Saturday, September 22, 2007

When I was in my first decade on the planet, one of my favorite movies was the Disney classic, Swiss Family Robinson. In the worst way, I wanted to live in a tree house on a remote and deserted island.
Fast-forward; Nancy and I spent much of the week on Orcas Island, she in a water color class and me bombing around the Islands on my Ducati. One of our favorite places here is a 60 year old pottery place called Orcas Island Pottery. Since the last time we were here, they’ve added this neat tree house.  I am now in my sixth decade and climbing around in a tree house. Doesn’t just seeing it make you want to be a kid again?!

Several thousand people live on Orcas Island, so it isn’t really deserted. And you can go there via a 1-hour ferry ride from Anacortes Washington, so it’s not very remote.
I became familiar with it when my kids were small. We’d come up here for Father-Daughter / Father-Son campouts with the YMCA Indian Princess / Indian Guide programs. Years later we built a summer house here. It’s a really pretty place, especially on a bright, crisp, fall day in September.

Last night, I met my daughter and son-in-law at the ferry landing (they are bombing around the Island on a Co-Motion Tandem this weekend). In the car, riding back to the place we’re staying my daughter says, “I used to love coming here for Indian Princess Campouts with you. It’s one of my best memories!”

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Tuesday, September 18, 2007

These are the game faces of track racing at the velodrome in Redmond, Washington. Each Friday night during the summer there are bicycle races here, on a 400 meter oval sponsored by Group Health. Redmond is the “bicycle capital of America” according to the sign and it is fitting that some of the best track racers in America hail from here. These are seriously unbalanced individuals who train to win. We are here tonight because son-in-law Nick is racing.

I didn’t know that track bikes have only one gear: fast. I also didn’t know that the racers clip in to the pedals with special shoes. Once clipped-in, riders either go or they fall over. At the start, above, each rider is clipped-in and holding the rail for support as the starter gets ready to launch the race.

And the race is on, above. Sometimes the race is for a given number of laps. Sometimes, the last rider is eliminated each lap, until a winner emerges. There are sprints. Points races. The mind boggles at the variations ... but one thing remains constant ... the expenditure of calories mediated by training, in pursuit of victory!

And there is always a victory!

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Friday, September 14, 2007

I spend about 20 hours a week in front of Photoshop. Really! I take 15,000 to 20,000 photos a year and I use it to “develop” them. I have a PC powerful enough to meet the needs of a small country and it puts out enough heat to heat the house in winter. 1,000 watts = about 1 1/3 horsepower … a one and a third horsepower PC? The mind boggles! But it makes Photoshop ... well, zippy ... especially when editing photos of horses!

Sorry for the digression. Anyway, I want them to look like what I “saw” when I tripped the shutter and I want to present them in their best light, to make the world beautiful, if I can.  Here’s an example using one of my own photos:

I remember very well taking this photo. I was in Italy. Nancy had returned home and I was alone and in a dark mood. But this sight made me feel better. I “saw” the second image because my eye is better than the sensor in my camera, and because my camera’s sensor has no emotion chip. I can make this similar to what I saw and felt!

I added nothing … but I did manipulate the image data captured by the camera. I think the original is “okay” but the edit is much much better.
So okay, if I use Photoshop to make a picture look like reality, I feel okay about that. How do you feel if an editor uses Photoshop to present an image that diverges from “reality?”

What is “reality” after all? Plato anyone?

This happens all-the-time. If you view a photo in a magazine, it’s been Photoshopped. Here are a few links showing before and after (Photoshop) images. This is fascinating to me. I think you will find it interesting. Click below:

And finally, another one of my photos. The original is of my son-in-law’s bike at Mt. St. Helens. In the edit I put it in a fictional Ducati Showroom.

Posted by Digital Quixote in • Technology
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Throughout history, mankind has been taming wild places. A week ago I visited a good friend who is intentionally bucking the trend and making places more wild.

Awhile back he bought a house on a small river near Kelso Washington. Since then he has spent some of his own money and some grant money provided by the US Government to rehabilitate his stretch of the river. His goal is to stabilize the erosion caused by prior attempts to tame the river. In the process he is creating natural habitats for salmon, frogs, salamanders and such. His efforts are paying off. They are coming back and along with them, the entire food chain above them. While it’s a labor of love, it’s also hard labor!

He’s planted 2,000 trees. He’s brought in something like 500,000 pounds of rock. And he has “planted” dozens of dead and fallen trees (as in the photo above), each weighing several tons, which divert floodwater runoff, and create dark safe habitats. He’s had some help with the heavy stuff, but mostly he’s doing it by hand and with light equipment.

It’s personal.

I admire him for it!

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Monday, September 10, 2007

I spent some time at the Seattle Center today. Here are some great pics which came from my visit. The photo above is of a “bot” at the Science Fiction Museum.

There are a number of neat sculptures on the gounds. Here, the Space Needle through a neat sculpture.

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