Track list

1. Goof Balls
2. Another Brick in the Wall
3. Mary Jane’s Last Breakdown
4. Stunt Double
5. New Horizons
6. Loser
7. Crater in the Backyard
8. Dupree’s Diamond Blues
9. Local
10. I’m Just Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail

Let me start by saying that I am very much a Keller Williams fan. I often escape into the brilliance that is the “Loop” album or rock out to “Dream” on the drive home. Also in my collection is the “grass” album – which is not only Keller, but includes “The Keels”. I have had this album for a while, and always enjoyed it. I tend to not favor too much bluegrass (with the exception of JGB), so the first few listens were sort of “meh” for me. One thing that makes this album more accessible is that many of the tracks are covers – Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, Tom Petty – but the other tracks (which may be covers for all I know) also get my toes tapping. This album has really, really grown on me and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Also, I reconnected with an old friend from my high school days (Pete!) on facebook and he has a bluegrass band in the Arizona area: Workingman’s Grass. If you are in the area, I’d recommend checking them out. If not, you can download some of their music at archive.org. I have downloaded a few of their shows and have enjoyed them quite a bit. If you love the dead like I do, check them out!

It’s interesting to me to see how much Pete has embraced the dead. When I first met him he was more into a little harder stuff – like the Chili Peppers, Fishbone, etc. He played in a local band “Peace and Quiet” (with the catch phrase: “give me a piece and I’ll be quiet”). The band members were all good friends and I’d give anything for a time machine to go back to those days. Of all the members, I think I had the most admiration for Pete though. He is just one of those “good guys” that are rare. Completely open, honest and true to himself.

The last time I saw Pete was when he was rolling through St. Louis to sell wares at the VP Fair (this was in 96 maybe?), prior to that I caught up with him at the 95 dead shows in town. I was surprised at how much he had taken to the dead. In 92, a bunch of us trekked to Chicago to see the dead and I got the feeling we were dragging him to the show with us (although he might have been way more into it than I realized at the time). I was hardcore hooked at this point, so perhaps I viewed anyone that didn’t share my enthusiasm for them as not “getting it”. I dunno, I was young and dumb(er) at this point in my life. One particular memory of the show was that John and Pete were going to drive my car home after the show, while I caught up on sleep in the back seat (I had driven all night the day before to get there and was hurting for sleep). Anyway, they started out and I quickly KO’d. I wake up at 5am and we are on the shoulder of the highway. I was like “WTF guys – what happened?”. They said they drove for hours and just got too tired. This is understandable, but when I looked out the rear windows I could see the city of Chigago in the distance. Apparently they got on the wrong highway and drove on the one that loops around the city for hours – doh! Good times.

Anyway, I listened to grass on the way into work this morning and took a stroll down memory lane and thought of those times and Pete quite a bit and decided to share that here.

-b   

I currently have a f-stop Tilopa, which is a bigger version of this bag, but it is a little too big for day trips. I could have used it last night at the Cardinals Baseball game – it poured rain and we got somewhat damp. To make it worse, I opened the hatchback on the car and my bag came tumbling out. I didn’t bring the Tilopa, rather I had my gear loosely stowed in an internal frame hiking pack. My hope is that the frame provided some padding and the gear didn’t clonk on the concrete, but I am not sure. Had it been stowed in something like this, I would have been golden and worry free. If anyone out there wants to surprise me, this would be a great way to do it

The other big lust of mine is a Canon 10-22mm Wide-angle lens:

Right now I am using my 17-55mm, which is a nice lens – but too much flare and not enough wide angle. Someday..

Oh, and my almost 3 year old macbook pro is starting to show it’s age. Especially in Aperture.

Unfortunately, remodeling the kitchen has killed any budget I would have… so no new toys for a long time   

Some day.. some day. In the meantime, I’ll still pick up lottery tickets with the hope that fate deems me worthy of these things.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend… all were taken with my Sigma 10mm Fisheye lens. I used flash and metered on the background, with the logic that the skys would end up blue and the flash would fill the foreground. All shots were shot in Manual mode, ISO100, 1/200 sec shutter speed, and an Aperture around 5.6. If you click on any of the photos, I believe you will be taken to Flickr which will provide detailed EXIF information. Most of these are straight from the camera, with the RAW conversion done by Aperture (Apple).

I really have enjoyed the Sigma FishEye. It renders colors beautifully when paired with the flash in daylight (foerground and background) , has been pretty sharp, and offers unique perspectives. Given how much is captured do to the fishyness of the lens (often my feet are in the shot), you really get a lot in each picture. I really, really, really want to get the Canon 10-20mm wideangle lens so I have the option for Wide Angle without Fish – but that won’t be in the budget for a long time

Zack launching off the dock into the lake.

This photo would benefit from a small amount of straightening, but I sort of like the relatively horizontal angle of his left arm, so I did not do so. I really like this shot, although I wish the shoes off to the left would have been his. I might recolor them to make them look like he just jumped out of his shoes and into the water. I also am planning to make a black and white out of this image.

Toby behind the wheel

A quick snap of my good friend Toby, as he was in the middle of circling Pam (who was wake boarding) to get her the rope in between runs. What I like about this picture is that it is an expression that reminds me of sitting in meetings with him at AG Edwards as someone proposed something off the wall and he was getting ready to shoot it down. Makes me wonder what he is thinking at the moment this picture was taken. Probably something to the effect of “get that camera outta my face you jackass” or “should I gun the engine and watch this idiot roll across the deck of the boat?”.

Note: This portrait was taken with the EFS 85mm 1.8 Canon lens, not the Sigma FishEye.

You can wakeboard, but you can’t hide

Check out the storm brewing behind Toby as we pulled him on the wake board. He was back in the boat a few minutes after this shot was taken, and we gunned it back to the dock. We beat the storm by mere minutes and it was surreal as we drove back. The sky was dark, the wind was blowing hard and we couldn’t get much speed with all that wind. The water had white caps, both from the wind and all the other boats trying to rush home alongside us. On the other side of the land mass on the left is the dock, so we had a little ways to go to get back. The kids and females on the boat were panicking because they were thinking tornado – and I have to admit the sky looked mean.

Note: This image was taken with the EFS 85mm 1.8 Canon lens, not the Sigma FishEye.

Sarenna and Zack

I managed to stop the two of them from jumping in just long enough to get a quick shot. Ethan was supposed to be in it, but he got impatient and jumped before I was ready.

Poor Alex

Toby’s son, Alex, was being directed by Toby as to exactly how he wanted the shot. Basically he wanted to take consecutive photos of Alex falling backward (think “back flop”) into the lake and wanted him to keep his eyes open as he was hitting the water. Alex thought they were open as he did, but Toby showed him otherwise. This photo was exaggerated quite a but with the color boost and vignette, but I personally like the effect. I included the original for comparison. Toby is as much (if not more) of a photo geek as I am

Zack Launch take 2: This time aimed at the ducks.

Zack launching off the side of the deck and clearing old boards in the process and aiming right at a school of hungry ducks. They are hard to see in this picture, but they are right in his flight path. Toby caught it as well.

Sarenna Launching

I can’t believe that only 3 weeks ago she was afraid to jump off the side of the pool by herself. Now she is jumping off anything she can: the dock, the side, and even the big diving boards at the community pool near us. She is even diving off the side of the pool. Utter joy on her face when she is in the air. She is a little fish and I love being in the water with her.

Ethan jumping blind

Here is ethan jumping backwards off the dock… still holding his nose though. This is bad habit that I need to break!

Cannonball!!

Ethan getting some air as he cannonballs into the water. This image was boosted to make the blues exaggerated, as I felt it added to the picture. The whole image is overly saturated to make it sort of feel postcardy. I like the presence of the shoes/dock in the corner. I think this image is my mental picture of us swimming this day.

Flush?

Natasha’s comment when she saw this picture was that Sarenna looked like she was “swimming in a toilet bowl”. The angle of the fisheye can be quite dramatic depending on where the horizon is within the frame of the shot. Compare this picture with the ones above to see how dramatic the fish effect is. The funny thing about this comment (to me at least) is when I take it into context of the e-coli issues the lake had last year.

All in all, I had a bast this weekend and always enjoy my time when the Wheeler’s join us at the lake. They are just such easy people to spend time with – so easy going, laid back and just plain fun, good people.

-b

The entire set can be viewed here:

Macro Set on Flickr

One thing about this lens is that you can really easily miss focus if the aperture has a narrow DOF… which can work for or against you, depending on how you apply it. I need to get a better idea of what to use where, but that just means I need more time to practice.

This flower caught my eye because of the swirled pattern in the middle of the flower.

This bee was literally covered in pollen, it was all over him. I couldn’t see this when I was taking the picture, but it shows up nicely in the photo.

This bee is digging the pollen out of the flower.

I liked how the focus is right where I wanted it on this picture, with the top and bottom of the flower blurring into the background. It took about 20 shots to get what I was going for.

As I take the kids swimming often this time of year, I am going to make a point of bringing this lens with me when I go back

(Start of our trek, just beyond where we parked)

Before we even got to the gate before the trail started, we noticed this old abandoned structure. We weren’t quite sure what it was, it looked like some sort of farm house, but as we got closer we came to the conclusion that it was a more of barn or storage for farm equipment. It had an eery quality that comes with all abandoned structures that I visit, but the same strange beauty they all seem to have (in their own way).

When we peeked into the windows, we could see some ancient farm equipment. Definitely cool stuff!

We couldn’t really tell what they were and we didn’t go inside to fully explore.

So we started up the trail, which was very cool. Once we started uphill, it became very rocky (slippery wet rocks), but it was almost as if the rocks were laid out as stairs. After a pretty good hike upwards we finally came to our first cache of the day.

It was just a little off trail on a little rock outcropping. We found the cache pretty quickly – signed the logbook and moved on to the next cache. After a little trail hiking, it was time to go off trail again. This time is was downhill, steep downhill. West Tyson, while beautiful, is all over the map topographically. Toby was telling me that the part of the Chubb Trail that we were walking was one of the most technical trails for mountain bikers, and I can believe it. It would be a blast to bike through, but I fear the uphill climbing that would be required – much less the impact of wiping out on all the rocks. You could really mess yourself up on those trails!

From here we headed to the next cache, which was hidden in a little 10 foot cliff wall. The GPS took a little while to settle down and we overshot the GZ a little – which meant scaling down the wall – and then back up to find it. In all this wasn’t a bad thing, as we got to explore the area a little bit.

The location of the next cache was also gorgeous. Luckily we made it there without wiping out, but at this point the combination of rain and grabbing trees for support (and then having the water from leaves being shaken rain down on us) left us pretty wet. The GPS’s again were bouncing around, but when it settled we found the cache. We overshot it again by 20 feet or so, so we had to climb up a little to find it. After signing the logbook, we headed down the hill the rest of the way to check out the creek below. Toby actually climbed into it for some photos, I elected to stay out of it and take in the surroundings.

After climbing back up the hill, we went to the last cache for the day. It was pretty much right on the trail, so we found it pretty quickly. Like the rest of the caches, the swag was pretty sad – but in this cache we found a “Magic MeatBall” McDonalds toy. This little toy is one where you ask it a question and get Magic 8Ball responses (“The MeatBall says Yes”, “The MeatBall says No”, or “Ask again later”). Sarenna got one of these a while back and I used it for decision making for a while and got a kick out of it, so I talked Toby into grabbing it. Hopefully it will serve him well!

After this cache, we decided that 4 was enough and headed back. On the way, we ran across this little outcropping of purple flowers growing out of this fallen tree. It looked out of place growing there, enough so that we stopped to take a few pictures. I was bummed that I left my macro lens at home, so I just used my 17-55. Toby, on the other hand, got creative and flipped the 50mm lens he was using around. He didn’t have his reverse mount, so he handheld it. It was cool to see in action (I have read about it, but never seen it done) – and the results (via LCD) looked pretty good.

I wish I had my macro lens, but hand holding the 17-55 worked in a pinch:

We walked back to the car after this, 4 more caches found and I had a blast just hanging out with Toby for a few hours. It was near dark and I was anxious to see the kids. I did stop by Ace Hardware on the way home to get some waterproof spray paint for the 3 cache boxes (ammo cans) that I bought this week. I am placing my first hide tomorrow, so I need to get these guys ready to go.

Today, after working in the yard all day (took out 5 stumps and mowed), I decided to hit a park that I have read about, but never been to – Phantom Park in Des Pres. The plan was to find 3 caches and get a little fresh air and exercise – and enjoy the cooler weather we are getting this weekend. Sarenna and I left the trail about 200 feet in to find our first one, which she spotted right away.

After that cache, we moved on down the trail until we came to another foundation of an old house. I can’t believe how many old foundations we are finding in parks!   

This one even had an old bathtub off to the side of the foundation:

Sarenna found green slime (packaged) in the cache, so she snapped that up pretty quickly. I found a travel bug in it, which I grabbed and plan to move along. It’s final destination is the gulf coast, which I am planning on visiting in 6 weeks – so I will either hold it for that, or redeposit it in another cache in the area (haven’t decided). I tracked this bug at geocaching.com and apparently it started in this park -> moved to Weldon Springs -> came back (doh!). The location of this cache was pretty sweet though, I love exploring old ruins of habitats of days gone by!

En route to the third cache, we ran into a subdivision. The trail literally walked along the back yards of people’s homes! I could see where I needed to be and where we were, but didn’t want to cut through people’s yards. The trail ran along their yards, but I wasn’t sure where it went. We elected to head back to the car and try to drive to it. We found the cache site and the trail we were on would have led us to where we needed to be, had we stayed on it. Doh! Either way, we made our way to it. This cache was located in this little formation of rocks that was sort of unique.

Sarenna found the cache quickly, so we all signed it and decided it was getting dark enough that we should go get dinner and head home.

So I found 7 caches so far this weekend. Tomorrow we are headed to Sugar Creek park for a family get together for Ethan and Sarenna’s birthdays. Cake, washers, friends and family – I am looking forward to it. The best part (for me) is that we are also hiding our first cache in this park. Unfortunately I found out the other day that there is another cache in the same place I planned to hide this one. We’ll find another spot in the park, but given the amount of traffic this park sees, it will be tough to find a spot that doesn’t get trashed by kids in the area. Wish me luck!

So we have gone on handful of cache hunts now and Sarenna loves it, whereas Ethan is so-so on it. I think his enthusiasm soured a bit when we visited West Tyson County Park and ended up caching for 4 hours or so – until it got dark. I think that hiking off-trail as it is getting darker by the minute sort of freaked him out a bit. Sarenna, on the other hand, cached with me for 6 hours last Saturday (!!). She even has wiped out pretty hard on the caches with a terrain rating of 5 (out of 5) and even though she has been bruised and bleeding, she insisted we find what we came for and not give up when it is hard to find.

(Sarenna crossing a creek in Laurmeier Park en route to our first cache of the day)

Quickly into our caching I realized that I needed to get better shoes, so I recently picked up some Keen Voyagers and also picked up a technical (internal frame) day pack (Northface Interval 30). Both have helped the feet and back during the longer hikes (especially compared to my normal camera bag – messenger style). I can’t keep as much gear loaded, so I have limited my carry along kit to:

• EOS 40D Body
• Sigma 10mm 2.8 FishEye Lens
• Canon 17-55 2.8 IS Lens
• Canon 580EX II Flash
• Journal
• Fisher Pen
• Long Sleeve T-shirt
• Garmin Oregon 450 GPS
• Spare Batteries
• Cache Swag
• Water Bottle

(Ethan at the base of a tree on the trails at Faust Park)

We have also noticed that the cache swag, thus far, has been pretty weak sauce. Sarenna and I talked about it and decided we are going to try and really make an effort to put quality stuff in the caches. When her and I cached last Saturday, we put Smurfs in each cache.. which are leftovers from my own childhood. I have also been taking necklaces that I have made (silver bezel cup with an image or polymer design coated in resin) and putting them in caches. These necklaces are the ones that we don’t see fit to sell because of some small imperfection (air bubble, uneven resin pour, etc) – but they would make fun trinkets for kids to play with. Plus they are all handmade, which is kind of cool in it’s own way. It beats the truckloads of McDonalds toys we have found so far.

(Sarenna taking a break from caching on the playground in Faust Park last Saturday)

Tonight Sarenna and I decided to go out for a quick hike and cache. I had originally planned to go by myself after work, as the weather is finally nice and I want to get as much outside time as I can) – but she wanted to go, so I ran home and got her and came back to the park across from my office. The park is at the 270/44 intersection – Emmenegger Nature Park. We hiked a few trails and admired the Meremac River before heading for the cache we were looking for. When we reached the cache site I was shocked to find it was at the foundation of an old home.

All that seemed to remain was the foundation and the chimney. Pretty neat looking structure, as it was on the side of steep hill, with a beautiful creek running below (with the sound of running water within earshot). We were also surprised to see that it appeared as if someone was using it as their home now though. In the picture above, you can see the small shelter someone built in the corner. They had taken some metal mesh and propped it up with sticks and created a roof from leaves. There was also a fire pit in the middle of the foundation that had had a fire in it sometime recently. Thankfully there was no spray paint, but there was a small amount of litter (no beer bottles, but there was broken clear glass). In the structure there were also 2 lead pipes which were small enough to be used as a weapon. It was a little unnerving to think that this person might come back and be upset that we were trouncing around his home. This structure was far enough from the trail that you would never know it was there unless someone told you. This place was literally in the middle of nowhere 300 feet from the trail.

(Sarenna in the center of the foundation of this house)

(Sarenna looking down the side of the hill at the creek)

We stayed long enough to find the cache, sign the log, take a few pictures and explore this structure pretty well. I think Sarenna was as intrigued as I was as to who might have lived there, when, and what the land was like back then. The cache was cleverly hidden, but Sarenna found it in no time. Here are some pictures from the evening.

(Sarenna hunting for the cache in the firepit. Spoiler: It wasn’t there.)

(Sarenna tired of me taking pictures and taking a break cache hunting by resting on my bag)

So geocaching has been great for me and the kids so far. It has taken us to a lot of places we wouldn’t know existed otherwise – places like Emmeneger Park or West Tyson Park. It is great exercise, you spend time outside and most importantly, I get to spend time with the kids and all that time on the trail gives us time to talk. We have all enjoyed it so far and I, for one, am hooked. Although I am only 10 caches in, I am already planning our first “hide”. I am awaiting permission from the county of the park our first one will be placed before we hide it, but have the container (Pelican Large Waterproof case) and the contents picked out. I foresee myself maintaining 10 or so caches in the area by years end. The first is being placed in a sentimental spot, but the others will be placed in locations that blow my mind.

I am also looking forward to caching with the Wheeler family sometime soon!

(taken on a photo day excursion with Toby)

Have a fun geospatial data project in mind, related to a series of dreams I have had lately. Will likely leverage GeoDjango, although I’d prefer to integrate with Google Maps (and not the default mapper that GeoDjango uses) – so I need to spend some time with that. As far as the dream goes, I have been having this reoccurring dream where I have this strong message that I need to go on a certain number of hikes and log them in detail. It’s really odd, I have had the dream enough times that I can no longer ignore it. Given my recent obsession of GeoCaching with the kiddos, it seems like the perfect marriage.

Speaking of GeoCaching, the kids and I went to West Tyson park (off of 44) and spent a few hours caching the other day. The third cache we found had a difficulty rating of 4.5 (out of 5), a minor detail I overlooked. We had to traverse a 45 degree slope, covered in loose leaf cover and mud. At one point, Sarenna started sliding and came to rest on top of a huge boulder. She thought she saw a spider on it, so decided to leap off it – which resulted in her sliding down the slope at a high rate of speed. In hindsight, she could have really hurt herself – she jumped off a 10 foot boulder onto a steep slope – but she managed to walk away with only a few scrapes and bruises (and I only suffered a minor heart attack!). After looking for the cache for a while and not finding it – and darkness descending upon us – I was ready to skip it… but she would have none of that. She persisted and we found it eventually and logged it. Oh, the other cool thing about that trip was that she found “crystals” in the first cache we found. She was psyched about that.

(Ethan riding his scooter at a local park)

One thing that I have been meaning to do is head out to Warrenton, as there is this old abandoned house that I want to take pictures of. It is really creepy looking and speaks to me every time I pass it en route to the Lake. I was supposed to go out there 2 weeks ago, but wasn’t feeling it that day. Doh. Been slacking in general with the photography. I think part of it is how slow Aperture is on my aging macbook pro. I really wish apple would release the core i5 models so I can jump to something somewhat current. Bleh.

(This photo speaks to me for some reason – although nobody else seems to like it)

Lastly, my little Ethan turned 9 on the 15th. Sigh.. where has time gone? 9 years have passed and it feels like yesterday that I was holding him in the hospital when he was a few hours old! Time, in general, is moving too fast. I wish life had a pause (or more importantly) a rewind button.

(I wish I were half the man this guy is … my dad)

Anyway, my latest fetish is my new Sigma 10mm 2.8 FishEye:

I really love the creative aspect of the lens. Maybe I still in the honeymoon phase with it, but I am loving the perspective the lens creates. It seems to match my mental image of the memory around when the lens was taken. What I have taken so far has been a mix of the first time shooting with it and the second time in near darkness… so I imaging (read: hope) they will get better with experience. In the meantime I am loving this glass!

Here are some first takes:

close up capabilities of the lens (I can see my fingerprint in the full size version)

Sarenna hiding from me

there we go, eyes open this time..

touchdown FTW!

backspin?

trunk or treat!

Another piece of candy Mr. Potter?

Sarenna runs by – first shot of moving subject, not even in AI/Al Servo mode. Check out the full version in my gallery to see the focus of her..

Head over to http://www.datacake.org/woodbgallery to see the larger versions and new images as I add them…

-b

This was one of my first attempts at Macro photography, back in 2003 (!!). I had just gotten my new Canon Powershot G3, which Canon dubiously marketed as their “Prosumer” line (the midway point between “consumer/general” and “professional”). Clever I suppose, I bought into it.. as I wasn’t ready to move into the cost of a DSLR (and wasn’t that impressed with the cost/return ration on them at the time). It was like a point and shoot on steroids I suppose.

This shot was taken in my backyard while the bees flew around me everywhere. Somehow this one wasn’t bothered by me at all, I guess he sensed I was no danger (or that I was more afraid of the damage he/she could do to me than I could to him/her?). This was hand held, just foot zooming as close as I could and still be in focus. What I really like about it is that if you look at the largest size (here), you will see the pollen dripping from the flower as the bee is doing his/her thing.

So the thing about macros that really draws me in is that there so much of life that we can’t see. So much beauty. So much life. Macros catch some of what we miss and offer us new perspective on every day things we see all the time.

This relates to my own life in so many ways. There is so much that I don’t see every day, be it because I am too busy, in a rush, or just distracted. I am trying to make an effort to take it all in – to savor every moment – but often failing miserably. I don’t know how many years I have left on this earth, so I want to savor each and every experience. While that sounds easy, it isn’t. So often it is hard to let life drive you instead of you driving it.

This photo is one of many that remind me of that.

-b

This was my dog, who we had to put down a while back. She represented so much in my life, was there when I first got married, when Ethan was born and then Sarenna, was with me through good times and bad. She was the most ill behaved dog you ever met, always non stop licking me and anyone she could get near. When I bought my first house, the first thing I did was recarpet one of the rooms with this bone/white carpet – she promptly found a permanent marker and broke it open and ruined the floor (which was only a few hours old). She ate one of our couches. She tore down Christmas trees, she ruined ornaments. She ate my things (or just shredded them). She tracked mud in the house. She barked enough that the cops showed up. She threw up in my car. I loved her.

When she was a puppy, my good friend Bob was over 2 days in a row helping me with something and noticed she grew in the short time he wasn’t there. She grew up quickly into a large, clumsy dog. She had a favorite toy – this little miniature soccer ball – we played fetch with it for hours. Hours and hours, she always wanted to play with that little ball. At the time I can remember growing tired of playing it with her, but now I would give anything to play for five minutes with her.

Looking back, she mirrors my life in many ways. So many wonderful memories, so many happy times and so much regret. I took her for granted far too many times. So many times I would push her away when all she wanted was my affection. Looking at my own life, so much has passed by without me noticing.

Often I would get frustrated with her .. for what? Some dumb couch or floor that can be replaced? How often do I do that in my day to day life over dumb little things? Tonight I got frustrated trying to fix a faucet – what a dumb thing to get worked up over!

This image is my reminder of all these things. My reminder to enjoy life, take nothing for granted and recognize those around me that love me unconditionally.

I miss you Pix.