_Mark_
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "_Mark_" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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02:01 am
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Summertime
Over a year with the SP550UZ and I'm still learning new tricks with it... or at least interesting ways to cheat :-) I'm also still more likely to spend any given Saturday taking 300 pictures than hacking - and yet I've actually built more personal code and tools in the last year than in many previous ones. Maybe I really am getting a bit more organized. A little. Riiiight...
(Yeah, yeah, organized hasn't included posting more than a couple of times a year, either :-)
Tags: photography, picture, weather
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01:31 am
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Hobbies
One of the reasons I've stuck with smaller cameras instead of going DSLR is that I've felt that the really interesting pictures are more a result of opportunity than hardware - and having a camera always on hand has more value than the extremes of shooting range.
This shot demonstrates that :-) This juvenile hawk was under an evergreen bush on my front sidewalk; I was eating breakfast and saw a pair of cardinals come screaming out of a bush, saw some movement below, and realized suddenly "that's not a squirrel..."
(I am looking forward to the actual return of spring, but the birds in my yard seem convinced that it's already here :-)
Tags: birds, photography, picture, spring
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02:55 am
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Birds and Snakes and Airplanes...
    
New toy - Olympus SP-550UZ. 18x zoom. I'm now a lot closer to "if I can see it I can shoot it" while still having a camera that I can have on me most of the time... only two downsides: xD cards are evil and I've been enjoying it so much that I've been spending time with the camera that I probably should be spending on other things... I tried to read the first few chapters of RESTful Web Services, enjoyed the introduction, got a few pages in to chapter one - and then went for a 3 mile hike in the rain, and found it to be a better choice, simply due to finding this and this in the middle of nowhere. This is more than just new-toy-glow, I'm averaging 80 pictures a day and far more of them make it to flickr than before.
It was definitely worth not waiting for the Canon S5-IS (the announcement of which was why I was open to looking at a larger camera.) I've even changed some of my summer plans to be more photo-oriented (not entirely because of this, but it was a real influence.)
Great Meadows NWR turns out to be a pretty good place to watch planes going into Hanscom (BED) while also observing nature; the Piaggio "pusher" above is probably more unusual and distinctive than most of the critters I saw that day :-)
Current Mood: enthusiastic
Current Music: R.E.M.
Tags: photography, picture, toys
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11:13 pm
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Even gloomy days can have adventures...
Last weekend, it was raining... and had been raining for a long time... classic gloomy New England winter-isn't-quite-done spring weather (though the last weekend in April is pretty late in the year for this kind of thing.)
Saturday, stayed inside and hacked. Sunday, decided I'd had enough of this, it wasn't raining all that much and I should at least get out and have lunch. Did my usual trip over to Ice House Pond (got some good reflection pictures, a cloudy sky is interesting for that, but nothing exciting.) Couldn't get up the motivation to do one of the farther-away hikes, so I went over to Great Meadows instead, to see if it was less flooded. Turned out it was, and that meant I got pictures of a Blue Heron and some muskrats up close, along with a nesting goose. I think that was pretty successful, for a visit to an otherwise inaccessible park.
On the way home, I realized that there was still some light, and that it was gloomy and wet enough that the Old North Bridge, the biggest non-shopping tourist destination in Concord, would probably be empty, and that the bridge might be good for getting more wildlife pictures (I've seen ducks and turtles there before.) Sure enough, the parking lot was nearly empty and partly flooded. I waited out a brief "real" downpour, and headed in to the park. Lots of flooding, mostly geese in the river, not that many people around so I got some good angles on the bridge itself.
If you look carefully along the left edge of that picture, you'll see a person standing next to the Minuteman Statue. He saw me taking pictures, and walked over with a camcorder on a tripod, and said roughly "I'm shooting a music video - just a little thing to put up on youtube, I'm an aspiring country singer from Boston - could you take some shots of me with this?"
After pointing out that while I knew the equipment, I didn't actually have any real experience shooting video, I took the camera and did some angles, some zooming, some closeups... listening to the singing and the lyrics (mostly the word "despair" :-) he'd certainly chosen a suitable setting for it. I figured at least he'd be able to use some of the guitar-strumming closeups.
Turns out that, behold the power of modern video editing, a fair bit of it turned out to be useful (it's also up on the artists' own site.) Basically the entire section with him walking onto the bridge, up to the four-frame dancing insert (except for the little reflected-goose interlude) was my shooting.
Conclusions:
- Depressing and gloomy days can still hold adventures
- On days when only crazy people would go out - sometimes you find other interesting crazy people... :-)
- Music videos have gotten a lot easier to produce...
Tags: birds, photography, picture
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01:38 am
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phototourism
I've already spent some time this year driving because driving is fun, and coincidentally taking interesting pictures in the places I end up. Over the next year I want to spend more time driving places because I can take interesting pictures when I get there. Not so much "pictures of interesting places" as "interesting pictures of places".
This one, though, is your basic Maine Tourism shot, and practice with using the panorama support on the new camera (with a stone wall to brace against, no tripod involved.) It's also a reminder that boats are cool... and plentiful :-)
Tags: picture, travel
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07:29 pm
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Picture taking again!
So the Nikon Coolpix S4 is a little big, but I found an OK belt pouch for it and it serves my shooting needs, as well as adding some features that I like and will probably start using soon. The 10x zoom is a win, the outdoor shots have been crisp and colorful, the larger screen makes review and framing somewhat easier.
But that's just hobby details - aren't these really cool lilacs? Advertised as "striped", but note that some of the blossoms are full-white. (They smell nice too, but they're lilacs - that's their job :-)
Tags: picture, spring
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09:05 pm
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busy busy busy
Gee, I haven't posted in over a month. Time to fix that. As an excuse, work has been both captivating and busy, we've brought some cool new people on board, but there are some things we're still looking for. There's a particularly hard-to-fill windows/linux crossbreed position, which includes security responsibilities; we're also starting to look for someone who can take over my release engineering responsibilities, because they're a lot more well-defined than they used to be, and I'm getting some advanced research projects put on my plate (we're still working out the details of that one, but if Debian! Releng/sysadmin! scripting! Shipping Products! Attention to Detail! gets your attention, get in touch with me at work...)Got another chance to go to Magic Wings, which is less overwhelming when it isn't summer time, but is still impressive. (Probably still better to go on sunny days than cloudy ones, though.) The picture here is some random butterfly perched on the exit sign...
Tags: butterflies, metacarta, picture, work
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11:20 pm
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Autumn leaves fall with a gentle... *splat*???
So it was cloudy, dark and gloomy, when I got up Saturday. No problem, I had sleep to catch up on, then a couple of Halloween parties to go to. Too wet out to work on chocolate, though. Had to get some supplies for some house projects (mostly caulk and cleaning supplies), so headed out for Home Depot - there were reports of snow in Cambridge, but Concord had nothing.
By the time I got to route 2, however, it was coming down. Thick wet flakes. Branches started bowing lower, Autumn leaves started crashing off the trees (not with the typical flutter, but with a *splat* when they hit. That's Just Wrong!)
Learned a lot (all good) about the handling characteristics of the small car. Wasn't much else pleasant about the trip, but it worked out OK.
Punted on the costumes (couldn't find my old stuffed fox, so couldn't do the easy "wear a red shirt, go as a Red State" idea) but got to socialize some; 5 year old girls apparently really like playing with dry ice and laser pointers.
Sunday made up for it, though - beautiful sky, glorious color, good driving, even found a good ice cream shop in the middle of nowhere. The rest of the week looks good too. Yay!
Tags: car, icecream, picture, snow
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12:55 pm
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SmartCar in Concord
It's a weekend of rain, so I won't have the usual driving report - instead, from earlier this week - a SmartCar seen in Concord! It's got Maryland dealer plates on it, which are sort of a trick - it's just an easy way to get anything with wheels on the road, it's a popular approach for home-built Lotus 7's too.
Tags: car, picture, smartcar
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05:20 pm
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traffic
I'd stopped doing the license-plate recall tests mostly because I've been driving on roads with fewer cars - route 2 is just *boring* when you have a fun-to-drive car, after all :-)
However, I've seen a few recently, and this one was funky enough to get a picture of. The art car you see here has the license plates MEOWWW. I also saw a "SAMWYZ" this morning (but the driver was a tall blonde woman, not a hobbit.)
Tags: car, picture, plates
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01:56 am
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Cruising
Another good driving day, south and east this time. Found more of where the Sudbury River goes, stumbled upon a "last cruise night of the year" with over a dozen cool cars including the tailfin pictured here, saw an amazing anti-sunset, and poked at both sides of Duxbury beach. Also found "Nut Island" which has the looks of a mad scientists lab (some water processing gear, I think :-) Also watched more small planes.
Of course, any day where you can keep the top down is a good day :-) More driving than I expected, but good practice for the spring trip.
Tags: car, picture, travel
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01:56 am
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More SmartCars
Earlier this year I went to Gothenberg, Sweden (for Europython 2005, among other things) and saw a number of SmartCars... including this different-looking fourtwo sport coupe. (More pictures over on flickr; I just finally got around to uploading them.)
Tags: picture, smartcar, travel
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02:31 am
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More travel
This time, the northerly route - 2A, 13, 2A again, 2 when 2A ran out... then through Turners Falls and down 5/10 to Deerfield, where I stumbled upon The Magic Wings butterfly conservatory and spent a little while taking pictures and getting visually overstimulated (wheee :-)
Then down 5 to 23, across to 7 and then down 41, down to 4 in Sharon and back to 7. May try doing the return trip via Rhode Island...
Update: Did go back via Rhode Island, 7 to 109 to 6 to 44 to 101 to 126 to 114 to 123 to 106 to 138 to 93 to Cambridge. Eastern CT is reasonably pretty, Western RI has better roads, though.
Tags: butterflies, picture, travel
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04:05 am
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So that's what weekends are for...
Saturday: Explored Littleton and Acton. Found a 1953 Jaguar, a number of horses, cows, and sheep (Littleton is inside 495, but feels more like Western MA), and Prouty Woods Community Forest, with some nice trails and a loop that goes down to Long Lake (which google calls "Long Pond", Hmph.) which is used for Canoeing, fishing, and swimming. I should send the New England Forestry Foundation an updated map; the maps they supply have accurate trails, but no landmark labels. Fortunately the trails are extremely well marked, and it isn't all that big, but I'm going to start keeping a small pack for "accidental hiking" :-) Failed to have dinner at Kimball Farms (being the only Thing To Do out there, it is very crowded on a Saturday night, I guess) (and ice cream wouldn't have been a good choice for dinner, by that point :-)
Sunday: Drove down to the Container Store and got some Stuff, including tools to experiment with chocolate writing for ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) hartmans's birthday party. Got rained on - concluded that the sunroof is particularly for weather in which you don't trust the sky enough to keep the top down :-) Was too warm/humid for the chocolate to set correctly (I've gotten used to Summer and didn't think about it, should have cranked the A/C down more - I've got a temperature and humidity sensor in the kitchen for that very reason) but it was edible enough to vanish rapidly, so that turned out fine.
Monday: Explored Pepperell and Groton, ran off the edge of my map and ended up in New Hampshire via some back roads. Switched maps, stumbled across an L.L.Bean Factory outlet - picked up some safety supplies for the "accidental hiking" pouch. Also found a small airport and watched a lot of teaching planes (from Daniel Webster College) land and take off again.
Getting familiar with more of Massachusetts seems like a good precursor to a longer trip in the spring - partly it's a matter of "limbering up", partly it's just *so* pretty here this time of year. Also learning that I need much better tools for writing up travelogues like this...
Current Mood:  energetic
Current Music: Komm Zu Mir - Lola Rennt soundtrack
Tags: picture, travel
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04:22 am
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"The highways and byways of the land..."
The month has been busy - not just with work (though it has been - and we're hiring again, will post jobs shortly) but with other parts of life. I've done more exploring in the last month than in the last two years, the convertible is both *way* cooler than I'd imagined it would be, it's also makes for a very relaxing ride - so I'm in better shape when I get to work and when I get home, and I actually look forward to the driving, and have done more exploration just because getting there would be fun. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a 60's era movie, just driving around and seeing the scenery because I can. Driving to Nova Scotia for a wedding was quite an adventure, as well as a beautiful event, and I want them to start running Catferry service to Hawaii and Europe too. Driving to Rockport (see the attached picture) was much calmer but also quite pleasant. I'm working on a list of further trips...
On the techie side, yes, codemonth is coming, as is IAP after that. I haven't sat down to play with Django yet, but the more I read the more impressed I get. Jam (from Perforce) is a very cool make and/or build-script replacement, now that I've finally clicked with it. I also haven't found a laptop that inspires me and that I can actually *get*, the IBM tablet has doubled in shipping time, a replacement mac from the current crop would be boring, and the Flybook is a bit risky as a linux platform.
The New Orleans disaster is kind of sad... I've been to New Orleans, and saw enough of the French Quarter to find it interesting - and now it's pretty much gone. It might be that it was exciting because it was ephemeral, but while hurricane risk has been present and real for a long time, it was a lot more ignorable than, for example, the Cold War, and I don't think it actually had that strong an influence. Ah well. At least it's a reminder to see things "now".
Tags: hacking, picture, travel, work
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05:57 pm
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Ergonomics Again
Another upgrade to a place I spend a lot of time seated...
Tags: car, picture, travel, work
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07:08 pm
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New Office!
While I was in Sweden, my office moved out from under me (this has happenned 3 times now :-) Only by about 5 blocks; now I have a view looking down on the central square fire station, which should add photo opportunities...
Tags: metacarta, picture, work
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09:32 pm
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Cruft... purged!
As I mentioned back in September, I'd decided to get rid of a bunch of useless (even in my terms) hardware, that didn't really have any nostalgia value either (and even some which did, slightly, because I'd gotten it running at some point.)
 A dumpster full of HP and Sun 3 hardware, useless monitors, microfiche readers, and other related cruft went out the door on Friday. This has freed up an entire home office - which will lead (indirectly) to the construction of a Chocolate Room, with everything chocolate concentrated in one place (muah hah hah :-)...
Tags: chocolate, cruft, picture
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03:45 am
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Snow!
So much for raking the leaves...
Current Mood: snow
Tags: picture, snow
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02:59 am
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Moon and Planets
Given comments seen elsewhere, I believe this  is the Moon, Jupiter, and Venus. This was not using a lens or scope, just the camera as-is; the only "trick" was twisting the camera and sitting it on the railing, then taking the shot with a 10 second delay (so as to minimize vibration for the 1 second exposure.)
Look Up!
Tags: picture, space
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