I Love Verdi

things I learned in february

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:28:00 +0000

What a weird month this has been. I've been kind of manic lately but things are cooling down in my brain. My desperate hatred for winter (also called SAD) has dissipated and I am beginning to plan for spring in my head. I don't know what that means, but I will be ready when the time comes.

For some reason I've also had a lot of crazy ideas over the last month- good ideas.

My first idea is to learn how to bake from scratch. Although Erin rarely bakes, she really loves baked goods, so I figured this would be a good way to balance out our kitchen powers and give my lovely wife all the cookies she ~~desires~~deserves. So on Sunday with a bit of help I created some peanut butter cookies, straight out of The Joy of Cooking:

The second idea is that I want to ride my bike as soon as it is thawed. This isn't exactly a new concept, but I'm definitely pretty motivated right now. Erin got a promotion, too, so she's working longer hours. Having one car means it's a pain for the both of us to commute, so using the bicycle will be much simpler.

I guess idea three would be to get a macbook pro, finish "decorating" the basement, and set up my instruments and recording equipment so I can start fooling around with some new music. I'm not sure when this will happen, given our financial situation, but I've thought about it a lot and it's something I will really enjoy once it is complete.

This Sunday I'm moving up to blueberry muffins!

I'm taking a road trip in June with some friends to Bonnaroo Music Festival, in Tennessee. Let me know if you want to go, we haven't arranged transport yet and may have room.

I have also recently found an enjoyment of techno music.

Beauty is a profound thing.

Rubaiyat

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:51:00 +0000

From a poem entitled Rubaiyat by Mahmoud Darwish:

10.

I see what I want of death: I love, and my chest splits
for a horse of Eros that leaps out of it white, running over clouds
and flying on endless vapor, circling the eternal blue ...
So do not stop me from dying, do not bring me back to a star of dust

11.

I see what I want of blood: I have seen the murdered
address the murderer who bullet-lit his heart: From now on
you shall remember only me. I, too, murdered you idly, and from now on
you shall remember only me ... you won't bear the roses of spring

photography as personal narrative

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:22:00 +0000

excerpt from an interview of Nobuyoshi Araki (via American Suburb X):

Time is never specified in your photos. What is your relationship to time?

NA: A photograph takes place only at a certain instant. And this instant is unidentifiable. The instant is the eternal and the eternal is the instant. When the camera shutter is released, that's the eternal. Eternity is achieved by releasing the camera shutter and letting it descend. The action has an immediate connection. It's more an action than an art. I think it is fine to mix photos, regardless of when they were taken. On the other hand, I take photographs with printed dates so that they can be shown in chronological order. The flow of daily occurrence is a story. It is extremely dramatic and interesting. There are various meanings. But it would be, if anything, more interesting to show them in chronological order.

This is why I take photographs as an intimate diary, and always say that they can be left as they were taken without trying to edit them. Editing is done automatically by the life and era we live in. Which means the moment the photos are placed in the order they were taken, God or whoever else - in my case Shasin, the god of photography - will make it work for me. It would be most dramatic if they were placed in the order they were taken unconsciously. That's how most of my photography books are made. I do not need to think of order. For example, if I wish to have a photo of Chiro here or there, I don't need to think. This image appears quite naturally.

Why do you sometimes put dates on photos?

NA: It is making fun of the fact that I hate completion and completion is no good. If a date is printed on a photo, it can never be sold as a masterpiece. It means these photos are merely what happened on a certain day. That is what counts!

Photography is simply about a day, an instant that is extremely wonderful. Nothing could be greater than an intimate journal. Even in literature, the journal stands on a higher level than a novel. The journal represents life, and the date's photography. Or then, it could be up to the photographer to erase the date. Photography is life!

Is that why you've never stopped taking pictures?

NA: As with life itself, one must continue taking photographs continuously. Just as one continues living, for me taking photographs is living.

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:08:00 +0000

Take a roll of film, shoot with it, wind it up but not all the way, send it to your friend to shoot with. Double exposures, one from each person!

Anyone game?

little diana

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:56:00 +0000

welcome to the family diana mini!

35mm film, half-frame (meaning two vertical exposures in the space that one frame would usually take) or square-frame (centered in the 35mm frame), and really lo-fi. first shots coming soon!

i will be twitter-spammed for talking about social media marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:45:00 +0000

but here is my take on it anyway.

If you want to sell stuff to me via social networks:

1. Your product has to be something relevant to me socially, or be something I enjoy using. Example: beer, I enjoy using; wrenches I do not. *but* if I am a mechanic and have lots of mechanic friends, I might want to see content about your wrenches so I can share it with them.

2. Your product has to be something I use frequently. As much as I love my car I already have one and I don't need information about lease financing offers. I will seek that out when I need it. Same goes for airfare deals- Southwest, I'm looking at you here.

3. Your message has to be interesting or useful. Communicate about new products or deals, or interesting news about your products. Don't just post advertisements. Don't post the same information twice. Do post regularly and reliably, otherwise you appear unenthusiastic about your product.

4. You need to be a person. People don't communicate by press releases, so be personable and even use your real name if you are posting on behalf of a company. Respond to people who ask you questions.

All this said, there have only been a handful of companies that I follow that I have purchased products from because of their social media marketing. It's hard to do right and as I've indicated you have to have an appropriate product to begin with.

Edit:
5. Do not use txt-spk. Please. It hurts my brain:

@meijer: Hello Savvy Savers. $104 worth of #savings & #deals w/ MealBox #coupons this wk. Could B a wrld rcrd! http://bit.ly/Y6zDN ^BV

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:38:00 +0000

awesome.

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:33:00 +0000

An abstract shot taken by my dad. The colors of the trees bleed together in distinct circular waves as though it were an image of the reflection of the scene in a puddle of water.

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:58:00 +0000

ok, so soup turned out great. tofu is a really amazing thing- the recipe called for liquified tofu, and it really gave the consistency and sensation of cream. the one exception was that when the entire soup was pureed, i imagined it being just a tad thinner, and i can only help but feel that the tofu made it a bit too thick in this respect. either way i loved it, and i will have to check out some more vegan recipes in the future!

erin is visiting with liz and i'm working on a technical design (redesign) that has all of a sudden become super urgent even though i told them this was the way to do it a year ago. heading to my parents' later for dinner and for some scanning fun. i believe erin is going to use their garage to build an herb dryer. yay!

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 21:51:00 +0000

erin is off to girls night at sand lake this evening, so i am on my own with the newfoundland. mr. thelonious monk graces us with his presence, though i fear i am alone in appreciating his sound- the clapper had a busy day and is lounging by the door.

leeks are the national symbol of wales. we have leeks from the farm share, and a good thing to do with them is to make soup also with potatoes. i solicited recipe suggestions for such a dish and got a vegan response from heidi. here is the recipe:

- 1 Tb. olive oil
- 6 leeks, whites only, rinsed, drained & coarsely chopped
- 1/4 c. chopped onion
- 4 med. baking potatoes cut into 1 inch cubes
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 8 cups veggie broth
- 1 pkg. soft tofu
- salt, pepper, and whatever spices you like (I add parsley, basil and garlic salt)

In a large saucepan, add the olive oil, leeks, onion, potatoes & garlic. Cook 5-10 min. until everything is soft but the potatoes. 
Add the veggie broth and bring to a boil. 
Then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes until the potatoes are soft. 
In the meantime, add the package of tofu to a blender and make it liquid. Add this to the soup when it's close to being done to thicken it up. Sometimes, I only add half so you may have to taste test it. 
The recipe also says to put some of the soup into the blender to puree later, but I don't typically do that. I like my potatoes to be cubes, not mashed, but that's up to you. 
This recipe makes 5 servings.

i am off to commence preparations, and will post again once i have tested my mettle.

Eritrean beauty

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 06:34:00 +0000

I found this randomly at The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs: 1860-1960, from the library of Northwestern University. It's a compendium of literally thousands of photos taken in that space-time period, and many of them are scanned in incredible detail so that you can zoom in quite closely using the website's flash viewer.

Don't hassle the hoff

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:35:00 +0000

How about a nice hot cup of hoffee?

We go to the zoo

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:19:00 +0000

The text for this post was written some time ago, but due to the tedious nature of choosing the images it languished in draft mode. Given that I'm back in Australia and our friends at the Taronga Zoo have themselves a new arrival, I figured I should finish it.

On Sunday we took the ferry down the Parramatta river (the "eel river", natively speaking) to Sydney. We had a nice breakfast down at the wharf, and then a refreshing 45-minute ride into the main harbor.

The city itself wraps around the harbor, much like San Francisco and its surrounding boroughs. It's quite a sight to see filled with sailboats, and for the best views of its iconic skyline I would suggest one of its relatively inexpensive ferry trips from Circular Quay (which, as Erin reflexively remindes me, is pronounced "key") to pretty much anywhere.

We were headed towards the Taronga Zoo, which was a second short ferry ride from Circular Quay. It was definitely the most impressive zoo I've been to, and reminds me of the quality of Binder Park Zoo with about four times as many exhibits. The zoo is arranged on a hill; we took the skyway car to the top, from where we could wind our way downwards past each of the park's enclosures.

They had a number of native Australian animals in a very satisfying un-fenced walk: kangaroos, wallabies (a smaller species of kangaroo), and emus. I am very proud to say that I got to pet a kangaroo! They are quite softer than I imagined, and born in captivity these were gentle creatures. I think the closest animal to match them to in the US is the deer: They're vegetarians, common everywhere, quite docile (though skittish in the wild), hunted for meat, and frequently run over by autos on the highway (as the many signs and the one corpse we passed the previous day warned us).

Koalas for some reason cost money to pet, so instead we only took pictures. They are cute animals, though if I had that sort of ear hair I might consider a trim. Also angling my buttocks away from the crotch of the tree when I have to poo, but that's just me.

We saw dingos, and took some pictures in case Nina wanted to see her very near cousins. The main difference seemed to be that her relatives were a bit less unruly. Sadly the promise of big daddy bones did not tempt them nearer to the fence.

The aviaries were full of interesting birds, and they had a very impressive lizard, amphibian, and snake exhibit. We saw gorillas (they doody where they sleep), lions (noble yet boring), and a hungry tiger that paced around the feeding doors of its pen much like our cat Mona does when she can't get to her food bag.

The tasmanian devils and red pandas were adorable! The meerkats seemed eager to meet us, and the sea lions were quite attentive and responsive when called to as they surfaced.

My personal favorite animal was the mountain goat. They had a tiny "mountain" (maybe 15 meters tall) that the animals could climb, and the ones on the ground were gentle enough to come and greet us at the fence (they have black tounges!).

We took the ferry back to Circular Quay- I mean "Key"- and had a nice dinner at a close-by pub. Towards the beginning of the day at the zoo we saw Ram and his family, and at the end met them again (Laura and Connie as well) on the 5pm ferry back to Paramatta, which we snagged as I was dragged away from the remnants of my fish and chips [Note: I ended up back here on my second sojourn around Sydney on a Sunday, because I couldn't find a single open sit-down restaurant in the shopping district]. I did not find a chance to visit the milk bar.

I'm eager to get back [Note: Hah!] to the city in June (Oracle willing) to do a bit more exploration, but this weekend has been well worth the whole trip.

The Voigtlander was the big star today for me, and sat on my camera for everything except for a couple of panorama photos and the shots with the Traveling Kangaroo. It performed adimrably, and 90mm was plenty long enough for zoo photos. The DA 21 came in handy for some city shots in Circular Quay- I don't normally use autofocus, but I set it in "snapshot mode" for some candid street shots (f8 in AV, AF-S).

No more cages

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:54:00 +0000

Thursday morning as I was preparing to leave, I took Franz out to play while I cleaned his cage. I quickly noticed that he wasn't feeling his usual chipper self, so I asked Jaclyn to take him to the vet right away. While we waited for her to arrive I held him for a bit and gave him some water.

On the way to the airport we got a phone call and bad news. Franz was in a lot of discomfort, and was seriously ill. Diagnosing and treating the poor little guy would take time and weren't likely to be successful even if he survived long enough to see them through. Instead of forcing him to endure any more we decided to put him to sleep. My family and Erin buried him in the woods behind my parents' house. I really appreciate all of their help.

In the end he had a fairly common spleen cancer that is quick and quiet. Last week he seemed perfectly fine. Someone really needs to figure out this cancer bullshit, already.

I don't have any good pictures of him on this computer, but when I get home I'll write a proper tribute. Here's his last picture, taken by my sister only a few weeks ago.

So long, little guy.

Roo on the ferry

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Thu, 28 May 2009 05:12:00 +0000

About to board the ferry to Sydney and the zoo!

Sydney Opera house!

(images courtesy of Not Appealing)

We saw the mountains on saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:05:00 +0000

From a photography perspective, comparing the last week to today reveals an important fact: we are staying in the wrong part of Australia.

To be more clear, let me say this with the utmost sincerity: this place is gorgeous. It is a photographer's dream, provided that he or she uses a weather-proofed camera (thank you Pentax). I'm downloading some 200 photos right now, all taken today, and I'm fairly sure that the quality ones will span several blog posts.

So let me tell you where we've been. The rugby game last night that most of my coworkers went to (and the Sydney night-life afterward) seems to have worn Skip out, so instead of joining us on a nature trip this morning he handed us the keys to the rental car. Driving on the left is not for the faint-hearted, whether you're the passenger or the driver. Roundabouts offer the most confusion, right turns seem to require a conscious thought every time, and there is a clear tendency to drift to the left. Perhaps the most annoying inversion is the turn-signal knob: you can tell when Americans will turn because their wiper blades will start whipping back and forth furiously.

I am having a hard time figuring out whether the highway system in this part of the country is necessitated by the terrain or just hampered by lack of budget. We started out on a proper motorway (freeways are called that here) that ended too soon: the majority of the "great western highway" curved around the mountains through small towns with frequent stop lights and school zones- not exactly the pinnacle of rapid transportation. It took nearly 3 hours to get from Sydney to the caves, including a nailbitingly slim and winding mountain cliff road that is actually closed in one direction in the morning to help prevent accidents. Add the mist and the unfamiliarity with left-lane driving and you can imagine how relieved we were to shift that Haundai into park.

The parking lot however was situated half-way up a small mountain, and the hike down to the main house was about five minutes. It was drizzling the whole time- the clean, wet air and excellent views were very refreshing.

When we got down we ate some lunch and bought tickets to tour one of the dozen or so interconnected caves.

The caves themselves are full of crystal stalagmites formed by minerals leeched and deposited by water.

The discoverer of the caves was an early 19th century aussie named James Whalan, a shepherd and gutsy amateur spelunker. With the help of his mates, some rope, and chicken wire, he did quite a bit of exploration. He was intially prompted to enter the caves when his hat fell down a large hole: Indiana Jones style, he felt unable to leave without it, and so the adventuring began. Later one of his decidedly more amateur friends found it difficult to avoid the same hole: luckily he was also retrieved, with only a few shattered bones to show for it. The government took control of the caves in 1866, and they've been a tourist attraction pretty much ever since.

The creepiest part was definitely the underground river. The same river that they do boat tours on runs underneath the mountain, and surfaces briefly in one of the sections of the cave we visited. We had to take a steep staircase down to get to it.

Erin said she expected to hear Gollum skulking around down there.

We spent about an hour and a half underground, and by then we were pretty tired. The hike to the car we took a bit slower, so that despite the rain I could get a few more photographs. Naturally the climb back up was much tougher than the gallop down, so by the end we had quite a work out.

Erin drove us back (without incident), and allowed me to stop by the side of the road for several photo opportunities.

We saw a giant rainbow (also pictured: photographic proof of Erin driving).

I was very impressed at the beauty of the environment and its proximity to the city. It really did not take that long to get out into a very rustic location, and that was even past most of the normal Blue Mountains attractions. If you're ever in Sydney I suggest wholeheartedly that you get out to this part of the country.

For the photographers reading this, my main lens of the day was easily the DA 21mm Limited. It stayed on for most of the panoramas and other nature shots, and for about half of the shots in the cave. The FA 50mm f/1.4 came out for the other half of the cave shots and for some of the close-up flower shots when I realized that with the wind and overcast skies the Voigtlander 90mm couldn't quite get fast enough at f/3.5 to capture the shaky flowers. I stopped down the 21mm to f/11 or so for the panoramas, something I wouldn't have done until my dad borrowed the camera on our photowalk and showed me just how crispy the lens is at that aperture. The 50 I shot mostly wide open, or stopped down a bit if I wanted a bit more DOF (I dont't always like giving up the bokeh for that though).

The post

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:58:00 +0000

In case you were wondering what they look like.

Welcome to castle hill

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:00:00 +0000

Amway Australia, where I'm currently working, is in Castle Hill, a suburb of Sydney that looks a lot like suburban/commercial USA. The headquarters is a pretty nice building that hides a sizable warehouse in the back.

The inside campus has a coffee shop, offices, and a cafeteria. It's quite nice:

I'm sitting in the executive board room with the e-com testers:

I'm not sure why they let kids play in their car park but at least they let you know to watch out when you're driving:

One more view of the facility that I liked:

Some little differences

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Mon, 18 May 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Lavatories are "vacant" or "engaged".

"Burger King" is "Hungry Jack's".

Convenience stores do not sell beer.

"Light beer" means near-beer (think Mormon, super low ABV).

"Dry beer" refers to what we call light beer.

"Driveways" are "car-parks".

The smallest legal tender is the five cent piece.

The smallest coin we've found is actually a 2-dollar piece.

Rice Bubbles.

It is fall here, so it's getting dark at 5:30 PM.

Palm trees and deciduous trees living in harmony!

Australia, the trip

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Mon, 18 May 2009 03:35:00 +0000

If there is one constant in the universe it is that "a United Airlines flight shall take off prior to its declared departure time, nor shall it land prior to its declared arrival time." I believe it is a direct result of the Friedman solutions to general relativity. At any rate, all three of our flights en route to Australia were late by some amount.

On the upside, I had some great company to spend those extra hours with!

My new Timbuk2 bag turned out to be the perfect carry-on, and feels incredibly durable and comfortable. Here it is fully packed:

Our puddle-jumper taxied half-way to the runway when the captain reported that we were not allowed to leave for another hour. Luckily the delay was only thirty minutes- but then again we left the gate thirty minutes late too.

In Chicago we had a nice Italian meal and discussed knitting techniques. Our flight to San Francisco was delayed by an hour, and they apparently had a different type of plane than they expected, so a lot of passengers checking in later than we did had to have their seats moved.

The seats on the flight to San Francisco were horrible. I don't think I've ever sat in smaller coach seats, and underneath every chair a steel box containing circuits for the built in headrest TV consumed about 1/3 of the foot space.

I'm always a bit awed by the size of the 747. Though not as large as it is sometimes portrayed in movies, it is quite massive.

Unfortunately ours had some technical trouble with the sensor that relays the position of one of the flaps to the main computer. Fixing it took two hours. Then through some kind of communication mix-up, the large runway at SFO was closed for maintenance, and the baggage personnel did not remove extra freight from the stowage, as requested earlier. Until they did this to reduce the plane's weight, there was no way that beast was going to gather enough speed over the shorter runway to take off. That was another hour and a half (I think, we were pretty spaced out by then and dozing frequently).

The traveling kangaroo took it all with an easy smile, perhaps buoyed by her excitement to return to her native continent.

Fourteen hours and two Ambien later, we landed! Customs asked us if we had any food items, plants, wooden items, drugs, or flu-like symptoms. They seemed very serious about it, though as it turned out they didn't have much of a problem with my bamboo knitting needles.

We decided to take the train from the airport to Parramatta (where our hotel is located) in order to get a feel for the transit system. Here Erin is trying to work out which way to Central station, where we needed to switch lines.

Central station was a little bit smaller than I expected. Nothing quite so spectacluar as New York or Chicago, by any means.

Here's a photo I took while waiting at Central station for our Train to Parramatta:

The trains though were clean, quick, and otherwise pleasant. Erin wanted to smile for this photo but I told her not to, and I'm afraid she took it too literally:

We rode to the Parramatta stop and walked about 5-10 minutes to the Hotel. I had time for a shower before I had to run off and participate in a three-hour work session to prepare for today (Monday).

Later in the evening we met with some work folks for a pint and some pub food at a place across the street. Hopefully tonight we'll be a little less tired and will get out a bit further.

This may exceed 140 characters

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:29:00 +0000

If you're not a twitter user, you can go ahead and drift to the left where you'll find my pride and joy, my flickr photostream. Off with ye.

Ok, it's just us now. So let's talk twitter @replies.

Twitter has evolved into a client/server model. Twitter itself is the server. The web page and the various other AIR, mobile, and OS native apps are the clients.

The twitter server is a firehose of information. Each user chooses the best application based on his or her needs in order to consume that massive load. oh yeah.

But when twitter decides that the server needs to apply filtering logic past the basic "is following" screening, that ruins the whole game. Now we don't have control over the entire stream of information. Those who want the complete data cannot have it, and those who had figured out how to filter it based on their needs are now confused by arbitrary rules.

The solution to this is actually very simple: the rules for any filtering need to be restricted to the client in use. If you use twitter primarily through the web, then have those options applied there: but if you use it otherwise, let that client attempt to sell you on its use by providing whatever options its clever designers think up.

Everybody uses Twitter in different ways, and they will find the client that allows them to develop the best information consumption strategy. If new users stick to the web, then just apply these changes there. If people have moved on to twhirl, tweetdeck, or seesmic, then there is a reason they have done so.

This is your cat on drugs

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Mon, 11 May 2009 01:33:00 +0000

It will ruin your life they say, or at least make you incredibly obnoxious.

Now I'll have to hide the doritos.

My work hours

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Tue, 05 May 2009 03:19:00 +0000

For the last two weeks or so I have been working third shift in order to align with and support our Australian users during software testing. Tomorrow I'm going to a more reasonable *cough* 10am to 10pm schedule, with 10pm to 3am on-call. I will be working in the office from 10am until 5 or 6pm, then from home until 10pm. Until 3am I may be called at any time, though it has been quite slow during those hours so far and I don't anticipate my sleep being interrupted.

This is just an FYI, I know there have been some questions about when exactly I'm working. On May 15th, Erin and I will be traveling to Australia for two weeks, so we'll be back at the beginning of June. I'm traveling again towards the end of June for three weeks, but I don't have the exact dates yet. I managed to finagle out of the fourth week on this second trip in order to attend Cassie and Curtis' wedding though, so nobody worry about that!

Piano recital

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:36:00 +0000

Not mine, but my mom's!

I always hated performing in public, I get so nervous. She did a great job though, and she's learned a lot about technique and theory in 8 months. Her teacher specializes in beginner piano, so most of her class is very young.

I think she was a bit relieved when the whole thing was finished. I completely understand! Congrats though mom!

Science: doin' it wrong (episode one)

noreply@blogger.com (Jared W Lynem) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:53:00 +0000

Working the night shift is not so horrible. Came across this though, which is.

Found here.