Waiting in an Airport

This last week's been a little hectic.

Last Tuesday my Grandfather passed away, so Wednesday I flew to McAllen, Texas, to meet my parents and prepare for the funeral. I flew Delta, and the experience was not particularly outstanding. The crew, although professional, was about average for any airline I've flown, and the seats felt just as cramped and tight. The only flight to McAllen (rhymes with MFE) flew in from Memphis (MEM), so I had to leave Phoenix (PHX) pretty early to make that connection. Memphis is for the most part a little bit above average, the concourses are clean, shiny and bright, and there was a good BBQ restaurant that was serving most of the airport customers.

Friday was when we had the funeral. My grandfather requested a simple graveside service, so we didn't have a viewing or a large church service. The weather was as perfect as it could be, so I guess we can say that he had a good sense of timing.

My parents and I drove back to Albuquerque on Saturday and Sunday, so I spent yesterday with a few friends. Events are in motion for summer ideas, pending on employment and such. 

Right now I'm in a comfortable seat, enjoying the use of free wifi, courtesy of the Sunport (ABQ). Both of these things are very rare in my experience of airports, which ranges from Peking to Prague. My flight doesn't push back for another hour, so I have plenty of time left in this seat. I like the Albuquerque airport because it has style, which many airports lack, and it has substance, free wifi, comfy seats and a lot of light. 

This is the fourth airport I've been through in six days, but I don't see too many more in the immediate future. 

For Grandpa Byrnes

For Grandpa Byrnes, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

The red, white and blue found in these flowers remind me of the service of my grandfather, Robert Byrnes, who passed away this week. He served in WWII. The weather right now in south Texas is incredible, and recent rains have triggered an explosion of wildflowers.

Paintbrush and Bluebonnet, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

I wanted to make these stand out a bit, so I used a high pass filter and soft light. Next time I'll keep it more subtle, but that's another story.

Light and Coffee

Light and Coffee, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

Just something to gaze at and contemplate upon.

Hey Cox, you really need to fix things. Seriously.

Yeah, my neighbor wanted me to see what's going on with his internet. He is paying for a "up to 15 megabits per second connection, but he's not getting anything close to it. In reality, he's geting about 0.2 Mbps. We check with three different speed checking services, all with local servers in Phoenix, and we got times from 0.06 Mbps, to 0.45 Mbps. He's paying about $60 for a connection that's slower than my phone. Dude, stop ripping him off.

So much happening

It seems that the highs must be balanced by the lows

I've been experiencing an exceptionally good run in my life lately,with the ups triumphing over the downs. I got my ham radio license, and I even was able to push myself into the second highest class of license with some extra studying. I've made new friends and acquaintances, and my photography is being noticed by local businesses who want to pay for it. I'm moving forward with my wolf ideas, and I've applied for jobs with local companies and the National Park Service. 

Of course, as you may know by now, or have guessed if you don't, life is a whole mixed bag. At a quarter to three this morning I got a call from my dad. I know that it's not too unusual for my folks to call late in the day (rhymes with early in the morning), but I could tell right away that this was a serious call. Grandpa Byrnes died, and I was being given notice to get ready to head out for the funeral. I just spent some time doing some packing, and I'm going to be getting my stuff ready.

One of the things I remember the best is the way he would always have ice cream sandwiches in the freezer when we'd visit. It was always great to just sit and watch football together and munch on the ice cream bars. Thanksgiving has long been my favorite time of year because it's when our family would gather down in the valley. There would be the usual thanksgiving dinner, but we also had fresh fruit, oranges, grapefruit, lemons, and fresh eggs for breakfast. We kids would run around until the sun had long gone down, while the grown-ups ate more food and watched the cowboys game.

I'll probably be in McAllen tomorrow, and I have no idea about what internet access I'll have, so I'll try to get what I need to get done before I go.

Check it out

I just logged onto the FCC's license search website, and I found my information in the database. Now I am an amateur radio operator. It's all fine and dandy, except I don't own any equipment. Meh. Anyway, I am KF7IPM out of Tempe, Arizona.

Saturday

Saturday, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

A teaser…

More Photos, More Coffee, More Sailing

To sum up this past week would sum up a good number of my interests: last Thursday was full of shooting coffee at Cartel; Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday had sailing (sometimes rhymes with drifting down the lake); today I have coffee while sorting sailing photos.

Sailing:

Saturday was a light air day and I wound up coaching and shooting from the motorboat. Meh. Sunday was breezy enough for the races, but things died by the end of the day. However, we did come close a few times to capsizing. No shooting. Tuesday, I picked up a gate key for the storage, and I went down to test it. The AZYC was just getting ready for their class, so I stayed to help with that. Almost no wind came, so it was miserable trying to fight the uncharacteristic current at Tempe Town Lake.

Shooting:

Since I shot both coffee roasting and sailing, I managed to keep the cameras busy. I've uploaded a few Cartel photos, but I still need to get the sailing shots up.

Coffee:

Between brewing coffee at home and tanking up elsewhere, my days have been caffeinated. I've been learning the aspects to good coffee and desirable practices in the buzz biz.

In the miscellaneous category, I took the amateur radio license exams to become a ham radio operator. I passed both the technician and general class exams, so I will be a legal operator as soon as the license data show up in the FCC database. The main reason I did this is that amateur radio is just about the only means of communication in remote areas away from civilization. Of course, it's one thing to be licensed, and another to actually operate. The bigest thing is that I need a transceiver in order to get on the air.

There's my update for now, this ought to be good until I get fresh photos online.

What I find when I wander

I was looking at the blog Strobist, which talks about off camera flash, when this post caught my attention. Next time I'm shooting I need to remember this and have a music playing device ready and charged.

Thank you, Grandma

Yes, I got the Rwandan coffee, and I've enjoyed several cups of it. Thank you for the gifts, and please let them keep coming! When the mixer gets here I can reciprocate with cookies.

Pouring out the love

I said I'd put up a few Cartel shots, so here they are. Enjoy them wisely, and go forth to support your local independent coffee roaster. The quality is carefully controlled, consistency is a given and the regulars are great company. Try it out!


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Oh my goodness, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

Pouring out, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

Inspection, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

More cool beans, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

Lit with the SB-900

Black Market Espresso, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

Fresh

Self portrait

Self portrait, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

I've been doing some shooting at Cartel today, more to come later, but just for you're interest (rhymes with keeping lots of pictures here), here's a self portrait from the last time I did a Self Portrait Sunday (rhymes with Tuesday).

Steam Compound with Schmidt Superheater

Steam "Compound" with Schmidt superheater, originally uploaded by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky.

So this isn't my image at all. In fact this was taken, in color, by a Russian photographer, Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky. He used different colored filters and monochrom film to make color prints of life in Russia starting at the turn of the century. He started by learning chemistry in Berlin in 1889, but moved back to his homeland and started making a name for himself. His breakthrough came by taking the first, and only, color portrait of Leo Tolstoy in 1908. Yeah, he was good. In fact, he was good enough to get the attention of Tsar Nicholas II, who set him up with a railroad car darkroom and funding to photograph Russia as much as possible in order to teach schoolchildren about the importance of Russia's diversity. He wound up catching the pre-revolution workers and lives of many people in pictures that have vivid color and sharp details even by modern standards.

This steam engine, while not massive, was new, shiny and state of the art at the time. Click on the link to the flickr page with the photos to see more of these shots.

In Malorossiya (between 1905 and 1915)

In Malorossiya (between 1905 and 1915), originally uploaded by Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky.

Yeah, another good Prokudin-Gorski image.

Before Sunrise

Before Sunrise, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

Late Crescent

Late Crescent, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

Just a little one upsmanship

I do have a bit of an issue with it though, I obvoisly can't be nerdier than 100% of people. There's no mention of the margin of error, and I think hey need to have a method to continuously recalibrate the scale based on the increasing sample size. I wonder if they even factored in the demographics. They've got to be getting a much nerdier than average population segment.

Just sayin'.

Big Glass of My Dreams

I've been drooling over a lens at Tempe Camera for several weeks now. It's a used 400mm f 2.8, in pretty good shape. Yesterday when I dropped in for 4x5 sheet film, I brought my D 90 body in to try out this lens. We took it in back, threw it on a tripod (figuratively, this lens is too heavy to throw) and fired away through the window. I chose to take one shot and break it down for the viewing audience. Here's the shot:

 

So, you can see that this is already doing pretty well. This is wide open, at f 2.8. This lens is manual focus, but very sharp and with bright focus image that makes it very easy to quickly zoom in on a target. I was instantly impressed with the fact that there is no softness in the frame, even the edges are precise and defined.

Once I'd gotten to looking at things, I realized that there was a lot more detail than is visible when one's looking at the whole frame. I threw it in iPhoto and zoomed in a bit.

Here, in detail, is the tower on the top of Hayden Butte, along with the people enjoying their Monday afternoon.

 

Now we can zoom in a bit more.

This lens is sharp as a tack. I was just shooting JPEGs to test this lens out, using the medium size and fine quality settings. Aperture was 2.8, ISO 400 and I was shooting at about 1/800. Shooting in RAW or full size JPEG will produce even more detailed images, especially upon a sturdy tripod without vibrations.

Here's where things are as seen in Google Maps:

View Line of Sight in a larger map

Things are clear now how clear this lens is. I'm saving what I can, but of course that really is difficult since I have no job right now. I think I'll be looking into the census, to see what they need in terms of people in the Valley of the Sun. Plus, I do have my tax return to look forward to, even though it just covers rent for a while. Man, I wish the Arizona Republic could use a stringer. 

Bird of Paradise

Bird of Paradise, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

From the Hampton Inn near Sea World, in San Diego

Last weekend's regatta went well for our team. While not nearly as competitive as te front of our fleet, we are getting better. We we get good starts, we consistently stay in position or even pull ahead. However, those starts are hard to come by, and there are boat handling skills that we need to improve on too.

Purple

Purple, originally uploaded by Gerald5970.

In front of the hotel