False Start

Well, I made it a few months into this project and then a bunch of crap happened and I totally fell out of it. So, since there are only a few weeks of 2009 left, I'm going to restart it again on New Year's Eve. I'm looking forward to it, as I hope you are!

Dialog with the Past

Heather and I went to Elliott's house today. Heather, to help Lisa with some work, and I to work on some tunage with Elliott. I think I got the better deal. ;) In their kitchen/breakfast-nook area there's an intercom for corresponding with visitors at the door. Apparently it doesn't function any more, and maybe it's no wonder: It looks like it's been there since the house was built.

Slashed Concrete

Some sidewalk concrete with hairline cracks, shot through the slats on the back of a chair. I like the way this one turned out. :D

eleFANt

I thought it might be interesting to get a closeup view of the blades of this fan. When I got the front screen off and inspected it, I saw this little elephant design behind the blades. Is it a Honeywell logo or what?

A Different Perspective on Shopping

This a view down the sidewalk along some stores in the Encinitas Ranch shopping center.

Snail Rush

I've wanted to take a long-exposure shot of a snail for a long time. This was my first attempt, and it came out so-so. I think I should try it later in the evening, though. I'd like to get just a blur of snaily fury across the entire frame. ;)

Remedial Physics

I was really proud of myself for doing this today. I saw a good photo opportunity at school, what with framing and color contrast and all that. The hitch? It involved a person.*

A girl.

A cute girl.

But I managed to go up and ask her if I could take it, and she obliged. After snapping a couple I asked if I could post the result on Flickr and handed her one of my nifty little contact cards from MOO. Then we had a quick little chat about our majors and I was on my way. Unprecedented socialization!

The one bad part about the experience was that I squandered said opportunity by not properly framing or exposing the shot (learning to use the Force, aka manual mode). It didn't turn out anything like I had envisioned it. But I guess that's what practice is for... It sucks, though, because she'll probably stop by and witness the crappy-ness. Although hopefully she'll also browse and see the good work that I do.

*A small bit of background for any readers (are there even any readers?) who don't know me. I have pretty bad social anxiety, which prevents me from making much, if any, conversation with people. It's especially bad when dealing with women. I've been hard at work pushing my boundaries, though. Looks like it's starting to pay off. :)

Time Machine

One of Mom's old clocks. You can tell it's old because it says "Made in the U.S.A." on it. ;-)

I'm trying to get a photo good enough to enter into the Amateur Macros "time" competition. Still not quite there yet.

Hazard

I attempted to take a bunch more GTI photos today, but it was so damn hot I couldn't bear sitting in the car. So I only got this one and one other. I like the angle.

Light Spice

Some lamps at Starbucks. They look like little chile peppers to me. Not a good fit with coffee, but oh well.

Don't Let Me Slam

This photo was technically taken tomorrow, not today, but with a few exceptions one day at the coffee shop is the same as any other. This door has some self-control issues, and asks openers for their help in not slamming, as it's apparently prone to doing.

CCCP

I took this after class at school today, sitting under the trees at the Jacobs School. This is a closeup of my belt with a Red Army pin. I like the reflection of the sun on the star; it adds that much more pizazz to an already rather dramatic pin. What idealistic youngster doesn't go through a socialist phase, at least? Although I'm not convinced it's just a phase in my case.

As an aside, I don't, currently, advocate communism. And if you think the two are equivalent, the ruling class has you well trained, and you should do your own research on the subject. ;-)

Water

This is a cover to a water panel of some variety. I don't recognize the logo as belonging to a brand or company, but it's pretty cool. :)

Urban Accessories

I went exploring the "bear garden" outside the CSE building at school for a bit today. I thought this drainage grate might make a cool picture, and what do you know? It did!

Treadbare

I went to the Aquarium of the Pacific with a friend today. It was awesome; I love that place! :) The Grand Prix of Long Beach is next week, so the downtown area is being converted into a racing circuit, complete with bleachers and tire buffers. It's a good flight of fantasy to drive through!

I really seem to be on a square-cropping kick lately, don't I?

Short Ouroboros

Some inconsiderate customer left this straw wrapper on the table for us. Or maybe they were being considerate; I probably wouldn't have thought to take a photo like this if it hadn't already been there!

Status

Heather and I went to the bank today. It's in a shopping center whose parking spaces are angled in one direction, so you have to go around the back to get out if you want to go the other way. Among other sights along this route are the back end of a Vons, the loading bay of which is the subject of today's photo.

The Grey Mile

I had to go to the pharmacy at school today. I've been thinking of getting a good perspective shot of Library Walk for some time now, but it's taken until today for me to actually do it.
And I still missed the "good" part of the phrase. I'll have to do it right next week.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

Went down the street this evening to take photos of some road stuff, but the road in question was already overtaken by the shadow of the hill. So I cruised around a bit and ended up in San Elijo Hills, where I spotted a couple of opportunities. This is the only one that I personally feel came out good, but you can be the judge of that, I suppose.

If there was any doubt, this is a traffic camera perched atop a streetlight. I know (think?) these are only used for monitoring traffic flow, but don't you think they're a little creepy? Their ubiquity poses some concern to the paranoid.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU

Morning Wood

Catchy title, huh? ;) This is a chair outside - you guessed it! - Starbucks. The DoF isn't as shallow as I would have liked, but it still turned out pretty good.

SRSLY.

In line with April Fools' Day, here's something a bit light-hearted. Obviously I didn't the photo, but I did add the caption.


I'm counting the seconds until Obama replaces this douche.

Studio

My multipurpose work area. Check it out on Flickr to see some annotations.

"Highly Suspect!"

Took this photo of myself with my cell phone at Starbucks today. Do you see a pattern to my days?

Powerfruit

Heather and I went to the Sprint store today to see about getting her phone in working order. Mike just got a new phone, so he bequeathed his old one to her. It just so happens that it's the same model as her old phone, so all she had to do was get the service transferred to Mike's old one. And would you believe it was free, at that?

There's a smoothie shop - I think it's a Juice Stop - between Starbucks and the Sprint store, which is where I noticed this rather amusing phrase. "Organic Powerfruit." I promptly took a photo of it and submitted it to the Fake Band Names group on Flickr. ;)

Concrete Scab

Went to Swami's down in Encinitas with Heather and Holly today around sunset. I got a bunch of cool photos; lots of rusty stuff. :D This is a rusty spot on the slab for a lifeguard tower. I think it looks like a scab from a serious abrasion.

Seating for Eight

A group of eight Djarum Specials seated at an ashtray. I like the sort of ritualistic look of the arrangement. It's better understood from the other two photos in my photostream. This was a tough one to get because the sun was so bright. I think I had my camera on the lowest ISO, fastest shutter speed, and narrowest aperture.

Hitchhikers

This is in our reef tank. It's some kind of algae or other, I think. What I do know is that they must have hitched a ride on something else, because we didn't put them there! We had a cable technician over today, and he was quite enamored with the tank. I can't really blame him, though; they're pretty freakin' sweet!

Cute Doggy

We went to Starbucks this morning and ran into this little cutie. She (he?) - well, her mom - is a regular, so we see her pretty often. I want a little dog like this! :-)

Children Can Be Pinned

This a sign in the garage, warning that children can become pinned under the automatic door as it closes. Yikes!

Uncapped

Four car photos in a row! Am I stuck in a rut, or what? You can check out my photo stream to see others I've taken in the past few days, though.

This is a valve stem on one of my tires. I used to have these nice GTI-logo caps on them, until they randomly "disappeared" one day. I figure one of the neighborhood kids has really nice valve stem caps on his bike now.

Emissions

I noticed today that I completely neglected to clean my car's exhaust tips during my detailing binge. As you can see, they really need it, too.

Interlagos

I spent the past two days getting my car squeaky-clean, inside and out. I plan on taking a whole series similar to my Xbox study, but I just haven't been able to bear more sunshine or heat yet. ;)

This is a close-up of the "Interlagos Plaid" seat fabric. The plaid fits the style of the car so well (especially in black or red) I couldn't imagine choosing the optional leather seats over it. I do miss the seat-heaters in Mom's Passat, though...

The seats are still in really good condition, considering how often I drive with passengers.

GTI Runner

I'm cheating a little bit again. There wasn't anything photo-worthy that happened today, so I had to get in my time machine and pull one from tomorrow. This is the driver's side runner from my car, a 2007 GTI Mark V. I <3 it a lot. Today's photo is another black-and-white!

Macro Mai

I bought a +10 diopter for close-up shots today. I'm not entirely sure if I like it yet; either I don't know how to use it well, or it's just not well-suited to my camera's zoom lens. It may also just be too powerful.

This photo demonstrates the effect of the lens on macro shots. The top version is with the diopter, the bottom without. The only thing that was changed between the two shots was the removal of the diopter lens and a focus adjustment. It was shot at a distance of about an inch and a half. Notice the more pronounced depth-of-field effect in the top photo. I think that effect alone may be worth the price of the lens.

I can't wait until I can get a super-nice digital SLR. I'll definitely buy a dedicated macro lens once I have one. Probably on the same day I buy the camera. ;-)

The character is Mai Kannazuki from the anime G-Taste, if you're wondering.

Dirty Bassline

It seems that my turntable's dustcover is doing a substandard job of keeping out the dust... I'm disappointed in myself for leaving a record on it for so long in the first place, though.

The only light in this scene is from the turntable's built-in lamp, if I remember right.

XYZ

I was sitting at Starbucks today with my camera, playing around. I'm fairly fascinated by zippers and other things like that, so perhaps it's no surprise that I eventually started taking pictures of them. This zipper is from one of the mid-thigh pockets on my most serious cargo pants.

Looks like I've been on a black-and-white kick lately.

Nocturnal Portrait

This is a photo of me at about 10:00 PM tonight. Taking an identifiable portrait at night is rather challenging—for the subject! It makes one appreciate the discipline required of portrait subjects in the early days of photography. This is a 20-second exposure; I think it probably could have gone longer.

I took a better one yesterday, but my memory card randomly cracked across the middle so I can't copy it to the computer. X( The upshot is that I got to buy a new card with twice the capacity!

Photography at Borders

We went to Borders today for no real reason; just to get out of the house, mostly. I've been needing that a lot lately. I'm starting to remember to carry my camera with me everywhere, and it seems to be paying off already. Maybe I'll meet some interesting people, or at least spark some conversation. You gotta have a hook, right? :P

My Flickr photostream also has a similar shot from the Barnes & Noble photography section.

Cooling Trend

Here's a retake of a spur-of-the-moment shot I originally did with my cell phone. Although the original has its charm, this one is definitely of a higher quality. It's the AC controls for my car.

HSS

I had to go to school yesterday to fill out withdrawal paperwork. I'm affiliated with Muir College at UCSD, and the academic advising office is in the Humanities & Social Sciences complex. This view, toward the main H&SS building, is coming from the Muir parking lot, so it's facing... south?

Last Call

When your glass of rum looks like this... it's time to put it down. ;-)

DS Feather Pen Stylus

Nintendo has a survey going right now for users who register The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. If you participate, you'll receive a nifty feather pen stylus as pictured above. Cool! This is what the stylus looks like with the crimson-and-black DS Lite.

No Bad Days

I went to the craft supply store to get some paperboard for a "poor man's" photo backdrop. Because I'm tired of my room and other things like that being in the background of my macro photos. I tested it out this evening after taking my medication; pills always make good photo subjects! So here's the result. You can see the fuzziness from the long exposure, and the crappy yellow tinge due to the color of my bedroom lights. I'll try again tomorrow and should get a better result.

Happy? At Night?

That doesn't seem to happen too often these days. Best not to question it, and hope it keeps up! Despite my jocund expression, I'm actually not feeling so well tonight. :-/

Unhooked

This is my life. Going to the mailbox was the most exciting thing I did today. But hey—it's Saturday! It's not supposed to be exciting!

Happy Birthday, Kevin!

Today was Kevin's birthday. He was more than a bit surprised, I think, that he finally got the Xbox 360 of his own that he's been after since last Christmas. But that's not what this photo's about. It's a long story, but the short version is this: There's a running gag in the house about Kevin getting kicked in the balls. Why? I doubt anyone knows any more; it's just a part of our rapport now. Anyway, Kevin's losing his composure here because Aaron drew a little picture in a card of him giving Kevin a birthday nut-shot. The faces on the characters are quite hilarious. I'll have to put up a scan or photo of the drawing, because it's not to be missed. :P

Xbox Study

I took a ton of photos of my Xbox 360 today. Some of them turned out really cool. :D So today I present to you "Standby." All the photos in this series are covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, so you can use them in your own visual projects as long as you give me credit. Nice!

Porchside

Here's another action-packed photo of myself, this time sitting on the porch. The astute among you may suspect that today's and yesterday's photos were, in fact, taken on the same day. You would be correct. I cheated a little bit. But now March will have no empty days, unlike January and February.

Dust in the Wind

A cigarette succumbing to the wind's destructive influence.

Lady Liberty

I had to go to Fry's to get some printer ink today. On the way there, there's a tax-preparation service, and they've always got a person in some kind of patriotic get-up working the corner. It's not uncommon to see Uncle Sam around as well.

I know it's a lean time for civil liberties, but I didn't think it was bad enough for Lady Liberty herself to become a "lady of the evening!"

Potted Pansy

This is a pansy that's in a pot on our front porch. Cute little guy, huh?