[url=/image.php?image=/images/2004/0601/CRW_6884.jpg&title=][/url]moooooooooooooo!
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some other weekday, honestly, i have no idea anymore when i take pictures, i went biking and this was one of the views i saw.

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i’ve been pretty bad with posting pictures, so bear with me today.

some other weekend ago, i went to the COBA photoshoot at the stanford campus to take some pictures to compare the abilities of various cameras to produce large prints. i took out the trusty canon D30 and the canon 10D with me for comparison. it was the first time in a long, long time that i shot in RAW. RAW appears to be the format of choice amongst these photographers. me? i’m far too lazy to shoot in RAW and i hate how much hard drive space it consumes so i usually shoot in JPG. yeah, yeah, scoff at me if you wish, i don’t care. =P

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this is one of the two shots that we set up for comparative printing. one of the things i noticed between the white balances of the D30 and the 10D is that when they are both set to automatic, the D30 appears to have far richer color saturation and is a little warmer overall. i was surprised to see how big of a difference there actually was between these two cameras.

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it’s kind of funny how long it takes to take a picture when you get a bunch of photographers at a scene. way too many cooks in the kitchen, if you ask me. i think our first shot took something like 30 minutes to take. do you do this? how do you do that? which setting to try for this or that can be rather complicated. for me it started to get way, way more complicated than i liked it to be so i took the picture and then started taking pictures of them.

RAW is kind of nice, i was able to save a picture that i wouldn’t have been able to if i shot in JPG, but man…what a pain in the butt.

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of course after i left the group, i switched back to my normal shooting style and i took this picture. one of the things i really like at the stanford campus are the arches and columns in their hallways. definitely very pleasing to the eye, especially later in the day when they cast long, long shadows.

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the other day, jimmy, mike, paul, leeya, and i went biking and blading at the shoreline. jimmy and i were biking away while mike, paul, and leeya were rollerblading through the park. jimmy somehow eluded my camera, though. we went along the shoreline trail for a while and eventually headed back from whence we came.

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there was this mystery trail that forked over to the left at one point. it looked like it just went on and on. i was curious to see where it would take us, but it seemed that everyone else opted for the paved trail. so instead of taking the road less travelled, i went down the paved road with the group. maybe next time i shall venture forth into the great unknown and see what awaits me. i thought it was pretty cool that there were these roads that just seemed to go off into the horizon, though. i haven’t seen roads like that since my road trip with paul across the country.

[url=/image.php?image=/images/2004/0520/IMG_6650.jpg&title=cookies+galore][/url] [url=/image.php?image=/images/2004/0520/IMG_6652.jpg&title=cookies+galore][/url] [url=/image.php?image=/images/2004/0520/IMG_6653.jpg&title=cookies+galore][/url]

the last several batches of cookies i’ve made came out as dismal failures and i’ve been pretty discouraged to try to make any more cookies since. i don’t know what happened because i used to make cookies all the time and they came out pretty good.

i miss the days at [url=http://www.imaginon.com]imaginon[/url] where my coworkers and i would bring in various baked goods and share amongst ourselves. it used to be that there would be sweets at least once a week. i had a lot of good memories working there. when i first started working at my current company, i used to bring in baked goods too, but no one else brought in anything so i quickly felt less motivated to make anything anymore.

but a few weeks ago thanh gave me a silpat, so i finally decided to try it out with some cookies. over the years, thanh has supplied me with many of my baking supplies from cookie cutters to cooling racks to silpats. maybe my penchant for cookies is more obvious than i had thought.

so i made about four dozen cookies and they are all good. no more super flat ones. no more super crispy ones. ahhh, cookies galore!

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[url=/image.php?image=/images/2004/0516/IMG_6608.jpg&title=coyote+hills][/url] [url=/image.php?image=/images/2004/0516/IMG_6616.jpg&title=coyote+hills][/url]

earlier in the week i biked coyote hills in fremont. the trail ran along the very southern lip of the san francisco bay that separates the penninsula from the east bay. the trail snaked along the shoreline and afforded some nice views of the bay as well as the dumbarton bridge.

[url=/image.php?image=/images/2004/0516/IMG_6622.jpg&title=coyote+hills][/url] i came across this trail called the no name trail. it looked like a pretty pleasant trail that winded its way into the bay along this thin strip of land that looks like it acted as a wave breaker. i decided to go done this path to check it out. when i got to the part that met the bay i looked at the ground and the ground seemed to be moving under me. it looked like the ground was scattering beneath me and i was perplexed as to why this would happen. it was then that i realized that it wasn’t the ground moving at all, but the thousands upon thousands of gnat-like bugs that were swarming off the ground and around me. i immediately turned around and jammed out of there followed by a huge swarm of tiny little bugs. the sky around me darkened by the density of those bugs. it totally freaked me out.

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i eventually returned back to the parking lot and decided to go on a different path into the wetlands. it was pretty cool how they created trails that snaked its way through the wetlands. it wasn’t so march a marsh as it was just a watery habitat for many birds and fish. pretty cool and relaxing. overall coyote hills is not bad, just stay away from the bugs. but the one thing about coyote hills is that it is ridiculously windy. i would guess that you encouter winds blowing at least 30 miles per hour. when i got up to the summit point, i got off my bike and was nearly knocked off my feet because of how hard the wind was blowing. pretty cool if you are biking with the wind, painful if you are biking against it.

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i finally got the wein hs optical slaves in the mail yesterday. after waitnig for nearly a month, the excitment of finally getting is really gone. i attached them to my vivitars and fired a few test flashes to make sure they worked, and they did work as advertised.

i was a little disappointed that they didn’t have a locking mechanism built into the foot of the shoe, but was happy to see that it did have a threaded mount there, so not all is lost.

i guess i should go and find something to shoot and test out my new 4 flash setup. i think it’s about time now to build my flash bazooka. yeah, i’m going to shoot you with my bazooka. beware.

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[url=/image.php?image=/images/2004/0511/IMG_5824.jpg&title=anita][/url] [url=/image.php?image=/images/2004/0511/IMG_5906.jpg&title=anita][/url] [url=/image.php?image=/images/2004/0511/IMG_6152.jpg&title=anita][/url] [url=/image.php?image=/images/2004/0511/IMG_6212.jpg&title=anita][/url]

ah, so i got the blessing from anita to post pictures from her shoot. i must say that working with models to take pictures is a completely different experience than the other types of photography that i’ve done. in some ways it is very challenging because models move where as buildings and landscapes are pretty stationary. there are so many little things that you have to look for when doing portrait work, i still have a lot to learn, but as my friend christina once said, “you can’t take a bad picture of naturally attractive people.”

i think the one thing with portrait photography is that it is much more of an engaging photo shoot. it’s quite fun and you get to interact with your subject at a more intimiate level. when i do landscape of building photography, it’s a lot more introspective.

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true to my word, i got a bike computer yesterday. after some research, it seemed that this particular bike computer seemed to be the one to get. a good price/performance combination. it seems like a hardy enough computer, and i think that i did the calibration right. we’ll see, i guess when i compare it with someone else’s bike computer. the only thing that i have a little concern about is whether or not the wire to the sensor might get caught on something. i wonder how you secure it to the bike so that won’t be a problem. the instructions say to use twisty ties, but that looks really, really tacky. i may end up getting some electrical tape and taping it along one of the brake lines.

but it’s pretty cool. i rode a cool 0.25 miles yesterday while testing out the bike computer ranging from 7-15 miles an hour. man…15 miles an hour is a hard pace to keep up. i’m pretty
excited to use it and i’ll probably go out biking today. where shall i go? hmmmmm.

biking is kind of nice because i think that it also gives me an opportunity to think. my mind wanders from topics as trivial as what my favorite britney spears song is to topics as serious as what my favorite britney spears outfit is.

it is a nice time to sort of let all of your other concerns wash away from you for a while as you ride through the trails and just unwind. i think that’s what a large part of sports means to me. it gives me time away from everything else that is usually on my mind.

speaking of which, sunday starts up the JACL volleyball league. originally, i wasn’t going to be playing in this league on account of my gimpy ankle and the fact that it totally eats up your weekend. but with my new schedule at work and the fact that i’m unattached, weekends have a new meaning to me. i’ve been pretty busy on the weekends, i still am trying to figure out what it is that i’ve done during them, but it’s been nice.

but yes, biking. i need to find some trails to go on. anyone know of any good resources for bay area biking?

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greg, diana, jen, and i played in the shindig reverse 4s tournament yesterday. it was nice to be out again and playing volleyball on the grass. i have to say that my ankle was doing pretty good for most of the day, but it did feel a little less stable than i would have liked. still, we ended up doing alright and placed second. our prize? we each got a fleece sleeping bag, except for jen who opted for a mini canopy shade thing. not too bad for our first outing. i have to say that our play was varied from pretty good to pretty bad. but we started to play better where it counted, so that’s always good.

i’m pretty sore from the tournament. you’d think that after playing volleyball during the week that you’d be in shape for it, but i guess grass play definitely stresses you more than indoor play. i definitely was huffing and puffing more.

i’m definitely looking ward to playing the doubles tournaments. i’m debating whether or not to play just the one day or if i should go and find a partner and play two days. i don’t know if my ankle can take it or not…we’ll see.

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