Archive for December, 2003

12/28/03

Published on December 28, 2003 in Text. 0 Comments .

What a weekend. Actually… the excitement all happened Friday, really… the rest of the weekend was more or less unmemorable, though the LAN party was fun. Friday I took Bonny hiking down at Holy Jim. I don’t think I’ll tell the story here though, in the journal, because I’m going to do a little write up on it in the Adventures (it was definitely that) section tomorrow or Tuesday night. I’ll just give the short short version. Basically a rock fell down a hill, broke apart right before it hit Bonny, and the fragments sliced through her cheek and broke her finger. The cut on her face was about 3 inches or so long and a quarter of an inch deep. Not exactly a small scratch. The bone in her middle right finger was split down the middle and a chunk of flesh was torn out.

I’ve been playing the events of the actual event as it occured over and over and over in my head all weekend. Not because I want to, of course, I just can’t help it. And though there are a few spots where I don’t remember exactly what happened, I can see some images with crystal clarity. And though I know that I didn’t cause the rock to fall (some kids did… whether or not it was intentional we will never know)… I can’t help but feel guilt and responsibility for what happened to her… either because I couldn’t and didn’t do anything to prevent it… or because I left the place unscathed… not a scratch on me. Or maybe it is both. I can honestly say that this is the only time in my life that I have witnessed something bad happen to someone else and truly wished that I could have traded places with them. I still do. I wish that I was closer to her at the time and that I could have and would have done something to protect her… but I wasn’t and I couldn’t and I didn’t. I wish that I hadn’t paused to let the kids and father who kicked the rock down pass me, becuase that is why Bonny ended up in front of me and in the spot she was when the rock came down. But those thoughts are useless… what’s done is done, we can’t change it, and if we could, even worse things could happen as a result of those changes… all we can do is learn from what has happened. I learned a bit about myself… never having been in that type of situation before, and I learned a lot about Bonny… about how amazingly strong and positive she is.

I think I could go on and on right now about all this, but I don’t think I will. It will get long and most likely very repetitive and boring. I just wanted to record how I feel right now… and maybe later I’ll get to look back at this and wonder or cry or laugh or just remember. I think I mostly write about photography and trips and gear and what I do or want to do, when I write in this journal… but seldomly do I mention how I really feel or what I think about things. Maybe that’ll change…

Hopefully I will have the time to write about the trip tomorrow night… I need to do it while it is still fresh in my mind, though somehow I don’t think I’ll forget the details of this trip the way I do with everything else…

12/21/03

Published on December 21, 2003 in Text. 0 Comments .

I fixed my camcorder… or actually I just broke it some more, but it is much more useful now. I had never had a problem with a Canon product until the LCD crapped out on the cheap little ZR20 camcorder I bought to make my cross country trip to New York (that never happened). It basically always thought that the LCD was always swiveled around to the front so the image always displayed upside down. It was quite a pain in the ass. So, I opened it up and found that the little spring inside was broken somehow, so it wouldn’t push the switch back to its normal position after being swiveled around to the front. Well, lacking any other immediate options, I removed the switch lever, so now it will always be right side up. Not a big deal, just can’t let people see themselves on the screen as I record them. Never used it much anyway, and at least now it works for me.

I am trying to think of a good idea for a 5 minute simple set script, but something is wrong with whatever creative juices my brain may be able to muster… gonna have to sit on it some more. I’m also going to have to work on Premiere some more so I will be able to do a decent job of editing whatever I do end up shooting, if anything.

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I tried to give the site a bit more festiveness (or is it festivity? festivosity?) with some red and green, but it looks horrible. Oh well, it’ll just be for a week or two. Maybe this will give me the motivation to actually change the look of the entire site soon. Maybe…

12/20/2003

Published on December 20, 2003 in Text. 0 Comments .

Trying to start learning Adobe Premiere, just began this morning. I think I may need a book or guide or something. I’ve captured some video from the camcorder, done some simple editing… but I don’t think this will be another just figure it all out on your own type softwares like… well pretty much like any other software I’ve ever used, including Dreamweaver which I’m using right now. I think I’d get a lot more out of all these applications if I only read some lit on them… but that takes so much time…

If all goes well I will be able to pick up a Canon GL2 next month. It will not be easy, but hopefully I can make it happen. If all goes well I will also fix my bike and ride it tomorrow. I have a lot of catching up to do. I was getting in pretty decent biking shape back then… and now it’s all gone. Oh well, did it before, do it again, right?

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I’m really going to try and keep the PAW going for 2004. A solid 52 images. Shouldn’t be too hard, I shot almost 5 gigs of pics this year. Actually, that’s not really all that impressive considering that I used to have a 1GB Microdrive for the G1, so that would only be 5 full cards. Not that much when you look at it that way, so I guess I won’t. I need to start working on quality, not quantity, anyway, so judging by the number of pics is not really going to help me. How many images did I shoot this year that I really like? That I would want on my wall? Or better yet, that I would want on someone else’s wall? I don’t think there’s a single one outside of the trip photos that I like for their content, not their aesthetic qualities. I remembered yesterday that I had hoped to send out matted and framed photos this year as Christmas gifts… but I have nothing worthy, and that is sad. I need to get out a bit more again. Sierras, Inyo Whites, anywhere…

12/10/03

Published on December 10, 2003 in Text. 0 Comments .

My head has been buzzing with ideas for short films I would like to make. The chances of me actually being able to do what I want with one of them is very very slim, but it’s still nice to think of the possibilities. I actually have no idea where I would even start… I know that a lot of work goes into even the smallest of scenes, if you want things to look, sound and feel good. The last thing I’d want is to make something cheesy, because I really do hate cheesy lines, scenes, comments, acting, ideas, etc… There is almost no chance that I will be able to go to film school any time soon, so I guess I will have to just wing it and hope for the best. I guess I will probably start with a video similar to Josh’s awesome White Mountain 2003 video. I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t hurt my knee and was able to go on all the trips we had planned, might have made for some great video and pics… er… probably better not to wonder stuff like that… might realize that a stupid little move on the tennis court cost me a lot of fun…

I think I may look for a book or something about filmmaking basics though, if such a thing exists (it has to). They have great ones for photography, and though video is an entirely different beast, there has to be something decent out there written for the beginner. I have ideas for scenes though that I have no idea how I could film without spending a lot of money, and I don’t even mean sets or props or anything like that. I’m just referring to certain camera movements and stuff… dunno how I’m gonna do it.

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I’m going to fix my bike this weekend, then I’m going to ride it. Probably Chutes or something. That is, of course, if I successfully fix the bike. I really need to get back into exercise. Working my current hours (4am to around 3 or 4pm) doesn’t leave me much time for working out, especially not at Tony’s. Hopefully I’ll start doing stuff again soon enough though, I’m getting fat again… er… not that I had already gotten not fat.

Speaking of being fat… it’s fun to look back through pics of myself for the past few years. I change a lot. Not just weight, but hair styles and colors, facial hair, clothes, moods… all making for very different looks at different times of my life. Some people could meet me one day and then see me a few months later and not recognize me at all. It’s happened before, especially when I went to Hollywood and turned into a hermit bum. So… I like having pics of myself because, like I said, it’s fun to look back at the changes. Anyhow, last night I decided to really try and take a decent self portrait, but as I should have expected, I just messed around in front of the camera for a little while and didn’t really do much anything serious at all. I did manage, however, to take one shot I thought was ok and so I put it up on the bio page. Now with that pic up there I really should rewrite my stupid bio.. it really doesn’t fit the pic. Or maybe that’s the way it should be…

12/8/03

Published on December 8, 2003 in Text. 0 Comments .

Still working on writing up those trips. Actually, I haven’t even started writing yet, I have only been resizing images and creating thumbnails so far. I think thumbnails will work better than large images all on one page, especially if there is text involved. There’s the big image way, and there’s the text link way, and I think the thumbnail way may be a very good compromise. I guess we’ll have to see.

I actually ended up spending a bunch of time today just working on getting the new system to work properly. I was having problems with the network and internet. I disabled the onboard NIC (I hate onboard shit) and threw in an old 3com card, and things seem to work perfectly now. I guess I could have just messed around with the IRQ settings, but this just seemed easier. The new system is quite a bit faster than the old in every way, and it makes editing pics in PS much much easier. I’m guessing that when I start doing some video editing I will appreciate the speed even more, even though I will have no frame of reference. Maybe I should keep the old motherboard so that when I go to edit some video for the first time I can use the old system for a while, then switch over so I can really appreciate the new one. Eh… that sounds like too much work for nothing.

Hopefully I will have time to work on the bike soon so I can start riding again. The knee is feeling quite a bit better, and I need to get on the bike again. It’s been over 2 months. Not cool. Then I need to get the new camcorder and start doing stupid things and recording them, so that I can make fun and cool DVDs.

Oh well, time to go to bed now… must wake up early tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow I will have time to actually edit some pics and maybe write up at least one trip report. Probably for the latest trip, the one to Big Sur… even though Lan has already written it up on his site.

12/7/03

Published on December 7, 2003 in Text. 0 Comments .

And so my system is now fixed. I’m guessing it was just the power supply, but when I went and picked up the ps I also got a new motherboard, processor and memory. Then when I got home I was too anxious to try out the new setup that I didn’t even bother checking to see if the old setup would have been fixed with the new ps. Guess I’ll never know. Actually, I guess I should find out so I’ll be able to sell the old stuff, if anyone wants to buy it.

I have lots of updating to do on the site, of course. I’ve gone on a few trips, taken a few pics here and there… lots up stuff to update and upload. My site quota is full, though, so I need to figure out what to do about that first, though. I think I may just start hosting with the host that Josh is with, he has a lot more space than I do for the same price or thereabouts. Well, gotta go get on Photoshop and start resizing and editing pics for posting… write-ups for tha past two trips are on their way…