I Like to Score

Signed up for something different this weekend. I'm taking a class in making stained glass at Kiss My Glass.

In the photo below, you can see the 'homework' I did before the class began:

That's my plan for the piece that I'm creating. I created that plan a week or two ago.

Today I started on the project. As you can see from the photos below, I spent today scoring the different pieces of glass, cutting the glass, trimming the glass, trimming the glass, and lining the edges with copper foil.

As you can see in the photo above, I went straight after the hardest pieces to cut. It was a relief to get those pieces out of the way right at the start.

BTW... I'm talking about the purple pieces, not the beveled pieces. Whereas the purple pieces we the hardest ones to cut, the beveled pieces are the easiest by far. They're already pre-cut. :-)

After the tricky purple pieces, It was time for some straight cuts:

After taking a break with the straight green pieces, it was time again for some tricky cuts. Pieces 14-19 & 53 & 56 took some time an care:

After those, it was time for some more straight cuts:

All of my pieces are cut. :-)

I still need to wrap them with foil. Perhaps I'll go in early some week day to do that part. It would be nice to have that out of the way before the next day of class: August 15th.

I'm pleased with all that I learned to do today and appreciate Jackie Marr's instruction and patience.

Oregon

See that flight path over there on the right? See how the flight was heading south from PDX and then it banked eastward?

That's me not flying home.

I planned on being back in Aptos this week, but an unexpected medical LOA for a co-worker led to a reshuffling of my itinerary. I wish my co-worker a speedy and fully recovery.

In the meantime, you might be wondering where that flight path took me. If you caught the mention of "Houston" in the title above that diagram, you'd be in the ball park.

But Houston wasn't my final destination. Instead, I hopped a (sigh... inevitably delayed) flight westward to San Antonio where I'll be spending the week. I'm through day one of this five day class, and I'm pleased to be teaching such an energetic and amusing bunch. That's always a great combination.

But back to Oregon.

What can I say about Oregon? Time permitting I could tell about the great time I had visiting Mom, my sister, and my two nephews. Or I could write about the wonderful time we had in Hood River attending Richard and Sabrina's wedding.

But time is short... Too short.

Though I could (and I suppose I should) post some photos of the trip (sigh... maybe one day I will), I'd like to take just a few moments to try to capture in words the lasting impression that I took from this trip:

I was humbled by the beauty that I continually witnessed throughout the time in Oregon. I've been to Oregon several times before, but somehow I saw it through different eyes this time. Perhaps on all the other occasions I was simply stupidly viewing what I saw through a snooty Californian's eyes. I could struggle and strain to capture the beauty I saw this time, but I suspect words will simply fail me. Instead I'll just say one more time... I was humbled by the beauty.

So no photos of Oregon tonight. Maybe one soon (the same thing I've said about Japan and Russia and the Balkans and Peru and...). Till then, here's a silly little video I captured flying into PDX...

Too Caught Up To Catch Up

In my last post, I optimistically said that I might possibly catch up on some of my photos. No such luck. Been having too good of a time seeing the sights and taking more photos.

Till I get around to those Tokyo photos and the news photos from this trip, you can see some 360° panoramic photos I've taken in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, and Japan (and plenty of other destinations before those if you want to work your way back through the archives).

BTW... The 360s are best viewed using a iOS device. When you go to the link above, you'll see a icon on the screen that looks like this:

Click that icon, then twirl around. The 360 will move with you. You can pretend you're right there in Tallinn or Riga or Villinius or Moscow or St. Petersburg or Tokyo with me. :-)

Catching Up In St. Petersburg

Здравствуйте from St. Petersburg. What am I doing in Russia? I'm on holiday (translation: That's "vacation" for y'all back home).

I see that my most recent post was about Beijing. That means I'm already behind. A couple weeks ago I was in Tokyo for work. In my off-time, I took lots of photos, but I haven't yet gotten around to posting them. Instead I spent the week between Japan and Russia laid up with a stupid cold, passing a certification exam required for work, and scrambling to get ready for this trip.

I've completed my post-camera editing of the Japan photos. Now I just need to find the time to post them. Today's likely going to be a shorter sightseeing day than yesterday, so I should be able to get to them shortly. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, if you want to know a bit about what I've been doing this year, take a quick look at my work blog. Don't worry about understanding everything I wrote.

More Beijing Photos

Two of my hobbies - besides collecting key cards - are travel and photography. I enjoy taking the photos, but I don't always get around to doing the post-trip processing (i.e. selecting, editing, posting, and writing about them) that I'd like to do.

The work that funds these hobbies often sucks up the time that I need to fully delve into them. For instance, I selected, edited, and posted the photos from the first trip to Asia last year, but I never got around to writing about them. You can see those photos here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. On the other hand, I haven't even gotten around to the photos from the other two trips to Asia last year.

But I'm on top of it this time with Beijing! I've already posted photos and written about Beijing Olympic Park.

In addition, just last night I completed working on the photos from the Beijing trip. If you want to see those photos but you're in a rush (or can't be bothered clicking through photo after photo after photo), you can see a video I made of them below.

(Click Full Screen button to enlarge)

Alternatively, if you want to see the same photos but you want to see them bigger and at higher resolution and without the cheesy royalty-free music, you can see them here.

Hope you enjoy them.

BTW... For all the other photos that I've posted but never gotten around to writing about, you can see them here.

Beijing Olympic Park

I took on a photography project last week in Beijing. Given the large crowds of people in Beijing, I knew that time-lapse photography would be fun to create and watch.

One essential piece of equipment for creating time-lapse photography is something to keep the camera pointed in the direction you want and to keep it very still. Ordinarily that  piece of equipment would be a tripod. I rarely even use one at home, and I never travel with one.

I was forced to improvise. I had some success using a few 1 yuan coins to prop up the camera at the desired angle. Unfortunately it was a bit breezy, and the wind kept knocking over the camera. I rummaged through my backpack to find something better suited for the task. Ultimately I found that propping up the camera against a water bottle worked exceptionally well.

One thing that I like about not using a tripod in this video was that it forced me to shoot from the ground. I think the shooting from ground level make this video more interesting looking that shooting from 3-5' off the ground.

The other thing about shooting from ground level is that doing so drew a lot of attention from the people around me - or should I say behind me. You can't see it in the video, but the whole time I was shooting, there were half a dozen to up to twenty people standing behind me (and behind the camera) watching inquisitively. Alas none of the people are likely to see the video any time soon. The video is hosted on YouTube, YouTube is owned by Google, and Google is one of the main targets of the GFC.

The cold breezy night and crawling around on the ground reminded me of the efforts required to get the Chinny shot years ago. The big difference in this case was that I wasn't crawling around in penguin poop. :-)

On the way home from the airport, I saw about a half dozen billboards for the iPhone 6. Each featured a striking photo scaled up to billboard proportions. Underneath the photos the caption read "Shot with iPhone 6". [ BTW... I think it sounds totally pretentious the way apple never uses the articles "the" or "an" in front of the word "iPhone". ]

I assume the point of the ad campaign is - at least in part - to tout the high resolution of the iPhone 6 camera. The photos did, indeed, look mighty impressive. But there was one thing that quickly jumped out at me about the photos in the ad campaign: they're all daytime shots.

I love the versatility and portability of shooting with an iPhone. One thing that almost always disappoints me about the iPhone, however, is its poor performance in low light conditions. More often than not, I find any nighttime shots I take to be far less than stellar.

Given the poor low light capabilities of the iPhone, I'm rather pleased with how well this video turned out.

BTW... The video was shot on an iPhone 4S. Thinking of upgrading today. Happy Birthday to me. :-)

Proof Positive - I am the Best!!!

It's about time I started getting credit for just how awesome I am!

( Apologies to the writer of this poster. His/her/their English is much better than my Mandarin. )