Tonya and PQBON's WebLog
We've always had a hard time getting Katie to sleep in her crib. I think it comes down to two issues. The first was totally out of our control: Katie hates to sleep. She is a lot like me in that she doesn't ever want to go to bed. However, she wakes up better then I do. She jumps up raring to go, while I'm groggy and half asleep for hours after I wake up. The second is our own fault. Rather then teach her to sleep on her own or encourage her to get used to her crib we took the path of least resistance and regularly co-slept with her in our bed. It was just easier and when it is the middle of the night and you are tired the easiest solution often wins.
Last week we took Katie's mattress out of her crib and put it on the floor. She slept better but she tended to fall off because she moves quite a bit in her sleep. Thursday after my mom arrived for her Friday babysitting gig, she and Tonya took Katie to buy a full sized mattress for Katie to sleep on. We picked it up on Friday and Katie has been sleeping on it since. After 3 nights it seems to be working and she seems to like her bed. When she goes into her room she runs to it and climbs on it. She likes to sit on it and play. She brings her books and toys on to her new bed with her. Her crib is now disassembled and tucked away in a corner of our bedroom.
It looks like an real electric motorcycle is getting closer and closer to reality. Vectrix has a real electric scooter that is starting to look competitive with gas scooters. To be honest the specs don't quite put it equal to most, the top speed is a little low, most full size scooters top out above freeway speeds. However, it looks like a solid start.
Today's Rocketboom was a great time laps movie of a painter creating an evolving piece of art. You have to watch it to understand. Link is to quicktime format other formats provided at Rocketboom site.
A very funny comic strip about a duck photographer.
The artist/creator has some very progressive copyright views. He encourages linking to the strips and embedding them in blogs and such. I highly respect that...
UPDATE:
This is a digg like site for photography. It looks like it could be cool. They just need to get the user base up.
Via Photocritic
Thus far in my life I have managed to collect too many things (just ask my wife). Over the past 30 odd years I've had quite a few cameras. I've managed to save a few/buy new ones. I don't have any of the old brownie cameras that people gave me to play with when I was like 5. I think I was given 3 or 4 brownies that were no longer useful to their owner. I have at least 1 Kodak PonyIV that I saved since I was 8 or so. I also have a Kodak Tourist II and a Kodak No. 1A Kodak Jr.
I picked up the Tourist II and the Kodak Jr. when Tonya and I were visiting her family in Alton Ill. I actually picked them up at the Alton Exchange. The Tourist II had film in it that I want to get developed but I have to find a place that will give me back the metal spool the film is wound on. Without the metal spool the camera can't take anymore pictures since the spools aren't made anymore but you can buy film that will roll onto the spools. I intend to post the found pictures once they are developed.
I picked up the Pony IV along with a second Kodak Pony (that is probably still some where in my parents garage) at a copy shop in Midland Park NJ. I was walking home from school and I stopped at the copy shop. In those days before Kinkos and the like the copy shop used to have a water cooler that was free for kids while they tried to entice us with black and white copies for a nickel a page (there was no color copiers at the time). I saw these two Kodak Pony cameras in the window and I had to have them. I scrapped together some money to buy them and I did. I wish I could say that I used them and that I took some amazing shots. I played with them but I never took an actual photo with either as I had a simple point and shoot 35mm camera I had one at the school fair earlier that year that had auto winding and auto exposure through a fixed focus lens. I used that point and shoot until I got to high school where I was exposed to one of the first commercial digital cameras. The photos were stored on 2in video floppies of which I still have a handful rattling around. I gave up on film then and I waited 9 years for a digital of my own (my old Sony Cybershot).
I liberated my father's old Minolta SRT-101 from my sister. She wasn't using it so I decided to claim it as my own. It started as my mother's second engagement present to my father. Initially she bought him a Nikon SLR but he wanted the Minolta. She is very proud of the fact that she spent as much on his camera as he spent on her ring.
I have shot a few rolls with it already. All shots have been with the 50mm lens so far. Most of the shots have been without the builtin light meter as I didn't have the right battery so my first 3.5 rolls are a crap shot (all from easter).
The camera is super easy to use. Compared to my Rebal XT (Canon 350D) the view finder is HUGE. It makes manual focus possible. I was recently talking to my almost sister inlaw (she will be on Saturday this week, GOOD LUCK CHRIS AND DEIDRA!) and I explained that while I think manual focus rocks I can't do it on my Rebal XT because I just can't see out of the view finder worth a damn. I can see to compose most shots (sometimes that is hard too) but I really can't tell if a shot is in fine focus. The SRT-101 is totally different. I hope to use it to get better at all the manual things. Not having zoom lenses means I have to compose my shots better. Having only a light meter and not being able to change ISO on the fly and HAVING to manually set my aperture and shutter speed and check the metering and having only 48 frames max in a roll of film should make think more about what I want rather then trying 10things figuring one will look good.
So far 3 of the rolls of film I've shot with the camera were black and white however, I did it without the benefit of a meter so I had to guess at what I thought the settings should be.
The roll of 400ISO color film currently in the camera is being shot with the benefit of a battery for the meter.
Citing his concern for "the morals of our society," Burlingame schools Superintendent Sonny Da Marto has stopped four eighth-grade classes from reading "Kaffir Boy," an award-winning memoir of growing up in a South African ghetto during apartheid.
Last week, Navy Secretary Donald Winter tore a bunch of defense industry types a collective new one over their runaway costs for eternally-delayed projects. Today, he backed up the hardball words with even tougher action. Winter just announced he's canceling construction of Lockheed Martin's second Littoral Combat Ship, the third of the class, after expenses on the first of the vessels ballooned.
It often amazes me how old all the tech in military is. There was about a 20 year gap between fighter platforms (that last being released in the early 80s (F-117), the new F22 finally being released this year). Ships and planes now take decades to design and build which seems counter intuitive to me. With modern tools and production techniques it should be faster not slower to build things.
During WWII and after (until the end of the 70s) the US was spitting out new weapon systems every week it seems. US airmen would get a new plane every year or so. Ships were launched at an insane rate. Many of the ships are still in the water and their is quite a subculture surrounding WWII surplus aircraft. Now we are stuck in a place where we are upgrading boats and planes built before most of their crews and mechanics and engineers were born. Even the HMMWV dates back to '85 (meaning many GIs are younger then the HMMWV design). I think a large part of the problem is the pentagon/military has outsourced entire programs and has awarded cost+ contracts. That and instead of developing a solid starting point every single piece of the new weapon systems under development is new cutting edge technology. It never seems to come together quickly or correctly. I could sight many examples (*ahm* Comanche chopper, V-22 Osprey, the Entire FCS combat system) but I won't ;-). Maybe the pentagon should take back development, stop awarding cost+ contracts, and de-risk development by developing a simple product, then improving it over time.
At least they seem to be take proper action by finally punishing companies for 2x+ cost over runs.
I happen to work for Intel as a Software Engineer but that has nothing to do with why I'm posting this. This is simply a funny video. My favorites are the server boat anchor and the server toaster.
Via Josh Bancroft’s TinyScreenfuls.com
The content of this message is my personal opinion only and although I am an employee of Intel, the statements I make here in no way represent Intel’s position on the issue, nor am I authorized to speak on behalf of Intel on this matter.
By the time they reach Cleveland the burritos are fully heated through and traveling uphill at about twice the speed of sound. A series of induction coils spaced through central Pennsylvania repeats the magnetic process in reverse, draining momentum from the burritos and turning it into electrical power (though Weehawken residents still recall the great blackout of 2002, when computers running the braking coils shut down and for four hours burritos traced graceful arcs into the East River, glowing like faint red sparks in the night).
Via kwc.org
Katie, Megan and Tonya at Asilomar State beach at the cove we got married... I shot in color and used lightroom to convert to B&W. I almost never work in B&W but I thought these shots looked good in B&W.
Before Katie was born Tonya and I took a trip to the DeYoung in Golden Gate Park.
I invited a bunch of friends with Canon Digital cameras over to play - highlight pics.