Spent a good part of today and yesterday reviewing the 400+ pictures I took at the zoo (SOOOOO excessive). I posted pics in the Zoo gallery on my photosite.
Reviewing photos on the computer, as opposed to slides in a projector, is PAINFUL! Oh man, it sucks. The photos take forever to load on my old box, as opposed to a fraction of a second on my parents’ far-older slide projector. And you can’t reorder them, to put similar pictures in seriotem for easy comparison.
Plus, storage of the not-quite pictures is more costly than with slides–I need hard drive space, so either I throw out pictures instead of saving them, or I buy more space. Slides I just put back in the box, and put all the little boxes inside a bigger box. Yeah, I could just throw the not-quite slides away, but I always think that, maybe when my eye is better, I’ll find gold in some roll of film I shot six years ago. Like I’ll ever go through 1.74 cubic feet of slides, or about 10,000 slides. That works out to about 44 gigabytes of scanned slides, which isn’t so much, come to think of it.
Why would anyone but me care about this? You shouldn’t! I’m just fascinated by the things I didn’t think would be a factor in going digital.
One of the first photography books I bought suggested two things for finding great places to take pictures: postcards and the zoo.
Postcards? I mean, why try to find something unique in a place with which you’re not familiar? See what the pros took shots of, and use that as a starting point.
The Zoo? Finding wildlife in the wild can be well nigh impossible. But the zoo, they’re right there, and they can’t go anywhere.
So I went to the zoo to try out my new camera.
The weight wasn’t as much of a problem as I thought it would be: it was only when I tried to hold it up for five or more minutes, waiting for a meditating gorilla to bat an eyelash that my arms got tired and my wrists threatened to hurt (yes, I can tell before they start to hurt that they’re going to hurt). But the wait was always worth it: I mean, look at that uncouth gorilla above (click to zoom)! I’m sure you can guess where that finger went next… ummm, yummy!
The speed of the camera was unbelievable. And I’m not just talking about the auto-focus, which wasn’t just super fast, but had 45 focus points! It was so *&$#ing accurate! No, the speed was really about the shutter speed. Big Factor. I haven’t figured out how to take eight frames per second yet, but I was definitely in the four or five range just clicking the button. Amazing, and there’s no way I would’ve captured this snarling tiger without it (click to zoom).
Still, the shutter speed had some drawbacks. When a critter was in great lighting (they’re not dumb: it was hot today, and they were almost always in the shade), I’d start firing away even though the critter was totally still. Or doing the same thing over and over again. I took dozens of nearly identical pictures of that same tiger gnawing on a rabbit carcass. I never did that with my old, slow film camera.
Somehow, I spent six hours at the zoo. My stomach told me when to eat lunch, but I was blown away when I looked at my cell phone and saw it was after 4pm. Fun day.
My new toy arrived today. A few thoughts from friends and family on this:
Max: Of course you buy new stuff when you’re unemployed. That’s what you do when you’ve got no money coming in… [when I bought my first cellphone in 2001, right after EmployeeService went belly-up]
Brian: Which do you need more, rationalizations, or sex? Answer: Have you ever gone more than a week without a rationalization? [when I pointed out that I’d just have to buy more film before my trip next week to Guatemala, and then I wouldn’t be able to scan it until the movers dropped off all my stuff in early September, so I might as well buy a $3,500 digital camera body instead]
Heather: I think we’ve hit the truth that women spend more frequently but in small amounts; while men spend infrequently but in huge amounts. [From a conversation that requires pages of back-story]
Mom: Oh, don’t ask me. Just buy it. [From a woman who is still recovering from the financial roller-coaster of losing a spouse, and has joyously embraced a tiny dash of fiscal irresponsibility for the first time in a decade]
My new Canon 1d Mark II N arrived today. It’s insanely large. It weighs five pounds with one of my new lenses on it. It’s supposedly weatherproof, which should prove useful in Seattle. It’s more camera than I need, and even though I’ve been saving for six months, I still won’t have the money to pay for it completely for another month or so.
But it’s glorious. Tomorrow, I think I’ll go to the zoo, take it through its paces.
Scooter Rage XX was the weekend before Pride, and I came specially equipped with a new L series zoom lens (70-200). I bought the new lens because of feedback from Brian about my pictures at High Rollers (gallery): Brian wanted more pictures of scooterists, less of scooters, and he was dead-on. I am often too shy to ask people to take pictures, and I prefer unposed, candid shots to boot. At High Rollers, my longs lens locked up with grit and sand, so I couldn’t use the autofocus, and without that, I couldn’t take those surreptitious candid shots quickly enough. I only half-captured the scooter sub-culture that Brian, Kevin and Dennis find so fascinating (albeit vicariously through me) and exemplified by Patrick and Doug above right.
This rally, I planned to ignore the scooters entirely, and focus on the people. Oddly enough, this isn’t hard–very few people come up to bother me with conversation, because I don’t really interact with the scooter crowd. I don’t fit in, and I don’t want to try to fit in. In fact, I stay so aloof that very few people even notice me (April, to the left, being a notable exception), so I can just plop down in a corner and snap pics.
Patrick actually commented that I "lurk at the fringes" of scooter rallies, but that the end result were fantastic pictures like the ones I took at High Rollers.
But something I ate on Friday didn’t agree with me. My GI tract revolted Saturday morning. I thought everything was flushed out by the first Saturday ride, so I loaded up my gear and headed on out. By the end of the ride, I thought I was just a little dizzy from hunger. When I got off my scoot, though, something was wrong: I couldn’t stop burping despite the empty stomach, and I felt like I might sick-up.
I handed Patrick five bucks for a rally patch, and drove directly home. Well, almost directly. I ran into two lost scooterists on 3rd Street. There was no way they could find the brewery where everyone was meeting–the industrial bayshore southeast of Potrero Hill is my home territory, and it’s a maze. So I led them all the way back, then went directly home. By five pm, I had a fever of 102.7, and everything came up.
I missed the second Saturday ride, the Sunday rides, and all opportunities to take pics. But I shot half a roll on Friday, and added some of them to my SF Scooter Rallies gallery. They’re OK. No flash with a long lens, so a little dark. But I think they capture some of the human side of the scooter community.
I didn’t say "Oh, this is SO gay!" The fellow to the right in the black/red leather teddy, fishnet stockings and hip-high red PVC boots said it, when the dance music on his float started pumping just as it turned onto Market Street to join the Pride parade. Everybody at the corner of Market and 1st Street busted out laughing: San Francisco is a beautiful place.
I was supposed to be on a date Sunday, 25-JUN-06, but she cancelled at the last minute. So I loaded up my photo-vest, hopped on my scoot, and went to Pride for the first time in six years in the Bay Area (the gallery won’t be complete for a couple of days–check back after 04-JULY-06).
Photographically, I had the same challenges as at Carnaval: a blaring sun almost right overhead, with everyone in the staging area facing north away from the sun. I remembered my flash this time, but even then, it could only do so much.
The real challenge wasn’t taking the pictures, though. It was reviewing them afterwards. Well, maybe it was a bit of both. I know what a gorgeous woman looks like: I worship the female form in its infinite and wondrous varieties, and when I see one in a fantastic costume, I can’t help but take a great picture.
Men, though… that’s… that’s hard. I look at these pictures, and… I just can’t figure out why gay men and straight women
are attracted to men. OK, interesting bits, I can identify: like this woman wearing a strap-on, or the fellow with balloons (to the left, click any photo to enlarge).
But is the "grizzly bear" to the left good looking? Or the skinny guy in black wig/mustache wearing nothing but boldly colored "tighty
whiteys?" I just don’t know.
[I should acknowledge that I appreciate the skinny boy more than the grizzlie bear, but only because I’ve got the same body, minus two hours per day in the gym. But that could be my body if I really really really wanted it. Which I don’t. Even though I’d like it. I just don’t want to put in the effort.]
I guess I see two points to Pride:
Celebrating the beauty of the human form in all its varieties and imperfections.
Saying, with pride, "This is me, this is my life, these are my friends, this is my family."
The second I understand in my marrow, because, while it’s not me, and it’s not my life, it IS my family, and these ARE my friends.
But the first, well, I get it with women who don’t fit the Maxim/Playboy mold–beauty takes so many forms. But… C’mon! Is that grizzly bear attractive? I mean, nice expression, interesting picture, but dude, he’s uber hairy and he’s a guy!?
I had no idea how to capture Pride on film. But the energy was intoxicating, the clothing (or lack thereof) was liberating, and it was just fun.
I’ve been thinking of "Last Times" these past few days.
Wednesday was the last lunch with Kevin.
Wednesday was my first and last developer marketing meeting with Michelle and Andrew.
Thursday was my last Caltrain commute, and my last long bike ride along the Bayshore trail.
Thursday, much to my surprise, was my last lunch with Rick, an old boss with whom I am on the outs, and with whom I haven’t spoken more than a few words in seven months.
Thursday was also my last lunch with Dennis and Brian.
This morning was my last marketing meeting with Engineering, and the last time I’ll talk with Regis and Shay and Mike L and Doug and the other usual Java suspects all together.
Today was my last lunch at Oracle. I had lunch with family: my second cousin, Christian Shay.
Today is the last day I will wear a black Oracle button-down shirt.
And, of course, today is my last day at Oracle.
The real "Last," will come around 31-JUL-06, when I leave San Francisco. The "firsts" will then begin, like 7-AUG-06, my first day at Microsoft.
Each day this moment has come closer, it’s becoming harder and harder to do. But I have received an offer from the Visual Studio team at Microsoft, and have decided to accept it. It’s a very good career move for me, an offer I can’t turn down.
The reason I am leaving is entirely personal. In the months after my father passed, the need to be closer to the family I still have has become much stronger. That, and a few months after my father passed, I realized that, if I remained in California, I would never be able to afford for my (as yet still hypothetical) children what my parents were able to offer me growing up. So with the rest of the family moving to Portland, Oregon, the Pacific Northwest was the answer (there just aren’t many big software companies in Portland, but Seattle’s only a few hours away).
I didn’t expect this to happen so soon: I figured I would starting researching my options in September or October, but a recruiter contacted me for this job in early May a few weeks after my mom decided to make the move…
I love Oracle, warts and all, and I loved my experience here working for both Mike and Andrew. The three of you provided me a place to grieve, to regain my confidence, and to feel proud of my contributions to Oracle again. I will never forget that, nor can I ever repay it. Thank you.
Told my boss this afternoon that I plan to leave Oracle. I find out Monday if I’m getting walked.
I hated every minute of it. It feels like breaking up with someone. You know they’ll be disappointed. And it feels even worse when you care about the people you work with, about the work you’re doing. Yeah, it’s been slow, and I’m not all that challenged by what I do anymore. But I know I could have found good things to do. It’s more about life, and family, and career.
Of course, it also felt horrible because, on top of the fluttery stomach from giving notice and saying goodbye, I also have a smashing hangover.
Background check. It takes forever. I barely have enough work to do, and what I have I’m not really energized to do. So instead, I spend at least two hours a day surfing profiles of women in Seattle, and I can’t contact any of them, because I’m not there.
I just want to give notice, and bring this to an end. I even have my last day in San Francisco picked: 8 July 2006, when B.D. has a BBQ. It’ll be nice to hang out with the original Middleware crew from Oracle PMM–BD, Kevin and Dennis–one last time before I bid farewell to San Francisco. Then fly up to Seattle the next day, spend a few days camping in Olympic National Park, have four days to settle into Seattle, then start my new job on 17 July 2006.
But I can’t give notice until the #%$@&! background check is finalized, because if something wacky comes up on that, I’ll be forced to beg for my job back. I am utterly and completely out of my gourd right now.
[BTW, if you’ve noticed this wasn’t visible the day it
was posted, well, I didn’t want folks at work to figure it out before I
was ready]
Most irrelevant, pointless blog entry yet:
The photos take forever to load on my old box, as opposed to a fraction of a second on my parents’ far-older slide projector. And you can’t reorder them, to put similar pictures in seriotem for easy comparison. 
