Back in the Salad

Vacation is over and I'm back at the grind. I had an incredible time and my only complaint is that it was over too quickly.

I ordered a new battery for my laptop which, over-nighted, should arrive before the weekend. If it goes according to Hoyle, that means I can begin bulk uploading photos from the trip. I have uploaded a few and I've created a set for them here. I'll be uploading in fits and starts but when the photos go up, that's where they'll go.

Work has been oddly calm and kind today although there were enough issues while I was gone that I knew I was missed. It's a nice feeling to know the place struggles without you when you're gone.

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Since I took a ton of pictures, I feel like I can say that I put my camera through it's paces. My humble conclusion is that I really really like it. I can't speak to how it compares with others because it's my first but I can say that it did absolutely everything I needed it to and was very easy for me to use. I'm not a total photo-noob but I know just enough to be dangerous. I hope the pictures I took will bear this out.

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Since I missed The Dark Knight during my trip, I'll be catching it on IMAX this weekend. I think I've kept myself fairly clear of spoilers and hype. I'm ready and I'm looking forward to it. This has been a great summer for comic book movies.

Cabin Boy: Days 8 to 11

The voyage up into Maine cut communications fairly completely, neatly slicing internet access and mobile phone reception like a propeller might slice a lobster line. now, moored off of Martha's Vineyard, I'm back in the soft caress of technology's embrace.

The Maine-ish coast was extraordinary. There was something wild about the deep pine forest abutting rock carved waterfronts that could fire images of the virgin land before it was tamed and, though it is in reality not really wild, it is preserved to hold that image and it burned into my mind.

We went up from Manchester, Mass., to Boothbay and East Boothbay in Maine. East Boothbay was the apex of our northern arc. From there, we turned back to Kennebunk and, today, back through the Cape Cod Canal to the Vineyard.

Pictures will come fast and furious as soon as I can get a new laptop battery.

Cabin Boy: Day 7

Another rainy day.

We left Boston and cruised up to Manchester. Had some good geopolitical conversations along the way.

Dinner was served in Manchester harbor. It's a pretty little port unfortunately masked by the poor weather.

Either tonight or tomorrow, we start our push into Maine.

Cabin Boy: Day 6

A rainy day in Boston.

I bought an extra memory card (4 GB) for the camera, doubling my capacity. Hopefully, that'll be enough to hold me through.

Cabin Boy: Day 5

Subtitle today: The Day My Laptop Battery Died. Alternate Peter Sellers inspired title: The Party.

We drifted into Boston around 11 AM. A lunch, a nap, and a party. And a dead laptop battery. That's the day.

Tomorrow, more Boston. I need to rustle up some extra storage for the camera since I can't offload anything to the laptop for the time being.

I saw this eye-fi wifi memory card online. It might be a good fit. It supposedly integrates with flickr. Enquiries will be made.

Cabin Boy: Day 4

It was a quiet day in Nantucket: raining on and off all day. We made a few forays into town but stayed mostly on ship.

Tonight we left the harbour. We're heading, via the Cape Cod canal, for Boston. It's a twelve hour ride. We'll arrive in the morning.

Cabin Boy: Day 3

We made the crossing to Nantucket without issue.

On the way in, we watched Michael Caine in "The Eagle Has Landed".

Later, we watched Jaws. I could watch Quint all day. And I have. Repeatedly.

I bought a pair of Nantucket red slacks from Murray's. It's what you do. Why, I don't know. They require tailoring before I can wear them.

Tomorrow I hope to explore the island a bit more.

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I'm taking many, many pictures but Internet is spotty and of poor quality so uploading any but a few to flickr will have to wait until my return.

Cabin Boy: Day 2

Just a quick iPhone powered missive tonight.

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Today was quiet- much lazing about, drifting like... driftwood.

Tomorrow bright and early we make for the isle of Nantucket, that lymric haven of yore.

I'm thinking of watching Jaws before I go to bed. Good idea or am I asking for some bad juju?

Cabin Boy: Day 1

The day is winding down at last. It's been a long, long day. I took a metric ton's worth of photographs but the wifi connection in port is very dodgy so I'll probably only be able to upload a smattering of images until either I get home or until get to a better connection.

The boat is awesome. We went for a quick jaunt seaward after setting in this afternoon. As I type this, I'm sitting on the top deck looking down at Newport after dark. I am absolutely exhausted.

After dinner, I took a quick turn through town with my Uncle. We ran across the absolute weirdest mannequins I have ever seen. These are some strange, twisted mannequins:

This is the stuff of nightmares.

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A couple of random question inspired by lack of sleep:

• What ever happened to Better Than Ezra? I liked those guys.
• No matter where you go, all cover-bands play the same song covers. Why is that and why hasn't anyone asked the free-masons about this conspiracy?

Broadway Bike Lane Already Bogarted By Segway Guy

(Or girl, in this case.) That didn't take long. I hadn't been up to midtown since the Times, among others, reported on the avenue being reconfigured for a bike lane and walkway. The Times said at the time (haha!):

The esplanade, which the city is calling Broadway Boulevard, will run from 42nd Street to Herald Square. Scheduled to open in mid-August, it will change that section of Broadway from a four-lane to a two-lane street.

Source: "Closing on Broadway: Two Traffic Lanes" by William Neuman

Well, the new look was already painted on around 42nd street and the blocked off space was already the domain of a Segway and... well, I don't know what the hell that guy is riding. It looks like a cooler (not you, Dalton) mounted on a scooter.

If this is the future of the bike lane, I'll soak the whole thing down with industrial strength turpentine. Not that I know where to find industrial strength turpentine... And it would have to be free, most definitely free... Damn you, Segway, you win again!

Working for the Weekend: Vacation Editon

My week ends here. Tomorrow I leave for Newport and the sea. Last night, I spent several hours perfecting a scowl and memorizing several hundred sea-shanties. I'll be gone for about twelve days and, thankfully, miss this weekend's G-train service change. At least this time it's much more straight forward than last weekend's debacle.

In other news, I got the final lens of my budding collection in from Amazon.com this morning: the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens.

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As I prepare myself for the deep blue, I look back to my favorite marine character, the incomparable Quint. Let the Quint-isms begin!

Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this bird for ya, but it ain't gonna be easy... Bad fish. It's not like going down to pond chasin' blue gills or tommy cots. This shark - swallow ya hole. L'il shakin', l'il tenderizin', down ya go. Now we gotta do it quick, that'll bring back the tourists, that'll put all your businesses on a payin' basis. But it's not gonna be pleasant! I value my neck a lot more than 3000 bucks chief! I'll find him for three, but I'll catch him... and kill him... for ten! Now you gotta make up your minds. Gonna stay alive and ante up? Or ya wanna play it cheap, be on welfare the whole winter. I don't want no volunteers; I don't want no mates. There's too many captains on this island. Ten thousand dollars for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.

. . .

Here's to swimmin' with bow legged women. Excuse me chief. Can't get a good man these days for under 60! They're all goin' at least 35 years! 45 year olds with women!

. . .

Break it up will ya chief! Daylight's wastin'! Front, bow, back, stern. You don't get it right, squirt, I throw your ass out the little round window on the side! Come on chief, this isn't no boy scout picnic! I see you got your rubbers! Ha ha ha! Here lies the fire Mary Lee, died at the age of a hundred and three, for fifteen years she kept her virginity. Not a bad record for this vicinity! All right commissioner, fasten your safety belts, ha ha ha! If you see a shark Hooper, swalla! Ha ha ha!

And, no Quint-a-thon can be complete without the classic:

Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief. It was comin' back, from the island of Tinian Delady, just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know, you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, we didn't know. `Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Huh huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like `ol squares in battle like a, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces. Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, bosom's mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He'd a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

Through a Glass

To complete my vacation-ready photog ensemble, I picked up a Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/5-5.6 IS lens. This will give me some extra focal length to what I have with the kit lens.

I also picked up a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II prime lens. I think with this trifecta of glass (lingo for the win!), my novice setup is complete for the time being. I think these three lenses give me a reasonably versatile (for my skill level) toolbox. Well, the coming trip will tell the tale.

The boat is supposed to have internet so I'll be able to unload photos to flickr and post stuff here while at sea or in harbor or wherever.

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I'm reading through Exposure Photo Workshop by Jeff Wignall. I find it very well-written, easy to follow, and informative. How good the book ultimately is will be reflected in what I can apply to the photos I take but, so far, it's a winner. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking to learn the subject.

Fighting the Power

I just want to send some quick props to Room 8 who slapped away some city attack dogs trying to nip at their Free Speech rights. From Gowanus Lounge:

The founders of Room 8 were recently the recipients of grand jury subpoenas ordering them to turn over the identity of some people leaving comment on their blog and ordering them not to disclose or post about the subpoena. They got a lawyer, threatened to sue the Bronx DA and the subpoenas were dropped.

Source: "Attack on Blogger First Amendment Rights Beaten Down"

That'll learn 'em. No, probably not.

New Toy: Canon EOS XSi DSLR Camera

I've wanted a DSLR camera for quite awhile now but I always liked an excuse justification for the purchase. A vacation trip by boat up the New England coast has provided the reason to break open the coffers and go shopping.

After reading many different reviews, blog posts, and forum squabbles, I went for the Canon EOS XSi (450D). In my opinion, it provided the most bang for my buck under $1,000. While, as people infinitely pointed out, the superior prosumer 40D was only a few hundred dollars more, I'd like to point out that there is always something better for a few hundred dollars more. You've got to put your foot down, draw a line somewhere. My line is drawn here.

This is my first DSLR so I'm just going through the literature, trying to come to grips with all the settings, and generally muck about with the thing. I did take it for a spin around the block on my way to dinner and took a few shots:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Obviously, more will be forthcoming over the next few days as I continue my experiments. Once I leave for my trip, I'll be taking pictures in bunches but I don't know what my internet access will be like so it may be awhile before any of those hit the interwebs.

My first impressions of the camera are very good: I like it. A lot. However, since I have no experience, it's not much of an opinion as yet. However, as I figure things out, I'm sure I'll post more thoughts.

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G, Thanks (With Extra Sarcasm)

I cut the G train a lot of slack because during the week, it's behaved very well. Particularly in the mornings, it's been running like clockwork. I can get from door to door in about 25-30 minutes. I can't complain about that. What I can complain about is the weirdness that overcomes the line on the weekends. Like a drunken hobo, it's unpredictable, sloppy, and smells of piss. This past Friday night, for my money, takes the cake.

Exhibit A in this case of temporary insanity was the service notice posted by the MTA: for the weekend, the F was replacing the C. The G was replacing the F. Left incomprehensively unsaid, however, was the fate of the G.

The uncertain fate of the G line proper came into play, as it must, right when I was least prepared to deal with it: at 11:30 on my way back home from Savalas in Williamsburg.

The platform was fairly crowded and only got more so as minutes began to drag by without sign from the G train. I kept reading the posted service notice over and over again and the one thing I kept thinking was: if the F is the C and the G is the F, what the hell is the G?

At one point, three G trains in a row came through the other side of the tracks. Also, at one point, a dark G train bolted through the station without slowing or stopping. People began to leave. In the pit of my stomach, a gnawing feeling surfaced: there would be no train tonight. But then why would they let us down here? Was this all a cruel joke? What the hell was going on?

By this time I was hot, I was tired, I was salty. It was 12:30. I'd been down in the bowels for an hour. I made a pact: if nothing showed up by 1, I would get out, even if that meant walking home. At 12:45 an F train trotted into the station. Less than fifteen minutes later I was home.

The rest of the weekend bore out the theory that nothing replaced the G, at least not on this side of Hoyt-Schermerhorn. The problem was that the service notice doesn't say on which side of that station the route switches. Since traffic runs through there in both directions, how is anyone supposed to know which side of that traffic has been shunted off?

Saturday, I did find this diagram of the action that concretized the idea that the MTA was gunning for:

Wouldn't this have made a handy addition to the rest of the service change signage at all the stations on the effected route? Yes, it would have. But the MTA didn't do it. Don't ask me why.

I don't know how many people Friday night gave up on the G and opted for a taxi or car service out of boredom, frustration, or whatever. I bet it was a good night for the car services. I was ready to walk. Thankfully, the whole thing didn't quite boil over that far. Not yet, anyway. Give it a few more weekends.

Extreme Invaders

I bought Space Invaders Extreme yesterday for the DS. I've only played it a bit so far but it is good. It is very good.

Trying Shozu at Maggie Brown

It looks like the only way to post text to my blog via Shozu is to post a picture. I've 2 issues with this: first, what if I don't want to post a picture?second, I don't want to upload pictures to Blogger, I want to use my Flickr account. It ain't over yet but I think my search for a mobile blogging iPhone app continues.

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EDIT: I just checked how my Shozu post turned out and, as you can tell, it's less than stellar. I'm sure you can already see (not see actually) the picture I tried to post is missing (in Firefox at least). Also, there's the intrusive and ugly (if I may say so myself) Shozu logo to contend with. All and all, this doesn't make for a very good first impression of the service.

LifeCast: Fail

I knew I was going to be out and about most if not all of the day (at the kickball all-star tourney) so I figured I'd give one of these new-fangled iPhone apps a try. I went with LifeCast which promised the ability to update my blog with pictures or text from the phone.

It's free. Given that, I can't complain too much but... I couldn't get it to update. I input my blog settings and LifeCast confirmed them. But when I tried to upload a picture, nothing. I get the little iPhone wheel of thinking graphic but no update. Maybe it needs 3G, maybe it needs wifi, but I've been able to upload pictures to other services (Twitteriffic) without issue so I can't find any reason LifeCast can't do the same.

Today I'm going to opt for Shozu and give that a try.

Pics and more from my adventures yesterday coming soon...

Stimulus Response

There's been an uptick in crime recently in my adopted 'hood lately. As the New York Times remarked a few days ago:

In recent months, an old crime has started to reappear... on the border of Clinton Hill and Bedford-Stuyvesant: a spate of muggings that has caught some in the neighborhood by surprise. People walking or biking alone have been attacked with punches, kicks — and in one case, a baseball bat — and then had their cellphones or purses stolen before they could recover.

Source: "Muggings Revive Memories of an Area’s Bad Old Days" by Kareem Fahim

Whether due to this unwanted attention from the city's leading paper or other pressures, I've noticed a much increased presence of NYPD in the area this week. From the mobile command center I spotted sitting on the corner of Myrtle and Steuben to the uniformed officers walking the beat, there is a clear show of force going on in the Hill.

Last night, I listened to a woman ask one cop what it was all about and he admitted it was about the aforementioned crime rise. Nice to know someone heard the calls to action.

My only concern is this: while flexing the law's muscles will surely drive the criminal element into hiding, this will only last as long as the force lasts. Unless progress in identifying, arresting, and prosecuting the criminals is made, all this force will be essentially futile. The cockroaches will come out as soon as the lights go out, so to speak. The lights are on now. How long they stay on, is anyone's guess.

...Clinton Hill, unlike any other NYC neighborhood I’ve lived in, is a place where people know their neighbors. Crime or no crime, let’s just watch out for one another. K?

Source: "Fear-Mongering and Crime" by lesterhead

Quoted for truth.

iFirmware

The (in)famous 2.0 firmware for the iPhone is out like the gout. I heard it first from friend, ex-coworker and current Pennsylvanian, John, and have since seen a picturesque update on Engadget. Here's what they're saying:

That's right. If you've been dying for a round of Super Monkey Ball, now's your chance. The firmware is available only through a direct link, not iTunes, so if you want it, follow the read link to sweet, succulent 2.0 paradise. We're loading it up as we speak, so we'll let you know what's good ASAP. If you want to update, just download the file, then hold option when checking for an update in iTunes -- find the file and let the party begin.

Source: "iPhone firmware 2.0 is live (plus hands-on)" by Joshua Topolsky

My party will begin tonight!

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At some point, I will upgrade my iPhone but not tomorrow and probably not until I come back from vacation (the 18th through the 30th). In the meantime, I am keenly awaiting user feedback. Reviews are nice but I want real man-on-the-street genuine everyday user experience stuff. It's almost impossible to think the new phone won't be better than the current phone but I'd still like a little extra assurance before I plunk down more money and chain myself to a new two year phone plan that's feature degraded from my current setup.