with their families and the rest jamming the malls. The jeweler who had the earrings that Gina wanted had already closed, not that I could afford them, but the bike shop was staying open late. Maybe, just maybe, I could get there before they closed and buy Kevin that bike he longed for. That I could squeeze in knowing the money was coming, so maybe this job wouldn’t be a complete loss.

I drove past that travel agency with the Bermuda posters. Sigh. We went to Bermuda on our honeymoon. Kevin would love Bermuda. I haven’t had a vacation since I started this damn business. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it.

My destination was on the outskirts of the financial district, a company called Toyland Imports. A bored guard signed me in and escorted me to the elevator, which took me to the 15th floor. The elevator door slid open and I stepped out into the snow.

Snow? I looked around. The floor of the 15th floor was covered with snow. The elevator door closed behind me. I glance behind me, to see the elevator door firmly attached to a large, granite rock. In front of me, across the snow-covered ground, stood a small cottage. Behind it I saw another building the must have been a barn, since there was a corral attached to it. The animals in the corral were definitely not horses. Elk? On the 15th floor?

I decided I must be hallucinating. I’m on the 15th floor of an office building in downtown Los Angeles. It doesn’t snow in buildings in downtown Los Angeles.

Does it?

“Mr. Chilson! Glad you could make it. Let’s go inside where it’s warm and we can get started.”

I shook myself out of my reverie, and bent down to shake the outstretched hand. That was when I noticed that the hand was attached to a four-foot tall man wearing Spock ears. I decided I was definitely hallucinating. I must be.

“Mr. Shields?”

He must have noticed my confusion, because he smiled and wiggled his ears. ”Call me Bill. My elven name is Hëathflig, but I don’t use it with humans. Welcome to North Pole Station. C’mon into the workshop and I’ll explain. We’ve got some wonderful mulled cider on the stove.”

I followed him down the path, around the cottage and past the barn to a large, square building. I wished I had a jacket, but I hadn’t realized it was going to be snowing.

The cider was as good as he’d claimed, but it didn’t make me less confused. ”Bill, how did I get to the North Pole?”

“Not the North Pole, North Pole Station. We’re currently somewhere outside the orbit of Mars. We had to abandon the Pole itself in the ’30s when airplanes and scientists got too close for comfort. The elevator is a teleportation unit. Toyland Imports is a front operation for my employer, Santa Claus. We like to keep a low profile.”

“You work for Santa Claus?”

“Jolly old man, wears red clothes, laughs a lot, needs to go on a diet. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

“I’ve heard of him. I just stopped believing in him about thirty years ago. I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny, either.”

“If this project works out, I can arrange for you to meet him. The rabbit could use a good consultant.”

I choked on my cider. As he handed me a napkin, he was trying hard not to laugh and doing a rotten job of it. ”I’m sorry about that, but I couldn’t resist. No, the Easter Bunny doesn’t exist, but I hate passing up a good straight line.”

His ears twitched when he laughed. I tried really hard to hate him, but I found myself grinning along with him. Well, if I had to hallucinate, I guess I could do a lot worse than this. I haven’t had cider this good since grandmom died. “Remind me to wear a bib before I ask about the Tooth Fairy. You probably realize this is a bit tough to accept right away but given that the alternatives is that I’ve gone stark, raving mad and I don’t believe even Roger would try to pull off a practical joke this, um, enthusiastic, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt for now, and I’ll worry about my sanity once your computer is back on-line.” I took another sip. “Damn, but this is good cider.”

“If you want, I’ll get the recipe from Mrs. Claus for you. How about we get you a refill and go check out the disaster zone? We wouldn’t want Kevin to wake up to a missing dad on Christmas. The machine’s in the over here.”

“How did you know his name?”

He stood up. ”I work for Santa, remember? Making a list and checking it twice and all that stuff. Good kid, but he needs to cut back on sweets. Too many cavities in his last checkup. What do you think the computer is for? Oh, and the Tooth Fairy is real. Pays in cash, if you don’t mind quarters.”

He laughed and grabbed my cup and took it into the back room. When he re-appeared, the cup was steaming. He waved me over, and I followed him. I realized I was smiling.

We ended up on what was obviously a manufacturing floor. Manufacturing is the same everywhere, even if the line workers are three feet tall with orange skin and beards, even on the women. However, a healthy floor is alive with noise and chaos and the silence was deafening. There were at least a dozen production lines building, boxing, or wrapping what seemed to be every possible toy in existence, from dolls and tapes to bikes and stereos. Nothing was moving.

“Jesus. You’re completely shut down?”

“Our entire system is computerized now. Fully relational database, with cross-references into the good/bad lists, the wish lists and the need lists. We didn’t realize we had a problem until the Quality group noticed we were sending a subscription for Organic Gardening to Rush Limbaugh. We started checking, and we found the entire database was corrupted. We had to shut down because.”

“Let me guess, Bill. If we don’t fix it tonight, there’ll be no Christmas, right?”

“This isn’t a TV show, Jason. You’ve done your Christmas shopping, right? Will those presents magically disappear at midnight?” He shook his head. “No, we don’t own Christmas, but there are thousands of people out there — kids and adults — who will wake up tomorrow and be disappointed if we don’t pull this off. We don’t do major miracles up here, but thousands of minor miracles can be just as satisfying.”

We walked past a workbench where a couple of computers were being assembled.

“Bill, you build computers, too?”

“Yeah — those are Apple II’s. We worked out a special deal with Wozniak years back. He thought it was great idea. We’ve been trying to do the same for the Macintosh for three years, but the contract is stuck somewhere in Legal. The Brownies are a pain when negotiating a contract, but we haven’t lost a suit yet. IBM won’t return our calls though, and we can’t work with the Asian clone manufacturers. So while we do some clones, our mainstay is still the Apple II.” He sighed.

“Seems like easy money for them. Why won’t they cut a deal?”

“They don’t believe in Santa Claus. They say they won’t do business with ghosts.”

“You contract with the toy companies for this, then? This stuff is legit?”

“Sure. We have contracts with everyone. We don’t want to steal their product or cut into their income, so we get samples, build our version here and then deposit funds into the company’s account to cover what we built. As far as their accountants are concerned, we’re just another third world sub-contractor that builds their product off-shore and ships directly to the retail outlets. To the kids, it’s as good as the originals. Sometimes better. Our failure rate is a lot lower than most companies.”

We walked through another door into an office filled with computer terminals, and then into the computer room, filled almost to overflowing with a collection of machines that would make the most jaded techno-nerd drool. He sat me down in front of a terminal and logged me onto the machine.

While their hardware was exotic, the software was pretty vanilla. When one thinks of Santa Claus, if you think of him at all, it’s a man with a parchment book and a quill pen scribbling notes, not a couple of mini-computers with an Accounts Payable program and a relational database, but the reality is that down below the facade, even the most romantic and exotic industries are pretty mundane. The bills have to get paid, the orders have to get shipped. Right now, however, that wasn’t happening. Time to get to work.

I pulled up a few sample records to see what happens. They definitely were having some problems, but nothing that some time and sweat wouldn’t fix. Fortunately, their system was based on a program I’d worked with, which makes things easier for me. Going into software cold is scary.

I started a couple of background procedures to re-initialize the table indexes.

“I think you’re in luck, Bill. As far as I can tell, nothing’s lost, and I should be able to get things patched together. Did the system crash recently?”

He nodded. “Three days ago. Rudolph was practicing landings and put a sled into a powerline. Diagnostics showed it was clean, so we thought everything was fine. We noticed the problems this morning.”

“He’s okay, isn’t he?” I suddenly realized I was worried about the health of a deer with a light bulb for a nose. When did I decide this was for real? I mentally shrugged.

“Rudolph is fine. No injuries, just short enough power failure to kill the computers. It happens once in a while. This is the first problem we’ve had.”

“Normally, you shouldn’t have a problem. Unfortunately, there’s a bug in this version of your database where under some circumstances, if it crashes it doesn’t realize that the index files weren’t completely updated. Very small window of exposure, and it doesn’t happen very often. I found this out the hard way with a different client. The database manufacturer has fixed it, but decided to sit on reporting the bug to customers rather than have to deal with updating everyone. Saves them money, they say, since so few customers were going to be affected. Idiot beancounters forget that customers lose money and have deadlines. I’ll give you the name of the patch to ask for after the holiday.

“Fortunately, there’s a fairly easy way to patch things up. If it works, you should be back in about ninety minutes.”

“Great! If we prioritize based on time zone, we might still make it. It’ll be a long night, though.”

I’ll do what I can. Maybe I can isolate out the corrupted records and let you work on the rest, then do those on a separate batch. Would that work for you?”

He brightened. “Perfect!”

“Great. Let me pound on this for a bit, and you can go alert the troops that they’ll be back on the job in, oh, twenty minutes with the first batches. I almost hate to ask, though: does Mrs. Claus have any more of that cider?”

He smiled. “I’ll check. Back in a few.”

I started isolating out the problem records and clearing access to the rest so he could get his people back to work. People? Are three foot tall, pointy-eared beings people? Well, why wouldn’t they be?

He returned about 15 minutes later, carrying a large Thermos. “So, Doctor, how is the patient?” He set the Thermos down on the console. “I thought I’d save myself a few trips.”

I smiled. “Good thinking, because you’re ready for the first batch. There are only about 5,000 corrupted records, so you’re lucky you even noticed them in time. I’ve got them locked out, so I can update them manually. The rest are yours. I’ll merge these in as I get them fixed.”

“Yippee!” he yelled, and, I swear, he jumped up and clicked his heels. The toes on the tips of his shoes jingled merrily. He yippee-d his way out the door, and I sat and listened to the floor come back to life as I tracked down and eliminated the bitrot.

I continued plugging away, completely losing track of time. Suddenly I realized Bill was standing over my shoulder, watching.

“By George, we’re going to make it. Not only that, your cider is getting cold.”

“Well, I’m never going to finish this cider in time alone. Go find a cup grab a chair. I’m on the last batch.” I looked at my watch. “Whoof. I’ve been here that long?”

“Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“Or in the company of good friends.”

We clinked mugs, and I leaned back in the chair. “I was thinking. If we’re in space, why aren’t we floating? There shouldn’t be any gravity here.”

“Our technology is advanced compared to what you have on Earth, Jason. We have the ability to transport people and material long distances instantaneously. Remember the transporters on Star Trek? Ours actually work.”

“And the snow?”

“The boss is a traditionalist. The reindeer like it, too, and the gnomes and dwarves come from the colder lands, and it reminds them of home.”

“Reindeer. That explains why you have a stable. I was wondering about that..”

“You know, if you have contracts with all these large companies, how have you kept your operation a secret? What’s to keep me from spilling the beans on you? Elven hit-men?”

He laughed so hard his shoes tinkled. ”Nothing that baroque. What person in the world is going to admit publicly to working with Santa Claus? Would anyone believe you? If the president of Sega announced he was dealing with Santa Claus, what would happen? What sane person would take that chance?” He took a sip from his mug. “Besides, we investigated you before calling, and your customers appreciate your judgment and discretion. We don’t believe you’d do anything stupid, either to us or to yourself.”

He had a point. Maybe the National Enquirer would buy the story, but would I want to have my name attached? “You know, this isn’t exactly a small operation. How do you pay for all this? Royalties on the Santa Claus name?”

The elf laughed again. ”No, that’s in the public domain. Our funding comes from strategic minerals. We mine the asteroid belt, transfer the raw materials down to Earth and sell on the open market. With our technology, the mining is dirt cheap, so to speak. We make enough to support ourselves and carry on our operation. Everyone wins.”

“If you really have all this high tech stuff — teleportation, space stations, advanced manufacturing concepts and I don’t know what else, why are you selling raw materials and not technology or engineering?”

“We do. Not all at once, and we don’t sell technology that is so advanced it’ll raise questions Earthside. It’s impossible right now for us to make, say, teleportation available because it requires too many technology advances for people to accept it without wondering about the source. We don’t want to start those UFO rumors again, do we? Besides, technology is a tool that can be used for both good and evil, and if society is given something before it’s ready to cope with the implications, you run the risk of it destroying itself. We learned the hard way to be careful.”

He had a point. We decided to go take a look at how the floor was going, a decision made easier because we’d run out of cider. I wonder if that stuff’s addicting?

Conveyor belts carried the gifts to one wall where a set of machines was installed. An elf or a gnome would grab the gift and stick it inside one of the booths, load some data from the invoice with a bar-code reader and push a button. When he opened the door, the booth was empty.

Movement at the front door suddenly caught my eye. A few elves were running out with packages, then re-appearing empty–handed.

He caught where I was looking. ”Hey, you should see this! Come on.” We followed one of the elves out the door, where I could see a sleigh was rapidly filling up with presents. The reindeer — including Rudolph, who blinked his nose at me when I scratched him behind the ears — had already been hitched up.

Bill stifled a sniff. ”The Boss can’t cover the entire territory any more, but he loves the traditions, so he does one city a year the old fashioned way. This year it’s Cleveland. It was going to be Miami, but with hurricane Tim popping up so late in the year, we had to change.”

We stood in the snow and watched the loading go on, until the sleigh was full. Then he came out of the house, red clothes, beard, belly and all. Santa. Father Christmas. Kris Kringle. The Big Kahuna himself. I’ve never run face to face with one of my cultural icons before, so I didn’t know what to do? Do you shake hands? Bow? Collapse in a heap in the snow in a faint? I settled for standing there grinning madly and trying to keep my knees from wobbling.

Santa settled the problem for me. He strode over and grabbed me on the shoulder with one of his hands. “Thank you, Jason, for what you’ve done tonight. Thousands of children will awaken to happiness tomorrow because of you. You have my gratitude.”

With that, he hopped into the sleigh, and then double-checked the anti-gravity pads, verified the radar cloaking field, keyed in the recall alarm and finally called to the reindeers, who pulled the sleigh to a huge teleport booth to the side of the corral. Just as they were about to close the door, he looked over to me and waved. ”Merry Christmas, Jason! Ho! Ho! Ho!” He then put his finger aside of his nose, winked, and pushed a button on the sleigh’s console. With a pop, Santa, the sleigh, and all of the reindeer disappeared.

Bill grabbed my arm. “Thank you for everything. It’s time you got out of here and started your own Christmas.”

I realized he was crying. I realized I was crying, too.

In the lobby, the guard got a strange look on his face as I went by. It wasn’t until I got out to the car that I realized that I had fresh snow on my shoulders. I made a mental note to warn them.

It wasn’t until I had the key in the lock at home that I realized I’d forgotten to get the cider recipe. Damn. I opened the door just as the clock in the hall started chiming ten. Gina was asleep so I quietly wished her a Merry Christmas and crawled into bed next to her. As I was drifting off, I kept imagining I heard sleigh bells.

As happens every Christmas, Kevin woke us up far too early. I couldn’t blame him this time, though, since the bicycle was gorgeous. It was all we could do to keep him from running outside with it immediately, even before the rest of the presents were opened. Gina smiled at me and she squeezed my hand.

It was going to be tough explaining the diamond earrings, since Gina knew the store was closed last night, and we’d both agreed to wait on them until business got better.

But I knew I was in trouble when Kevin brought over that last package, a small envelope marked as from Santa. I started looking through my mental excuse file for something she might accept. Without opening them I knew that inside I’d find three tickets to Bermuda, and I better have a better excuse than Santa Claus for them. Maybe if I told her my new client was a travel agent? I couldn’t convince her that Santa brought them, could I?

But inside the envelope was nothing more than a three by five card, with a few lines of text penciled on it. I smiled, and realized I’d gotten the best Christmas present ever.

Ten thousand little miracles, and I was blessed with one. I got up to see if we had any cinnamon in the kitchen.

# END #

San Jose Sharks vs. Edmonton Oilers Ice Hockey

Jeff Cable’s Blog: San Jose Sharks vs. Edmonton Oilers Ice Hockey:

A funny thing happened when I was shooting this game. I shot most of these images with the Canon 1D Mark IV (which shoots 10 pictures per second) but also decided to use the Canon 5D Mark II with a Fisheye lens, like I did at the Winter Olympics. At the beginning of the second break, a gentleman came up to me, a little perplexed, and asked which lens I was using for the close-up shots. I told him about my setup with the Fisheye lens and he told me that he saw and liked my previous wide shots from the Olympics. As I explained to him, there are times when the athletes are right in front of me and I can not photograph them with a long lens (I was using the 70-200mm), so it is fun to try the wide lens to see what I get with that focal length. As you can tell from the image above, it really can pay off. This wide view really makes you feel like you are on the ice with them!

That person was me. I’d seen Jeff’s photography at the Vancouver Olympics and knew he was a bay area photographer, so I’d been quietly not stalking him via his work and his blog, so when I realized he’d shown up at the photo hole at the game, I thought I’d say hi if he wasn’t busy and I had a chance.

Then I saw the lens.

Since Laurie and I are both photo geeks to some degree or another, and we’ve sat down by the tunnel near one of the main photo holes for many years, we tend to keep an eye on who’s down there, and we’ve gotten to know some of the photographers over the years (on the other hand, we know many of them are running on deadline, and we try to leave them alone). When a new face catches our attention we (obviously) check out the gear and try to figure out who they are and where the publish (if they do).

In all the years I’ve been sitting there, I’ve never seen a photographer shoot out the hole with a fisheye. Honestly, I couldn’t believe that’s what it was, which is why I made sure I went and verified that’s what he was doing. It was a great chat, and it’s a fascinating technique. Mostly you see white lenses (or the Nikon equivalent), mostly things like the 200mm or a 70-200, which is to me the sweet spot shooting from a hole in hockey. A lot of photographers will carry a second wider body, but it’s typically something like a 24-70. And most of them can’t focus on the action right out of the hole; most of them are actually bailing if the action comes at them that close — and I don’t blame them, I’ve seen a couple of lenses dinged and we know one of the photogs who got dinged for stitches a few seasons ago.

But a fisheye? That’s not a sports lens! But in fact, it is, What Jeff said he did was set the focus to be about 2 feet out, and then he gaffer taped the focus in place so it wouldn’t move, and if the action comes near him, he can just aim at it and spray shots. it’s a fascinating technique and a great use of that lens, and if you go look at some of his olympic work, it’s quite successful. I never would have guessed how he did it, either, without having that chat.

And it’s a technique I’m already thinking about how to translate back into my nature photography. There’s some interesting concepts there.

Thanks for the chat, Jeff! And it’s always fun to actually say hi to another one of the local photographers….

Welcome to Notes From the Commish – kicking the puck into the net

Welcome to an occasional series of postings I’ve decided to start here — “Notes from the Commish”. These will show up once in a while when something comes up in hockey I feel like pontificating upon.

The fact is, NHL hockey is in pretty damn good shape overall, not that you’d believe that reading some of the pundits out there. Of course, my opinion is that a number of those pundits you shouldn’t waste oxygen on — I do not, in a rational, sane universe, see how Chris Botta could be without a press pass while Larry Brooks, Al Strachan and Mike Milbury are allowed to pontificate at will. Grr. but I digress.

Here in my universe, I’ve just been hired to be the new Commissioner of the NHL, and I’ve been given wide power to fix things I think need fixing. And so I will.

I won’t be doing this alone. I’ve brought on board, after a long retirement from hockey, my new Vice President of Discipline:

Long-time residents of the San Jose Arena might remember Barfy for his days of team building and encouragement of the referees that visited that hockey haven. He finally got sick and tired of the whole shebang and retired to Cancun and swore he’d never return until Rob Shick called an entire game correctly — but since Rob has retired, I’ve convinced him to come back and help me improve the game. But please, he no longer wants to be known by his playing days nickname, so from now on, we’ll call him by his given name — Colin.

Tonight’s Note from the Commish is on the kicking the puck into the net rule.

I hate it. I hate it for a couple of reasons:

First, it creates an unnecessary ambiguity in interpretation; it requires the referee on the ice to make a judgement call on the fly about the intent of the player, and that subjectivity affects the call and whether the goal is counted.

Second, it is impossible for this rule to be judged without going to instant replay, taking the final say away from the on-ice refs. No matter what, this play is going to replay, causing a delay, and causing everyone to second-guess the refs (including themselves). this undermines the ref’s control of the game, since the ultimate decision is made far, far away in the war room. Which, I note for the record, the members of the war room in Toronto hate it being called that. So I will.

By definition, half the people watching the game are going to hate the decision and consider the ref biased — no matter how they rule. That’s bad. And it doesn’t add significant scoring, and it doesn’t make the game better. It just creates a situation where the game has to stop while everyone looks at the super-slo-mo in toronto (in twelve angles) and tries to decide if the player intended to move the foot at the puck, or if the puck just hit the skate as part of the play. whoo. pee. doo. Hey, war room guys, your pizza is here. tip the guy this time.

I hereby, as Commiss, declare this rule to be changed. As of today, the ambiguity and subjectivity is gone. A puck that enters the net when the last touch by an offensive player is the player’s skate or boot is no goal. Period. I don’t care about kicking, I don’t care about intent to kick, or directing, or whether there were kicking motions or not. You can’t put the puck in the net with your foot. This isn’t soccer, and it’s not about intent. If the puck hits the skate or the boot, it’s no goal. You can’t kick it and bounce it off the goalie. If you can’t control it and get a stick on it, it’s no goal. the only thing the war room needs to worry about is whether it hit high enough to miss the boot and hit the shinpads instead, and that shouldn’t take 15 minutes and a trip to the Ouija board.

And it’s one less thing for the refs to look over their shoulder over, and one less thing for the fans to think the refs are biased against their team on. And it simplifies the game call on the ice by removing some subjectivity that really doesn’t matter or positively change the game. It’s a stupid rule.

Agree? Disagree? drop a comment with your opinion.

Got a rule or some aspect of hockey you want the Commish or — Colin — to rule on? drop us an email or a comment with the question. And we’ll be back soon with another Note from the Commish.

State of the Sharks 2010-2011

I’ve had a few people ask me my thoughts on the Sharks this year, so here are a few thoughts about them so far.

Overall, I’m satisfied with what i see. There are some rough edges, but name me a team in the NHL that doesn’t have them? We’ve been hit with some injuries, especially on defense, and that’s both shown that we have impressive depth in the organization, but that some of that depth is young. Justin Braun has been a real eye opener to me, he has a very rare ability to get a point shot through traffic and on goal, and isn’t afraid to do so — but he’s taken some time adjusting to the speed of the NHL, and he’s made some mistakes along the way. He pretty much singlehandedly gave up all of the goals in that bad Detroit loss, where the Wings schooled him and fed him his jock (but they do that to a lot of good players); he and the Sharks dealt with it appropriately, and he ratcheted back his pinching and played more conservatively, and he’s progressed very quickly. I expect he’ll go back to Worcester at some point, but he’s shown he’s got a good future as he continues to mature.

The two questions I seem to get asked more frequently are — what about our defense? and what about Nabby?

Nabby first. As big a supporter of Nabokov as I was, I felt the Sharks made the right move. Nabby wasn’t going to get better, and we’d seen what he brought to the team. With what his contract was going to require, I agreed with us moving on to another option, because goaltending that good was available elsewhere, and for less money, allowing us to spend more of the cap space on other needs. I’m not as convinced as some pundits that Nabby will end up back in the league this year, but he well could. Nittymaki was an adequate replacement for Nabokov, and when the Sharks got Niemi as well, I was thrilled. Niemi had a rough start, but he’s found his game, and he’s showing why he beat the Sharks in the playoffs last year. This is definitely an upgrade.

And on defense? we miss Blake, although I don’t miss his once-a-game 2 minute penalty for “I’m old” (usually a hook). While I wouldn’t mind an upgrade, I think the crew we have is good, when healthy. Wallin and Huskins as our 5-6 dmen is pretty good, but when we have injuries and they need to bump those two up to 3-4, it shows. Overall, though, I’m not worried. I like Jason Demers and he’s maturing nicely, and our top four D (Boyle, Vlasic, Murray, Demers) is pretty darn good. I don’t see much need to do anything, but if Wilson finds the right fit, I wouldn’t complain if he upgraded Huskins onto the black aces. the big thing is being healthy in the playoffs, and not depending much on the depth. Joslin is good as a physical body, Braun is a bit of a wildcard but in a year or so, watch out. I’m really impressed overall.

The player the Sharks really miss right now is Manny Malhotra, but I don’t blame them for not matching Vancouver’s money. Nicholl fills part of it and Jamal Mayers isn’t much of a downgrade on ice, but we miss Malhotra’s and Blake’s leadership and work ethic. The team is still figuring out who the new leaders are, and I think that shows in some of the inconsistency. I see no reason to panic, and I expect it to be sorted out by the playoffs.

Marleau is in one of his “enigmatic” phases, but I’ve come to realize at some point in every season we seem to wonder about Marleau, and at the end of the year, his numbers and contribution are there. He’ll kick it in and the questions will stop. Again. I expect that’ll be the way he is the rest of his career. Given the numbers end up being there and he shows up in the playoffs, I’ll live with it and not worry about it so much.

Thornton/Heatley is a great pair, and speaking as someone who was against the Heatley trade, I’m happy to say I’ve been proven very wrong on that deal, and I say that with great enthusiasm for what he’s done since coming to San Jose. Coture is a great pairing with Ryan Clowe, and ought to win rookie of the year. More amazingly, he actually might, despite playing out west were the eastern hockey media doesn’t see hi, regularly because the sharks games are up past their bedtime.

All in all, I give this team a B right now. I expect more, but this team will figure it out and bring it as the season progresses. I don’t see any glaring holes, I don’t see any significant problems that need to be fixed — but this isn’t a team beyond tweaking, and I expect at some point Wilson will. Most likely to not be in teal come the end of the season? Maybe Setoguchi, although I’m in no hurry to move him.

Final question: cheechoo? I think it’s great the Sharks have given him an opportunity in Worcester, but people who think this indicates Cheech might return to San Jose are thinking with their hearts and memory, not their heads and Cheechoo’s current abilities. The best Cheech could be in san jose is a part time player and black ace, if that. If he makes it back to the NHL, it’ll be with a lower tier team, and god help him, I hope it’s not the Islanders.

Best Photos 2010

As I did at the end of 2009, it’s time to collect and discuss what I consider to be my best photos of 2010 (and once again, Jim Goldstein is collecting and listing the photographers who are also taking on this project; be sure to check them out, there is going to be a lot of really great photography displayed if last year is any indication).

Overall, I added about 900 new images to my library, but with my increasing use of HDR, a raw count of images isn’t as useful as it was in previous years; I’ll need to think of a way of tracking final images vs. pieces used to construct images (via HDR or pano, another form I experimented with more in 2010). Looking at flickr, I uploaded 880 images taken in 2010, vs. 230 in 2009.

That 2009 number is somewhat misleading, however, because like I did in 2008, I completely re-edited my library, and as part of that, I retired about 1/3 of the library as no longer being something I considered up to my standard to use or display. That’s a good thing — it means I’m continuing to improve as a photographer and I continue to push my standards higher, so images I used to think are good are no longer good enough.

I think I did rather well this year, given that my longest vacation from work was three days in Yosemite — I was able to get there in time for a winter storm, and the results of shooting the morning after were, in my mind, stunning. I could have filled this best of JUST with images from that trip and been satisfied. As it is, four images from that trip made the cut, all very different types of images. I seem to be continuing my trend of not taking any significant time off, my longest vacation since leaving Apple is five days (plus weekends) for the yellowstone and grand teton trip in 2008 after dad died; my total vacation time the last four years is about two weeks total. That’s something I have to change in 2011 (and now that Palm is owned by HP, we aren’t at serious risk of running out of money, so it’ll be easier to do, I think). Still, I committed time to shooting when I could, and I tried to commit to shooting outside my comfort zone as often as possible, and I’m quite happy with the results. The acquisition of a Canon 7d didn’t hurt, either. That body has the ability to generate some really kick-ass images.

2010 was the year I finally set up a second photo site, on smugmug. This gave me a place to create a portfolio of my best images, so I could be very selective and use flickr more casually and for purposes other than my “not really professional” photography. I’ve uploaded about 300 images to smugmug, including a library of free wallpapers that are available for you to use. I’ve been quite humbled by the response to this and how many of you have downloaded them and emailed me about them. Thank you. I’ve also set up smugmug so you can buy prints if you see one you want, but it’s not something I’m marketing or promoting right now (outside of this paragraph). It’s there if you want it, though, but for now, that’s not something I’m putting time or energy into.

Without further ado…

Last year, I started with #10 and counted down. This year, let’s start at the top…

Bridalveil Falls after a winter storm, Yosemite National Park=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+To download a low-resolution version of this image, right-click on it. The low-resolution image is free to use and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works license. This allows you to use this image in a non-commercial way as long as you give proper attribution of the author and source. This license does not allow you to re-publish it for commercial use or to use it in an altered form without my explicit permission. If you wish to buy a print of this impage or license it for commercial use (you will receive a full-resolution, non-watermarked jpeg), you can do so in the store by clicking on the Buy button.

This image has to be consensus the best image of 2010; it’s my top image on flickr interestingness, has the most comments and favorites, made Flickr’s explore pages, and generally got amazing response from people. And I love it myself. It happens to be one of my favorite locations in Yosemite, and it was part of my March trip to Yosemite that turned out so well. I was lucky enough to get into Yosemite and stay at the lodge when a storm rolled in overnight and dumped a few inches of snow; by the time I’d gotten up and eaten breakfast, the roads were plowed and the place was simply magical, with photo ops everywhere. This lasted about four hours, until it warmed up enough for much of the snow to melt off and drop out of the trees, at which point the park looked rather grimy and muddy — but in the meantime, wow. Even better, that was exactly what I’d planned the trip for and hoped to run into.

This shot is from tunnel view, and I shot it in about three inches of slush as melt water ran through the area, shortly before the clouds moved in and obscured things again. Amazingly enough, I was the only person in tunnel view for most of the stay. it’s a 3 image HDR.

2: The Patriarch

Lowland Gorilla, San Francisco Zoo. When you look into the eyes of a gorilla, you see humanity.=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+To download a low-resolution version of this image, right-click on it. The low-resolution image is free to use and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works license. This allows you to use this image in a non-commercial way as long as you give proper attribution of the author and source. This license does not allow you to re-publish it for commercial use or to use it in an altered form without my explicit permission. If you wish to buy a print of this impage or license it for commercial use (you will receive a full-resolution, non-watermarked jpeg), you can do so in the store by clicking on the Buy button.

I love photographing at zoos. One of the fun challenges of shooting at zoos is to try to not make it obvious you’re at a zoo. Sometimes you can be very successful at that, other times, you take what’s available. With the gorilla enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo, I don’t think it’s possible to make images look “native”, and so I focus more on trying to bring out the personalities of the gorillas (and FWIW, I would never present a zoo-shot image as anything but a captive animal, ethically, that’s scummy and I would never do it). I find the lowland gorillas to be majestic animals, and at times rather sad; they’re very human in a way, and in their native lands their populations are under serious threat.

Here’s the Patriarch of the clan. For some reason he seemed pensive and retrospective. He wandered the enclosure a bit, and then went to a rock and sat down on it. It honestly looks like he’s posing for me (what you don’t see is me half buried in a bush while staying in bounds with feed firmly on the path to get an unobscured angle of him for these shots; many times he sits back and watches the rest of his group, for some reason, on this visit he seemed lost in his thoughts. The humanity in his eyes, the intelligence behind those eyes, really struck me for some reason and left me with a powerful reaction to him, which I tried to capture in these images.

3: Incoming!

Barn Swallow, Don Edwards Education Center, Alviso, California=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+To download a low-resolution version of this image, right-click on it. The low-resolution image is free to use and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works license. This allows you to use this image in a non-commercial way as long as you give proper attribution of the author and source. This license does not allow you to re-publish it for commercial use or to use it in an altered form without my explicit permission. If you wish to buy a print of this impage or license it for commercial use (you will receive a full-resolution, non-watermarked jpeg), you can do so in the store by clicking on the Buybutton.

One perch. Two swallows. As I was finishing a lunchtime walk at Don Edwards EEC in Alviso, I noticed a barn swallow perching on a snag. Another swallow made repeated passes, trying to dislodge it so it could perch instead. Ultimately, it failed and gave up, but in the meantime it gave me a chance to watch one of life’s little mini-dramas unfold.

4: Cute as a button

Baby Lowland Gorilla, San Francisco Zoo=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+To download a low-resolution version of this image, right-click on it. The low-resolution image is free to use and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works license. This allows you to use this image in a non-commercial way as long as you give proper attribution of the author and source. This license does not allow you to re-publish it for commercial use or to use it in an altered form without my explicit permission. If you wish to buy a print of this impage or license it for commercial use (you will receive a full-resolution, non-watermarked jpeg), you can do so in the store by clicking on the Buy button.

Back to the gorilla enclosure at San Francisco Zoo. This is the baby of the family, and she’s cute as a button. What you don’t see is that this is the only shot where the baby isn’t hiding its face, turning its back to me, crawling behind the tree, and generally being as uncooperative as possible. And after five minutes of that, she got bored and hauled herself offstage into the gorilla house for a nap.

But the one usable image I got? Worth every minute chasing it.

5: Forster’s Tern

Forster's Tern, Mountain View Shoreline Lake, California=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+To download a low-resolution version of this image, right-click on it. The low-resolution image is free to use and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works license. This allows you to use this image in a non-commercial way as long as you give proper attribution of the author and source. This license does not allow you to re-publish it for commercial use or to use it in an altered form without my explicit permission. If you wish to buy a print of this impage or license it for commercial use (you will receive a full-resolution, non-watermarked jpeg), you can do so in the store by clicking on the Buybutton.

The Forster’s Tern is a common bird here in the Bay Area, and fairly easy to photograph in flight because they have a tendency to do repeated passes across the same territory while hunting for fish, so you can set yourself up and wait for them to come by again. I particularly like this show for how the light shows off the bird and for how well the feather definition came out.

6: Pigeon Point Lighthouse

Pigeon Point Lighthouse, San Mateo County, CA

My favorite “postcard” shot of the year. This is a 3 shot HDR of Pigeon Point Lighthouse taken from an area just south of the building. I would have liked a slightly more dramatic sky, but I think this composition does a good job of making the lighthouse pop out as the focal point, with enough visual interest to accentuate it but not distract. Even better, this was what I was trying to get out of the camera when I took it…. As my photography has matured, I find myself working more for this kind of shot, and take fewer “senior portrait” type images, because I want to put the bird in context of what it does, as a way of explaining what it is.

7: Brown Pelican

Brown Pelican in Flight, Margo Dodd Park, Pismo Bech, California=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+To download a low-resolution version of this image, right-click on it. The low-resolution image is free to use and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works license. This allows you to use this image in a non-commercial way as long as you give proper attribution of the author and source. This license does not allow you to re-publish it for commercial use or to use it in an altered form without my explicit permission. If you wish to buy a print of this impage or license it for commercial use (you will receive a full-resolution, non-watermarked jpeg), you can do so in the store by clicking on the Buybutton.

8: Ibis Silhouette

White-Faced Ibis, San Luis National Wildlife Refuge, California

One thing I’ve been experimenting with more over the last year or so is nature abstractions and using silhouette and shape as a way to express the animal (for instance, see this); when I was out at San Luis Reserve I came across a large flock of White-Faced Ibis along the access road to the preserve, it was a good opportunity to get some nice images of the bird, except they were horribly backlit and there was no way to get behind them for better light. The solution was to shoot for silhouette and look for abstration opportunities.

And sometimes you get lucky. I think what makes this shot is not JUST catching the bird repositioning the worm so it can swallow it, but that small highlight on the back of the neck that turns this from a black blog outline into a three dimensional silhouette. I wish I could say I planned for that — well, I did, a bit, because I was trying to get the exposure to give me some texture in the silhouette form rather than pure, total black, but when I did the post processing, what looked best was just that bit of a catch light, and the fully lit worm in process of becoming dinner. This may be my most popular bird image of the year based on number of views.

9: Western Bluebird

Western Bluebirds bathing, Marsh Road, Santa clara county, california=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+To download a low-resolution version of this image, right-click on it. The low-resolution image is free to use and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works license. This allows you to use this image in a non-commercial way as long as you give proper attribution of the author and source. This license does not allow you to re-publish it for commercial use or to use it in an altered form without my explicit permission. If you wish to buy a print of this impage or license it for commercial use (you will receive a full-resolution, non-watermarked jpeg), you can do so in the store by clicking on the Buybutton.

I love photographing bluebirds when I can, and they’re a bird that’s not afraid to show a little personality. I caught this male near his nest — this is actually up where I view the bald eagle nest near Calaveras Reservoir. He decided to stop and check me out, even though I was keeping my distance (why is his head cocked that way? The one negative of this image is that because of distance, it’s cropped more than I like, but honestly, he’s just too cute to ignore. Others thought so, too. The Cornell Labs asked for permission to use this in Birdscope.

10: El Capitan after a Winter Storm

El Capitan in a Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+To download a low-resolution version of this image, right-click on it. The low-resolution image is free to use and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works license. This allows you to use this image in a non-commercial way as long as you give proper attribution of the author and source. This license does not allow you to re-publish it for commercial use or to use it in an altered form without my explicit permission. If you wish to buy a print of this impage or license it for commercial use (you will receive a full-resolution, non-watermarked jpeg), you can do so in the store by clicking on the Buy button.

Back to Yosemite for another shot. Another 3 image HDR, this was taken the morning after the storm as it was moving out, and the combination of the storm clouds and the fresh snow on the pines and just a hint of glow on the rocks just blew me away. If there’s a shot that convinces you to give HDR a try, this is it — there’s none of the “grunge” that some people react to negatively in HDR photography, and this isn’t a shot you could reproduce via graduated ND filters in a more traditional way; it really was the ability to widen the dynamic range in a natural way that made this image possible.

11: Pigeon Guillemot in flight

Pigeon Guillemot in flight, pigeon point, california=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+To download a low-resolution version of this image, right-click on it. The low-resolution image is free to use and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works license. This allows you to use this image in a non-commercial way as long as you give proper attribution of the author and source. This license does not allow you to re-publish it for commercial use or to use it in an altered form without my explicit permission. If you wish to buy a print of this impage or license it for commercial use (you will receive a full-resolution, non-watermarked jpeg), you can do so in the store by clicking on the Buybutton.

Yes, I couldn’t limit myself to ten. I tried, but this year I just loved too many images. Shot near Pigeon Point, where the Guillemot’s nest, this is one of the adults returning to the nest. I love the juxtaposition of the bird and the water, and I think it shows the plumage and coloration very well. It amuses the heck out of me that the bird is clearly looking at me while flying in — but that’s also a quiet reminder that even when you keep your distance and aren’t encroaching on the birds, they tend to be very aware of you and you are interacting with them. Even though I was on a public path and well away from the nest, after noticing in this shot that the bird was reacting to me on flying into the nest, I pulled out and left them to their chick. No image is worth potentially disrupting a nest or ruining a breeding cycle, and you can never be too careful about respecting a nesting bird’s territory — and there’s no reason to hang around once you do get the shot, because even at a distance, you could be stressing the bird and potentially impacting the success of the nest.

12: Anna’s Hummingbird

Anna's Hummingbird, Shoreline Lake, Mountain View, California

This shot was taken near Shoreline Lake in Mountain View. I ran into this hummingbird, who put on a major show for the camera; very outgoing, it sat on a branch for about ten minutes gesturing and showing off, giving me a good opportunity to get some nice shots of him. The bird turns out to need a good agent, since I’ve talked to three other photographers who also spent good time with it during the summer — just a precocious little extrovert, he was. This shot it my favorite because of the sharp focus on the eye and the good lighting on the facial coloring and the detail in the feathering, along with the almost clownlike posture.

13: Western Kingbird

Western Kingbird, Marsh road, Milpitas, CA=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+To download a low-resolution version of this image, right-click on it. The low-resolution image is free to use and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works license. This allows you to use this image in a non-commercial way as long as you give proper attribution of the author and source. This license does not allow you to re-publish it for commercial use or to use it in an altered form without my explicit permission. If you wish to buy a print of this impage or license it for commercial use (you will receive a full-resolution, non-watermarked jpeg), you can do so in the store by clicking on the Buybutton.

One of my favorite birds, they’re summer residents here in the Bay Area, and they hang out on things like fences and catch bugs. They’re also rather tolerant of people with cameras in general. This one was shot out on Marsh Road in the Calaveras area, and it let me slide up in the car and get a good shot of it while it hung out on the barbed wire waiting for a bug to come by…

14: Mountain Chickadee

There’s a story to this image…..

It’s another image from the Yosemite trip. Going to Yosemite that time of year, I had three birds on my list to try to find to add to my birding list; golden-crowned kinglet, White-headed Woodpecker, and Mountain Chickadee. As is traditional for me, as soon as I hit the valley, I went up to tunnel view to hang out and take in the valley floor. In the trees nearby I heard the clear call of some mountain chickadees, so I went looking. And the birds spent the next 15 minutes hiding among the pine branches and refusing to come out to be seen or photographed (although they did get me good looks at a Golden-Crowned Kinglet, so I forgave them).

That set the stages for the next few days; wherever I went on the valley floor, I heard mountain chickadees calling; wherever I heard mountain chickadees, I saw small blobs deep in shadow mocking me. The life of a birder some days. I kept at it, and the birds actually turned me onto some interesting birds, including a couple of brown creepers. But they still refused to come out and be seen (or counted).

Finally, towards the end of the second day, my last full day in the park, I was exploring down around the trails of lower yosemite falls. The storm was moving in, and the weather was changing for the worse, temperature falling, light failing. I’d seen a female coyote wander through the area and I’d heard sounds that indicated she had a den nearby — and while I wasn’t looking for it, I was keeping my ears out (if only because I didn’t want a surprised and unhappy momma coyote mad at me). I was photographing the lower falls and about to call it when the chickadee flock moved in. For the next 15 minutes, a flock of about 20 birds rummaged the trees around me. I got good enough looks to confirm them for my birding list, but a photographic image? They were too smart for that.

Finally, more or less in desperation, I just started shooting images of whatever moved in the trees around me, and when I got back to the room that night, this is what I got. It’s very clearly a mountain chickadee — in outline — having just taken off and on the run away from the idiot photographer. I like it for the crispness of the outline (that foot hanging out just makes it for me) while still being very abstract. And it’s the best shot I got of the damn birds the entire trip. It’s a great example of how you should look at your “dings” and see what possibilities might exist for them — rather than try to “save” it in post processing to recover the details of the bird, I went the other direction and accentuated the black and white and silhouette aspects to maximize the abstract aspect, and I think it works nicely.

By the way, the chickadees won. They kept me chasing them JUST long enough that I didn’t quite make it back to the car before the sleet kicked in. Almost, but I got a bit damp (and cold) getting back to the room. But I didn’t mind, either….

15: Yosemite Falls in a Winter Storm

Upper Yosemite Falls in a winter storm, Yosemite National Park, California=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+To download a low-resolution version of this image, right-click on it. The low-resolution image is free to use and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works license. This allows you to use this image in a non-commercial way as long as you give proper attribution of the author and source. This license does not allow you to re-publish it for commercial use or to use it in an altered form without my explicit permission. If you wish to buy a print of this impage or license it for commercial use (you will receive a full-resolution, non-watermarked jpeg), you can do so in the store by clicking on the Buy button.

The last night I was in Yosemite, the storm moved in and dropped snow; the next morning, the park crew plowed and I ate breakfast, and then I packed up, cleared the snow off the car, and went exploring. I started with a loop around the valley floor just to see what might be interesting, and as I stopped at Yosemite Falls, I ran into a small group of mule deer, and then the momma coyote wandered through again and headed back into the brush to her den. The storm clouds were still thick and were obscuring most of the cliffs, but were starting to break up a bit. Suddenly, upper Yosemite Falls peeked out, and I was lucky enough to get some shots of it, just visible and with a fair bit of ice around the falls.

Why they want your email address…

Gawker Hacked: Seeing Past Your Nose | Jeff Nolan – Venture Chronicles:

However, did you ever wonder why media sites force you to register in order to comment? They want your email address and identity information for driving marketing and promotions as well as enabling data services businesses. They provide no real utility in exchange for getting you to hand over a piece of personal information… unless you consider their email products useful.

Two words — trolls and griefers.

I’m actually a little disappointed to see people still don’t understand this — and I’m not pretending that the marketing aspects don’t exist (they do), but if you don’t have some way of managing access, then at some point, the trolls and griefers WILL move in, and you have a problem because you can’t stop them. So you need some form of identification, and the most reliable (but low-friction) way of that is by email address. Part of the reason that succeeds is because the free email services have all had to deal with the spammers and trolls and griefers and are fairly effective and limiting their ability to do high volume email address creation, and you can hide behind their shoulders to a degree by using email as an identifier. For these kinds of situations you don’t need to know who a person is, but you do need to know that this person IS a specific person, so you can block further access by them.

Take a look at just about any site that doesn’t have registration, and you see a commenting/discussion area that’s useless because it’s been taken over by trolls, griefers, porn spammers and people who believe the way to win an argument is to be the last person screaming.

Bottom line, if you run a nice sports bar where people gather to talk about football or hockey, and a band of bikers drive up and wander in and start demanding beers, you have two choices; you either kick the bikers out, or you turn into a biker bar, because they’re going to cause everyone in your primary audience to stop coming and go somewhere else. And today, online, the most effective limiter for these situations is the email address. The occasional really motivated troll that’ll continually reinvent identities to come back and keep abusing your site can usually be handled as a special case, and msot of the bikers can be kept out by choosing which addresses you can block and prevent further abuse of your system. Don’t have that, and you’ve lost.

Writing about Hockey

Every so often I get an email from someone asking why I don’t write about hockey anymore. I figure it’s probably time to talk about it here, if only so I can point to it later and stop writing it multiple times…

Short answer: I haven’t. But I have taken an extended break. I’m starting to write a bit this season, and I have some stuff I plan on writing when I get the time and motivation.

The primary reason I took a break is pretty simple — writing about hockey stopped being fun. I’ve come to believe that some things in your life need to be reserved for fun — if you turn everything into work, then you’re never NOT working. When writing about hockey started feeling more like work than fun, it was time to step back and get back to what hockey really should be — a diversion from real life and something to just relax and enjoy.

A second reason I felt like it was time to step away for a while is that so much hockey and sports writing is really negative; there are writers and bloggers that seem unable to write anything but rip pieces — this is especially true in much of the Canadian press, where it seems if you actually say something nice about a team you cover, you get fired. it seems a lot of writers have taken the “good news doesn’t sell newspapers” concept seriously, to a fault. I find many of them unreadable.

But worse, since I always wanted to try to show both sides of the situation, to write with a balance (and promote what’s good about the sport as well), I tended to end up a target for fans who respond to things they disagree with using abuse. After a while, I just got really tired of the trolls, to be honest, whether those trolls are bloggers who can’t handle someone saying something doesn’t suck, fans who see anything they disagree with as something to be attacked, or professional trolls like Bruce Garrioch. It seemed impossible to try to hold an intelligent conversation without attracting the reactionaries, and so I decided to stop. There didn’t seem to be much of an audience for someone who wasn’t reinforcing the “it all sucks” motif. I’m still not convinced there is, although there are some writers out there (like David Pollak at the Merc) who still have that balance (although, god, read the comment section on just about any posting on his blog, and you’ll see why I stopped)

And finally… there are some really good writers out there, which allows me the ability to sit back and let them write instead. If we’d invented the blogosphere 15 years earlier, maybe I’d have done things differently, but today, with folks like Pollak, Mike Chen over on SB Nation and Jon Swenson over at Sharkspage, I don’t feel a great need to wade in and have my say these days. I much prefer sitting back and watching and having a good time and not worrying so much about whether they’re using a left wing lock or a modified trap.

And here’s a hint: if you hate everything going on about the sport, why are you watching it? If you’ve hit that point where hockey (or sports in general) is nothing but a reason to complain about stuff, go do something else. If it’s not fun any more, why do you inflict it on your eyeballs? And then inflict yourself on us?

That’s a rhetorical question. Please don’t answer it in the comments. I already know the answer….

Modano and Skate Cuts in Hockey.

Modano undergoes surgery to repair injury on right wrist

Mike Modano has undergone surgery after suffering a laceration from a skate blade on his right wrist during a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday night. The veteran will be out of the lineup indefinitely depending on the progress of his recovery.

This is a sad situation, and probably ends his career. It’s not the way Modano wanted to leave the game, and not the way he deserved to go.

But what really worries me is the increasing incidence of skate cuts in hockey. When Clint Malarchuk almost died 20 some years ago, it was horrific not just because of the cut, but because of how rare skate cuts were in the game.

Even five years ago, skate cuts were fairly rare. The last couple of seasons, however, have seen multiple cuts each season, some of them quite serious. Achilles tendons severed, significant cuts to the quads — this seems to be a growing problem in the NHL and one that NHL has a chance to grapple with before it becomes a crisis.

What isn’t well known is that this is the second skate cut on an arm this season. The Sharks Jason Demers is currently on injured reserve, and while the Sharks have been typically quiet about the cause (all we know is “day to day”, not even which body half), the incident happened in front of us at the game in a scrum around the crease, and Demers immediately skated off holding his arm near the glove cuff — it looked to me like a skate blade came up and nicked him in the same general area that Modano was cut. Fortunately, though, the damage seems much less serious to Demers.

Why is this happening? I’ve thought about this a while, and I think I understand what’s going on. Players are now big enough, fast enough and strong enough that hits are becoming violent enough that they no longer are able to control what happens when they get hit — so body parts flail and legs are starting to kick up more frequently, with those razor sharp blades on the end.

This implies that this isn’t a situation calling for rule changes or a fix to enforcement, but we need to improve safety equipment. More and more players are wearing kevlar sleeves in the socks, which prevents the blade from penetrating the flesh. Many levels of amateur hockey are requiring similar protection for the neck.

My hope is that the NHL sees this as the problem it’s becoming and the union doesn’t get stupid about making this a “personal choice” issue they way they’ve fought visors, and that the league starts mandating kevlar protective sleeves on the legs and arms. I’d love to see manufacturers look into whether this protection can we woven into hockey pants to protect the quads and hamstrings.

This really shouldn’t be a hassle for players or a controvesial safety call (but I bet it will be) — I’ve seen no sign that players adopting these leg sleeves have complained about it impacting their performance the way they kvetch about visors. And since we seem to be up to 4-6 incidents a year causing an injury that causes a player to lose at least one game — it’s in the league’s best interest to get on this before someone gets their career terminated or they die from a cut to a sensitive location.

(and for what it’s worth, I’m in favor of the league making neck protection encouraged but optional — injuries to that location are exceptionally rare (twice in 25 years), but when they happen, they’re catastrophic, but the hockey players I’ve talked to that use those protectors invariably hate them as uncomfortable. Perhaps this is another place manufacturers and research, but as nasty as Malarchuk’s injury was, I’m more worried about the more common skate cuts we’re seeing on arms and legs and protecting players from those — unless you’re a goalie, and if you are, I hope you’re smart enough to already be wearing throat protection….

Debate continues over hit that brought Sharks’ Joe Thornton a 2-game suspension – San Jose Mercury News

Debate continues over hit that brought Sharks’ Joe Thornton a 2-game suspension – San Jose Mercury News:

Sharks radio analyst Jamie Baker wrote in his blog on the team’s website that the Blues themselves had some responsibility, citing among other things the pass from defenseman Alex Pietrangelo through the neutral zone that put Perron at risk. Baker, as well as several Sharks players, also accused Perron of embellishing the damage by lying prone on the ice, noting he quickly returned to action once penalties were determined. The Blues forward, however, missed his next two games because of headaches.

There is a continuing controversy over the ejection and suspension of Thornton after his hit on Perron. It’s devolved somewhat into a lot of sub-arguments, including whether Perron embellished the injury and whether the Blues erred in letting him play later in the game.

My feeling was that given the hit to the head rule and that referees don’t have instant replay or slow motion to evaluate a hit with that the penalty and ejection were fine. The speed and angle of the hit was such I don’t blame a referee at all for making that call. I was convinced, however, that there wouldn’t be a suspension. I don’t understand the two games off. Still don’t.

There is a legitimate issue involving larger players hitting smaller players, and the larger player has to work harder to not hit the smaller player in the head. Player safety should be a priority, my recommendation on this is that larger players get used to it. Believe it or not, they’re not stupid, and they’ll figure out how to make the hit without hitting the head once players realize they’re going to get penalized for it. A few hits will end up called — but I’ll take healthy players here over a few unfortunate hits.

The whole diving/embellishment thing is a thorny problem. How do you solve it? the league hasn’t figured it out yet. But — combine it with the question of whether Perron should have been allowed back into the game, and I think you have an angle towards a solution.

It’s simple. If a player is injured on the ice to the degree that a trainer has to go out an attend to them, that player is not allowed back into the game until seen by a doctor and the doctor clears them to play. That means they have to go to the locker room and be seen. Period. That prevents a player from going back to the bench and convincing a non-doctor he’s okay. It also is a strong disincentive for that player to — embellish. No more “he’s dead! he missed a shift!” and the trained personnel has a chance to evaluate the injury and make sure he really is okay before coming back. In the case of an injury where a player goes down to a hit to the head — the player can’t come back until the doctor and referee talk and the referee approves him back into play (in other words, in between periods). That way, hits to the head have time to be carefully evaluated AND the referee has a chance to be sure proper procedures were followed in evaluating.

The one exception to this rule are goaltenders, but the referee in that case should be given the authority to send the goalie off for evaluation if he goes down and has to be attended to.

Player safety becomes a higher priority, and in a way that discourages diving. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

oops!

If you follow me on twitter the other day, you probably saw that I had an “oops!” moment. It’s a great example of “best laid plans….” situation.

I was doing some work on the server we host our sites on, and I ended up in a different location than the one I thought I was in, and did a “rm -rf *” in it. And as soon as I did, I went — “oops!” because I realized I wasn’t in the right place.

The NEXT thing I realized was I hadn’t synced up my backup before starting work. So that’s “oops!^^2″, I guess.

And yes, the folder I deleted was the one with all of the web site files in it.

Now, the good news. The blogs are all database driven and the database wasn’t touched. the backup existed, it just wasn’t 100% up to date. So it was a minor annoyance instead of a major catastrophe. I had pretty much everything restored and the sites back online in about 20 minutes, and I spent the evening looking at things and cleaning up. My blog lost some patches (which I put back in tonight) and as it turns out, the graphics for two of my postings went poof, and I’m going to have to recreate them.

So all things considered, it becomes a teachable moment instead of a gut-wrenching disaster. And I love teachable moments.

This is the classic reason why people use say things like “I don’t need to wear seat belts, I’m a careful driver” are fooling themselves. “careful driver” doesn’t save you from being rear-ended by the guy on a conference call with the sales team in Cleveland, “careful driver” doesn’t save you from the bee that flies in through your open window and stings you at a stop light, and “careful driver” doesn’t prevent that carefully timed sneeze just as you’re reaching for the brake pedal.

In other words — “careful” is no protection from Lord Murphy, and Murphy’s Law will win, sooner or later. In this case, I made two mistakes that cascaded. One was I skipped a step in my safety process for working on the hosted server (“step 1: back it up. Step 2: BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN YOU HAVE NO NET”), and then I made a simple mistake, which I realized just after doing it. Nobody’s perfect. I’ve spent more years dealing with servers as a root-capable geek than many of you have been programming — and I still make mistakes. Rarely, but I make them.

Which is why I love backups. And because I wasn’t pristine in doing them, this went from being a 20 minute pain in the neck to being about a six hour cleanup, and I have about two more hours rebuilding the missing graphics. That’s a hell of a lot better than “oh my god, it’s gone”, so even though the backup wasn’t perfect, it saved me major troubles.

How are your backups?

Well, mine are now pristine. Both copies (because I immediately made the old one read-only and set it aside, just in case i need a file in a week or a month. Don’t you?)

Ooops.

A gift passed on

Some days people give you a gift without even realizing it. Here is a gift I am pleased to pass along to you.

This gift started out as a tweet from Vonda McIntyre, noting that Ursula K. Le Guin is now blogging. That in itself was enough to make my day; back in the ancient of days when I was involved with SFWA and writing a bit I got to know many of the authors in the field, but Le Guin is one of those rare writers that changed how I viewed the field, and through her non-fiction and criticism also changed how I thought about life. She is one of those rare people that I bestow the “I will happily read your shopping lists” honor on (the others I’ve given that award to being Ray Bradbury, Gene Wolfe, Terry Carr, and Damon Knight — each of which deserves its own discussion point at some point in the future). She is also one of the most gracious and nice people you’ll ever meet.

It turns out that Le Guin is blogging at a site called “Book View Cafe“, which describes itself as an online consortium of writers; effectively, it’s a shared blog and publicity resource that somehow I hadn’t discovered before today. That’s my loss, because there are a group of really interesting people involved with that site, and the blog looks to be chock full of Interesting Stuff You Probably Want To Read. A quick glance at the authors involved with the site shows a long list of names I can recommend to you as well worth your time, including not only McIntyre and Le Guin, but Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, Brenda Clough, Katherine Kerr, Laura Anne Gilman, Phyllis Radford, Judith Tarr (and her horse), Sarah Zettel, and Sherwood Smith. All of which are extremely nice and interesting people to spend time with as well as writers worthy of your time.

So please consider wandering on over to the Book View Cafe blog, and attach your eyeballs to it for a while. Your eyeballs will likely thank you and ask for a return visit.

An audience of one….

I got this in an email today. Since I’ve been thinking about similar things over the last week or so, I figured I’d continue mulling it over here in public for the amusment and horror of all…

I am finding that the volume of your personal tweets that seem to be replicated on LinkedIn keeps me from seeing updates from other contacts on LinkedIn.

I figured it was better to ask you first. How would you handle this situation?

There is, of course, an implied “and if you don’t fix this, I’ll have to unsubscribe from reading you” in the sub-text.

Which is understandable. Managing the firehose of information that is the internet is a challenge. So much to follow, and there’s always that implied worry that you’re missing something, so there’s a quiet pressure to keep broadening your reading, which means if you don’t keep an eye on it, it becomes an infinite time sink and then nothing useful gets done.

I’ve struggled with this over the years. I think we all have. It’s nothing new here, either — one of the challenges we always faced with mailing lists is that whenever a mailing list got onto a topic that the group was motivated to talk about, message volume would spike, and that would shortly be followed by people clamoring for QUIET because the volume of messages was bothering them. Imagine that — the best mailing lists were ones that weren’t used, because if you use them for things that the group was interested in, you got told to shut up.

And I say that somewhat facetiously, but it was a serious issue in using email for one to many communication, one that we never really solved well. Digests for mailing lists were at best a nasty hack, one I always hated. client filters solved the problem better if users took the time to learn them and use them, and too few did. It was easier just to complain that people were actually enthusiastic about a topic and that was bad, because it generated too much content. This was ultimately a key reason I gave up on mailing lists — they were from the “well, all I have is a hammer, so this must be a nail” era of the internet, and I’ve been exploring alternatives to mailing lists for group communication since my first painful attempts to use forums in about 1998.

The web and RSS changes the equations but to some degree doesn’t solve it; there’s still way too much content out there and the challenge is how to edit and filter it so you get what you want and need without drowning.

The tools to do this are still pretty young and immature, but we’re getting there, slowly. Here’s how I do it these days, and in that is the answer to my friend’s question.

I allocate a chunk of time to following the news, much as my mom and dad allocated time every day to read a newspaper. I don’t do it at the morning table — I tend to browse throughout the day, lots of the time comes while I’m waiting for “stuff” to happen or finish. Since I’m constantly exploring and finding new stuff to follow, it’s safe to say I’m always bumping up against the “credit limit” for my time budget here. When I find myself doing that, I look at what is in the feeds and I delete feeds that are least interesting (or more correctly, ones for whom the time it takes to process those feeds outweighs the content or enjoyment of processing them). Quiet feeds have a lower barrier of entry; busy feeds need to more consistently bring in useful information for me to keep following them.

I typically find having about 400-425 feeds in my Google Reader fits in my time budget. When it gets over 450, I find myself feeling like I’m wasting too much time on it; if I drop it below that, I feel like I’m not reading widely enough. So that’s my comfort level.

Ditto things like facebook and twitter and all of the other places that have streams of data passing through. They all get a time budget; that budget is a subset of the overall time budget I allocate to following “stuff” out there.

You get into my feeds if I find you interesting. You leave my feeds if there are other feeds more interesting than you and I run out of time consistently before getting to your stuff. And, of course, my interests are constantly evolving — I used to read a LOT of Apple-oriented feeds (for obvious reason); today, it’s about four. Those feeds didn’t become uninteresting — my interests changed. it’s not you, it’s me. Honest.

I don’t play the “I’ll follow you if you follow me” game. Most of the people doing that, in reality, are doing the “I’ll pretend to follow you to get you to follow me” game, and I have no time or interest in playing that game. I find it disingenuous, but not as disingenous as getting the notification of someone following me on twitter, only to see they’ve already unfollowed me by the time I go and look at whether I might want to follow them (which I do). Amusingly enough, that is a very common occurence among “social media experts” who follow 10,000 or more people. I’m sure they read those feeds religiously, too.

I post stuff to the various services for a very specific audience: me. I have an audience of one. I put it out there because it’s the stuff I find interesting enough to be the stuff I want out there when I’m looking. To the degree that what you find interesting is the same as what I find interesting is what makes reading my postings worth time in your browsing time budget. Or not.

I am sensitive to the time issue. That’s one reason why I consciously keep the blog relatively low-volume and focussed, and have shifted the more casual link-love and the chattering conversational stuff over to twitter. It gives people some options to subset what I do to fit their interests if they want. I long ago gave up the presumption that my every word is to be studied and cherished. Please, god, don’t archive me and turn me into a PhD thesis in 30 years, okay? I really wonder sometimes about people who feel everything they say has to go to every channel and be archived forever, and why they would even want that. But that’s just me…

The twitter to linkedin bridge is one I’ve wondered about. It seems to me Linkedin might better be served as a tighter, more formal communication channel. But right now, I think the balance and volume is okay, and to date, I’ve gotten, well, one complaint about it. So I’m leaving it alone, but I might decide it warrants a smaller firehose than facebook gets down the road. This is all new, and we’re figuring it all out as we go along…

Which is my long-winded answer to the question: if what I do has enough value to you to read and follow, great. If not, that’s great, too. If you feel you want subsets of the material, I’ve set up ways to do that in various ways (blog only, photos only, etc) or you can build your own filters if you care. Or you can choose not to follow it and use your time on something better fitting your interests. That’s the joy of this; nobody’s forcing you to do anything, there are always options.

I do hope you find me interesting and choose to read what I put out there. But if you don’t — life goes on. For me, what’s important is that what I put out there is what I find interesting. Too many people go into this trying to create content for an audience they hope to attract, and far too often, turn out uninteresting or commercial stuff. Me, I’m just trying to do what’s fun and interesting for me, and to the degree that there are those out there that also find it fun and interesting I’ll have an audience. I try not to pay much attention to “the numbers”, but I will say they’re growing slowly and I’m quite satisfied that the time I put into creating content is a good investment of my time.

And that’s all that matters. If it’s a good investment of time, do it. If if it’s, do something else. to view it any other way is to overcomplicate things. …

Upgrading your printer — and do you really need one?

The Online Photographer: What a Printer Costs:

Regarding the expense of printers: remember that the cost going in is sometimes not an adequate reflection of the ongoing costs, because, as is well known by now, the profits are built into the consumables rather than the hardware.

We own two printers, a Canon that typically has standard paper in it for general day to day use, and the HP B9180, which at the time was a very good prosumer-class printer. Both are four years old. The B9180 has been very creaky for a while, occasionally spitting out a random part (usually wheels the paper handling) and it costs about $200 to refresh all of the ink carts. I finally decided that when these sets of inks ended, that’d mean the printer was retired.

And it’s reported one of the inks has failed. So it’s retired. No complaints about the printer, it’s given yeoman service, but time to move on. And the Canon is still performing admirably — but it’s four years old, and in some ways, I think it’s only a matter of time before it chooses retirement — and in four years, technology has changed markedly.

So I’ve been grappling with printers, printer functionality and printer costs recently. It’s a chaotic mess.

And I keep coming back to an even more basic question. Do I even need a printer? Or more correctly, do I need a photo printer?

I love printing out my images. I love stuffing them in the hands of friends. I love putting them up on walls. I love printing them out in fairly large prints for my walls. And I’ve really fallen in love with my prints on art papers such as Hahnemuhle’s German Rag. I’ve been having trouble convincing myself to spend $400 and more for a printer to do that (I’ve been considering printers like the Epson R1900 or the Canon PIXMA Pro9000).

When you can print an 11×14 on standard paper for $7.00 at Mpix, or a canvas print for $25? How many prints do you need to produce to make it cost effective to bring printing in-house? What options are available in-house that you can’t do through a service?

For me, at this stage in my photography work, it’s hard to justify the cost of the printer to print the volume of prints I do. As I progress further towards art prints and want full control of the production — maybe. I lose access to the papers I like to experiment with. But it just seems to me that right now, and for the next year or so, there’s no way I’d be producing enough prints to justify a prosumer printer as a cost effective investment; I can do what I need (and most of what I want) with a lab like MPIX, and spend a lot less money doing so. Right now, I’m more interested in “hacking” on the post processing aspect of image creation than on print production, so outsourcing that seems like the right move for the time being. I do expect that to change, but I’ve decided I can defer buying a new prosumer printer for now (and spend that money on other camera gear instead).

Does that sound like a reasonable decision? If not, why not?

There’s still a definite need for a printer aroaund the house though; the day to day plain-paper printing still exists, and a quality photo printer that can print 8×10 glossy for simple work and proofing. It looks to me like printer technology today allows that to be the same printer — four years ago, I felt using a photo printer for “normal” printing was too expensive, but today, that doesn’t seem to be true.

What I’d like to find, then, is a good printer with a few key options: I’m willing to pay the costs for a printer with good quality archival-caliber inks, even for day to day printing. Has to handle normal printing and up to 8×10 glossy easily. WIFI/wireless capable. My current printer is an all-in-one, and I can count the number of times I’ve used the pieces other than the printer on one hand, so that’s not a priority. The one that’s stumping me right now: I want it to support two paper types so I can leave glossy paper in a secondary tray so I can print without having to reconfigure the printer.

I haven’t found a printer I like that has the two tray capability at a reasonable price. Anyone have suggestions?

We’re all selling bundles of bits… We can learn from each other

At October 20, 2010
By Chuq Von Rospach
In Photography, The Internet, The Writing Life
1

Dean Wesley Smith » The New World of Publishing: The Rolling Stone is Gaining Speed.:

The rolling stone of small and self-publishing is gaining speed as every day goes by.

Starting on last Thursday evening and running for three days, novelist Scott William Carter and I led a discussion with a little over thirty well-published professional writers on the reasons, the art, and the promise of both electronic publishing and POD (print on demand) publishing for fiction writers. Fun doesn’t even begin to describe the three days we called “The New Tech Workshop.” Tiring would be a understatement. We worked with the writers on the ease of doing web sites, then worked on taking a story and making sure the organization and formatting were correct, then we spent about two hours while everyone in the room built from scratch a cover for their story.

Then we worked them through getting that story on Amazon Kindle. And frighteningly enough, at that point we weren’t even halfway through the three days. We talked POD, marketing, building a publishing company and so much more.

One of the things I’ve been digging into over the last couple of months is information to help developers who are writing apps for our platform understand the economic and business environment they are trying to sell into. Another thing I’ve been researching is potential revenue models for my personal work, as I try to understand how the markets are starting to mature for online distribution and sale of things like photos and e-books.

Not surprising to me at all, any research into e-publishing and this massive disruption of the paper book publishing model leave me on the front porch of Dean Wesley Smith, author and the former publisher of Pulphouse Press and Pulphouse Magazine — which, back in the days when I was writing fiction, actually bought one of my stories. So let me say right up front that if you’re at all interested in e-publishing in any form, Dean’s blog is a must read, and you should subscribe to it and go look through his earlier writings on this.

What I did not expect to find, what I am still honestly trying to wrap my head around, is this — we are all increasingly doing variations of the same thing, and it looks to me if we can figure out how to get the conversations going between the right groups and people, there are massive opportunities for collaboration, mentoring and sharing that everyone involved in the online publishing e-commerce space can benefit from.

Think about this a second. It doesn’t matter if you are a musician recording a song, a videographer producing a movie, a pundit with a podcast, an author with a book, a photographer with an image, or a developer with a application — more and more, those are all variations of the same thing. Each of those specific crafts has many touch points in common:

You use your craft to create something
That thing is — ultimately — a bundle of bits
You have to package that bundle of bits
You have to distribute it
You need a way to collect revenue on it
You need marketing and PR for it and ways to create demand and generate interest
You need to manage the business that supports the creation of your craft items

Once you get past that first action — everyone is doing the same set of tasks with variations. And to a good degree, each craft is living in a silo, figuring it out in isolation and reinventing tools and techniques. without looking to see what other groups are doing.

Why?

The more I look at this, the more I see opportunities. Fiction writers and photographers have understood how to manage a small business around the craft of publishing material for years. So have photographers. Developers are figuring out how to create things for online use and working on the various platforms on didstribution (and this is already a fascinating space to live in, and it’s going to get a lot more interesting in the next few years as platform/carrier independent app stores start to emerge and come into their own.

I had a discussion today with some people about the need to start seeing all of these bundles of bits as variations of the same thing, and look for ways to enable their distribution and revenue generation, that we need to create tools and techniques to help get these things into the distribution channels without a lot of custom coding, and we need to figure out how to market and do publicity in this new era so that these bundles of bits can be discovered and sold and enough people make enough money to turn these things into livable revenue streams.

Paper-based publishing is going away. If you thought the disruption of the newspaper/magazine industry was “interesting” (in a very Chinese way), you ain’t seen nothing yet. The distruption that’s starting to happen in the book industry is going to make that seem like a picnic. In some ways, it’ll likely be less dramatic because we’ll have learned lessons from earlier disruptions, but it’s going to be a massive change and it’s going to impact significnant people and businesses — and it’s happening now.

Authors and photographers have much they can learn from developers about how to create and the logistics of publishing and distribution. Developers can get a better understanding of the business aspects from authors and photographers. Both can collaborate on figuring out and building the tools needed to make content shine on these new devices that are coming out, and figure out how to redefine content for the online and mobile worlds, not just repackage it (I have to admit, every time I see the “innovation” that are the iPad magazines being produced out of Adobe’s software, I want to cry. that is innovation like chopping a magazine up with an X-acto knife and faxing it to you is innovation….)

I’m convinced that if we get the right people all talking together, we can shorten the learning curve for everyone and interesting things will come out of it. I’m just not sure who those right people are and how to get them talking… But I’m hoping that some of you do, and can help me understand how to make this happen…

Thoughts? Ideas?

Some thoughts on Lightroom Keywords

A big part of the chore of refactoring my photo collection was getting my keywords and metadata in shape, and then updating all of the images to take advantage of the changes where necessary. That implies that every image got at least a quick look to make sure it was annotated properly. There’s no way to make that task not be a grinding time suck — but you can do some things to make it less of one.

Like most photographers, my initial setup for keywords on photos was a system known as “haphazard”. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I didn’t. Rarely did I try to standardize and I had no real plan for what keywords i used. As my collection grew and it became harder to find images, I started to understand why I needed to put some time and energy into keywords now to make finding images later possible.

A lot of people have put a lot of time and energy into keywords. If you’re thinking of shooting stock or microstock, a large part of your potential success depends on being findable in the stock libraries, so good keywording and metadata is crucial. Many stock houses have standardized keyword libraries and if you want to work with them, you should get copies and adopt them into your workflow. There are also keyword sets available online, both for purchase and for free. Nick Potter has some that I like a lot.

I ended up building my own. Well, technically, I’ve created three standardized sets of keywords (so far), but this third generation I like and it seems flexible enough that I won’t need to tear it apart and start over any time soon. The top level of my keyword setup in Lightroom looks like this:

I have some journalism training in my ancient past, so when I thought about what keywords mattered, I fell back on what the essence of a story is: Who, What, Where, How, Why, and my dad’s addition, Wow. My keyword structure tries to answer those questions for an image: Who (or what) is in it? Where are they? What are they doing? Why are they doing it and how? What is notable about this image that makes it worth taking and viewing?

Some of this is duplicated elsewhere — in your title or caption, or if you geo-encode your images. I geo-encode all of my images with Google Earth and Jeffrey Friedl’s Geo-Encoding plug-in, but I want thelocation info in the keywords as well so I can quickly and easily find pictures from a location without a fight.

In my keywords, I actually encode location a couple of ways.

The locations section is where I stick generalized descriptions. I’m on a cliff, I’m near an ocean, I’m at a zoo. I then have specific location data under the “North America” section, which I’ve split into U.S. and Canada. Within each, I break it down by state or Province. Since I do the vast majority of my shooting in California right now, I made a decision to split that state further and include county and then city. County information happens to be very useful in birding, so it’s a natural requirement for me to include it on my bird photos, and as long as I’m doing it for them, I do it for all of them.

An important point here — when you design a structure like this, how well it’ll work for you depends on where your hassle factor hits. Are you more annoyed by looking through long lists of things? If so, design a hierarchy with more sub items and fewer items in each sub-area. If traversing the tree bothers you more, use longer lists and fewer sub-items. You can adjust this to your tastes as you work with it.

Also, don’t overbuild your hierarchy. For states other than California, I don’t use counties:

The reason I don’t is because I don’t need them. If you make your keywording system TOO complex, it’ll get in the way and annoy you and you won’t be as likely to use it. Remember, a keywording system is useless if you avoid it — and as your needs grow you can always re-arrange parts as you need to, so if oyu hit a point where you need counties in Oregon, it’s not a lot of work to add them. Just don’t do it until it makes sense.

When describing the Who or What, that’s the realm of a number of categories — Birds, Mammals, Insects, Reptiles, etc are all hierarchies of those kinds of animals. Buildings, Items, Vehicles define things. Organizations define groups, People define individuals, etc. You can define these top level hierarchies as you find useful. I tried “animal” “vegetable” “mineral” once, but decided that led to too much walking down the hierarchy looking for things. My goal is to have a set of top level definitions that fit on the screen so I can get to one without scrolling, and to try to have the ones I use most often be in the top level for ease of access.

Within my birds section, I’ve built a formal hierarchy, based on how the ABA classifies birds (and borrowed heavily from Sibley’s book and eBird).

With other categories, my dance card isn’t quite as filled out, so I haven’t put the work in to build the formal hierarchies. As I continue to add species to my photo collection, I eventually will. The same with the collections of things. Inside Vehicles is “Boats”, and inside “Boats” is “Tugboat” and “Container Ship” and “Ferry”, but I haven’t gone crazy designing keyword systems I won’t use.

Keywords in Lightroom have some nice options I find most people haven’t explored. If you right-click (or ctrl-click) a keyword, it’ll bring up a dialog box:

This is where you can edit the keyword, but it also allows you to define Synonyms, and there are a couple of options that can come in handy.

Synonyms, once you figure them out, are quite useful. For animals, it allows you to define the Latin name as well as any common nicknames. That helps you find the keyword when you’re searching within Lightroom, and also allows you to export those when you publish the image without having to define the keywords separately and having to remember to attach them. This simplifies the keyword attachment process more than you might think, so explore it and learn how to take advantage of it.

I use a couple of the tag options a lot. “Include on Export” allows you to set a keyword to not export — in other words, it’s used for organizing the hierarchy and not meant to be attached to the image. I don’t export “North America” for instance, and any of my “meta” keywords (the ones that start with “_” aren’t exported. That lets me use keywording for workflow process management as well as identification of the image, which can be useful, without actually exposing those special keywords out where people can see. If you turn off “Export Synonyms”, they’ll still be used when searching for keywords, but again, they won’t be exposed to the public. (it would be nice if you could define export on a per-synonym basis — I wouldn’t use it a lot, but there are times when that level of granularity would be really handy).

One place where use of synonyms comes in handy is when a thing has both a unique name and a generic name. Take, for instance, this keyword:

You could define a generic “harbor” keyword, and in fact you probably will for some situations, but if you create your tag so it includes Harbor as a Synonym, you don’t need to remember to add it, the system will take care of it for you. Again, we’re working to make keywording as painless and easy as possible, and once you start using this, you’ll find it simplifies your life by reducing a few steps.

A few of my categories are what I call “meta” — they are describing aspects of the photo or the subject. It’s not necessarily a clean analogy, but I think of them as adjectives, where the primary categories tend to be nouns or verbs.

The final two categories I’ll talk about are “_Submissions” and “__meta”. “_Submissions” is pretty straightforward. When I submit an image somewhere, it gets tagged with an identifier to that submission. Eventually I want to add a “_Published” hierarchy and tie it to some submission/publication database to track what I’m doing with my images, who’s licensed them and where they’ve been published. That’s all on the “to do some day” list.

“__meta” serves two purposes. The first purpose is that as you create new keywords on the fly, Lightroom places them in that first hierarchy, so it becomes a convenient holding place for them so it’s easy to see that they need to be edited and placed in the proper place in the hierarchy. The second is that it’s a very convenient place for workflow-related tags. I have one right now, “potential redo”. As I’m browsing my collection, if I see an image I think needs some work — it’s trivial to add this tag, and then I can easily find it and go take care of the image later. I don’t know about you, but if I write notes to myself on things like this, I lose them or don’t find them for months. This way, I have a very non-intrusive and quick way to flag a to-do onto an image.

It’s also easy to create a special tag for a specific kind of to-do and attach it to an image or set of images. For instance — when I upgraded from Lightroom 2 to Lightroom 3, I created a tag that told me which images were processed by the old processing engine and attached it to every image. Then as I went through the library and updated images to the Ligthroom 3 processing system, I removed it. (and yes, every image in my catalog has been redone in Lightroom 3′s processor. the improved noise processing made it a very worthwhile investment of time). When I decided to refactor the entire collection, I did the same thing. I created a tag “This image needs to be evaluated” and assigned it to every image. Then I started working through the tagged images. That way I could easily make sure every image was evaluated, and I didn’t waste time going over images multiple times or wondering if I’d processed this one or that one. I knew. Workflow tags can turn into a very useful tool once you realize what they can do for you and you decide how to take advantage of them.

By putting some time and energy into your keywords up front, and then getting into the habit of using them — and using them consistently — you’ll make your life easier over time, and you won’t run into the “okay, where is that image?” problems nearly as much. There are no real right or wrong answers here; this is my approach, hopefully it’ll help you understand how to refine and take better advantage of your own keywording system.

A few other quick notes on a keywording setup:

Spelling matters: I spent a lot of time finding and correcting typos in my keywords, especially the latin names of birds and animals. Try to make sure you get these things right. If you don’t, it’ll create headaches and annoyances until you fix it.

Define some standards and then stick to them. Capitalization, tense, punctuation and the like matters. If you aren’t consistent here, your work will come across as unprofessional and sloppy — even if people looking at your photos only notice it sub-consciously. In my keywords, I standardized on using the plural form (“Birds” instead of “Bird”) unless that was clearly inappropriate, and I lean towards a third person form, present tense and I always strive to use an active voice instead of passive. (Passive Voice writing is to be hated in all serious writing).

Getting all of the details right is — frankly — a pain. But once you get them right, they’ll stay that way with minimal work, and it gives a polish and professionalism to your work that leaves a better impression.

It takes some time and thought to set this up, but my view is that if you’re going to do this — do it right. And once you do, you’ll appreciate that you have. I certainly am glad I finally took the time to bring my collection “up to standards”, and now that I have, I plan on keeping it that way. And now I can actually find things without tying to memorize my entire collection….

The elephant in the sitting room…

Scott wrote a comment on my post a couple of days ago that makes a good opening as I shift gears a bit:

Chuq, do you think the weight gain triggered the sleep apnea or did you have apnea first, which led to weight gain? Sleep apnea shows itself as a lot of different symptoms — it’s great that you decided to get to the core problem.

And the answer to that is complicated, and the experts are still figuring all of this out.

But first, a few notes before I dive in:

I am not a trained medical professional. I am an interested layman who’s been trying to learn as much about this as I can because it interests and affects me. Do not use me as your medical doctor replacement.
Be careful who you believe on the internet. Including me. There’s a lot of bullshit out there, some of it spouted by loonies, some of is published by people who want to sell you crap, and some of it published by people funded by large companies who want to sell you crap. Be wary of who you believe.
If they use the words “easy” or “foolproof” run away fast. Or toddle. Or waddle. Or whatever it is you do, as fast as you do.
If you are offended by someone making fat jokes, well, sorry. It’s okay. I’m fat. I can do this….

There does seem to be interesting research (also here) coming out that indicates that sleep apnea, and that inadequate sleep can both be a trigger for obesity. There are now some studies showing particularly strong links to inadequate sleep prior to the age of 5 being linked to obesity later in life. If you burn your candle at both ends, it seems to affect your metabolism, and your body is more likely to go into a defensive mode where it tries to collect fat.

Weight gain and apnea is a particular conundrum, because it looks like the apnea leaves you in a state of chronic exhaustion, and that exhaustion mucks with your metabolism and slows it down, which encourages fat storage. And as your weight goes up, it can enhance the apnea, creating a nasty feedback cycle. Apnea does a lot of other things — if you’re always exhausted, you’re rarely functioning at your best. Your mental processes slow down, you don’t think as clearly, your reaction times slow down — you know that feeling you get after an 18 hour day or pulling that end of project all-nighter? When you hit that point where no amount of Red Bull brings the edge back, and you have to think twice about how to tie a shoelace? Apnea takes you to that point and leaves you there is it strengthens. It saps your energy, meaning you’re less likely to exercise, also encouraging weight gain and muscle loss. You end up stressed; when you’re exhausted, you’re more likely to feel negative and unhappy and the stress and anxiety pile up.

Ultimately this all turns into a negative feedback cycle. And let’s not forget that there are strong correlations between apnea and insulin resistance, which leads to diabetes. And it all tends to happen slowly, over time, so you don’t really see the results until you’re far into the process.

I’ve always been hefty. I’m 5’8″ but with a seriously heavy bone structure. As a sophomore in high school, I wrestled at 142, and in good shape it was a struggle to meet weight. If you look at a recommended weight chart, a 25 year old at that heigh with a large frame is suggested to sit in the range of about 145-170. A 15 year old still developing and in good physical shape hitting that range is sort of off the chart, so one word never used to describe me is svelte. or petite. I exited high school about 175 in decent shape, and then got lazy. I was 280 on my 30th birthday. My doctor and I have done some work reconstructing my weight profile, and I started gaining about 7-10 pounds a year out of high school, and just kept it up, until close to the end at Apple when I hit that point where it spiralled and I put on about 60 pounds.

When I left Apple, I weighed 380. Today, four years (and a month) later, I weigh — 385. That in itself is a victory of sorts, but not a complete on. In those four years, I gained at least 20 pounds (maybe more; I stopped weighing) and joined the 400 club, and then lost it again. And then in 2008, I took of 35 pounds, only I wasn’t trying to, and that was one of the things that caused me to go get tested and we caught the diabetes fairly early on; I know I wasn’t diabetic in early 2007 when I got tested. I seem to have flipped this particular switch in late 2007. Since I and my doctor both know I’m was a good candidate for diabetes (as well as having a family history of seriously high cholesterol) we’ve kept a fairly close watch over time while I tried to figure out how to get the weight loss. Unfortunately, in 2008, my dad got sick and I spent much of 2008 helping mom deal with that, and then deal with the funeral, and then deal with the estate, and I never got around to the tests until fairly late in the year, when in all honesty I already knew. I emailed my doctor and suggested we should do some tests, he agreed, and the numbers came back seriously sideways. We retested and added in some other checks, the urine test came back “HEY! YOU CAN MAKE POPSICLES FROM THIS!”, and that was that.

Diabetes, according to a friend of mine, is nothing much at all to worry about, but you have to keep a very close watch on it. What he means by that is that as long as you take it seriously and pay attention and manage it — it really isn’t a big deal. he’s right. That’s a whole set of discussions for down the road, but suffice it to say, the best control I can put on the diabetes is to get the weight off and keep it off. Right now I’m controlling it by managing my diet and with some drugs, but the goal state here is to manage it by diet alone, and that means getting in better physical shape, getting the weight off, and eating a diet that keeps the body in balance. I’ve made good progress on that third part; I’m still struggling with the first two.

it’s complicated.

In talking with my doctor about all of this over the years, and with my therapist when I was in therapy, and with nutritionists, I’ve learned a lot about what makes me tick and where my struggles come from. Bad lifestyle habits don’t get fixed overnight; if you try to fix everything all at once, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll fail. One of the best pieces of advice my doctor gave me was to grab one thing I felt I could fix, and fix it, and keep working at it until the habit was relearned, which takes weeks. Try to do too many things at once, and as soon as you muff one, or you hit a patch of stress, or something comes up — you fall back into the old habits and lose it.

Try to pick up a mountain, and you’ll fail. Pick it up one rock at a time, and it’ll take a while, but if you keep at it, you’ll find you moved it. Slow and steady. My last year at Apple, I was on the burger and fries diet — five, six times a week (at least). Whatever was fast and didn’t require thought, since I only allowed myself 15 minutes for lunch, including acquiring it.

Today, there’s very little to complain about in my diet. One of the most effective tools in fixing a diet is the food diary, where you track everything you eat. Since i decided I needed to get serious about this, I spent a week tracking what I ate and did an analysis of it. The good news: I was right, I was eating to maintenance (no gain, no loss), and the food ratios where just about where I expected them to be. The bad news: the total calorie count AND what I thought an appropriate was an appropriate calorie range for maintenance were off by about 20% — I was eating more calories than I tallied mentally, but I also had the goal number off — so in practice, the result was accurate but the scale was off. That’s easy to recalibrate. The food ratios were just about where I expected them to be, more or less 30% fat, 35-50% carb, the rest protein. That’d be a great diet — unless you’re diabetic. As a diabetic, that’s too many carbs, and one of the diabetes drugs I take works by encouraging the liver to sequester blood glucose (i.e., stuff it into fat cells); hence losing weight with that going on is even more complicated. So I have to change that ratio to something more like 30% fat, 30% carb, 40% protein. Thank god I like deli sliced turkey…

There is, in our culture, this weird aspect that can best be described by the words “Just say no”. it drives me crazy sometimes, because it’s incredibly naive — and it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work with kids and drugs or alcohol, it doesn’t work with kids and sex (or priests and sex, or married adults and sex, or…). And it’s embodied with weight with things like “just put less on your plate” or “you just need to walk 15 minutes a day”.

Here’s the hint: if it was THAT SIMPLE, all of us would be thin and healthy, okay? Notwithstanding that I take full responsibility for some bad choices I made, if you look around, there’s a huge obesity epidemic. there are more things driving that than being lazy and eating badly. Wherever the western diet gets introduced, obesity and diabetes follow. Here in the states, the combination of the western diet (heavily processed foods, carb heavy foods, fast food places everywhere, sweetened soft drinks, etc, etc) AND a culture of “don’t walk, get in the car” the obesity issue is magnfied. In places like Canada and New Zealand where there’s still a culture of “go outside and play”, it’s a lot less prominent. Just saw a study the other week where the average New Zealander takes twice as many steps per day as the average US person. And it shows in the average waistline.

I’m convinced that we’re going to find that there’s a direct link between the growth in usage of high yield corn syrup and many of our societal issues here. I would non be surprised if we end up coming to realize that this is our generation’s tobacco, and if you’re old enough you remember when the tobacco companies spent megabucks telling us it really was healthy. Where my mother’s generation in many ways died of lung cancer and deal with emphysema, our generation and the kids growing up today are as likely to die of heart attacks and strokes and suffer from diabetes. The evidence is still being built — but I expect it’ll happen, with the mega-food companies fighting it the entire way. At least until they can find a graceful exit strategy to convert their processed foods back to sugar.

In my case, there are a couple of things that have complicated this further. One is that I’m wired to eat under stress. When I stress out, I eat. That’s not something that “put less on your plate” remotely deals with. You deal with it by learning how to not be stressed. Which, if you’re stressing out about your weight, is an interesting challenge.

The other thing is a piece of biology. There are two hormonal signals tied to eating. One is the hunger signal, which tells you to eat. The other is a second signal called satiety, which is actually the trigger that tells you you’re full and you to stop eating. You start eating when you’re hungry. You stop eating when you’re full. In my case, the satiety trigger is sluggish. I don’t get the signal as quickly as the average person. That means that you eat longer, which means you tend to eat more, before you stop. Which means more calories.

All of which, I guess, is a long-winded rant on the stupidity of our culture that goes after simplistic answers to things that clearly are complicated and difficult. We set ourselves up for failure — and then beat ourselves up when we fail. And then go eat a donut to make ourselves feel better, which is okay because we suck and we deserve to be fat and everyone hates us. And so the cycle starts again.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand it in the context of myself. I’m now ready to make a serious stab at the core problem — my weight — because I believe I’ve finally dealt with all of the OTHER things that tie into it and complicate it and get in the way of dealing with it or trigger it, whether it’s a crappy diet because I was so tied to my job I didn’t allow myself enough life to eat properly, or stressing myself out over things that honestly didn’t deserve to control my life that much, or any of a dozen other things that all pile on and get in the way, like, oh, if you’re a stress eater and your dad is dying, losing weight just doesn’t hit the top of the priority list…

The reality is — this stuff’s all incredibly complicated. It’s a different path for everyone. Maybe I’m finally on mine. Maybe not, but I know I’m closer to it if I’m not there. And that’s why I’ve started writing about this — not because it makes my situation any easier, but because maybe it’ll help you find your path a little faster and easier. And even if not, it never hurts to know that you’re not alone in the struggle, right?

(the last few days have been heavy and deep. thanks for sticking with me. we’ll switch gears and go lighter for a while, but we’re not done here, not remotely. And if you have thoughts or questions, drop me a note….)

Sherman, set the wayback machine to…

Sherman, set the wayback machine to February, 2004.

It’s the standard weekly team meeting, only this time, it was a bit different. My management recognized me for finishing (surviving?) 15 years at Apple, and I got my pin, my plaque, and cake. the team we’d put together congratulated me. It’s something not a lot of people can claim.

Afterwards, I went back to my office and sat down to check email, and started crying. And couldn’t stop.

I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I blamed work and stress — I know better now. It wasn’t the first warning. Even six months prior I was noticing changes. I was honored to be invited to Tim O’Reilly’s Foo Camp 1 and found myself spending the time feeling isolated and distant from everything. I came home from Foo inspired to do a number of things — and instead dug a hole and crawled into it and pulled the sides down on top. It slowly got worse, too. Laurie and I took a long-planned trip up to Victoria and Vancouver to spend christmas. That was the year of the great freeze, with snow in Victoria, sub-zero (F) temperatures, and a mad dash out of Portland to the 101 on the coast to try to get home before the entire state of Oregon got snowed in. We made it, and those who weren’t smart enough to do the same waited about 5 days for I-5 to re-open at the california border.

That was the first time my body sat me down and said “DUDE! Stop! Listen to me. THIS ISN’T WORKING”. It was also the first time I ran into something I couldn’t just out-stubborn. Here’s a lesson learned that I wish I’d known then: if you’re blaming work and stress for how badly you feel and you take ten days off and go on vacation and you rest and relax and don’t think about work — AND IT DOESN’T GET BETTER — then hey, dude — it’s not work. And you probably ought to look into it.

I know that now. Learning that lesson saved me a lot of fun later down the road. When something’s going south, it rarely does so without some early warning signs. It gives you a chance to intervene and deal with it before it turns into a crisis.

If you’re paying attention. If you don’t think you can simply out-stubborn it.

In my case, I ignored it until the crisis hit. Then I tried to ignore it for another couple of weeks until I realized it was winning. That was a tough time for Laurie, one I regret to this day. I was seriously manic. By the time she told me to get help or else, I’d already made the phone call.

The words “nervous breakdown” cause interesting reactions in people. I was amazed at how many people I ran into that when I admitted it to them said “dude, yeah. Me, too”. And how many also said “whatever you do, don’t blog about this.” Maybe they’re right. We’ll find out. Mostly, my view today is any potential employer who reads this and won’t hire me because of it isn’t someone who deserves to have me work for them. Their loss, not mine. Better to find out those things before you commit.

My therapist was awesome. One of the first things he said in our first meeting was “You wouldn’t believe how many people in your industry end up in my office”. Later, as I talked to people about it, I found he was right. it’s one of the dirty secrets of high tech in Silicon Valley, how people commit themselves to work themselves until they fall apart, and how companies take advantage of that and create project demands that encourage it. The “sleep under your desk” mentality isn’t healthy, and it catches up with you eventually. When it does — the company rarely makes it up to you. In my case, I was lucky. My management was extremely supportive and did what they could. My team was even more supportive, and for a while, simply worked around the problem and took care of things until I got my act together enough to be a functional part of the operation again. For a while, I was pretty literally a basket case. In a lot of companies, they toss you to the curb and put another body in your cube. That’s something you ought to remember before you commit to chronic 60 hour death march schedules. The company benefits when you do. You probably won’t get a cookie. Just sayin’

I spent a couple of months in therapy, understanding my situation and learning what it meant and how to manage it. Some people need pharmaceutical help, I just needed some perspective and some ideas on how to cope. It took me a couple of years, but I finally learned how to like myself, something that’s always been a struggle, and how to not let the stress and angst pile up until the container is full and it all spills out in a badly timed mess. For me, it came down to getting an outside perspective and some trained advice on how to change things I was doing to cope with life challenges (and failing at coping). Everyone’s a bit different, but the big lesson is — don’t be afraid to ask for help. I always believed I could do anything, that I could make it happen by working longer and harder. Look where that got me. Maybe the hardest lesson I had to beat into my thick skull was that I have limitations, and sometimes I need help — and not to be afraid to ask.

What we didn’t do, what we didn’t realize was hanging out there, was look for the root cause. I thought it was work and stress, and my therapist saw no reason to think it might be something else, since dealing with mewling blobs of protoplasm caused by work stress was his stock in trade. And if you look at the dates involved, it’d be another three years before I did get far enough into this to get the root cause identified and treated.

The root cause here was the apnea. And while I don’t have many regrets in life, I do wonder at times how things might have been different had I made the connection and gotten it treated earlier. Would I still be at Apple? Perhaps. What I do know is that a number of people I know and love got caught as collateral damage along the way, and whether I was able to avoid any of this personally, I wish I’d been able to keep them from having to come along for the ride.

The lessons to take out of this?

Listen to your body. If something’s wrong, don’t out-stubborn it, and don’t wait until your body pulls out the sledge hammer to get your attention. Things you catch when they’re small are a lot easier to fix.
Make sure you’re finding the cause, not just treating the symptom.
There are large chunks of silicon valley whose business plans are based on working you into the ground, and then replacing you with someone fresh and ready to go back into the grind. What are you getting out of this relationship? Deathmarches are a fact of life, and deadlines happen; but if every day is a deathmarch and the deadlines are never rational, do you really want to be there? And will they really make it worth what you go through to ship that product? Really?
Too many companies demand loyalty but offer none. I know way too many people who did way too many 70 hour weeks to get a project done, only to find out their job moved to india (but thanks for making our quarterly numbers. oh, and we stripped the package. sorry). Find the companies that see you as an asset, not a cog, and make the relationships work both ways.

The reason I stuck at Apple for two years beyond my breakdown was simple: my management and my team kicked serious butt for me when I needed it, and I wanted to do everything I could in return for them. So let me close tonight with this final thought. To Axel and Dean and Michelle and Jason — the more time passes and the better perspective I have, the more I understand just what I put you all through, and the more I appreciate how you all helped me through it. It’s a debt I can’t repay, but it’s one I am happy to recognize and honor. Thanks.

That goes doubly so to my wife Laurie. I’m convinced I wouldn’t have made it without her.

Hey, can someone push the big green button on the Wayback machine? the one labeled “return?” thanks.

how time flies…

How time flies when you’re having fun. It was four years ago that I left Apple after 17 years to go do something else. I announced my decision in July, and spent eight weeks transitioning, and in September 2006 walked out of Apple for the last time and into — well, at the time, I had no idea what I was going to do. Something different. I redid my blog into Chuqui 3.0, and four years later, again for my birthday, redid it again into its current form.

I tried my damndest to get hired by Yahoo! at the time. It’s still a company that looks to me to have huge potential — but right now, it’s just not clicking, and it looks like AOL is seriously gearing up to make a run at doing what Yahoo ought to be doing and isn’t (and some really interesting yahoo! talent keeps sneaking off to AOL land) . Not really sure why a Yahoo job never happened, there was plenty of interest in both directions, just never quite the right match (and in one case, an internal transfer that tooks a slot I was waiting for an offer from). Having lived through all of the bad years at Apple, not being hired by Yahoo turned out to be a blessing in disguise, and the best things are the things that don’t happen.

I wrote a series of blog entries about all of this, the Apple Post-Mortem series:

Part 1: Why I left: and more on this in a bit..
Part 2: Jobs I Wish I could Have Taken: most of which are jobs I STILL wish I could have taken, and ones that I still think a company like Apple (or most companies) should create for some one…
Part 3: no longer online (and I don’t even remember what it was, or why it’s offline. Doesn’t really matter)
Part 4: Why Apple doesn’t have a blogging policy (and it ain’t what you think); by far, the piece that created the biggest kerfluffle, way back when. And of course, there was great hue and cry about how Apple had to blog, or it was going to fail and the universe was going to shun and scorn it. We see just how badly faltered by failing to understand this basic requirement of the universe… This is the one where folks called bullshit on me without in some cases seeming to notice I’d actually left Apple.
Leaving Apple after 17+ years was both an easy and tough decision. Part of me really wanted to stay, wanted to, as I put it a few times, get carried out on my XServe. Not exactly, looking back on it from today, a ringing endorsement. Most of me understood that I needed to make some fundamental changes to my life or they would in fact carry me out on my XServe, and that would have been bad. I was physically exhausted, I was emotionally exhausted, I’d gained close to 60 pounds in the previous year. I worked myself into pneumonia, and then hid from my doctor and bosses that I worked through treatment for it.

I was a wreck. I’d spent a good part of a year trying to find ways to fix the job situation with the help of my bosses — and failed. In many ways I blamed Apple for this; in reality, there was nothing that happened that I didn’t volunteer for and jump into with both feet and great enthusiasm. I was physically and emotionally bankrupt, and I had no idea how to resolve the problem; I honestly wondered if I was simply too old to keep up with silicon valley. I didn’t know. What I did know was that the current situation was pretty literally killing me, and I was doing myself no good, my project no good, Apple no good and the people around me no good.

So I jumped, deciding that some time off would help me recharge and give me some time to reflect and decide on what to do next and how to fix my life. At the time, I was somewhat bitter that Apple didn’t do more to convince me to stay. In reality, it did me a great favor by not trying, and in reality, I didn’t work too hard to find a place to land, either. That was just exhaustion speaking, and now, I see that and I feel that Apple — and my bosses all those years — worked their butts off to try to make things happen. It was just a situation where nothing Apple could do could fix it.

Because what I didn’t know at the time, wouldn’t find out for another six months, was that I was really sick.

When I did finally haul myself off to my doctor and talked, he sent me off to the sleep clinic to be tested. They wired me up — and the results were stunning.

I had sleep apnea. I didn’t just have sleep apnea, I was seeing an average of 50 “incidents” an hour. An incident, by the way, is when your breathing passage blocks and you start to suffocate, at which point your body has to react (i.e “wake up”) and do something to allow you to breathe again. I was — pretty literally — snoring myself to death.

I started wearing a CPAP that night, something I’ve been wearing every night since. it’s basically the inspiration for the Darth Vader mask. I’ve talked about this a couple of times in the past, but now that some time has passed, I have a better perspective on all of this. it’s now clear, for instance, that I was suffering from Apnea for at least a decade prior to my diagnosis. The more I look at that time of my life, the more I realize how much it was impacted by this.

In the year prior to deciding to leave Apple, I gained about 60 pounds. At the time, I blamed work and the stress of the project I was on. I strained friendships (and lost a couple I still regret). I had no energy, I was always worn out and exhausted. I was starting to suffer from high blood pressure. I was not a lot of fun to be around, and I didn’t particularly want to be around anyone.

In the two weeks after putting on the CPAP, my blood pressure dropped 20 points and I went off blood pressure medicine. I slept well for the first time in years — and so did Laurie, because she wasn’t having to deal with sleeping with a fog horn. She stopped wearing earplugs to bed, and her sleeping improved, too. After about six weeks, my energy levels started coming back, and so did my attitude.

At that time I realized I had to get serious about lifestyle changes. I decided to try to adopt a new attitude. The easy way to sum it up is:

I’ve given up denial for Lent.

And that’s been the foundation for what turned into a major effort to rethink every aspect of my life, how I lived it, and how I needed to live it moving forward if I wanted to be around for a while and actually have a quality of life that made being around worth it. I feel for the first time in decades comfortable in my own skin and satisified with how I’m living. For the first time in decades — warts and all — I like myself.

And here’s why I’ve decided it’s finally time to talk about this.

Your health is like a credit card; you keep putting purchases on it and making minimum payments against the balance, eventually it’s going to hit the credit limit, and if you go over, bad things happen. Lifestyle choices I made in my 20′s and 30′s came back to bite me in the ass in my 40′s when the bill came due, and here I am now in my 50′s, “restructuring the debt” and realizing that there are things I’m going to have to live with the rest of my life.

Things that were completely avoidable if I’d made different choices and taken a different path.

If we’re ever together in person talking about this, one thing you’ll hear me say is that if I could do one thing, it’d be invent a time machine and go back to my younger self — and bitchslap the living daylights out of my younger self for not taking better care of my body and my soul. I needed someone to beat some common sense into me.

I can’t go back and do that, but I’ve decided this is my time machine, and hopefully I can help someone else who is just starting to move down a path to understand the options and maybe make a better choice than I did.

It’s probably not as much fun as geeking out over HTML5 transforms or complaining about the ref’s call in last night’s hockey game — but it might save someone’s life. I promise not to lecture and not to whine or play “poor me” games. I have no intention of telling you how to live your life. But if I can help some people better understand the implications of some of the decisions they need to make, then this will be worth doing.

We’ll try it and see what happens.

Refactoring a Photo collection

In my last post, I talked about refactoring my photo collection, which I’m sure a lot of the non-geeks in the audience (both of you) went “huh?” to.

In the software world, “refactoring ” is a term used today to define what happens when a programmer goes in and cleans up some existing code. In the old days, it was called “maintenance programming” and thrown at the junior programmers. Today, it’s called “refactoring” and it’s still thrown at the junior programmers, but now it has a fancy name to make them feel better about it.

Okay, not really. well, mostly not really. But refactoring is where you take a hunk of something that already exists, and you work on it to make it more functional, faster, cleaner (or simple less warty), add in functionality you wish you’d known you’d want when you did it the first time, and generally do away with all of the bits that annoy you and replace them with new bits that hopefully won’t annoy you as much.

That concept is relevant for software — but it’s just as relevant to your photo collection. Mine had, over time, gotten to be a bit of a mess. My oldest photos started out in a very early version of iPhoto. As I got more serious about my photography and the technology improved, I moved my collection from iPhoto to Aperture (first version), then to CS3 Photoshop/Bridge (when I got tired of waiting for Aperture 2.0), then to Lightroom 2.0 (when I got tired of Bridge not making my life easier and more painless), and now to Lightroom 3.0. Along the way I redefined my keywording schemes at least three times, on at least two occasions I accidently deleted all keywords off of swaths of the library accidentally and didn’t catch it until “later”, and did the same once for captions and again once on image titles — each to a different group of images that might have overlapped but none of them had things in common. All of which ended up in the “some day, I need to fix these things” pile.

Along the way I learned a lot about photography, and a lot about post-processing of images, and I figured out tricks to improve images that allowed me to create much better images than I was previously capable of. When Lightroom 3 came out, the new processing system was also much improved, especially around noise reduction, and “simply” reprocessing images in Lightroom 3 made an image better.

I’ve also gotten pickier about what images are good enough for me to want to have them in public with my name on them. At some point, you look at you online galleries and wince once too often, and you think to yourself “I need to fix this” and put it in the Todo pile with all of the other Todos.

So a few weeks ago I pointed someone I knew at one of my images and winced when I looked at it one too many times, and I decided it was time to actually fix all of this stuff, so I crawled down in a hole, and spent two and a half weeks at the task.

That’s not so bad. I’ve done this once before, back in 2008, and I spent four months at the project. At that time, there were a lot of other things going on (like my dad being sick and dying) and it was a part time project (and therapy) and a lot of it was done late at night in hotel rooms, but I found it a huge help in really seeing where I stood as a photographer and what I needed to work on — and how far I’d come along the way to that point.

Lightroom 3 has a new feature in it that I really wanted to take advantage of, the Publish module. Even better, Jeffrey Friedl has written some Lightroom plug-ins that take this functionality and extend it to be even more useful (and he’s done one for Smugmug, too). In Lightroom 2 and earlier, you could export your images to Flickr (or some other service), but once you did, the two aspects of the image were disconnected. Changes to one couldn’t be merged in to the other. If you found a typo in a caption or wanted to update or add keywords, you’d have to remember to go to the places you had exported the image and make those changes manually to each instance. You did that religiously, right? Yeah. Me, too. But what that really meant was that once you hit that “export” button, it was a major pain to actually update/improve/fix things — so you ended up with a list of “need to fix this” spread all over your online sites. And of course, we all religiously keep track of all of these ToDo’s and work to complete them in our free time in the evenings, right? Yeah, me, too.

So over time, comments on flickr that noted mistakes got fixed in Lightroom (usually), but not re-exported back out to flickr or elsewhere. And as I refined my keywording (or more correctly, threw the crappy keywording systems out and built less crappy ones), did those improvements end up where you and the search engines could see them? Oh. Of course. Yeah, right.

Publish changes that; once you get your flickr (and smugmug) accounts set up and synced up with your Lightroom collection, changes you make to an image can be republished in place. No longer do you have that “damn, that sharpening is off” moment wher you have to spend 20 minutes exporting to your desktop and convincing flickr to replace a photo. No longer do you have to remember which images you fixed those typos in. Lightroom deals with it now. Once you get it set up, the process becomes pretty painless.

Once you set things up. I’ll come back to that in a future entry.

And once I sat down to implement that, I realized i now had a REASON to actually empty the “todo list”, which of course doesn’t really exist. But it was possible to create one and them empty it. So I did. And then exported all of that to Flickr. along the way, it gave me the opportunity to properly create my “serious” portfolio over on Smugmug, and start the process of cross-linking the two services. That’s still in progress as I decide what works and doesn’t — but if you look at my flickr images, they now include links to Smugmug. And with the new lightroom capabilities, as I implement how I want captions on flickr and smugmug to look, making that change and then re-publishing it is relatively simple — for instance, I want to add a short explanation of Creative Commons to my flickr captions. In the old day, good luck. Now?

Possible. And it opens up many options down the road to do things that before were simply too much hassle to warrant.

At a very high level, here are the tasks I undertook to refactor my image collection:

Make sure everything is in Lightroom and nothing is lost of missing.
Sit down and spend some time defining what your standards are. What kind of keywords should you use? To what level of detail? What is a “good” caption? What is a “good” title? Do you geotag images? to what accuracy? if you decide on your standards up front, it doesn’t make bringing the library up to those standards less tedious — but at least you’ll be able to make easy and consistent decisions on what needs to be done, which will simplify things down the road.
Go through my defined keyword library and edit it into a consistent hierarchy and bring it all up to my current usage standards; that includes fixing all typos and doing things like standardizing usage and terminology, grammar, capitalization and thinking through things like your hierarchy. And spell-checking it. Twice. Trust me.
Implement the publish system for the sites you upload to, and go through the work needed to sync up those services to those collections so that everything is connected and updates will go where they are supposed to go.
Go through the library one image at a time and bring it up to your current standards: if necessary, re-keyword it. improve the caption and title. verify it’s geotagged and the geotagging is correct. validate the metadata. make sure the embedded EXIF data is complete and correct — especially contact and copyright info (you ARE adding that to all of your images via import presets, right? RIGHT?)
Are the images well-processed? Do they need to be re-done? Do them. If you don’t want to lose the existing version of the image, use virtual copies and learn to use sets. Are there systemic processing mistakes you’re catching? Congratulations, you just improved your workflow on new images — you know not to do that any more, right? (I found, honestly, that I went through phases where I wansn’t just bad at sharpening, I was “driving the clown car backwards through the car wash with the windows down” incompetent; I finally took great swaths of the library and put a generic re-sharpening on them to remove the damage, and then evaluated them individually again later. And this was on images that were already on flickr and published, at a time I thought that was good sharpening. Oh, god. (wince))
As you fix stuff, publish the fixed stuff so that the stuff that makes you wince goes away….
Edit your collection. you’ve become a better photographer; there’s going to be stuff you look at and wince. When you wince, don’t be afraid to retire the image and take it offline. Don’t leave images online that you feel represent you poorly just because at one point you thought they were good enough. Edit. Ruthlessly. (in my case, I retired about 10% of my collection; a smaller amount than I expected to, honestly. In my 2008 refactor, I retired 35%, but that was when I started making the jump from enthusiastic amateur who pushed the shutter and prayed to a more studied amateur who actually tried to plan shots out….)
And — don’t be afraid, if you get halfway through and think of something, to back up and implement it as well. Do something you decide isn’t working as well as you hoped? think of a way to make it even better? As long as you have the hood open — DO IT. because one of the things you want to do is make sure that once you put the hood down, you don’t feel any interest in opening it up and doing this again for a number of years. If you leave something half-done, or un-done, you’ve already started your next ToDo list.

I’m hoping this refactor will keep me for the next five years or so. I’ve matured enough as a photographer to have a sense of what makes sense (for me) and what base quality I want to show to others, and I’ve experimented enough with keywords and captions and titles to have a feel for what works for me, so I don’t expect to have to make major revisions “for a while”. and the Lightroom publishing option means I can tweak along the way and roll those changes out everywhere — meaning less deferred maintenance and less reason to let problems pile up until I can’t look at things without wincing…

So, how to do your own refactor? In my view, the one thing you need to get right, and the one thing that we all agree is a royal pain in the ass even when you do — is keywords. So before you do anything else, you have to get your keywording setup into some kind of consistent and logical shape… That’s next on the docket.

big day of birding…

So I decided to get away from email and cell towers for a while and I
went out on an extended birding run, starting out way too freaking
early in the morning and driving up Mount Hamilton and out to the
Stanislaus county line, then backtracking and out Mines road to
Livermore, over Altamont and then through Gustine to San Luis NWR,
then home via O’Neill Forebay and 152. I hit the Grant park area just
as the light started going grey, and got home again about 3PM, driving
about 270 miles in the meantime. low temperature was 52 in the fog on
the way up mount hamilton, high temperature was 97 degrees at San Luis
reservoir on the way home.

The drive was awesome, the birding was interesting but not
spectacular, the photography was pretty mediocre. And I had a great
time… I was going to try to loop in merced NWR as well, but it was
hot enough in the central valley that it made no sense. All in all, I
checked birds in five counties, adn I considered looping down into
Santa Cruz and up the coast into San Mateo, but I decided that was
tempting insanity (besides, I’m thinking of hitting pigeon point and
gazos early monday…)

Santa Clara highlights:

For some reason, I have problems seeing california quail on the
county. I swear they see me coming and hide, laughing. Today solved
that and gave me numbers to last me for a while, since quail were
freaking everywhere. They definitely went forth and prospered this
summer. I saw at least 30 families from the base of mount hamilton to
when I entered alameda county, the largest being about 45 individuals,
and that large family included some tiny (week to ten day old) baby
quail numbering about 15. they were maybe 2″ tall. Everywhere I went,
quail were diving for cover…

I also saw massive numbers of scrub jays, the largest family group
being ten. And large numbers of Acorn woodpeckers. Lots and lots of
acorn woodpeckers.

But overall, birding wasn’t stupendous, about about 10AM when the
temperature in the valley hit about 84, the birds all headed for shade
and said “dude! some other time” (except for the jays…).

Specific highlights:

California thrasher at Smith Creek CDF (year bird! 192).

ten ravens looking for trouble to cause around Grant park at sunrise.

an adult female bluebird and a bird in juvenile plumage up at the sky
ranch gate, indicating they nested there this year. no sign of the
tree swallows that I’ve seen nesting at that location before, they’re
gone (if they were there). Just downhill from here I ran into the
band-tailed pigeon and one of the flickers.

Just below that, a tree with ten turkey vultures hanging out in a
roost waiting for it to warm up.

On the way down the hill near one of the ranches, a hawk in a tree
turned out to be a sharp-shinned.

Down near ranch 71 (in the flat among the horse pastures) I ran into a
few interesting small birds, including a single Lark Sparrow, and an oak
titmouse, The other flicker was in this area.

also in this area as I was driving I flushed a full adult bald eagle,
who turned out to have staked out a roadkill rabbit and when I got too
close flew off and past my car about 4′ away. Absolutely awesome
sight. From the size and the bill, I’ll say 80% sure it was female.

at O’neill forebay it was pretty quiet, I stopped just long enough for
a quick look in the heat, and saw mostly coot’s and a small flock of
western grebes. If there was a clark’s in there, I didn’t stop to sort
them out (my bad). Didn’t see much of anything else from my vantage
point, the water looked pretty empty.

(out of area, San Luis waterbird route was pretty hot, dusty and
empty; mostly I pissed off great egrets and great blue herons who felt
the need to move out of my way, although I did see a green heron, a
loggerhead shrike and a single american kestrel female).

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: <do-not-reply@ebird.org>
Date: Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 3:26 PM
Subject: eBird Report – Del Puerto Canyon (SCL Co.) , 9/4/10

Location: Del Puerto Canyon (SCL Co.)
Observation date: 9/4/10
Notes: long drive, from alum rock to stanislaus county line, back
to mines road and alameda county
Number of species: 26

California Quail 350
Turkey Vulture 12
Bald Eagle 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 3
Band-tailed Pigeon 1
Mourning Dove 75
Acorn Woodpecker 45
Northern Flicker 2
Black Phoebe 1
Steller’s Jay 15
Western Scrub-Jay 70
Yellow-billed Magpie X
American Crow X
Common Raven 10
Cliff Swallow 2
Oak Titmouse 1
Bushtit 8
Pygmy Nuthatch 1
Western Bluebird 2
Northern Mockingbird 3
California Thrasher 1
California Towhee X
Lark Sparrow 1
White-crowned Sparrow X
Red-winged Blackbird X

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)

I have committed iPad.

It’s official. I have committed iPad. I noticed last night that one of the local Best Buy’s had them in stock, so I decided it was time and went and grabbed one. Looking back on what I wrote when it was announced, I think I got it mostly right. I bought the 16G WiFi model, and I’ve been whacking on it since to try to get it set up the way I want and the tools on it I need to get going.

Why now? I’m looking to move forward on some projects and the iPad will make doing those a lot easier. And in some cases, they wouldn’t be possible without. What are those projects?

Well first, a quick side trip:

Anonymous offscreen voice: Chuq! Don’t you work for that company that said it was going to build it’s own tablet?

Why, thank you Anonymous offscreen voice. Yes, in fact, I do. And yes, they did. And no, it’s not announced or shipping yet, and I have things to do and people to see.

In all honesty, the reality is this — everyone in the industry owns stuff on multiple platforms. If you aren’t seeing what the other guys are doing, you’re going to miss important stuff. I think the record at work is someone who carries (CARRIES, not “owns”) four platforms: webOS, Android, IOS and a Treo. I still have my iPhone, and it sits mostly in my backback and gets used as an iPod, it has it’s phone number forwarded to my main phone, and it carries the few apps that I can’t yet find an equivalent on webOS. But I dogfooded my Pre long ago, and I use the apps on it if they exist — because if you don’t dog food your own stuff, you can’t live through the pain points that need to be fixed. So I do, happily, and I think we do a pretty good job (and it keeps moving forward).

But there is no webOS tablet yet, at least not that I can admit to, carry around in public or use on a daily basis. When there is, I’ll dogfood that, too. Until that happens, I need something now that does stuff, and the iPad makes sense.

I figured I should just be up front about this, because we all know there are folks out there who look for things to take out of context and push as negatively as they can. And they probably will anyway, but I felt I could either pretend I didn’t have one (which only works until the first time someone sees me with it, and then I have some explaining to do), or I could just explain up front. So I am. Heck, I could actually be working on some fascinating cross platform thingie that causes sparkling ponies to fly across the room, and if I am, I couldn’t tell you. In any event, the bottom line is the addition of an iPad to the family doesn’t imply anything about anything else other than the iPad is a useful tool, and when I have other useful tools, I’ll get those, too.

So, why did I buy an iPad?

At the start of the year, I made a decision to stop buying dead trees, and I shifted almost all of my book buying electronic. That’s worked out pretty well — I love the Kindle format and I’ve been doing some interesting research into e-publishing myself. It’s really clear that the iPad is a tipping point in the publishing space and I’ve been doing some interesting research into epublishing (more on that later) and I’m at the point where I needed to be able to try things out to mvoe that research forward further. But mostly, it’s because I wanted something more convenient than a laptop to carry about for my reading, and something with a bigger screen than a phone (and my 50 year old nearsighted eyes thank me!). I like getting away from the desk, away from the keyboard and yet more and more of my “downtime” and research time is spent online. The iPad allows me to nicely sit on the couch with Laurie, or pretty much anywhere, and do that.

Another thing I’m looking to investigate is using tablets as part of my photography. I think the iPad would be a nice way to do keywording and annotation of pictures, and I want to start prototyping up some options and see what happens. I think you could do a lot using a combination of a Lightroom plugin to handle migration, Dropbox and some custom code on the tablet to enable browsing and curation through updating the EXIF. Still a bunch of details to work out, but I’m ready to go work them out, and I can’t exactly do that without a tablet.

Finally, Project management. I’ve started doing some planning on a few fronts, trying to get back and moving on some things I’ve let sit fallow for a few months, and I needed something to help me get and stay organized. I grabbed a copy of Things, and I’m starting to figure out what I need to figure out about the projects I’m trying to reboot.

And yeah — the iPad is a damn good piece of work. but man, I miss multi-tasking of applications already.

A funny thing happened on the way to going pro…

A long time ago in a galaxy far away — way back in 2005 — I made a decision to get serious about my photography and see if I could go pro in the field as my “career 2.0″, either full-time or as part of something other than working high tech.

That’s easy to say. Making it happen? That’s the hard part. but when I sat down to figure out a path between that starting point and making the decision to make it happen, I came up with a long list of things that needed to be done.

But if you think about what the critical path is, it’s simple: until the craft you want to build the business around is good enough, nothing else matters. You can build the worlds best website, you can market the hell out of your work, you can promote and twitter yourself until you’re blue in the face, but if the photography isn’t good enough, it doesn’t matter.

So job one was to become good enough — and that’s been my focus. Every few months I’ve sat myself down and evaluated where I stand and my decision has been that I still have work to do to get where I believe i need to get to be successful.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t made progress; I thought I was a pretty good photographer when I started this (and I guess I was at some level), and along the way I’ve become a much better photographer. Many times I look back at my older images that I thought were pretty good and wince; some are salvageable through what I’ve learned about post-processing — many are being retired and put into storage. the more I learn, the more I study — the more I realize I need to be able to do to be successful at this.

Earlier this year I made a winter trip to Yosemite. That trip was (among other things) a test — to put myself into a situation well outside my comfort zone, to create a list of images that I needed to create and do so under deadline conditions, implement that plan when I get on site and adapt to the conditions and situation to see if I could still accomplish the goals (and to see what else was available when I got there, of course), and then see if I could reliably create quality images to the plan. It was a conscious attempt “on assignment” under conditions that weren’t fully under my control and see if I could turn out work that I felt met the requirements of the assignment at a quality I was satisfied with — and most importantly in some ways, that the images were “made”, not just taken.

That latter point is crucial in many ways, because being pro isn’t just about being able to produce an image, it’s about being able to produce the images that are needed and produce them when needed and reliably. It’s about making images, not just taking them. Anyone can get lucky and take a publishable shot. you can’t build a business around getting lucky — you have to make your luck, so to speak, and be able to produce reliably.

I felt that I succeeded at pretty much all levels. I was quite happy with the images, and the images were what I envisioned and planned. Feedback on the images was positive. All of the challenges I put in front of myself to “prove” I was ready to go pro were answered. So a back in April, I sat down and started planning what my next steps were going to be.

And a funny thing happened on the way to going pro….

One of the realities you have to understand about running a photography BUSINESS is that it takes time and energy; you have the bureacracy of running a business (paperwork and taxes, business licenses, managing finances, etc, etc…). You have to spend time and and energy soliciting business and supporting your customers, fulfilling requests, billing, managing inventory, marketing and promotion… Businesses aren’t magic. Things don’t happen, you have to make them happen.

The time to do those things has to come from somewhere. Since I have no intention to “give up my day job” any time soon (if for no other reason I’m enjoying what I do for a living. And there’s this thing called a paycheck) where is the time to start the business going to come from?

Yup. The most likely place that time will be sucked from is the time I spend doing photography. Physics wins, folks.

So I made the decision – surprising to myself at the time — that the best way to guarantee my long-term success as a professional photographer was to wait and leave it to a later time. It’s better for my to put my time into continuing to take photos and work on improving my craft (and especially working to widen my portfolio into areas I’m currently not strong at). I worried that my photography might stagnate if I put cycles into marketing instead of shooting — at the least, I’d be complicating my life, and the reality is, I don’t NEED to create an income stream right now, and it just doesn’t seem to make sense to try to force it to happen now.

My life priorities have changed in the last few years. there have been some speed bumps in my life the last few years — health issues, my dad dying, the hysical realities of middle age — but I seem to be beyond that, I feel better and I feel healthier than I’ve been since probably 2003 and except for my weight there aren’t any life complications I have to worry about. I do, however, have to worry about the weight and focus on getting it off, and the things that have happened the last few years has changed my attitude somewhat, and I am trying to live a little more for now and a less for someday — in the last two years I’ve lost two friends to cancer, my dad to his heart problems and I’ve had other friends my age have major cancer or health scares. It’s made me realize that my situation (diagnosed with diabetes almost a year ago but well controlled, and the joy of middle-age — arthritis) isn’t all that bad. But it also reminds me that you can’t always assume for tomorrow, either.

So my priorities are different now. When I redid my blog in July, it was to bring my photography more front and center in the design and make it a better showcase for my images, but I consciously decided not to try to put out a shingle and creating a business around it. that doesn’t mean I won’t license something if it comes along (I need to work on my smugmug site to make that possible), but that’s different. My attitude today is about simplifying my life and enjoying it more, keeping the stress manageable (and cutting stress out where can), more living in the moment instead of investing for someday. And doing really good photography and continuing to expand my skills instead of marketing and selling it. Letting someday happen and see what it is rather than always pushing to make it be something. Because you never know whether it’ll be there.

I don’t regret the goals I set along the way — and in fact, especially when I was dealing with dad and all of that entailed, my photography was sometimes the thing that kept me centered and sane — but you can’t be afraid to re-evaluate your goals and change them when circumstances change. I still think “going pro” is something I want to do, but later, when I’m thinner and older and ready to step away from silicon valley. But I’m not — it’s way too much fun these days. So while I still want to make this happen, I want to make sure i do it in terms that it the quality of life I’m trying to maintain today as well.

And that means sometimes the answer is a surprising “not now”…..

(and now, the camera is calling…)

My photographic mentors and inspirations

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my photography, looking back on the path I’ve taken so far and thinking about next steps and what I need to do to continue the journey. As part of this process, I’ve been thinking through the photographers that have been important in my development in some way and trying to understand why their work has influenced me.

In lieu of a more traditional blogroll, I thought it might be useful to talk about what’s influenced me and why. If nothing else, Consider this my way of saying thanks for what they’ve brought to my work.

So here are some of the people I feel have helped me become who I am today as a photographer, and are photographers I hope to emulate as I become what I believe I can become.

Some of these names you are going to be familiar with. Some aren’t. Some would be on your list. Some won’t be. It would be interesting, actually, if others also created their lists and we link to each other and see who the most common names are — and identify the interesting names others have found that we haven’t. If you do that, link to this list and I’ll link back and we’ll see if we can create a mega-list that way.

I’m willing to bet I’m going to see a number of “but what about <fill in a name>?” to which my answer is going to be “they aren’t on the list”. I don’t have any intention on talking about why someone DID NOT make the list, I want to stay away from real or inferred negativity. I will say that if I’d done this list a year ago my list would have been somewhat different, and that a few of the “what about?” names would have been on that list. There are some photographers out there doing a good job of teaching that are oriented more towards the newer and less experienced photographer; that’s not a criticism, that is actually a very important niche and one I’m glad they fill.

Who got me started?

John Shaw: The first photographer that made me go “who is this? and where can I find more of his photography?” was John Shaw. His nature work, especially his macro work, really caught my eye and fascinated me.

In high school, I shot primarily black and white, primarily sports and yearbook stuff, spent a lot of time in a darkroom, which I loved. When I graduated I let my photography lapse. In the mid-80′s, I picked it up again with a Minolta 5xi, then a 7xi, shooting a lot of Velvia. Looking back at what survives of that phase of my shooting life, some of it actually isn’t bad. I’ll rate it as “has potential”. John Shaw’s work and books was what aimed me at nature photography and really got me interested in working with the camera again.

His books, especially his macro work, were the foundation I’ve built everything else on. I still have them in my collection, and while some of the technical discussions are outdated in a digital world, I’ve gone back to them recently and they’re still a fascinating read with some amazing photography.

Galen Rowell: Then I discovered Galen Rowell, probably in Outdoor Photographer magazine. He was the photographer that taught me the power of emotionally connecting with the viewer and turning an image into a statement, of having a message.

At some point I put the camera down again; a combination of time and money and too many things in life and setting priorities. And then digital photography happened. I actually owned a first generation Apple Quicktake, which was an interesting toy, but not much more. Some time later I bought a little Canon Elph. And suddenly I was hooked again. The Elph begat a Minolta Dimage, and the Dimage begat…

Well, it begat all of this.

For someone who I’ve exchanged maybe half a dozen emails with over the last 25 years, it’s amazing how much Bill Atkinson‘s affected my life. He wrote QuickDraw and MacPaint, which hooked me on Macs early on (my first was a Mac 512K). He wrote Hypercard, which convinced me to go from being a Mac user to being an Apple employee, where I worked for 17 years. Hypercard convinced me about the advantages of scripting languages which pushed me from being a C programmer to a Perl programmer (and later a PHP programmer). And then I found out he’d shifted out of high tech and into photography, and happens to be one hell of a nature photographer. So is Dave Cardinal, another apple alum I know from my six color days.

And seeing that those two had already done it made me think that I could, too. And so in 2005 I made a decision to work towards the idea of going pro. It’s now 2010 and I’m still haven’t pulled that lever — but that’s a discussion for another time.

Interesting side note on this. When I finally got serious about my photography and started working on the craft, I went and started photographing birds. Which neither Rowell or Shaw are particularly famous for. The things that really drew me into photography were not the things I did when I started doing photography myself. Typical? Not? Weird? Normal? I dunno. I don’t particularly care, but I do find it interesting that I set off on a completely independent path from day 1 of the journey. for whatever that might mean.

Who do I judge myself by?

What do you want to be when you grow up? But it’s a question I’ve pondered a lot recently while formulating what my goals are and how do I judge whether I’m getting closer. Ultimately I decided to judge my work against the work of two photographers, because if I can make my work as good as and as popular as these photographers I’ll know I’ve succeeded. Those two photographers are George Lepp and Art Wolfe. They are both successful professional photographers who’s work is in the style of photography I want to become known for, and who are technically very good — and not coincidentally, they are both committed teachers of the craft. I will know I’ve “made it” when I hear the phrase “his work reminds me of….” from someone other than my mother.

One thing that attracts me to these two photographers specifically is how they work to inject the life and emotion of the animal into the image — to tell the story of the animal — not just the image. This is something I’m consciously trying to do in my photography now, and I use these photographers as examples to study as a guide for learning how to go from the “senior portrait” style of photography to something more dynamic and emotional and involving.

I was lucky to hear Lepp speak at the Morro Photo Expo last year. He’s back this year, and giving a private class for a few attendees. Very, very tempting. His lecture really helped push my photography by resolving some questions I had about his work I couldn’t figure out, especially with his landscapes. It turns out he was doing a lot of multi-image panorama images and stiching the pieces together, which is why I couldn’t reproduce his work with my lenses. In retrospect — duh — it was painfully obvious, but even though panoramas were on my “experiment with this” list, I didn’t make the connection. His work with extended depth of field also fascinated me (but I still haven’t gotten to experimenting with that). That lecture, and the couple of days I spent at the expo in general, really pushed the quality of my own photography forward in a short time through a combination of some focussed teaching (on HDR and NIght photography) and sharing and talking with the other attendees.

Who do I consider my peers?

If Art Wolfe and George Lepp are the photographers I aspire to become, it’s also an interesting exercise to consider the photographers who are currently doing what I am trying to do. I want to be careful not to use the phrase “as good as” here, because at the very least, professionally, I’m not. Nor is that the kind of evaluation I’m doing here.

By calling them “my peers” I’m saying that these are photographers who are all doing the kind of work I feel I am capable of (and am, or am trying to do) today. These are all California-based photographers who I feel are similar to my work in terms of subject matter and style. They shoot the same locations I do (or shoot in locations I want to shoot) and shoot in ways I look at and study and want to emulate. So when I’m looking for inspiration (or ideas of locations to go and explore), these are the photographers I tend to turn to and study, and as I work to improve my own images and work practices, these are photographers I look to for ideas to adopt. Thanks, guys.

Who instructs and inspires me?

When I started down this path in 2005, I thought I was a pretty good photographer. Today, in 2010, I’m a much better photographer and most of my work from 2005 embarrasses me. That’s fine — this is normal in these situations, where the less you know, the better you are. Part of progressing is being honest about your progress without beating yourself up as you figure out what you don’t know.

But the more I learn and study, the more I find I still need to learn. The internet is a wonderful thing, in that it makes massive amounts of knoweldge avaialble to be studied, and gives you access to people who are happy to share and to teach. I’m always on the lookout for people I can listen to and learn from. This list changes over time, but here are the photographers who’s writing I pay attention to and who’s work I study to improve my own. (This list is oriented towards photography as opposed to geeky things and workflow and tools — that would be it’s own list, which I should do some time).

Mike Johnston: If someone were to ask me the question “What web site do you recommend reading to an intermediate/advanced photographer?” my answer would be The Online Photographer (TOP) and Mike Johnston. It’s hard to say what this site is about — it’s about the kind of stuff` you probably want to know about photography, but it doesn’t really focus on any specific topic. And perhaps that’s part of the attraction, a well-written generalist blog is hard to find, and this one is definitely that.

Michael Frye: Frye is a nature and landscape artist who has photographed Yosemite for years. As a lover of Yosemite who’s been trying to photograph the park over the last couple of years, his work fascinates me. He’s also doing a regular critique of other people’s work that I find a very insightful and fascinating read. Watching how he images the park and then trying to see the park the way he sees it has been an interesting exercise in learning to understand how to represent my vision within my images.

William Neill: Another very good and long-time photographer of Yosemite and the eastern Sierra. I find his work interesting for many of the reasons I find Frye’s work interesting, but while there are similarities, they also see the same subjects in different ways. Neill is also doing some interesting work publishing his material as ebooks for online sale, and that’s an area of great interest to me right now. I’ve purchased and read a number of his works, and they’re quite well done and I think he shows that this format is going to be an interesting and viable alternative to paper-based publishing. They are highly recommended.

Chase Jarvis: You can not learn if you only study what you already know. Jarvis is a photography who’s portfolio consists almost entirely of photography that I either don’t do at all, or that I suck at. He is also the photographer behind the iPhone’s Best Camera app, and someone who shows that photography is about passion as much as it is about technology or skill. But he can get geeky when he needs to, and his writeup and video of how he manages his image library and backups is awesome and everyone should be paying attention to this issue (and for smaller environments, his solutions scale down nicely, too!) He is in many ways the embodiment of all of the photographer pieces I am not, and he makes a wonderful resource to study as I try to integrate those things into what I am becoming. I owe him a couple of beers already….

David Hobby (Strobist): I am a natural light photographer. I am very uncomfortable shooting with artificial lights. I’ve done some, I’m rarely happy with the results. David Hobby’s Strobist web site and practice time will be my salvation — when I finally bear down and actually dig in and put the time in.

Trey Ratcliff: I’ve been dipping my toe into HDR for a while, and I’ve leaned heavily on Tret Ratcliff and his Stuck in Customs website as a resource for understanding this. I am very much in the photo-realism side of the HDR world (but — ssshhhh — don’t tell anyone, but I sometimes see why photographers like to dabble over on the dark side). It’s a controversial technique with some right now, but HDR to me is clearly the future of really expressive landscape photography. I have gratefully stopped carrying my collection of graduated ND filters in favor of HDR. I wasn’t always convinced about HDR, until the day I realized that most people who criticize HDR are doing so because they only recognize the BAD renderings as HDR and aren’t seeing the good ones. I hope most of mine fall in the latter category…

David duChemin: Like Chase Jarvis, David duChemin is a photographer who shoots the kind of photography I can’t really do today. He’s a humanitarian photographer who sees his images as a way to inform us and to help improve the world around us. He’s also someone who’s photography is driven by his passion and his writing on teh subject is about vision and seeing, not aperture and ISO. He’s a fascinating writer and a damn good photographer. He’s also another photographer doing significant experimentation with the ebook format and has created the Craft & Vision imprint that he uses to publish and sell ebooks writing by himself and others. I’ve purchased and read a number of them and they are quite good; one innovation he’s experimenting with is the short form ebook, smaller, focused topics that can be produced quickly, sell for a lot less than a traditional photography book and look to me to fit in well with the e-publishing model I see emerging and at a price point that makes the purchase within range of the impulse buy, which I think is going to be a key success point for ebooks moving forward, especially on new platforms like the iPad. duChemin seems to be ahead of the pack here, and I’m watching his success closely, because I think this is a model others should be studying and looking to adopt as the ebook market matures into a viable publishing medium for more people. (I know I certainly am watching….)

Zack Arias: Arias is a photographer for which it’s hard to explain exactly how he impacts my work. He’s a music photographer who refuses to let his work be easy or safe or commercial. His writing and his photography show him to be driven by his passion, and someone who wears his emotions very close to the surface. He gives a damn, and that giving a damn is what drives him in his work, and that is an esthetic I am trying to embrace in my own work. His guest blog on Scott Kelby’s Photoshop Insider just blew me away, because of how much I saw of myself in it and how he was talking about things I was struggling with at the time. if I owe Chase Jarvis a couple of beers, I probably owe Arias a couple of cases.

George Barr: George Barr is another photographer who does really good photography about things I feel massively incompetent at. He’s a fine art photographer who’s work include some nature photography, but a lot of urban architecture and photography that I call industrial abstract — shapes and textures and patterns found within larger items or scenes. I picked up his book around christmas and found it fascinating, interesting enough that I went and re-read it a couple of weeks later, and then sat down and re-read it again very slowly and spent a lot of time studying the photographs to try to understand his sense of pattern and flow. He’s not a frequent blogger, but one who’s writing I find very much worth the time. He’s another one of those photographers I study because it stretches me and helps me understand a style of photography I find very foreign and uncomfortable, which helps me wrap myself around it and figure out how to do it well.

Harold Davis: I ran into the work of Davis fairly early on in my explorations, and I’ve been fascinating by it ever since. He is a very strong photoshop technician and does a lot of interesting work adapting photography in post-processing. He’s a strong nature photographer but also an exceptional studio photographer. His skills and writings align very closely with my interests — and yet his post-processing moves him far away from the photo-realistic results of most nature photographers and shifts his work into very different areas. All in all, someone who’s writings I follow closely, and as I plan to actually get my act together and start shooting in the a studio, his work will be a model for my experimentations here.

Joe McNally: Force of nature. Or something like that. McNally is another photographer in the “there isn’t a scene I can’t improve with a couple of speedlites. Or 20″ school of photography. He does a lot of innovative lighting and really pushes the edges in adapting a space to his vision. As a natural light photographer, what he does many times seems like magic, but as someone who knows he needs to understand and acquire artificial lighting as part of his skill set, McNally’s work is part of my education. It doesn’t hurt that he’s very willing to explain what he does and what the rationale was….

road trip — california central coast (part 2)

(continuing a discussion on my recent birding/photo trip along the central california coast. go here to start at the beginning)

So it was now time for me to explore Morro Bay. But first, a digression.

Why Morro Bay?

I live in Silicon Valley, and have for for over 25 years, but I grew up in Southern California and my family still lives down there. This implies I’ve travelled the roads to LA a few times. I long ago got over feeling like the hour I save by driving down I-5 is “worth it”, so my preference is to head up and down 101 along the coast. A bit slower, but worth it.

In 2008, Dad got sick. Went into the hospital. Didn’t come home. Between Christmas 2007 and October 2008 when we finalized all of the details on the estate, I logged about 12,000 miles on the car JUST driving back and forth across the state. I honestly can’t tell you how many trips I took, 2008 was and probably always will be a grey blur. But a lot of those trips were long weekends, and on a lot of those trips, I started doing short side trips on the way home to unwind. Occasionally my “weekend” consisted of driving a couple of hours out of my way and seeing what I found (sometimes up highway 1, sometimes crossing from 5 to 101 through one of the passes like 198 or 46 — just checking out different parts of the state. Driving, far away from people, responsibilities and cell phone towers — was a bit of an escape.

I also started stopping in Morro Bay, because (among other reasons) it’s about half-way between the two ends of this journey. Drive four hours, stop for a couple of hours, grab a meal, then carry on. Many times, that was my weekend. I first visited Morro Bay when I was trying to decide how serious I was about birdwatching as an avocation, and hit a point where I wanted to get out and on my own and explore a bit and see if this really was something I wanted to commit myself to; I chose Morro Bay because it’s a major birding area with a great diversity to it — and I loved the trip and the location. Ever since then, I’ve used Morro Bay as a stopping off point on trips up and down state or when I need to get away. It’s close enough that I can daytrip if I really want to, but it’s a perfect place for an overnight trip or weekend to get away and unplug.

It’s no secret Laurie and I have talked about retiring (or relocating) out of the valley at some point. I’ve wanted to move to the Oregon Coast for years, and we have a great love for cities like Seattle and Portland and Vancouver. I could settle in to a city like Newport or Astoria quite happily, though, and some day, we might. Morro Bay, I found, embodies much of what attracts me to the Oregon Coast, and that became a great attraction. The town is small and friendly; it’s casual and has a nice, slow pace, but it’s close to civilization with San Luis Obispo within reasonable drive. It’s a great outdoor town and I’ve come to learn it’s full of really interesting people — many of whom used to work in Silicon Valley and fell in love with the area and moved down there when they could. There’s a very active birding culture, and there’s are a number of very good and fun photographers that I’ve come to know either in person or in email. It’s very common — almost every trip — for someone to wander up if I’m shooting around the harbor just to say hi and talk photography for a bit, or to offer suggestions on interesting places to take pictures or find an interesting bird. it’s just one of those places you occasionally find that you visit and it makes you feel like you’re home (or want to be).

So Morro Bay became my escape, and as I visited it, I learned more about it and I found new and interesting things to do there, and now it just seems weird if I don’t spend some time around the town if I’m in the central coast. When I need to crawl into a cocoon for a bit, it’s a great place for me to do it. And because it’s like that (Victoria, BC is another town like that for me) that’s one reason I was careful to make sure I stayed in Santa Maria and explore new locations — it would have been fine to just stay in Morro Bay for the weekend, but I wouldn’t have really pushed myself or done anything new, and I needed the break, but I needed to push myself, too. This trip succeeded at both.

I have a few standard visiting places in the Morro Bay area. I normally start at the sweet springs preserve in Los Osos:

I love that place.

After that, it was time for lunch. Over in Baywood, across the estuary is the Good Tides Coffee house, a nice cup and a pastry, and the ability to sit and watch the estuary for a while (in the same location is Maya, a nice mexican restaurant I like to eat at; in fact, I came back to it for dinner that night).

I then drove up into the estuary and towards Morro Bay proper. I usually stop at the bayside marina because it can be a good place for otters to hang out, And then the Cormorant Rookery near the golf course in Morro State Park.

I’ve been experimenting with shooting that rookery a few times now. I must admit that for the most part, the rookery is winning. it’s a freaky place; you hike out to it along the water (hope for low tide). It’s up on a bluff a bit, and the cormorants are nesting up in the trees, so it’s hard to get good angles that show off what’s going on up there. I had fog this trip (of course), and that complicates it further. I’ve been there at times where the fog’s been heavy and turns the area into something really spooky — if you’ve never heard a rookery’s noises, you can’t understand what it’s like being near it in the fog.

Double-crested cormorants, egrets and herons all nest there. Pelagic and Brandt’s cormorants nest on the rock with the western gulls and peregrines. it’s both very accessible and difficult to photograph well, and I guess I’m going to have to keep trying…

After the rookery, I stopped at tidelands park; the main harbor was really quiet, so I headed over to the rock, where it was pretty quiet birding but there some otters hanging out. As it turned out, I ended up hauling out my camp chair and sitting down and watching and photographing the otters for about three hours. there were three hanging out and mostly sleeping, a young male, a mom and her young pup.

To sleep, Otters wil wrap themselves in a kelp plant because they use that as an anchor. It prevents them from drifting off as the tide changes.

Like Pelicans, I can sit and watch otters forever. I never get tired of photographing them, and they never disappoint.

After that, I was beat. 11 hours on the road, over 1,000 images taken. I headed off to the hotel room to check in and put up my feet and start importing the images. Importing ended up taking over 7 hours — one reason I decided it was time for that new laptop. I crashed early, got up early (but slept through my alarm) and headed out to the rock again to see if there was anything interesting to photograph. Other than a small flock of Brant Geese on the far side of the harbor, the answer was no. I did get a chance to say hi to one of the local birder/photogs who was out early as well, and we chatted a bit about the upcoming Morro Photo Expo and whether we were going, but that really needs to be its own posting.

After that, I headed north on highway 1 looking for things to shoot. What I mostly got was fog, I admit that the previous day had worn me out and I was looking forward to being home, but there wasn’t a lot that really caught my eye. what did — a few vistas around Big Sur — were out in the sun, but mid-day and flat lighting made those things to come back adn explore more some other time.

Point Lobos was encased in a fairly heavy fog, so I bagged it and drove in. Some days it’s just not worth it to fight for an image.

One lesson learned: I’ve lost enough hair that I can no longer pretend I can get away without a hat (and sunblock). Sitting out along the harbor for hours with the otters, even under a heavy fog/marine layer and no real sun, left me nicely sunburnt. Which, being a southern california boy, I don’t feel like it’s summer without one good sunburn, but I spend the next week or so doing a great imitation of a bad zombie movie as everything flaked and peeled, so before I do that again, I need to get a good hat and some good sunblock, and I just have to get in the habit of using it.

I do, actually, have a birding hat, a Tilley’s I’ve worn for years. But it’s getting a bit long in the tooth, and it’s a bit — informal — for general wear. And the reality is, like my dad, I need a hat I wear habitually when outside, and I have to find one I will wear that doesn’t (as Laurie has so described my Tilleys) make me look dorky. Okay, dorkier. So off to REI I go. (there’s a practical reason fo rthis beyond sunburn; my dad had multiple class one melanomas in his later years; that puts me at about 20% higher risk of melanoma than the normal population; my history as a bit of a sun hound in my SoCal youth doesn’t help that, either — so I need to get serious about protecting myself outside more than I do. That, and when I peel, I itch…..)

My next trip? hopefully up to Bodie, Mono Lake and Tioga pass for 3-4 days or so. We’ll see. I’ve been doing a bit more research and have a better feel for what I want to accomplish up there, and it’s an area I really want to see soon. But honestly, it’s been a few years since I’ve made it up into Oregon and the pacific northwest, and that would be nice, too… but that’s a more extensive trip, and I’m not planning more than a long-weekend kind of thing for the next few months. And honestly, I keep thinking that if I can get a longer trip organized somehow, it sure would be nice to get back to Yellowstone… (but that ain’t gonna happen this year…)

View central coast trip in a larger map

road trip — california central coast

(don’t forget to check out part 2.)

So a couple of weeks ago, I went down to SoCal to visit family and spend a few days at the old homestead. I arranged things so that I could take a couple of days on the way back and go a bit of a road trip and relax and do some photography.

I’m trying to turn these trips into challenges, to use them to stretch my photography and to explore new areas or new techniques (or preferably both). One thing I’ve realized is that I’m very comfortable (and pretty good) at shooting the type of work I normally shoot but really uncomfortable away from those specific styles. Not a huge surprise, most folks are like that — but I feel that to really take my photography to the next level, I need to widen the types of photography I do and become capable and comfortable in a much more diverse set of photography formats. Push myself way out of my comfort zone, and then get comfortable there. (at the SAME time, honestly, photography is still one of those things I do to relax and recharge the batteries, and so there’s a tension here between never relaxing and never growing. These days, with everything that’s been going on, the needle is pointing further towards relaxing, but I need to change that up a bit).

I purposefully didn’t plan the photo trip until I got to SoCal, because I wanted to spend some time researching options and deciding what to do on the fly. With only two or three nights in a hotel, the options were somewhat restricted (no Bryce or Zion, for instance, because I’d spend too much time traveling and too little time on site). Part of the exercise here was to treat this as a photo assignment and do the research, choose the venues and the shooting plan — and then do it and see how the plan and the results match out and how well I adapt the plan to the conditions. It’s an attempt to simulate getting an assignment and then being able to understand how to carry it out.

I ended up having to decide on two ideas. One was to work up the 395 along the eastern Sierra and explore the Bishop to Bodie region (tioga pass, mammoth, bodie, etc). The other was to head up the coast and do some coastal shooting.

I ended up opting to stay on the coast for two reasons; first, I felt that a couple of nights in the eastern sierra was just too short for what I wanted to cover and I reducing the scope to fit the time available just made no sense. Since it’s been decades since I’ve been in that area, I’d need time to explore and scout as well as shoot, and I just felt I was trying to cram too much in (instead, I’m hoping I can take a trip out there for a few days after labor day. maybe. we’ll see. If not, it’s on the short list. But then, a birding trip to Salton Sea has been on my short list since 2006 and I still haven’t gotten there…)

I didn’t, however, want it to turn into another trip to the same places in Morro Bay, I knew there was a place in Pismo I wanted to go back and shoot, so I decided to overnight further south on the coast and then spend a full day shooting from the starting point into Morro bay, and then a second day in Morro and then take highway 1 home and stop in Point Lobos for a few hours of shooting.

One complication — a feature — is that along the coast, this time of year, it’s often foggy, grey and misty. In all, potentially a challenging shooting environment. That sealed the deal, let’s go find new stuff and go shoot it in the fog!

I ended up holing up for the night in Santa Maria, which was far enough north to minimize the travel needed before I started shooting, but far enough out that I was able to cover a fair amount of ground I’d never explored before hitting Morro Bay and more familiar territories. I chose two locations to explore: Guadalupe Dunes park for the possibility of some interesting dune formations, and Oso Flaco lake, because it’s a fairly well known birding site and I could accomplish a couple of things at the same time (perhaps). Adding in Pismo, that gave me two areas I’d researched but never visited, a third I knew about but had only visited for a short time a few years ago, and whatever caught my attention in the meantime.

I arrived near dinner time in Santa Maria and checked in and grabbed food — Santa Maria isn’t the most diverse culinary city in the universe, so I ended up at a Red Lobster (perfectly acceptable) followed by the starbucks for a coffee for dessert. And then went on a scouting drive. I drove about 40 miles E up the 166 towards the central valley looking for interesting stuff. One project I’ve been thinking of kicking off is a series on the california oak, looking for especially interesting trees and the remains of the fallen warriors. I’ve done a little shooting towards this, but haven’t really dedicated a lot of time to it. the trees on the 166, to my eye, were younger and just not very grizzled and not really all that interesting. One or two possible candidates but nothing I’ll prioritize going back for soon. Perhaps the 95 degree weather affected my judgement (it being a major heatwave in the state at the time….). Still, it was an interesting drive and exercise to explore for a purpose. But I really need to start keeping a formal scouting journal and a list of candidate locations for variious projects and potential shots…

Next morning I got up really early and got on the road and drove into Guadalupe and off to the dunes. I arrived — to fog.

Expected, but heavier than I had hoped. Guadalupe dunes looks like a fascinating place, but at 7 in the morning in the fog, it was me, a ranger, some really insane surfers and the sand. I spent some time trying various things, but ultimately, I wasn’t really happy with the results. the fog was heavy enough that the surf was effectively invisible (did I mention the surfers were insane?), and shooting birds in the fog just makes them look grey and uninteresting, at least with fog that heavy. I spent most of my time looking for interesting shooting options with the dunes, but just not finding many.

The sand just didn’t have much in the way of interesting textures for close up work, and the wide angle stuff in the fog was just — boring.

I do feel like I continue to struggle with this type of shot in general; there are a couple of things I need to focus on here. My lens setup doesn’t go wide enough for my tastes (I’ve talked about that previously here) but rather than blame it on “not the right gear”, I’m trying to push myself to figure out how to take interesting shots with what I have before succumbing to the “new toys” syndrome, because I really see this as a lack of technique and what I need to do is force myself to practice and work on this; if I did buy a wider lens or two, what I’d end up with are boring pictures set at 10mm instead of 28mm.

After that, I drove up highway 1 to Pismo, where things got better.

Laurie and I discovered Margo Dodd park in Pismo a few years ago when we were looking for a place to take a break during a drive back from visiting my family. It’s right on the water, a small grassy area with a few picnic tables — but it overlooks a wonderful rocky area, tidepools and some interesting vistas. I’ve always meant to go back and photograph there. it’s next to a rock where gulls and cormorants nest (and it turns out pigeon guillemots!) and I thought there were going to be some interesting opportunities. I also knew I’d run into brown pelicans, and if you haven’t figured it out by now, I can watch (and photograph) pelicans forever…

So I did. The fog was much lighter. it was late enough that the cormorants were fledged, but a few were still feeding young. I found a couple of fairly young gull chicks, but very little in the way of active nesting, it was all later than that. And pelicans flying everywhere in formation…

But that location was more than birds. Instead of closing off photography, the fog here gave me opportunities to create some interesting images. I especially like this one. If the fog were lighter, I think it would have been boring, it gave the tree just that right tough of mystery. If there were more fog, well, it just turns into a grey blog. This was what I was looking for when I decided to go up the coast and shoot in the fog.

Oh… astute readers will realize that I haven’t talked about Oso Flaco at all. When I arrived there, I realized that the location left my car a bit too exposed for my comfort level; with it fully packed and full of “stuff” and gear, I really wasn’t hot to let the car out of my sight to go hiking, so I aborted and filed it away for another trip, later. Especially given how foggy it was there…

So onwards towards Morro. And I’ll talk about Morro and the rest of the trip in the next posting.

New Laptop Time revisited — aftermath and more thoughts

When last we talked I’d just picked up my new laptop and was about to delve into migrating my universe onto it. I”m now fully migrated and settled in, and so it’s time for a bit of a post-mortem on the process and discuss what I did (and why) and which parts I like and which parts I probably need to think about some more…

The first thing I needed to do was install the upgraded hard drive (500 Gig, 7200 RPM). thanks to some very nice instructions from Other World Computing (where I bought the drive) and the fact that Apple made the unibody Macbook Pros easy units to swap drives in (Thank You Apple!) that took all of ten minutes. I’ve done that enough times by now I could pretty much do it in my sleep, but it’s not always easy.

Once I did that, though, a bit of a quandry. I now have a Mac with an unformatted drive, a drive attached to nothing with MacOS X on it, and a need to get MacOS X on the new drive somehow. There are all sorts of ways to do that; I ended up using the recovery DVD and simply booting it, formatting the drive, and installing fresh from the DVD. That took about 30 minutes, very painless.

Other options: I could have wired the original drive into a housing and booted the mac onto it, then cloned the drive (or cloned the drives via my old Mac, or… or… and in reality, all of the other ways to do it would have been more complicated and taken longer, IMHO. That’s why the recovery DVD exists…

First thing I did: Cloned my old laptop drive (via Superduper) and then put that boot drive far away from potential chaos. I also took my old backup drives and put them far away as well. Before I started, I had THREE current, bootable copies PLUS my Time Machine backup. I took my secondary firewire drive and turned it off and unplugged the firewire so I couldn’t accidentally trash it (there was a 2nd current copy of that data in Time Machine). More copies a good thing when it comes to backups.

Once the OS was installed on the new drive, I booted onto it and it ran through Apple’s standard setup process. Put my old mac in firewire target mode, connected the two, and let Apple’s software copy the data. 4.5 hours later, data is copied and my new mac looks like my old Mac (except where it doesn’t… there are a couple of things to remember here….)

Then you fire up Software Update and let it download all of the updates. That took about an hour.

Then I fired up the Application DVD and fired it up (it is also the hardware test DVD in this generation of new-machine disks) – since I never upgraded to iLife ’09, I needed to restore the applications that were on the disk I didn’t use, and I couldn’t do that until after the migration was done. That took another 45 minutes or so.

One thing that isn’t done by the migration assistant is XCODE; if you have the Apple developer environment installed, it won’t migrate it. That’s not a big deal, and there was an update I needed to install anyway, so the last thing I did before crashing was start a download of the latest tools from the developer site. And then I crashed.

Started about 5:30PM, crashed at 1AM with the migration complete and the system fully functional (minus XCODE). And almost all of that time was doing things I wanted to do while the system was doing whatever it was doing. I probably spent an hour total actively working on the update, the rest was the computer doing things while I waited.

I know some people still prefer to move stuff over manually and don’t want to trust the migration assistant, and I suppose if you’re someone who’s off hacking the guts of the system, you might need to. My view is “have fun. let me know when you’re done”, and I long ago learned to trust Apple knowing how to do this better than me. I also learned long ago not to hack the parts of the system that Apple “owns” — if I need a custom version of Perl or want to run an Apache server, I create a user and install the software into that user and build my own custom versions and run those instead. That does two things: it isolated the installed system from breaking because I inadvertantly step on something it depends on, and it isolates my custom stuff from being broken at a bad time by a software update that steps on my customizations. Everyone wins — and since it lives in a user account, it’s compatible with the migration assistant. (this was a trick we learned to figure out how to build custom hacks into Perl and Apache while still being generic and compatible inside the Apple data center, so the data center could maintain the boxes and OS without impacting production systems, and we could build the tools we needed without the data center staff having to be involved or approving stuff. works great, once you get in the habit of doing it).

One thing to realize when you upgrade your computer is that a few things are going to change. In my cast, the necessary changes were that my old laptop had a DVI video out, and my new one has this new mini-video plug thing. Also, my old laptop was Firewire 400, the new one is Firewire 800. That meant a trip to Fry’s for a new video dongle and cable, and some replacement firewire cables with the new plug types. While there, I realized they had a 2Tb drive for $110, and that solved my backup problem. This all happened while my data was migrating, so it was all ready when the new machine was ready…

Next morning was installing the dev tools, upgrading a few apps I realized needed patches (especially Parallels and the XP partittion), and then setting up backups.

These things are easier if you’re careful how you store stuff on disk. Over the years, I’ve gotten pretty careful about where I put my data — yes, I use Documents and Pictures and Music and Movies and I keep stuff where it “belongs”, and I limit what lives on my Desktop to active files and projects. That REALLY simplifies major migrations like this. Times like this ARE a good chance to go through your files and identify stuff that you can throw out or archive offline, and in fact, I did take about 250 Gigs of data (mostly low-quality pictures) and copied them to two separate drives, one which will live in my desk, one which will live offsite. Next time I do this kind of archiving, I’ll buy a couple of new drives, copy the data from this archive onto it, add the new archived data, and then store a copy offsite. One way to limit the “I can’t read my only copy of this” is to keep two copies, and the other important way is to refresh the archive every so often. Given you can buy 2TB drives for $110 today, there’s really no reason not to simply replace your archives with a new, really larger drive every couple of years. And so I shall. And remember, THIS is the data I never expect to ever need or touch again, but am keeping around in case I’m wrong. So I’m comfortable only keeping two copies of it…

I plopped the new 2Tb drive in the dock. I ALSO took the old 2Tb backup drive and stuck it in a static free envelope and it and the offsite copy of the archive data and my old laptop then were put far away from my working area so I wouldn’t accidentally do something to them. In the morning, when I go to work, the offsite data will go with me. In a week or so, once i’m absolutely sure I have everything I need off of it, I’ll wipe the disk on the old laptop, and then it’ll go to a friend who refurbishes them and lends them out to underpriviledged kids that otherwise wouldn’t have computers.

Backups… When you’re schlepping around half a terabyte of data, it takes time. I fired up Superduper to clone my new boot drive to the 2TB drive and set up a timed refresh for every night at 1:30AM. Once that was done, I fired up Time Machine and got it started.

DAMN but Time Machine is slow. It copied data at maybe 40% of the speed of SuperDuper, and SuperDuper is pretty much as fast as you can get. I keep finding reasons not to like Time Machine in large data environments, but not enough that I’m ready to turn it off. Just don’t depend on it as your primary backup, folks, not if you do large data sets like this. For my mom — it’s great. For me, I get annoyed a lot.

Once my boot disk was copied (twice — once cloned, once Time Machine) I plugged in my secondary firewire and turned it on. And then fired up the backups on IT. And timed them, because I was now annoyed at Time Machine and wanted to make sure there wasn’t a performance problem with the dock. It took me 2 hours to finder copy 280 gigabytes to a 5400RPM drive in the dock. It took me over 5 hours for Time Machine to back up 165 gigabytes from that same source drive to that same dock with a 7200 RPM drive in it.

DAMN but Time Machine is slow.

And once that was done — I was done. Total time invested: about a day and a half of clock time. 7.5 hours of upgrade and migration, of which my time spent actively involved was about 1 hour. Getting backups set up and all of the data backed up? About 12 hours, of which I probably spent 2 hours actively involved and the rest of the time puttering. And about 2 hours involved in getting XCODE re-installed and doing the various updates I did (most of the time updating was getting XP patches up to date and getting the anti-virus stuff updated…)

Not bad.

Pretty much everything went as planned. there was one thing I did I want to do differently: I bought a VGA dongle and a VGA cable to replace the DVI setup I had. I don’t think it’s as crisp as the DVI was, so I’m going to go get a DVI dongle and go back to the old cable. I do need the VGA dongle as well, but it’ll live in my bag and get carried around for when I need to wire into a project for a presentation… All in all, not bad at all.

I also need to find and invest in a few really short (1-1.,5 foot) 800-800 firewire cables for neatness sake. Maybe a firewire hub; and clean up my cable monster behind the desk, now taht I know where everything needs to go…

When doing something like moving everything to a new laptop I find it’s a good time to reconsider how you use the system and what needs to be fixed or changed or upgraded. There have been a couple of projects I’ve been meaning to get to — and this seems to be a perfect excuse to actually get to them. One is that my contact list/address book has become a complete shambles; some of you are in my gmail lists, some in my Mac Address book, some in my entourage book at work, some on my phone and nowhere else. That’s long-term untenable and potential disaster, so I’m merging everything into a single list again (using gMail, and that syncs to my mac address book, and THAT syncs onto MobileMe and back out onto my phone), That’ll at least get the chaos under control for awhile, and keep it organized to the degree that I’m smart enough to only add data to the primary address book (but don’t bet on it…).

the other is that it’s well past time to get more paranoid about online accounts and passwords and get all of that data out of the way too useful but not terribly secure browser autofill and into something a bit more — discrete. And that is 1Password, a secure wallet that can keep a set of data and make it available on my Mac and iPhone/iPod_Touch (and there’s a way to sync data out to webOS via Dropbox). I’m going to be installing it tonight and as I start hitting up sites setting them up in 1Password, changing all of the passwords (way overdue) and getting that data out of the browser. If you haven’t done that yet — you really need to think about it. Just for peace of mind, if nothing else.

The new box? awesome. Spent some time in Lightroom 3, and rendering of images is a LOT faster, which makes me happy. I haven’t done a test import, but I can definitely feel the speed difference, so I’m hopeful. We’ll see, I’m going to head out and shoot monday or tuesday and see how import speed goes.

All in all, I don’t miss the larger screen or faster CPUs at all. At this point, that seems like money well not-spent.

new laptop time….

So a few weeks ago my laptop started giving me hints it was thinking about retirement. It’s given me yeoman service — it was given to me when I left Apple, so it’s had a nice, long, fruitful life. It was clear, however, that I was heading towards a badly timed breakdown and I wanted to avoid that. It started with rendering glitches that indicated problems in the video RAM when I ran the thing hot for a while (lots of video, or playing Civ IV for instance). No data issues, but it was obvious that as the box heated up, a video ram chip was getting flakey.

This has been slowly progressing. I had my first random reboot while in SoCal, and I’ve had two in the last four days while working in Lightroom. No data problems, but terribly inconvenient, and I don’t want to be importing photos if the box resets. So I decided it was time to upgrade the laptop.

My current laptop is a 2.16 Core Duo laptop, 2 gigs of RAM (max possible). The upgrades to the Mac lines since this came out (late 2006 model) mean just about anything is going to be a nice improvement. So what to get?

After chewing on the options for a while and considering my options, I ordered the new laptop today, and it’ll arrive in time for me to spend the weekend migrating. I thought it might be interesting to discuss why I made the choices I made and how I think they’ll compare to what I have.

When I worked at Apple, my traditional decision for buying a new computer was to get whatever the top end was (like that’s a surprise), although I had a tended to buy the N-1 generation on closeout unless there was some key technological shift that I wanted (like the switch from ADB to USB. For you youngsters out there, Apple used to have a non-standard connection setup for keyboards before they used USB, which was before we all started using Bluetooth…) — it was a way to leverage pricing but get powerful boxes.

In all honesty, though, these days, I rarely see people using most of the capabilities of their computers — and I don’t see the logic in paying extra so my idle loop can finish sooner. I also don’t see logic in spending money on extra computing hardware that can be spent on other things, like camera gear or an iPad, and a set of smart decisions on buying the laptop could save enough money to almost pay for an iPad (or a lens, or…) — so I didn’t want to overbuy.

In analyzing my existing setup, with a few exceptions, I was pretty happy with performance. The exceptions were becoming significant, though, and the big one was image processing in Lightroom. Upgrading from Lightroom 2 to Lightroom 3 helped in a lot of ways (but not all), and most especially, importing a day’s photo shoot was getting seriously painful. My central coast run I recently did generated 1,000 images in a single 14 hour shooting day, and then took over 6 hours just to import into Lightroom. The large size of the Canon 7D RAW file really slowed down processing on the old CPU and made some operations difficult. I did some investigation, and from all indications, the primary limitation was the CPU, not memory and definitely not I/O. The upgrade from 802.11g to 802.11n is going to be a nice plus.

In the past, I’ve always bought the 15″ Macbook pros. My current work setup, however, tethers the mac to a large (27″) monitor at my desk at home so I was tempted by the smaller 13″ screen for weight and portability (and price). I simply don’t need the larger 17″ screen much and I prefer portability over screen size here. Besides, if I’m road tripping and I want the screen horsepower, I don’t mind stuffing a display in the back of the car for the hotel room…

So the choices were 13″ Macbook, 13″ Macbook Pro, and 15″ Macbook pro. I decided against the Macbook; it’s cheaper, but not by that much and the lack of Firewire and the lower performance video wasn’t worth the saving. I ended up deciding against the 15″ Macbook Pro — while the shift from Core Duo processors and the upgraded video would definitely have been nice, it would have added $500-600 to the final price, and I finally decided that the performance boost from my old box to ANY current laptop would be significant enough that the added boost to the faster CPUs wasn’t as important, and I really was finding the idea of the smaller form factor of the 13″ units. It oversimplifies the decision, but it wasn’t lost on me that the price of the 15″ Macbook Pro was close to the cost of the 13″ Macbook pro AND a low-end iPad, and was the speed boost of the more expensive unit worth that price?

I went back and forth — and ultimately went for the less expensive 13″ macbook. Tough call. Your mileage may vary, but realizing how much faster even the low end box was from what I currently had made the decision easier. If you look at Macworld’s historical benchmark numbers, They show the photoshop benchmark as taking about 1:45 on my current laptop, and 0:48 on the 13″ Macbook Pro, and 0:43 on the 15″ (there are more significant differences between these two current models in other benchmarks, but the speed difference between what I have and where Im’ headed is even more significant)

Final decision: which speed of the 13″? I finally decided on the low end (2.4Ghz) — I decided again the cost different wasn’t worth it for my situation, and I decided I’d rather upgrade the disk than go with a smaller, slower disk and faster processor. I’ve also ordered (from Other World Computing, where I buy most of my disks and RAM upgrades) a Seagate 500Gig 7200 RPM drive which I’ll install and clone the data to, replacing the stock 250Gig 5400 in the new unit.

I’m currently running with a 360Gig 5400 + a bus powered 500Gig 5400, (plus a desk-bound terabyte drive) and moving to a 500Gig internal will let me shift my data around and put all of it back on the 500Gig internal, use the 500Gig bus powered as a cloned backup (via SuperDuper!) and keep my secondary data on the external firewire, simplifying my life a bit and adding another redundant copy of my portable data, making my backups more robust. Never a bad idea. I never take backups for granted, in case you haven’t noticed.

I considered the new internal 1Gig drives, decided that I didn’t need the space that badly (I’m starting to like the 500gig bus powers more and more as flexible and stable and convenient), and they’re new enough I’lll let someone else field-proof their MTBF stats. I also considered SSD for the internal, but again, price won out over maximizing performance; and I can make that upgrade later if I want to.

Given I’ve been living in 2Gig forever and this box comes with 4Gig, I saw no reason to spend money to bump it to 8. I’ll leave that upgrade to later if/when I decide it’ll be worth upgrading, so there are options here down the road to boost the computer a bit along the way if I find I need it.

So my bottom line — I’m spending about $1300 (including the upgraded disk) and also a new bluetooth keyboard and a monitor dongle, and I think I have a good overall compromise among the various factors. It’ll handle my Lightroom processing and importing much better, and honestly, I don’t need an ego computer (“look! it goes to TWELVE! and belches steam!”) and other than my imaging, my processing needs are fairly modest. This should fit my needs well for a few years and then we’ll see.

Oh, one other thing. I did not buy AppleCare. I have some time before I have to make a final decision on that, but I haven’t bought AppleCare on my last three computers and I’m not leaning towards doing it here. If you do the research on extended warranties and what the margins are on them for all products, you can see why manufacturers really want you do buy them, and that’s a good reason why I don’t. So far, I haven’t regretted it; and I’ve saved enough cash on NOT buying them to probably pay for whatever goes spung when it finally does happen to me. If your computer survives the warranty period, the most likely problems you’ll have with it (he says, IMHO! IMHO!) are things that may be challenged under your extended warranty anyway, like dumping a glass of wine on the motherboard or damage to the LCD screen, so I’m just not convinced I need it. Your mileage may well vary, and if you prefer the comfort of having it, be my guest. And to my friends in the AppleCare group back at Mama Apple, well, sorry…

So tonight I’m migrating data around to make the transition easier, and everything should arrive tomorrow. Sometime over the weekend, I’ll hopefully be on the new system, and I’m looking forward to seeing how Lightroom works on it. And when I know, I’ll let you know.

Hope this helps if you’re trying to think through the options on a systems upgrade; there are many options, and the price points are set up to make sliding up the pricing scale easy to convince youself (“hmm. For $200, I get the faster CPU, and it comes with that bigger disk. Oh, and for $200 I can go to the 15″ screen. And for $200, I can go to the faster CPU AND get 500 gigs of disk. And… And… And suddenly your $1200 computer is a $2300 computer, one upgrade at a time. So you can look at it and as yourself how much to spend to get what you want, or how little you need to spend to get what you need. And don’t forget, if you end up spending $2500 on a laptop, it’ll be a lot harder to upgrade to the NEXT one than if you can convince yourself you ONLY spent $1200 last time..Are you better off with a less expensive computer you are comfortable upgrading in two or three years or a more expensive one you think you have to hold onto for five to get the investment back on?)

And to think I once spent $2800 on a Mac IIfx. How things change..

(p.s: nope. no magic trackpad in today’s order. But it’ll be coming, don’t worry…)

How Much Information is Too Much?

Disclosing Photo Locations: How Much Information is Too Much? | G Dan Mitchell Photography:

Earlier this week I had the good fortune to join a several fine photographers (Charlie Cramer, Mike Osborne, and Karl Kroeber) for a few days shooting in the Tuolumne/Tioga Pass area of Yosemite National Park. Getting to spend time with photographers who have so much experience and knowledge of Yosemite was inspiring, and I’m grateful for the chance to join them. While sitting around during the “boring light” hours one afternoon – while waiting for early dinner and travel to a shooting location before the good light – Mike mentioned that they were going to a place that was best not publicized, and he joked that he “might have to blindfold” me if I were to accompany them. Mike was a Yosemite ranger for decades before he retired and it is clear that he loves and cares for the place deeply. He mentioned a few of my posts on this blog in which I had named photo locations and given, in his opinion, a bit too much information about where they are located. This concerns him because he has seen the damage caused by publicity of certain special locations first hand. He also feels that it is often better to gain information about these places the old fashioned way – by word of mouth from an acquaintance or by sleuthing them out yourself. In addition, he also points out – correctly, I think – that many of the photographs I post here are not so much about the location as they are about some thing I saw there, and that it might make sense to title photographs with that in mind. Mikes’ comments have caused me to think quite a bit over the past few days about this issue. First, a few words of self-defense, but then some changes that I intend to make.

It’s not just a photography issue. These situations come up in birding a well; once or twice a year here on the west coast I here of a situation where a notable bird is run off by a birder who gets too enthusiastic and encroaches on its territory enough to scare it away (ruining it for everyone else); it’s fairly common to see both birders and photographers go out of bounds — over fences, into restricted areas, blazing “new trails” in fields of wildflowers, etc — in an effort to get the shot or see the bird. Nests of notable species like owls get popular, and sometimes they get too popular and problems happen; sometimes the nest is abandoned.

What to do? Whenever these situations occur, the debate springs up. In reality, in birding, the debate was over long ago; the senior birders have learned over the years to be careful about being too disclosing about sensitive birds and habitat. They self-edit public disclosure to protect senstive birds and locations from being pounded to pieces by popularity — which occasionally creates debates about whether they have the “right” to not disclose these things by the folks not “in the loop” (short answer: of course they do. it’s their information. they’re under no obligation to share; get over it, and earn their respect and get involved enough in the community to be part of those private discussions. hint: I’m not yet; and I’m in no hurry).

What I wonder abut here is how technology is affecting this. Do sites like Flickr and ebird make it harder to be careful about these areas? Well, more and more of us carry phones with GPS in it; more and more cameras are coming with GPS chips in them, automatically encoding location in great detail, and sites like flickr will automatically disclose that data for you. Location-based sites like Gowalla and Foresquare are building businesses around this data, and I admit I’ve been exploring and experimenting with Foresquare and mobile GPS data as a way to help networking among birders — but this issue is one that’s made me go slow and try to think through not just how to use these new techie toys, but when, and why.

We haven’t yet STARTED the discussion of the ethics of these capabilities, or created some kind of standards to help people know when to publish that data and when to hide it. Who makes those decisions? Right now, it’s the elders in the group making judgement calls informally, but that model is going to fail over time as technology automates disclosure of this info. Is part of your instruction at a photo workshop going to be telling students to disable the camera GPS?

I think we need a dialog on this, and an understanding of disclosure vs. protection and how precise. Right now, since I geoencode my photos manually, I can choose just how precise my location is going to be; I have consciously chosen at times not to be TOO specific about the location of something, especially if I’m shooting a nest or working in sensitive terrain.

For that matter, the fact that I DO photograph nesting birds is controversial in some parts of photography, and I’m sensitive to that; I try to work under very specific rules when I work near nests, the first of which is simple: any time I get any hint I’m interfering with the nest, I leave. Immediately. I might try again at some later time and be more careful about distance and approach, but if I see any sign the birds are stressing, I get the hell out, now, and figure out next steps after they have the ability to settle down. I feel that way about any animal I’m photographing — if I flush a bird while trying to set up a shot, I slow down. If I flush it twice, I stop trying.

Unfortunately, not all photographers worry about their subjects enough, whether it be animal or a pristine location. And this is nothing new. I remember reading one of John Shaw’s photo books from the 80′s on macro photography in which he complained about witnessing another photographer take macro shots of a flower, and then destroying the flower to prevent any other photographer from shooting it.

Unfortunately, some people are jerks, some simply don’t care, and many are simply well meaning but naive. And I think we need to figure out how to teach those that are teachable to behave, and how to protect what we cherish from those that aren’t — especially since our tools are creating solutions that make it easier to show everyone where images were made and where birds were found, and in many cases, those tools are going to be doing so in an automated way that we may not remember to turn off (or strip), and that many others won’t even realize is happening…

My trip through Time Capsule Hell leads to a different backup approach

My trip through Time Capsule Hell leads to a different backup approach:

I bought a one terabyte Time Capsule shortly after it hit the market, along with an external 1.5TB drive. I use the Time Capsule’s internal drive to back up two smaller capacity Macs, while the external disk backs up my two larger capacity Macs.

Working with Time Machine in Leopard or Snow Leopard, the Time Capsule updates its backups every hour. This makes perfect sense if you’re just dealing with one Mac wired into the Time Capsule, since it really doesn’t slow anything down. But if you are using it to wirelessly back up multiple Macs, hourly backups slow everything down to a crawl.

When Time Machines first came out, I bought two, one for myself, one for my mom. I’m very happy (so far) with the Time Machine with my mom, and she seems to be the appropriate use case for this product: fairly light duty user that doesn’t generate a lot of data and has modest backup/recovery needs. It’s worked wonderfully, and the couple of times I’ve had to hook in remotely and recover files for her, it’s done the job well.

My personal experience wasn’t quite so successful. I don’t like the Time Capsule in a multi-mac environment because it doesn’t seem to do well as the different macs need access to disk space; if one mac allocates disk into its backup, there seems to be no way to recover that data for use by a different mac. That means one mac could find itself with a four month set of backups and another with two weeks (as happened with us), and no way to balance that out. That seems to be a really basic flaw, that there’s now way for the system to tell time capsule to garbage collect disk out of one time capsule dataset and shift it to another that needs it more.

A bigger flaw, however, came when Laurie lost a hard disk. First thing I did was clone the Time Capsule data onto anotehr disk, not only to give me a redundant copy (“just in case!”) but because I wanted to plus that disk into the computer directly to do the restore so I didn’t have to slog it all across the much slower network. Which I couldn’t make work.

I ended up dragging out a long ethernet and wiring up a temporary physical network and doing the restore across that — which took bloody forever. The backup worked flawlessly, and the restore came back fine, but the process of restoring all of that data over the network was painful and caused a long delay, even over physical ethernet to avoid the slower WIFI/wireless. Too painful for my tastes, and there were just too many compromises, so I retired the Time Capsule as a backup device and went to a new backup system that depends on directly connected disks and a combination of superduper as my primary backup and Time Machine as the backup I use in ccase I need to restore an individual file. I don’t like Time Machine as a primary backup for systems with heavy data requirements (i.e. anyone doing photography, video, audio or any other large data files). I’ve written about backups a number of times, and you can see more details on what I do by looking here, here, here, and here. And yes, one of these days, I’l consolidate all of that into an ebook and publish it in a single document that’s easy to keep updated…

But overall, I think if you fit the presumed use case for Time Capsule, it’s okay. But for many of us, our data needs stress it and I don’t want to depend on it as my primary backup in those cases. Time Machine on a directly-wired disk is better, but still, I think there are better options. It is a good way to create a set of backups to do individual file recovery, but I’d rather use a different backup setup for ercovering of a failed disk (and so I do…)

early stats on the new chuqui.com

it’s way too early to do any significant analysis on the new blog design but I did a quick comparison in google analytics against some prior weeks (all of them mon-thurs and designed to avoid the holiday) to see how comparable dates differ. The early numbers are encouraging:

Total visits up 102% on average. Pageviews up 136%. pages per visit up 17%. average time on site up 81%. All really good changes. If there was one metric I wanted to change with this new design, it was the low pages-per-visit number and I looked for ways to encourage people to sample other parts of the site while they were there. It looks like I succeeded, at least initially. Whether that’s because the site is new and the regular visitors are curious or whether it’ll continue, I don’t know. I’m also seeing nice traffic on the Smugmug portfolio, much higher than I was seeing on flickr. Flickr traffic seems to be about the same, but I didn’t make it nearly as prominent on site as Smugmug, so I’m not too surprised.but I expect over time to see it increase traffic there.

all very early, but encouraging.

Announcing the new!improved! chuqui.com

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve just released a new design for my blog and the chuqui.com site. After 3+ years of living with the old design, I was long overdue for a refresh, and I’m quite happy with the result.

I’ve been researching this refresh for a couple of months as part of a larger look at whether I felt it was time to take the next step towards shifting my photography towards my goal of going pro — in fact the short answer for that is no, because I don’t want to take the time and energy away from the photography to work on the business, and there really isn’t any overriding reason why I should now (there’s a longer version of that answer, but it’ll have to wait for another time).

Goals for the redesign

Coming out of that research I came up with some goals for this new design. I felt my old site had a number of problems, it wasn’t a good design to show off photography, the design in general seemed dated, having the entry page also be the front page of the blog limited my flexibility, there really wasn’t a good way to integrate in other things I do or create ways to help people find the other places I’m active or connect with my via social media, and the old site had the remains of at least three previous blog designs and none of that content had ever been cleaned up or properly integrated into the site, leaving me with what can be described charitably as a chaotic mess with a horrifically bad taxonomy.

I decided if I was going to fix this, it was time to fix it right, and not just layer a new pretty theme on top of eleven years of blogging crap, so I did.

The new design

The new design uses the Clean Modern Simple theme, available from Themeforest. I spent a lot of time thinknig over what I wanted and ended up choosing a premium theme because it was well worth a few dollars to not spend tens of hours creating my own from scratch (although the geek in me wanted to). I chose it because it was light, open and modern looking, not heavily ornamented, and it seemed to present photographs pretty well but was still a good design for text-oriented material. That latter was a problem with many photoblog themes that seemed to presume only visual content and for more traditional blog themes that really didn’t handle large imagery well. This one does both without any significant compromises, which I like.

I expected to do some customization to the theme, but in fact I ended up making only two changes: I swapped out the front page image area with a gallery system from my smugmug account that will dynamically pull from my portfolio for images, and I wasn’t completely happy with how widgets laid out on the front page so I tweaked it so that the three columns all flowed separately so I could better control the look of the page. All in all, that was a very minor change.

I set up a custom front page that is designed to bring all of my activities together — not just the blog, but my photography, my various social media outposts and the other places where I create content like Google Buzz and Twitter. If you view the front page of the site as your “business card” — which makes sense if you think about that URL being the one most likely on your card that you hand out as a “drop me a line” contact — then I think this new front page does a good job of showing who I am and what I do while creating opportunities to connect and interact. It creates easy access for my two photographic activity points (flickr and smugmug) and provides easy ways to locate my blog and my social networking hotspots as well as aggregating some interesting content back from them so people get a sense of what’s there and why it might interest them.

My assumption is someone arrives at the front page of my domain because they were given the URL and are looking for something — a way to contact me, one of my photos, something. The front page is designed to make it easy for them to find whatever they came to the site for if they didn’t have a deep link directly to it, while also maybe encouraging them to check out some of the other stuff I do.

In researching blog/site designs and deciding what worked on other blogs and digging through the analytics on my site to see what worked and what (most of it) didn’t, it became obvious that visitors to a site generally do not explore it. They hit a link, they browse whatever is on that link, and they leave. The implication of that is that if there are other things you want to get them interested in, they have to be there on the page when they arrive. I’ve tried to create sidebar designs for different types of pages that reflect that. By splitting the blog front page from the site front page I can target them diffferently. The blog has the pointers to the archives and category pages (useful mostly to make sure the detail pages exist to the search engines) — which means I do not need to give up page space on the front page for those items. I also made a decision not to ppush any photo links or galleries on the blog page to keep it from getting too cluttered; there’ll be images in the blog entries and if that interests someone it’ll be easy enough for them to switch off and explore. Same rationale for the blog detail page and the supplementary pages (about, contact) and the photography page, although on the latter, I added in two small galleries to give visitors a jumping off point to my photo sites.

The RSS feed is a full feed. The politics of full vs. partial is it’s own extended discussion; suffice it to say I’m not trying to force people to generate revenue by forcing them to come to my site to be forced to see advertising, so I see zero advantage in partial feeds for my situation. And since I’m now explicitly using a Creative Commons license on the site that removes the other reason not to do full feeds; in reality, the pirates will do what they damn well want anyway, so gutting functionality to stop them is a stupid tactic, and given these choices this made sense.

Advertising and Revenue

My old design had Adsense advertising on it, which did very poorly, and I occasionally experimented with Amazon affiliate links that did surprisingly well given how rarely I used them and how little work I did to promote them. It’s my opinion that Adsense works better when your audience is a non-technical crowd (i.e. “my mom”) and since my audience is heavily skewed to high-tech and photography types, it’s not a good match. I won’t miss it, and I won’t waste screen space on something that performs badly for me.

One of the things I argued with myself a lot over was just what my proposed revenue model was. Was it trying to create content that I generate revenue with on advertising? Or is my site about me creating things that have value that I can sell? In my view, it’s very hard to do both at the same time: if the purpose of the site is to sell my images or to sell what I do, then advertising distracts from and dilutes that and confuses the message.

My long term plan is to create content and imagery that people want, and then sell them products based on that. Because of that, I’ve taken a very low profile on advertising. Doesn’t mean I won’t take on a sponsorship or sell advertising if the right situation happens, but I’m not pursuing it or encouraging it and I don’t expect it to be a focus down the road.

My long term revenue potential right now looks to have two aspects:

Photography: The industry is still in the midst of a major transformation because of the online and digital revolutions. Some traditional revenue forms (like stock) have been devastated and aren’t coming back — or more correctly, will stabilize in some new form that will benefit some but many that depended on it will have to adapt. I’m waiting and seeing before trying to step in here. But I still think that there is a continuing market for quality images for both licensing and through prints, and so I continue to work to refine my craft to allow me to enter those markets.
Writing: I think there’s a fascinating future shaping up here in ebooks and in writing. There’s a transformation just starting towards the electronic book (thanks in large part to the iPad, but also to people like Tim O’Reilly who has been fostering this form for years with things like his Safari Bookshelf); we’re just starting to see a revenue market and a mainstream audience being created for this form. I’m particularly taken by what David duChemin is doing with this in his Craft and Vision line of books, and I think there’s a lot of potential in the “short form” inexpensive ebook that he’s championing.

It takes a long time to write and produce and publish a 300 page traditional photography book that costs the consumer $40 and may be obsolete with the release of one key piece of software; that’s a main reason why I’ve never gotten into computer book writing, even though I’ve had opportunities. I do think there is a definite market for these traditional books in electronic form, both instructional and visual, and I’ve spent a couple of evenings with some of the work of William Neill who’s published three of his classic imagery books electronically, and I think that form works well. How it’ll make the transition and be priced and whether it’ll transform, I don’t know (but I believe so, and again, I think you’ll see a move to the shorter, less expensive form that is more of an impulse buy and easier/faster to produce. We’ll see.

The short form ebook at an accessible price looks like a great opportunity here. If you haven’t read any of duChemin’s books, they’re well worth the $5 just to see how he’s experimenting with the form. The iPad and the Kindle and other e-readers and the emerging market that is just starting to emerge for “consumption-oriented” devices like tablets or slates will accelerate this, and it’s definitely something I think has potential and I want to foster.

Needless to say, there are synergies possible between those two, and I also think that good imagery and well-written content on a nicely built site can help create opportunities to write for other venues down the road.

I am not a huge fan of online advertising as the core of a revenue model; the internet is littered with sites who are so desperate for every ad dollar that they abuse their readers in search of any revenue they can get. I am not a fan of sites that hold my eyeballs hostage and make me jump through 30 hoops to see their content — and in most cases, I leave without actually seeing it and rarely come back. I’m also not a fan of sites that load themselves up with every possible ad and every possible sponsorship and end up looking like cheap callgirls in a biker bar looking for some action, and I think ultimately people view the content on those sites that way, and I think my content and my audience deserves better. So I’m happy to not have to go down that path, and I hope that never changes.

Other stuff that finally got fixed

As I went over the old blog, I realized I really needed to fix some things. There was a lot of crap content in it, from the days I was convinced it was better to post content free messages than not post, so there was a lot of two-line postings, and a huge number of them had broken links to whatever I was originally pointing to. There was also a lot of — crap — that I just didn’t want to have published on my site any more, because it was simply irrelevant, uninteresting or no longer reflected a position I wanted to reflect. The old screwed up categorization and taxonomy needed fixing, too, badly. over 2/3 of the messages posted to the blog were sitting in an “uncategorized” category feeling bored and unloved.

So I did. I read every posting in the blog, all 2,600 of the 11 year history of my blogging past. And I deleted the crap and I restructured the categorization and I fixed the links and I polished the brass and I painted the trim, and now, honestly, I feel like the content might actually be interesting and useful. It can be tempting to edit history, of course, and I don’t promise that I did NONE of that, but my focus was on preserving the message that including significant material by me, and I was a lot less interested in keeping a post from four years ago that included a link to some random internet meme and a message from me that said “funny”. I think the universe is a better place for this editing.

And a fair amount of editing it was – about 40% of the messages in the blog went away, but maybe 25% of the content, and none of it will be missed. I’ve spent some time analyzing how people visit my old site, and to be honest, 95% of the visits went to the home page or to about 5% of the pages, and 75% of the pages got visited zero times in about 9 months of data.

Moving forward

It was interesting going back and reading what I was thinking along the way, especially given my view of those years and how I see things today. Most on that some other time. And it was interesting to dig into the details of the last design and see just how — unsure and chaotic — it was. Lots of stubs I never filled in, lots of mixed messaging, lots of confused thoughts and frankly, a pretty poor design. I intended at the time for it to be a relatively temporary placeholderr. I didn’t expect it to be three years to finally deal with it. In all honestly, it fairly represented what was going on in my head and life at the time, and no, that wasn’t a necessarily a fun and happy place to be.

But now I’m feeling healthy for the first time in a while, life is going pretty well, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand what I want to do and where I want to go; when I left Apple it wasn’t on a real positive vibe and it showed. Now I understand things a lot better, and I think that’ll show, too. So since the 5th is my birthday (#52), I decided to give myself a present, and one I want to share with all of you. And so, a couple of hundred hours of sweat equity later, here it is.

Let me know what you think, and let me know what you think it could be. I’m all ears and open to your ideas as well as mine…

And thanks for reading this stuff. There are a lot of voices and a lot of sources out on the net. I’m thrilled to know some of you think mine is worth investing some time and energy in.

How Not to Fix Soccer

Best explanation I’ve seen on why soccer is soccer and why Americans should stop trying to fix it (e.g. make it more american). Soccer is about playing, not watching. America is about watching, which is something I think we as a society should fix, actually. I’m not a huge soccer fan, but I’ve been watching the World Cup, and I think the biggest “flaw” about soccer for most americans is that to enjoy it, you have to actually pay atttention to it. You can’t, as we are wont to do, make it background noise and turn to look at the game when the announcer indicates something interesting is going on… Fortunately, the rest of the world is really unlikely to listen to us as we make suggestions about how to fix their sport…

How Not to Fix Soccer | Freedom to Tinker:

ith the World Cup comes the quadrennial ritual in which Americans try to redesign and improve the rules of soccer. As usual, it’s a bad idea to redesign something you don’t understand—and indeed, most of the proposed changes would be harmful. What has surprised me, though, is how rarely anyone explains the rationale behind soccer’s rules. Once you understand the rationale, the rules will make a lot more sense.

So here’s the logic underlying soccer’s rules

“We would like to thank Nabby for the time he has spent in San Jose. Nabby has been a big part of…

“We would like to thank Nabby for the time he has spent in San Jose. Nabby has been a big part of… – From The Rink:

“We would like to thank Nabby for the time he has spent in San Jose. Nabby has been a big part of this team for the past 10 seasons and played an important role is our successes. This decision boils down to a dedication of dollars in a salary cap system and under this system, teams can’t keep everyone.”

Agreed completely. I was bit surprised that they let Nabby go, because I don’t see that improving goaltending is going to be easy here. But clearly Wilson has a plan, and to be honest, as big a supporter as I’ve been of Nabokov, he’s getting on in years, and he perhaps someone like Leighton could be successful in this system at a cheaper pricetag. If you think of cap limits being the reason and if you could only keep Marleau or Nabokov but not both — then Wilson made the right decision.

I’m not, however, comfortable going into next season with Greiss as starter. I can’t see Wilson is, either, so I’ll be curious what his plan is to fill the void.

Complete Workflow, Storage & BackUp for Photography + Video | Chase Jarvis Blog

At June 23, 2010
By Chuq Von Rospach
In Computers and Technology, Photography - Tools and Toys
0

I’ve written about backups before from the view of the small/home photographer. Now take a look at how a pro does it. their design is rock solid and scalable, and there are ideas here anyone can adopt. The main one, of course, is multiple copies, multiple places, and do it first and do it always.

Very impressive setup he has…

Complete Workflow, Storage & BackUp for Photography + Video | Chase Jarvis Blog:

This may well be the most important behind-the-scenes video we’ve made to date. Not because it’s fancy or sexy, but because it covers arguably the most essential information on a set of topics that every photo and video person should understand: workflow, storage and backup of your precious images. This video covers all the ins and outs, the theory and the details of our complete photo and video workflow from capture to archive and everything in between. So whether you’re a seasoned pro, an aspiring amateur, or just starting out in photography or video we’ve worked hard to make this worth your time.

two years ago

It was two years ago tonight that we held Dad’s wake. It also would have been his birthday, so we had a birthday cake, and it featured a pretty damn good mariachi band. I find I’m still figuring out what his loss means to me; I had no time to grieve at the time, so I seem to be doing it a bit at a time, over time, at moments where his presence in my life was important to me like his birthday and father’s day and christmas. And that makes me introspective, so I hope you’ll be patient with my relative lack of scintillating commentary and verbal amuse bouche that I try to serve up here.

My view on life has changed fairly radically in the last couple of years. I’m in that time where I’m losing people, friends and family and others I know — my dad to heart disease, another to breast cancer, a third to bone cancer, another to liver cancer, while others have either fought and won or fight today, including one more close fried who fought breast cancer and won, and two others dealing with different cancers right now.

I’m finding that I’m a much different person than I was a few years ago. I’m still figuring out who that person is, but I find I really like this new person, much more than the old one. I’m finding that plans I made and things I started in motion are starting to come to fruition — and that I’m now not so sure they’re the plans I want to be the priority in my life today.

I’m realizing I started on a journey back in 2003, and while I didn’t realize it at the time, it’s transformed me. That transformation seems to be rounding into its final form now. That journey wasn’t always a lot of fun; no, honestly, it was definitely never any fun. But now that I’m here, I’m glad I made it (as if I had any choice in the matter).

So if you’re here for pretty pictures of birds or wry discussions of the challenges of the left wing lock — you’ll probably still get some of that. In fact, you’ll likely see a lot more, given part of my relative quiet has been because I’ve been introspectively trying to understand what I was becoming. But I think it’s finally time, and I’m finally ready, to write the final pages on this chapter of life, and start mapping out the plot for the next one. “and they live happily ever after” is still not a given, but whatever’s next, right now I’m looking forward to finding out what it is.

Of 3G iPads and MiFis

Of 3G iPads and MiFis | Chuqui 3.0:

My first hope is tethering will come to AT&T; WWDC is coming, iPhone 4.0 is coming, the tethering rumors have swirled again, and we’ll have to see.

Well, that didn’t take long. AT&T was nice enough to announce this before WWDC. Lots of commentary on it, my basic cut is that I don’t have a problem with tiered or usage-based pricing as long as the tiering is reasonable, and for the most part, the new AT&T plan is. What the new plan means is that relatively light data users (like me) are no longer subsidizing the folks who are shoving gigabytes through their phones every month. My bill will go down.

I don’t even mind the extra fee for tethering (much); I simply see that as a way for AT&T to (more or less) add a set of tiers; people doing tethering are likely more heavy data users than non-tether users, I just can’t get up a lot of angst that the heavier usage folks have to pay something extra — you’re funnelling multiple devices through the connection instead of one, so, well, shrug.

but then it comes out that the one thing you can’t to is tether an iPad to an iPhone.

Apple won’t support iPhone to iPad tethering:

If you thought that when iPhone OS 4.0 gets released and you can buy the 2GB “Datapro” plan for $25, along with an additional $20 per month to tether your iPhone’s WiFi connection to your iPad, think again. It’s just not going to happen. This is consistent with Steve Jobs’ answer to an email asking him about this possibility. His response was a terse “no.”

Um, what? The only reason I can figure out for this is, well, to force people to pay for 3G on the iPad — require another monthly contract.

That annoys me. Fortunately for me, my most common use case here would still allow me to tether a laptop to the phone, and have the laptop create a wifi connection for the iPad; since I won’t be travelling w/o the laptop because of my photography, this doesn’t screw me over, but I’m still annoyed. But if there was ever any question on wifi or 3G for my iPad, it’s now answered: wifi. and if there’s a question of whether I’ll be enabling tethering on my AT&T contract, the answer is — not unless I absolutely know I’m going to need it, no sense throwing any dollars at this unless absolutely necessary. So I won’t. and you all probably shouldn’t , either.

I also think this pricing won’t last. But for now, that’s how they’re going to structure it. Oh well. And here I was ready to back AT&T against the “I want it all and I want it all free” tribe that complains any time they’re asked to actually pay their fair share, and here AT&T went and messed it up by throwing some arbitrary pricing greed of their own into it.

Oh well, back to the sideline for a while. Fortunately, I can be patient before committing in to most of this…

Of 3G iPads and MiFis

Fraser Speirs – Blog – Of 3G iPads and MiFis:

Today I asserted on Twitter that a 3G iPad is far superior to a WiFi iPad paired with a MiFi device. To save myself answering the “why do you say that” question twenty times, here’s the tl;dr version.

Fraser goes on to discuss the pros and cons of the Wifi vs. 3G iPads and describes nicely a major reason why I haven’t bought an iPad yet.

Not for lack of interest; the iPad sits in a niche I’d really like to fill. I love the idea of being able to sit down on the couch and “consume content”, get the keyboard out of the way and get back to the “good old days” style model that a paper book brought, only with all of the new content types the internet brings you. That and being able to sit down and play games on the same device? I’ve found it very re-energizing (sorry, you hard core geeks out there) to unplug for a while in the evenings — just get away from the laptop, away from email and keyboards and geeking and all that stuff; just sit on the couch with laurie and either watch TV or “do something” like read or browse my RSS feeds or play sudoku or fire up the XBOX. Or just hang out with Laurie and talk through things.

I currently tend to do that with the Palm Pre, but it’s not really the right form factor. I don’t want to haul out the laptop, it’s also not the right form factor for what I want to do, and if it’s busy crunching photos or doing “real work”, it’s not necessarily available. So there’s a need for a middle ground, one with a larger screen than the mobile phone (where the primary use case is “must fit in pocket and do stuff”) but without all of the extra stuff that comes with a laptop, like the keyboard.

And the iPad fits that wonderfully. Except…

The whole connectivity thing isn’t right for me yet. Wifi is fine here at home, but on the road? I don’t do a lot of travelling, but I see myself doing more photo tripping in the future, and probably starting to do some conference trips as well, so whatever solution I get I have to understand how connectivity is going to work on the road, where “on the road” doesn’t imply “depend on hotel wifi and Starbucks”. But I’m honestly also trying to keep my gadget life as simple as possible, so I don’t want to pick up something like a Mifi (and the Mifi monthly service charge!) just for few days a year of need. Not cost effective.

Neither is the 3G iPad — because there’s no tethering option. If the 3G iPad tethered so I could use it to connect in my other internet-enabled devices as needed, it’d be a no brainer and I’d do it in a second. But it doesn’t. That means if I’m on the road and would need to upload photos from the laptop (or, gasp, vpn in to work on an emergency) I’m still depending on hotel wifi and/or Starbucks. That’s a fail for me — I need an “on the road” networking solution, not an iPad that connect to the network.

Or I need some other tethering solution that supports the iPad — without adding in a new geek toy (and monthly service charge!) to do it. Unfortunately, my two cell phones (geek eye roll. sigh.) are my Pre on Sprint, and my (really old, really, really old) iPhone on AT&T. Neither carrier supports tethering on those devices.

So basically, I don’t like any of my options, and I just haven’t decided to jump in anyway; if I did, I’d jump in with a Wifi unit…. Which I probably will, but not until after I upgrade my aging, 4 year old laptop… I’m staying on the sidelines for now, waiting to see how various things play out.

My first hope is tethering will come to AT&T; WWDC is coming, iPhone 4.0 is coming, the tethering rumors have swirled again, and we’ll have to see. If they announce tethering for iPhone, I’m expecting we might also see it for the AT&T Pre Plus; if that happens, I can dump my Sprint phone, get a PrePlus upgrade on AT&T and turn on tethering and life is good (yes, I don’t mind paying a bit more for tethering on a phone, I do mind paying for another entire contract for another device for tethering)

It’s possible AT&T might do tethering on the iPhone and not push it out onto the PrePlus. If they do, I’ll make rude noises about their familial heritage and have to decide if I want to upgrade my AT&T contract to the new (currently rumored) iPhone and keep two cell phones (My preference is to simplify and get back to one phone on one carrier; right now AT&T is telling me to upgrade my contract to the pre is $249, so it’s actually cheaper to keep the two phones right now barring a real reason to upgrade)

If that doesn’t happen, Clear is coming to silicon valley around the end of the year. That’s what I’m currently looking at as an option to upgrade the home DSL network. they have a nice bundle that includes a home network connection and a mobile USB dongle that does uncapped 4G and falls back to a 3G connection (with a 5 gig/mo cap) if you’re out of 4G territory. There are currently some rumors floating that they’re going to refocus from Wimax to LTE, but either way, getting a home internet connection and a mobile dongle for $55/month is a good deal — once it rolls out. Assuming it works, of course. So I’m watching and willing to wait and trying to avoid things with contract terms until that hits the floor. And once it does, I’m hoping it pushes other carriers to reprice as well…

Smartphones really started pushing us into the world of ubiquitous computing; my pocket is always online, and that changes what data I keep and how I interact with it. iPad pushes that to the next level and really starts showing off online content as a commodity to be consumed; for the first time, online “stuff” is really for anyone, not just the geeky. That trend is going to continue, but the infrastructure is in transition to properly support that, and all of the pieces are just not quite there yet. And I’m just happy to be patient and give them all a chance to settle out rather than rush in and pay a few hundred bucks (and a two year contract) for something that six months from now I’ll have a much better (and cheaper) solution for… Sometimes, you dn’t have to be in a hurry.

Why I’ve been away from the blog…

Apologies for the radio silence recently. For once, I have a good excuse.

Two weeks ago, I decided that, since there wasn’t a hockey game on, I’d go out for a walk. First night since the playoffs started nothing was on, Laurie was on her road trip somewhere on the way back from Chicago, the weather was nice, and I hadn’t picked up a camera in days.

So off to Shoreline I go, thinking maybe i’d try to do some swallow photography and see if the cliff swallows were nesting yet (answer: just starting).

And while walking out towards adobe creek, I caught the edge of the asphalt path and went down like I’d been shot. Didn’t even have time to cuss. Suddenly I’m flat on the ground, looking like roadkill.

When you’re a “person of girth” no fall is trivial. The extra weight you carry brings with it potential for disaster, as well as completely messing up your center of gravity — I’ve always been a bit of a klutz, and despite being really aware of the potentials for taking a fall and being careful while hiking, I’m still a klutz. When you carry a chunk of extra weight, falls bring with it a real chance of broken bones or other damage.

I realize in retrospect I was a bit in shock. My first reaction was to see whether I was injured — somewhere in the back of my head a voice was screaming “systems check! systems check” at me). I started by moving arms and legs, flexing feed and wrists, wiggling fingers.

The good news — didn’t hit my head. Went down on my left side, got an arm out a bit to break some of the fall. I remember thinking I hadn’t heard anything crack, and as I started moving things, nothing caused me to scream in agony. That’s a good sign.

Suddenly I realize someone’s yelling at me. I’m hearing “Are you OK?” from somewhere far away. I look around and a girl I’d passed as she was headed out had come back to see what’d happened. She looked convinced I was dead or something, but god bless her for wanting to help. (cute girl, where at my age girl is anyone recognizably female and under about 30 years old; for some reason that recognition amuses me…). So I rolled over and said I thought I was okay.

She clearly believed me, because she asked again. and then again. I was still moving and flexing things and it was now clear that nothing was broken, so I decided it was okay to move, so I rolled over and sat up. Probably not exactly my most graceful moment, but honestly, I didn’t care. Still don’t.

So I’m now sitting up and madly moving fingers and rejoicing in the fact that they move as intended and I then look at her again and let her know I really am okay. And I”m not sure she really believed me, but she accepted it as proof she could stop freaking and get on with her life, and she did.

Again, dear, bless you for stopping and caring, and sorry I scare the crap out of you. It was much appreciated that you wanted to help.

And then I checked out the cameras. I was carrying both bodies, with the Tamron wide angle on the 30d and the 100-400 on the 7d. The Tamron landed first and got bodyslammed into the asphalt, while the 100-400 landed last on a nice soft cushion. Some preliminary checks seem to indicate that the poor cursed Tamron only took cosmetic damage — and it has a couple of interesting gouges on it — but I still need to do some serious testing for focus and alignment. I don’t see any sign of problems in the mechanism or some simple test shots. But to be honest, I haven’t really picked up a camera since, since picking things up has been a bit problematic.

Nothing broken, nothing dislocated. I landed left little finger first, and bent it and it’s neighbor back significantly. By all rights I should have dislocated something, but somehow, I didn’t. I did, however sprain two fingers rather seriously, the wrist less severely, and as I found out over the next day or so, basically sprained the entire hand, while hyperextending the elbow. I also whacked the right hand leaving it scraped (and sore and bruised where I think the 100-400 landed on it), and whacked both knees, fortunately, nothing beyond a bit of scrape and bruising. The hand swelled like a grapefruit, and I got the most interesting bruising deep inside the palm where bending things back stretched all of the ligaments and tendons in the core of the hand (did I mention I was damn lucky nothing dislocated or tore? a broken finger would have been the least of my hassles…)

So I’ve been a hurting puppy. Typing’s been — a challenge, so I haven’t any more than necessary, and what typing I could do without things spasming has been aimed at work, not play. Evenings have been mostly hanging out on the couch with body parts wrapped in ice bags. Tonight was the first night where I didn’t feel the need to haul them out and use them.

I’m still not 100%; I’m guessing another week before the arm is useful for carrying anything heaver than a soda can, but I’m finally able to do that, at least. My range of motion is about 90% of normal and improving daily, swelling is mostly gone, the hand is mostly functioning again, and I can type again with both hands — at least for a while. This is about it for the evening, though, because the little finger can only handle so much pressure on the key.

So things have been on hold for a while. Over the holiday weekend I hope to start ramping up a bit and moving things forward again. I haven’t exactly been idle — it was time I spent thinking through some projects that I’m chewing on that are getting close to surfacing where I’ll talk about them here. Some interesting stuff, and I’ve gond from researching and considering to making decisions and starting to create some plans, and so soon I can share some of it and maybe get a dialog going on it.

But until then, my hand’s telling me this is enough for now, so I’ll be off. But I had gotten a couple of people asking what happened, and I figured it was time for a quick status update.

and the quick status update is — I’m still a klutz, and fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. Which all things considered, I won’t complain about…

…. but because they beat Detroit ….

Via Genuinely Sarcastic:

In the end though, the Wings just didn’t want it badly enough. They weren’t as hungry, weren’t as fast, weren’t as good. I was as disgusted as all of you were with some of the calls that happened during the series, but in the end, sometimes you just have to overcome. The missed headshot on Franzen, as bad as it was – Rafalski blindly passing behind his back right onto the stick of Joe Thornton, setting up the season-ending goal by Patrick Marleau was worse. Losing a 3-1 lead in the 3rd period of Game 3 when they had to win was worse. Sometimes destiny – we like to call them the Hockey Gods – is not on your side. They were on the Red Wings’ side once before, and will be again. It just wasn’t our year.

Allow me for a minute to defend the Red Wings.

I have no voice this morning. My ears are still ringing. I was up at 5:30 this morning because I”m still wired from the game and couldn’t sleep. This wasn’t just a game. It wasn’t just a series. It may have been some of the best hockey I have ever seen played, by both teams. This was Ali-Frazier, a historic heavyweight battle.

As we were in the stands watching game five play out, it seemed to me that once the Sharks scored that Detroit knew it was over. The tone of the play changed just a bit. It wasn’t — not remotely — that the Wings didn’t want it badly enough. They did.

But the tank was empty. The sharks OUT RED-WINGED the Wings, and the Wings simply had given everything they had. The legs were dead, the energy was expended, they were simply finished. The Sharks had the energy, the Wings simply had hit the wall.

That Sharks have some strong rivalries around the league: Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Dallas. But this franchise made it clear, and it’s strived for this for years: it wanted to be like Detroit when it grew up. That’s an extreme compliment to the Wings — that teams feel the way to succeed is emulate them. And that process isn’t fully complete until you can challenge your mentor and win.

That has happened. Finally. When Detroit pulled Howard for the last push,what struck me was how — clinical — the Sharks defense was. Boyle took that penalty, but even so, the Sharks seemed in control and kept Detroit contained. What I’ve noticed this series is that that the Wings tended to be strong early in games, but the Sharks conditioning and youth meant that as the games went on, they got stronger, and Detroit faded a bit. It’s not a surprise to me the Sharks came won games late. Detroit was playing on fumes.

Detroit was in a situation this year it’s seen from the other side many times; had to really push to make the playoffs, they couldn’t rest players and gear up for the playoffs. For the Sharks, this was the second round, for Detroit, the third. Those extra games catch up to you, and here, they did. By the time we hit the last few minutes of the game, it just seemed to me that the Wings understood; even if they somehow came back and tied the game, it wasn’t going to go on much longer.

But they tried. But the arms were tired, the legs were tired. The student learned the skills of the master, and finally beat him. Great conditioning, cerebral, physical (and mostly clean) hockey. Patience — both teams had an almost zen-like patient concentration about them. There’s a huge amount of respect by each team for the other. This series was one of respectful hate, and now everyone gets to head out and buy each other beers…. I doubt many Sharks and Ducks buy each other beers afterwards…

So I deny that the wings didn’t want it badly enough. You couldn’t be in the arena last night and not see it. They ran their bodies to the very end of their capabilities, and somewhat past that. They had nothing left. There are a whole lot of sort, exhausted hockey players wearing ice bags this morning, pondering what else they could have done.

My answer: nothing. Detroit did not lose. They were beaten. And they showed honor and grace in defeat, and deserve a lot of recognition for what they did accomplish.

So from me: congrats to Detroit. This series is why I’m a hockey fan. And there’s no dishonor in losing to a team that honors you by becoming you. The Sharks learned the lessons very well.

And it’s pretty clear that starting next year, they’ll have to prove it again. I don’t see any sign that “The road to the Cup goes through Detroit” is going to change any time soon….

(via Kukla)

Tip Jars and Coffee Shops

Jeff Nolan: What exactly is the tip jar at the local coffee place supposed to recognize, excellent cash register operation, and at Starbucks is it for excellent button pushing? How about the car wash, am I supposed to drop a dollar in the tip box because they dried my car really well… how about when they do a crappy job, should I pluck a dollar out of the tip box as a penalty?

Maybe it’s just me, but those tip jars mostly say “hey, we know you don’t care enough about that change to want to carry it around, we’ll take it!”

And honestly — I do tend to use it for that some of the time….

Not quite about Steve’s thoughts on flash….

His Gruberness writes:

Steve Jobs makes the case against Flash on iPhone OS. Cogent, detailed, straightforward, brutally honest. No prevarication. Read the whole thing

Only tangentally about Flash, but….

A long time ago, in a previous life, I was sitting in a conference room with a bunch of people — PR, marketing, legal, the usual suspects. We were hashing out ideas for creating new channels for marketing and how to get our message out into the public eye and seen.

At one point I spoke up and I said I knew how to create a marketing system that the entire universe would read. The room shut up, of course.

Let’s give Steve a blog

My argument was that if we created “Steve’s blog”, the entire universe would read it, and those that didn’t would get emails pointing them to whatever Steve said. The kind of visibility you can’t buy. Steve could post his laundry lists and people would fall over each other to be the first to analyze each word for hidden meaning. And when we had an important message we wanted to get out to the public unfiltered through journalists and the rest of the group that interprets what is said into what is read, we had a ready channel waiting and primed. it’d be a perfect place for product announcements and passing along added detail after keynotes — it had unbelievable opportunity. And heck, Steve could have also used it to promote charities (or pretty much anything) and made an impact in any number of ways.

They all stopped and thought about it for a bit; there was general consensus that it’d do all of that, that it could be a huge opinion mover — and unfiltered to boot. And nobody was willing to remotely consider taking it to Steve and pitching it to him, so it went nowhere. Myself included.

But I always felt it had massive potential. I think this not from Steve, if you look at it as an experiment in this direction (which I think it might be, and should be) is a massive proof of concept success. I am willing to bet the size of the audience that read Steve’s “blog post” (directly or indirectly) dwarfs the number that looked at Adobe’s response, which was ONLY in the Wall Street Journal.

It does raise one question to me. Does this indicate that Steve and Apple are figuring out how to use the online community to communicate instead of stonewall and fight with it? If so, that could get very interesting.

Steve with his own personal bully pulpit. Not something I’d want aimed at me, that’s for sure. But I know I’d read it.

Update: Charles Arthur (@charlesarthur) rightly points out that I’d talked about this before…

Who didn’t make the cut, 2nd round edition.

A quick look at officials who got dropped from the rotation between the first and second round.

Referees

Steve Kozari
Dennis Larue
Mike Leggo
Wes McCauley
Brad Meier
Brian Pochmara
Chris Rooney
Ian Walsh

Surprises? I’m evidently a bigger fan of McCauley as a ref than the league is, if they let Furlatt ref and sent McCauley home. Furlatt has seniority, so maybe that’s why. There are some moderately senior people here not reffing the second round, like Dennis Larue (who I won’t miss). Other referees I won’t miss: Mike Leggo and Chris Rooney (laurie: “he’s a train wreck”). Honestly, I’d rather have McCauley over Furlatt and Joannette, but otherwise, I can’t complain about the choices. And to be fair, Furlatt called a pretty good game tonight in game one of SJ/Detroit, and it was NOT an easy game to referee (and it won’t get easier as the series goes on).

Linesmen

Steve Barton
Dave Brisebois
Mike Cvik
Shane Heyer
Brad Kovachik
Derek Nansen
Tim Nowak
Tony Sericolo
Mark Shewchyk

Count me surprised that Cvik isn’t here; always been one of my favorite linesmen, and not just because he’s huge and can throw players around like rag dolls as needed. Shane Heyer’s a senior guy, I’m also somewhat surprised he’s not in the rotation. But there aren’t any names in the second round that make me go “please god, send this one to Pittsburgh”, so I think the league made good decisions overall.

2009-2010 playoff predictions (round 2 edition)

But first a look back at round 1. How’d I do?

In the west, I picked San jose in 6, Vancouver in 6, Chicago in 6, Detroit in 6. I picked all four series, and three of them finished in six, and the one I missed went seven.

Not bad. not bad at all.

In the east, I didn’t pick series specifically, but I did pick Washington, Pittsburgh and Buffalo as the three teams I thought would come out of the east and said that New Jersey was in trouble. And in fact, Montreal took out the Capitals, Pittsburgh did in fact beat the sens, Boston beat Buffalo, and Philly took out the Devils, so I ended up 2-2 but didn’t guess # of games.

So I come out of the first round 6-2. To put that in perspective, I’ve had playoff years where I didn’t guess six rounds for the entire playoffs, so I’m happy. And since I watch primarily the west these days, guessing them all that well feels good.

That and $5 gets me a latte. Onward to the second round.

I didn’t get this in before the first Sharks/Wings game, but I did announce in front of witnesses at the game before game time that I was picking San Jose in six, and I stick with that. I mostly want Vancouver and Chicago to go seven games and for the two teams to beat the crap out of each other, but if I don’t pick Chicago I’ll be sleeping on the couch again, so I’ll pick Chicago in six. It would not suprise me greatly if Luongo and the Sedins carry Vancouver through this round, but I really like the Hawks as well. It really has proven out that all eight teams in the playoffs in the west were exceptionally talented and very evenly matched — if not purely in talent, teams like Colorado and Phoenix road great goaltending and amazing work ethics into serious battles.

In the east, it gets tougher; no easy series now. I’m amazed the Capitals are out, but the team had some fatal flaws that Montreal exposed: you simply can’t be a one-line scoring team, and your goaltending can’t falter at all, or you die. The Caps need to figure out secondary scoring depth, and it shows.

But I can’t see Montreal doing it a second time against the Penguins. The Penguins should get through this fairly easily (well, easy as playoff hockey is defined), but watch out for Halak. He’s capable of a “mission from god” run that could make things crazy. But: Pittsburg in 5, and they’re now my pick to come out of the east.

Boston/Philly: six games, I’ll choose Philly, but I’m not sure whoever wins this series will be in much shape to compete the rest of the playoffs. Should be physical and intense, but the Bruins just don’t do much for me…

So:

San Jose in 6
Chicago in 6
Philly in 6
Pittsburgh in 5

and onward to the next round.

who didn’t make the cut

The NHLOA releases the names of the officials who are in this year’s playoffs. Congrats to them all.

Of course, the truly curious then want to know who didn’t make the cut.

For referees:

These two opted out and are retiring, and god bless, we loved to complain about Kerry Fraser, but I always wanted him reffing in key games, and Marouelli was always a top notch, solid guy you never heard much about because he just got the job done and did it well.

2 Fraser, Kerry NHL 9/1/1973

6 Marouelli, Dan NHL 9/1/1982

Of the rest? Van Massenhoven and Jackson are out injured. I’ve deleted the part time AHL/NHL guys. Some of the newer guys (Dwyer and St. Pierre) will get passes because lower seniority will tend to lose out.

But there are some interesting names here. To be honest, Kowal and Hasenfrazt and morton are NEVER on my playoff lists.

And lookie, there’s Stephane Auger. Now, WHERE have I heard that name before. Not surprising he didn’t make the playoff cut, given his season. Just because he wasn’t suspended for his incident with Burroughs doesn’t mean there aren’t — complications — that come out from it. Here’s one. Be interesting to see if his contract’s renewed.

15 Auger, Stephane NHL 9/1/1994

19 Dwyer, Gord NHL 9/1/2003

30 Hasenfratz, Mike NHL 9/1/2000

18 Kimmerly, Greg NHL 9/1/1993

32 Kowal, Tom NHL 9/1/1998

26 Martell, Rob NHL 9/1/1992

36 Morton, Dean NHL 9/1/1999

45 StPierre, Justin NHL 9/1/2003

Linesmen

Honors to the two retirees leaving the game — and well deserved.

61 Seitz, Lyle NHL 9/1/1992

79 Pare, Mark NHL 9/1/1979

the list of linesmen not making the playoffs is interesting. There’s some senior talent here being told they’re not making the cut — Cameron, Campoux, Gibbs, Rody, Schachte, Wheler. Henderson’s been on the bottom of the depth chart for the league for a while, so while Drew Remenda loves him, I’m not surprised. Honestly, there aren’t many linesmen in the NHL that make me wince when I see them on the game roster (unlike the reffing crew); to some degree, their job is to not blow offsides, break up fights and drop the puck at faceoffs — one might think it’s not that hard to find a competent crew. It is nice to see guys like Cvik and Sharers and Devorski in the lineup, though.

74 Cameron, Lonnie NHL 9/1/1996

67 Champoux, Pierre NHL 9/1/1988

50 Cherrey, Scott NHL 1/9/2007

76 Cormier, Michel NHL 9/1/2003

82 Galloway, Ryan NHL 9/1/2002

66 Gibbs, Darren NHL 9/1/1997

91 Henderson, Don NHL 9/1/1994

78 Mach, Brian NHL 9/1/2000

90 McElman, Andy NHL 9/1/1993

73 Rody, Vaughan NHL 9/1/2000

47 Schachte, Dan NHL 9/1/1982

56 Wheler, Mark NHL 9/1/1992

I know this is a reach, but.. given the ref playoffs, may I kindly request the Sharks get Walkom and McCreary for deciding games? Please? (and devorski and mcCauley would be my second pair, and o’Halloran and Sutherland my third). For linesmen, I’ll take Cvik and Sharrers, and then Devorski and Lazarowich, and then nelson and Heyer.

2009-2010 playoff predictions….

The so-called “second season” starts tomorrow, so it’s time for the annual playoff predictions.

But first, a digression.

It was nice not writing about hockey this year. It was nice just going to games as a fan, watching them as a fan, reconnecting to hockey as a fan and not a critique or commentator. I think one of the issues of the so-called talking heads is that since they have deadlines whether or not they have material, little things end up getting blown out of proportion because you have to talk about something, and after a while, the little things take on a life of their own and it can all become a bit obsessive. Everyone loses perspective, including the writer and the fans who read them.

The reality? At the end of the season, the Sharks ended up right where they were supposed to: first in the West, Pacific Division champs, and geared for the playoffs. Did the universe become less interesting because nobody obsessed about a soft goal (or was it?) that Nabokov let in sometime in January in a game the Sharks lost in Overtime. I watch the pundits on NHL network and they are still harping on Nabokov as a potential weak link (well, they’re saying that about Luongo, too, in Vancouver) and I sit back and think “man, that’s the best you can come up with?”

And the answer is — well, yeah. That’s all they got. The “weak link” of the Sharks was 2nd in wins, 10th in GAA, 6th in save percentage, with ONLY four shutouts. The piker. Yeah, Russia sucked in the Olympics, but that was a group project and it seemed to me the Russian skaters were doing everything but holding Nabokov down and helping the other teams score. So whatever. It’s an axiom of being a talking head that you have to find things to criticize because good news is boring, adn you can never be boring.

That, in a microcosm, is why I was happy to shut up and not prove I had nothing to say this season. The Sharks just went and did what they needed to do. There were no controversies, nobody died, no season ending injuries, no extended slumps, no real MINOR slumps, the team just kind of motored, but at the same time, it never looked too easy and they never seemed to get bored or take it for granted like they did last year. That, of course, makes for boring journalism, which is why you see the pundits running around looking for something to point at as a weak spot. And you can’t blame the ice girls, I guess. Oh, wait. San Jose doesn’t have ice girls (thank you, Greg Jamison!)

Of course, they still have to do it in the playoffs, that much is true. Will they?

Damn good question. We’ll see. I think, however, that if they don’t, it won’t be because of things the Sharks didn’t do, but because of something some other team did better. And there are legitimate worries that as well as this team is put together and as good as it’s been playing — it still might not be good enough. Because ultimately, only one team can win it all, and 29 teams, no matter how good they are, lose.

In the west, to me it’s one of three teams: San Jose, Chicago and Detroit (sorry, vancouver fans. I await your letters…) — and honestly, I can’t choose one as a favorite over the other two. Each has strong points, each has weak spots that can be exploited. It’s going to come down to who stays healthy and who plays their best hockey when they need to. I expect some pretty damn good hockey out here in the west, and nobody’s going to get out of this conference without a fight.

That’s because I think any of the other five teams can take on their opponent and beat them. ANY of the eight could easily take the first round, and yes, while I think San Jose should take Colorado, I don’t think it’s a walk by any means. it might be the match I find easiest to call in the first round, but there are no teams in the west that don’t deserve to be there and won’t put up a fight.

So my western predictions: San Jose (in 6), Chicago (in 6), Vancouver (in 6) and Detroit (in 6).

San Jose’s weak spot: secondary scoring, Joe thornton’s tendency to falter in the playoffs, and Nabokov so far not proving himself in the playoffs. Their strengths: That first line looks killer (on paper), Nabokov looks like he’s in a good groove right now, Patrick Marleau, and Malhotra and Nicholl on the third line bolstering what was always the flawed part of the roster in previous years.

Chicago’s weak spot: unproven goaltending and youth. Their strength? Some really nice key veterans bolstering the kids. These guys scare me.

Detroit’s weak spot: age and jimmy howard being unproven. Their strength? It’s the freaking red wings. This team has a tradition of finding a groove in the playoffs, and their last 20 games? talk about hiding in the weeds and showing up for prime time. They REALLY scare me.

It would not surprise me a bit for Vancouver to go deep, and if they get on a run, they could take everyone else out and exit the west. If the Sharks, Wings and Hawks are my first tier in the west, Vancouver is a 1A. The difference is very narrow here, Canucks fans, but to me, there’s still a difference. But I’ll buy the first round if they prove me wrong and celebrate with yo.

Phoenix and LA? Beware the “mission from god” teams. They get on a run, watch out. they could easily take teams out in the first round, but I’m not convinced they’re ready to get out of the West with the talent in this conference. But they won’t be easy opponents.

Neither will Colorado or Nashville — but I think they’re a bit below the other six teams here.

Coming out of the west? Okay, hold my feet to the fire. I’ll pick — San Jose. Because I must. But any of the top three won’t surprise me and won’t be an upset. I’ll root for any of these teams (except against the Sharks), and if any of these eight make it out to the cup final, I’ll be satisfied.

In the east? Quality isn’t that deep.

I’m picking Washington out of the East, with Pittsburgh as a distant second choice. Buffalo is my dark horse, and ottawa is my choice as most likely to upset the higher seed in the first round. New Jersey has to prove it’s not going to have another playoff fade — sorry, Devils fans, but Brodeur simply hasn’t had it in the gas tank, and that team simply isn’t convincing me it can go deep. First round for New Jersey? yes. But that’s probably it.Me?

So my pick for the cup final? San Jose and Washington, which would be some amazing hockey. But honestly, there’s a good chance that the Sharks will get beat along the way, and a good chance it won’t be any failure by the Sharks, although you can bet the pundits will play it up. It’s what they do. (then again, it’s also possible the sharks DO blow up in the playoffs. if they do, we’ll be sure to talk about it… but I see it as unlikely with this team…)

So to all of the teams in the playoffs, good luck and drop the puck. And we’ll see you at the arena!

I had a glitch…

I guess once you start talking about backups it never ends…

See, after getting everything set up and to my liking, I found much to my annoyance that I had a glitch.

Under random circumstances, my backups would fail, usually with some kind of “can’t create directory” error.

Glitches suck, because they can be tough to debug — because by definition glitches work properly most of the time. And usually fail when it’s inconvenient to debug. Fortunately, I’d seen this one before, but I thought I’d write about it for others who might run into it.

The first thing to try in these cases is simple: Disk Utility. It’s very possible that somewhere along the way the disk got corrupted and that’s causing your problem. Tried that, but the glitch came back, so that wasn’t it.

Buried in the Energy Saver System Preference is one that says “Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible”. Apple seems to default this to on. I have always turned it off; in the early days of Mac OS X there were disk drivers that had problems with it and would cause glitches. Over the years things got better, but I still have never really seen any real advantage to it.

So I turned it off.

And the glitch went away. Case closed.

But here’s what seems to be happening. When Time Machine fires up (I think I saw it once with Superduper, but in general, Superduper isn’t sensitive to this, Time Machine was VERY sensitive to it) sends out a disk write request to create the backup directory. Not sure who’s to blame for the glitch, but if the disk is spun down, Time Machine doesn’t wait and reports it as a failure. Not sure if this is the driver returning a “not ready yet, try again later” that Time Machine is seeing as an error, or if Time Machine has a timeout and if it doesn’t get the response back fast enough it errors, but either way, if you ask me, the software should really be smart enough to recognize this situation and do something useful, and “error out and abort” isn’t my definition of useful.

My recommendation: turn it off. Or at the very least, turn it off when attached to the power adaptor. And quietly ask yourself why Time Machine isn’t smart enough to deal with this situation, when, well, it’s kinda it’s JOB.

To take it a step further, what if this hadn’t fixed the gltich? what next?

For me, the next step would have been to put the drive mechanism into a different housing — it’s living in that removable dock, which is new to me, and I’d need to figure out if that housing was the cause or the drive itself (which is also new). If the glitch follows the drive, it’s probably got a problem and you ought to see about having it replaced under warranty. If it goes away in the new housing, then it’s the old housing, and you have to figure out what to do, whether it’s replace or reduce your dependence on it or whatever. There are, fortunately, only so many parts to these things, so this kind of replacement swap isn’t hard to do and can quickly help you find which piece is the core or the problem.

On a related note, Laurie’s main data disk (2x500Gb mirrored raid) filled up, so we had to find more room for her. The fast reaction was to shift her to a 750Gb drive I had handy, but we ordered 2x2Tb drives and I’ll be fitting them into the RAID this weekend and that’ll give her some room to expand. It also creates complications on her backups I’m still trying to figure out how best to solve, because her backup disks are big enough for her data set, but now for the size of the data set she’s going to grow on those new disks. We have time, but I want it solved before it’s a problem.

This has me rethinking Drobos. Drobo just announced a NAS, which looks interesting, but you can buy two “plug into the computer” Drobos for the cost of the Drobo NAS, and that’s an intriguing option as well. I’m guessing the long-term answer is a Drobo on each of our primary machines and a Drobo NAS for backups, but how to build them out and in what order, I’m not sure yet. and honestly, there are other things I’d rather spend my money on, than backups.

But I’d rather spend money on backups than Drivesavers, ya know?

I and the Bird #122

Welcome to issue #122 of I and the Bird. Today we’re going to visit with a number of birders and get a glimpse into the birds that they are keeping an eye on, from yellow-billed loons that make you twitch to sandhill cranes in your backyard to the birds that remind us that spring is here and that nesting season (and the joyous cacaphony of life that brings) is firing up.

Don’t forget to look out for the next issue of I and the Bird, coming to you April 15 thanks to the kind endeavours of the Idaho Birding Blog. If you didn’t contribute to this edition, you really should write up one of your birding adventures and share it with us through them!

But first, a quick editorial…. If it’s spring, it’s nesting season. If it’s nesting season, it’s a good time for all of us to remember the potential impact our hobby can have on the birds and that we should be very sensitive to approaching a nest. Birds can abandon a nest if they feel threatened and we can significantly hinder their ability to successfully hatch and raise their young if we aren’t very careful about how we interact with the birds, we can cause the nest to fail.

Keep your distance, and don’t push it just to “get that shot”. If the bird has acknowledged you, you’re too close. If you flush a bird, you’re way too damn close and you really should just get out of there and leave them alone. Their successful nesting is more important than that photograph, and we as birders and bird photographers need to take our stewardship of the birds seriously. If you aren’t absolutely sure you aren’t too close, move back and give them more room. (no nests were annoyed in the creation of these photos…)

Now, onward and forward to I and the Bird!

My entry for I and the Bird is The Bird(ing) and Me. I never intended to become a birder. It just happened. You don’t need to be a birder to look at birds. You aren’t a birder because you carry binoculars. Birding is — ultimately — all about birds, but has nothing to do with birds. Birding is the community that surrounds looking at birds, not the activity of watching them.

Neil Gilbert at OCBirding.com talks about one of the classic challenges of the birder: To Twitch…Or Not? Neil got his bird, a Yellow-Billed Loon. I normally don’t twitch — but I considered going after the same bird, but didn’t, so I’m still waiting for my time with that loon.

Corey at 10,000 birds goes birding at Jamaica Bay with a few of his friends — and takes us along to enjoy it with him.

Andy Gibb at Twitching and Transformation talks about the recent changes to the IOC world list, and notes that his life list grew without his ever leaving his chair.

Speaking of lists, Nate at the Drinking Bird Blog does a nice piece in defense of the lister.

Melissa Cooper at Out Walking the Dog has been thinking about the impact and implications of feeding our wild (and urban “wild”) animals, and some of the issues it raises. Very interesting thinking and something to consider.

Dale Forbes, who happens to work for Swarovski in Austria, talks about the technical details of digiscoping and his digiscoping adventures in a trip to Africa and some of the birds and animals he saw there.

Rebecca of Rebecca in the Woods has a bit of an challenge. The good news is spring is back and the birds are nesting. The bad news is — the Carolina Wrens are nesting THERE?

Dave Alcock of DaveA’s Birding Blog brings us some gorgeous photos he took during an unexpected meeting with a Merlin.

Amber Coakley at Birder’s Lounge writes about the Great-Tailed Grackle in A Little Respect. I agree with her, they’re pretty birds that I enjoy watching — but bring earplugs.

Speaking of bringing earplugs, Puca at Anyone Seen My Focus brings us some nice images of one of my favorite birds, the Northern Mockingbird. And it must be spring, because the neighborhood mockingbirds have returned for another breeding season and kicked all of the Scrub Jays out of the area — that’s a turf way that’s been going on as long as we’ve lived here, and the Mockingbirds always seem to win. Our favorite mockingbird is back for another summer as well, the one we lovingly refer to as “Car Alarm”. Laurie says she’s heard one she swears is trying for “Anna’s Hummingbird”, but it’s not working. We’re worried it’s going to sprain it’s throat trying…

And it must be spring, when the birder’s thoughts turn to — the American Robin. Moe at Iowavoice.com brings us some nice images of this harbinger of spring for so many of us.

Tai Haku at Earth Wind and Water has a different sort of bird — some really amazing photos of a Snowy Owl, taken near him home — on an island in the Caribbean. When I saw “snowy”, for some reason I was thinking egret…

Jill Wussow at Count Your Chicken! We’re Taking Over! has some fun shots of what they think is a Glaucous-Winged x Herring gull hybrid who’s appetite is larger than it’s mouth as it attempts to swallow a starfish that doesn’t seem to want to be swallowed. Yes, it looks about as funny as you might expect. (and thank you, Jill, for admitting that I’m not the only person in the universe who looks at a flock of gulls and thinks to himself “I really should check it for rarities” but just can’t find huge amounts of enthusiasm over the idea….)

Joy at The Little House in the Not-So-Big Woods brings us this former-city-dwellers first vist by a barred own in Surrender Dorothy! There are Flying Monkeys Out There! I bet most of us have one of these WHAT THE HECK WHAT THAT? moments in our background…

Kay Baughman of the Arroyo Colorado Riverblog goes out birding and tells us to Go Fly a Kite. Or watch them…

Wren at Wrenaissance Reflections brings us a few pictures of some of her backyard birds, which just happen to be cranes. I’d kill for that view.

Larry Jordan at The Birder’s Report brings us close and personal with a pair of ospreys and their nest.

John Beetham at DC Birding Blog does a very nice review of the book Birds of Europe, 2nd Edition. I need to put that one on my wish list…

Don’t forget, when you bird, you can help the scientists studying birds to help us all understand them better. If you run into a banded bird, your sighting can help those studying those birds, so please consider reporting it. There’s a centralized banded bird reporting site available to make this easier, hosted by the USGS.

And finally, a free plug: when I visit Southern Cal to see my family, one of my favorite birding places is Bolsa Chica. they’ve just released the latest issue of their newsletter, the Tern Tide, which among other things talks about their new access bridge and urban coyotes. Well worth a read (and a visit!) (pointer via Amy at Wildbird on the Fly)

The bird(ing) and me….

I never intended to become a birder. It just happened.

You don’t need to be a birder to look at birds. You aren’t a birder because you carry binoculars.

Birding is — ultimately — all about birds, but has nothing to do with birds. Birding is the community that surrounds looking at birds, not the activity of watching them.

It’s the people, and it’s the people involved in birding that made me a birder.

I felt it was time to acknowledge that, and say thanks.

My roots in watching birds go back a long way. I remember standing on a sand dune in Arcata, California, watching the brown pelicans dive fishing through a bait school and standing in awe and staring at these stunning birds in action. I have never tired of watching pelicans.

I’ve always been attuned to water — I find being near the water, especially near the ocean to be calming and regenerative. When I’m tired, when I’m stressed, getting out near the water helps recharge the batteries, release the tension. Living here in the Bay Area I’m blessed. The ocean is a short drive away, and special places like Fitzgerald Marine Preserve in Moss Beach and Pigeon Point and Pescadero exist away from the crowds so even on fairly busy days you can get to places that aren’t exceptionally crowded.

Better yet is to discover places along the Bay itself; Much has been developed, but we’re making progress at pulling some of it back and making it more accessible, less urban. Areas around Alviso, around Mountain View, around Palo Alto, around Redwood Shores.

You see your first black skimmer, and you think to yourself How the hell does a bird like that fly? What committee designed that?

Curiousity wins. You buy binoculars to see better. You buy a guide. You buy another. You figure out that the brash little bird out in the wetlands is a Song Sparrow, and you feel that little tingle of pride. You don’t realize it yet, but you’re hooked.

By the mid 1990′s, a camera, a guide and binocs were standard equipment. I’m primarily photographing shorebirds (and pelicans) and trying to make sense of sandpipers (yes, I hear you all out there quietly laughing. I was naive. They STILL don’t make sense). Laurie and I are in northern Oregon on a trip, at a breakfast place near astoria. We have our binocs on the table, which attracts another couple into discussion. They’re heading off to Fort Stevens after black rails. I’m off looking for sandpipers. “Shorebirds are easy. You should be photographing warblers!” she tells me.

But I like shorebirds! and it’s an excuse to get near the ocean. But she piques my interest.

Little did I know the heaven and hell that conversation was going to open up.

Over time you see people out in the places you out in. Some of those people see the binocs and come up and introduce themselves. They point things out. They answer questions. You start recognizing faces and names. They start recognizing you, and wave and point at things. You discover the mailing lists and find out there are people running around pointing out lots of places and birds and things going on you never realized.

And somewhere along the way, you’ve turned into a birder. For me, it was May, 2006. I was getting more and more serious about my photography and more and more serious about my birdwatching. I decided to get out and trip away from the familiar places — go on a birding trip — and see how much I liked it. I did some research, and did a long weekend in Morro Bay.

I ended up in Sweet Springs in Los Osos. Walking through the wetlands and into the trees. It was migration, and there were warblers all over the place — damned if I had a clue which ones. Well, I do now; Townsend’s and Yellow-Rumps primarily. Suddenly a flash of orange and yellow and a bird sits up in the shadows. Madly thumbing through the guide, I realized it was a Western Tanager, a gorgeous male.

At that moment I started Keeping Lists and stopped birdwatching and started birding. I’ve never looked back. My god, she was right. Warblers are fun to chase and photograph. So are the birds that skulk in bushes and flit in the canopy. They are also an endless source of wonderful frustration. I am not someone who tolerates adequacy in myself. If I choose to do something, I have to do it well. Birding is something you don’t get good at quickly, but you can always see the progress — and the next challenge. I have spent hours practicing with white-crowned sparrows how to see birds in bushes and get in position to get a real look at them. I’ve done the same with yellow-rumps in the canopies.

It’s only been the last six months or so where I really have started to feel like I’m good at this. I’ve been enthusiastic for a while — but enthusiasm isn’t a substitute for skill or knowledge. The hardest lesson to learn, and I think one of the most important, is when to back off and not force an ID into a situation where it’s not appropriate; when to just leave it at “a bird I wish I’d seen better”.

As a new birder, it’s all new, it’s all exotic, and your skills and knowledge are far outstripped by your naivete and enthusiasm. My work situation precluded doing many group outing where I could study from other birders, my nature tended to nudge me towards solo birding since I still saw the outings as a way to get away from everything and recharge and reflect. As such, the mailing lists and the online birding communities became my primary contact, my mentors, and as I made my inevitable mistakes they were my occasional audience for some rather enthusiastic pratfalls.

I didn’t become a birder because of the birds. I could have spent the rest of my life happily watching birds and taking photos of them without “birding”. I became a birder because of the people I found who were birders, and the community I found in birding. The last few years have been somewhat of an interesting time, in a chinese sort of way, and I found that birding because my retreat and sanctuary, and occasionally a thing I rallied my sanity around.

So I thought that, when the opportunity to host I and the Bird came up, that it was a great opportunity to talk not about birds, but about the birding community, and what it meant to me — and if you’ll indulge me a bit, to say thank you to a few people who deserve to be recognized.

If I mention nobody else, I have to mention Kris Olson. We lost Kris this year and that leaves a gaping hole in the local birding community. Kris was some of the glue that binded us together — she seemed everywhere. If a strange bird showed up somewhere, she’d appear to help chase it down and confirm it. She was a key driver in Sequoia audubon rebooting the county sighting lists. She was always there to answer a question or offer advice or suggest a place to visit, and with a smile and some gentle encouragement.

Then there are the senior birders, as I call them. Been doing this a long time, really know the region well, and are out there more or less every day surveying. They are the ones that know where to look and point out what’s there to be found, so the rest of us benefit by knowing where to look. In this area, people like Ron Thorn, Bill Bousman, Al Eisner, Bob Reiling, and Mike Mammoser not only help set the pace for most of the birders, I’ve found them all very willing to answer questions and offer advice (and occasionally kick my butt when my enthusiasm overreaches my skill), and if a report seems strange, they’re folks who’ll confirm it or suggest alternatives and help you get it right. I have been amazed on more than one occasion by Ron’s ability to ID a bird remotely via email better than I could seeing the bird in person.

You can’t pay these people back; they’d be insulted if you tried. So one of the things I’ve been thinking through is how I can contribute back into the community — to pay forward as a way of recognizing what I’ve gotten out of it.

So I’m going to close with a small call to action. Every one of us is an advocate and an ambassador to birding. Whenever we’re out there with binoculars around our necks or a scope on a tripod, our behavior reflects on the entire birdwatching community. If we act like jerks, birders will be seen as jerks — even if we merely act uninterested and aloof, we don’t make our community look good in the eyes of potential birders.

Every time we’re out on the trails or in the marshes there are opportunities for outreach. I’ve found there’s a lot of curious people out there, but many times they’re uncomfortable initiating discussion. When I notice that, I make a point of reaching out and trying to make them comfortable and see if I can answer questions. I’m not the worlds best birder — but I can show off a snowy egret or get a scope on a bluebird and show it off.

I’ve seriously considered having badges created that say “Yes, you can look!” and sew one onto my birding hat, so if I’m glued to the eyepiece, someone can see it and know it’s okay to ask. Anything to get them over that hump and get them engaged. I carry a “business” card with my personal info oriented towards my birding and my photos, and I hand it out a LOT and encourage people to email me if they have questions or want more info. A previous version of that card included a pointer to the signup page for the local birding list; the next version is going to point to a page on my web site that’ll include signup links for all of the regional birding lists as well as the regional Audubon event pages, to help encourage them to seek out a beginners walk or some other kind of activity.

It’s not about recruitment, it’s really just making a good impression and fostering curiousity. If we do that, then we’ll see people recruit themselves into the hobby, and the more people we get involved, the more good we can do for the birds, and isn’t that the point? All it costs is a smile and a hello and a willingness to spend a minute or two explaining or just letting someone look — and you get the benefit of rediscovering the joy of someone going OOH! when the see a great egret in breeding plumage show off. Me, I’m still someone who goos OOH! at that, may I never hit the point that becomes common to me…

And if you’re interested in a “Yes, please take a look!” badge, let me know. If there’s enough interest I’ll make them happen and get one to you…

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The Princess and the Dragon

Gord and Fnord Go To the Zoo

A quick review of 2010 (and some history that leads into it, too)

2010 Photography highlights

2010 Blog Highlights

NICE

NAUGHTY

Downtime

2: The Patriarch

3: Incoming!

4: Cute as a button

5: Forster’s Tern

6: Pigeon Point Lighthouse

7: Brown Pelican

8: Ibis Silhouette

9: Western Bluebird

10: El Capitan after a Winter Storm

11: Pigeon Guillemot in flight

12: Anna’s Hummingbird

13: Western Kingbird

14: Mountain Chickadee

15: Yosemite Falls in a Winter Storm

Who do I judge myself by?

Who do I consider my peers?

Who instructs and inspires me?

Goals for the redesign

The new design

Advertising and Revenue

Other stuff that finally got fixed

Moving forward

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