Monthly Archives: April 2007

Furthermore

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Tulips at the Bellevue Botanical Garden

I spent the afternoon photographing in Bellevue, first at the Botanical Gardens, and then from the rooftop of the mall parking garage, of the skyline as sunset approached, and then finally down by the lake, looking out at Seattle as the sun set. I’ll be getting pictures up in a bit [Update: Pictures are up, 22 new shots.], but I did want to share something.

A little while back, I posted a random thing I heard on KEXP on my LiveJournal (usually one-liners and quizes and stuff like that goes there… feel free to add me, but you’ve been warned). It was about two ducks in the road, a female duck dead, and the mallard standing near her, looking at her like “I can’t believe she’s gone.”

When I was down at the lake, there were two ducks, a couple, swimming around, heckling the kids who were there. Another mallard showed up, looking lonely, and was shunned by the couple, until finally he just sort of paddled off by himself. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the same mallard who lost his mate in the road. Felt bad for the guy, if I knew how to speak duck, I wanted to pull him aside and tell him it’d be alright, maybe buy him a duck beer or something.

Just needed to share.

Sunny, Beautiful

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Before I continue: Happy birthday, Dad! I hope it’s been a good day!

It’s currently just under 70 degrees and gorgeously sunny here in Seattle, which is in stark contrast to the snowfall most of the northeast has been getting hit by. While I can sympathize, I’m frankly just grateful for the nice weather where I am. I’ve grabbed my camera and my tripod, and I’m planning on taking some twilight shots this evening, which should be fun (still need to decide exactly where, though… we’ll see), and in general I’m feeling alright. I was sitting in my apartment earlier, fiddling with files and sorting things (still planning a full clean “soon”), glanced out the window and checked the weather and said “Fuck it, I’m going out.” And here I am.

I didn’t really mention it here, but I had a “date” last night with Avital, a cute barista here at Zoka. (I’m saying it as “date” because I’ve never really done the dating thing before. I asked her out, which sounds like a date, we had dinner together, which sounds like possibly a date, but we spent more time geeking than flirting, which sounds more like friends? Beats the hell out of me!) It was a nice evening, and it was especially nice to get a chance to spend time with someone on a one on one basis, considering other than a few brief occasions with Mickey (which I am likewise glad for), I really haven’t had that since I moved out here. I’m generally pretty quiet, but when it’s been a long while like this, I find myself talking people’s ears off, for better or worse. I was definitely worn out by the end of it… even when I’m a geyser of babble, I’m definitely still an introvert at heart, and it wears me the hell out even if I want to be there.

Animal Collective’s Feels is playing here at Zoka at the moment, and while it’s truly an excellent album and well worth my time to talk about, instead I want to mention this catchy little tune called “Young Folks” by Peter, Bjorn and John. There’s a music video for it up on YouTube (which is linked on their site), and it’s just an amazingly fun little song. The whistling is unbelievably infectious, and since it’s been getting radio play on KEXP, I find myself humming or half-whistling it getting out of the car pretty often. Go look it up, go listen, and then try and tell me it’s not good.

Breaking Radio Silence

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Awesome Tree

Sorry for the delay in posting — I usually post while I’m at Zoka, but their internet has been down for a few days (something of a comedy of errors which doesn’t need getting into, in theory it’ll be fixed later today). I finally decided it was time to actually pull the laptop out at home and do catchup on it. I’ve been experimenting with a new RSS reader found via the inestimable R Stevens called Vienna. It’s free, it’s fast, it’s clean, and the interface will do. So far, I’m really liking it.

One of the main reasons I’ve pulled out the lappy is that I have pictures from my recent trip to the Washington State Arboretum on it (“trip” might be more epic than I really intend… it’s like 10 minutes away). I’ve redacted and uploaded a dozen or so images from that trip, so if you like pictures of blossoming dogwoods and cherry trees and such, swing on through. I’ve been reluctant to go in and fill in extra details and titles with the pictures in the gallery, because I’m not sure if it would be a wasted effort if I end up transferring to a different gallery solution (ZenPhoto is currently in the lead for an alternative). We’ll see. In the meantime: the image to your right is this awesome tree in the Arboretum. The branches have wrapped around the trunk in this great pattern, with just a few branches swooping out and down (as you can see). I loved it, so I took a shot and tweaked it a little in photoshop (adjusting contrast, color, etc). In fact, almost every shot in the gallery has at least a little Photoshopping… but generally VERY little: auto color, auto contrast, auto levels, adjust image size, save as jpeg at level 6 compression. I’ve been fiddling with a few a bit more, but generally for the sake of play.

In other news, still no job, but my resume is updated and available as a PDF here. Critiques welcome. The lack of a references section is intentional… I have people who’ve agreed to be a reference, and I’ll happily provide that information upon request, but I agree with the trend towards not listing it on a professional resume. It’s a privacy thing.