Mike's "Urban"

On Friday I found a 55-200mm VR AF-S Lens on Craigslist for about $100 cheaper than I could buy one new. Plus lens hood and filter. Not high light enough for any action shots, but I can sneak up on buildings.
So I went building hunting in the Old Market on the foggy morning of Saturday. I guess I am tired of taking pictures of snow. This was once a Burlington Northern building. Last I was in it, it was being used by Alley Poyner Architects. I'm not certain who is in there now.

Cory's Urban

To be exact, this picture is actually suburban. But it looks a lot more urban than, say, a barn falling apart in a field. This one comes courtesy of downtown Downers Grove's Main Street.

UPDATE - "Best of 2009" for next week

Post your "Urban" photos today.


/rl

Craig's Balance

Ryan's "Balance"

My idea for a perfect illustration of "Balance" fell through. At 168th & Center (Omaha, NE) there was a Jenny Craig weight loss center flanked by a Nestle Tollhouse outlet store and a Honey Baked Ham store. Every time I drove by it I remembered that I really needed to photograph it. Unfortunately, the Nestle store has closed up. Today there was a sign truck parked in front of it, blocking the view if the Jenny Craig center. There went my idea for "Balance."

Instead, I present a rare Christmas Duck that I have been training to balance quarters on his bill. I'm sure this will be a useful skill for him.



/rl

Cory's Balance

I had been planning to use Lis's old balance for this shot all week, but I couldn't come up with anything to put in the two baskets and kept putting it off. Then we got a last-minute invitation out to dinner on Sunday night, so the time I had planned to finally get it done vanished. Thus, I present the balancing of coins. According to the balance, two dollars in quarters is worth about $1.21 in other change.

Q's balance

Mike's "Balance"

This week it is back to working in the basement. I always seem to get the things that are on the ceiling because my wife is 5'1". Most of last month I was suffering from positional vertigo, so this was hard for me to do.
The physical therapist put me on a table with an infrared camera watching my eye and made me to some twist and turns to get some junk out of my "vestibular canal". I am back on the ladder.

Next week: "Urban"

Show us some "Balance" tomorrow!

/rl

Q's winter

Winter is the time for baked potatoes!

Mike's "Winter"

Nothing in winter quite like a new fallen snow. Especially if you can find a parking lot that hasn't been driven in yet, or plowed.

This is Valmont Industries headquarters on West Dodge Street in Omaha. Makers of pivot irrigation, light poles, and just about anything made out of a galvanized extruded tube.

Ryan's "Winter"

One really nice thing about winter is that the world is significantly less flammable. This makes New Year's celebrations a bit easier.

Since it was somewhere around 0F at midnight, we chose an alternate method of lighting fireworks. To save our delicate fingers from frostbite we poured a small puddle of white gas on an ice covered parking lot, lit the gas, and introduced fireworks to the now flaming puddle.

The local police department was less than impressed with our ingenuity...

/rl

Cory's Winter

Despite the horrible cold we've had here lately, Lis, Maddy, and I took a walk to the pond down the street from us just to find a winter scene for this week. Only a little part of the pond is free of ice, so that section had an absurd concentration of geese and ducks in it, with more space on the shore acting as overflow seating. We also learned about how to prevent bird/people conflicts, which I think sounds like a good reason for awarding a Nobel Prize.

The picture above came from the geese in the overflow section. I'm quite pleased with the infinite white background that came up in it - it looks like we walked all the way to the north pole to take this shot.

Next week: "Balance"

"Winter" is due tomorrow.

Also, please recommend the next candy we should vote on. Chocolate polls seem more popular than photo contests...

/rl

Craig's Santa

Santa brought my nephew Colby a little digital video camera. Colby loves it, because the screen flips around and he can watch himself on camera. Shortly after this shot, he took the camera and spent the next few minutes saying random things into the camera, watching how his mouth moved and his face reacted. It was just great.

I like the genuine joy on his face here as he sees himself in the viewfinder.

Ryan's "Santa"

Santa brought me snow!



/rl

Cory's Santa

Lucky for us, Santa came this year! As an added bonus, he didn't leave coal for anybody. This was Maddy's first Christmas, which means she ate a lot of wrapping paper and didn't really have any idea what was going on around her. But she did dress up for an alternate shot and left a plate of cookies for the big guy. From this aftermath picture, we can conclude:

1. Santa is messy.
2. Santa doesn't like Mr. Goodbars.

But really, does anybody like Mr. Goodbar?

Mike's "Santa"

"Santa isn't coming is he?", thought Bohnam, "I guess I have been naughty."

Well, it was either that or Santa on Ice or Santa Taking Inventory from my wife's Hallmark collection.

Next Week: "Winter"

"Santa" is due tomorrow.

Cory - if winter hasn't arrived in Chi-town, feel free to change the topic.

/rl

Mike's Expensive

Expensive is this guys electricity bill. This house is North-East of 180th and Giles. Just to West of this house is an even bigger display that I could not park to get a tripod set up for.


None the less, this is a good place to take you honey some warm December night. Just look for the glow in the clouds and follow it.

Cory's Expensive

Christmas - it's the most expensive time of the year!

Note: although that is a Borsheims box, it is not meant to in any way imply that somebody in this house is getting something expensive enough to have come from there. It was just a convenient box.

Ryan's "Expensive"

This seems like an expensive way to do... something. I'm not exactly sure what was going on, but most of the hydrants on a mile long stretch of 132nd Street were open this morning.



/rl

Craig's Expensive

I actually had a nice shot for expensive taken last weekend - a 180 degree panorama of north Michigan Ave near Saks and Tiffany's. Alas, I couldn't get it stitched into any satisfactory way with the amount of time I had.

So, instead, I present this pretty picture of my Mom's tree in Newfoundland. There's nothing inherently expensive about this, but it sure was expensive getting here to take it. I've flown business class from Chicago to Europe for less money than coach to St. John's, NL. That ain't right.

Merry Christmas, all!

Next week - "Santa"!

Catch the fat old guy in the act!

"Expensive" is due tomorrow.

/rl

Q's bubbles

Jumbo packing bubbles.

Craig's Bubbles

Okay, I can't compete with the gerber baby, so I'll just go with my passion. Well, one of my passions, anyway. So... let's talk beer.

Beer has bubbles, typically as a result of the fermentation process. Yeast eats the sugars present in the wort, and produce two byproducts as a result: alcohol and carbon dioxide. Many beers typically add more CO2 after fermentation as part of the packaging process, because we have become accustomed to fizzy beer. However, not all beers have this type of carbonation.

Guinness Draught doesn't. Instead, it gets its bubbles from good old nitrogen. One of the properties of the nitrogen bubbles is that they're smaller and more plentiful. It's an attempt to simulate the creamy texture of a real cask conditioned stout. A beer that's been pulled up by a beer engine from a non-pressurized cask is going to come up with a foamy head and not much carbonation in the body. The cans use a nitrogen widget, but when you've got a keg system like this, you need a tank of Nitrogen (technically 75% N, 25% CO2). Each produces the same result.

It's a nice effect, and creates a nice mouth feel for the beer. It also creates this hypnotic bubbly effect after the pour, often called the Guinness cascade effect. Studies have been done as to why the bubbles seem to rush down the sides of the glass. It's because they *are* rushing down the side of the glass, while the center of the beer has a hidden column of bubbles rising to the surface.

There. Science!

Now, pardon me, I have to finish drinking the two subjects who volunteered for my photo shoot. (Remember, folks, a pint of Guinness is only 125 calories. And it's good for your heart.

Mike's "Bubbles"

Had a little trouble this week. Been a busy week. Had the flu. Had a storm. Worked on “the basement project”. By the time Ryan's cat and the Gerber baby were posted, I still did not have a picture.

I had to make a trip to Walgreens for various sundries. “Bazooka Joe” was on that list. OK. I have not blown a bubble in a while. I usually chew sugar free gum. I had some problems. The entire photo shot is more interesting than the two “acceptable” bubbles I formed. If you knew I had four pieces of Bazooka in my mouth, you would not call this one acceptable.

Cory's Bubbles

I pulled Gerber Baby out of storage for this shot again, mostly to make sure I'd get the most votes. I'm somewhat disappointed in this particular picture - I was hoping to get a frame filled with bubbles - but it has the best "happy expression" of the batch. Maddy learned about bubbles at the local library childrens' story time and was quite pleased to learn that they can exist in our house too.

Ryan's "Bubbles"

Loki thoroughly enjoyed playing with bubbles until she licked her paws. She refused to pose for any more photos after that.

/rl

Next week: "Expensive"

Blow some "Bubbles" for tomorrow!

/rl

Q's peace

Ryan's "Peace"

...is missing. I've spent the entire weekend studying, capped off by a couple hours working. I'll be sitting out this week.

Peace!

/rl

Craig's Peace

I was hoping for a snow picture for "Peace", but nature did not cooperate. So, I bring you a rare contemplative and peaceful moment in our kitties' lives.

Well, that's a lie. Their entire existence is pretty much being lazy and peaceful, but this rare bit is because Sprite and Pixel are curled up together. Some time ago, Sprite decided he was afraid of Pixel and started to run away from her. Yes, that's right. Our 15 point cat is afraid of our 5 pound cat.

However, since the kittens came along, I think Sprite is more willing to hang out with Pixel than he had been of late. So here, admire the two old kitties, chillin' in the bedroom, enjoying a peaceful truce. You'll not the absence of the young kitties, because it's pretty much impossible to get a kitten to sit still for a long exposure shot like this. And a picture of two blurs doesn't quite seem peaceful to me.

Cory's Peace, man

I was going to cheat this week and take a picture of the Gerber baby sleeping, but I figured we've seen enough of her for now. So here's a peaceful button.

If only these buttons worked more places...

Mike's "Peace"

I was a child through the 60's and 70's peace movement, but these were two symbols that were seen everywhere. With this generations wars, we have seen them surface again.



Ironically; the "Peace Symbol" originated in the late 50's as a symbol for nuclear disarmament. It was not trademarked and used in the peace rallies that were to follow.

The "hand" version of the peace sign also originated earlier. The fingers forming a V, was coined by Winston Churchill after the Second World War, originally palm facing the body.

It is assumed that these symbols were flashed by hippies at peace rallies, maybe even to communicate their original meanings, but they eventually became associated with "Peace".

Next week: "Bubbles"

Tomorrow, give "Peace" a chance.

/rl

Q's oops

Opps, I'm late.

Craig's Oops

Passed this on the drive home Saturday night.

It must hace just happened, as there were no emergency vehicles. There was no accident that I could see, just this Jeep on fire. People were pulled over, it was eerily silent. And very hot. And smelly. I had my window down as we passed so I could snap this, but I had no desire to stick around since there was nothing I could do, and I was afraid of a possible explosion.

The only camera I had near me was my iPhone, hence the craptacularness, but it beats nothing this week, which is what I'd post otherwise.

Oh, also, I had my camera in the wrong mode, so this is a still from a video since that's what I accidentally took. Oops.

Cory's Oops

There was on "oops" down the street from our house on Monday of this week. When I was heading off to the lab in the morning, I looked over at the curb down on the corner and thought "Weird, there's a lot of water going into that drain." When I came back that evening, the street was closed and there was a giant hole full of muddy water in the intersection. Lis said the water had been off since sometime that morning, and it stayed that way until about 9:00 that evening. These two guys spent that whole time trying to figure out how to fix the oops.

Ryan's "Oops!"

I didn't shoot this photo for the topic... I think the topic came along for this photo. Madeline came to visit for Thanksgiving (yes, she brought her parents, too.) Since she won't be here for Christmas, she got to open her presents on Thanksgiving.

I got many good photos of her, but this one was definitely an "Oops" - at first I thought nothing was in focus, but closer inspection reveals that the hippo is pretty close. Oddly, I still kind of like the picture.




/rl

Mike's "Oops"

I had considered going to this address when the topic was architecture. I decided for that as unique as this structure is, I don't much care for it.


In fact I wonder if the father that paid the college tuition on this architect didn't say "Oops" when he saw this? Or maybe if this Frank Lloyd Wright wannabe hasn't wondered about his form and function decisions now ten years later? Of course that is just my opinion. Usually I like the abnormal. This one just looks to me like its in a constant state of falling over.

"Oops!" due tomorrow

Next week is "Peace".

/rl

Craig's Jerry Rigged

I'm a sysadmin. Kludges are a big part of my life. What is a kludge but another form of jerry-rigging?

So I've got this 20" iMac that outlived its usefulness as my desktop computer. I thought it would be a good idea if I mounted it in front of my treadmill so I can watch TV while walking. The problem, of course, is that the 20" iMac (or, at least, my generation of it) had no VESA mount options. Enter the jerry-rigging! I found this product online that made use of the cable pass-thru in the iMac's stand to attach a VESA mount! It's a pair of rings that sandwich the mount and the hole in the stand. When screwed tight, It forms a very solid mount. Attaching it to the Peerless monitor stand I bought was trivial, and voila! I now have a 20" iMac mounted perfectly above the treadmill. The base of the stand even makes a nice keyboard tray when I'm not using the keyboard.

Shot with a blue flash, because I'm still trying to get the hang of lighting.

Mike's "Jerry-Rigged"

A coworker of Sandra's offered to help us finish the basement framing this weekend, and I have been pretty busy with that.



I can show you stuff that is jerry-rigged in this project. When it came time to secure my wiring I realized that I did not have any staples. I did, however, have a big bag of ½ inch coper pipe hangers that I was never going to use. Whalah!

Cory's Jerry Rigged

Like Craig, I'm a computer babysitter. My jerry-rigged computer is a little bit bigger than his though - at one time it was the third fastest in the world, but it looks like it slipped down to eight place last week. What we see above is just a little part of it, but it is the most crazily rigged part of all.

Big computers are like hotrods - they're designed for speed and tend to require a lot of care to keep them in working condition. The rack in my picture here is one of many that serves up storage to Intrepid. In total we have about 8 petabytes of disk that is directly connected to 128 file servers via Infiniband. Those file servers are then connected to each other and the rest of the machine with a (rather unreliable) 10GB network. Finally, the rest of the machine has its own internal interconnect for its own communication. On top of all of this runs a pretty good parallel filesystem that prefers reliable networks. It is a crazy jerry-rigged pile of spaghetti to keep running.

In lay terms, we have 8 mayonnaise jars connected to a pile of pizza boxes with zip ties. There is clothes line holding all of the pizza boxes together, some string with tin cans on both ends keeps them connected to a row of port-a-potties. The port-a-potties are held together by baling wire, and the whole thing lives in a room with a GIANT window unit air conditioner.

Ryan's "Jerry-rigged"

While I don't have personal experience with either of the identifiable businesses in this photo, both are in the business of jerry-rigging. Charlie Graham's pulls parts out of scrap cars to make others work, and the Lied Transplant Center does something very similar.

Granted, the car shop can order OEM parts if needed. I think the OEM distribution chain is very strictly controlled for humans, so the transplant center usually has to salvage...


Is it rude to refer to organ donors as scrap humans?

/rl

Q's jury rigged

This is the door to my apartment's laundry room. Apparently it's easier to cut holes in the door for vents rather than the brick walls.

Next week : "Oops"

"Jerry-rigged" due tomorrow.

/rl

Ryan's "Vacant Lot"

I really looked forward to this topic, as I rather enjoy wandering around abandoned lots and buildings. Unfortunately I was struck down by "Fall Allergies v2.0" and really didn't get out to do much exploring.

This was once a lovely mobile home park (or perhaps a meth infested shanty town). A redevelopment project led to the eviction of the residents, but it has stood vacant for at least a year...





/rl

Cory's Vacant Lot

Out here in the Chicago suburbs, vacant lots are oddly common - there are a lot of small houses that are being bought, torn down, and replaced with houses that just barely fit on their lots. There's even one a block or two away that just became a "vacant" lot (really, a construction zone) a couple of weeks ago that I thought about taking a picture of.

But, I didn't.

This weekend was "clean up the garden" weekend at our house, which involved pulling up tomato cages, tossing some rotting cucumbers to the squirrels, and covering the garden in lawnmower-run-over leaves. Now it is just a big, vacant plot of land in our back yard, waiting until next spring to come along so it can be covered in tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, corn, pumpkins, and whatever else we try to plant next year.

There was one other vacant lot I would have liked to take a picture of near me a while back: in the middle of a big empty lot behind a strip mall, there was a single port-a-potty standing watch. Every time we drove past it I pointed it out to Lis and tried to convince her it was a TARDIS. Alas, she didn't believe me, and it traveled back to the land from whence it came before I could take a picture to prove it.

Mike's "Vacant Lot"

I think I came up with this topic one night when "The Sand Lot" was on TV. Sounded like something of character then, but a vacant lot is just that; vacant. I had to go in search of ones that people were finding uses for to have any interest at all.



This shot is around the corner from the Hot Shops. I think its just a dumping ground for art projects that went unattended. I found a similar shot on Jones Street. Looks like they tried to build a stalagmite or something?

Next week :"Jerry rigged"

"Vacant lot" due tomorrow!

/rl

Q's vacant lot

After a hiatus while I was moving/settling in/living without internet, I'm back.

Craig's Tempus Fugit

Like Cory, I was looking to capture the literal essence of time flying. Mine was less esoteric, and largely involved attempts to catch a nice photo of my pocketwatch flying through the air.

This proved too complex and likely to break my watch, so I went another direction, and tried to simulate the experience. This is the pocketwatch I got in Greenwich, England. It's a nice little pocketwatch, and I wind it every morning. This watch has flown with me everywhere I've gone since getting it.

Though now, looking at it in extreme closeup, I'm wondering why it appears to say "Royal Greenwich Obserbatory" at the bottom, but I'm hoping this is just a trick of the fancy-schmancy script they wrote it in.

Ryan's "Tempus Fugit"

I shot some family portraits for friends this weekend.

Ever try getting three kids (and two adults) to pose at once? Time certainly flees:

Several hundred exposures probably resulted in 2 photos where everyone is looking at the camera. I ran out of daylight before getting what I was looking for.

I actually had much better luck taking "kid" photos than "family" photos.

/rl

Mike's Tempus Fugit

The is a willow tree that my daughter helped me plant, around about the last year the Huskers beat Oklahoma. Its at my family's farm in Holt county.


It may even be that I transported it, but mom and dad planted it. What ever the case it was just a whip of a little twig. Now, in the flash of time, it has become something I can't get my hands around.

Cory's Tempus Fugit

As I mentioned in my last post, I was in Baltimore last week at a conference. Since I knew I would be on an airplane again on Friday, I spent the whole week trying to figure out how to set up an amazing picture that showed what time it was on the plane while it was flying. It turns out that's not so easy. In the end I said "Eh, fugit" and gave up.

According to wikipedia, this "tempus fugit" phrase really meas "time flees". And that's what we have above. It turns out the time flew while I was playing with taking this shot too - there's a 45 minute difference between the first shot I took and the last.

Next week's topic

Next week: Vacant Lot.

Tempus Fugit due tomorrow!

Connect the Dots

There are many approaches to carving a pumpkin. Some involve taking a pattern on paper, laying it atop the pumpkin, and poking holes through it. Then, you pull the paper off and connect the dots.

That's not what I did. I carved the pumpkin in the upper left freehand after attempting to draw a face on it with a Sharpie that doesn't like to draw on moist pumpkin skin.

Another pumpkin carver attempted the connect-the-dots approach, but this gourd did not make it through the procedure.

In any case, I didn't use gummy candy, and that should count for something. :)

Ryan's "Connect the dots"

Ok, now what?

I thought I was being creative and original. Looks like Mike was, too.

/rl

Mike's Connect the Dots

I had a little bit of trouble with this one because I found myself eating the dots as fast as I was building my little sculpture.


It was actually my wife's idea to incorporate the box into the picture. She figured that I had some relatives that would not know what "Dots" candies were. My mother also admitted to me today, that she has not always voted for me. She would not tell me who, but it was the "Don't Touch" week.

Cory's "Connect The Dots"

I flew out last night to Baltimore to spend the next week at LISA, and I carefully waited until the flight to take this week's picture. I love the little service maps that show up in the back of in-flight magazines. I'm cheap, so normally I only see a map with a few dots connected by a few lines, but last night I flew on United and got to look at oodles of dots connected by even more lines.