Entries in "musings"
Galapagos Adventure Day One
Cleveland, Ohio to Punta Gorda, Florida
Sunrise at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport
This is the first in a series of entries highlighting my recent trip to Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands. Although I'm posting these after the fact, I've assigned entry dates based on when the events occurred. In the interest of being thorough I'll include info on the journey to and from, even if hanging out in American airports lacks a certain panache.
On August 27th I woke up sometime around 4:30 a.m. to begin my trek to the Galápagos Islands. I find it rather disconcerting to get up before the sun. Thus I spent much of the morning in a daze wondering what critical item I'd neglected to pack. Thankfully I have a friend Josh who is one of those odd creatures known as a "morning person." As if it weren't enough to drive me to the airport before the crack of down, he'd also kindly lent me his 300mm zoom lens for the trek. As you will see in upcoming entries, I relied quite heavily on this lens, especially when trying to capture birds in flight.
I arrived at the airport shortly in time to catch the sunrise, at which point the photo-taking began. No moment would be considered too small. By the end of it all I'd taken over 4,300 photos. In any case, I arrived on time, checked in, did the security thing, ate some sort of noxious breakfast sandwich while listening to travel podcasts, read a mystery (I'm a firm believer in reading lightweight paperbacks while traveling) and eventually boarded the flight. This took me to Charlotte where I skibbled through the airport hopped another plane and made it to Sarasota, Florida in time for a late lunch with mom.
Palm Tree, Sarasota, Florida
We then went to her office so I could meet her co-workers, I loitered about a few hours at her house then we supped with her friends at Luna Ristorante. Here we were plied with oodles of pasta then some mountain of chocolate for dessert. All in all it was quite tasty. After dinner we packed up the car and headed south to Punta Gorda.
The drive south began typically. We were in a car, on the highway, surrounded by shrubbery. We've all been there. It doesn't matter if it's New Jersey or Florida, it all looks pretty much the same, except that you'll find alligators instead of squirrels lurking in the latter. But then the sky took a turn towards the dramatic. It was past dusk, so the sky was dark yet not black except for this one enormous cloud that glowed as though it were hiding a small star. Then the glow changed to a light show; the bright bits moved about and from time to time I'd see strokes of lightning bouncing about within confines of the cloud.
The dancing lights in the cloud eluded the camera
Given that it was such a fascinating bit of theater, I grabbed my camera with the futile hope of trying to document the moment. Those of you familiar with photography already know that trying to shoot a lightning show from a moving vehicle after dark is a fairly useless proposition (as my results clearly indicate) but one always feels compelled to try.
As mom and I discussed the cloud, and I continued in vain to document it, we noticed that just ahead of us a white pick-up truck was starting to swerve erratically. Mom slowed down so we could stay far enough behind when we started doing the same. Suddenly we were careening from lane to lane then off the pavement across the berm and onto the grass where we began to spin towards the aforementioned shrubbery—and possible alligators.
In a moment of utter clarity I did not see my life flash before my eyes.
Instead I wondered, "Is this it. Does it end like this? One moment photographing a cloud, the next careening into who knows what? If we hit who knows what will it hurt or will it merely be lights out?"
A glimmer of Cristina's cover of the Peggy Lee song, "Is that All There Is?" came to mind, then the spinning accelerated and at some point I let out an audible yelp. (Given my notably calm demeanor, one loud yelp from me is actually quite dramatic.)
Finally the car came to a stop. Thanks to mom's care in turning into the skid she was able to gain control and stop the car before we ended up as gator chow. We were on the grass, we were facing the wrong way, but as we quickly ascertained we were both O.K.
Slowly we tried to drive up the inclined grass back to the highway. Alas little progress was made as the grass was rather wet and muddy. But within moments a pick-up truck pulled over and a family of five came running to see if we were okay. We indicated that we were and they started pushing and giving directions. We wanted to give them something for their efforts, but as our tires reached the pavement they shouted to "go, go go" so we would have the momentum to both get off the grass and turn in the right direction before traffic reached us. And thus we were back on the road heading south. Despite all of the chaos on this planet, there are still many kind people in the world so thank you kind family, whomever you were. It was a huge help and a big relief after a rather scary moment.
Mom and I then continued the "Are you sure you're O.K.?" "Yes, I'm O.K. thrust of the conversation" and proceeded to the nearest gas station to check the car for damage and to inspect the tires. The road was wet (hence the skidding vehicles) and our tires were in need of additional tread, so mom made arrangements to replace them the next day. With that settled, if not our minds, we drove on to mom's condo, watched some sort of innocuous television, tried to read a bit then went to sleep. The trip had begun.
Next stop: Miami
Icicles and Objects in Playhouse Square
Yesterday I was running 15 minutes early for a meeting in Playhouse Square. Taking my little back-up camera out of my pocket, I slowed down and took a look around. Here is some of what I saw.
My friends think I keep a camera with me to annoy them at social gatherings. While that is important, it's really more about moments like this. Things you wouldn't notice unless you stopped to pay attention.
Wanna catch social network fatigue?
Pownce
Streamy
If you're not already exhausted from Twittering your days away while making sure to Digg your favorite blogs, update your Facebook status on the hour, throw random thoughts onto Tumblr and pull your Flickr feeds onto your other accounts, then perhaps it is time to join Pownce or Streamy.
I have 2 Streamy and 6 Pownce invites available to anyone who 1) knows what I am rambling about, 2) promises to use the services or at least give them a solid try and 3) submits the most interesting/amusing reasons for wanting an invite in the comments field below.
If your comment is clever and you make sure to include your email address in the email field—and I've not yet run out of invites—I'll send you an invite. Every year I get a group of friends together to draw pictures at chalkfest. And every year I come up with some idea that is more ambitious than it should be. Over the years I've had better luck with buildings than with other subjects. This year the day approached quickly and in my rush to pick a subject I chose a building I know well, Adelbert Hall. So I printed out pictures, one with a grid, and traipsed over to the museum. As drew out my gridlines and stared at the pictures, I quickly ascertained that I had made the same mistake I always do. I'd bitten off far more than I could chew. The sidewalk was rough of texture, the colors of chalk were few (though I had more than the standard box of 24) and the details in Adelbert were many. I'd never noticed how many hues can be found in that stone. Daunted by the task I plugged away, and if nothing else can be said, the final output is clearly a building rather than a three-toed sloth. But the outcome isn't what chalkfest is about. The comraderie of friends drawing under a rich blue sky, live music in the background and the people who wander by is what makes the weekend. Scores of people turned out, all friendly, and many more complimentary than was warranted, but overall it was a great weekend and a great way to clear the head from one's every day world and just immerse oneself in the task at hand. Year after year, rain, shine, heat or chill, this is the nature of chalkfest. It doesn't matter if I try to draw an Egyptian sculpture that looks like an alien frog (my first year's effort) or a building that somehow has far fewer details than the original, chalkfest is a great way to clear the mind and enjoy the moment. This year a number of people asked me if I minded that all the work would soon be washed away by the rain. And I don't, it's not the result but the process. But for those of you who missed it, some of the results are quite cool. From the extravagant work of the professionals to the creativity of the kids, many moods and styles were expressed. As the skies are still clear, their results are still there, if but for a few more moments. So if life takes you to University Circle in the next few days, take a walk in front of the museum. There is much to be seen in the pavement. And if University Circle isn't in walking distance, you can see the photos I took this weekend at Flickr. I'll probably take more tomorrow and will add them to the same batch.
While I was taking pictures today—at the 2007 Annual Fall Convocation + Investiture Ceremony for president Barbara R. Snyder—Lev Gonick joked that he wanted to see the pictures up on my blog by the time the event was done. Naturally that wasn't possible, I can't upload and shoot at the same time. In fact having taken over 400 photos I only have half of them up on Flickr now and will have to finish the rest on Thursday. (At which point I'll post the link.)
But the suggestion got me thinking; what tools would I have needed to make that possible? To that end I've got up with a list of requirements, most of which could probably be created by a team from our own campus.
Some of this is already possible. The sticking points are: What do you think Lev? (And of course everyone else.) The Reality Bytes story was written a few years ago as a satire of the preponderance of reality shows on television. At the time, episode one was distributed to about 120 people, approximately 25% of whom actually voted for a favorite. It was based on their results and comments that I came up with the final ending. Nonetheless, all this fluff and nonsense did spurt from my mind, so I want to make it clear that this is a satire of the television industry and not of people's religious beliefs. It occurred to me then that in a world where so many shows seem designed to expose the human frailties of their participants, it would not be that unusual to exploit them even further in examples such as these.
I'm not giving up my Web career to become an illustrator
Adelbert Hall 
My chalk rendition of the photoPhoto Challenge
Reality Bytes Disclaimer